Speaking Sensis

Business confidence among small and medium businesses was just one percentage point higher than it was a year ago according to the latest Sensis® Business Index, released today.

The index recorded the largest single-quarter fall in business confidence among SMEs in the history of the index (which started back in 1993), which was larger than anything measured in a single quarter during the global financial crisis. 

And it’s not hard to see why. 

Businesses are saying that they are seeing business falling and customers not spending. Business confidence rose strongly out of the GFC, but Australia’s SMEs are yet to reap the benefits of economic recovery. They are yet to record a net positive quarter of profitability, that is, one where more businesses record increasing profits than decreasing ones. The last time that happened was back in February 2008.

SMEs are definitely saying that they are doing it tough, with more believing that the economy is slowing rather than growing. And their perceptions of the Federal Government have also fallen sharply in the past quarter.

The Australian economy has done well throughout the economic downturn compared to most other developed economies. We have not had a recession. But to get sustainable growth back into our economy requires business growth and investment to improve.

So, this quarter, seeing the largest single quarter fall in business confidence since the inception of the survey made me recall the last time I reported this, back in November 2007, before the last election and before other economic signals started heading downward – small businesses reported the first signs of the GFC hitting Australia. Hopefully this quarter’s fall will not be replicated in successive quarters as happened throughout the GFC.

That is why this quarter’s results are so important, because they show so starkly that Australia’s small and medium businesses, the backbone of our economy, are finding economic conditions worsening.  It is important that we listen to what small businesses are telling us this time.

If you are in small business, it will not be surprising news that the latest Sensis® Business Index found that, on balance, Australia’s SMEs are more likely to report that it is comparatively more difficult to access finance for their businesses at the moment.

Some 35 per cent of SMEs felt that it was comparatively difficult to access finance at the moment.  This compared to only 20 per cent that felt it was comparatively easy.

In particular, this will not be surprising if you were in the 20 per cent of SMEs that told us that they had tried to access finance in the past quarter.

And it will really not be surprising if you were included in the 19 per cent of those that had applied for finance and not been successful.

Being able to access finance is an issue which is critical to small businesses.  Finance can be the essential ingredient for fuelling small business growth, as well as ensuring that new business opportunities can enter the market.

There are, of course, two sides of the market for finance, there is the demand for finance and the supply of finance. Both sides of the market have been impacted by the recent economic downturn.

So it is important that there is data available which tries to track both the demand and supply for finance for small businesses in a robust and objective manner.

In the latest Sensis® Business Index we started collecting data to highlight the factors impacting how small businesses access finance.  These insights cover how many businesses have tried to access finance, the proportion that were successful and how accommodative they felt that financial institutions currently were in providing finance.

As part of our commitment to the small businesses that are the backbone of the Australian economy, Sensis provided this data in a submission to the Senate’s Inquiry into the Access of Small Business to Finance, which will hopefully assist the Inquiry in making sound policy decisions in this area.  You can access our submission on the Inquiry’s website by clicking here.

If you have a story to tell about accessing finance or have any feedback about our submission, feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of the story.