Five common business strategies to counter inflation

INFLATION — the overall increase in prices of products or services over a period of time — particularly hurts small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This is because in addition to a reduction in their capital's purchasing power, suppliers tend to increase prices of raw materials and services.

How can businesses cope? You can always expand to new markets and try to add clients but these are long-term solutions to a problem that in the meantime is eating away at profits. For the short term, there are two measures that can be taken.