NOVEMBER 2012
WWW.TOMIMAGAZINE.COM
20
iMEDIAte
ENTREPRENEURS
IN 2012
L
OSING
SLEEP
BUT NOT
LOSING
HOPE
A Revealing Survey of Small Business Owners
in the USA and Europe as They Cope with the
Economic Crisis.
-
Optimism presides
:
Many more small busi-
nesses are optimistic than pessimistic despite
tough times in the last year.
-
Working hard for new customers
:
A majority
of small businesses in five our of six countries
reported increases in new customers. The av-
erage working week for a small business own-
er is 42.8 hours, but Germans work nearly 8
hours longer per week, on average, than their
US counterparts.
-
Stresses and strains
:
The downturn has
brought more stress to 43% of small business
owners, and 31% reported sleeping problems.
More women reported stress, sleeplessness
and health problems than men.
-
Eager but lacking language skills
:
Small busi-
nesses who had recruited school graduates
gave them higher ratings for keenness and
motivation than for language skills.
-
Few small businesses seek outside help
:
Only
22%
of small businesses had turned to outside
help from elected representatives and busi-
ness groups and those that did preferred a
business organization or a local representative
to a national politician.
NEW YORK, Oct. 9, 2012
(
GLOBE NEWS-
WIRE) -- A wide-ranging report published to-
day gives a unique and revealing portrait of
entrepreneurs in the USA and Europe as they
cope with another year of economic crisis. De-
spite financial pressures, stresses and sleep-
lessness, they still have faith in their futures
and maintain the determination to succeed.
Published today by Hiscox, the the in-
ternational specialist insurer, the fourth DNA
of an entrepreneur study reports findings from
a survey of 3,000 owners or partners in small
and medium-sized businesses in six countries;
the United States, the United Kingdom, the
Netherlands, German, France and Spain. “Our
fourth annual study of small businesses con-
firms what we know from working closely with
them; they consider and manage a wide varie-
ty of local, national and global risks everyday
while keeping faith in their values and ambi-
tions. We hope that the insights in our study
will help all those supporting small businesses
make their essential contribution to economic
recovery” - commented Bronek Masojada, CEO
at Hiscox.
Key Themes from the Study
:
Optimists outnumber pessimists
Although small businesses had experienced
tough trading conditions, the study found 48%
of respondents were optimistic about the year
ahead for their business, compared to 27%
who declared themselves pessimists and 26%
who were unsure. The Spanish (28%) were
the least optimistic, the Dutch (61%) the
most, and the US (55%) was in the middle. In
five of the six countries, a majority of re-
spondents reported an increase in new cus-
tomers: the leader was Germany (72%) fol-
lowed by the USA (64%) and the Netherlands
(62%).
Across all countries, 75% of respond-
ents hope to avoid layoffs in the year ahead or
even recruit new employees, and 61% were
not letting the Eurozone crisis affect their
business plans (575 in the five EU countries).
Only 20% of US small businesses reported
their plans were changed by the Eurozone cri-
sis. As many as 91% of all respondents found
benefits from running a small business as
compared to working in a large company.
Tight finances - but stable relationships
with lender
Forty-five percent of small busi-
nesses reported profit growth over the past 12
months (33% in Spain, 50% in the US). How-
ever, across all countries, 62% did not need to
renegotiate borrowing terms from a lender,
and 74% of those who had renegotiated had
been partially or entirely successful.
Small business owners stressed but de-
termined
Across all six countries, the average
working week for leaders of small businesses
was 42.8 hours, and 2.1 of those hours were