Business Plan Project

BusinessStudent

Hello All.

Can anyone help contribute to these

1- How would you define a small business
2- What percentage are small
3- How does our economy benefit from the activity of small buisinesses?
4- What financial contributions are made to the economy from small firms?
5- What opportunities exist for new business ventures?

Many thanks - I've already done quite a bit for my project, looked through verious websites but im struggling especially on the contribution that is made from small firms to the economy - I stated that more jobs are created= less people on job seeking benefits etc.

Thanks very much

Seraphim

1. Type the search query "define: small business" into Google and it comes up with some nice definitions. It really depends on the industry and company though.

Most of the UK governement sites are stating these figures: (eg https://www.hse.gov.uk and https://www.sbs.gov.uk)
Micro business: 0 - 9 employees
Small business: 0 - 49 employees (includes micro)
Medium business: 50 - 249 employees
Large business: over 250 employees

2,3, and 4 Taken from sbs.gov.uk:

sbs wrote:

There were an estimated 4 million businesses in the UK at the start of 2003. The vast majority of these (99%) had less than 50 employees and they provided 46% of the UK non-government employment and 38% of turnover. Large businesses are in the minority; there are only around 6,000 firms that have 250+ employees. Even so, they account for 42% of non-government employment and 48% of turnover.

5 - Apart from the obvious bank loans, there are several places small businesses can get funding from. For entrepreneurs under the age of 30, there is the princes trust -> http://www.princes-trust.org.uk. There are also grants which may be applicable to your local area ---> http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/support. There are also so-called "business angels" who invest in small businesses (think Dragon's Den ) for a cut of the company.

Pennywise

Extracted from Federation of Small Business Website a while ago (may be worth checking they're still current - https://www.fsb.org.uk)

There are 4.3 million small businesses in the UK (including sales, manufacture and service)

97% employ less than 20 people

95% employ less than 5 people

12 million people work in small firms

58% of the private sector workforce are in small firms

Over 50% of UK turnover comes from small firms

I was quite surprised just how big a contribution "small" firms make to the UK.