The Rise of the SME Today

30-01-2017
In 2001 – 2006 Jenny Holloway, CEO of Fashion Enter & sister company FashionCapital, was Project Manager for the Government backed The London Fashion Forum. Funding was initially set up for three-years but the programmes proved so successful a further three-years additional funding was provided.
1000s of companies were supported and groundbreaking projects developed that really made a difference to start-up fashion businesses, such as opening a boutique in Bluewater to house a selection of collections by up and coming designers. The average sales figures reached £36,000 a week so this provided an amazing revenue stream for the designers.
SME’s have to be nimble, be able to be flexible enough to spot an opportunity and really go for growth. Of course there are risks, but as always in business calculated risks need to be taken to ensure growth and the rewards can be enormous. In 2006 Jenny Holloway opened Fashion Enter Ltd and traded by initially opening its own boutique in Croydon – no funding was available and it made the tiny team of Jenny, Jenni Sutton and Hayleigh Amos work long and hard but trading did take place. Today the company employs over 100 people and is a multi million pound company.
Jenny Holloway commented:
“We run lots of different programmes to allow small start-up business different avenues to create deep foundations for their business on which to be successful. Small businesses currently account for 99.3% of all private sector businesses at the start of 2016 and 99.9% were small or medium-sized (SMEs). The combined annual turnover of SMEs was a £1.8 trillion, 47% of all private sector turnover in the UK. The Creative Economy outperformed the general economy last year by 3.6 times and with an estimated 2.8 million potential jobs. So what are you waiting for out there…if you have a dream to run your own business you need to start and make this dream a reality.”
Thinking about starting your own fashion business? Then why not come along to our ‘How to Succeed in Fashion Today’ seminar with headline sponsor Freeths solicitors in March. To find out more about this seminar, the first in our series of trunk shows click here.
Related articles:
Business Planning Advice by Faye Watts
How to Succeed in Fashion Today