Forget big business: Smaller businesses better clients

The smaller the business, the more likely it is to have other small businesses as clients, reveals new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. And government contracts are still going primarily to large businesses, with only 5.7% of companies with less than 20 staff claiming their main source of income is from government organisations compared with 23.6% of large businesses (those with more than 200 employees).

Figures from the ABS also reveal that large businesses still prefer to deal with other large companies. About 39% of large companies say they get their main income from other big businesses. But just 13% of small businesses get their main income from dealing with large businesses.

Meanwhile the general public and other small businesses provide the bulk of income to SMEs. About 46% of businesses with 0-4 people say their main source of income is from the general public, while 42% get the bulk of their income from other SMEs.

However only 27% of big businesses derive the bulk of their income from the general public and 19% from other SMEs.