Enterprise Nation

Here at Enterprise Nation, we like Professor Colin Mason. We like him very much. That’s because he is the man who has just authored a report on home business that shows us home-based bosses in a very good light! A few of his findings are revealed here.

Invisible, maybe. Ambitious, for sure.

Professor Colin Mason is based at the University of Strathclyde’s Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship. He got in touch a few weeks ago to give us heads-up on a report he was writing on home businesses in the UK. The report is now out and includes some interesting facts and figures:

• The proportion of home-based businesses is highest in rural areas, notably the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, in South West England and in the London commuting belt. It is lowest in major regional cities, notably Liverpool and Manchester, and industrial towns in northern England
• The popular belief that home-based businesses are part-time, small and marginal does not reflect the reality. The majority provide jobs for other people and just over half are generating revenues of more than £50,000 per year
• They are also dynamic: more than half of the respondents reporting increased sales in the previous year and 58 per cent intending to grow
• Only a small minority of home based businesses are engaged in e-commerce for the majority of their revenue
• They operate in a wide variety of industries but proportionately are most common in the computing, business services, personal services, financial services, agriculture, forestry and fishing, and construction sectors
• The major reason for operating the business from home was cost minimization and not lifestyle reasons such as flexibility on where to live

Professor Mason said:

"As more and more entrepreneurs choose to base their companies at home, we need to see a change in enterprise policy at local, regional and national levels to actively encourage home-based businesses.

Many home-based business owners feel unsure of their legality and fear the complex tax system and what regulation might mean for them. The sector needs more clarity and encouragement if it is to reach its full growth potential."

The report is called ‘Invisible Businesses: the characteristics of home-based businesses in the UK’ and you can view it by clicking the link below or downloading the PDF. 

• Access the report online

Report-related news flash from Enterprise Nation … we’ll be publishing our 2008 Home Business Report in October which will include the UK’s largest ever survey of home based businesses. All these reports are slowly but surely having an impact on the people who make policy in the UK and may, just may, lead to incentives for starting and growing a business from home.