Current resources and support available to SME's in the UK to support Essay

Current resources and support available to SME's in the UK to support them overcome linguistic and cultural barriers - Essay Example SMEs have currently recognised language skills and cultural awareness as critically important for achieving success in the international trade. Furthermore, it has been reported that language prevents SMEs from developing exporting market. It has been widely proclaimed that absence as well as acquisition of language skills has tremendous commercial and financial impacts. It has been further observed the SMEs in the UK have generally low language skills (House of Lords, 2013; Senik & et. al., 2010; Hornby & et. al., 2002). In this backdrop, the essay intends to present a critical report on the current resources and support available to SMEs in the UK to support them overcome linguistic and cultural barriers. In addition, the essay also intends to outline key recommendations pertaining to language management strategy (LMS) towards a one stop shop solution. It has been argued that exporting is similar to conducting business in domestic trade in terms of challenges faced by the business for gaining substantial profit from the operations. In this regard, success of exporting largely relies on identifying the potential barriers to businesses that are likely to be faced by SMEs. Notably, SMEs dealing with exporting are often faced with certain imperative challenges associated with complexity and fear of unknown related to foreign market. These challenges associated with SMEs dealing with exporting are ascertained to be a combination of various complexities which include language and cultural differences, political turmoil, poorly established legal and regulatory institutions and ordinary infrastructure (Parcelforce Worldwide, 2014). However, among this combination of challenges, it has been ascertained that a lack of language skills and cultural awareness has resulted in considerable amount of loss of business across Europe. SMEs were repo rted to lose their