Small Business World News Round-up – 2009/07/07

Here is this week’s news round-up for home business, micro business, sole-traders, freelancers, self-employed and any one who is interested in small business news from around the world.

• Health care reform: What small business wants: As Congress prepares to do battle over health reform, a parallel dispute is shaping up among small-business groups that are staking out opposing positions on a key element of reform proposals: whether Uncle Sam will take on a bigger role in offering insurance coverage or leave the field to the private market.
• Small business lending falls sharply espite emergency stimulus measures, small business lending continues to fall. In the just-ended quarter, the Small Business Administration’s flagship program backed 30% fewer loans than it did a year ago, and 55% fewer loans than it did in 2007, before the recession set in.
• A Guiding Hand From Big Business to Small: Some of the country’s heavyweight corporations are continuing their mentoring programs of small companies owned by minorities or women despite the recession.
• Bacon entrepreneurs bring in the bucks: Tired of hearing that everything tastes like chicken? So are Seattle entrepreneurs Justin Esch and Dave Lefkow. They want it all to taste like bacon
• Going Public in the Throes of a Recession: A conversation with Tom Adams, who successfully took the language software company Rosetta Stone public despite the economic downturn.

• Private Lender: Where can entrepreneurs go when the bank says, “No”? One small business financing alternative is the private lender. This interview with one private lender tells what private lenders look for before investing and one way to find one.
• Small businesses will help end recession: Small businesses will help push Canada out of the recession, according to a banker and author.
• Income Tax Deductions: This four part article on small business tax deductions covers automobile income tax deductions, travel-related income tax deductions, tax deductions related to employing your spouse or child and advertising and other income tax deductions.
• Delegation Definition: What is delegation and how does it differ from outsourcing? This delegation definition explains and provides resources for small business owners who want to improve their delegation skills.
• Join the Conversation in the Forum: Here’s what people are talking about in the Small Business Canada Forum right now. Why not pop in and see what other people have said about these topics and add…

• Why bank rate cuts don’t meet Reserve: As everyone knows, the former seemingly fixed relationship between the Reserve Bank’s official interest rate and the variable rates the banks charge on mortgages and small business loans hasn’t been working since 2007.
• SMEs dodge insolvency thanks to stimulus payments and helpful ATO: Australian SMEs are hanging in there, according to the latest insolvency data. Figures from the Australian Securities and Investment Commission show 829 companies entered external administration in…
• SMEs expect revenue to grow 7% in 2009-10: A survey of more than 1000 small and medium business owners has shown that they expect to keep growing despite the downturn, with most targeting revenue growth of 6.8% in…
• Textbook smart thinking: FEDERAL Treasurer Wayne Swan announced one of the greatest tax gifts of all time to small business with the 50 per cent tax break for investment goods purchased before year’s end, but Ned Montarello might not have joined the small business cheer squad.
• Failure to take account could ruin a small business: IN the aftermath of the May budget, those who think of themselves as entrepreneurs need to confront two of the greatest reasons for small business failure. The first is their tightwad ways; the second, that their accountants too often are hopeless at business.

• India will create 12 million new jobs to reduce poverty by half: India’s Exim Bank gets $60 mn to support small businesses. June 19th, 2009 WASHINGTON – The Export-Import Bank of India is getting a $60 million international trade facility to help support export-focused small and medium enterprises,
• Budget 2009 Live: Govt Job Portal, STB Duty-5%, Smart Cards, DAVP…: Small businesses with a turnover upto Rs. 40 lakh will have the option to declare their income from business at the rate of 8 per cent of their turnover and will not need to maintain books of accounts. … Setting Up Of Government Job Portal: Taking cue from the success of job portals in India, the Indian government has decided to set up a national level job portal, which will allow job seekers to put up details of skills (i.e. their Resume) online, and on the other hand, …
• The Working Capital Loan Gap in India: I welcome any challenge on the points above, any advice for small businesses in India and beyond, and I hope we can prompt a rich discussion that gets us closer to busting this bottleneck of scarce SME debt—very specifically for working
• Bank shares tumble despite infra spending boost: India’s budget’s aim to boost lending to infrastructure and small firms failed to cheer bank shares that tumbled on fears of a dent in treasury gains as bond yields firmed up on higher government borrowing plan.
• Power of small business with technology: Despite this pre-eminence, the power of the small business will be even greater in the next decade. As the next billion Internet users come online (one billion are already connected to the Internet worldwide), they’ll exploit the … Many of these new enterprises will crop up in fast-growing economies such as Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC countries), and others including Israel, Turkey, Indonesia, Vietnam, Poland and countries throughout Latin America.

• How music could enhance your small business: Music makes the world go round – and it seems it could give many firms a boost
• Interest-free loans to cut company energy costs: Small businesses facing the squeeze are being helped to ride out the recession with the help of interest free loans aimed at slashing their energy consumption
• Small firms say credit restrictions tightening: The proportion of small business claiming to have been refused credit by banks has risen over the past six months with half of all firms surveyed saying a lack of access to lending was having a serious, negative impact on their business.
• FSB report calls for urgent help for village shops and pubs risk closure: As the UK’s leading agricultural show welcomes visitors for the final time this week after 160 years, a new Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) report warns that our village shops and pubs could go the same way as the Royal Show unless urgent action is taken.
• SMEs Lose £2.4 Billion to Employment Red Tape: Employment law is the costliest bureaucratic burden faced by small businesses in the UK, losing them almost £2.4 billion (bn) per year, according to the latest research from the Forum of Private Business (FPB).



• WinWeb’s OnlineOffice the Home & Small Business IT Infrastructure to beat.: WinWeb’s OnlineOffice price point of only £11.90 /month plus VAT and it’s unrivaled functionality of accounting software, invoicing, online payment, business planning, web hosting, online shop, blog software, 10GB online data storage, email, online calendar, address book and more, including 24/7 live support, is the home business and small office IT infrastructure to beat, writes The Small Business Blog.
• Business’09 – Win $20,000/£10,000: On December 1st, 2008 WinWeb will launch it’s Business’09 campaign, where micro business owners or entrepreneurs thinking about starting up can win up to $20,000 or £10,000, to turn their vision into reality
• Cloud Computing – Your office online. Secure. Worldwide and Anytime. Reliable & Easy
• WinWeb Launches Australian Version of OnlineOffice: Today we release the Australian version for OnlineOffice’5. Anyone signing up to OnlineOffice choosing ‘Australia’ as their home country will automatically be assigned to the Australian version of our accounting module, invoicing, quotation and online shop modules.
• WinWeb and InfoUK Announce Exclusive Strategic Partnership to Benefit Small Businesses: WinWeb, the leading small business software and service provider, partners with B2B data and business list supplier infoUK (an infoGROUP company, NASDAQ: IUSA) to give small businesses a leg up in today’s tight economy. The alliance will provide WinWeb customers access to 200 free sales leads and business list data from infoUK and in return, infoUK customers will be able to utilise WinWeb’s OnlineOffice™ for free.

As always this list is not exhaustive, but I hope it will give you a little overview. — ST.

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