SME Business News

 Adam Hart-Davis is today launching a campaign with the Federation Of Small Businesses (FSB) to “Keep Trade Local” in a bid to save the local High Street from extinction.

Here is a promotional video:

The government enterprise department will allow SMEs greater access to public contracts by registering their business with www.supply2.gov.uk

Under the latest scheme small businesses will have access to public contracts around the UK with a value of £100,000 or less.

The move is part of the Department for Business’ enterprise strategy outlined earlier this year, to help give SMEs a leg up in acquiring crucial public sector contracts.

Business minister Shriti Vadera said: “Small and medium sized businesses need our support to expand. Many smaller businesses are more innovative, have lower costs and present better value for taxpayers than larger firms. Introducing Britain’s small firms to government procurement contracts online will provide opportunities to grow that they would not have otherwise found.”

The news is welcomed by small business groups across the country, with John Wright from the FSB claiming that the move should eradicate the false assumption that biggest is always best.

Small business groups FSB and ACS are among many expressing disappointment at the outcome of the Competition Commissions inquiry into the grocery sector.

The two year inquiry resulted in the Commission concluding that consumers are enjoying the benefits of competition, while totally ignoring the impact on independent retailing.

Several business groups have lobbied on behalf of small businesses who have seen out of town supermarkets and shopping centres decimate High Street shopping over recent years.

ACS chief executive James Lowman considers the commission has used the inquiry to judge competition between the big four supermarkets and totally ignored the needs of independent retailers.

“This approach ignores the critical need for a variety of retailers and supply chains. It is out of kilter with consumer trends towards more local shopping, and neglects the needs of many groups of consumers whose requirements are not properly met by the big four superstores.”

Clive Davenport of FSB was equally scathing, saying;

“Important issues such as the travesty of almost limitless free parking at out of town superstores while independent high street shops face ever-more stringent parking restrictions were not even considered.”

Excessive parking fees and fines from town centre car parking facilities will kill High Street businesses, the Federation of Small Businesses FSB has warned local authorities.

Income from town centre parking in 2005 raised a staggering £1.6billion for local authorities, rising from just £628million in 1997.

The FSB has urged local government to re think the parking problem, claiming that the excessive fees are a short term fix and that customers are ultimately being turned away from High Street shopping.

Free parking at out of town shopping centres has already seen a decline in town centre shoppers and unless the parking fee problem is addressed in the near future we will witness a further decline in town centre shopping.

The FSB says that the parking laws will backfire in the long term as high street shops go out of business and the wealth and employment they create is lost forever.

Government agency the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) has blamed ‘business conditions’ in the UK  and the unwillingness to invest in ‘key management training’ as the stumbling blocks for small businesses attempting to turn their enterprise into world leaders such as Microsoft and Google.

While the report acknowledges that the UK is one of the easiest places to start a company, it is also increasingly difficult for those companies wishing to expand.

Difficulties in enforcing contracts, for instance, is one major stumbling block. NESTA cited a report by the World Bank showing that it takes an average 30 procedures, 404 days and £10,000 for one UK business to recoup a £40,000 debt from another.

UK entrepreneurs do not lack ambition says the report, but the challenge of turning a small enterprise into a major company involves different risks and challenges than establishing a small company  and for many the transition is too much.

An unwillingness to invest in key management training is seen by NESTA as a major stumbling block in the UK, and until the problem is addressed most small businesses will remain just that.

4fx Healthcare, a Nottinghamshire business employing just three people, has been recognised alongside 150 businesses earning this years Queens Award for Enterprise.

4fx was recognised for its innovative nasal aspirator which removes congestion from babies’ noses, and are the joint smallest business winner in 2008, alongside North Yorkshires British Horse Feeds.

Other SMEs picking up awards are Authentix, for its product authentication service to the World Bank to prevent counterfeiting, television sound effects company Audio Network and Green Works a London based business in recycling, re-using and re manufacturing office furniture.

John Eversley of Tyne & Wear Enterprise Trust, is one of several individual winners this year and picks up a lifetime achievement award, as recognition of his thirty years supporting enterprise in the North East of England following the decline of the coal and shipbuilding industries.

Prime minister Gordon Brown congratulated the winners, saying: 

“Queen’s Award winning companies are standard-bearers for the very best of British business, These firms embody the spirit of enterprise and innovation that is so vital to the future of Britain’s economy. Whether large or small, every one of this year’s winning organisations has achieved outstanding success in its field. I congratulate them all on their diverse and remarkable achievements.”

Simon Long and Philip Benson are two young university graduate entrepreneurs, who while spending a year in America as part of their degree, discovered the Juice Bar concept and decided to bring it to the UK.

After graduating, they pair formed a company called Xing Health, and introduced the healthy smoothie to universities, schools and health clubs via their Smoothie Roadshow.

Now Long and Benson are looking for schools to team up with the company to create on site smoothie stations. They plan on encouraging pupils to run the franchises in order to promote healthy eating as well as business and maths skills.

They are also making a case to the government, for scrapping VAT on health food and drinks, and in doing so have won the support of Health Secretary Alan Johnson and his colleague Ed Balls.

As Simon Long pointed out, “The 17.5% VAT rate applied to smoothies and other healthy eating options is an obvious disincentive for people to eat well,” said Long. “Especially when some unhealthy foods, such as the infamous Turkey Twizzlers, have 0% added!”

Dragons’ Den Panelist Deborah Meaden, has this week launched a campaign in conjunction with the Federation Of Small Businesses (FSB), to urge more people to start their own business in the UK.

The campaign is aimed particularly at getting women to follow their dream and set up in business. FSB research has shown that just 11% of small businesses are 100% female owned and female majority owned account for only 3%.

The UK falls way behind the US in the amount of women entrepreneurs a fact that Meaden would like to see change in the light of this latest initiative.

The FSB back the campaign by saying that small businesses are the backbone of the economy employing 58% of the private sector workforce. The Federation hopes to help the bedrock of the UK economy - small businesses weather the economic storm, enabling the UK economy as a whole to remain strong.

Credit risk specialists Graydon have called on the Government to reassess regulations introduced ten years ago aimed at assisting small businesses in tackling the issues of late payment.

The 1998 regulations allow companies to impose interest on bad paying debtors, but  research has shown that the vast majority of SMEs do not  exercise that right. It is a fine line that most small businesses run, caught between the need to increase and maintain sales and keeping a constant cash flow. Many SMEs believe that imposing interest charges will result in losing business to rivals who are better placed to offer longer payment terms.

Martin Williams, Graydon managing director, said it was time for ministers to take action. “Late payment is starving businesses of cash which is rightly theirs and is heightening the risk of them going to the wall in an already incredibly challenging economic operating environment.”

Graydon’s claims are backed by small business groups Institute Of Credit Management (ICM) and Forum Of Private Business (FPB), who agree that the government must do something to prevent the further increase of the bad payment ‘disease’.

With a down turn in business looming large, whatever happens, it is likely to once again be too little too late for many struggling SMEs.

The campaign to delay the new Sexual Harassment Law coming into force on Sunday April 6th showed good signs of support from SMEs, although the new rules were implemented as planned by the Government.

The campaign was started by BusinessZone.co.uk and HRZone.co.uk, who on behalf of small business owners, viewed the plans as something that SMEs should have been consulted on before being passed through government.

Given the short time span between the announcement of the new rules and their start date, the campaign did particularly well, collecting over 600 signatures on the Downing Street website petition.

The campaigners see this as a positive move and are now urging more business owners to sign the petition as a show of strength, to show the government that small business owners will no longer tolerate regulation without consultation.

Dan Martin, editor of BusinessZone.co.uk, said: “We had very little time to set up our petition given the short notice provided by the government. But the level of interest shows just how firms feel about legislation being sneaked through without them being told about it.

“The government has admitted that it will cost small businesses almost £10m to comply with the new sexual harassment but has provided very little information as to how they should act.

“Although we have smashed the target of 200 signatories which we needed to force Gordon Brown to reply, I urge more small company owners and HR professionals to join us in calling on the government to always take the views of business into account when introducing new rules.”