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Finance for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: A Report on the 2004 UK Survey of SME Finances
On this evidence, SMEs are unlikely to have a qualified financial manager. It is,
therefore, unsurprising that the level of self-confidence in dealing with finances is
high, compared with other aspects of running the business.
Business problems
Having looked at external financial advice and owner-managers’ self-confidence in
aspects
of running the business, this section is concluded by looking at the severity of
the problems faced by businesses. The principal aim here is to place financial
problems in the context of other aspects of business operations. In this regard,
respondents were asked to rate the severity of the problems their business is facing in:
production; sales; staffing; finance (cost and access); and coping with red-tape. A
severity score of ‘1’ represents no problem, while
a ‘10’ indicates the problem is
critical.
The chart used here follows the same ‘Box and Whisker’ format used previously.
More detailed tabulations of these results are reported in Appendix to Section 2,
Tables A2.3.3-A2.3.3d
Figure
2.3.4: Severity of Problems (box and whisker) (1=no problem; 10=critical
problem)
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Production
Production Sales Staffing Finance Red Tape
Base: Al l SMEs N = 3,625,416 (Unweighted N=2,500)
P
This
chart indicates that the median problem scores are:
• 1 for production and finance.
• 2 for sales.
• 3 for staffing and red-tape.
Overall these problem scores are quite low and may be subject to the same issue of
impression management discussed earlier. However, it is notable that finance has the
lowest median score alongside production.
The bulk of scores (within the box) are between:
• 1 and 3 for production.
not
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