The CBI’s Great Business Debate (its campaign to increase public trust in business) is today (Monday) publishing a YouGov survey of over 4,000 people, including 380 in the East of England. It shows that, when people’s feelings about businesses are determined by their direct experience, they are overwhelmingly positive but that this often fails to translate into support for business generally.
In the East of England 80% of people trust ‘local businesses’ (firms in their vicinity, big or small, that they interact with) compared with 59% who trust business overall. That matches a pattern for the whole UK where the figures were 81% and 57%.
The CBI is encouraging individuals to recognise that contradiction and calling on businesses to go further in strengthening their engagement with the areas where they operate. It is also calling on businesses to tell the bigger story of their contribution to communities, jobs and investment more convincingly.
Richard Tunnicliffe, CBI East of England Director, said: “Businesses here have a job to do using the warmth felt for them at a local level to improve feelings about UK business as a whole.
“When people have direct experience of companies, for example as customers or employees, it’s overwhelmingly good and trust is high as a result. But opinions about business generally seem to have less solid roots. These views are more likely to be influenced by things people read or hear second hand and are a lot less positive.
“As part of the CBI’s trust-in-business campaign, The Great Business Debate, we’re challenging individuals to think about the contradiction in how they perceive businesses locally and business generally. We’re also calling on firms in the East of England to build on the positive engagement they already have in the areas where they operate and to tell more convincingly the story of their impact on jobs, investment and taxes which is felt in communities all over the country.”
In the East of England more than two thirds of people (62%) agree they are more likely to trust a business with a strong presence in their area while only 5% feel local businesses don’t have a positive impact on their locality.
Other key findings for the region include:
- 56% agree local businesses often support other businesses in the area by sourcing locally - only 10% disagree
- 50% agree businesses in my area are proud to be part of the community – only 7% disagree
- Providing good service to local customers is the main thing people in the region say ‘local businesses’ (firms in their vicinity, big or small, that they interact with) should be doing more of to build trust (58%) followed by creating and supporting local jobs (56%)
- The trust-building action they want more of from ‘national businesses’ (firms big and small operating across the UK) is similar, service 64% and jobs 64%.
The CBI’s Great Business Debate wants to hear the widest possible range of views. Anyone can go to the website greatbusinessdebate.co.uk to leave comments or follow on twitter @bizdebate
Full survey findings
All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 4,307 UK adults, of which 380 were from the East of England. Fieldwork was undertaken between 26th-28th November 2014. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).
The Great Business Debate is a CBI-led campaign to help build public confidence in business. It is doing this by:
- Setting out the facts and combatting myths about what business does and the contribution it makes
- Encouraging people to give us their views on business and where it needs to do more
- Providing an opportunity for business to take part in a constructive conversation about what it does and how it does it
Join the conversation at www.greatbusinessdebate.co.uk and @bizdebate
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Media Contact CBI Press Office on 020 7395 8239, or out of hours pager on 07623 977854, email: [email protected]. Follow the CBI (@CBItweets) on Twitter
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