Latest updates and stories from Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce and its Members

As the new financial year kicks in on 6^th April, your business will naturally find itself focused on the challenges and opportunities the new year will bring – projecting leads, assessing pipeline, forecasting income, and planning budgets.

Whatever the size of your business, it is likely that at some stage you will face multiple challenges that can feel impossible to overcome. In fact, you will typically experience these at every stage of the business’s growth.

In this piece, we take a look at what we, as a member of the British Chambers of Commerce, offer to make it easier for business owners in our region to get advice and support when they need it most.

Over the last few months, there has been much talk about rising costs and these are now filtering through to consumers with the UK’s annual inflation rate hitting 5.5% in January. However, this hides the truth of what is happening in some sectors. For example, the wholesale price of gas in January 2022 was almost four times higher than it was in early 2021. Plus, the current horrific situation in Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions against Russia are adding more pressure. Yet it’s not only consumers that are feeling the pinch. Rising costs are also affecting many businesses, with numerous factors contributing to the problem.

Setting and managing budgets for your business can be a challenge. After all, planning how to spend what you can’t be sure you’ll have is something of a moving target!

With this in mind, we’ve put together a whistle-stop guide to take you through the budget essentials, and point you to advice and resources we at the Chamber offer to help make budgeting if not a breeze, then at least a little less turbulent.

With the UK’s exit from the EU now officially achieved, (ongoing wrinkles and wrangles notwithstanding!), many businesses are revisiting the prospects for international trade both within and outside the EU.

For us at the Chamber, international trade is now scheduled to become a year-long focus, and we have added extensive content to our website to give your business access to the international trade resources and services it needs now more than ever, as we explore briefly below.

If you're still considering taking out a bounce back loan, it's not too late.

Far more affordable and flexible than any loan you normally get from a private sector lender, the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) is a great option for many SMEs who have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

An exciting new business funding matching tool looking to revolutionise access to finance for businesses in Bedfordshire is released today