• Customers say red tape, hiring staff and cyber-attacks are limiting growth
• Corporates, governments and industry need to collectively drive policy change
• One business forced to make a $100,000 investment to combat supply chain challenges

Small businesses are being weighed down by persistent and emerging challenges, which are taking precious time away from already stretched owners, a new NAB report says.

Red tape, hiring and training staff and cyber security threats topped the list of things keeping small businesses up at night in NAB’s Backing our businesses: Unlocking growth for small and medium enterprises report released today.

Who are our small business customers?

What are the barriers to success?

Accessing capital, supply chains and digitisation and AI rounded out the list of roadblocks that NAB’s small business customers and bankers identified as part of the research.

“These are not new challenges to Australian businesses, but they need new thinking to address them,” NAB Group CEO Andrew Irvine said.

“Businesses, banks, governments and industry groups all need to come together to find solutions and unlock more productivity, jobs and economic growth.”

How can we solve together?

NAB Group Executive Business & Private Banking Rachel Slade said that the report highlighted several policy recommendations to ease the burden on businesses, including:

• Assistance for SMEs hiring their first employee
• National stocktake of regulatory compliance for business owners
• Easing cost barriers and access to cyber security software and hardware.

“Small businesses are the heartbeat of our economy, but complexity has added up over time and they’re finding it harder to drive growth,” Ms Slade said.

“As Australia’s leading business bank, we need to use our voice to back business and help find a way through.”

“Small businesses can’t do this on their own – and they shouldn’t be expected to.”

Deniz Karaca, owner of Cuvee Chocolate, said his business has been battling supply chain challenges for some time, and it’s only been getting worse with the global shortage of cocoa beans.

“We rely on third party suppliers for cocoa butter and with the global shortage of cocoa its near impossible to buy cocoa butter and when you do, prices soar,” he said.

“It’s not a reliable way to run a business when chocolate is your main ingredient and running out of cocoa would be catastrophic.”

To overcome this, Deniz had to invest in a cocoa butter presser which cost his business just over $100,000.

“We had no choice but to come up with the money upfront and it wasn’t easy. I know not every business has the means do this,” he said.

“The last few years has only seen things get harder for small businesses – we’re facing into increased difficulties in running a business, more red tape, and higher costs than ever before.”

ENDS 

Notes to editors 

• Further resources are available to download, including:
  • Customer case study: Kreca Built + Designe
  • Customer cast study: Brisbane-based technology company WINBASIC
• Download the full report.
• NAB’s content hub Best in Business offers content to support our customers with insights, profiles and recommendations for running their business.
• Further NAB Economics insights and business commentary can be found at Business Research & Insights