Major areas for increased investment include marketing (67%), sales (63%) and IT (50%), demonstrating an offensive strategy to economic uncertainty. Marketing activity for the year focused on online activities with respondents either agreeing or strongly agreeing that email marketing (63%), website development (58%) and social media (54%) were the priorities.
30% respondents said they would also consider outsourcing as a means to reduce 2012 overheads.
Its really positive to see the strategy of investment despite all the doom and gloom out there, said Tim Walker, Managing Director. It shows that smaller businesses are more resilient to current economic uncertainty, and the government should recognise and reward them as a major contributor to the future of UK growth.
As part of the SME Insight education series, Iconnyx and The Supper Club a group of some of Britains most successful entrepreneurs have developed a whitepaper guide offering businesses advice on how to forecast effectively and set an accurate budget, read the whitepaper in full by downloading it here.