The UK Recovery

It has been great to hear some good news lately about the UK economy. After years of negative growth and double dip recession, several sectors of the economy have seen positive growth for successive quarters. Many commentators see this as the beginning of better times for UK businesses.

But what will ‘better times’ mean? I can’t imagine we will see businesses spending money and buying services with scant regard, returning to the excess of the Eighties. And by all accounts our climb out of recession will be a slow one. However, if there is a freeing up of money and things become a little easier for businesses, perhaps the focus will subtly shift from watching the purse strings in order to survive to using money to invest in the future of a business.

I would suggest the majority of small businesses currently adopt a ‘fire-fighting’ attitude to IT support. Help is purchased on an ad-hoc basis as this means money is only spent when needed. One issue here is that ‘when needed’ usually means something fairly major has happened and the business has now stopped working and is losing money.

Where businesses are less focussed on cutting costs, we find IT support purchased on monthly subscription is a better option. The business will benefit from a flattened IT spend and in addition an interesting side effect occurs. I guess everyone likes to get their money’s worth and with monthly IT services we find businesses tend to ring us more often - which this is a good thing. Issues get ironed out before they become problems and greater contact means we have a chance to advise on the IT implications of any future plans.

Perhaps as the economy picks up and life becomes a little easier out there, more companies will take the chance to invest just a little bit more in IT, which will in turn allow them to concentrate on growing the business.