Mind the (Agility) Gap

Lord Young's report 'Growing Your Business' highlights the growing gap between the agility of small businesses and the growth of large companies. It emphasizes the importance of small businesses in generating growth and employment. According to the report, lack of access to finance and confidence are the two main reasons why small companies face difficulty in growing. The report proposes solutions like start-up loans for everybody and vouchers for business growth advice to tackle these issues. It also suggests simplifying the labyrinthine business support infrastructure that exists in the UK. The author suggests that to support small businesses, the government should connect the dots and speed up the rate of generating and finding new business opportunities. This could be achieved by massively simplifying the Kafka-esque complexity and inefficiency of doing business with the public sector, and by creating a National Needs Network - a business to business marketplace that aggregates the needs, requirements, and opportunities of buyers from the public, private, and not-for-profit sector.