Research and analysis

Understanding mid-size businesses

This report presents the findings of independent research commissioned by HMRC regarding mid-size businesses.

Documents

Understanding mid-size businesses

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Details

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) currently uses turnover and number of employees as a way of differentiating the business population to target its resource into Large Business and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). In order to develop more effective and efficient engagement strategies, HMRC sought to understand what other factors influence business customer behaviours and experiences.

This research set out primarily to provide HMRC with increased understanding of mid-size businesses. Mid-size businesses, although a relatively small group, make a sizeable contribution to UK turnover and are significant in terms of their growth potential.

To set the parameters for this work, HMRC purposely started with a broad classification of mid-size businesses: Businesses in the UK with a £10m-200m turnover and/or more than 20 employees, with the expectation that the parameters would be refined as a product of the research. This definition meant that a wide range of businesses would be involved in the research.

The research sought specifically to understand their characteristics and provide a more sophisticated way to identify sub-groups in the population that would enable HMRC to better engage with businesses.

Published 27 February 2014