Rebalancing the supply chain post pandemic The past two years have been turbulent for online retailers. From surging demand to supply chain disruption and now soaring prices, fulfilment models remain under unprecedented pressure. With environmental commitments likely to be required by governments in response to COP26, what are the key supply chain trends for 2022? Emma Dempsey, CEO, James and James Fulfilment takes a look at the likely changes over the next 12 months. Now the peak 2021 season is over there will be a significant rebalancing of the supply chain. The frailties of just-in-time models have been exposed over the past two…
Author: sme-admin
Workplace diversity is a common topic of conversation among employers, hiring managers and recruitment professionals. But diversity and inclusion in the workplace isn’t just a hiring fad; and over the years it has become less a case of simply factoring in age, gender and race, and more about hiring a wider range of people to add value to businesses. Increasingly, business leaders are seeing that encouraging diversity in the workplace has several tangible benefits, for the company and for its employees. What is workplace diversity? Workplace diversity is a term used for a workplace composed of employees with varying characteristics.These…
Glen Foster, Director, Small Business and Accounting Partners at Xero looks at why MTD (Making Tax Digital) compliance could be an opportunity for business success in 2022 As we enter a New Year, small businesses in the UK will be hoping that their fortunes improve. The promise of a recovery from the stagnant pandemic economy in 2021 has been partly realised, only for new variants and looming restrictions to bring us all back down to earth. Like most businesses, SME owners have entered 2022 with an uncertain future. Given the challenges they have faced, they would be forgiven for focusing…
Kitty Bates is a MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions & Exhibitions) content creator at Foxhills club and resort in Surrey, looks at the latest trends in Teambuilding as we move forward into 2022. Now in 2022, our lives are still disrupted by pandemics and while progress has been made with vaccines and rapid testing, we still need to be mindful of others around us and their levels of comfort. Teambuilding, a huge part of company life, has unequivocally been affected by the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns. Even companies that were fully remote before lockdowns have been unable to meet for regular meetups…
Mohamed Chaudry, Interim CFO Seajet Systems looks at the Pros and Cons for SMEToday. Outsourcing accounting and financial services is nothing new in business. But what about your CFO? The gut feeling is that any executive role within a company should – surely – be held in-house. But is the CFO different? If you can’t fill the position permanently, is it worth looking for other solutions? Could outsourced talent fill the gap on a temporary, or even ongoing basis? As someone who has carried the role of Chief Financial Officer on both a permanent and outsourced basis, I’m well-positioned to…
The pressures of today are conspiring to make teaming in our places of work exceptionally difficult, more so than any of us have ever experienced before. Understanding these current day dynamics will help us to equip ourselves to better deal with them. In our places of work, we are enduring digital transformation after digital transformation, each one taking us into unknown territories. Agile working, robotics, automation, and AI are all producing huge disruption as we are forced to innovate, migrate expensive architecture and shed thousands of jobs. Many organisations are now grappling with the cloud and how to best leverage…
Marketing expert Denise O’Leary, founder of Purpol Marketing based in Wiltshire, has been awarded an MBE for services to the construction sector in the New Year’s Honours List. Denise, who lives in Chippenham, Wiltshire, has had to keep tight-lipped about the award for several weeks. “I am honoured and humbled to be recognised with the award of an MBE in the 2022 New Year’s Honours list – made exceptionally special as it is the Platinum Jubilee year of Her Majesty The Queen. “When the letter came through I couldn’t believe it, it didn’t seem real. Today I’m so thrilled to…
Time is ticking down to the day that Amazon will stop accepting Visa credit cards in the UK. Come January 19th, the retailer is to scrap payments from Visa credit cards due to the high fees it says the card provider places on transactions. Whatever their opinion of Amazon, many retailers of all sizes will no doubt be keeping a close watch. Card processing fees can make a sizeable dent in earnings and with Amazon questioning Visa’s rates, many others will be thinking about what this could mean for payments more widely. Recovering from lost earnings during the pandemic, and…
John Edwards begins his new role as UK Information Commissioner today (Tuesday 4 January). Mr Edwards, who joins on a five year term, spent the past eight years as New Zealand Privacy Commissioner, and before that worked as a barrister. He succeeds Elizabeth Denham CBE, whose term as UK Information Commissioner ended last year. Mr Edwards said: “Privacy is a right not a privilege. In a world where our personal data can drive everything from the healthcare we receive to the job opportunities we see, we all deserve to have our data treated with respect. “My role is to work with…
Leadership specialists Caroline Esterson and Wendy Gannaway are launching a new programme to help leaders navigate and succeed in the new world of business. The pair, who co-founded Genius Learning almost ten years ago, believe 2022 will require leaders in business, charities and public service organisations to step up as never before. Caroline said: “Organisations have faced seismic challenges over the past two years which place increasing demands on leaders – and that’s not going away. We are in a new world. “The pandemic, rising customer expectations and COP26 are challenging strategic goals and the way people relate to their…