SME Business News

The UK’s manufacturing firms expect the pace of decline in output to slow markedly in the next quarter, suggesting they believe the toughest phase of the recession may be behind them.
In the CBI’s monthly Industrial Trends survey for May, 17% of the 575 firms surveyed said they expect the volume of output to increase over [...]

[Read more →]

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is urging prospective councillors to put small businesses at the heart of their campaigns and remember they play a vital role in fighting the recession.
Launching its Local Government Manifesto, the FSB is calling on council candidates to focus on small businesses - which employ just over half of the [...]

[Read more →]

Marketing consultancy, Strand Financial, in partnership with business and executive coaching practice, Harvey Coaching, surveyed a over a hundred senior financial services professionals.
The findings asked for views on a range of issues relating to leadership, governance and strategy within financial services firms in the UK. The results display some alarming perceptions from within the financial [...]

[Read more →]

Mark Dixon, founder and CEO of office space provider Regus, explains why the downturn has acted like a cleansing fire for the business world.
He comments: “Companies that come out of this recession will come out of it transformed as much more efficient businesses. This recession will shake away the cobwebs of the last 40 to [...]

[Read more →]

The UK’s first ever Home Enterprise Day will be held on Friday, November 20th, as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week.  Enterprise Nation will hold its annual conference, where you can expect to hear from inspirational speakers, meet home business owners and be the first to congratulate winners of the 2009 Home Business Awards, announced on [...]

[Read more →]

The invoice finance industry is a jargon jungle. But don’t let that put you off. This month, John Wilde, Sales & Marketing Director of SME Invoice Finance tells Start Your Business Magazine about a new guide for small businesses. Here are just some of the terms he has defined below for the benefit of the [...]

[Read more →]

A survey conducted by Continental Research a few days before the Budget highlights that 19% of small and medium sized businesses have not been profitable since Q2 2008 or earlier. More than half (55%) have not been profitable in 2009. A disturbing 10% of them had not been in profit since the fourth quarter of [...]

[Read more →]

SMEs are shedding staff at an increasing rate in an attempt to stay afloat as sales continue to drop and finance is hard to come by, according to the latest Quarterly Survey of Small Business in Britain published by the Open University Business School.
However, for the second quarter running, the survey has detected a distinctly [...]

[Read more →]

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has just updated its website, flagging up a stack of new phishing scams being sent out via email, saying that recipients are eligible for a tax refund. With April marking the start of the new tax year, there has been a wave of email phishing scams targeting small business owners [...]

[Read more →]