The power of business reviews and grants for SMEs

Government business grants and reviews have become secret tools for small medium enterprises (SMEs) to obtain affordable help for business growth, while assisting expansion of the Australian economy. Find out how you can benefit from a network of support and advice to improve your business capabilities and competitiveness.

According to Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFO), as of 2019 there were over 2.3 million SMEs trading in Australia. The ASBFO categorises SMEs as any business employing less than 200 people with an annual turnover between $100,000 – $25 million.

Because the importance of this integral business segment is overlooked, the Australian Federal Government is providing a free initiative to support business growth to help increase the productivity of these SMEs.

Unfortunately, this initiative is not well known outside government circles, so it is often overlooked by many typical SME business advisors to the market. Business Positive is one of the few advisors that have recognised the value of this programme and have already assisted over 100 SMEs gain access to the programme and benefit from the outcomes.

Eligibility

To be eligible for the programme a business must satisfy three key areas:

• Be operating for more than three years.
• Have a turnover between $1.5 million and $100 million.
• Be operating in any of the following areas: advanced manufacturing; food and agribusiness; medical technologies and pharmaceuticals; mining equipment, technology, and services; oil and energy resources; or providing enabling technologies/services to one of those previously mentioned.

These areas have been identified as growth sectors within Australia. (NB: the category of enabling technologies/services can be very broad and many business types can fall into this category. Ask us if your business fits).

Business Positive take the time to firstly pre-qualify businesses to ensure they are suitable for entry into the programme. Understanding how busy business owners can be and how involved the exercise can be, Business Positive takes a hands-on approach to drive the application process and work alongside their network of business advisors to ensure the application is successfully approved. Business Positive are happy to say that to date, they have achieved a 100% strike rate for their clients.

Why Access this Programme?

Taking part in this programme provides businesses with a skilled and experienced government employed business advisor. This advisor will visit the business premises to review business operations, including business direction and strategy. The business advisor will also undertake further research and analysis of information offsite. The review conducted by the advisor equates to approx. $10,000 – $15,000 worth of consulting, at no cost to the business.

The outcome from this review is a holistic business assessment, ratio analysis, global benchmarking, industry reports, connections to a variety of grants and a tailored business evaluation report. This report outlines recommendations that a business can adopt to become more competitive, improve and grow within the industry. Results from an ABS study into the performance of businesses who have participated in this business evaluation programme, showed that their performance significantly increased more than similar businesses that did not participate.

What’s Next…

After the review, knowing what to do and how to implement the recommendations identified in the report can prove to be overwhelming and time consuming for the business owners to undertake alone. That is why as part of the programme, the business is then eligible to access a grant of up to $20,000 to spend on an external business development consultant to help deliver on the key recommendations.

Engaging an external consultant, such as Business Positive, to assist in the delivery of the recommendations identified can add a significant return on investment. Business Positive have successfully helped many businesses over the years to implement these recommendations, seeing positive results and a financial uplift. They have also helped these clients access additional, and often larger grants, to support their new-found growth opportunities.

The ABS identified that those businesses that received further support through access to grants went on to further increase their performance by more than 80% above those that received a business evaluation but did not access the programme funding. Results showed an uplift of $300,000 – $400,000 for those businesses that received the evaluation and $600,000-$800,000 for those that utilised the grant.

If you would like to talk to us about how this programme can benefit your business, we’d be delighted to have a chat. At Business Positive we thrive on seeing small businesses grow and realise their potential!

Mentioned Articles:

Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman – Small Business Counts – Small business in the Australian economy

ABS Study on Enterprise Connect Business Review and Tailored Advisory Service Client Performance