Small Business Sector Receives Renewed Interest

Whilst the small business sector has been the often overlooked Cinderella of the UK economy, government and PLC’s are starting to realise the attractions of the sector, not least due to its potential value in wealth and job creation.

The small business sector is sizeable but often under-estimated. For example the latest version of the Prospect Download marketing database from Selectabase contains almost 2.2 million UK businesses with a turnover of less than £5 million.

SME’s account for 50% of UK business turnover, and are where the government hopes to see growth and job creation to compensate for public sector job cuts. The recent Government deal with banks, Project Merlin, had specific lending commitments for SMEs. The sector was also at the heart of the recent Trade White Paper and was in the spotlight again as the government opened up procurement to smaller businesses.

The Startupsplus b2b marketing service from Selectabase monitors start up business activity across the UK and regularly identifies in excess of 70,000 start ups each year. In the first half of 2010 Startupsplus data revealed a 19% increase in UK start up activity compared to the same period in 2009.

Large corporate’s and Plc’s are starting to wake up to this potential. Vodafone has launched a recent campaign targeted at the sector and has stated that SME ‘s are a key focus for the business. This has taken them head to head with O2 which is also defending its share of the SME pound.

All this renewed interest in SME’s is of course flattering for companies like Selectabase which has been finding ways of making direct marketing accessible to SME’s for the past 15 years.