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HSBC research identifies businesses shrugging off the recession

Research from HSBC has found a breed of buisnesspeople who are placed to motor the country out of recession, and inspire others to follow.

The bank’s “Growing British Business” report identifies some of the hidden success stories of British business, and pulls out a group of “growth pioneers” who are using innovation and diversification, investment and international focus to slice through the challenging economic landscape.

“Bullish” business leaders report unexpected benefits from the economic crisis, the research found, as leaders were forced to re-think their strategies on international trade, reshape company culture and innovating around financing.

Steve Box, HSBC Head of Trade and Receivables Finance, UK, said: “This report reveals the hidden successes we are seeing on a daily basis; British businesses getting on and growing despite the economic downturn.

“These inspirational business leaders hold the key to trading the country out of recession and are using smarter finance solutions and innovative thinking to strengthen both their position and that of the future UK economy.”

The report sets out three types of growth pioneer, including ‘new exportentials’, who are seizing the much heralded export-led recovery strategy; ‘co-operationals’, who are embarking on formal and informal alliances and partnerships in order to get ahead; and ‘confident capitalisers’, who are investing to get ahead of their competitors.

Regional subtleties were noted, particularly amongst the cities noted in a previous HSBC report for being super-cities: Newcastle, Bristol, Liverpool and London. Yorkshire and the North East demonstrated strong resilience tactics as 92% of businesses were shown to have been proactive in dealing with the impact of recession.

One of the growth pioneers identified in the report was Lash Saranna, managing director of Autobahn International Ltd, based in the West Midlands.

He said: “The recession was a huge shock and it would have been easy to just throw my hands up in the air and give up… I threw out my old business model turned a domestic company into an international business and found a way back to profit and growth.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .