Impact of Covid-19 on SMEs - April Survey

Introduction

So what has been the impact of Covid 19 on SMEs so far? In the last week, we asked company and self-employed business owners to complete a short, anonymous survey to understand how they are responding to Covid 19 in order that we can all take advantage of best practice. We wanted to understand the impact this worldwide emergency is having on SMEs and what they think the challenges are and potential opportunities there may be in the future. 

We want to thank everyone who participated in our survey. Here are the full results.

Survey Findings

I don’t think anyone will be surprised but Covid 19 has had a more negative impact on businesses, with 79% describing a negative impact. But 14% of business have fortunately experienced a positive impact. 

There are some businesses where government restrictions have meant that they have had to close. In our survey, only 10% have had to temporarily stop all operations, whereas the majority of businesses (59%) have seen a partial closure of their operations and 31% are still fully operational. 

We asked how optimistic business owners are feeling about the future of the business. Only 7% of businesses gave a maximum 10 score, whereas 31% scored 5 or below. The average score is 6.4. 

The three biggest challenges facing businesses were cash flow (79%), operational difficulties due to the government restrictions (45%) and forecasting (41%). Other key challenges that were mentioned, were clients cancelling work or having budget constraints, ability to do sales and marketing and managing staff well-being and internal communications. 

The vast majority of businesses (93%) have taken the opportunity to concentrate on other aspects of their business. 45% of businesses have taken the opportunity to do social good, 42% have improved processes and 35% have undertaken innovation. Other opportunities that have arisen include home schooling children (!), importing shortages such as Covid 19 kits, finishing current contracts early and keeping in contact with existing and potential clients. 

32% of businesses are planning to apply for the Job Retention Scheme, 20% the Small Business Rates Relief and 16% for the Help for the Self Employed scheme. 

The 3 areas of guidance or services that SMEs most need in the next 3 months are how to assess the Government Initiatives (38%), how to transform businesses to deal with new normal (28%) and how to optimise cash flow (10%). 

As many of us are adapting to working from home, we were interested in which communication you have found most useful. 38% of businesses like using email but 31% are finding group video conferencing useful too.  Whatsapp groups were also mentioned as a great tool.

And finally 

We wanted to thank you for the kind comments from our clients about the support we have been giving businesses over the last few weeks. Please keep reaching out to us as we go through this together. 

We also had a very generous offer from Claire at Smart Marketing UK. She would be happy to offer advice free of charge if you want to create a sales and marketing strategy that could supercharge your recovery once this is over. As she said in her note ‘if we can all help each other during these difficult times, hopefully we will all come through it’. To contact Clare email: claire@smartmarketinguk.com