Time for small businesses to sell their way out of slump
Oct 20 2009 by Graeme Brown, Birmingham Post
“With the manufacturing sector around here, very few supply directly to the end-users, so if the large manufacturers aren’t doing well it feeds into smaller businesses.”
Despite the fall in manufacturing orders disproportionately affecting the West Midlands, business groups said there had been growing optimism, leading to more people setting up their own businesses, as shown in the web survey.
John Lamb, Press and PR manager of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, said: “Our experiences are reflected in the BT research.
‘‘There is a real groundswell of optimism for businesses in the West Midlands, but the issue remains access to finance.
“However, there is an enormous amount of people out there who want to set up their own businesses.”
Lisa Harris, of BT Local Business, added: “A lot of the new businesses are being set up in the service sector.
“Using new technology, certainly the internet and websites, we have seen a big growth in the support around new businesses, in things like IT and broadband.”
Mike Dell, the owner of Bilston automotive supplier Rubber Astic and Black Country Chamber of Commerce director, said the region’s principle weakness was an inability to market itself.
He added: “The automotive sector is the bedrock of manufacturing in the West Midlands.
“A massive amount of de-stocking has gone on.
“Everyone had stock so high. Honda not building a car for four months shows how bad things were – they shut off the world’s best-performing plant for four months.
“But the de-stocking has gone out of the system and there is now a shortage of steel.
“We have seen slow growth to something approaching the levels before, but not quite the levels we saw last year.”
Denise Craig, the West Midlands’ Policy Manager of the FSB, said: “Small businesses are adaptable and flexible.
“I think for a time last year they were sitting there saying ‘what do we do next?’ but now businesses have come back fighting.”
