March 5, 2012
Filed under: Uncategorized — Alan @ 3:05 pm
A scheme run by the University of Cambridge is going to support small and medium-sized businesses that are working in the manufacturing sector.
IfM Education and Consultancy Services is a part of the institute and it has been tasked with managing the project.
It is going to be responsible for informing ambitious firms how to create employment, increase their revenues, and ultimately boost profitability.
Dr Derek Ford works at IfM as the head of the small business team and he has commented, “The programme that we are starting understands that most senior managers at a small company are responsible for actually working in their business. They will have roles that range from finance, to sales and marketing. Unfortunately, this means that they often do not have time to work on growing their business. We want to show them how to do this, even with minimal resources and time.”
There are several stages to the project that we involve small companies in. We are going to help them create an action plan which creates strategies for the company and helps them identify new opportunities. We’re also going to work on how they compete in the market and also how they can develop their capabilities.
The facilitators involved with the program offer a great deal of management experience in manufacturing firms and are going to be transferring knowledge to these companies. The head of Dale Foods is Rob Dale and he has previously worked with the team, he said, “They’re a fantastic team to work with and they can offer an unrivalled amount of academic excellence as well as practical experience.”
March 3, 2012
Filed under: Small Business News — Alan @ 12:18 pm
The computer manufacturer Lenovo has been increasing its market share internationally for PCs.
The company has also recently stated that they plan to become a significant force in consumer markets, as well as small to medium enterprise markets, in the UK.
In the last month alone, Lenovo have partnered with 100 new companies and it is expected that this number will be growing by around 25 percent in 2012. The announcement has been made by Darren Phelps, who is the channel director in Ireland. He made the remarks at the MicroScope event.
Mr Phelps indicated that he wants to see his company reduce the market share of other vendor’s, he commented, “We need to focus on growing our business and expanding our breadth of reach in the UK.” Lenovo acquired the PC business of IBM back in 2004 and because of this the company has become known for creating high-performance and well built laptops that are popular with companies.
Mr Phelps has commented however, “Our portfolio is evolving so much that people’s perception of our company is going to change. In the past if we had talked about selling computers to small enterprises there would have been seeds of doubt but we’ve realised that by working through resellers, this is a market that we can work well with.”
Mr Phelps also commented about the company’s development of new portable electronic devices saying, “We do not yet consider ultrabooks or tablets to be enough of a volume product for us to fully pursue.
We do think that they are going to play a more important role during this year and at the end of it we will reconsider the options. Our Edge notebook devices are the main ones that we are hoping to sell to the smaller enterprise market as we feel this is the perfect solution for their needs”.
February 21, 2012
Filed under: Business Finance — Alan @ 7:19 pm
Many small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK are suffering from cash flow crises because of their failure to collect on invoices that are still outstanding.
The number of companies going bankrupt in the UK is increasing and debts held by these companies are going up.
This is despite the fact that financing is hard to come by and this is not helped by the fact that many people are being slow to pay their bills. A recent survey has highlighted that unpaid bills are causing an enormous problem for many small companies in Britain.
300 lawyers specialising in debt recovery for small and medium-sized companies have recently been surveyed. Nearly 95 percent of them said that the number of owners seeking legal advice about invoices that have not been paid is significantly increasing. Around 30 percent of them have said that this part of their businesses increased by around 50 percent.
This news is not so surprising, considering the state of the economy. Many small businesses are finding that they don’t have a great deal of cash and that it is difficult to borrow money from banks. In addition to this, the small businesses are reluctant to take money from banks and often want to tap into other sources of finance. All of this leads to a significant problem when it comes to the company’s cash flow account.
The survey highlighted that the average amount people are seeking to recover is somewhere between £5000 and £10,000. Around 20 percent of the debts are worth over £10,000. Size is not the only important factor here and the number of debts that are outstanding is also increasing. This is resulting in more legal action is being taken against people failing to pay.
Unfortunately, even after a court judgement is made against someone, the recovery process can still take a long time. This can increase the risk of a company become insolvent by further aggravating the cash flow problem that the company is having.
The survey highlighted that in some cases it can take over six months for money that has been ordered to be paid by a court to actually be settled. The average time between judgment and the company receiving the money is about four months.
Contact Law commissioned the survey and the director of it was Dan Watkins, and he said, “It’s hardly surprising to see that debt recovery lawyers are getting more business. The country is going through a significant recession and it is becoming increasingly challenging for smaller companies to stay in business.
Late payments are not helping the situation and many companies are looking to recover the debts as quickly as possible.” The findings by the survey have been reinforced by a similar survey from the FSB which has further highlighted the cash flow problems that some businesses are facing.
June 3, 2010
Filed under: Business Tools — Alan @ 11:04 am
The Government must make increasing basic broadband speeds an obligation in order to help SMES sustain recovery as they grow according to the FSB (Federation of Small Business).
The FSB positively received efforts by the Government to note the importance of broadband by tackling the problem of missing broadband in areas where customers and small businesses could benefit. In order to address the problem, the Government has appointed a new Broadband Minister.
However, in a new report by the FSB titled ‘Broadband: Steps for an Incoming Government’ the FSB states that SMEs are not able to trade as efficiently online as they could due to the lack of reliable and fast speed broadband and are urging the new Broadband Minister, Ed Vaizey, to put measures into place that will confront this problem.
Rural area small firms are not receiving the services they are promised by their broadband providers according to research from the FSB that shows almost 33% of all SMEs are told they will receive internet speeds of 2Mbps to 4Mbps with an incredible 94% claiming that they did not receive these speeds.
The slow broadband speed reduces the overall productivity of SMEs but reliable and fast broadband speed in the future could help SMEs strength their economic growth and business reach creating up to 60,000 new jobs and adding an additional £18b to the GDP in the UK.
In order to meet this goal, the FSB is asking that reliable and fast broadband is immediately put into place across the UK by the Broadband Minister.
May 7, 2010
Filed under: Small business — Alan @ 2:31 am
Exports from SMEs in Britain have increased to their highest levels over the past two and a half years, according to new data from the CBI.
The CBI’s newest SME trends survey reported that 36% of SMEs had an increase in their orders during the first three months previous to April.
Also good news was the fact that while 26% of all the firms reported orders were still down, the 10% positive balance shows that there has been some movement of growth since January of 2008.
Manufactures stated that due to the fallen value of sterling export orders increased over what most observers expected.
About a third of the firms included in the survey also said that their export order volumes rose although ten percent reported they had decreased. This 18% balance is the best growth that has been seen since July of 1995 with domestic orders showing a marginal ride.
Chairman of the CBI’s SME Council, Russell Griggs, stated that smaller manufacturers within the UK are starting to see their hard works pay off along with the weak currency. He continued to say that domestic demand and production are starting to stabilize, exports are continuing to grow, and firms are starting to feel better about their overall prospects.
Griggs even added that since the demand is expected to increase over the next few months some manufacturers are going so far as to consider hiring extra staff to meet the increased demand over the next three months.
April 23, 2010
Filed under: Small business — Alan @ 6:19 pm
Owners of SMEs are asking for the new Government that comes out of the General Election to make taxation easier.
The software company Sage conducted a survey that asked 2,000 SMEs what the largest barriers to starting up were, to which about 72% stated that the complexity of HMRC rules is a large problem, while another 76% felt they were missing tax breaks they were eligible for due to the fact that the system was too hard to properly navigate.
MD of direct marketing company, The Data Partnership, Victoria Pooley stated that there is currently too much red tape and thresholds surrounding the taxation laws that make it hard for a company to grow in particularly with offshore call centres.
The Sage survey also found that when offered a chance to make one change to the way the tax system is set up 36% of all SMEs would like it to be simpler, while the next largest group at 26% reported they would freeze the VAT at about 18%. A small portion of 6% responded that they would like to see the 50p income tax rate for high earners scrapped.
Tax specialist for the accountant firm RSM Tenon, Andrew Hubbard, stated that for the most part all business owners simply want to be left unbothered and most the time when a change is made to simplify the process of taxes it only incurs more problems and costs.
MD of Sage’s accountants division, Jayne Archbold, stated that when the economy is shaky being aware of the tax breaks available to a company can mean the difference between failure and success.
Filed under: Small business — Alan @ 6:16 pm
The Information Security Forum (ISF) which is a security trade group that in the past only catered to large corporations is now attempting to gain the input of small businesses.
The ISF will now allow companies that have a turnover of under £100m per year to apply for an SME membership according to an announcement made by the group this week.
The ISF is a non-profit international organization that offers guidance to members on information security issues and best practice solutions. Notable member organizations include British Airways, GlaxoSmithKline, Barclays, and Prudential.
Service director for IT analyst firm Freeform Dynamics, Andrew Buss, stated that opening up the ISF to SME membership is a good idea because all companies regardless of size can benefit from third party guidance and information when it comes to security.
The new ISF SME membership will allow businesses to access over 400 reports on information security as well as online discussion groups that allow companies to exchange their methodologies and access to the web based ISF Security Healthcheck tool.
While it does offer these perks, a SME membership is restricted compared to a full membership, with SME members unable to access the full range of provided benchmarking services and security tools and not invited to attend the ISF world congress event held every year.
Buss stated that the most likely SMEs to sign up for a membership will be those that are on the larger side themselves.
April 17, 2010
Filed under: Small business — Alan @ 2:33 am
Almost three out of every four SMEs has been affected by late payments that occurred over the course of 2009, but less than half of them have actually taken any steps to reduce the pressure of their occurrence, according to research from NatWest and its parent company the Royal Bank of Scotland.
The research included numbers from 500 companies, out of which, there are a total of £15.7b of invoices that are over 120 days in arrears. Banks estimate that 235,000 of SMEs are still wasting their time chasing invoices that are overdue, which is the largest problem for wholesalers; out of which 93% have faced lengthy delays. Retailers on the other hand have had a better outlook with only 66% faced with late payments.
Additional Barclay’s research that is based on data compiled from 1,000 companies suggests that some SMEs are taking active steps in order to reduce the cash flow pressure by writing off large amounts of debts. In fact, about 720,000 SMEs wrote off on average about £2,529 in debts in 2009 which is almost double than the amount that was written off in 2008.
The two companies also estimate that fewer than half of all SMEs have actually taken action to combat the debt with only about 11% choosing to hire an in-house credit controller, 8% factoring, and 9% to start using invoice discounting in order to each the pressure from cash flow problems that are caused by owed debts.
April 10, 2010
Filed under: Small business — Alan @ 5:38 pm
The Enterprise Tsar of the Government is set to lead a three member team that will advise ministers on how to make sure that all SMEs receive proper and fair treatment when seeking loans or credit from banks.
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson expects the group to help create a path that will lead to the appointment of a SBCA or Small Business Credit Adjudicator whose responsibility it will be to referee any disputes although the position will not be enacted until after the General Election.
Lord Sugar has already had a row with task force member John Wright the former chairman of the FSB. Wright called for his resignation in November of 2009 when the new Business Tsar said that companies that are struggling are comparable to those who moan even though they live in a ‘Disney World.’
He also stated that 85pc of SMEs that want bank loans should instead be seeking the advice of a bankruptcy adviser adding that most of the companies that are complaining are those that he would not even consider lending a penny to.
Currently, Mr. Wright and Lord Sugar are understood to be on good terms, but the decision to make an Ombudsman type complaints body announced as part of the Budget last week has already caused one political row with the CBI director general, Richard Lambert, stating that the proposal will never actually come about because it is ‘pure political rhetoric’ that will never work.
In response, Lord Mandelson stated that Lambert is siding with the bullying banks and betraying SMEs.
April 2, 2010
Filed under: Small business — Alan @ 1:45 am
Wales SMEs are facing a mixture of fear about business and consumer spending, but at the same time they are attempting to deal with the high cost of materials according to a new report published by GE Capital.
The report is composed of interviews that were held with 500 UK SME owners during the month of March and found that 40% of all Welch companies listed inventory costs and the high raw materials costs as one of their chief concerns in terms of their future success.
In fact, the worry over the rising costs was almost as high as the fear of how much UK spending will be focused on business and consumer spending which was identified as a worry by 42% of SMEs.
Regional director of GE Capital, Paul Emeades, stated that as the country is on the cusp of an economic turnaround the Government is going to have to match the budget to support the Wales SMEs if it does not want to halt their recovery.
Emeades continued to say that Wales SMEs should not be left behind because with over 52,000 firms worried that their numbers will decrease this year the Government needs to take note and focus on keeping conditions right to foster growth.
He also stated that in order to aid the SME’s the Government should consider reducing the cost of the new regulation, reduce the potential impact of high fuel costs which continue to rise, and rethink the proposal to increase the fuel duty later in 2010.
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A scheme run by the University of Cambridge is going to support small and medium-sized businesses that are working in the manufacturing sector.
