North West NES businesses turnover above £20.5 million

A new survey has revealed that the turnover of North West NES businesses in 2005-2006 was over £20.5 million and that some NES scholars have a turnover as high as £350,000.

NES is the New Entrepreneur Scholarship programme for which MMU Business School (MMUBS) is the regional contractor, and is run through the Centre for Enterprise.

The results are from the NES Follow Up Survey 2006, the latest nationwide NES survey conducted by MMU Business School. It carried out an evaluation of the experiences of NES scholars and their businesses, following on from the Big NES Survey in 2004.

The NES Follow Up Survey looked at NES scholars and their businesses in the longer term, and was conducted through a postal and web survey in July and August last year. It included NES scholars who responded to the first survey and who had given consent to take part in further NES research, with 184 scholars involved.

The results show that the average turnover of a NES business in the region in 2005- 2006 was £38,719. This compares favourably with the national NES average of £34,066. Overall, this means that in 2005-2006, the turnover of NES businesses in the North West was over £20.5 million.

“These are excellent figures and have improved significantly since the first NES survey,” said Dr. Dilani Jayawarna, NES Researcher in MMUBS’ Centre for Enterprise, who carried out the survey. “The sample was also a representative one and the results are not due to any skewing effect whereby a small number of high performing businesses may have influenced the results.”

Almost all the survey respondents were actively involved in running or starting a business, with the survey revealing that NES is highly effective in moving entrepreneurs into business start-up and in helping them retain their trading status once they are set up.

Participation in NES also led to significant changes to people’s position in the labour market. The proportion of scholars who described themselves as unemployed fell from 48% in the 2004 survey to just 11% in the latest one, and over 55% described themselves as self employed or in business.

The results also show a sharp increase in turnover for the majority of businesses between the two surveys. The average turnover for a NES business in 2004 was £12,453, but this rose to £34,066 in 2006. Whereas in 2004, half the scholars had less than £5,000 turnover and only a quarter of them made over £15,000 turnover, by 2006 the reverse was the case – just a quarter reported a turnover of less than £5,000, while over half reported turnovers of over £15,000.

Furthermore, scholars with turnovers at the higher end have also increased. In 2004, just 5.5% reported making turnovers of over £55,000, whereas in 2006, this had risen to over 20%. What’s more, in the latest survey, 7% of scholars reported a business turnover of over £100,000 – and three scholars in particular made turnovers of over a quarter of a million pounds – and up to £350,000!

“This is great news.” said Dominic Martinez, NES Project Manager at MMUBS. “The results confirm what NES partners and many NES entrepreneurs already know – that NES is doing a fantastic job in not only enabling people to start their own business, but in helping them run successful businesses that grow over time. It also clearly demonstrates that NES makes a very significant contribution to the local regional economy.”

“Our main conclusion is that the NES programme is highly effective in moving scholars, including the unemployed, into self-employment or business,” said Dilani. “Plus it is quite clear that NES businesses are making higher turnovers than before.”

“Scholars in the survey are highly motivated and demonstrated strong commitment to remaining self-employed,” she added. “While most of the businesses are trading on a small scale and are largely run solely by the owner, most scholars wanted to see their business grow in the future. The signs from this survey are very encouraging for scholars looking to achieve this.”

To find out more about the results from the NES Follow Up Survey 2006, contact Dr. Dilani Jayawarna at d.jayawarna@mmu.ac.uk or download the full survey report at: www.business.mmu.ac.uk/centreforenterprise