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BAB-28 December 2004 Analysis
December's survey asked panellists to name a single issue of concern for their clients and sought views on Work/Life balance, management style, clients following advice, computer glitches, IT skills and authors of computer software.The trends charts from the responses to the regular quarterly questions can accessed from the Home page of the UKBAB website.
178 Business Advisers responded to this Survey.
Survey Findings
The first Survey question in December 2004 asked which single issue of concern to their clients panellists found the most challenging in terms of providing accurate advice. Panellists were invited to provide a free-format text response, and the most frequently occurring themes among the Advisers' responses were Employment & Employment law (35%), Grants & Funding (16%), Legislation/ Red tape (11%), Taxation (7%). The actual responses are listed on the UKBAB website with the Survey Results for December.
In the parallel survey of UK Businesses (UKBB), panellists were asked what would be the single issue of concern on which they would seek business advice, were they to do such a thing. A degree of similarity emerged between the Advisers responses and those of the UKBB respondents, since the most frequently occurring themes amongst the UKBB responses were Employment & Employment Law (35%), Tax [general] (8%), Grants & Funding (7%) Regulation/Red tape (6%), Pensions (5%), VAT (3%), Growth Management (3%), Revenue (2%), Health & Safety (2%), R&D tax credits(2%), ICT/Web design(3%), Banks & Finance(4%), and Marketing (3%).
Workers in the UK are often characterised as working longer hours and having shorter holidays than European countries, with this being even truer at more senior levels. Respondents to the UKBAB and the UKBB were in close agreement over this issue - just under half think their work/life balance is too work-orientated, half think it is about right and 3% of both think it is too life orientated.
Management style can be an important factor in employee motivation and business success. 32% of UKBAB respondents think it is most effective to be inspirational, while 22% prefer pragmatic management. 20% opted for consensual and target driven was preferred by 17% and as the most effective approach. UKBB respondents were less strongly in favour of inspirational (26%) and consensual (24%) as their most favoured approaches, with target driven and pragmatic taking 3rd and 4th place with 19% and 18% respectively.
In the long term, business advisers would feel their job worthwhile only if the advice they give is actually followed by their clients. Fortunately, our survey findings confirmed this is the case in the majority of cases: 17% believe that clients almost always follow their advice, and 67% say that their advice is mostly followed. Under 1% feel that their advice is rarely followed.
Confidence in the ability of computerisation may not be as high as it might because while 17% of UKBAB respondents think the relative incidence of computer glitches is decreasing either significantly or somewhat, 48% think the incidence is increasing either significantly or somewhat. Respondents to the parallel UKBB survey of Business Advisers are less polarised, with 42% thinking the incidence of glitches is increasing significantly or somewhat, and 24% being of the opinion that glitches are relatively decreasing.
Confidence in panellists' own skills as computer users seems to be on the increase: 67% of UKBAB and 60% of UKBB respondents say that they notice their own IT skills improving with increased usage, to a high or relatively high extent. However, understanding what the authors of IT manuals are trying to convey is not an easy task for panellists -57% of UKBAB and 66% of UKBB respondents feel that these authors are not able to communicate their instructions at all or only to a very limited extent.
Trends Questions
The average number of clients seeking business advice continued to increase in the December quarter, a little faster than in the preceding quarter.
There was a small drop in the number wanting to start a business in the last quarter of 2004.
The ability to gain access to finance dropped slightly, for the third quarter running.
The number of Advisers' clients finding that there is a shortage of skilled labour diminished on average during the December quarter.
In the December quarter, Advisers were again on average slightly more pessimistic about the continuance of their clients trading over the next year. Only 11% of Advisers consider that none of their clients will close over the next year, compared with 12% in September, while 70% thought that up to 10% of their clients might cease trading compared with 68% in the September 04 quarter. There was an decrease in expectations of higher numbers of business cessations: 19% in December, compared with 20% in September thought that over 10% might cease trading.
Listed below are extracts from feedback into the December 2004 Survey BAB-28
Views expressed are those of individual panellists and may not represent those
of the University.
IT skills need to be improved - never time for CPD - always chasing targets - very unrewarding.
My chief concern is the amount of red tape associated with Public sector financed business support.The 'Agencies' are top heavy with civil service type staff with little real experience of the hard world of business, and it seems that only 25% of the mnney goes to the hours available to be with clients
with the rest being supervision and administration
Question 3 on effective management styles seems to me to be un-necessarily superficial. "AEffective" depends on the context - I don't want to be in a motorway pile-up to find that the senior emergency services officer has a consensual style!!!!
There has been an increase in 'start-ups' completing a business plan but many still fail to recognise their skill gaps to successfully drive a business forward - I believe this is one of the major causes for new businesses failing.
Unsure of your motives for the question on management style, each one is appropriate for a given situation.
The survey was interesting and appropriate to focus slightly on the Business Advisor giving SMEs advice. Clearly each survey is focused on business issues, in the general. Some questions are difficult to answer from the perspective of a specialist advisor focusing on innovation, technology, technology transfer and hand holding SMEs, and start ups, through the hoops of Government R&D competition support applications.
Your question about computer glitches is too broad to answer effectively. Are there issues with the net - yes. Virus attacks seem to be creating far more problems than they did 12 months ago. Are people having more hardware problems - not really although the prevailing issues with Microsoft software downloads [operating systems], updates etc still abound. Are there problems with CRM systems - in most cases I come across, including our own, yes. Few seem to do the job required effectively. Too many are released too soon and without sufficient clear specification.
