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Marketing is important for smaller companies

The smallest companies in Britain look like the firmest believers in marketing.

A study made by Chartered Institute of Marketing has revealed this startling finding. Based on the study, small firms are more likely to see marketing as an essential part of their business, invest in marketing, and quickly recognise why it is important to put a marketer at senior level. In simpler terms, the smaller the business, the more important the art of marketing is to them.

The study said that in 90 percent of companies that have a turnover of less than £1 million cited business process as a high priority.

Contrast this to companies with an annual turnover of more than £100 million. Less than half of these firms had rated marketing as a top priority in their respective companies.

The study said that larger firms have a tendency to restrict the powers of marketing operations. Two-thirds of in-house marketers have admitted that they are finding difficulty in getting a budget for supporting their marketing projects.

But among companies with less than 1 million in turnover annually, it was reported that 10 percent of their expenditure is earmarked to marketing exercises. This is a significant improvement over the national average of 7.2 percent.

This tactic is working because smaller business are more optimistic about the prospects of their businesses compared to the larger companies. These small firms have also expressed more confidence that their investments in marketing will eventually pay dividends.

Business solutions and Company formation experts have also cited the importance of marketing in business. Marketing, they stressed, is a crucial tool in helping a company increase its profits and should not be ignored. Marketing efforts, they said, eventually pay for itself.

Good business practices for dealing with foreign companies

In order to further spur growth and achieve next-level expansion, some business interests and companies will have to start trading with foreign companies. There are inherent difficulties in dealing with foreign companies especially when it comes to the matter of money. Business solutions experts encourage businessmen to follow some of these good business practice tips on how to facilitate easier payment dealings with foreign companies:

Extend credit with care. Some businessmen would extend credit to overseas customers without adequately studying the risks involved. They should remember it is harder to get financial data on a company from another country. This goes as well for determining reputation and credibility. A good idea is to draw an insurance that would protect their company against the risk of default.

Language is an important consideration. Businessmen are warned not to put too much confidence in the fact that they can talk to one person in the foreign company that understands them. This is because that person could not be in all relevant departments all the time. It will be hard to coordinate, say with the warehouse or with accounting if the only person who understands the language is only available at the head office. It is recommended that companies hire a third party that knows the local language to bridge this barrier. This is especially important if the new company formed will deal with a particular country on a permanent basis.

Remember local customs. There are countries that have peculiar or un-stated rules in business. It is best to do research on these customs in order to facilitate a more efficient relationship with the foreign company.

Naming a business – a few tips from experts

In an earlier post, we reported that most UK small businesses are no longer seeing the need to name their companies based on their family names. In the survey conducted by British Gas Business , 74 per cent of business owners now prefer more memorable names that are not related to any kind of family ties in forming their business .

According to British Gas Business’ commercial director, Adrian Harvey said “Small businesses have to punch above their weight to compete against larger competitors with more established brands. A company’s name plays an important role in doing this as it can quickly inform a potential customer of the product or service on offer. If a name is not carefully thought through and does not properly reflect what you do, potential customers will go elsewhere.”

Harvey said that with the internet playing a bigger role as the search method of choice for consumers, more businessmen who and operate a business feel that a company that is named after a family name will not be noticed. They now want names that will be easily noticed and will be memorable.

Here are some things to consider when naming your business:

* Are you considering a name that would reflect what your business does – framing, moving, cleaning, building? Alternatively, would you like to use a more abstract name?
* Do you want to use a traditional-sounding name that evokes durability and old- fashioned values, or a modern name, that paints a picture of freshness and innovation?
* Think about the future – avoid words or phrases that are likely to become easily dated.
* If your business will have some aspects of overseas trading check that the name doesn’t mean anything inappropriate in the relevant languages. Also, determine if the name will be easily read and pronounced.
* Think about your callers and customers – avoid very long names, unusual words and spelling.
* Check that no one else is using the name you choose.

52 million pounds funding for business-focused universities

This piece of news will be welcomed by students all over the country. The DTI has recently awarded �52 million to a number of universities under the third round of the Higher Education Innovation Fund or HEIF. The goal of the awards is to aid in building closer ties between business and institutions that offer higher education.

One of the projects that will share in the 52 million pounds funding handout are initiatives whose goal is to boost the number of entrepreneurs, establish a UK creative industry in China and to target the early signs of disease.

The DTI has awarded to a range of universities under the third round of the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF). The aim of the awards is to help build closer ties between business and higher education institutions.

After announcing the said funding, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Alistair Darling said, “Innovation and science are the keys to UK economic growth. Figures show that university spinouts floated on the stock market over the last two years were valued at more than �1 billion. Exploiting the wealth of knowledge in higher education and translating that into real business opportunities is, therefore, vitally important for the UK economy.

Darling added that the Higher Education Innovation Fund will bring together university research along with private sector investment and also stimulate an environment of entrepreneurship within higher education institutions. Darling acknowledges that innovation will be an important factor in the country�s economic prosperity and he said that seeing universities working closely with businesses in order to bring new ideas and technology and then transform that into improved productivity and job opportunities.

Small businesses to be hit hardest by new compulsory pension

Small businesses seem to be taking a lot of unnecessary hits of late, and they are already feeling the effects of this “injustice.”

It seems the government is not yet content with just hitting businesses with an endless list of legislation and then tying them up with red tape. Now it looks like small business employers will be forced to make contributions to a new National Pensions Savings Scheme or NPSS.

An employee can decide not to participate in the NPSS but with the sheer apathy of most employees it is believed that most will choose to remain in the scheme.

A white paper regarding the issue has already been given to the press and it indicates that employers will be forced to contribute an additional 3 per cent of an employee’s salary into the NPSS. The employee, in turn, will contribute 4 per cent while the government will give one per cent in the form of tax relief.

The white paper also revealed that this new policy will cost UK businesses an additional £2.6 billion every year. It also said that the Government knows that forcing employers to pay into their employees’ pensions will have an especially strong effect on small businesses and that is not yet counting the cost of administering the new pension scheme.

The white paper presented a solution to the dilemma but the solutions – higher prices or lower future wage increases – are considered as highly simplistic and ignores the intricacies of running a business.