There is plenty of uncertainty clouding many industries in the UK currently; with nobody really quite sure on the implications of the EU Referendum result last year, therefore it has never been more important for businesses to be hopeful and ambitious in regards to their growth and financial potential. However, a recent report released by Albion Ventures has shown that less than half of microbusiness owners with fewer than five employees expect their company to actually grow over the next two years!
45% of microbusinesses believe this compared to the 73% of larger scale SMEs that are confident in growth, according to the fourth Albion Growth Report which is based on interviews with 1,000 SMEs and looks into the various reasons that both stunt and accelerate business growth. There is a clear divide in confidence between the smaller and larger companies, which can be broke down into several different aspects.
Not even a third of microbusinesses believe that they will be looking to expand into new markets and just over half believe that their company will be increasing productivity over the next couple of years, which is very worrying indeed. Microbusinesses seem to have the view that factors outside of their control affects their success, whereas for the larger business it is aspects such as finding skilled staff that raises issues.
SME is a much used label but itâs important to look beyond this as size plays a tremendously important role in determining business sentiment, commented Patrick Reeve, a Managing Partner at Albion Ventures. The key point emerging from this study is that size really does matter and microbusinesses, many of which are sole traders in the âgigâ economy, appear far more concerned about their future growth prospects than their counterparts with more than five employees, which have the necessary scale to withstand market uncertainty.
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