Money Making

WEB NEWS
FACEBOOK VALUE
The social media platform
may be able to increase the
visibility of small businesses,
but many are struggling to
see that visibility turn into
profit, according to Weebly.
The website building
platform found more than
half of small businesses
don’t spend any money on
Facebook adverts. Of those
that do, 62 per cent are
dissatisfied, feeling their
money is not being well
spent. Speaking to Weebly,
one small business owner
said: “Selling on Facebook
is like handing out business
cards at a party to people
who would rather be
socialising.” Dave Rusenko,
CEO of Weebly, says:
“Facebook has some work
to do winning back the trust
of small business owners,
who several years ago used
to rely on their platform to
grow their customer base.”
CONSUMER
DEMANDS
Online consumer behaviour
is changing fast, with the
18-22 age group the most
demanding, research
shows. In a study of 3,000
people across Europe by
customer insight business
Qualtrics, 98 per cent
wanted companies to put
their contact numbers on
their home pages or within
one click. In addition, 97
per cent of customers said
it was important to trust
organisations with personal
data, almost 70 per cent
said they would not buy
goods or services from an
unresponsive company and
35 per cent said they’re
unsure if companies are
even listening to their views.
CYBER ATTACKS
A new study of over 1,000
UK professionals has
revealed 26 per cent of
British businesses have
left themselves open to
a random cyber attack.
Research by software and
services provider Advanced
also highlighted that 46
per cent claim data security
is not a deciding factor in
adopting digital technology,
despite government
research into cyber security
that found two thirds of
businesses had experienced
a cyber breach or attack in
the past year.
COST OF FAILURE
40 per cent of retailers
would lose more than
£10,000 if they suffered
an hour-long IT failure,
according to new research.
17 per cent of small and
medium-sized enterprises
estimate such an outage
would cost them up to
£100,000, while the
average retail SME could
lose around £16,000. For
small, independent retail
outlets, such a loss could
be crippling. Simon Michie,
chief technology officer at
cloud computing company
Redcentric, says: “Whether
it’s fully outsourcing IT
services to data centres or
managed service providers
or moving business critical
elements of the company
into the cloud, leaving IT
infrastructure to chance
equates to accepting
failure.”
‘Duty to report’
to combat late
payment
Large companies will be required to publish details about how
quickly they pay their suppliers under new draft regulations.
Coming into force in April, this ‘duty to report’ will require
large companies and limited liability partnerships to
publicly declare twice yearly their payment practices and
performance, including the average time taken to pay supplier
invoices.
As of June 2015, the overall level of late payment owed to
small and medium-sized businesses was reported as £26.8
billion. A recent survey by the Federation of Small Businesses
said that, on average, 30 per cent of payments are received
late.
The new draft measures aim to tackle this problem by
increasing transparency and helping small businesses make
informed decisions about who they do business with.
Mike Cherry, national chairman of the Federation of Small
Businesses, says: “The regular duty to report is the first step
to combat a business culture that feels like one where it’s
okay to pay small firms late.
“It’s not okay. We estimate 50,000 business deaths could
be avoided every year, if only payments were made promptly,
adding £2.5 billion to the UK economy. We need to see
executive board level engagement and scrutiny of payment
practices to deliver lasting cultural change.”
8 MAKING MONEY