Callico provides all the hardware & software you need to get your business started.
You are here: Home>>The characteristics of home-based businesses in the United Kingdom
Home-based businesses are now a significant proportion of the small business sector and account for an increasing proportion of business start-ups. Home based businesses account for 36% of all businesses within the small business sector.
One of the most significant trends in the post-industrial era has been for the home to become an important focus for work, “the home itself is being reconfigured as a place that’s not a respite from work, but the central location for it.”
Economic, cultural and technological changes have opened up opportunities for small businesses. Sectoral shift, involving the decline in manufacturing and growth of business and personal services, has been a key driver because of the lower barriers to entry in many parts of the service sector on account of the absence of economies of scale.
Restructuring and downsizing by large organisations – as well as providing a ‘push’ to employees to start their own businesses - has also created market opportunities through outsourcing. Growing affluence has led to the fragmentation of markets as customers have demanded products and services tailored to their specific needs.
Advancing ICT technology in the form of powerful personal computers and software and other innovations have provided small businesses with the power, scope and access of large companies, enabling them to look, perform and compete like large businesses, but without sacrificing the independence and flexibility of being small.
The nature of many service businesses means that they can be run as one-person businesses from home. The key requirements for many knowledge-based professional services businesses (e.g. accountants, website developers, on-line traders, consultants) are IT equipment and internet access, which require little space.
Running a home-based business is seen as providing a flexible form of economic activity (e.g. number of hours worked, time periods worked and location of work) and an enhanced quality of life.
Commentators frequently emphasise how running a business from home is a means of combining work with family or outside interests.
In many cases, notably people who are tied to the home for caring or other reasons, the driver for the creation of a home based business is simply that this is the only means of generating a second household income that is needed by many families in order to maintain a decent standard of living.
Website planning, design and production by Seven Creative - www.sevencreative.co.uk
www.7wd.co.uk - www.e-mailer.info - blog.sevencreative.co.uk/
