Business Intelligence 2009 Report

How Businesses look up in a downturn
Discover how sucessful SMEs in the UK are beating the recession

The current economic climate has taken its toll on the UK's economic growth with SMEs especially finding it very tough. Some successful businesses have bucked the trend and used good corporate strategy to sustain business growth through a healthy cash flow outlook and stay profitable.

As the signs of economic recovery and future growth begin to appear and confidence in a positive economic outlook returns, Lombard is giving you valuable business planning information with insights into the business intelligence strategies used by successful UK SMEs to beat the recession.

Lombard's offering you our latest business strategy report - 'Recession strategy - an insight from the SME market' - produced in partnership with Ipsos MORI.

The business intelligence report includes detailed SME business information, with business strategy case studies highlighting how the most successful SMEs and other businesses have overcome the downturn with challenges such as the increased amount of bad debt. The competitive intelligence report also considers the use of business intelligence tools to support positive cash flow solutions, increase business growth and enhance the success of SMEs who use it to develop the best business strategy for them.

Business Intelligence 2009 report snapshots

Click on the links below to view snapshots of the report chapters:

• The impact of the downturn on SMEs

  How has the recession impacted on SMEs over the past six months? A look at how small businesses can proactively address the challenges of the recession – such as poor cash flow and bad debt – as a way of driving future growth. The case study features a distribution company who restricted bad debt to just 0.01% of turnover.

• How SMEs have dealt with the recession

  This chapter looks in more detail at the impact of the recession, both positive and negative, and how SMEs have responded to falling demand with measures such as price cuts and redundancies. The case study focuses on a specialist engineering firm who grew turnover by 1000% in just 12 months.

• Finance in a recession

  Here, the focus is on the issues surrounding cash flow management. The chapter discusses different tools available to SMEs to protect and enhance cash flow position during tough times. The case study features a technology company who pursued an investment-led strategy to drive growth and business success.

• Confidence in the future

  What does the future hold for the UK's SME sector? And what can SMEs do to ensure they are part of the economic recovery? Views are mixed but overall, economic confidence is returning.

• UK economic outlook

  Professor Graeme Leach, Chief Economist of the Institute of Directors, considers the possible nature of economic recovery, in the face of a tight fiscal policy stance. While recovery is anticipated, marked regional and sector-specific differences are likely.