Member Article

Entrepreneurs Forum launch business performance survey

The Entrepreneurs Forum has launched a major survey to measure the performance of entrepreneurial businesses in the North East.

By speaking to its 400 member businesses and associated organisations, the Forum hopes to compile benchmark data to measure business performance more accurately over time, whilst also identifying challenges facing owner managers.

Nigel Mills, chairman of the Entrepreneurs’ Forum, said: “At the moment, while we have a lot of anecdotal information and data from some companies, we have very little in the way of broad statistics on the overall performance of entrepreneurial businesses in the North East.

“We know that entrepreneurs make an enormous contribution towards the creation of jobs and wealth to support the regional economy, but we need to know how critical the impact is and to what degree it could be improved still further if certain challenges were removed.”

The results of the survey will presented to Central Government to illustrate what is happening within the North East entrepreneurial community, and the challenges many face in seeking to grow their business.

“Taking part in the survey gives entrepreneurs the opportunity to contribute to an
influential piece of ongoing research and to help make a difference to doing business
in the North East in the future,” Nigel added.

The Forum is working with one of its board members, Lisa Hart Shepherd, whose company Acritas is conducting the survey and will collate the data. Ian Shepherdson, former chief US economist at High Frequency Economics and Chief UK Economist for HSBC, helped to conceptualise the survey and will work with the Forum and Acritas to analyse the data.

Over the next 12 months participants will be asked to respond on a quarterly basis, building up critical long term data.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .