A bunch of people involved in running Micro Businesses have called for a specific focus on their business sector at the end of this week on Friday the 9th January. If you are on twitter check out the hashtag #MicroBizMattersDay . The idea is really simple, in the first full week of our calendar year lets redouble our efforts to buy products or services from businesses that employ 1-9 people. There is extensive research to show that it is these businesses more than any others which create new jobs and return profit back into the local economies. That is not to suggest that many businesses that employ 10 or even 20 people are not incredibly efficient, but the way in which our Governments measure business impact means that there has to be some parameters.

The Government has made a commitment to spend 25% of its procurement budget on Small to Medium Size Enterprises (SME) which is a catch all category that covers the Micro Businesses, Small Businesses (10-49 employees) and Medium Sized Enterprises (50-249 employees). Put together the SME sector is the most efficient at bring jobs and profit back into the wider economy. However sadly the Government and all of its predecessors give most of its contracts to large multinational corporations, most of whom are not interested in anything more than profit.

I work for a company that falls into the micro business category and I know that all of the profits made by the business get spent locally. All of the staff live within a 20 mile radius of the office and although we are a specialist supplier, we rarely send our staff to work for customers more than 100 miles away and usually it is much less than this. Most of our serious competitors are much larger, national companies that although not necessarily large by governmental standards (few employ many more than 50 people), nevertheless appear to think nothing of sending engineers from one end of the country to the other.

As most of us return to work for the first time since New Years day, we may not have set ourselves business resolutions. It is not too late. If you are in a position to make buying decisions within your company, or to influence those who make those decisions, how about ensuring that wherever possible the decision is taken to buy from a Micro Business.