Current Business Trends in the UK

It's been said that clever entrepreneurs know the trends before they happen and therefore also know how to capitalize upon them. It's therefore important to familiarize yourself with what is happening at present and how you see that affecting the future trends.

More Businesses Than Ever Are Opening Up

2014 could be a record year when it comes to the amount of businesses being set up. Almost 500,000 new businesses have already been registered this year according to Companies House (and as you are reading this, probably over 500,000) and that means 550,000 companies could be registered by the end of the year, which will be a record high. The numbers have kept on increasing since 2012.

According to The Centre for Entrepreneurs the UK has the 3rd lowest business start-up costs in the world and is ranked 8th when it comes to the ease of doing business.

Looking at companies in the UK cloud computing continues to rise in popularity, which in turn means businesses are becoming more ”You no longer have to be in the office to do work. All your data can be found on the cloud and people in different offices can collaborate on the same documents. This also means working from home is becoming more and more feasible.

In general the term ”is becoming a buzz word as businesses continue to figure out how to make money from mobile users. The term mobile generally includes laptops, but is often used exclusively for mobile devices such as phones and tablets (and now also watches and Google Glass). There has been a boom in creating mobile optimized websites for companies to make profits from users that are surfing using their phones and tablets and this trend continues. It<span style="font-size:12.0pt;Avenir Book" ,"serif";"="">’s all about optimizing sales from mobile users.

Ideas internally within a company are now easily shared on private social media networking pages. Have an issue or pondering an idea? Why not post it on Facebook and let the team help? This can foster a new generation of collaboration. Think Steve Jobs Pixar Studios, only on the Mac instead and no need for the actual offices.

Likewise, social media is becoming one of the highest rated marketing tools. Companies are suddenly wiling to invest in their social media strategy, embracing a continued demand for transparency as well as providing valuable content. Followers no longer want to be sold to - they want to be entertained whilst simultaneously getting to know the heart of the company.

Local, organic, fair trade and sustainable are words consumers continue to love and the numbers show it. Just as people are demanding transparency from companies on social networks, they are demanding transparent sustainable and humanitarian business approaches in general. And of course, where there is demand there are businesses willing to support it.