Partner Article

Small business confidence growing

Small businesses are feeling more confident than six months ago despite the global economic downturn, according to new research.

The Sage Business Index showed that almost 70 percent of small business have held steady or grown over the period, but over half still feel constrained by government red tape.

Now British businesses are calling on the government to provide more support, and remove health and safety legislation to improve the general economic situation.

Guy Berruyer, Chief Executive of The Sage Group said: “For many businesses the last few years have been turbulent, even while we were carrying out the fieldwork for this edition of the Sage Business Index the world was going through unprecedented change in the financial markets.

“We expected that this might throw up some fascinating changes in attitudes since the first index, and while we certainly can see a drop in confidence in general economic conditions, businesses are focusing on what they need to do to continue growing, despite the wider circumstances.”

The firm surveyed over 10,000 businesses in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia, out of which Britain was found to be one of the most pessimistic.

Despite this however, top priorities were still found to be investment in sales and marketing, diversifying into new markets and launching new products and services.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .