As the UK breaks free of the last 20 months and businesses break free off furlough the time is right to make plans for the coming year and how businesses will continue to thrive and creat a sustainable future.
COVID-19 has had an undeniable effect on businesses and of course has devastated some families, but may of our businesses have shown incredible resilience.
I had the pleasure of discussing this with Melanie Cant of elm marketing on behalf of LUMO in a recent podcast.
One of the key ways businesses can survive is by looking at ways to innovate within their businesses. This needn’t be some big turnaround or adoption / creation of new technologies but perhaps just a new way of doing something they already do.
Of course this can come at a cost and we know that many businesses have created ‘war chests’ to support their survival by cutting spends or sitting on CBILs and Bounceback loans. This now gives substantial sums that could be reinvested if desired. There is however another way.
R&D Tax credit is an easy way of reclaiming funds from work undertaken by businesses and creating a pot that you could use for any range of purposes. Of course some view this sceptically as some form of PPI scam or misunderstand the term R&D being unaware that they can claim. The best way to research this is to speak to an expert and get good advice (something Engineering & Manufacturing Network promote at every opportunity – we don’t always know all the answers to everything).
If you would like to know a little more and see how we are finding the recovery of the engineering and manufacturing sector then have a read of the post below.