
Here at Taskmaster Enterprises we get intelligence from all sorts of places, but a nice chunky survey is something I always love to sink my teeth into.
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The Private Business Barometer, which surveys businesses between $10 million and $100 million in revenue, is such a report, although of course my own business towers over many of these respondents.
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The businesses on the report have posted growth of 6% in revenue and 7% in profit in the last 12 months – not great, but reasonable in what remains patchy conditions.
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One snippet I picked up from the commentary around the report was around pricing, which is a major challenge for the companies involved. Basically, they are being forced to discount for a number of reasons, including poor consumers sales and completion from cheap imports.
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But another reason is stock – they’ve got too much of it. Either because their sales have been lower than expected, or because they bought up big on the strength of the US dollar.
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Too much stock can be a killer for a start-up. It ties up working capital and effectively weighs down your business. You don’t have funds to use for other opportunities and you’ve got a pay to store the stuff.
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Be very careful with stock right now. Do some planning and analysis and take a conservative approach.
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