20 things we learned from our last Business Barometer…
Every four months or so we survey 900 of the UK and Ireland’s SMEs across a number of key sectors, including engineering, manufacturing, construction and transport.
This is some of what we found out…
- 84% believe global warming poses a serious threat to humanity’s future
- 58% have considered climate change and other environmental factors in their business plans
- Half believe their firms can become fully carbon neutral by 2050
- 41% pay to off-set the carbon emissions of their business
- 57% have heard about ethical banking
- 44% choose their funder based on who they invest in
- 58% say it’s important to work with an ethical funder
- 78% say they have personally been affected by the rising cost of living
- Rises in food, fuel and energy have had the biggest impact
- 64% have passed additional costs onto customers, either fully (40%) or partially (24%)
- 43% have had to raise wages
- 52% utilised at least one of the government funding schemes during the pandemic
- 60% say their firm will benefit from further government assistance
- 45% have suffered a cyber attack
- 50% have invested in additional cyber security in the past 12 months
- 77% trust that their bank’s systems are secure
- 66% still use a local bank branch to access banking services
- 45% have been impacted by bank branch closures
- 37% have missed a business opportunity in the last 12 months due to lack of available finance
- 36% expect their businesses to expand in the coming year
