While it will come as no surprise that the UK’s business community is still feeling the squeeze of the credit crunch, new research from Bibby Financial Services has found that small businesses are keeping Britain’s entrepreneurial spirit alive by driving forward new business and diversifying their product and service offer. Rather than burying their heads in the sand, 37% of owners and managers have undertaken a new business drive, a fifth (23%) have diversified their core product and service offering and a further 29% have started working longer hours, including evenings and weekends, in an effort to stay ahead of the competition and ensure the ongoing success of their business.

Press coverage of the so-called ‘credit crunch’ continues unabated, with more and more bad news hitting the headlines every morning. But how much is it likely to affect the owner-managed or average SME business?

Last week I spent the week on Holiday. For the first time in around 9 months I cut myself off from the office and found time to wind down and relax!

Whilst away I read a book by Rob Parsons called the heart of success. The book considers in some part what success looks like today and from which perspectives you should look at it from. It also tells some well structured stories that really tug at the heart strings.

Are businesses prepared for disaster?

As a resident of Market Rasen, the epicentre of the largest UK earthquake in 25 years, Richard Hallsworth, a partner at Nicholsons, is concerned that businesses may be failing to prepare detailed enough disaster plans.

Whilst it would appear that the earthquake, which measure 5.2 on the Richter Scale, did not result in a significant amount of damage to local businesses and the infrastructure that supports them, it will hopefully have made business owners think about the effect such dramatic events could have on their business. Or has any thought of disaster planning, like the shock waves, faded away?

For many business owners the disaster recovery and continuity plan is one of those things that always gets put to the bottom of the pile until it is too late.

Today many businesses rely heavily on IT systems, whether it’s to control manufacturing processes, run telecommunications including collection and sending of emails, and to manage their financial affairs, including paying suppliers and employees online.

So what would happen if there was a critical loss of data or damage to the IT infrastructure of your business? How long would it take to replace hardware and restore data?

I remember reading some time ago an article about exhibitions and how most visitors could not recall information about the stands they had visited only 1 hour after leaving the exhibition. Yesterday I visited Mac Live Expo at Olympia, London.

I am a strong believer that offering great customer service is essential in today's competitive world. Businesses that WOW dazzle and delight their customers turning them from customer to raving fans will win more business from them, win business from their friends and contacts and improve their sales

Large businesses are fortunate enough to have deep pockets that enable them to research their new products long before they launch them. Unfortunately small business owners don’t have the same resources and therefore simply launch into new ideas without seeing what customers think of them.

Chancellor Allistar Darling has announced changes to his initial Pre Budget proposals for Capital Gains Tax reforms. In his Pre Budget report Darling shocked the Business Community with proposals to abolish the taper relief system and charge all capital gains at 18%. This would mean that business owners disposing all or part of their businesses would suffer from an increased tax charge of around 8%. The proposals have lead to an increase across the UK in Merger and Acquisition activity as business owners have attempted to dispose of their assets prior to 5 April 2008. After a number of months of intensive lobbying Darling has now announced major changes to his proposals. He has introduced a new £1M lifetime allowance as part of a new Capital Gains Tax Entrepreneurs Relief. Capital gains on the disposal of a trading business, trading partnership or trading company (providing that the shareholder has a stake of at least 5%) that exceed the annual exemption but not £1M will be taxed at 10%. Any gain above this amount will be taxed at 18% as in the original plans. In addition no changes are to be made to the CGT annual exemption or to EIS, VCT and rollover reliefs. These changes are also likely to benefit venture capitalists, business angels and anybody else who has a 5% stake or more in a company. It may be still advantageous for some business owners to dispose of assets prior to the changes coming into force if they have owned the assets for a long time as indexation will be abolished

Many people returning back to work this week will have made New Year resolutions. But whilst personal goals may have been set, few business owners will have made New Year resolutions for their business. The passing of a new year is an excellent time to take a step back from the day to day running of a business and think about how it can be developed over the forthcoming year yet a business planning myth deters many business owners from reviewing their business.

Happy New Year!- Just a quick message to wish everybody a Happy New Year!

Hello and welcome to my blog!

The idea behind my blog is to enable me to pass on my thoughts behind the things I learn and experience

I hope that you find some of the future posts interesting and look forward to interacting through your comments on my posts!

Richard