UK Business Barometer

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The November UK Business Adviser Barometer survey questionnaire received 155 responses. The Survey sought views on electricity and gas prices, postal strikes, receiving email and email marketing, limited liability status, new business exit strategy, banks and meetings.

Some increases are already being experienced in electricity and gas prices, and the first question in the survey was regarding the possible impact on Advisers' clients of a future upward trend in these prices. 39% of respondents think that 10% or less of their clients will find this a major concern, while 28% think that between 10% and 25% of their customers will agree.

Some 8% of Advisers felt that client businesses were highly disrupted by the recent postal strikes, with a further 70% experiencing differing degrees of disruption. 12% thought that clients were not disrupted at all.

As a response to recent reports that some large companies and organisations have introduced measures to reduce volumes of emails received and sent by staff, we sought to discover what pressures on time are caused by emailing. We found that 18% of UKBAB respondents spend a daily quarter of an hour clearing it, while 33% spend 15 - 30 minutes and 32% spend 30 - 60 minutes on it per day. The remaining 17% spend longer than an hour every day clearing their email. The results from the parallel survey, the UK Business Barometer Survey (UKBB), carried out among smaller businesses, were fairly close to those from the UKBAB, as shown in the chart below.

Not many of the clients of BAB respondents find mass emailing cost effective for marketing - only 4% of respondents report that clients do, while 26% say "not at all" and 36% only slightly.

The question on acceleration into limited liability status drew responses which are interesting to compare with those to a question in the same area last January. The level of respondents with no clients changing status has decreased from 21% to 12% while those falling into the top two bands (1. Highly and 2.) stands at 34%, although these categories are not defined on a set percentage of clients. In January, 16% of respondents said that over 50% of clients were considering changing status.

Flotation does not appear to be the ultimate goal of too many new business start-ups as 76% of respondents reckon that less than 10% of their new business start clients aspire to this. Only 1% of respondents find that over 75% of their new business start clients are looking to an ultimate flotation.

Call centres are not popular with respondents of the UKBAB and the UKBB. Although 5% of UKBAB and 6% of UKBB think that call centres improve the efficiency with which business arrangements can be made, no UKBAB nor any UKBB respondents believe that efficiency is significantly improved. By far the majority believe that efficiency is reduced or significantly reduced (total 79% UKBAB; 82% UKBB)

The relationship with the bank was confirmed to be very important for many businesses, especially smaller ones, when we asked the question both to UKBAB respondents about their customers, and to the Businesses who complete the parallel UKBB. It is very important to 72% of UKBAB respondents, with a further 21% saying it is important. A total of 86% of UKBB respondents say it is very important to them.

65% of UKBAB and 60% of UKBB respondents still believe that it is difficult or very difficult for business to change banks, while 28% of UKBAB and only 22% of UKBB think it is straightforward.

The ease with which banks can be changed is not really believed to have altered much in the last year. There was close agreement between the findings of the two surveys: 50% of UKBAB and 48% of UKBB respondents think it is the same, while 14% of UKBAB and 13% of UKBB think it is actually much more difficult or more difficult than a year ago.

New technology is not yet substantially contributing to the way in which meetings are taking place. only 4% of UKBAB and 9% of UKBB use conference call, loudspeech phone, video link etc weekly or more frequently, while 54% of UKBAB and 49% of UKBB never use any of these.

The reason for the lack of take up of alternative meeting modes may be because not many think they are an efficient means of communication, although 10% of UKBAB and 15% of UKBB respondents think they are more or much more efficient. 41% of UKBAB and 43% of UKBB think they are less or much less efficient

Views expressed are those of individual panellists and may not represent those of the IBA or the University of Nottingham.

Perhaps you should undertake a survey about the effectiveness of banking relations these days and the ability for bank managers to make decisions.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to identify just what the Banking Industry does contribute when it claims to help small businesses grow ~ very poor and often expensive advice backed up with out-of-date literature seems to be the norm' ~ clearly there is a lack of occupational experience in small business profit generation within the Banking Industry and it shows !

Impressed the survey was quick covered interesting areas and I am very interested to see the overall picture.

As a "one-man-band" I have little use for "electronic meetings". However, I see this as a very interesting topic. I see many opportunities for business to use this but they are a the mercy of large customers who seem not to consider the associated costs of suppliers traveling to them for meetings. They simply expect suppliers to waste many hours traveling to meetings. There is a move to electronic meetings within multi-nationals. A recent report into the downturn in airline income on transatlantic routes mentions the initial reluctance to travel post Sept 11 pushed the use of electronic meetings. Now it is becoming the norm. Until powerful customers begin to use the technology, the rest of us will have to continue to travel.