SME Survey - What is your biggest operational challenge?

In most small businesses there are always hurdles to overcome and fires to put out and often these are operational issues. In this latest survey (54 respondents), the question was asked to identify that challenge and also to see if there was any correlation with what challenge would be tackled first.

The top-level options given were:

■ Business processes

■ CRM systems

■ Cyber security

■ Dealing with COVID-19

■ Finance systems

■ Government ‘red tape’ e.g. legislation, HMRC, etc

■ IT systems (hardware, software)

■ Measuring key performance indicators

■ Outsourcing services

■ People - employees

■ People - recruitment

■ Sales systems

There was an ‘other’ option to capture anything that had been glaringly missed!

The results can be seen in the graphs below. The top 3 challenges facing those small businesses that completed the survey were business processes (24.1%), sales systems and dealing with COVID-19 equal second (9.3%), then government ‘red tape’ (7.4%).

Interestingly there was pretty much a match on what operation issues were going to be tackled first with 25.9% focusing on business issues, but this time COVID-19 gained more influence (13%) followed by sales systems (11.1%); ‘red

tape’ was still 7.4%. This suggests that the pandemic is having to take priority over other potential issues.

Strangely, but reassuringly, no respondent tagged finance systems as an issue. Hopefully this suggests that small businesses are on top of their finances and utilising the cloudbased accountancy systems that are out there; helping them to easily manage their business.

Get involved

To take part in the next survey – Do you have a coach/mentor/adviser for your business? – visit here: https://forms. gle/6VVXvSpqrUrm9tLN8. The results will be shared in the next edition of this magazine.