The confidence of UK businesses has understandably faltered as the country’s economic outlook has weakened. In recent research by payments processor Barclaycard, 48% of survey participants said that they intended to spend less this Christmas, as Reuters reports.
Well over half — 59% — said that they would purchase less generous gifts, while 42% were seeking to cut back on socialising. The worsening financial situation is bound to have knock-on effects on UK firms but your own could potentially benefit from consolidating an array of costs.
A challenging economic picture for the UK
The Bank of England recently warned that the UK risked falling into a recession that would last two years longer than any UK recession in the past century. In November 2022, it was reported that the UK economy contracted by 0.2% in 2022’s third quarter.
“We are not immune from the global challenge of high inflation and slow growth is largely driven by Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine and his weaponisation of gas supplies,” Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt has warned as quoted by Sky News.
However, he added: “While the world economy faces extreme turbulence, the fundamental resilience of the British economy is cause for optimism in the long run.”
It would therefore be convenient for your business to investigate ways it could tough out the current crisis until the UK economy begins to recover. One worthwhile thing your business could do is switch to a serviced office if it has not already done so.
What is a serviced office?
Given the urgency of the current situation, you don’t want to spend too much time looking for a serviced office before you can move your staff into one. It is thus paradoxical that so many options are available in the serviced office market.
Fortunately, engaging an office broker like Office Freedom can give you the best of both worlds, allowing you to inject significant time efficiency into your search for a serviced office that ticks a long list of boxes relevant to you and your company.
Key to the appeal of renting a serviced office is that many of your overheads will be covered by just one monthly charge. This is very different to the situation with a traditional office space, which Real Business warns can “bleed you dry”.
The site elaborates: “You’ll not only have to commit to a long-term lease agreement, but you’ll also have to spend money on supplies, furniture, Internet wiring, telephone line rental and decor.”
A serviced office can accommodate various growth patterns
When your business rents a serviced office, you can expect its owner to be willing to bend backwards to ensure the size of the workspace remains suitable for your firm’s size.
For example, if your business weathers the economic storm much better than you had expected, and you even start adding extra staff to your team, the office provider could assist your company by assigning it a larger floor within the same office building.