The survey is an annual look at over 2,500 small and medium-sized manufacturing organisations around the UK and Europe, and this year’s edition has found that SMEs are coming under increasing pressure to innovate as the industry grows at near-record rates.
The number of companies citing the need to design new products as one of their most pressing business challenges has risen to 41%, up from just 27% last year, and is now the third most demanding challenge.
Over three quarters (77%) of respondents said they do not consider improving customer satisfaction to be a key challenge – up from 64% in 2015. This may be in part due to the fact that only 24% of respondents said that a late delivery could lead to a customer terminating the partnership. This is compared to 27% last year.
Commenting on the survey, Gavin Fell, general manager of Exact Cloud Solutions UK, said: “Last year’s survey painted quite a bleak picture for UK manufacturers. The determination of businesses to innovate combined with the loyalty of UK customers has helped the sector to bounce back.”
Recruitment issues have also improved. Last year, almost half (45%) of respondents said that hiring talented workers was the biggest hurdle to business success. However, this has now fallen to just 23%, possibly thanks to the recent manufacturing education reforms, which have been created to enable more students to get into STEM subjects.
“It’s great to see that manufacturers have experienced an influx of talent in the last year, which we expect will support this innovative mindset,” added Fell.
