Columns, blogs and opinion from some of the UKs leading business opinion makers and entrepreneurs and small business owners
It’s Wednesday, it’s 9pm. You get your preferred beverage and your smart phone on twitter and away you go. It’s the aspiration of would-be entrepreneurs, an anathema to serious business people, simple, light entertainment to those with a job, and a tenuous claim to fame of all those now ‘business gurus’ who were once fired from the show we love to hate – Yes, it’s The Apprentice.
Over the last few months, I have focused in my various blog entries on the benefits cloud computing can provide SMEs from cost savings to enhanced scalability to greater business agility. For today’s entry, I thought I would shift the perspective and introduce one of our customers, Chen Kotecha, managing director of scancom.co.uk, to discuss his experiences of cloud computing technology.
‘Millions’ of Skype internet phone users cut off after technical glitch: Users of Skype have struggled to sign in to the system for the past two days The Daily Mail are reporting. The Internet phone service was today reported to be racing to fix a technical glitch that is thought to have left millions of […]
When interviewing candidates for a job we consider many things, whether they will fit in with the rest of the team and the company culture. Ultimately we are considering what this person will bring to the company. But we are not allowed to consider if in a month’s time they will ask for a year off, and their job to be held open. And we are certainly not allowed to ask if that is their plan.
We have all tuned is as the ‘tum te tum te tum tem tum’ music strikes up. The hopefuls in their designer suits pulling their little cases behind them, strolling confidently through, over and past a variety of well known landmarks in our capital. All out to impress the dark Lord; Alan of Amstrad.
Time to end the ‘one-size-fits all’ approach to health and safety: A British Chamber of Commerce survey finds that health and safety laws are putting businesses off making new hires Management Today are reporting. However, the employer group thinks it has a possible solution… Facebook, Twitter Increasingly Popular Among Small Businesses: Of those doing social […]
Since I started my company Actinic 15 years ago, I’ve sold almost exclusively to small businesses – it’s been a blessing and a curse. A blessing in the sense that no single customer is too critical. Against this is that none of these guys has much money, which means we have to be incredibly cost conscious. This experience has taught me a few tips about keeping costs down.
This £2.5 billion Business Growth Fund is ‘Fool’s Gold’ and I warn every small and medium-sized business owner to steer well clear of the fund!
Cable tells banks: Lend firms more or we’ll tax you harder – Vince Cable has threatened banks with higher taxes if they fail to abide by a deal to lend companies more to boost Britain’s recovery. The London Evening Standard is reporting that the Business Secretary admitted recent bank lending trends, particularly to small and […]
If you’re feeling swamped in your business and there just seems far too much to do and far too many problems that need sorting out, with new ones appearing almost every day – there is a little trick I learnt early in my career that will help.
If you recognise that you tend to go from fire-fight to calm and back again then its important to importantly establish a 100 day plan to help focus your activities on moving towards calmness permanently. This article explains how.
The £1 shop lease. Entrepreneur Austen Pickles is taking advantage of rock bottom commercial property prices to expand his Bradford-based tailoring business by setting up ‘pop up’ shops in key town centres. The Telegraph & Argus are reporting that the boss of bespoke tailoring firm Norton & Townsend is pioneering the retail model after securing […]
North East small firms have chance to apply for funding: Small firms have been given the chance to claim a slice of £1m to boost their export sales. NEBusiness.co.uk is reporting that Market Accelerator, a UK Trade & Investment North East Service, is offering to make 100% investments of between £20,000 and £30,000 to SMEs […]
Making employment law more flexible so that it works in the interests of businesses as well as workers is a major component of our new Get Britain Trading campaign.
A loathsome show, a panto villain host and an insult to business: This is how one of the UKs leading business investors, and the ex head of Channel Four, Luke Johnson described The Apprentice in a column in the Daily Mail. Johnson says that Originally, the BBC characterised The Apprentice as a business programme. Now, […]
