Whilst many British companies are closing call centres here and moving abroad, one website boss is using his Essex call centre to break foreign markets

‘Mini-banks’, set up to serve Britain’s poorest communities, are stepping in to lend to established businesses that have been refused bank loans in the credit crunch

Alan Sugar yesterday risked infuriating small businesses again by saying they should not expect a ‘blank cheque’ simply for ‘coming up with a good idea’

Uncertainty about whether this is likely to be a ‘double-dip’ recession is affecting small business owners’ plans for retirement

Set up by the Government, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta) aims to bring together people, ideas and funding

The ‘language and tone’ of the taxman’s contact with smaller businesses has ‘greatly improved’, according to an advisory board

Youngsters have been hit hard in this recession, with Government figures showing that one in six young people aged between 18 and 24 is not in work or education

The number of business owners running their firms online is rising steadily as consumers become more comfortable with internet shopping

Small business leaders last night called on Gordon Brown to fire his business tsar Alan Sugar after he dismissed struggling firms as ‘moaners’

New research suggests that nearly 60% of smaller firms in the UK have taken steps to diversify their business to get through the tough times