smallbusiness.co.uk: Helping your business think big

The New Year messages from business lobbying groups, in the main, do not make for inspiring reading.

This year’s monologues constitute a mélange of doom-filled sentiment barely tempered by the old platitude of small businesses’ resilience and grit allowing them to pull through.

John Walker, chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses highlights that costs have risen, economic growth has faltered and unemployment continued to increase, as well as the Euro crisis draining business confidence in the UK. Rising energy costs fuelled huge increases in everyone's utilities bills, not least small firms. And the group is also at pains to point out that with energy being a major contributor to high inflation, it has put a further squeeze on small firms' cash flow.

The lobbying group did opt to highlight the opportunities for the year ahead with events such as the Olympics and the Queen's Jubilee providing chances for businesses to expand and diversify – although it remains to be seen how consequential such events will be to companies outside of London.

In terms of suggesting what can be done in 2012 to help businesses, the FSB’s ideas seem thin on the ground; the group is vague in its wish to see more ‘creative thinking’ from the government to tackle the dominance of the big banks, and their eternal call for a fuel duty stabiliser has fallen on deaf ears for most of 2011.

The Forum of Private Business’ message is a note brighter, with it reporting reasonable success in 2011 through its Get Britain Trading scheme, purported to raise awareness of the key economic role small businesses play and to address the barriers they face. The Forum counts among its successes the government scrapping of the Channel Islands Low Value Consignment Relief tax loophole, which allowed large companies to move offshore in order to sell many goods online VAT-free, undercutting small mainland shops and internet traders. However, getting small businesses a fair share of the market in these times doesn’t change the fact that the inflationary squeeze is keeping consumers’ wallets stubbornly in pockets.

Perhaps the most productive message, though, is from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), whose ‘Vision for Rebalancing’ report highlights five trends that could support the development of new growth sectors. The CBI and Ernst & Young have set out an exports strategy which, by targeting these high-growth economies, could give the economy a £20 billion boost by 2020. It’s altogether a more urgent message than the other two, highlighting the need for the economy to become more driven by investment and international trade, while allowing the burdens of government and consumer debt to subside.

It seems a sound prediction that export activity will rise this year, given the growing trends in international trade seen during 2011. Hopefully it can put Britain on the map in 2012 and lead to more exciting New Year messages in 12 months' time.

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