Potential Changes in the Budget affect Franchise Businesses: Part 2
Carl Reader, Dennis & Turnbull Ltd
In this second part on the likely affects of the emergency 2010 budget on franchise business, we will look at Business, Employment and some other changes.
To find out more about changes in taxation, please see the previous posting.
Business
The government is to focus on improving the flow of credit to smaller firms. This will include the possibility of establishing a loan guarantee scheme to replace the Enterprise Finance Guarantee programme and the use of net lending targets for nationalised banks.
Some backdated demands for business rates will be cancelled.
Pensions
The default retirement age is to be phased out, and a review will be held to establish the dates at which the state pension retirement age begins to rise to 66. There is a commitment that, in the case of men, this will not be before 2016 and, in the case of women, not before 2020.
Rules requiring mandatory annuitisation at 75 are to be dropped. At the moment, people who establish a pension savings fund must use the money to purchase an annuity, or an annual income for life, when they reach the age of 75, preventing them from passing on the capital to their heirs.
The link between the basic state pension and earnings will be restored from April 2011 with a guarantee that pensions are raised by the higher of earnings, prices or 2.5 per cent, as proposed by the Liberal Democrats.
Thus far, the government has not offered a policy on pensions tax relief. The Liberal Democrats had been in support of abolishing all higher tax rate relief, capping relief at the basic rate of income tax.
Employment
All existing welfare-to-work programmes are to end and are to be replaced by a single welfare-to-work programme.
Those Jobseekers’ Allowance claimants who must deal with the most significant barriers to work will be referred to new welfare-to-work scheme at once rather than after 12 months. In the case of those Jobseekers’ Allowance claimants aged under 25, they will be referred to the programme after six months.
The EU
There will be no further transfer of sovereignty or powers to the EU over the course of the next Parliament.
The government will work to make sure that the application of the Working Time Directive in the UK is limited.
Any future European treaty that involves the transfer of power will be subject to a referendum.
The environment
A green investment bank will be set up.
The government is to press ahead with a high-speed rail network but will reject plans for additional runways at Gatwick and Stansted.
A national planning statement will be drawn up to allow a process for replacing existing nuclear power stations with new ones, although Liberal Democrat MPs will be allowed to abstain on any vote on the plans.
Carl Reader is the head of franchising at franchise accountants Dennis & Turnbull, a leading firm of accountants in the franchise industry.
The above information is provided as general advice and no liability is accepted by the author, Dennis & Turnbull or Select Your Franchise in respect of individuals or businesses acting on the above. Independent advice should be sought in all circumstances.
New Government Business Policies should help Franchise Business
Joel Caws - Technical Director, Select Your Franchise
New business policies put forward by the new Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition government have come as a welcome morale boost for small businesses. Some of the policies indicate a reviewing of corporate taxation and easing of regulations which will help to promote new business start-ups as well as providing benefits to already established small businesses.
This is great news for franchise business which depends upon the small business model. A franchise business, in contrast to operating as a large multi-outlet single entity, operates as a collection of smaller independent franchise businesses which are owned and run by each individual franchisee. This means that many of the new policies now being put on the table by the new government could have a direct effect and benefit for each franchise owner.
For new franchise start-ups, there is a policy to look at reducing the time and effort needed to start a new company. This will of course mean that a new franchisee should be able to get up and running in a shorter space of time.
Other policies indicate a review of corporate taxation as well as an increase in employers NI thresholds which should benefit those who need to employ staff. A pledge to make small business rate relief automatic in England should also come as welcome news.
For further information and opinion on these and other policies which might affect your franchise or small business, check this BBC news article.
Tags: business, franchise business, joel caws, taxation
The Importance of Customer Service – Part 2
Naz Daud - Owner, CityLocal
If customers are not happy with the level of customer service, such as failing to have queries dealt with, having to wait excessive periods of time to wait for a response, having responses which make little sense, offer little support, express little concern or fail to resolve the issue quickly and effectively, then the chances are high that you will lose that customer.
More than this, by losing a customer, you are highly likely to lose any potential sales you may have acquired through recommendation. With so much choice available and so much variety, increasingly we are relying on personal recommendations, and online reviews, to help make up our mind on whether to commit to a retailer or service provider, especially if it is likely to be for a significant sum or a long term contractual arrangement.
Failing to provide adequate customer service can easily result in losing out on personal recommendations, and could easily result in publically viewable reviews advising against your ompany or service. The internet can easily work in your favour, but similarly it can work against you if you fail to meet expectations.
To a large extent, the importance and intensity of customer service is likely to depend on the nature of the business in which you become involved. If you’re seeking to start out as an individual entrepreneur, working from home with little direct contact with customers, then you may consider the importance of customer service to be less of a priority than those entering into a business arrangement which has massive contact with customers and relies heavily on customer loyalty.
This is turn may impact on your decision when it comes to deciding what kind of business to enter into, what kind of franchise opportunity to become involved with, or the nature of any solo business you choose to initiate. Are you a people person? Do you like solving problems and offering a high level of service to customers? If not, then a business model which relies upon this may not be for you, and the issue of outsourcing the service center becomes one to consider.
Ultimately it will be important to think about customer service not from the business point of view alone, taking on board the financing, the time, the means by which issues can be filed, dealt with, followed up and referred back, but also from the point of view of your customers. Happy customers equate to customer loyalty and recommendations, which in turn results in a more profitable and successful business. Get your customer service right and you’re more likely to see the business succeeding where other, perhaps larger companies are losing sight of the very blood which made them successful in the first place.
Naz Daud is the founder of CityLocal. This Franchise Opportunity is for people who would like to work from home and be their own boss – Read more about the CityLocal Franchise Opportunity.
Tags: business, customer service, franchise, naz daud
