Recently Global Entrepreneurship Monitor published their 2009 global report on entrepreneurship. Having spent a year gathering and sifting through the data the report revealed that, unsurprisingly, the global downturn put many budding entrepreneurs off the idea of starting a business and, as a result, entrepreneurial activity across the globe dropped during 2009.
While the report showed that attitudes to entrepreneurship vary a lot between countries, all countries had one thing in common: the fear of failure was a driving factor for many who didn’t take the plunge, and this fear factor increased as the economic situation got worse.
In the UK specifically only 3.8 per cent of the population have notions of starting a business in the next three years, compared with 5.9 per cent in 2004. The amount of Brits who thought starting a business was a good career choice has dropped to 23 per cent compared to 35 per cent in 2006 and three quarters of established business owners think it’s harder to set one up now compared to last year.
While there is clearly hesitance to set up small businesses in the current climate, the government recognises that entrepreneurs are vital to the UK economy and small businesses have a key part to play in the economic recovery.
Mark Prisk, Minister for Business, recently acknowledged the challenge the coalition has in raising awareness of entrepreneurship and maintains the government are committed to making this the most entrepreneurial decade ever, with various strategies outlined to help this plan along including:
• Teach them young: Making enterprise awareness and business management skills a part of mainstream education
• Information is key: Ensuring the appropriate support, information and advice is provided to small businesses
• £££: Providing proper access and options for financial support
• Limit the admin: Removing red tape in order to make it easier to start and grow a business
Hopefully, armed with the knowledge of the current perception of entrepreneurialism and the support and commitment of the new government, the Global Entrepreneurship Report of 2010 will throw up more positive results this time next year! In the mean time what do you think? Could the banks do more? Will the government’s strategies help? What type of initiatives would you introduce to help support this sector?
