Growth is usually treated as an unambiguous good. It isn't — and the entrepreneurs who think most clearly about it tend to ask sharper questions than simply how fast to grow.
London's economy has reinvented itself before. The current shift — toward knowledge-intensive, technology-enabled services — is well underway, and it's changing what kind of business does well here.
Rising costs are only part of the financial picture for London's small firms. Borrowing costs and cash flow timing are doing just as much damage, quietly, in the background.
Profit and cash are not the same thing, and confusing them is one of the most common reasons otherwise sound small businesses run into serious trouble.
London rewards small businesses that get a handful of fundamentals right — and punishes the ones that don't, quickly. Here's what tends to actually separate the two.
Offices, shops, and services used to sit in fairly separate zones. That boundary is blurring, and it's changing what a successful London business district actually looks like.
Wage bills, business rates, and rent are all rising together this year. Here's what the data shows about how London's small firms are actually responding — and which responses are working.
