smallbusiness.co.uk: Helping your business think big

If ever there was a year good to see the back of, it’s 2009. And it’s ended just how it started: badly. Unlike many other countries our economy has yet to emerge from recession, while government borrowing has hit £178 billion and unemployment reached a 13-year high. But at least we’ve had Alan Sugar as business tsar to provide some soothing advice along the way to those ‘moaning’ SMEs.

This mood of despondency has been reflected in our latest poll where 69 per cent of small businesses say Christmas trading has been the same or worse compared to last year. Nothing has improved, it seems.

But in the words of the late Ian Dury, there are reasons to be cheerful. Economically, we’re no longer plummeting into the abyss, with the latest revision of GDP figures showing a contraction of 0.2 per cent between July and September (an improvement on original estimates), making an emergence from recession seem very likely for the fourth quarter. And while many sectors remain sluggish, e-commerce is bounding ahead with growth in November of 11 per cent, proving that the icy fingers of the downturn haven’t been felt everywhere.

However, to suggest that next year is going to be a big improvement would be foolhardy. The banks probably aren’t going to have a Scrooge-like epiphany and fling open their doors to businesses, consumers won’t throw caution to the wind and embark on an Alistair Darling-style spending spree and Simon Cowell isn’t going to disappear into a puff of smoke following X-Factor winner Joe McElderry’s failure to secure the Christmas number one slot.

But for those small businesses that have weathered one of the worst economic storms in living history, there’s every chance 2010 will bring a gradual return to normality. And that’s surely something worth celebrating.

Happy New Year!