Business

The Government's campaign to encourage small and medium-sized businesses to export is failing to achieve its objectives, according to new research. A QuoteSearcher survey of 618 SMEs found just seven per cent of businesses are likely to take part in the campaign, with 69 per cent of respondents saying they had never heard of the campaign before. The UK Trade and Investment department is already facing an investigation as to whether it’s providing enough value to small businesses. The 'Exporting is Great' campaign...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) have said that extra direct competition would see greater efficiency, lower fares and better use of rail capacity. They said that rival train firms should run services on the same lines, which would see an end to the franchises on major intercity lines. This idea was considered and rejected on operational grounds when railways were first privatised in 1994. This report has been released just before Nicola Shaw’s review into the...

Super fast growth companies know as 'gazelles' are expected to contribute £38 billion to the UK economy in exports by 2020, according to new research. The report finds London's medium-sized businesses are set for a growth spurt over the next few years up to 2020 - increasing their contribution to GVA from £62 billion in 2015 to £76 billion in 2020. This is largely due to an exciting group of super fast growth companies knows as ‘gazelles', which are companies that have...

When it comes to social media, the vast majority of us love to tweet. According to the latest data from Statistic Brain Research Institute, Twitter currently has 645,750,000 registered accounts and 289,000,000 active users. Looking specifically at the UK, Statista calculates the number of active daily Twitter users to be 15.8 million in 2016 and within the next two years that figure will grow to more than 17 million. Essentially, what's clear to anyone with their finger even remotely on the tech...

The 'short term loan' is amongst the most slandered terms in the financial world, but there is no doubting that responsible lenders have an important role to play in the credit market. New research has revealed the importance of borrowing from an accredited lender when it comes to short-term credit, with a third of people saying that government regulation will make the industry more trustworthy. More than a quarter of the respondents said they are more likely to borrow money if the lender is...

By Ben Ramanauskas Martin Shkreli has managed to engender feelings of revulsion in the vast majority of the population. He incurred widespread odium when his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, acquired the drug Daraprim, which is commonly used to treat toxoplasmosis, which kills people with weakened immune systems, such as people suffering from AIDS or undergoing chemotherapy. The parasite which causes toxoplasmosis lives inside of one third of the population, in tiny cysts that go undetected because they are quarantined in our...

Porterlight Bicycles’ office-come-workshop, tucked away inside a warehouse on an industrial estate in Seven Sisters, has all the space of a garden shed. Between Lawrence Brand – the founder of Porterlight Bicycles – myself, and a baby blue bicycle frame, there is little room to manoeuvre. Hunched over a workbench, we are sandwiching a small blackboard. Chalked on the board is a motivational message: ‘Time to Build’. Brand believes the Chancellor has failed to send out the same message to...

EasyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou has opened a new low cost supermarket in Park Royal offering staple goods for 25p each. EasyFoodstore opened on Monday offering a range of groceries for 25p as part of a introductory promotion set to last all of February. The outlet has a  “limited and basic range of items at rock-bottom prices” using the slogan, “No expensive brands. Just food honestly priced”. The move is a clear challenge to the astronomic rise of retailers Aldi and...

New job data has revealed almost a half a million female and ethnic minority jobseekers in the finance and IT sectors will not be considered for roles this year purely because of the name on their CV. The research revealed that even though employment in finance and IT is on the increase, the proportion of women and minorities working there has fallen. There are also inherent barriers to progression for those already in-situ: women with supervisory responsibility in the finance sector are...