Research from Bank of Cyprus UK has found that 47% of Britain’s SME owners would like to pass on their business to their children when they retire. However, less than 20% genuinely believe that they will do so.

The survey of 500 SME leaders also revealed that men were more interested than women for their children taking over the business. Optimism appears greater amongst younger SME owners, with 58% between the ages of 18-34 hopeful that their children would be happy to take on the business, and 40% believing that this will actually happen. Alternatively, less than 10% of SME owners aged 55 or over think that their children will take over the business when they retire.

Tony Leahy, Head of Communications at Bank of Cyprus UK, said: “Many SME owners have established and developed their business with the dream that their children will one day take over.  However, as time passes and they head towards retirement the reality dawns that, for many, this is unlikely.

This is a complex and emotional issue as many SME owners can find it difficult to let go of the reins or trust others outside the family to take their business forward. Rather than avoid the issue, it is important that business owners discuss this with their bank relationship manager, accountant or other trusted business advisor, as a failure to address succession planning may put their business at risk.

Sourcing IT service and support providers can be an overwhelming task. Whether you’re in Procurement, Human resources, IT, or running the company. Most people don’t have the time or know-how to get started.

Online Computing asked small and medium business owners to give a list of 10 key things you should ask your current or future IT provider before signing or renewing with them.

Is the service provider proactive?

A proactive service means they’ll stop problems before they occur, reducing downtime. The average London company loses £1.00 per minute per member of staff when their networks are down. A good IT company will monitor and resolve problems on the horizon like an out of date, overworked server.

Which factors should I take into account when choosing the right IT supplier?

Ask yourself the following questions. Are you looking for a company that fixes problems just before or shortly after they happen? How many dedicated help desk staff do they have? Do they offer out of hours support? Where are they based in relation to your location? What level of in-house IT expertise does your company have? How long could your business run if your computers went down? How soon can your provider fix a problem?

What accreditation’s should they have?

Find out if they are registered with the MSP Alliance (Managed Service Provider Alliance), and if they are accredited with Microsoft, Cisco and similar companies. Ask to see testimonials from their clients about their services – an IT firm with a ton of accreditation’s doesn’t necessarily mean good support or customer service!

How and when will I be charged?

It’s subjective to each IT service provider but the charge models generally fall into three categories:

• Fixed-price will give you unlimited support, repairs, updates and on-site visits at an inclusive price.
• Break Fix is a contract offering network support but charges you extra if something breaks and needs fixing or if you’d like an engineer to visit. This inevitably leads to the same computers being fixed every month and costing you the equivalent of a new computer.
• Banked time is like a pay-as-you-go mobile. You buy hours and then use them when necessary. For companies with more than five computers this works out to be costly and your banked-hours won’t cover out of hours support, on-site visits or an immediate resolution of your problem (that’ll cost extra).

Does bigger mean better?

A one man operation is unlikely to cope with needs of a fast growing SME that relies on their networks running 24/7. With larger providers, help desk staff may be too technical for your employees and lack customer service skills. Go for a medium-sized IT company that offers a wide range of skills, abilities and services including: hardware, software, security, data backup, support and networking.

What contract length should I go for?

If they insist on a contract longer than a year ask “why?”. If you are financially planning for the long term  it’s worth asking about the benefits from having a longer contract.

Does the provider work with other companies within my market sector?

Ask if you may contact a similar sized business in your market sector that they support. Get an understanding of how successfully they have worked together.

What about a dedicated account manager?

Having a dedicated account manager is important. Ultimately, they’ll want to build a business relationship and have a good understanding of your company’s goals, growth plans and IT needs. It also means not having to explain yourself to a new person every time you call.

Does the provider offer remote management and monitoring?

How many times have you had to log off and walk away from the PC whilst the tech guy is installing another vital patch or update? Remote management and monitoring will provide upgrades, reduce the chances of crashing without disrupting your business or charging you for call outs.

What happens when my business size changes?

Establish an IT strategy with your IT service partner. Before your initial consultation, let them know how your company is likely to grow or consolidate. Are new departments, staff and computers part of the plan? This should be included in their proposal.

Research supplied by Online Computing

82 per cent of SMEs who use factoring or invoice discounting would recommend it to other businesses as a form of funding a YouGov survey commissioned by the Asset Based Finance Association (ABFA) says.

As soon as an invoice is raised on a purchase, invoice financing makes capital available and according to 65 per cent of users this is the key benefit of utilising this form of funding.

As a flexible financing option it allows businesses receiving a customer’s order to potentially have a stronger cash flow position and not have to be concerned so much about liquidity.

Managing Director of invoice finance provider Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance explains “As the economy begins to stabilise, many businesses will be looking to maximise expansion opportunities and invoice finance is ideal for this, as the amount that can be borrowed grows directly with sales.

“This means that the more trading success a firm enjoys, the more funding can be released and re-invested for growth. For those who have used invoice finance, it is the preferred method of funding, however, there are a small number of companies who may not fully appreciate how the products work.

“Therefore, the more recommendations those in the know can make, the more businesses will be able to access high levels of working capital for scenarios such as expansion and refinancing, to more complex requirements such as M&A activity and turnarounds.”

The latest ABFA figures released show that 44,000 businesses use invoice financing in the UK.

If your company permanently lost all data, it would have a 60 per cent chance of going under. Did you know on average, it takes 21 days and £12,000 to recreate just 20MB of lost accounting information? It is crucial to your business’s survival to back up data and form a disaster recovery plan, now more than ever.

What is remote data back up?

It’s essentially an insurance policy for your company’s day-to-day and organisational information. As you work, your data is sent over a secure line to a protected databank, and can be retrieved in part or in whole, at a later date.

You have a 1 in 25 chance of having your laptop stolen, broken or destroyed, every year.

No matter how careful you are, it can and does still happen. When an MI5 agent’s laptop was stolen in 2009, the counterintelligence agency assured the public that the data was encrypted. Aside from password protecting and backing up data, it’s a good lesson to use a virtual private network (VPN). The laptop would act as a terminal, not holding vital data as it would securely log-in to the company’s network after authentication.

50 per cent of critical corporate data is stored unprotected on desktops and laptops.

Without password protection or even encryption of the data, the possibilities of damage aren’t just caused by undercover spies and petty thieves, but users on a network with access to files in the common drives.

The cost and time to recover a typical SME’s data.

One Megabyte (MB) is about 500 pages of text. With this in mind, think of the costs:
19 days and £10,700 to recreate just 20 MB of lost sales data
21 days and £12,000 to recreate just 20 MB of lost accounting data
42 days and £61,000 to recreate just 20 MB of lost engineering data

10 years later and 500 times larger…

Did you know your computer stores 500 times more data compared to 10 years ago? This increased capacity amplifies the impact of data loss. If your company uses computers and servers older than five years old, with today’s demands on the hard drive and CPU, the chances of disk failure are higher.

Only 34 per cent of companies actually test their tape backup.

Of the 34 per cent of companies that test their tape backup, 45 per cent find failures in recovering data. Think of the 66 per cent of companies that have never tested the system they trust to recover their company from disaster. When was the last time you checked tape drive?

60 per cent of SMEs collapse after losing their data.

According to a recent report by the National Computer Security Association, within six months, 60 per cent of SMEs dissolve after permanently losing their data. It’s a sad and avoidable statistic that can be combatted with a disaster recovery / business continuity plan.

Only one third of companies have a disaster recovery plan.

Does your company have one? It should form part of your systems and training process within the company. You can start today by jotting down the following considerations: how can the company continue to operate without data (do you have backup, printouts, etc?); what information is essential and what can be replaced?; how much money does the company lose every day it’s down?; How can you decrease the likelihood of a disaster (how often is the equipment checked and tested)? What steps should you take to resume business as normal after a flood, server failure, etc? Remember, essential data is more than just documents and spreadsheets. Think of the configuration settings, user names, passwords, serial codes and licenses, to name a few.

Tape backup went out with Windows 98.

It’s widely agreed by businesses to be unreliable, prone to failure and not secure. Added to this, how often is the tape changed, duplicated for contingency, taken off site, stored in a secure place, password protected and tested? An automated off-site online backup system also removes the chances of human errors.

66 per cent of small businesses are worried about their disaster recovery plan.

The 66 per cent of small businesses that have a disaster recovery plan and data backup are worried that it has significant vulnerabilities. The concerns include equipment reliability, security of data, and staff. It’s not wise to make one person responsible for the entire recovery of your IT infrastructure. If they were to leave or go on holiday, it would cost your company a lot in wasted time and money.

22 per cent of computer users would like to back up their data.

22 per cent of computer users would like to backup their data and won’t get around to it. With over 17years experience in writing disaster recovery plans for our clients, we know the best time to back up your data will always be now.

Research supplied by On Line Computing