Business and Economics

By Fay Gibbin, Training Manager, Busy Bees Training Today, completing an Apprenticeship is a perfectly acceptable route to a stimulating and rewarding career or embarking upon a degree course, yet it is often wrongly assumed that those forgoing the traditional route of academic learning to pursue vocational training lack the aspirations or academic ability to achieve. Over 130,000 businesses across the UK offer Apprenticeship programmes because they recognise that they produce enthusiastic, dedicated individuals, who hold a company’s values and...

 By Ulrik Bo Larsen, CEO and Founder of Falcon Social What are your goals when you create content for social media? Engaging your audience, entertaining them, driving clicks, signups, and sales? How do you decide what will get people to pay attention (which is becoming harder to do, considering the volume of content being produced) and help you reach these goals? The immense amount of data generated by social channels can help guide you in content creation. Data on engagement...

By Paul Lindsell, managing director and founder of ThoughtSpark Over the last few years, new international banking regulations have made bank credit less available, resulting in a greater need for alternative funding. Private equity is proving an increasingly popular growth funding option for firms, whether as seed capital or at a second stage. However, buoyant business growth typically requires a set of key business skills – ranging across business management, financial management, new product development, HR, sales, product/service distribution, IT...

By John Newton, CTO and founder, Alfresco Software “It would be disastrous for the UK economy to leave the EU. That is why I am saying a firm ‘no’ to a UK Brexit. And now I will tell you why… Much has been written on productivity recently – the so-called ‘productivity puzzle’ as it has been tagged. George Osborne devoted a large part of his Budget to helping the UK move up the international league tables and has launched a...

 By Tom West from accounting firm Crunch @TomAlmeidaWest We spend all day being ripped off - whether it’s paying for that gym membership we never use, or spending £1.80 on a 99 Flake (the nerve!). If you’re running your own business, the last thing you can afford to do is rip yourself off. Of course modesty can get the better of anyone, but if your rates don’t reflect the quality of your work, you’ll be selling yourself short and hurting...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent Small and medium-sized enterprises in London are set to eclipse the rest of the country with revenues forecasted to increase by over £160,000 by 2025 compared to the £82,000 increase expected around the country as a whole. Despite the government’s Summer Budget pledge to put the power into the Northern Powerhouse, the gap between London’s small businesses and those in the North looks set to more than double in the next ten years according to new...

By Rebecca Mossman, HR Director EMEA & APAC at HireRight Solving the productivity puzzle is fast becoming a key strategic priority for UK business leaders if they are to keep up with their international counterparts. According to the ONS, Britain produces 30% less per hour than workers in Germany and France. This means that it takes British workers five days to do what our German counterparts do in four. As a result, earlier this month George Osborne unveiled a productivity plan in...

By Steve Taggart As we reported recently, micro businesses and entrepreneurship are getting some great press lately and the growth of small businesses is helping to drive economic recovery here in the UK. But new research has shown that the so-called ‘startup revolution’ appears to be losing pace. The data, which was gathered by business service website Company Check, shows the growth in numbers of new businesses being incorporated each year to have slowed from 13.4% year-on-year between 2010-11 to...

By James Rubin, CEO, www.envirowaste.co.uk UK recycling rates increased rapidly by 32% between 2000 and 2012 but recently this rate has flatlined. Only 33.9% of household waste in London was sent for recycling last year despite Boris Johnson suggesting an initial target of 45% and the EU setting a target of 50% recycling by 2020. As Europe’s greenest major city with 40% of surface area made up of public green spaces, we should be able to work towards these targets....