Cambridge Online survey reveals 42% of creative businesses grew sales strongly through the recession

Oct. 10, 2011 - PRLog -- Cambridge Online, a leading IT systems and services provider, has published results from its first annual East of England Regional Business Survey to show how media and creative businesses located across the nine Eastern region counties fared during the recession.

42% of creative businesses surveyed grew their sales by at least 10% during the peak of the recession in 2009/10, compared to 29% for all respondents.   Creative businesses reduced the impact of the recession through engaging with customers more (57%) and were more adept at diversifying into new products and services or targeting new geographic markets, with 50% of creative businesses diversifying compared to 33% for the survey overall.

29% of creative businesses reduced staff levels by more than 10% - the same as the regional average.  But none of the creative businesses surveyed were looking to make new job cuts whereas 9% of all businesses across the region were planning job cuts.  59% of businesses across the region improved systems and processes to find efficiencies and this was the main activity for them to reduce the impact of the downturn.  If they had to face the downturn again 64% of creative businesses would have innovated more to build new products, services and income streams compared to 29% across all Eastern region businesses surveyed.

Creative businesses are split with regards to the Eastern region with (50%) agreeing the East of England is ideal for accessing skilled employees needed to grow their businesses and 50% disagreeing.  Only 14% of creative businesses believe that the new local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) which are set to replace East of England Development Agency (EEDA) will be more effective, compared to 50% of the region’s businesses overall.

Creative businesses rated increased price sensitivity of clients and prospects as the biggest barrier to growth in the next 12 months.  Attracting new customers is the top business priority for 50% of creative businesses over the period.

IT budgets were set to decrease for 29% of creative businesses compared to an average of 15% overall. While just 21% are increasing their IT budgets, less than the 35% regional average.  Creative businesses consider social media to be at the top of their ‘most interesting IT development’, compared to the majority of businesses placing social media towards the bottom of their list.

Half (50%) of creative businesses surveyed did not have a customer relationship management (CRM) system in place, and none of the businesses used paper based customer records compared to 18% on average.  Maximising sales opportunities, managing customer and prospect databases, plus analysing trends in customer buying behaviour were the main uses for a new CRM system.

43% of creative businesses did not measure return on investment (ROI) for their IT projects, though 29% looked for ROI within a year, compared to 12% for businesses across the region.

Ray Olds, chief executive officer, Cambridge Online, commented:
“Creative businesses were naturally able to innovate quicker than most businesses and diversify into new product and service areas.  It is interesting to see that they did not refresh their systems and processes to find additional efficiencies, and maybe this is an area for further investigation.   Systems such as CRM will play a vital role for creative businesses as they try to read their customers better, thereby maximising all sales opportunities and minimising the impact of price pressures.”

Creative businesses taking part in the survey ranged from magazine, newspaper and book publishers through to design, marketing and advertising agencies.  

To download an executive summary of the results, please visit http://www.cambridgeonline.net/docs/Survey_executive_summ...

-Ends-

Notes to editors
Cambridge Online invited nearly 8,000 senior decision makers working in businesses across Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Rutland and Suffolk to take part in its on-line survey.  Survey period was 23rd March – 13th April 2011, with 100 respondents submitting completed surveys for a response rate of 1.27%.

About Cambridge Online
Cambridge Online is a leading IT systems and services provider serving mid-sized and enterprise organisations in the UK and overseas.  Founded in 1978, Cambridge Online has a strong track record of delivering effective IT solutions, through long-term partnerships with its customers by identifying and supporting their wider business objectives.  

The business has deep expertise and experience across its chosen areas of business software applications including Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, wider physical IT infrastructure and its own intellectual property in profitable niche areas such as airline maintenance software.  For more information, visit www.cambridgeonline.net

For more information about Cambridge Online, please contact:
Amy McGregor, Marketing Manager, Cambridge Online
Tel: +44 (0)1223 422668.  Email: amy.mcgregor@cosl.co.uk
www.cambridgeonline.net

For all Cambridge Online media enquiries, please contact:
Miles Clayton / Simon Bennett, Agility PR Limited
Tel: 01992 586 190.  Email: miles@agilitypr.co.uk/simon@agilitypr.co.uk

# # #

Cambridge Online is a leading IT systems and services provider serving mid-sized and enterprise organisations with a strong track record of delivering effective IT solutions through long-term customer partnerships. http://www.cambridgeonline.net