A third of UK SMEs have grown in the past two years

Recent research from Citrix has found that a third of UK SMEs have grown over the past two years.

According to the research, this equates to around 1.7 million businesses. In addition to this, approximately 426,000 businesses (8%) have grown by 50% or more over the same period. The research findings are showing that there has been a scale up where small businesses are making the transition into larger companies.

In terms of the report by Sherry Coutu, a business defined as "scaling-up" is a business that has 10 or more employees and recording an average annual growth in revenue or employees of at least 20% over three consecutive years (to show continuity and not just anomaly).

These are defined in the report as "high growth" businesses and are thought to drive economic growth at faster rates, create more jobs and ensure longer-term productivity.

Interestingly one of the other main things found by the study indicate that there is a strong correlation between high business growth and the adoption of new technology to the business.

Andrew Millard, senior director of international marketing at Citrix says,

'SMEs are a critical engine of growth for the UK economy and this study illustrates the vibrancy within the sector over the last two years.

'Technology is clearly playing an important role in SMEs overcoming some of the traditional barriers to growth and digital competency is becoming the new currency of growth. We hear on a daily basis how our customers are using technology to reinvent not only the way they work but the markets that they operate in.'

Businesses using technology to streamline and refresh their internal processes will come to experience this when they reach their auto enrolment staging date.

With the increases in business growth there are more and more staff for small companies to assess for auto enrolment and enrol into workplace pensions. This means that the task of running this manually could be overly expensive and time consuming. 

The IRIS AE Suite™ automatically assesses employees eligibility along with each payroll run, saving the time and effort that it would take you to do it manually. In addition to this, the software also distributes payslips, P60s and the legislation-required pension letters electronically to employee's secure online portals. 

This technology helps your business to save time and money through the reduced administration work needed. This means that more time can be spent on other areas of business development. You can also reduce your carbon footprint by encouraging staff to adopt electronic payslips.

You can find out more about the IRIS AE Suite™ and how it can help your business along the way in terms of growth and taking your company to the next level of performance.

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