As the COVID-19 Omicron variant spreads at pace across the country, and the risk of yet more restrictions heightening, more and more employers have had to rethink their plans for in-person Christmas parties, meetings, working from the office, and other workplace activities for the remainder of this year and next. The UK Government has announced that vaccines continue to remain our best line of defence and is pursuing ambitious plans to get all adults who had their first two vaccination doses a booster jab by year end, while calling all adults who have not yet received their first or second…
Author: sme-admin
It’s a month since the COP26 negotiations closed their doors, and debate continues amongst policymakers and scientists. Have agreements gone far enough to avoid climate catastrophe and limit global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees? Whatever your view, in the absence of strong multi-lateral, international agreement, it’s clear that all businesses have a responsibility to act now – and an opportunity to demonstrate leadership on climate and CO2 emissions. Tracey Herald who is Head of Sustainability at Virgin Media O2 sets out the important role small businesses must play in helping the UK to reach its net zero targets. This includes…
The London chapter of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), the world’s leading peer-to-peer network of successful business owners, has begun accepting applications for this year’s qualifying rounds of the EO Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA). Local chapter EO London announced that it will be hosting the National Qualifying Competition on 24ty of February in Cass University. EO GSEA is a premier awards programme for students who own or operate a business while attending college or university. Student entrepreneurs compete against peers in a series of local and national qualifying rounds to make their way to the global finals that will be held…
SMEs in the UK are turning to crowdfunding to fuel growth out of the pandemic, finds new research. According to a survey of UK business leaders from law firm Moore Barlow, SMEs are more likely to choose non-traditional ways of accessing capital such as crowdfunding (32 per cent) or offering investment opportunities to employees (30 per cent), than they are to seek debt finance (26 per cent), initiate a management buy-out (26 per cent), or seek venture capital or private equity investment (28 per cent). All but one of the 250 c-suite executives and business owners polled said they intend to…
Simon Walsh is Partner in the Commercial Litigation & Dispute Resolution team, and Marilyn Bell is Partner and Head of the Family Law team, at law firm SA Law. In this article they illustrate how it’s more important than ever to take a holistic approach as businesses and individuals re-engage post-Lockdown. We all know the Pandemic has impacted businesses’ plans for the future – whether changing market opportunities, or internal working practices, or both. But in a family run business the impacts become multi-layered: Covid is as likely to have shaken up family dynamics, and possibly business succession plans, as…
Jodie Fraser, founder of Fraser Allen Estate Management, is celebrating after receiving an award for Pandemic Response of the Year in the only national awards for block management experts. The 38-year-old property and block manager and her team received the award at a glittering event in London (November 30) hosted by News On The Block. She was presented with her award by tv presenter and comedian Paul Sinha, best known for appearing on the tv series The Chase and Bob Smytherman, of the Private Residents’ Associations. Jodie said: “It was amazing to be recognised in this way as we did work…
Mike Elliff, CEO at Tyl by NatWest talks to SME Today about what the payments industry can do better to help SME’s in the new year What can the payments industry do better in 2022? “For 2022 it is increasingly important for the payments industry to view every move through its impact on the relationship between the business owner and the end customer, focusing on our customers’ customers. Not just the payment provider and the business customer. The rise of Open Banking and services such as Buy Now Pay later are an excellent example of this. For 2022 we expect to…
Helloprint recently conducted a survey for 1000 office workers to determine whether business cards and face-to-face networking are still relevant in a more digital and remote-led office workforce. This is what the survey revealed: 70% of office workers are keen to begin face-to-face networking again post-covid 55% of people think it’s a good idea to have your pronouns on your business card 48% of people think printing a phonetic pronunciation of your name onto a business card is professional 40% of people think its professional to begin putting your vaccination status on a business card The survey found out that…
Remote and hybrid working is driving a permanent shift in how businesses are organising their tech. Dependence on on-premise infrastructure, to support a full capacity office, is no longer required, shows a recent survey. Surveying 200 business leaders across the UK, a new study by Zen Internet has found that: only 11% of planned tech operations will be hosted on-premise off premise tools are among the top tech investments set to be made in the next 12 months, alongside artificial intelligence (25%) automation (24%) and application programming interface (24%) It’s estimated that only 55% of office space and desks are expected to be…
Business finance marketplace Funding Options has joined forces with Wise to offer Wise Business, the business account for going global, in its marketplace to further expand its offering for SMEs as they recover from the pandemic. Wise, the global technology company building the best way to move and manage money across borders for millions built Wise Business to enable business owners to pay international invoices, vendors, and employees in 80 countries without subscription fees and without paying any hidden charges in international transfers, which are made at the mid-market rate (i.e. the rate you see on Google). For example, in…