Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur; even though they might have encountered huge challenges in starting and growing their businesses, or even fallen into business ownership through redundancy, the vast majority of entrepreneurs would do it all over again, a recent global study of Regus shows. Although 55% of entrepreneurs report that current economic conditions are a deterrent, fully 85% would start again. This in spite of the fact that a quarter of entrepreneurs today say they were forced into this decision when they lost their previous employment or were made redundant.
SMEs accounted for 99.8% of non-financial enterprises, equating to 20.7 million businesses. The overwhelming majority (92.2%) were micro-enterprises, defined as those with fewer than 10 employees. In spite of this overwhelming evidence of the importance of SMEs as “the engines of growth” in economies throughout the world, entrepreneurs see many deterrents to their activities. Half of them cite the state of the economy and market domination by large corporations as serious hindrances. But the biggest deterrents to setting up business today as reported by existing entrepreneurs are the lack of access to credit (76%), red tape (74%) and lack of government support (61%). Given the above, entrepreneurs will be turning even more to more flexible working practices such as flexible workspaces that allow them to upscale or downscale operations rapidly and invest all their capital into growth strategies rather than lengthy leases. Already 58% of entrepreneurs use flexible working locations for more than half the working week, compared with only 39% non-business owners.
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