Industries tend to group together in clusters. For example, The tech industry in Silicon Valley, film making in Hollywood, finance in the City of London or Wall Street New York, Formula One racing in the Midlands and countless other examples.

The global economy has been in a poor state since 2008 and it is therefore understandable that most businesses have lowered their expectations on profit and have gone into “survival mode” at the expense of progress. Many businesses have shrunk considerably; economically and in terms of headcount and assets.

The dangers of a slow reaction to an upturn

There is a danger, however, that the actions which you took to ensure that your business did well in an economic downturn become deeply entrenched and can damage your business when the economy improves.

Even in tough economic circumstances, it is beneficial for every business to think about growth. You can be sure that your competitors will be looking to obtain your customers or your share of the market.

There are many reasons that growth is beneficial to your business.

1. Greater profitability by spreading your overheads. You may need a telephonist whether you have 10 or 20 people. The more you expand, the greater the value you will get from each item on your list of overheads.
2. You will have more customers. This will give you greater security. If some customers switch to your competitors, you will still have a larger volume of business.

September 2012 was a significant month for economic news across the globe as a number of key indicators were revealed in the UK, the Eurozone and the USA

In the UK the essential facts were as follows:

• The Monetary Policy Committee and Bank of England continue to vote for no change to interest rates and a recent forecast from RBS Group suggests that this will remain the case until 2016.
• The impact of further quantitative easing in July and the start of the Bank of England’s "Funding for Lending" Program in August have yet to show up in the figures.