86.8 per cent of enterprises provided remote access to employees in 2022 – NSO

The survey on ICT usage and e-commerce in enterprises revealed that 98.1 per cent of enterprises (employing 10 or more employees) used the internet during 2022, the NSO said Friday.

ICT usage and e-commerce in Enterprises: 2022 Internet use by enterprises During 2022, enterprises across all surveyed economic activities and size classes registered high levels of internet use.

A total of 68,608 employees used the internet for business purposes during 2022. Among these, 39,650 employees also accessed the internet via a mobile device provided by their employer.

Remote access to enterprises’ systems and security measures

In 2022, 86.8 per cent of enterprises provided remote access to their employees. Almost nine out of every 10 enterprises enabled remote access to the organisation’s email system whereas seven out of every 10 provided employees with access to documents.

This surge in remote access increased the enterprises’ exposure to ICT-related security incidents. To counteract such incidents, 93.2 per cent of enterprises implemented some form of ICT security measures on their own ICT systems. The most common security measures were authentication via strong passwords (87.9 per cent) along with the creation of data backups in separate locations (82.2 per cent).

E-Commerce sales

The national share of enterprises conducting sales through e-commerce was nine percentage points higher than the EU-27 average. In this regard, the number of enterprises engaging in sales through e-commerce increased by 2.9 percentage points over 2021 levels. In 2022, total turnover generated through e-commerce sales amounted to €2.2 billion. This showed a 7.1 per cent increase from the preceding year.

During 2022, 81.8 per cent of the total turnover generated from e-commerce web sales was made via the enterprise’s own website or apps.

ICT specialists

In 2022, 33.5 per cent of enterprises employed ICT specialists. Larger companies were more likely to employ ICT specialists, and in fact among those with 250 or more persons the share was of 84.4 per cent. The number of enterprises providing ICT specialists with further ICT-related training amounted to 18.3 per cent, with the larger enterprises having a higher prevalence of ICT-related training compared to smaller units.