The survey also found that despite the strong economy, businesses in the region are not becoming complacent. Sixty three per cent of business owners and managers in the region expect increasing their sales turnover to be a major challenge in the forthcoming year, suggesting firms are feeling the squeeze of increased competition. This is further supported by the 56 per cent who consider maintaining their current levels of turnover to be their key challenge. Financial issues also feature highly with the regions small firms. Six in 10 of those surveyed believe that cash flow management and late payment will be areas of concern.
New challenges are also evident in the survey.
Cash flow management and late payment also remain areas of concern for many owners and managers and these results underline the importance of adequate funding to a business's success. Factoring can help businesses to improve cash flow by turning up to 80 per cent of the value of each sales invoice into cash within 24 hours. The service also includes an effective, sales ledger management facility, which collects in outstanding payments. This frees up valuable management time which can be re-focused on moving the business forward.