8166.0.80.001 - Summary of IT Use and Innovation in Selected Growth Sectors, Australia, 2013-14 Quality Declaration 
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 18/06/2015  First Issue
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EXPLANATORY NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1 This release presents key indicators on the incidence of use of information technology and innovation in selected Growth Sectors, as collected by the 2013-14 Business Characteristics Survey (BCS). More detailed estimates will be released in the Characteristics of Businesses in Selected Growth Sectors, Australia (cat. no. 8170.0) in August 2015.

2 The BCS is an annual survey and it is the vehicle for the ABS' Integrated Business Characteristics Strategy (IBCS). The strategy integrates the collection and quality assurance of data required for input into both the ABS' Business Longitudinal Database (BLD) and the production of point in time estimates for: use of IT; innovation; and a broad range of other non-financial characteristics.


STATISTICAL UNITS USED

3 The Economics Unit Model is used by the ABS to determine the structure of Australian businesses and other organisations. The model consists of:

      The Enterprise Group (EG)
      Legal Entities (LEs)
      Type of Activity Units (TAUs)
      Location Units

4 Businesses contributing to the estimates in this publication are sourced from the ABS Business Register (ABSBR), and are selected at either the Australian Business Number (ABN) unit or the Type of Activity (TAU) level, as described below.

5 In the BCS the statistical unit used to represent the majority of businesses, and for which statistics are reported, is the ABN unit. The ABN unit is the business unit which has registered for an ABN, and thus appears on the ATO administered Australian Business Register (ABR). These units are suitable for ABS statistical needs when the business is simple in structure, and are generally referred to as the non-profiled population. In these instances, one ABN equates to one statistical unit.

6 For more significant and diverse businesses where the ABN unit is not suitable for ABS statistical needs, the ABS maintains its own units structure through direct contact with the business, and the statistical unit used is the TAU. A TAU comprises one or more business entities, sub-entities or branches of a business entity within an Enterprise Group that can report production and employment activities. When a minimum set of data items is available, a TAU is created which covers all the operations within an industry subdivision (and the TAU is classified to the relevant subdivision of the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC)). These units are generally referred to as the profiled population.


CLASSIFICATION OF UNITS

7 ANZSIC is used to classify the industry in which the TAU or ABN has productive activity. Further information on this classification can be found in Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC), 2006 (Revision 2.0) (cat. no. 1292.0).

8 SISCA provides a framework for dividing the Australian economy into institutional sectors. Further information on this classification can be found in Standard Economic Sector Classifications of Australia (SESCA), 2008 (Version 1.1) (cat. no. 1218.0).


CREATING THE SURVEY SCOPE FOR THE GROWTH SECTORS

9 The Growth Sectors are defined as part of the Government's Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda. For the purposes of producing statistics, each of the five Growth Sectors has been mapped to the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industry Classification. The ANZSIC classes specified for each sector were selected by the Department of Industry and Science to enable robust measurement of their performance over time, and may be used to compare to other economic data. The use of ANZSIC classes to define the scope of each of the Growth Sectors enables the production of comparable statistics over time. Substantial effort was made to ensure that only ANZSIC classes likely to have a high proportion of businesses involved with the Growth Sectors are included in the scope of the survey. Users of these statistics should note that businesses are classified to an ANZSIC class based on their primary activity. Businesses that undertake Growth Sector activities as secondary activities (i.e. not the primary activities of the businesses) are not in scope of the survey. For information about eligibility for Government assistance programmes for the Growth Sectors, please go to www.business.gov.au.

10 A full list of the ANZSIC classes included in each of the Growth Sectors is available to download as a data cube.

11 As some activities undertaken by businesses could be considered part of multiple Growth Sectors, a number of ANZSIC classes are included in more than one than one Growth Sector. For example, 2412 Medical and surgical equipment manufacturing is included in both the Advanced manufacturing and the Medical technologies and pharmaceuticals Growth Sectors.

12 In addition to the five Growth Sectors identified, an additional set of ANZSIC classes from the Professional, scientific and technical services industry were identified as potentially providing services to the Growth Sectors. These classes were included in the Growth Sector sample and more information is available upon request.

13 The Growth Sectors ANZSIC definition provided in this publication reflects an update from the original definition used in the Australian Industry Report (Department of Industry, 2014). ANZSIC classes included in the definition were refined based on analysis of results from this survey, and are planned to be used by the Department in future analyses of the Growth Sectors.


SCOPE AND COVERAGE

14 The scope of the estimates in this publication consists of all employing units in scope of either of the BCS or the BLD frame, belonging to at least one of the Growth Sectors. The scope of the Growth Sectors frame consists of all employing business entities in the Australian economy, except for:

      SISCA 3000 General government
      SISCA 6000 Rest of the world

15 The frame for the BCS is a subset of the ABSBR and includes employing businesses only. These are defined as those businesses which register for the ATO's Pay As You Go Withholding (PAYGW) scheme. It is not unusual for some of these 'employing businesses' to have zero employment at various times during the reporting period. The frame is updated quarterly to take account of new businesses, businesses which have ceased employing, changes in employment levels, changes in industry and other general business changes. Businesses which have ceased employing are identified when the ATO cancels their ABN and/or PAYGW registration. In addition, businesses with less than 50 employees, which did not remit under the PAYGW scheme in each of the previous five quarters, are removed from the frame. The estimates in this publication include an allowance for the time it takes a newly registered business to be included in the survey frame.


SURVEY METHODOLOGY

16 Collection of data included in this release was undertaken based on a random sample of approximately 7,867 businesses using a mail-out and web based questionnaire. The Growth Sectors sample was stratified by ANZSIC class and an employment-based size indicator. All businesses on the ABSBR identified as having 300 or more employees were included in the sample. The 2013-14 BCS was dispatched in late October 2014.

17 As per the sample design of the BCS which does not include state or territory as part of stratification design, estimates for Growth Sectors cross-classified by state or territory are not available.


REFERENCE PERIOD

18 The reference period for most of the characteristics items included in the 2013-14 BCS is during the year ended 30 June 2014 or as at 30 June 2014.


DEFINING "INTERNET COMMERCE"

19 In the BCS (and previous BUIT surveys), the ABS uses the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) narrow definition of e-commerce transactions when collecting data on internet orders and internet income. The narrow definition states that "an internet transaction is the sale or purchase of goods or services, whether between businesses, households, individuals, governments, and other public or private organisations, conducted over the internet. The goods and services are ordered over the internet, but the payment and the ultimate delivery of the good or service may be conducted on or off-line" (i.e. the commitment to purchase is made over the internet). In Australia, orders placed or received via email are included. This is not the case in many other OECD countries. The broad definition of e-commerce transactions includes sale or purchase of goods and services via any other computer-mediated networks. This mode of e-commerce is not common in Australia.


DEFINING "INNOVATION"

20 The 2013-14 BCS draws on the conceptual definitions and guidelines included in the 'Oslo Manual, Guidelines for Collecting and Interpreting Innovation Data' (Third Edition, 2005). This manual provides a framework for the collection of innovation statistics and specifies the definitions of innovating businesses and innovation-active businesses that are used by the ABS. The 2013-14 BCS draws on this manual for the questions used in the BCS and in the presentation of outputs from the survey.

21 Key indicators of innovation include: measures of business innovation (innovating, innovation-active); types of innovation (goods or services, operational processes, organisational/managerial processes, marketing methods); and status of innovation (introduced, still in development, abandoned). Definitions for each of these measures of business innovation are provided in the Glossary.


BUSINESS COUNTS IN THIS RELEASE AND COMPARABILITY WITH OTHERS PUBLISHED BY THE ABS

22 Estimates of the number of businesses operating in Australia can be derived from a number of sources within the ABS. They may relate to a particular point in time or may be presented as an average annual figure. However, these estimates will not always show the same results. Variations will occur because of differing data sources, differing scope and coverage definitions between surveys, as well as variations due to sampling and non-sampling error. More information about business counts can be found in the Information Paper: A Statistical View of Counts of Businesses in Australia, Jun 2005 (cat. no. 8162.0).

23
The BCS is not designed to provide high quality estimates of numbers of businesses for any of the output classifications (for example, employment size or ANZSIC class) and the number of businesses in this publication are only included to provide contextual information for the user. The estimate of the total number of businesses may not equal to the sum of each employment size range due to rounding of business counts to the nearest thousand. For the 2013-14 reference period, higher than expected BCS sample loss resulted in lower business count estimates compared to previous years. A more robust source of counts of Australian businesses is available from Counts of Australian Businesses, Including Entries and Exits Jun 2009 to Jun 2014 (cat. no. 8165.0).


OUTPUT CLASSIFICATIONS

24 For output purposes, businesses are classified to employment size ranges based on actual data reported in the survey.


UPCOMING RELATED RELEASES

25 Upcoming ABS data release of 2013-14 Growth Sector statistics:
      Characteristics of Businesses in Selected Growth Sectors, Australia, 2013-14 (cat. no. 8170.0). This is a joint release between the ABS and DIS and will include summary business characteristics statistics for the five Growth Sectors. It will present statistics on a selection of topics including nature of business ownership, collaborative arrangements, performance measures, barriers, innovation, business use of information technology, skills and markets. The release will contain some commentary, tables and graphs, explanatory material and data cubes. It will in effect be five releases in one with each Growth Sector having its own section and include some comparison to the Australian totals including where appropriate relevant industry division and business size group. This release is scheduled for 20 August 2015.

26 Upcoming ABS data releases from the 2013-14 Business Characteristics Survey are:
      Business Use of Information Technology (cat. no. 8129.0). This release will include information related to IT use; type of broadband access; web features; ordering system linkages; reasons for not having a web presence; methods of receiving orders via the internet; reasons for not receiving orders via the internet; electronic lodgement with government organisations; and, detailed uses of the internet. Online content will include tables and graphs with associated commentary. Detailed data (including some output cross-classified by business size and industry) will be output as data cubes. This release is scheduled for 16 July 2015.
      Selected Characteristics of Australian Business (cat. no. 8167.0). This release will include summary characteristics data for a selection of topics including business structure and arrangements, performance measures, barriers to innovation and general business activities or performance, government financial assistance, finance sought, markets and competition, innovation rates and IT usage. Online content will include tables and graphs with associated commentary. Detailed data (including some output cross-classified by business size, industry and innovator status) will be output as data cubes. This release is scheduled for 20 August 2015.


MOST RECENT RELATED RELEASE

27 The most recent issue of ABS releases related to demography of Australian business is:
28 The most recent issues of other ABS releases related to innovation in business in Australia are:
29 The most recent issues of other ABS releases on the use and production of information and communication technologies (ICT) in Australia are:

ROUNDING AND OTHER ADJUSTMENTS

30 Estimates of proportions have been calculated using unrounded figures, but are shown in the tables rounded to one tenth of a percentage point. Where figures have been rounded, discrepancies may occur between the sum of the component items and the total. Figures presented in the commentary have been rounded to the whole percentage.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

31 The collection and publication of Growth Sector statistics is fully funded by the Department of Industry and Science.