Study on information and assistance needs of businesses operating cross-border within the EU, including gap and cost analysis : final report

This study identifies businesses' expectations in terms of online information and personalised assistance in order to comply with regulations in other EU Member States. It assesses the gaps between businesses' identified needs and existing online information, and estimates the financial impact of these gaps on European businesses and public administrations. Analysis focuses on business needs for online information relating to: contents (i.e. relevant topics), type of information, languages, and channels/providers. Existing national online information was analysed in-depth for eight representative countries: Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland and Sweden. The results clearly indicate that public information currently available online does not cover all the needs of EU businesses wishing to do business in one or more member state. Existing public information sites could be improved in the following areas: - availability of the retrieved information (i.e. not all relevant topics are covered) - completeness and usability (i.e. in some cases information is spread over different providers) - clarity (i.e. heterogeneity in the approaches chosen by different providers) The study concludes that businesses in the European Single Market face two different types of economic inefficiency. Firstly, businesses are incurring avoidable costs due to searching for and finding incomplete information online. Secondly, they may have to delay or abandon investment decisions as a result of inaccurate/incomplete information and/or support.