- Get organized: One of the most important things you can do for your small business is to get organized. This means creating a system for tracking your finances, your inventory, your customers, and your employees. Once you have a system in place, you'll be able to run your business more efficiently and effectively.

- Set goals: Another important resolution for small businesses is to set goals. Without goals, it's difficult to measure your success and determine what areas need improvement. By setting goals, you can ensure that your business is always moving forward.

- Be more efficient: One of the best ways to improve your small business is to be more efficient. This means streamlining your processes, automating where possible, and always looking for ways to do things better.

- Focus on your customers: One of the most important things for any business is to focus on its customers. This means providing them with excellent customer service, developing strong relationships, and always putting their needs first.

- Stay positive: Finally, it's important to stay positive when running a small business. There will be challenges and setbacks along the way, but it's important to maintain a positive attitude and keep moving forward.

No matter how efficient your business is, there are always ways in which it can be improved. For example, you could upgrade your IT systems to improve workflow and boost productivity, reduce your do not call list or move toward cloud computing.

-  Sales

-  Marketing

-  Support

-  HR

-  Accounting

-  Operations

Have you ever needed to finance your growing business?

1. Regulation and Regulatory Constraints 

2.  Timing & Simplicity 

3. Business and or Investors' Need For Flexibility 

By CEO, GIC Capital 

One of the biggest challenges facing SMEs is always finding the right staff to add to the workforce. It’s a perennial issue and something that businesses in every sector deal with. The right employee can add enormous value to a business, whilst the wrong choice can have serious impacts on smaller businesses.

With new figures  revealing a paucity of workers, with Brexit further impacting the numbers, what does this all mean for SMEs?

Employment is High

Employment numbers in the UK currently stand at their highest for nearly half a century – which is when records began, so this high is indeed a historic one. This is great in general terms for the economy and the workforce, but it also leaves SMEs with a much smaller candidate pool to source talent from.

34 percent of SME bosses revealed that they simply cannot find the right people to fill the vacancies they have. When surveyed, the main reasons bosses gave for this struggle were these: perceived lack of job security, absence of name recognition and a lack of perks to offer in contrast to bigger companies. Many bosses also pointed to the Brexit factor.

Brexit

The Office of National Statistics has borne this out. Their figures show that the European workforce in Britain has declined by 28,000 in a year. For SME employers, this means a scarcity of European talent, many of whom have the skills they need.

It’s a complex process, but there are concrete factors playing into the leaving of European nationals. The UK economy is recovering in fits and bursts, but not on a solid upward trajectory. At the same time, economic recovery in various EU nations is making the prospect of home seem much sweeter to many European workers in Britain. Playing into this is the mental aspect of Brexit. Many European nationals have found the political climate very different to when they first arrived in the UK and, as such, feel more comfortable returning to their home countries or other EU nations.

A Tightening Labour Market

With more people in work than there has been for 46 years and a loss of European candidates, SMEs are facing a labour market that simply doesn’t have the workers to give.

Access to skilled, talented employees is vital for SMEs to grow and thrive, so where are they going to get the manpower they need? One solution is government reform. Changes to the Tier 2 visa would enable more SMEs to find the talent they need internationally. Aside from this solution, SMEs are going to have to get creative and proactive in finding the right candidates, emphasising their future potential and current benefits. 

With GDPR now in full effect, a huge number of UK businesses – large and small – are still leaving themselves open to data theft. For those companies that do fall victim to targeted attacks seeking valuable data, this could have very real financial repercussions under the GDPR framework.

New figures have shown that millions of UK businesses are currently using data storage methods that are not fit for purpose. To find out how your business could fall prey to GDPR, and how to avoid penalties, read on.

The Facts

The survey – conducted by Beaming – revealed that 4 million UK businesses are extremely vulnerable to data theft. The figures show that nearly 1 million UK businesses do not back up their data at all.

A further 2.8 million businesses do back up their data but keep these copies in the same storage space as the original data, simply providing another avenue for a determined hacker to access. It was found that 44 percent of small businesses do this, and so too do 42 percent of medium-sized concerns. Worst of all, 17 percent admitted to not backing up data at all and leaving it on in-office computers and employee devices.

Compliance

With these shocking figures in mind – and the attendant potential fines – here’s what you need to do ensure compliance for your business.

You need to ask yourself why you need the data you hold. Under GDPR, these reasons are known as a ‘lawful basis’. There are six categories why an organisation or business may need to retain, and process data and they are: contract, legal, consent, vital interests, obligation, legitimate interests and public task. You need to know which categories apply to you and why you need to retain this data.

Next, you need to know how to deal with individual rights requests. These are the legitimate and legal rights every person has. You need to be able to explain why you have their data and, if they ask, you need to be prepared to delete it from your records. It’s compliance issues like this that make it important to establish if you need a Data Protection Officer in your business. This person will be responsible for overseeing and monitoring your GDPR compliance.

Importantly, you need to be clear and able to explain how you store data. We’ve seen some of the horror stories above, and you need to be clear and consistent in how data is stored at rest, in use and when transmitted to another party.

Finally, you need to prepare for the worst-case scenario of a data breach. Who will report it? Who needs to be notified? You need to be fully aware of what to do if a breach occurs.

If you can work through this list and give clear, well-planned answers, then you are in a good place with regards to GDPR. 

In business, the present can often seem like the most important thing. In any organisation, there is a huge amount to do day-to-day and if things are going well, then it can seem like everything is on the right course.

Considering the future, however, can fall into the long grass and go forgotten. This is a mistake many smaller and medium-sized enterprises make. And then, when cash flow issues arise, they become a crisis.

In this article, we’ll look at why and how it’s of the utmost importance for businesses to have a clear picture of their cash flow forecast.

The Why

It is important for SMEs to understand and know their cash flow forecast for an array of reasons. One of the most important is because smaller enterprises are most vulnerable to shortages of funds, precisely because of their size.

The pre-trading period for smaller and medium-sized businesses can be a minefield. This time sees a business taking on costs without initially having any revenue incoming. This can also include marketing costs, which can seem like a sunken cost at the time. Until sales start turning into revenue, this is a risky period. Smaller businesses in their early stages also lack retained profits and suppliers regularly demand early payment for goods.

This is the time to develop good cash flow forecasting habits. It establishes a model going forward, always putting the future at the forefront of plans.

The How

With some foresight and reflection, it’s not hard for a business to see where it will be in a month, two months or even a year down the road.

Simply having a rolling, forward-looking plan is a big step in the right direction. Profit and cash flow forecasts, if accurate and realistic, make it far easier to plan new strategic moves and investments. They also mitigate unexpected shortfalls and the attendant stress.

Once a forecast model is in place, it becomes much easier to identify problem areas in the business. Moving quickly to identify the causes of poor cash flow can save a business before a crisis develops. This might take the form of tardy incoming payments or the cause might run deeper. Either way, you’ll have the tools and insight to address the issues identified.

With all this in mind, there are simple steps to take in order to gain an accurate forecast and get a clear picture of where finances lie now and where they will be in the future. Make a list of all payments outgoing over a specified period – this could be a few months or a year. With these costs in hand, create a realistic, projected forecast of all the sales incoming over the same period. By taking away the outgoing figures from the incoming, you’ll have a good idea of cash flow and what should be available at any one time.

This is just a starting point for cash flow forecasting. Unexpected shortfalls and windfalls can, and will, occur. But these simple steps are all that is needed to build good practice from the ground up.

If your business is looking for investment or other financial services, GIC Capital provides sound, quality advice. We work to ensure your business is a success, and work with you to ensure the future is secure.

The world is a big place and there are innumerable businesses all looking to find and secure their markets. When corporations have huge sums to invest in technology and outreach to customers, it can feel like there’s no place for the smaller organisation.

But this doesn’t have to be the case. There are many ways that small and medium-sized businesses can compete on the biggest stage – if they embrace and use technology to its fullest extent.

We’ll look at some ways your SME can harness these possibilities and cultivate a global outlook.

Mobile is Key

It’s obvious to all that mobile is now the pre-eminent platform for most tasks in life. This is especially true when it comes to the modern consumer’s shopping habits. Yet, many smaller businesses don’t plan and implement any kind of mobile strategy.

This means, at the very least, ensuring all business sites are mobile-optimised. If a potential customer must wait for a slow site to load, they will simply go elsewhere. On a deeper level, there is nothing stopping smaller firms from embracing the use of apps. A well-designed app for researching and buying products is not the exclusive preserve of big business. Integration of Augmented Reality, for example, can place products in a user’s home before they buy.

Digital Advertising

It’s no longer enough to sprinkle a few keywords and product names on a site and expect it to appear anywhere near the top of a search engine ranking. Targeted solutions like Schema – a way for search engines to more accurately find search results for users – are the future. Understanding and using these new methodologies is the forefront of SEO along with practises such as local search optimisation, mobile and voice search.

Smarter Working

The old model of doing business is firmly out of style. Today, there are ways to streamline almost any task and redirect efforts to more pressing areas. Workers do not need to be in the office to contribute fully. Additionally, smaller businesses are in the enviable position of being able to make quick, strategic changes to everything from how they handle pay roll to marketing. The tools are there to streamline, hand off and prioritise tasks which, in turn, enables businesses to turn their attention to the areas that need focus.

Social Media

One of the best things about social media is that it represents a potential audience of billions for a business. And what’s more, a fresh and authentic approach can pay real dividends when it comes to engaging new or existing customers. Aside from traditional advertising on social media platforms like Facebook, venues like Instagram and Twitter can build a real connection between customers and businesses. It all depends on the time you invest and how much you care. If you take the time to cultivate a quality presence, the rewards are there.