Tag Archive for SME

4 lessons from Germany on how British SMEs can thrive post lockdown

Originally written by Sam Rucker on Small Business
As lockdown eases, changes in how we do business have only just begun. One country that might be able to provide valuable insight for SMEs is Germany. Having begun lockdown easing back in April, it is already dealing with the next economic phase that small businesses in the UK will have to adapt to.
Our recent study involving SMEs in Germany reveals what Britain’s economic future might look like, and some best practices for how small UK businesses can face it head on.
Here are 4 lessons from Germany on how British SMEs can thrive post lockdown:
Re-imagine customer journeys to capture support
One silver lining to this dark cloud is the community support SMEs are currently experiencing: Pinterest, for example, recorded an increase of 351 per cent in support of small businesses.
To capitalise on that support, German respondents to the June Vimcar survey recommended ways to remodel customer journeys:
–   Use social media
With people craving social interaction more than ever, social media usage has seen a 40 per cent increase. As a result, many German SMEs are feeding into #supportyourlocals and #nowopen threads.
UK businesses can also take advantage of this social media uplift and use the free

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Upping productivity: how UK SMEs can rival Germany

UK SMEs could add up to £57 billion a year – more than the cost of Brexit – to the UK economy if they were as productive as SMEs in Germany. NatWest has unveiled research, conducted by Cebr, showing that UK SME employees generate £147,000 worth of output per year on average – less than
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The challenges SMEs face when sending employees abroad

When someone decides they want a job that will give them the opportunity to live abroad, the chances are that they’re more likely to send their CV to a large corporate with established headquarters around the world than they are an SME. This needn’t be the case in reality. The opportunity to travel is becoming
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Poor onboarding continues to cost SMEs millions

Almost a third of office workers in SMEs say that they haven’t started a job role despite accepting the initial offer. This figure rises to 41 per cent in organisations with more than 250 employees showing that SMEs are better at ‘onboarding’ new employees. Over 51 per cent admit that they have been enticed by
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RBS pledges £1 billion in extra funding to SMEs

The Royal Bank of Scotland will lend an extra £1 billion to small and medium sized enterprises over the next year. Alison Rose, head of commercial and private banking said that SMEs were the lifeblood of the economy and said ‘there is more that can be done to support them.’ RBS was criticised earlier this
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Lyoness Develops Program To Help Small & Medium Sized Businesses

 
As part of its loyalty program for loyalty merchants, Lyoness increasingly focuses on the area of SME. With the Lyoness Solution Pack SME partners receive marketing solutions which are reserved otherwise to large companies: Efficient tools to gain new customers and retain loyal customers. “This way, also SMEs can implement a professional and personal customer management and, thus, achieve a sustained profit increase“, says Harald Koch, Member of the Board Lyoness Group AG.

Lyoness Solution Pack

The SME service package’s basis is a tablet with a specifically developed app providing a variety of functions for customer binding. A set of customer cards branded with the respective company logo allows Lyoness members to use all Lyoness benefits at all loyalty merchants. In addition, SMEs are provided different modules for their professional new and regular customer management: With the CRM system (Customer Relationship Management) by Salesforce – the worldwide leading provider for CRM solutions – amongst others, newsletters can be sent to selected loyal customers and customer satisfaction surveys can be implemented.
Furthermore, market- and customer-specific statistics and sectoral comparisons can be collected so as to use the data for target group optimized marketing strategies and decisions. Besides all this, SMEs can advertise online sales campaigns and will shortly be able to offer target group

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