This research shows Australian business owners are embracing access to fast broadband and cloud applications to help them save time and achieve a better work-life balance.

It reveals that although four in five (80%) Australian business owners agree work-life balance was the key motivation behind starting their business, more than a third (39%) say work still takes up precious hours they would rather spend on ‘me time’.

It highlights business owners are now spending up to half of their working week online, with three quarters (75%) in industries such as construction, retail and hospitality now adopting sophisticated applications including cloud-based customer marketing, accounting and relationship management systems to increase productivity.

Key findings:

• For love or money:  Looking to reinvent themselves in the workforce and ditch the corporate ladder, the majority of Baby Boomers (87%) revealed they started out their business to become their own boss. Ambitious Gen Y business owners indicated they are more likely to be motivated by financial rewards (79%).
• More ‘me time’: Baby Boomers are more likely to agree too much of their free time is spent on work and they would rather reinvest their free time on holidays (68%) while Gen Y want to wind down and catch up on their sleep (42%).
• E-fficiencies: Almost four in five (78%) nbn-connected business owners agree access to fast broadband is creating new efficiencies by helping them to get things done faster and achieve more ‘me time’.
• The cloud-gen: Almost all (98%) Gen Y business owners agree cloud-based services are particularly important to save time with around half (47%) adopting cloud-based software such as accounting, email marketing and collaboration platforms to do this.
• Family first: Three in five (63%) empty nesters would rather spend their regained time catching-up with their children. Males are also more likely to spend more of their free time (59%) with partners and children than women (48%).