The sixth annual ERC State of Small Business Britain Conference takes place today at The Shard in London. The conference, which this year is being held in partnership with the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), focuses on how we can strengthen key sectors of the UK economy. At the event we will present new comparative research… Read more
Innovation and productivity: How strong is the connection? ‘Innovation’ is a much used (and abused) term employed to describe everything from flea collars for dogs[1] to electric cars. As a result, measuring innovation can be tricky, particularly in service sectors where firms’ relationships to customers are often individual and bespoke. Fortunately, the kind people at… Read more
The Metro.co.uk 01/05/2019 A second great depression is coming and 99.9% likely in two years. Insider.co.uk 13/05/2019 Par Equity backs Northern Irish tech companies BizPlus 13/05/2019 Taking the Pulse of Laid back Businesses The Irish News 14/05/2019 Tech firms enjoy £3.2m investment boost
Growth in the UK is slowing down as business investment declines amid Brexit uncertainty. Jobs growth too seems to be slowing particularly in scaling firms. As always, however, the UK’s entrepreneurial small-and-medium firms (SMEs) will play a key role in restoring future growth. But how should we ‘do’ entrepreneurship in the future? A recent research… Read more
The Aston Angle 01/04/2019 Does firm-level jobs data show a ‘canary in the mine’ for the UK economy? Irish times 03/04/2019 Majority of small businesses not interested in scaling The Independent 03/04/2019 Big ideas: Small Irish businesses more innovative than UK and US counterparts Irish Examiner 03/04/2019 Small business ‘content with size’ Irish Examiner 03/04/2019… Read more
Innovation is good isn’t it? We all love exciting new products or services which are useful and add value to our lives. For firms too innovation can be good for attracting new customers and increasing profits. But what happens when innovation goes wrong? We have all experienced this. Think about the last time you tried… Read more
We know that the UK has a ‘long-tail’ of low productivity firms. The ability of these firms to increase their productivity has become a considerable concern for policymakers and is the subject of the Government’s soon to be published Business Productivity Review. It is now recognised that one of the keys to raising productivity within… Read more
Micro businesses, typically businesses with 9 employees or less, play an important role in stimulating innovation, employment and growth. Despite this, relatively little is known about this important segment of the business population as such businesses are often excluded from official surveys. This report published today presents the findings of a survey conducted on micro-businesses… Read more
The Telegraph 05/03/2019 How well do SMEs budget for technology? Reuters 11/03/2019 Pre-recession signals lurk in the UK jobs data- research New York times 11/03/2019 Pre-recession signals lurk in the UK jobs data- research The Aston Angle 22/03/2019 Does firm-level jobs data show a ‘canary in the mine’ for the UK economy ?
The ERC published a new research paper today on job creation and destruction in the UK economy, based on new analysis of ONS data. The analysis, by Mark Hart and Neha Prashar, shows that established firms are already shedding jobs, and although employment is being buoyed by start-ups, these are prone to high failure rates…. Read more
