Small businesses are failing to see the opportunity for significant cost savings on their property portfolio and are instead focussed on reducing the number of employees, according to research by Regus.

The survey of over 1,000 SMEs found that for 28% of businesses with 11-50 employees, staff costs are the main focus of overhead reduction and only 5% are planning to make their biggest savings in real estate.
For the majority of businesses property is the second biggest fixed overhead

For the majority of businesses property is the second biggest fixed overhead so it is surprising to see that 95% of businesses do not consider it an area where major saving can be made.

"The economic climate remains challenging but cutting headcount is not the only solution for reducing overheads. Only so many positions can be reduced before your company's ability to deliver, will become seriously affected," said Andrew Birks, UK Sales Director at Regus.

"I'm astonished that only 5% of SMEs are focusing on their property set-up. Either the remaining 95% are already working in a flexible way with minimal fixed overheads or they do not understand that there are alternatives to costly, fixed-term real-estate and even ways to move away from seemingly long-term property arrangements."