Business Link chief looks to recovery

THE boss of the agency at the front line of the battle to help small and medium-sized businesses survive the recession believes the recovery will begin in the middle of next year.

Peter Watson, managing director of Business Link North West, said he feels the region and the wider economy are “at the bottom of the cycle”, but it will be some time before the bad news is behind us.

Far from dwelling on the negatives, he is keenly focused on helping firms to not only survive, but be ready take advantage of the upturn when it comes.

He said: “We’re not out of the woods, by any means, and every time it looks as though things are improving, more bad news comes out – for instance data on days beyond terms – the time big companies are paying smaller suppliers – shows it has gone up to 28 days – so if you’re a small company  working on a 60-day schedule, you’re getting paid on average on day 88, which is not good.

“The two key factors for recovery are credit and confidence and they are inter-linked.Confidence is down, and part of our job is to help improve it.

“The credit situation is very different to anything we have seen before – because of what happened with the banks, but it’s improving now, I believe.”

He said Preston-based Business Link, which is funded by the North West Development Agency to the tune of £18m a year, has continued to invest in its services, not only with more advisory staff, but with new systems.

“We’ve taken on something like 50 people a year over the last two years – so we now have 330 people across the North West now, which has helped us to be on the ground and talking to businesses who need our help.”

Mr Watson said some £750,000 had been invested in the last few months in a new research tool, which it has developed with Experian which will give up-to-date information so public sector business support providers can better target their help.

“It has been a big investment, but one I see being very cost-effective – as it will allow local authorities to target their resources where they are needed.”

He also pledged further investment in Survive and Thrive roadshows, which proved extremely popular around the region when they ran earlier in the year. 

Encouragingly he said there was still high numbers of inquiries from people looking to start their own business, despite the recession.

“The spirit of enterprise in the region is alive and kicking,” he added.