Technology companies are emerging as potential beneficiaries of the credit crunch as businesses seek to reduce costs and improve efficiency, according to business surveys published today.

Technology companies are emerging as potential beneficiaries of the credit crunch as businesses seek to reduce costs and improve efficiency, according to business surveys published today.

The credit crunch and economic slowdown has done nothing to dampen the optimism of Britain's entrepreneurs, according to figures from business advisory company Deloitte.

Deloitte's annual survey, Entrepreneurship UK: 2008, reveals that some 45% of entrepreneurs are predicting revenue growth in excess of 20% in the coming year.

A similar proportion expect 50% revenue growth over three years, and very few are anticipating revenue falls. Despite the bullish approach, over half of the entrepreneurs surveyed believe they have been adversely affected by the credit crunch, reporting a decrease in demand for products and services as well as a tightening of lending policies by their bank. However, one in six reckon they are seeing no drop in business.

Jim Boyle, head of the Scottish entrepreneurial business team at Deloitte, said: "While we may be facing challenging economic times, we are seeing entrepreneurial businesses employ a range of strategies to remain highly competitive and deliver on their confident expectations.

"Increasing focus on new product and service development, undergoing a phase of internal consolidation before growth and outward expansion, and entering new offshore markets, albeit primarily within the more established western economies of Western Europe and North America, are all regarded as being key to future revenue growth."

Deloitte found that technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) businesses were the most positive, expecting an average of 26% growth in the next year and 111% in the medium term. Consumer businesses were the most pessimistic. Even so, participants expect revenue growth of 18% in the short-term and 48% over three years.

This rosy picture contrasts with revised figures from fellow business advisory firm BDO Stoy Hayward.

In December 2007 it forecasted business failures would rise by 11.4% between 2007 and 2009. Only six months later, in the face of rising energy and food prices, plummeting consumer confidence, falling house prices and restricted availability of capital, it now anticipates an 18% hike.

The BDO Industry Watch report forecasts that business failures will rise to 17,874 in 2008, from 16,168 last year. This figure will continue to increase in 2009 with figures expected to hit 19,124, the highest level since the dot.com bubble burst in 2002, which saw 19,928 businesses go under.

Shay Bannon, business restructuring partner at BDO Stoy Hayward, said: "This is a sure sign that the impact of the credit crunch is going to have a bigger lag than expected on UK business. Six months ago there was hope that business would feel some respite if the Bank of England slashed interest rates. But spiralling inflation figures now means that this is unlikely in the short term."

But technology, media and telecommunications companies again appear among the best positioned. It is the only sector where BDO Stoy Hayward reckons business failures will remain flat this year, rather than increasing. By the end of 2009 the number of TMT companies going under is forecasted to decrease.

The number of failures in this sector is expected to remain flat until the end of 2009 when they are forecasted to decrease.