With that being said, it appears that small businesses are not taking advantage of the support which is already available to UK SMEs. 71% of small businesses are not accessing the support at all, however over a third (36%) of SMEs are not even aware that it exists.
Out of those small businesses that are accessing government support, only 24% found the information was easily accessible. This is a concern, as more small businesses accessing these services and achieving growth helps strengthen the UK economy.
Ewan Edwards, Head of Savings at Aldermore, comments:
“Governments rightly recognise the key role that small businesses play as an engine of the economy – they represent five million enterprises employing over 15 million people in the UK.
“But our findings reveal that the current system of support suffers from needless complexity, low awareness and low take-up across the board.
“We believe the government needs to take a fresh approach with better targeted support and better publicity to increase awareness of what is available.”
Supporting small businesses through advisory services
At Exemplas, we successfully deliver a number of key public sector contracts to support the growth and development of UK SMES on behalf of government. Throughout our 25 years’ experience of supporting SMEs, we have achieved significant outcomes for many small businesses in a number of areas including growth, job creation, export, funding and innovation.
Our Enterprise Europe Network team supported one client, Entomics, to secure €50,000 funding to develop their product. They also received free business coaching to help them develop their strategies, resulting in increased turnover, customer engagement and creation of jobs, all of which support the wealth of the economy.
Our Innovate 2 Succeed team aided the success of our client, BioGene; our advisers introduced new processes for product development and idea evaluation. The change in processes has resulted in the business seeing an increase in market share and is now in the position to employ new staff.
We have also encouraged regional business growth through delivery of the Hertfordshire Growth Hub, where we engaged with 800 local businesses in 2016/17 alone. In this same year, the team enabled a 222% increase in jobs created for Hertfordshire businesses, which is great news for the county.
Partner with us
We continue to deliver business advisory services to shape the future of small and medium-sized businesses in the UK, creating positive results for the wealth of the economy. Find out how we can partner to make sure businesses thrives.