Commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
A qualitative in depth case study approach commissioned in 2011, examined the growth aspirations and performance of 35 Mid-Size UK businesses, with between £25-100m sales turnover.
The study particularly focused on barriers and constraints to growth, both internal and external, including management competencies and finance, with a particular focus on comparing family run businesses with their Mid-Size counterparts. Key findings included that larger, export oriented and VC backed businesses performed particularly well, whilst family run businesses were moderate, more conservative performers.
There was considerable sectoral performance variation with construction and property related businesses in the UK struggling and that growth was also strongly related to the company's stage in the product/service development, or project cycle. Whilst there were no perceived current problems with access to finance for the surveyed companies, several mentioned that potential trade was lost due to customer access to finance issues and there were concerns about another economic downturn.
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