Challenges Faced by UK SMEs during Covid-19 and Government Support: A Study

Contemporary Business
Environment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
Books and Journals......................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Management of small and medium size enterprises during the pandemic period is quite
challenging for the owner as well as whole workforce. As per 2021 report, the total number of
SMEs in the UK is around 5.6 million which is usually 99% of the total businesses ( Eze and
et.al., 2018). The purpose of this essay is to identify the key challenges faces by the UK SMEs
that have put huge impact on the internal environment of the SME organizations. Further, the
essay will also cover key challenges that impacted the UK SMEs strategies of interaction with
the external environment in the past two years or during Covid-19 pandemic. Lastly, it will also
be examined the role of the government of UK towards supporting the SMEs during the Covid-
19.
MAIN BODY
Key Challenges impacting internal environment of UK SMEs organizations:
Small and Medium Enterprises of UK has faced lack of resources availability is one of
the major challenges that put major negative impact over the internal environment of the
businesses. The SMEs of UK are unable to arrange resources during the time of Covid-19 from
its supplier because of the lock-down restriction. The suppliers of SMEs of UK provide the raw
material to its business through transportation and during the Covid-19 the accessibility of
transportation is quite poor. The impact of which small and medium organizations of UK unable
to get the raw material on time which leads to delay in production. This challenge also leads to
the inability of the SMEs to meet the demand of customers in the market. On this basis, it is
further identified that the lack of supply chain and transportation facility is also one of the key
challenge that has impacted the internal environment of small and medium size organizations of
UK. The non-availability of transportation facility has affected the medium size organizations
that manufacture perishable goods very hardly (Mallett, Wapshott and Vorley, 2019). It is
because they are unable to supply its perishable goods to the retailer or wholesaler on time the
impact of which their goods are spoil which leads to loss in term of food as well as sales.