Young employees in front of a screen

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The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy today published a study on the digitisation of administrative services for businesses. It identifies the most important 100 out of a total of approximately 5,500 administrative services for businesses, and collates them in a total of 19 “business situations”.

Uwe Beckmeyer, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, said: “Digitisation and a modern approach to dialogue processes between the administration and businesses can make an important contribution toward cutting red tape and reducing the burden on business. Small and medium-sized firms can particularly benefit from this, as their comparative lack of financial and human resources means that they face a larger burden of bureaucracy. In many companies, the data needed to meet the administrative requirements already exist in digital form. That means that a key precondition for digital networking is already in place, and it makes sense to make use of it.”

The study commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy offers the first guidance as to what contacts between administration and business should be prioritised in terms of digitisation in order to render the interaction efficient and to cut the costs of bureaucracy. The selection of the “business situations” was based both on the burden of bureaucracy on companies, frequency and complexity of interaction, and also on strategic aspects of keeping Germany competitive as a base for business.

According to this, companies’ most frequent contacts with the administration involve statistical and reporting requirements; the volume of this varies widely from sector to sector. The greatest burden derives from contacts with the administration in the field of “taxes and charges”.

The study, entitled “Top 100 – the most important and frequently used administrative services for businesses” was compiled by ]init[ AG für digitale Kommunikation, with contributions from Prof. Dr Martin Brüggemeier (Berlin University of Applied Sciences) and Prof. Dr Tino Schuppan (University of Applied Labour Studies of the Federal Employment Agency).