Is Red Tape Killing Your Business?

I know it’s certainly got a strangle hold on our business. Of course this is an internationally read and contributed to site here at SBB so different business laws will apply to different folk, but generally speaking I do think as a business owner red tape is too constricting.

And now I’m really going to sound like a moaning mini…but it rarely seems that new legislation is in the favour of the business owner. The government treasury seem to come out winners, employees seem to come out as winners, but the poor old chap simply trying to run his business on a day to day basis isn’t winning any ground! It sems like a constant uphill hike just keeping on top of what the new legislation actually is. I mean it’s rare that we actually get told what it is, instead it is up to us, the business owner, to find out and keep abreast of it – Just who has the time when you are already busy running a company? You’d need to employ someone full time just to keep an eye on these things – great if you are a large corporate structure, but not so workable if you are an SME!

So what’s the solution? Less red tape? Well it may be nice as some of the rule changes are silly and it does look like some governments simply produce new rules in order to create paperwork, which then needs a new pen pushing department to deal with it, which in turn means employing people to do that pen pushing…which has the sum total of bringing down the government’s unemployment figures! Hurrah!

But seriously shouldn’t small businesses be left in peace to get on with the business of running their company rather than being bound and constricted by red tape?

Do we actually need all the rules that are in place? I don’t think so. There’s certainly a few I can think of that I’d quite happily live without. What about you?