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Start up business ideas

For a successful business, you need a viable business idea, the skills to make it work and the funding. Discover whether your idea has what it takes.

Set up a business

Forming your business correctly is essential to ensure you are protected and you comply with the rules. Learn how to set up your business.

Skills and wellbeing

Advice on protecting your wellbeing, self-confidence and mental health from the pressures of starting and running a business.

Business planning

Learn why business planning is an essential exercise if your business is to start and grow successfully, attract funding or target new markets.

Start up funding

It is likely you will need funding to start your business unless you have your own money. Discover some of the main sources of start up funding.

Tax and National Insurance

Businesses and individuals must account for and pay various taxes. Understand your tax obligations and how to file, account and pay any taxes you owe.

Business law

Businesses are required to comply with a wide range of business laws. We introduce the main rules and regulations you must comply with.

Sales and marketing

Marketing matters. It drives sales and helps promote your brand and products. Discover how to market your business and reach your target customers.

Business premises

Some businesses need a high street location whilst others can be run from home. Understand the key factors from cost to location, size to security.

Employees

Your employees can your biggest asset. They can also be your biggest challenge. We explain how to recruitment and manage staff successfully.

Business IT

It is likely your business could not function without some form of IT. Learn how to specify, buy, maintain and secure your business IT.

Grow your business

Few businesses manage the leap from start up to high-growth business. Learn what it takes to scale up and take your business to the next level.

Ten ways to benchmark your business

Benchmarking provides a means to compare your firm against other businesses, and identify areas where you can improve your performance. Tom Whitney picks out ten aspects of your business you should assess to see if you measure up

  1. Focus on your key business drivers. These are the processes that underpin the success of your firm, and will vary from sector to sector and business to business. If you provide a service, customer care is likely to be a key business driver; if you are a high-volume manufacturer, production-line speed will be more relevant.
  2. Decide who to benchmark against. Your trade association or local business support organisation should be able to suggest suitable benchmarking partners. Pick firms of a similar size and with similar objectives to help work out industry yardsticks; but also compare with firms outside your sector who excel in areas you want to measure - importing their approach could help you leapfrog competitors.
  3. Compare strategic objectives. Can you learn strategic lessons from benchmarking partners? Does a focus on quality standards give them an edge, for instance? Are they developing innovative sales channels? Think what other firms' approaches would bring to your business, if anything.
  4. Assess the efficiency of your processes. Look at the mechanics of your business - the production techniques, quality control, stock management and so on. How effective are they? How well are you using technology? Are other businesses looking at new ways of doing things?
  5. Analyse your allocation of resources. Are you putting resources into the same areas as your benchmarking partners? Do they have more employees, or fewer? In which areas of the business? Have they invested more in IT and other equipment? Are they spending more on marketing?
  6. Weigh your costs against industry norms. These might include utility bills, wages or research and development costs. If you can highlight areas where your costs are higher than the average, you may be able to make savings.
  7. Calculate sales per employee. This will provide a straightforward measure of productivity and efficiency. If your sales are comparatively low, investigate the reasons; you might find the problem is not with your sales staff but your product, or that you are pitching to the wrong market.
  8. Work out your profit margins. Your gross profit margin (direct profit on the cost of goods and services sold) will tell you how efficient your production processes are. Comparing this with your net profit margin (profit after all your costs are deducted, including marketing and administration) will tell you how effectively you earn profits from sales. But how do you compare with other businesses? Are they charging higher prices, or keeping costs lower? Are there any lessons you can apply to your own operation?
  9. Measure your customer service standards. Customer service is a key battleground for businesses with similar products or services. Working out the proportion of sales accounted for by returning customers will give you a picture of your service levels, as will the number of complaints you receive and the time it takes to fulfil an order.
  10. Obtain benchmark information without approaching an external benchmarking partner. You can benchmark your firm's key statistics against widely available industry norms - salary surveys and published information on financial ratios for your industry, for example.