Here in Gibraltar space is a valuable commodity. As businesses grow and develop, depending of the nature of the individual business, two things are likely to happen: an expansion of the work force and the ever-increasing amount of paper that these individuals produce.

Moving premises or extending existing ones can be stressful and costly as well as inconvenient. Of course, moving to new premises can also be a sign of prosperity and business development, but wherever we go, no matter how much space we acquire it will inevitably one day be filled.

Sound management protocols should allow a business to manage the ever-growing amounts of paper and data produced, and fulfil the required compliant and regulatory duties as one and the same. However, meeting these requirements can add stress and consume time that could be spent concentrating on the business in hand.

From the aspect of compliance a couple of phrases that are used, so much these days, are disaster recovery and continuity planning. When these phrases are used people instantly think of calamities such as earthquake or floods. However a disaster often takes the form of something quite different and may only affect individual businesses rather than whole districts. A business could cease operations for any number of reasons, natural disaster being just one of them. It could be that a man made error, denial of access to your premises, loss of data because of hardware failure or fire.

The priority is to restore services and restart operations as soon as possible. Statistics from the London Resilience website show that half the companies that suffer from either data loss or major disruption and have no effective continuity planning, go out of business within twelve months of the event.

Outsourcing document management/archives as well
as digital data is something that can make life easier and at the same time increase the effectiveness of disaster recovery and continuity plans.

Lab Gibraltar Ltd. provides a number of solutions that are both cost-effective and compliant. By removing digital data storage away from your place of business you automatically create a duplicate that is constantly updated. Lab’s dedicated Data Vault backup solution means that a client’s entire system can be restored without the danger of corrupted or lost data often associated with backup tapes. Data Vault allows for full backup restoration or even the restoration of individual files, should a file be misplaced or accidentally deleted. The backup data is encrypted before leaving the client’s premises for additional security.

Lab can also provide clients with a managed Document Vault. Storing your physical documents/archive in our secure premises that are monitored by intruder alarm, fire detection and entrance and exit monitored CCTVs. The Vault Is temperature and humidity controlled to ensure documents do not deteriorate over time and they are also catalogued for ease of access and retrieval should originals be required by the client.

Some clients require documents to be scanned and transferred to other types of media or hosted by Lab for online viewing. Closed circuit networks are used for the scanning process removing the threat posed by outside attack.

• Strong euro impacting on stock costs and squeezes margins.
• Banking costs affecting many local businesses. Lending conditions remain tight.
• High business costs and competition from Spain have the biggest impact on local businesses.
• Members returning completed questionnaires employed more than 2,500 people or around 1/6 of the private sector workforce in Gibraltar.
• 30 per cent response rate (83 completed questionnaires returned).

Employment levels

One quarter of respondents said that they had increased the number of employees in the previous 12 months. These were in the non-banking parts of the finance sector mainly insurance and “Other Financial” categories. This was counterbalanced by a similar number of respondents who said that they had reduced the number of employees in the same period, predominantly in the construction, gaming and banking sectors, although a number of retailers had also reduced staff levels. The remaining 50 per cent of respondents said that there had been no change to staffing levels during the period.

One poignant question asked of respondents was whether in the light of the global recession, employers were expecting to make redundancies in the year ahead. Just 10 per cent of respondents said that they expected to make job cuts, but a further third (36 per cent) said that they were unsure if job cuts would be necessary. A certain degree of reassurance was given by more than half of respondents (54 per cent) who responded that they had no plans to make job cuts in the year ahead.

Business Performance

Around half of those responding said that they had seen an increase in sales compared with the previous year. Just under a  third of respondents (31 per cent) said that they had seen a fall in sales whilst a fifth (20 per cent) said that their sales had been flat compared with the previous year.

Of those who had seen increases, wholesaling, legal, insurance, other finance, and the port and shipping sectors all reported healthy double digit increases in sales. The sectors hardest hit were banking, construction and transport which all reported sharp falls compared with the previous year or at best flat sales levels.

The one puzzle in this result is that the increases in sales reported by retailers and particularly wholesalers conflict with the decrease in business reported by transport companies. This could be explained perhaps by the significant increase in volume of transport companies entering Gibraltar to supply goods but not using local transport and customs clearing agents.  Should a levy be introduced on such non-local trucking firms and if so who might benefit? The Chamber does not wish to see an increase in business costs just to support a number of small local firms. We would, however, want to encourage people to use local firms where the service level, quality and price are better to that offered by outside firms.

Business Outlook

More worrying perhaps is the expectation of what lies ahead for the business community. Nearly a quarter of respondents (23 per cent) expect the next year to be better than the previous year. However, 40 per cent of those responding expect the outlook to deteriorate in the year ahead. A similar amount (37 per cent) expect trading conditions in the year ahead to be the same as last year.

When asked what about the impact of the lower corporation tax rate anticipated in 2010, nearly four fifths (78 per cent) responded that it would have a positive impact on their business. Nearly one fifth (19 per cent) said it would have no impact.

That said several respondents gave their positive reply on the condition that additional costs or taxes would not be introduced by the government. Many members asked the question: “How will government balance its books?”

Impact of the recession is having a notable effect on local traders with more than half of respondents (54 per cent) saying the downturn was having a negative impact on their business. Surprisingly, more than a third of respondents (37 per cent) said that the worldwide recession was having no impact on their business. These unaffected businesses were represented across most of the main sectors: wholesale, retail, finance sector, the port and shipping sectors. But it is still relatively early in the downturn and if the 1990s recession is any guidance, Gibraltar began to feel the effects of the downturn two years after it had hit the UK and Spain.

Banking costs

(Note: The survey was conducted in the second quarters of the year so changes in bank lending policies may have been made since then.)

Respondents were asked if the availability and cost of banking facilities had changed noticeably compared to the previous twelve months. Just under one sixth of respondents (14 per cent) said that borrowing rates had increased. Two fifths (41 per cent) said rate has decreased with a slightly higher percentage of respondents (45 per cent) saying rates had not changed. This gives some cause for concern as base rates have fallen to historic lows in the last 12 months but if these respondents are saying that they have not benefitted from reduced borrowing costs then this will be a burden for many local businesses.

This last response concurs with a related web poll run on the Chamber’s website in the first six months of this year. The poll asked respondents whether they had found it more difficult to secure credit facilities in recent months.  Just under two thirds of respondents (59 per cent) said that they had found it more difficult, whilst a quarter of those responding (26 per cent) said that they had not found securing credit facilities more difficult.In a subsequent survey question, 42 per cent of respondents said that they had found their bank less willing to lend compared to the previous year, but in contrast more than half of respondents (56 per cent) said that there had been no change in their bank’s willingness to lend compared with twelve months earlier.

Questions about the survey or the results can be directed to the Chamber of Commerce, please contact them on 200 78376 or email on info@gibraltarchamberofcommerce.com

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