The question that is in most people's minds during these first few days in 2010 is “what is in store for me?” and to most business people and senior managers the question becomes "Is 2010 going to be a good year for business?". Is 2010 going to be a bullish year for business or is it going to be another disappointing year like 2009.

The year 2009 was an annum horibilis for most businesses except a few bell weather businesses because the consumers reduced their spending patterns or spending behaviours due to pressure on household financial resources. The pressure on households income emanated from the fact that consumers lacked confidence about the future. People were not sure if they will still be in their jobs. This lack of confidence induced fear on consumer and because of this fear consumers became very defensive in the way they spend their money. As a result of this consumers were either not willing to spend at all or they were postponing the expenditures to a future day. The other instances of were people changed their spending patterns due to this lack of confidence include consumers finding cheaper alternative substitutes than going for a night out or downgrading by moving to cheaper brands and in some cases to unbranded products.

Business is about confidence and without this confidence which underpins the consumer demand businesses were also forced to adjust from a growth mode they were in prior to the recession to a survival mode. As a result of this adjustment businesses took some or all of the following actions:
i) froze recruitment of new staff
ii) froze wage and salary increases of currently employed staff
iii) made staff redundant or reduced the length of the working week from five
days to say four days a week.

These actions meant that people had less disposable income to spend and since businesses depend on consumer spending most businesses either contracted or in some cases collapsed altogether. That was the story of 2009. Is this story going to remain the same, degenerate or is it going to change for the better? In 2009 at the height of the recession there was a discussion of whether there were green shots of recovery. Some even suggested that the green shots were in fact weeds.

Now that we are in 2010 we have already started to see some good news for example the unemployment figures released recently are not as high as was anticipated by the masters of the universe - our experts in the city and the positive news about the festive season's spending which is higher than prior year. Britain is also expected to emerge from the recession when the next GDP figures come out. This momentum should continue in 2010.

I am of the opinion that 2010 will be better than 2009 and that means it will be a good year for business. 2010 will also see businesses re-adjusting to a growth mode and again this indicates that 2010 will be a good year. However despite my prediction of a good 2010 for businesses some industries will continue to suffer especially the ones whose performance is inversely correlated to interest rates, which I think will start to increase after the second half of the year.