SME Issues

Identifying big company executives who can achieve success with a start-up can be tough. Many star players at big companies wilt in a small company where they have finite resources and little or no supporting infrastructure.

Who needs an office anyway? That's what an increasing number of organisations are asking as a new survey from the UK reveals that up to half of small businesses don't work from formal business premises.

If you try to start a business by the seat of your pants, chances are you're going to lose your shirt. But with so much information out there to help, any budding entrepreneur ought to be able to start and grow a successful, profitable enterprise.

It shouldn't take a genius to understand how important small businesses and other entrepreneurs are to a national economy. Unfortunately, it seems that this is a lesson still being learned in Australia.

Workers in smaller businesses in America are not only less likely to have access to health care benefits, but also left high and dry when it comes to company pensions.

Many entrepreneurs have a passion for their products, not a background in business. So startups can give themselves a better chance of surviving if they create a board of advisors to provide regular, outside perspectives on internal and external situations.

Marketing seems to be a Cinderella discipline in British small businesses, with over a third admitting to having no brand values or acknowledging the strategic importance of marketing.

Hiring someone simply because they are "family" has traditionally been considered bad business sense, but may actually have its benefits, particularly for smaller businesses.

You might make more money working for a large company, but if you want something resembling a personal life, don't want to be unhappy on the job and like to be treated fairly, you'd be much better off with a smaller employer.

British employers, particularly small businesses, are abandoning the traditional CV when recruiting new workers in favour of gut instinct or word-of-mouth recommendations.

Smaller U.S. employers worried about competing with large corporations for graduate talent can take heart form a new survey which finds that seven out of 10 graduate job-seekers would prefer to work for a medium or small employer.

More than half the UK's small and medium-sized businesses have had problems recruiting good people in the past year, with low standards of education and a lack of vocational experience largely to blame.

Although three-quarters of small firms in Britain would like to see the introduction of a flat rate tax, they have been warned that the reality of such a revolution might be far less attractive than at first sight.

The working week for Britain's small business entrepreneurs may have grown by almost 10 per cent in the past three years, but the desire to be their own boss shows no sign of deterring people from wanting to go it alone.

Smaller employers are much more to be generous when it comes to rewarding workers with gifts and parties at Christmas, a survey has concluded.

With nine out of 10 new ventures doomed to failure, what is it that enables the remaining one in 10 to succeed?

Smaller organisations are more relaxed about recruitment difficulties than their larger counterparts but still face real difficulties persuading talented managers and professionals to join them.

Young people are being deterred from starting up their own businesses because of a fear of failure, lack of role models and a rules-based 'conveyor-belt' educational system that crushes the enterprise spirit.

The first employees recruited by small firms tend to climb the corporate ladder faster than those who join later. But favouring the 'first born' is fraught with peril, according to those who have seen the results.

With almost half of smaller employers in Britain unable to find the skilled staff they need locally, could flexible working prove to be the inducement they need to persuade people away from larger employers?

Entrepreneurs are shunning family members when setting up a business and increasingly setting up new ventures with friends rather than relatives.

Britain is producing a generation of 'unemployable' school leavers who are not qualified for anything except getting drunk and not turning up for work in the mornings, employers have complained.

Despite all the rhetoric talking up Britain's enterprise culture, the government is failing to stimulate the development of small businesses, according to a report from the country's largest employers group.

A quarter of Britain's small business owners intend to recruit additional staff and invest more during the next 12 months, underlining continuing optimism amongst the country's entrepreneurs in their own businesses.

The CBI/Real Business Growing Business Awards 2005 have been launched to find the UK's most successful entrepreneurs.

More evidence has emerged of the effect of red tape and taxation on small business as a new survey find that more than third of small firms in the UK want to stay small and not recruit any more employees.

The boardroom glass ceiling may finally be starting to crack, but for women who want to get on in business it is becoming increasingly clear there is another significant gender imbalance to be tackled – finance.

A new £30 million investment fund has been launched to bridge the funding gap for female entrepreneurs in Britain who often face obstacles raising money through traditional channels.

Four out of 10 of Britain's company bosses say they would be unlikely to set up in business if the opportunity arose again, with red tape and tax their two biggest problems.

The European Commission has admitted that Europe is missing out on the creation of 1.5 million new jobs because micro-businesses are being held back by excessive employment regulation and red tape.

More evidence has emerged of the damaging cost of excessive regulation with half of Britain's small businesses saying that employment legislation is their biggest administrative headache and is hitting their bottom line.

The number of minority-owned business start-ups has reached record levels in Britain, accounting for 11 per cent of all new business start-ups and often outperforming their white-owned counterparts.

Britain's high street banks have an institutionalised bias against female-owned businesses, typically charging them one percentage point more in interest on business loans.

The UK government's latest piece of regulation on business is causing a bit of a stink among owners of equine businesses.

In an antidote to endless research about work-life balance, flexible working and the like, a survey by Bank of Scotland has revealed the deeply unfashionable fact that the more hours an entrepreneur invests in their business, the greater chance they have of achieving growth.

When a business gears up for growth and the inevitable changes this brings, everyone looks to the top for direction. This is especially true – and difficult - for SMEs.

Working for or running a small business can do serious damage to your stress levels and leave you suffering from severely bad work-life balance, a survey has suggested.

Older workers are increasingly turning to franchising as a second career rather than starting up businesses from scratch.

Politicians have set themselves on a collision course with employers after the Trade & Industry Select Committee claimed in a report that it is "slightly bemused" by the "obsession with the growing burden of regulation" in Britain.

Venture capitalists in Europe are shunning investments in companies run by women, as a new report finds that there are no more venture capital-backed female businesses in 2004 than there were in 2000.

Employment legislation is actively discouraging small firms in Britain from taking on staff, a new survey has revealed.

Britain's workplaces are becoming more discordant places with disciplinary procedures formalised at an earlier stage and disagreements more likely to lead to legal action.

An employers' group has warned that the minimum wage is having a damaging impact on an increasing number of small businesses across the UK.

Britain may be the most entrepreneurial major economy in Europe, but new research shows that it still lags behind Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada.

Why are people in the EU generally less entrepreneurial and more risk-averse than people in the USA?

Britain’s army of self-employed workers are more likely to work longer and save harder for retirement than their PAYE counterparts – but the Government should be wary of thinking this is the answer to the country’s pensions’ crisis.

As many as one in five people are planning to start their own business in 2005, according to a survey.

Keeping up to date with the latest Government red tape will be the biggest challenge facing Britain’s small businesses next year, a survey has predicted.

Britain's hard-pressed entrepreneurs will find much to agree with in this heart-felt polemic from American business guru Irwin Stelzer published in yesterday's Sunday Times.

Britain is set to become a world leader in high-tech jobs and enterprise, fuelled by a highly skilled, highly flexible workforce – at least if you believe Chancellor Gordon Brown.

The future of tens of thousands of small businesses across the UK is in doubt because their owners are failing to put in place effective succession planning.

Small businesses have reached saturation point in regard to the amount of employment law they can take on board, the Federation of Small Businesses has warned.

In the latest salvo again Britain's burgeoning culture of red tape, the government's own advisors have accused bureaucrats of stifling small businesses and discouraging the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The UK gets a thumbs up as a place to do business from the nation's entrepreneurs. But less red tape and unnecessary bureaucracy would make it even better.

The future of work lies in organisations that feel less 'organised', more flexible and socially committed, a new report predicts. But businesses are further away than ever from realising this vision.

With the notion of the 'job for life' long dead and buried, more and more people, especially women, are looking to self-employment as the best way forward.

Britain's pensions crisis is being made worse because many small and medium-sized companies are actively discouraging employees from joining company schemes in an effort to reduce costs.

Britain’s small business sector is booming, according to new figures, as the number of new businesses grew by 200,000 last year to reach almost four million.

More reaction from small business owners to Godfrey Bloom's comments last week about maternity leave, this time in the Times.

Demand for staff in small firms has reached a two-year high, with nine out of ten planning to recruit over the next few months and many facing skills shortages.