What Business Wants?
The FSB came out this week and provided some comment about what small firms are after in terms of skills and development, it’s interesting that the main issues for them are the same issues facing all businesses, not only their members.
What Business REALLY Wants?
Now I am not so sure that all of these are really the concerns of any small and medium sized business, but I thought I would let you have my list of ‘must have skills’ again in decreasing importance.
A recent member survey by the Federation of Small Businesses asked which skills were most needed by Britain’s smaller and growing businesses in 2011.1 Here is the full range of skills needed for business owners, according to the survey, listed in order of desirability:
The FSB Say’s
- Sales, marketing and PR
- IT
- Financial
- Planning
- Legal and regulatory
- Other (sector expertise)
- Leadership and management
- Communication
- Project management
- Customer service
- Low carbon
- HR
- Languages
- Literacy and numeracy
Richard Says
- Online Presence (being found in the search engines)
- Increasing Sales Using Automation
- Increasing Productivity Using Automation
- Maintaining Customer/Client Relationships
- Literacy and Numeracy of staff
- Support/Mentoring from local enterprise units
- Being able to visualise the medium term future of the business
- Being able to monitor cashflow
- Being able to adapt to changing market conditions
So that’s, it. My spin on what the FSB has produced.
It should not surprise you that there is a big difference between the two. Quite simply what small and medium sized firms need from is mainly sales skills and less interference along with a ‘can do attitude’.
Richard Smith