The vast majority of media and marketing bosses rate their skills highly relative to their peers, but they invest little time in making their businesses run better, according to new research.
The research comes from Be the Business, which is encouraging bosses not to rest on their laurels, and introduce improvements to boost their performance.
The survey of over 1,000 SME business owners and managers found that:
• More than three quarters (78%) of media and marketing bosses surveyed believe their business is as productive or more productive than their peers, demonstrating a level of confidence close to the UK average of 79%. This shows a similar result to previous research by the CIPD which shows almost 95% of UK employees believe they are as or more productive than their peers.
• Over a quarter (28%) of all SME businesses surveyed have never evaluated their business practices to identify areas of improvement.
• Media and marketing bosses cited lack of time as the biggest reason for not adopting best practices in their business (30% agreed), while 16% don’t know what best practice methods look like for their business, and a further 13% don’t know where to go or who to talk to for advice.
• More generally across the UK, small business owners (fewer than 50 employees) are more humble than their larger competition. While three quarters (77%) of small business leaders rate their performance as equal to or better than their peers, 87% of medium size business (50-249 employees) feel the same.
Productivity in the UK decreased by 0.5 % in the first quarter of 2018. According to Be the Business these stark figures should act as a wake-up call for UK businesses which appear no closer to closing the gap with more competitive economies like France and Germany.
Be the Business is urging bosses to use Brexit as a spur to take stock and assess how good their business really is compared to their peers. It has developed a benchmarking tool to enable business leaders to compare their firms with the competition and find practical advice on what they can do to improve their performance.
Tony Danker, chief executive, Be the Business said: “Evidence shows that business leaders consistently overestimate the performance of their businesses, and Brexit will only increase the demand for our firms to be more competitive. Marketing bosses must raise the performance of their businesses to put themselves in the best place to manage the challenges and opportunities life outside the EU will bring.
“The UK has a long way to go in order to catch up with our European neighbours who are able to produce in four days, what it takes five to produce in the UK. With less than a year to go before we leave the EU, bosses must start now to make Britain’s economy the most competitive in Europe.
“If bosses commit to improving their firms’ performance, British business will thrive whatever our post-Brexit landscape looks like.”