sme Archive
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Only 35% of Business Feel Understood by their Bank
Posted on November 22, 2012 | No CommentsMuch has been written in recent months about the breakdown in relationships between the big high street banks and small businesses. As we discussed the other day the government’s schemes to improve lending to small businesses do not appear to be working. Meanwhile bank bosses... -
HMRC Find 36% of Small Businesses not Keeping Proper Records
Posted on November 2, 2012 | 1 CommentHM Revenue and Customs have been testing out a new scheme known as BRC or Business Records Checks. Modelled around initiatives already in place in Canada and Australia HMRC have been trialling BRC since April 2011. The basic idea is to do spot checks on... -
Where do Small Businesses get their Sales Leads?
Posted on October 18, 2012 | 2 CommentsWe took a look at the Success in Challenging Times: Key Lessons for UK SMEs report from the University of Surrey a couple of days ago. We have already written a blog post on its findings about how start-ups and small businesses finance themselves. But... -
Start-up Businesses Using a Smorgasbord of Funding
Posted on October 15, 2012 | No CommentsBack in August we had a look at the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) research which tracks entrepreneurship across Europe. One of the findings from the GEM research was that there was a mismatch between where people planning a new business thought they would get their... -
Local Banking for the Small Business Market
Posted on September 19, 2012 | No CommentsThis week the government hinted that they are moving towards a government backed ‘business bank’. This is something which has been called for by a number of organisations including the Labour Party, British Chambers of Commerce and Federation of Small Businesses. Some of these groups... -
UK Government Tries to Kickstart Bank Lending (again)
Posted on August 1, 2012 | No CommentsThe current unwillingness of the major banks to lend to start-ups and small business has been well documented. Securing funding is the biggest problem for start-ups at the moment. This has contributed to the rising popularity of crowdfunding and alternative peer to peer funding schemes.... -
What is an SME?
Posted on July 31, 2012 | No CommentsOver the last year there have been a lot of accusations flying around about SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises). Articles have been written denouncing the SME term and claiming that large corporations don’t understand how to talk to small businesses. Meanwhile the UK’s small business... -
£1 Billion Regional Growth Fund Announced
Posted on July 1, 2010 | 1 CommentThe Government recently announced the upcoming launch of their Regional Growth Fund initiative. Providing investment designed to encourage growth, especially in the economically poor regions of the country. The £1billion fund will come into effect next year and applications for funding will be vetted by... -
The 2010 Budget – Entrepreneurs’ Relief
Posted on April 21, 2010 | 3 CommentsWith recent changes in the budget announced by Alistair Darling, the government have made it clear that their intention is to support small and medium enterprise (SME) as well as start up companies in general. According to the research, SME’s account for 99.9% of the... -
Avoiding Cheap Pricing; Beating The Giants.
Posted on March 1, 2010 | 1 CommentMany start up businesses struggle in the first two years of their life, battling with the competition, trying to get a foothold in the marketplace. Some of these businesses are in a market which is dominated by large national or multi-national corporations and therefore find...
