The message from the sign industry to me over the last month has been that businesses need to take a step back and really evaluate where their strengths lie and how to ensure this core business is protected for the future. This is in light of the FTSE’s dramatic 800 point fall over ten days at the start of August, the worst since the USA property market crash of 2008 that sparked the global recession.

This may seem like scaremongering, but when this fact is put together with recently released figures it brings it into sharp focus.  The Office for National Statistics published there has been a  0.4 percent total drop in manufacturing from June, and business institute Equifax has released figures showing retail sector failures rose by 14 percent from January to July compared to last year.

The underlying cause for these figures is ultimately that the banks are reducing lending to troubled companies. The direct link is that when retail begins to falter, then the manufactures who supply them begin to see business slow and output drop.
 
This trend has been confirmed by the UK’s biggest sign buyer and advertising firm JCDecaux, which published revenue figures for the six months to June 30th  showing a 5.3 percent annual increase to  €1.17m (£1.03m), but has done so despite its UK trade.

As the companies chief executive officer, Jean-François Decaux, explains: “Growth was principally driven by the strong performance of Asia-Pacific and the rest of the world. In Europe, the strong performance in certain markets such as Germany was partially offset by continued weaknesses in Southern Europe and a slowdown in the United Kingdom and France.”

The significance of this observation is advertising and sign buying at the top end has slowed and so may domino down the scale. A good place to start for advice on how to counter this is the Hidden gems and Diversification of Services features in the September edition of SignLink , which explore the business opportunities, funding, grants and tendering avenues available to support UK business.