smallbusiness.co.uk: Helping your business think big

London’s women now run more businesses in the capital than ever before, show findings from the London Annual Business Survey of over 4000 businesses.

One in six businesses (16.7 per cent) is now majority female-owned compared to less than one in ten three years ago, while they also employ more women than their male counterparts, says the study.

Manny Lewis, chief executive of the London Development Agency, which produced the study with Business Link for London, says: ‘Our economy will only reach its full potential if women feel they are able to compete with their male counterparts on an entrepreneurial level. The equalities gap is reducing and we are clearly heading in the right direction.’

According to the results, ‘black-owned’ businesses are more likely to be run by women than businesses in other ethnic groups. Women run around one quarter of ‘black-owned’ businesses (25.5 per cent) compared with 18.0 per cent of ‘white-owned’ and only 11.7 per cent of ‘Asian-owned’ businesses.

Businesses controlled by women are also shown to have markedly more female employees. In the case of majority female-owned firms, women make up 70 per cent of the workforce compared with only 22.2 per cent for majority male-owned firms. However, the average size of female-owned businesses is smaller at 3.8 employees compared to 7.7 for their male counterparts.

Alison White, interim chief executive of Business Link for London, comments: ‘We are impressed, but not surprised, that the number of female-owned businesses in London has increased. The survey does show us however, that male-owned businesses are much more likely to have the building blocks of business in place – management accounts, business plan, marketing and sales plan and a training plan. We want to work with many more women to get these aspects of their business right.’

Just 3.4 per cent of majority male-owned businesses did not use any of these planning tools, compared to 15.9 per cent of firms owned by women.

Find out how to write a business plan, click here.

Click here for 'Tips for creating your marketing plan'.

To visit Aurora, an organisation for the economic advancement of corporate and entrepreneurial women, click here.