Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng yesterday (Wednesday 5 May 2021) announced the appointment of Indro Mukerjee as the new Chief Executive of Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. Indro Mukerjee is a highly experienced technology executive and business leader with a track record of leading innovation and technology commercialisation at businesses of all sizes across the world – from publicly listed and multinational corporations to new venture and private equity backed technology companies. Mukerjee will take up the post immediately and will be tasked with transitioning Innovate UK from a grant funding body to an agency focused on driving economic growth…
Author: sme-admin
Consumer payments have come a long way in recent years to the point where we can now make payments and split bills in an instant by tapping phones, watches or even rings on card machines. At the heart of this transformation is a new wave of challenger banks that have created a smarter, more personalised banking experience. They go beyond traditional bank accounts and offer analytics which allow us to see a breakdown of where our money is going, and enable us to split our funds across multiple pots to save for specific things. They have sleek onboarding processes, beautiful…
A new salary-advance solution, borofree has launched in the UK offering employers the opportunity to provide staff with an interest free, charge free and cost-free method of borrowing against their next pay cheque. borofree works with employers to provide staff with access to a proportion of their salary ahead of payday to purchase products and services through retailer-specific gift cards. Inspired by the need for a customer-friendly financial solution, borofree was developed to enable employers to support hard working employees improve their financial wellbeing and confidence. From those budgeting for household goods at the start of each month, to professionals…
Diginex Solutions has launched DiginexESG to help make ESG reporting faster, easier and more affordable for companies of all sizes and reporting experience. The platform also enables large organisations to collect ESG data in their B2B client network, allowing them to make more educated decisions around risk, lending, and value. Traditionally, ESG reporting has been conducted by large organisations with big budgets and resources. With pressure increasing on companies of all sizes to report their data to customers, investors and regulators, Diginex Solutions are making ESG reporting accessible and mainstream. SMEs to large organisations need an efficient and accurate way…
Demonstrating the importance of small business to the UK’s COVID-19 recovery, a new report from Xero, shows 410,000 small business jobs need to be created by the end of the year to return to the pre-pandemic jobs trajectory. Using anonymised and aggregated data of hundreds of thousands of customer records as part of the Xero Small Business Insights (XSBI) programme, developed in partnership with Accenture, The Job Ahead report suggested that UK small business job losses have been almost double those in big businesses. With small businesses employing over half of the UK workforce, a strong sector recovery will be needed to achieve significant…
For entrepreneurs who run their own mid-size company the fact is that one day it will need to be sold. Often, they haven’t accepted that fact, or even thought about it yet, and as such are not well-prepared when it comes to that day. Are you running your business for shareholder value, or just for profit? The answers will decide whether the business outlives you and whether you get a great return for years of hard work. Did you know that it typically takes a company 4-5 years to be ready for sale, so even if the notion to sell…
Today, Capalona, the UK online business finance broker, has launched its SME bank account comparison engine. The Fintech company based in Wales has already helped thousands of SMEs secure finance and compare products to support business growth. Capalona says its new search engine allows customers to compare business bank account providers to find the best-fit bank account for their business needs – ultimately helping them keep on top of their company’s finances. Capalona works with an extensive range of business bank account providers in the UK, including Cashplus, CardOneMoney, Tide, Revolut, and ANNA, and the comparison search engine is straightforward…
Three UK job seekers have had their CVs launched into space in a world-first stunt to celebrate Star Wars Day today (May 4th). Online job board Zoek ran a competition through March and April and three lucky jobseekers have had their CVs placed on a digital billboard and sent to space to give a stratospheric boost to their visibility. Lucy Russell (22), David Hinley (65) and Sam Kapadia’s CVs were presented in space using a hydrogen-filled balloon the size of a two-storey house, which carried the digital display over 100,000 feet above the Earth. The launch vehicle constructed and flown…
Most countries in the world have been heavily affected by COVID-19 since the beginning of the crisis last year. The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres rightly described the pandemic as the worst global crisis facing humanity since the Second World War. After first emerging in China the spread of the virus pushed many countries to impose national lockdowns and quarantine policies to flatten the exponential growth curve of infections. As a result, global economies have faced unprecedented decline and many companies have been forced to cease their activities, leading to operational or liquidity crises. Small and medium-size enterprises are the lifeblood of the UK economy. They account for 50 percent of the total revenue generated by UK businesses and 44…
April 29th 2021 saw the 4th annual Thames Valley and South West Business & Community Awards, with over 2,000 nominations across 26 different awards categories and more than 400 businesses attending the celebration. After a brief foreword by Alec Jones-Hall, the director of Great British Expos, attendees were delighted by entertainment in the form of Mark ‘Sparky’ Harding and Anne ‘Sprite’ Jeffery-Harding, who sang classics from the likes of Elvis, The Beatles and ABBA. Alec – along with Tina Fincham, who works for Aspen Waite – then introduced the hosts of the event: Paul Waite (Chief Executive of Aspen Waite)…