Owen Kyffin, Annabel Broome, Alice Keane & John Gardner at BIO2017
Whitley Stimpson, one of the largest accountancy firms in Oxfordshire, was pleased to attend the 2017 Business in Oxford (BIO 2017) exhibition at The King’s Centre in Oxford last Thursday.
As part of the firm’s exhibit, an interactive survey was available to attendees to complete via touchscreen tablets with the aim of gaining a greater understanding of the vast range of issues currently facing businesses and their growth at the moment.
BIO 2017 was attended by over 950 delegates, sponsors, presenters and exhibitors which made for a diverse pool of business types responding to the survey and the results made for encouraging reading. Over 90% of surveyed businesses experienced growth in the last year, with half of them observing this organically. Only a quarter of businesses surveyed was expecting to raise finance in the next 12 months and of those most were anticipating this would be from a bank loan or sales.
The survey found that 30% of businesses believed that BREXIT was the biggest issue facing them at the moment, closely followed by recruitment. Another question about recruitment found that 46% of businesses were struggling to find skilled workers and 26% were finding it difficult to accommodate flexible working. 15% of businesses said the increase in the national minimum wage impacted them, but the cost of it was passed onto their customers.
Alarmingly, 30% of businesses had not thought about the introduction of MTD (Making Tax Digital) at all and 40% thought they were not receiving enough information about it. The survey also found that just 5% of business owners were looking to sell in the next year and finding a buyer was their biggest concern. In addition to this, over 80% of businesses said they would like to know more about R&D tax credit and patent box claims.
Whitley Stimpson was well represented on the day with a team made up of directors, managers and trainees from the Banbury, Bicester, High Wycombe and Witney offices. This gave guests a great opportunity to meet a wide range of staff, and discuss the specific issues that were affecting them in more depth.
To speak to a member of our experienced team regarding any of the topics covered in our survey, please follow one of these links.
Owen Kyffin Stuart Haigh Andy Jones Marie Morgan Stephen Payne Alan Morgan
If you would like more information about this year’s exhibition, or details on how you can be a part of next year’s, please visit www.businessinoxford.com