HUGH LIGHTBODY
Continuing to improve the survival rates of our many new start businesses is vital for the long term benefit of our economy.
The recent figure released by the Scottish Government showing a record number of businesses trading in Scotland [since the data was first gathered in 2000] is great news.
Seeing the numbers of new businesses being set up increasing is also very positive and illustrates that Scotland continues to be an ambitious nation.
At Business Gateway, over the same period, the number of people contacting us for the first time and thinking of starting a business increased by 33% so we know that there are a lot of people out there considering setting up new enterprises.
However, setting up the businesses is just one (essential!) part of the process. Another vital part is ensuring the prolonged survival of these businesses.
Survivability is something we are firmly focussed on at Business Gateway. It is widely recognised that businesses which get beyond the difficult first, second and third years of trading have a far greater chance of surviving far longer. By doing so they become fixtures in their local economies, creating wealth and providing valuable employment for local people.
Independent research carried out on behalf of Business Gateway shows that businesses that have engaged with us have a significantly better chance of surviving beyond the first three years of trading, compared to businesses that have not. The latest available data from the Office of National Statistics shows that in the year ending March 2013, 57.1% of new start businesses in Scotland who are VAT or PAYE registered survived beyond their first three years. That figure increases significantly to 76.5% if they’ve been clients of our free, national service. We are also aware of academic research that shows that carefully designed and delivered business support programmes do increase survival and growth.
Scotland has a vibrant support culture for our SMEs with each element playing its part.
Our schools play an important role in fostering our enterprise culture and our further education institutes now include enterprise and entrepreneurship education within many of their courses.
Organisations like Local Authorities, The Princes Trust, Entrepreneurial Spark, Skills Development Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and, of course, Business Gateway advise and offer support to Scottish SMEs right through the business cycle. The good news is that this valuable support is available free, is being delivered by experienced people and is now being accessed by more and more businesses.
Whilst it’s crucial to support and advise it is also important to recognise and nurture the ambition of our SME community. For example, The Scottish Government’s Edge Awards provide vital funding to assist many of our ambitious businesses’ growth plans.
Encouraging more of Scotland’s SMEs to take up all or some of the business support on offer can only be beneficial to all. The Scottish Government’s recent figures indicate that encouraging people to set up new businesses continues to bear fruit. The challenge remains to encourage those businesses to take advantage of the high quality network of business support available across the country. The evidence suggests that by accessing the advice and support available, Scotland’s SMEs will become more sustainable and have a better chance of surviving than those that don’t.
As Sir Tom Hunter commented [in his contribution to our Annual Review this year] of those businesses not using our support and advice services: “You would ask yourself the question why didn’t they take the competitive advantage on offer?”
Turning our start-up companies into successful enterprises with long term prospects must be everyone’s aim. The support networks are out there.
Hugh Lightbody is chief officer at the Business Gateway National Unit
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here