MSMEs were found to have a share of 45% and 35% in production and exports of the nation respectively. A discussion named ‘IT Solutions for MSMEs-Lip Service or Real Solutions’ was conducted which provided suggestions for serving the MSME sector. It revealed the need for understanding the market and providing indigenous and simple solutions which help in building confidence among MSMEs.

It was found that a contribution of 40%-50% of the economic activity was given by MSME sector. However, there were some manipulations and undeserved issues against the sector. There were some misplaced regulatory and business compulsions in the sector. These had to be avoided for enhancing the growth of MSMEs in Indian market.

According to a study by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), it was estimated that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) contribute 22% to India’s GDP by 2012. The contribution according to the study was 17% in 2009. The contribution to exports which was 40% then, was estimated to increase to 44% by 2012.

The post MSME Sector was the Second-Largest Contributor to India’s GDP first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

Several restrictions were mentioned for eligibility to be hired by the WOTC. However, appropriate tax benefits were provided. Tax credits of up to $2,400 was provided for each new adult hire. Up to $1,200 was provided for each summer youth hire. Each new disabled veteran hire was offered with tax credit up to $4,800. The tax credit was up to $9,000 for each new long-term TANF recipient hired over a two-year period. Apart from the federal tax incentives, state credits are also offered by 39 states for employing people from disadvantaged groups.

Qualification of new adult employees was based on the rule that they should work for 120 hours. The qualification for summer youth employees was that they should work for at least 90 days from 1st of May to 15th of September. Tax bills can be saved by hiring employees from such groups. However, the cost of hiring an employee was not covered by the Work Opportunity Tax Credit. So a person should not be hired just to order or claim the credit.

The post Small Businesses in the U.S. Hiring According to the WOTC first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

It was estimated that the next important factor was the simplification of labour laws which was promoted by 75% of the MSME respondents. It was followed by the promotion of innovation and cutting edge technology which was revealed by 58% of the MSME respondents.

The report revealed that the factors such as high cost of credit, procurement of raw material at a competitive cost and delayed payments in decreasing order of importance were responsible for the inhibition and growth of MSME sector. The high cost of credit was found to be the most important factor by about 79% of the MSME respondents, followed by procurement of raw material at a competitive cost by 64% of them and delayed payments by 55% of the respondents.

The benefits of the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Programmes (NMCP) schemes was availed by only 5 to 10% of the MSME respondents. However, the benefits were not availed by 60 to 70 % of MSME respondents. The study was also made on the concept of registration of the MSMEs under the MSMED Act 2006. The study revealed that 47% of the MSME respondents were registered and 30% were not registered.

The post Know About CII Survey Highlights on Indian MSMEs first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

Within the EU, the employment variations regarding employment preferences were very drastic. With 25% and 19%, respectively,Finland and Cyprus had the highest rates of entrepreneurial activity. Belgium, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia, on the other hand, had entrepreneurship rates below 10%.

Reasons for opting employee status or self employment

• 4 in 10 EU citizens referred “regular and fixed income” and 35% mentioned “stability of employment” as the reasons for preferring employment status. Across all of the surveyed countries, most of the respondents in Turkey and Hungary (75% and 70%, respectively)a regular, fixed income (vs. an irregular, variable income) was being cited as a reason.
• Respondents in eastern European countries opiniated some other constraints such as lack of finances or lack of an appropriate business idea to be a major reason, which varied from their counterparts in all other countries.
• But interestingly, a large majority of EU citizens who expressed a preference for self-employment, due to reasons such as personal freedom, independence, achieving self satisfaction by following personal interest (mentioned by 68%) or freedom to choose their own place and time of work (35%).Entrepreneurship rates in the EU were higher for men, younger interviewees, 25-54 year-olds, those with higher levels of education and respondents with an entrepreneurial family background.

The post Basic Statistics on Entrepreneurship in UK first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

Nonfarm Private Employment Highlights — July Report:

• Total employment: +42,000
• Small businesses(1-49 employees): +21,000
• Medium businesses: +21,000
• Goods-producing sector: -21,000
• Service-providing sector: 63,000

Because of the main contribution of small businesses, there is an increase in economic growth. The employment data which is specific to businesses with less than 50 employees can be found in ADP Small business Report every month.

• Total small business employment: +21,000
• Goods-producing sector: -8,000 small business jobs
• Service-providing sector: +29,000 small business jobs

There was an increase in employment by small sizes business firms which have less than 50 employees increased by 21,000 in July. The small businesses which have 500 or more employees remained stable. There was an increase of 21,000 in the employment by small firms with employees numbered between 50 and 500.

The post Know About ADP National Employment Report in the Month of July 2010 first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

The Small Business Survival Index helps the small business owners, investors and also the lawmakers understand the public policy burdens which are placed on entrepreneurship and small business in the states, and it ranks them accordingly.

As per their policy environments, the top ten entrepreneur-friendly states under the “Small Business Survival Index 2009” are:
1) South Dakota, 2) Nevada, 3) Texas, 4) Wyoming, 5) Washington, 6) Florida, 7) South Carolina, 8 ) Colorado, 9) Alabama, and 10) Virginia.

In contrast, the bottom ten include: 42) Hawaii, 43) Minnesota, 44) Massachusetts, 45) Rhode Island, 46) Maine, 47) Vermont, 48) New York, 49) California, 50) New Jersey and 51) District of Columbia.

The post Small Business Survival Index 2009 first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

• Few of them know that what SEO is but they are not ready to spend their marketing budgets on it.
• Only just 14 percent identified SEO as of strategical importance to their business.
• Almost 23 percent of the marketers were not sure about the benefits of SEO.
• About 14 percent expressed that they were no benefits of SEO as per their knowledge.

As per the study, majority of the small business enterprises are not taking few simple steps to enhance their search engine rankings. Just 28 percent are using relevant keywords on their sites. As per the dotSEO benchmark study, small and medium sized enterprises are getting the more basic SEO requirements.

The post SMEs are Ignoring SEO first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

Discretionary spending on SBA:

• FY2011 Request: $994 million
• FY2010 Enacted: $700 million

The SBA Budget Highlights

• $28 billion in loan guarantees to help small businesses. It will help them to access credit and create jobs.
• The SBA supports small business loans, but does not directly loan money, 1/3 of the SBA budget goes to salaries and expenses.
• The SBA is losing $5 million which is used for liquidation of credit. The budget states that the total outlay is $1.24 billion in addition to the $994 million .
• The Budget provides $ 165 Million in subsidy against 7(a) loan extend program.
• $ 14 million Supports Business Growth and Cluster Development
• $1.1 billion in Funds Long-Term Disaster Recovery

The post 2011 Budget Allocations to SBA first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

There is an increase in longer term plans to use cloud computing within five years by two-thirds. It rose from 47 percent in 2008 to 73 percent in 2009. The businesses which stated that they would never use cloud has decreased to half the number over the past 15 months from 53 percent to 27 percent among those who were surveyed.

The survey also showed that there is a lack of preparedness on the security front for the majority of the companies which are planning to move. About 85 percent of them expressed that they have not planned on taking any extra security measures. About 71 percent of them have not worked on the strategy for implementing cloud computing.

About 35 percent of the SMEs believed cloud computing would save money in 2008 but this has increased to 51 percent. In the same way, 35 percent thought that the cloud computing will enable home working in 2008 and this has increased to 43 percent.

The post 50 Percent IT SMB’s are Planning or Using Cloud Services in 2010 first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

As per a study by the commission, 25 percent of EU SMEs export or have exported in the past 3 years. It also showed that the firms which are internationally active have seen an increase employment rate of 7 percent when compared to only 1 percent for those which are not internationally active. According to the study by the commission, about 76 percent of all exporting SMEs are inclined towards the Single Market. The international small and medium sizes enterprises are 3 times more likely to be innovative when compared with the non-international small and medium sized enterprises.

It clearly shows that it is very much beneficial for the businesses to go international. As per these figures, the Single Market is more important for the economic recovery.

The post Single Market for SMEs first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

As per a recent study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, 1 in 2 small to large businesses would change hands between 2006 and 2016. But as per the survey conducted by The Growth Coach which is a national franchise of small business coaches shows that the recession has resulted in many small business owners to claim sales revenue below $5 million and less than 100 employees to back step their selling plans and to delay retirement. This is mainly due to negative impact of degraded business performance which would have near-term selling price of their business.

As per the survey results, about 50 percent of The Growth Coach business coaches who responded to the survey expressed that there is delay in selling of businesses by the baby boomer small business clients because of recession. They also reported that less than 10 percent of baby boomer small business owners are expecting to sell their business in the upcoming 5 years.

• About 25 percent of small business coaches reported that the main reason for selling their business is to encash and collect the equity.
• 23 percent of the small business owners are simply wishing to retire.
• Almost 28 percent have agreed that the small business owners are setting aside about 2 years to properly get ready to sell their business.
• About 28 percent of them are wanting to sell to third party buyers who are non-competitors.
• Just 14 percent of them are expecting to sell to family members.

The post Small Businesses Owners are Not Wishing to Sell their Businesses first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

During working hours, many of the employees go for instant messaging, online gaming, social networks and video websites which is decreasing the productivity. Unrestricted Internet access will encourage employees to download illegal or copyrighted content from peer to peer networks. They can also abuse the company e-mail system. They will just waste the valuable time in surfing useless websites.

Around 70 to 80 percent of employees commit computer crimes against their employers. Employees commit financial fraud or intellectual property theft.

It is important for the small businesses to keep a check on their employees than getting into potential pitfalls. There are a very wide range of employee monitoring options available. They are Internet monitoring and filtering, e-mail and instant messaging logging, centralized real time monitoring, screenshot and keystroke logging. They all vary in cost and complexity. On installing them, it will be very easy to monitor employees. It will be very easy to keep an eye on new employees or who are potentially problematic. It is also necessary to check ongoing performances of the employees. It will increase effectiveness of the employee and productivity. By applying few steps, it will be easy to eliminate the non work related Internet activity and legal liability. Overall, it will enhance the productivity of the employee which results in increased productivity of the company.

The post Monitoring Employees Increases Productivity of Small Businesses first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

According to QBEs third survey of small and medium sized enterprises, 75 percent of UK SMEs see a competitive price is the most vital factor for buying insurance. It is felt that UK business decision making is being impacted by recession-related cost constraints. This was shown by the survey’s findings that 71 percent of SMEs in the United Kingdom trust that they would face difficulty if the current economic conditions do not persist.

As per 75 percent of SMEs in UK feel that the competitive price is the key factor for buying business insurance. Except Midlands and Wales, other UK regions including London, 68 percent felt that insurer was the second most important factor after competitive price.

As per the survey, just 16 percent of UK SMEs are tending to have an advice from the insurance industry in 2010. About 11 percent are looking for insurance brokers and only 5 percent are trying to find insurers.

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The poll also gave the opinions of small-Business owners on new legislation, economic condition of the country and government policies.

There is 50 percent of employment in private sector by small-Business owners. Small business is a heart of the economy, as per president Brack Obama.

• As perceived by 25 percent of small business owners, high taxes are the primary threat for job creation.
• Around 23 percent of small business owners believe that the chronically high budget deficits will be the chief issue over the coming years.
• More than 22 percent of the small business owners think that expansion of the government’s role in the economy will be the main threat for job creation.

The post High Taxes Hindering the Process of Job Creation: Lombardo Consulting Group first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

There was an increase in exemption amount over the past several years by legislators. Until the tax was non-existent this year, there was also rollback in the tax rate.

Some of the small business owners and farm owners believe that the estate tax would become death tax for them. It is very difficult for the family-owned businesses and farms to pay estate tax.

The post Estate Tax: A New Problem for Small Businesses Firms first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

Only uncaring, untrained cashier is the target who often gets cheated. Proper employee training and some advanced devices make tracking counterfeit bills to spot easily. It is very hard to identify a fake bill without proper training. As, it has become easy for criminals to hasten creation of higher-quality bad bills by using sophisticated digital printers.

It is very troublesome for the cash based businesses like gas stations, fast food restaurants, liquor stores, grocery stores. They are the easy targets for criminals.

Around $182 million fake U.S. Currency in the fiscal year were removed from circulation with the help of Secret Service who are in charge of investigating and preventing counterfeiting. The amount which was removed from circulation was double the amount in fiscal 2008.

So, small businesses owners must be careful of the threat of fake money. Small businesses can follow some steps to easily overcome this problem.

• Teach employees how to identity fake money in short time.
• To purchase hand held machines to check money with low cost. Now these machines are available at $100 or less.
• The small businesses owners should take care of every bill to check it for true money.

The post Fake money a growing problem for small businesses first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

As per the June report, data which is specific to businesses with less than 50 employees will be reported in ADP Small Business Report every month as an impact of the contribution of small businesses in economic growth and employment. As per the report by ADP Small Businesses:

• Total small business employment: -1,000
• Goods-producing sector: -21,000 small business jobs
• Service-providing sector: +20,000 small business jobs

1 to 49 employees payrolls are represented by small businesses. The data which is included in the ADP National Employment Report is mainly based on the size of Payroll. In few of the cases, businesses employing more workers than designated by the size grouping belong to small and medium size payrolls.

According to the ADP Small Business Report, there was a decrease in private employment in small businesses by 1,000 in June.

The post Small Businesses Employment Data: ADP Report first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

The Index also showed increase of 13.1 percent in May in online revenue for small organizations. The revenue at medium organizations had an increase of 21.3 percent.

Statistics of revenue growth

• As per the Blackbaud Index report, there was overall 6.2 percent growth in fund raising in 3 months till May 2010 when compared to the same period in 2009.
• The index also found that there was an increase of 8.6 percent in May in 3 month overall revenue for small organizations.
• The Index also revealed increase of 8.7 percent in large organizations.

The post Growth in Online Revenue: Blackbaud Index of Online Giving first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

From the data released by economists of US government, the unemployment rate has increased by 9.6% in July. As per the data released by PayNet, companies are avoiding new loans.

Index statistics

• As per the data of PayNet, moderate delinquent accounts or which are behind 30 days, there was a drop in June to 2.96 percent from 3.29 percent in May. This was the lowest rate since November of 2007 i.e., before the start of recession.
• The severe delinquent accounts which are more behind than 90 days, drop of 0.99 percent in June from 1.12 percent in May.
• The accounts which are behind 180 days or more or which are in default and not expected to be paid ever fell to 0.88 percent in June from 0.92 percent in May.

The post US small Business Borrowings Edges Up in the month of June: Pay Net Index first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

As per the research commissioned by storage provider SafeStore, around a fifth of the firms are planning to cut down any salary payments on the company’s pay roll.

According to Forum of Private Business member company, the increase in VAT will make things harder. The Federation of Small Businesses has accepted the government’s decision to postpone the VAT increase until the new year.

The FSBs appealed was ignored by the government that the VAT rate of 20% which will help to cut the deficit by £11bn should not be applicable to sectors like construction.

The smallest firms for whom the cash flow is crucial should pass the increase in VAT on to their clients as the idea of a sector specific VAT rate raise was not considered by the government.

Some of them a re considering relocating and most of them would only meet the costs of the tax increase by downsizing according to the firm’s polled last month.

The post Increase in VAT Tax Rate: SME’s plan to cut expenditure first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

Small Business Performance

• There was an annualized increase of 3.2 percent in the first-quarter of 2010 of real gross domestic products. There was a sign of positive growth and continued economic recover in the third quarter. There was an increase in the overall output by higher expenditures across the board, as there was increase in expenditures by the consumers and businesses.
• In spite of unemployment remaining high at 9.7 percent, non-farm payroll increased by a net 283,000 jobs which was a positive sign that hiring has increased.
• With the exception of construction, financial activities, and information, many major industries experienced net job growth during the first quarter of 2010.
• Relatively an year ago, optimism was higher in the first-quarter by seeing broad economic trends.

The post Small Business statistics in Q1 2010 first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.

In his speech, he said that small firms handle the export business merely as a sideline and only 4 percent of the small business sector exports. He also mentioned that Fortune 500 companies which constitute a small percent of businesses in the country are major contributors to exports. Many of the small businesses think that their goods and services are not worth selling in foreign markets.

A recent NSBA (National Small Business Association) study stated that 40 percent of small businesses that are not exporting. These small businesses would consider exporting if they are sure that they had available credit and that foreign buyers would pay for their goods or services.

Another major factor is that if they have more knowledge of foreign markets, they would be more confident about exporting goods and services. Obama’s export initiative is more specific to make the export sector more appealing to smaller firms. He vowed to raise credit for entrepreneurs by $2 billion through the Export-Import Bank. He focused on Big Markets like China,India, Brazil.

The post Obama Fixes Small Business Export Target first appeared on BIG-TOPICS.COM.