Common Obstacles In The UK Small Business Space…
These are some of the common themes I hear in the SME space in the UK as we get closer to the new year.
📢 People: recruiting enough individuals to meet demand, finding the appropriate people with the necessary talents, and retaining the right people. Outsourcing vs. insourcing.
📢 Cash flow: Struggling to manage cash flow and cash reserves when demand for the company’s products and services fluctuates. The current and future costs of servicing their debt.
📢 Competition: Either from more established rivals with bigger funds, me-toos, or alternate solutions businesses.
📢 Funding: Obtaining suitable funds without strings attached or identifying finance tied to strategic alliances and a grasp of their company strategy and culture.
📢 Regulation and compliance: The UK has a complicated set of rules and compliance standards that SME owners must follow in order to be compliant. This can be time-consuming and costly.
📢 Growth: Finding new clients, avoiding a sales plateau, introducing new sites, goods, and services, scaling up, partnering, JVs, mergers and acquisitions are all examples of growth.
📢 What happens next?: There is no logical exit plan, and there is insufficient emphasis on the result, how to get there, or who can assist the process to make it happen.
