Crack open the champagne and put away the supermarket-brand nibbles, because the recession is over – at least if you believe the economic pundits.

The influential think tank the National Institute for Economic and Social Research reckons the economy expanded 0.2 per cent in the quarter to August – a big psychological boost for a lot of businesses as it would suggest we can consign this recession to history. Exports are up, the stock market is buoyant, and big corporate deals such as the Orange/T-Mobile tie-up and Kraft’s acquisition of Cadbury are being mooted for the first time in ages.

On the darker side, unemployment is still growing. I recently emailed two friends, both of whom were working for large corporates a year ago, to find the messages bounced back. Both had lost their jobs. Next year they will be joined by a crowd of public sector workers as a new government struggles to balance the books. The price of gold has broken $1,000 an ounce, indicating investors are still worried about gremlins in the global economy. And the £8.4 billion fall in lending to non-financial businesses in July was the biggest since records began.

There are surely few periods in living memory when economic indicators have been more keenly pored over, or generated more headlines. And yet it’s businesses that create statistics, not the other way round. Just as you can’t take success for granted in a growing economy, failure is not inevitable in a shrinking one. Whether a company is swimming with or against the economic tide will be determined by the ability of its management to tune into business opportunities rather than the daily onslaught of economic data and expert debate.

www.growthbusiness.co.uk

Image Copyright Flickr

The views contained in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Commercial Finance People