Irish SMEs feel they aren’t getting enough benefit out of their websites, according to a new study from the Irish Small and Medium Enterprise Association. ISME’s e-Business survey 2008 found that 26 percent of SMEs have no website and of those that do, 49 percent are unhappy with it. “Many small and medium-sized businesses would have been sold email and website packages as a sales tool but they haven’t utilised it as such,” said Mark Fielding, ISME chief executive. He said these businesses were misled in the past by web designers and that this had left a sour taste in their mouths. This view was backed up by survey responses: 44 percent of businesses found commissioning a website to be a frustrating or confusing experience, while 41 percent thought web designers tried to baffle them with jargon. The road to bringing these businesses online is a two-way street, according to Fielding, who said that managers and staff in SMEs will have to be trained up in order to be able to reap the benefits of websites, while designers will in turn have to pay closer heed to what clients ask of them. For more on this story see ENN.ie. (See Issues 183 and 184 for tips on web design and development.)