Will Taggart

Every day, millions of small and medium‑sized businesses use Sage to run payroll, manage finances, and operate their businesses—generating a unique, real‑time view of the economy grounded in actual business activity rather than surveys or lagging indicators. Sage is exploring how this operational data can be used responsibly to deliver impact across three core areas: improving access to finance, strengthening economic insight, and enabling better decision‑making for businesses, policymakers, and institutions. A key example is Sage SME Pulse, which uses anonymised payroll and accounting data to provide a near real‑time view of SME performance. SMEs represent around 60% of UK economic output yet are underrepresented in traditional economic reporting. SME Pulse helps close this gap by offering more timely and accurate signals of business activity. This work is strengthened through trusted partnerships such as Smart Data Foundry (SDF), enabling secure, privacy‑preserving data collaboration. Combining Sage data with third‑party datasets allows deeper insight into real‑world challenges—such as regional disparities and financial resilience—and supports more targeted, evidence‑based interventions. At an individual and small business level, Sage is also explori