Small business says its time to face up to time management

Managing cash flow has long been a key concern for Britainís small businesses but the importance of effective time management is now hot on its heels, research* from Bibby Financial Services has revealed.



The small business owner and managerís ability to ëmultitaskí has been named as the second most important issue faced by the countryís small and medium-sized firms on a daily basis.

The face-to-face survey showed the pressure of running a business and the resulting quantity of tasks it brings was second only to cash flow matters. As a result the majority of owners and managers now consider multitasking is both ëeconomically justifiedí and ënecessaryí, and therefore crucial to the performance of their businesses.

The culture of litigation and increasing government legislation relating to employment and health and safety issues was the third most frequently mentioned area. The top time-consuming issues cited were employment contracts, employment advice, health and safety compliance, advice and management.

Staff related matters took both fourth and fifth places in the survey, with the sourcing of skilled employees proving the greatest cause of concern. This is further backed up by recent Bibby research** which showed more than a third (36%) of small firms find it difficult to recruit skilled staff and that 20% of their appointments are made after seeing just one or two candidates.

David Robertson, chief executive of Bibby Financial Services, said: ìWhile managing cash flow is understandably one of the key day-to-day concerns for small businesses, time management is clearly at the root of all the other major issues named in our survey.

ìIf cash flow creates daily challenges then the chances are it will have a serious impact on the owner managerís time. The same is true with the employment and recruitment issues but as with the range of invoice finance and business support solutions we provide, there are other services available to help remove some of the time pressures faced by business owners up and down the country.

ìOutsourcing ënon-coreí activities is just one solution that can make a big difference to the way a business operates. We would strongly urge owners and managers to invest some quality time now researching what outsourced services are available to them with a view to these helping them regain some time to focus on the tasks that are key to their companyís ongoing success.î