A new report has found only half of SMEs in the south West have a 'rainy-day fund' to deal with higher prices and rising interesting rates.
Cynergy Bank conducted a 海角视频-wide survey of 1,000 senior decision makers. The survey found that higher energy and finance costs created "serious" cashflow challenges, with only 46% in the South West having cash buffers in place prior to July 2022.
The research also found that two-in-five had no contingency fund in place. Only one in 10 (8%) fixed their mortgage or rent in the early stages of the Bank of England’s hiking of prices.
Sharon Maguire, chief product officer at Cynergy Bank, said: “There has been a sea change in attitudes towards crisis planning. Cost pressures over the past year has led to businesses reassessing their risk profiles, and in addition to cost savings SMEs are urgently looking for solutions to help them build resilience in their businesses.
“Innovative finance solutions like our new Business Saver account can help businesses build up their rainy-day funds, whilst offering the flexibility to manage and access their money as they adapt to meet future challenges.”
The majority of respondents (89%) said that the cost-of-living crisis had caused them to make significant changes to their business operations.
SMEs said they are now budgeting "more smartly" with around a quarter (27%) of those impacted by soaring overheads saying they have shopped around on suppliers.
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A smaller number (21%) had switched materials, while 6% had resorted to using poorer quality goods and less than one-in-seven (16%) said they have rearranged working patterns to save on energy bills.
Increasingly, businesses (46%) said that tech and innovation had played a “huge” part in their response to cost pressures, including circumventing traditional sales channels and innovating how their offering is sold.
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