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• Support vital to small business broadband
• Small businesses to cut back on staff
• FSB calls for interest rate cuts
• Small businesses feeling the crunch
• Banks urged to accept £4m for small business lending
• Small businesses should have access to £125bn deal
• NI cuts propsed for small businesses
• Government urges banks to help small businesses
• FSB warns bank of credit crunch effect
• Two thirds of small businesses are yet to adopt wage rise

• Support vital to small business broadband

  According to a new survey, over 70 per cent of small and medium enterprises (SME’s) would switch provider if their service became unreliable.

  The survey conducted by Zen also revealed that the level of support offered buy the ISP was the most important factor in choosing a business broadband provider, with 85 per cent of SME’s placing this at the top of their criteria.

  However, the survey revealed that small businesses do not switch ISPs often, and will generally stay with one provider until problems arrive. Just 13 per cent of businesses are currently considering a switch, while more than half of SME’s said they were happy with their current provider. Just over a third of small businesses had made a switch in the past year.

  As 98 per cent of SMEs find a reliable broadband connection to be vital to their business operation, it is unsurprising that just 40 per cent would switch on the basis of saving money.

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  14/11/2008 12:47:00 Published by Alice Galletly Category Small Business

• Small businesses to cut back on staff

  More than a quarter of small businesses will be cutting back on staff over the next 3 months, as the demand for UK goods weakens with the financial crises.
  
  According to the latest SME Trends report from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), employment is shown as beginning to fall in the last quarter, after a year of growth.
  
  A balance of +13% of SME’s were found to reducing their staff, representing the largest quarterly fall since October 2003. The figure shows a dramatic change from 3 months ago, when a balance of +6% of SME’s were increasing their workforce,
  
  A decrease in orders both domestically and abroad seem to be behind the cuts, with 30% of SME’s claiming that orders have dwindled 
  
  

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  10/11/2008 20:12:00 Published by Alice Galletly Category Small Business

• FSB calls for interest rate cuts

  As the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee starts it’s meeting today, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is calling for an interest rate cut to save millions of UK small businesses.
  
  A recent poll by the FSB revealed that almost 1.5 million small businesses risk going bust, with unemployment figures expected to rise as a result.
  
  According to the poll, 75 per cent of FSB members would welcome interest rate cuts, where a third of respondents said they would have to close their business if the current credit crises continued. More than half of respondents said they had experienced reduced trade in the last two months
  
  Nearly 40 per cent of respondents said they had felt less optimistic about the future in the last two months, and round 20 per cent had already been forced to cut staff, while 32 per cent were considering it.
  

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  05/11/2008 11:21:00 Published by Alice Galletly Category Small Business

• Small businesses feeling the crunch

  One in ten small firms can no longer afford to run their business, according to new research from RSA, experts in small business insurance.
  
  The research revealed that the credit crunch has forced approximately 470, 000 small and medium sized businesses (SME’s) into a position where they can no longer afford to operate.
  
  The research illustrates the difficulties for small businesses in coping with the economic climate, showing that 81% of employers have experienced rising costs from suppliers, 56% of which have had to pass these costs on to consumers.

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  03/11/2008 17:35:03 Published by Alice Galletly Category Small Business

• Banks urged to accept £4m for small business lending

  High Street banks have been urged by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to accept the offer of £4 billion of EU money to make credit more easily available to small businesses.
  
  Mr Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling say the money, which would come from the European Investment Bank (EIB), could have a significant impact on struggling small businesses if it were to be passed on as loans.
  
  Business groups called for assurances that small and medium sized businesses would receive their share of the money, as they have recently suffered at the hands of reduced credit and increased interest rates from lenders.
  
  EIB officials warned that the money available to UK SMEs would depend entirely on how much of the cash UK banks applied for. A total of £24 billion is on offer over the next four years, and any EU state may apply for a share of the fund.

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  31/10/2008 11:01:00 Published by Alice Galletly Category Small Business