Brand « Dr Alf's Blog





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Here’s an excellent article from the FT, citing latest research from the Enterprise Research Center (five UK business schools).

via Small business growth returns to pre-recession levels says study – FT.com.

The article claims that small businesses (small medium enterprises – SMEs) have finally returned to pre-recession levels. The article highlights that:

There are 5.2m businesses in the UK, 99 per cent of which are classified as SMEs. They employ more than 15m people and have a total turnover of £1.6tn, 47 per cent of business turnover.

Whilst the FT article and the underlying ERC research provide some useful objective data, there’s a an absence of subjective insight. During the same period, large corporate entities have continued to grow their profitability and capitalization – they have not had banks refuse to grant finance, nor ask for personal guarantees.

Let me turn this to an open question:

Why has UK small business growth only just returned to pre-recession levels?

Thoughts?

This is an excellent article and a RECOMMENDED READ published in the Economist.

via Schumpeter: The emerging-brand battle | The Economist.

It will be interesting to see how established brands respond to the attack. Since 2008, too many large Western companies have been risk averse, sitting on cash mountains for too long and failing to invest effectively to secure their futures. The brand battles will be about much more than advertising; quality and innovation will be key, as will customer service but product cost will be paramount. Also watch out for takeovers of under-performing giants in Europe.