SMEs Losing Confidence

With the new government’s ‘honeymoon’ period coming to an end, although some felt this ended some time ago, small business owners are now hoping that the current political upheaval is now over.

For those in power, they should be worried about the latest research from Virgin StartUp as part of its ‘Founder Barometer’ report, which shows a stark reduction in the confidence of small business owners. In November 2023 11% of company owners and founders felt that their businesses may not survive the next 12 months but in the new report, a rather worrying 50% now feel that they may not stay in business by the end of next year.

With the Autumn budget coming soon, we need the government to better support SME’s which, after all, accounts for 27 million jobs across the UK and bring in £4.5 trillion in annual turnover (https://creatively-yours.co.uk/have-you-heard-of-the-small-business-council/) Dependant on your market and location, some businesses are asking for greater support outside of London, cutting business rates, and increasing the VAT threshold.

If you couple this with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis looming ever larger on people’s spending, more businesses than ever confirmed that this is their biggest concern.

It is not all doom and gloom as more than 20% of businesses, who responded, said that they are planning to raise new funds and seek investment and more than a third plan to increase products or services. The Barometer report also shows that British businesses are leading the way when it comes to using AI technologies, which is hoped to free up management time for longer-term direction planning.

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