In an exclusive interview with Elite Business, she sets out her vision for the UK’s small businesses…
Emma Jones has wasted no time setting out her stall as the UK Government’s new Small Business Commissioner.
Top of her to do list? To make life a lot simpler for the nation’s small businesses by getting their cash flow moving faster.
“As a team, we are on a mission to make life easier for small firms by getting money moving faster,” she explains.
“The way in which we are approaching this is through leveraging enabling technology at an individual firm and economy wide level, working in partnership with industry and government to ensure payment flows through supply chains, and celebrating good practice through the Fair Payment Code.”
It’s clear from the outset that it’s an issue that looms large for the new commissioner.
“Late payment! This is a big issue that slows down small firms. Founders have to spend non-productive hours chasing debt and we want to address this, so hours can instead be spent on growth tasks.”
Tackling poor payment culture
In case you’re not familiar with Emma Jones, she has been backing British business for more than 20 years now, having founded Enterprise Nation in 2005 to support the flourishing number of start-ups and SMEs.
Enterprise Nation expanded to become an active small business membership community, reaching more than 800,000 businesses each year with a powerful digital business support platform. Whilst leading Enterprise Nation, Jones became a positive campaigning voice to government and the media on behalf of partners and members.
In 2011, she co-founded enterprise campaign StartUp Britain, which she ran until 2014. During that time, StartUp Britain facilitated mentoring, hosted Industry Weeks, toured the UK with entrepreneurs and experts, launched special projects such as PopUp Britain and had a critical role to play in record results of people becoming their own boss.
She is keen to make headway in the new role, but change can be difficult to achieve. The challenges lie as much in process as in policy, and transparency and communication are what will light the way for businesses struggling with admin problems.
“No-one is against the idea of building a positive payment culture as part of a healthy economy, but some obstacles can prevent this happening in practice, including legacy systems and large companies that have seen a cashflow impact from wage and NI increases. We are working with companies on the processes piece and guides like this from Intuit are helpful as they show how prompt payment can be delivered.”
“The longer the payment terms (some companies have 60-day or even 90-day terms), the more problematic it may be for small companies, which are often forced to finance the costs of goods and services until their customers pay them. Small businesses may be forced to turn to lines of credit or accounts receivable financing to bridge the gap. Prioritizing prompt pay is a great first step.”
Despite the difficult trading conditions and raft of new legislation, she’s optimistic about the ability of businesses to manage change as they continue to adjust to economic realities and rising costs.
“On the NI impact, as these costs become an embedded part of business and finance forecasts, we expect money flows to improve.”
Freeing up time and cash for growth
There seems to be a common thread running through all the challenges Jones hopes to solve, which seems to be about giving founders back the time and money they need to grow.
“One of the key challenges is the time and resource spent chasing late invoices,” she says, “and this is at the heart of our role, but in our engagement with small business, we are aware of operating challenges and current opportunities.
“Small business owners want their time and cash freed-up so they can spend both on growth. This is what we are working to achieve; to free up founders so they can spend time on building their team, entering new markets, and innovating with new products and services. Our first job is to reduce those hours spent chasing debt.”
And she is committed to making sure all small firms have a voice in her office’s work, no matter where they are.
“There is an open line for any small business to contact me. I shared my email address on day one and am active on X and LinkedIn and share a weekly newsletter which updates on our work and where I can review comments posted. This means I hear views of small businesses from all parts of the UK.”
“We are also well engaged with national trade bodies such as FSB, BCC, MakeUK etc and every day are on top of media reports and survey results on business trends and sentiment to ensure our work is responding to the market. We take our representation role seriously and work to ensure the views and voices of small businesses from across the nation are well heard.”
Fighting late pay from big business
The office won’t just be waiting for complaints to come in. New powers to tackle repeat late payers may be incoming if she gets her way.
“You will soon see a consultation released that looks at potential new powers for the Small Business Commissioner to investigate and fine companies that are repeatedly paying late. If these powers come into legislation, we will have them at our disposal but in the meantime, we are focused on working pro-actively with companies who do want to pay on time but need help to get their processes in place to achieve this.
“We can identify companies that need help through the casework team as complaints are made to us, and our ideal is to move a business from the case team to the Fair Payment Code team where we showcase good practice.”
Embracing digital tools and AI for payment reform
Technology is another key tool in Jones’ plan to overhaul small business payment culture, and it starts with the basics by helping small businesses to adopt digital tools and tech. When small firms use tools such as cloud accounting software, admin reduces and they get paid faster.
She also wants to make sure digital-first firms don’t fall through the cracks.
“We are working with the major e-commerce marketplaces and payment providers to ensure that digitally-traded small businesses get paid prompt.”
And there’s a bigger vision at play too, with artificial intelligence at the heart of it.
“We want to leverage Open Finance to realise our vision of connecting every small business owner to an AI-powered personal business agent who can ‘serve’ the small business with the right support and resource they need, at the right time.
“We are excited at the potential of AI and small businesses are too, which explains their rapid embrace of it, so we want to apply that at a ‘back office’ level to connect the wiring that powers small firms and make their life easier when it comes to access to finance, support, grants etc.”
Standing up for the smallest players
With so many small businesses across sectors and sizes, there’s always the risk that the very smallest may be overlooked, but Jones is keen to avoid that.
“Our definition of a small business is any company with up to 50 employees and our work ensures all types of businesses within this size range are covered in our thinking, representation, and subsequent action.”
She’s also working closely with key players to improve small firm access to public sector work.
“I have a great relationship with SME Crown Representative, Shirley Cooper OBE, and have always been passionate about small firms bidding (and winning!) government contracts, with one of the key reasons being that central government pays in good time. We will work hand in hand with Cabinet Office to encourage businesses to identify contracts and make the most of The Procurement Act that was introduced in February to see more SMEs win public sector work.”
Success means growth, not chasing
But other than improving the cash flow of small businesses by speeding up payment systems using technology, what else does success in the role look like for its latest incumbent?
“I would like to see three key things that we have helped to achieve; small businesses spending fewer hours chasing debt, with those hours dedicated instead to growth, and ensuring positive representation of small business across the full spectrum of government.”
“This is where we are focused on delivering results and small businesses will be the judge and jury of whether we have achieved it.”
