Follow the money Politicians may be the ones who ultimately set the rules of the game, but they’re far from the only people whose decisions can impact – for ill or for good – the business landscape.

Secondly, over half (51%) of our respondents said that regulators relevant to their industries understood what their business needs, while only 16% disagreed. Whether the respondents were founders of larger businesses or smaller ones didn't make a great difference to their answers either. However, our survey did reveal that older businesses, as defined by those aged five years and over, are more likely (57%) to believe regulators know what they need compared to younger ones (44%), as defined by those aged under three years old. This may very well be pointing to a learning curve - younger firms are less likely to have a direct engagement with regulatory bodies while older ones get accustomed to them. Younger firms may also be more entrepreneurial by their nature, bringing new products or business models to market, which don't necessarily align to existing regulatory structures.

Regulators are responsible for creating an environment of fair competition, where no firm is discriminated against and all are given the chance to succeed. For that reason, maintaining a relationship based on mutual understanding between regulatory bodies and businesses is crucial in creating a competitive market which works for consumers. High levels of understanding are only beneficial for both sides of that relationship.

Lastly, we asked entrepreneurs whether they thought universities had a good understanding of their needs. We found that 40% of entrepreneurs believed they did, against 26% who thought they did not. Among owners of larger businesses, the sentiment towards universities was more positive (49%) than compared to entrepreneurs running smaller firms (31%). This may simply be driven by the differences in skills needed in larger firms and SMEs.

How we should interpret all of these results is up for debate. Investors, regulators, and universities all posted net positive scores, with more entrepreneurs agreeing that these three stakeholders understand what their businesses need than disagreeing. Yet one could have this reading while still thinking that there is certainly room for improvement.

Business leaders have been pointing to 'access to talent' as a key concern for the future of their companies for some time now.²² Many think that recent graduates lack the necessary skills to hit the ground running in the world of work.²³ This will only get more urgent over time, as technological advances change the workplace further, with the World Economic Forum estimating that half of workers will need reskilling in this decade to stay as productive as they are today.²⁴ Universities will certainly play a large part in this endeavour, through building the right policies and programmes to ease the talent anxiety facing businesses.

With all that being said, perhaps the takehome message from this question is that despite a lot of negative press around investors, regulators and universities, they are mostly well-trusted by entrepreneurs - certainly more than most politicians.