Challenges and Opportunities for Growth and Sustainability (COGS) and Research based on COGS

The Challenges and Opportunities for Growth and Sustainability (COGS) study is Delta Economics' flagship research project and has been running for three years. 

• Its goal is to understand what drives entrepreneurial survival, sustainability and growth over time. It looks at motivations, aspirations, challenges and opportunities and also measures turnover growth, jobs created and job growth and expectations of growth.
• The study re-interviews entrepreneurs each year. It can thus track how they survive, whatever the economic environment.
• Launched just before the recent financial crisis, a unique longitudinal dataset has been developed.
• This dataset can be used to interrogate themes in diverse ways, given the contexts of recession, partial recovery and the current economic climate.
• Now internationalised, the dataset permits unique insights and market intelligence for comparisons with the UK. 

The COGS survey

• The first annual COGS survey in 2008, held in the UK, covered 1,800 founders of entrepreneurial high growth businesses. This grew to 2,120 in 2009. 
• The 2010 and 2011 surveys expanded internationally, to include several European countries, South Africa, Brazil, Russia, India, China and the USA. The emphasis is on international comparisons of high growth entrepreneurial companies that have survived two years of trading and are up to 10 years old.
• The survey is conducted by telephone in September and early October each year. We re-interview as many of the same high growth companies as possible so that we can track their progress.
• Topics include: key growth issues and opportunities for growth; survival strategies; and their thoughts on their sector and the economy.
• The entrepreneurs represent a range of sectors and company size. All high growth, they have potential for rapid expansion.

COGS in-depth interviews

• The COGS survey is supplemented by in-depth interviews.
• We interview public and private sector entrepreneurial practitioners and experts each year to ensure that the research is meeting the needs of the sector and to track trends in the entrepreneurial environment.   

RESEARCH BASED ON COGS 

'The Business of Recovery' report has been published by HSBC.

Researched and written by Delta Economics, it uses the data from our COGS survey, assessing the economic conditions in the UK from the financial perspective.

COGS Women

Delta Economics has published reports on the challenges and opportunities faced by women. These include assessing issues such as access to finance and the different support network challenges.

COGS Women data interrogation is open for sponsorship by interested organisations. 

COGS Regions

Until their abolition was announced by the government in June 2010, the UK Regional Development Agencies supported the annual survey to understand the challenges and opportunities faced by entrepreneurs in their regions.

These issues still remain, and both regional and international comparisons are open for sponsorship by interested organisations.

COGS Social Enterprise

COGS identifies the growth-oriented businesses that classify as social enterprises.  That is, they have social, environmental or employment goals as their primary motivation and/or re-invest their surplus in the business to ensure it can continue to meet its social, enviornmental objectives and/or has a goverance structure that is consistent with a social enterprise (a Charity or Not-for-Profit).

The COGS social Enterprise report launched at the World Entrepreneur Society Annual Summit in March 2010.

Sponsored by IFF Research, it attracted publicity from inside and outside the social enterprise sector.

COGS 2008 full report

HSBC Business of Recovery report