Douglas Grant, Managing Director of Conister, part of AIM listed Manx Financial Group PLC (AIM: MFX) provides a guide identifying and protecting a resilient business. The last year has shone a spotlight on the long-term future of the UK’s business sector, its reliance on people and the need for business resilience. It was crucial to protect the financial security of consumers so that they could continue to conduct business with each other, and that was understandably Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak’s priority, with the unprecedented introduction of Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS), Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) and furlough…
Author: sme-admin
The dashboard and analytics company ‘Statistics 24’ has grown considerably over the lockdown period as educational institutions and businesses needed a way to check online attendance and work taking place at home, but say the journey of online learning and working is really just beginning. Back in 2016, the company was started by Jamie Smith and Neil King while they were working in education themselves. They found that there was a gap in the ability to check the attendance of online learning sessions and work that was taking place both inside and outside of the classroom, so they built Statistics…
Life science companies can now apply to the new £20 million fund to expand manufacturing in the UK, Minister Nadhim Zahawi has announced. Announced last November by the Prime Minister and now open for applications, the Medicines and Diagnostics Manufacturing Transformation Fund is designed to boost the country’s ability to respond to future pandemics and put UK companies ahead of global competitors. With two-thirds of life science manufacturing jobs outside London and the South East, the new £20 million fund will also open up economic and investment opportunities for manufacturers across the whole of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales,…
Significant parts of the indoor economy and further outdoor settings will reopen from 12th April, after data confirmed the government’s ‘four tests’ for easing Covid restrictions had been met. Outdoor hospitality will be among those reopening in England next week after the Prime Minister confirmed the roadmap is on track and planned easements can go ahead. However, he continued to urge caution, with no changes to social contact rules and many restrictions still in place. Outdoor gatherings must still be limited to 6 people or 2 households, and you must not socialise indoors with anyone you do not live with…
Hundreds of young students across Swindon are being invited to take part in a competition with cash prizes to celebrate their talent. Four business owners from Swindon and the Cotswolds have raised thousands of pounds in sponsorship to launch the contest aimed at young people who would have been taking their GCSEs, A Levels or equivalent examinations in 2021. At the beginning of the first lockdown in March last year, a team of self-employed professionals: Nigel Chute (Chute Design), Allison Murray (Allison Murray Design), Chris Roberts (Chris Roberts MBE PR), and Fiona Scott (Scott Media), founded The Cotswold Challenge to…
The leading global customer experience (CX) and business solutions provider, Webhelp has announced the expansion of its program, The Nest by Webhelp, across Europe which aims to support startups and scaleups to provide the best-in-class customer experience. The Nest enables fast-growing companies across all sectors to grow exponentially by offering a unique, tailor-made outsourced CX proposition. This news comes at a time when many young companies are facing multiple challenges due to the pandemic and are requiring flexibility and ROI optimization while uncertainly prevails in their business environments. Chloe de Mont-Serrat, Head of The Nest, said: “We’re delighted to expand our offering to companies across Europe. Thriving startups have…
One of the South West’s leading performing arts companies for children and young people has received a £25,000 grant from the government Culture Recovery Fund. Revolution Performing Arts, based in Swindon but operating in North Wiltshire, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, is one of more than 2,700 recipients to benefit from the latest round of awards from the £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund. Founder Fi Da Silva Adams said: “We are thrilled to get this support and humbled too. For many children and young people, our classes in singing, dancing and acting have had a positive impact on mental health, as well…
New data from Xero, the global small business platform, points to green shoots for UK small businesses, as jobs stabilise and revenue starts to pick up. According to Xero Small Business Insights (XSBI), small business jobs have increased slightly for a fifth consecutive month in the UK, with year-on-year revenues also improving compared to January. The XSBI programme is produced in partnership with Accenture and is based on analysis of the records of hundreds of thousands of small businesses (anonymised and aggregated for privacy). The February data shows that employment across small businesses is continuing to show signs of recovery with…
The safety of students should be a priority for all schools, but organisations also need to provide a robust reporting solution for their staff should they become aware of safeguarding concerns. ‘Safeguarding 24’ is an incredibly easy-to-use system for reporting incidents or worries directly to safeguarding officers. During the height of the pandemic in 2020, the Google Workspace analytics company ‘Statistics 24’ were repeatedly asked by their customers if they knew of a simple but robust software solution for a key problem. Schools and colleges needed to allow the reporting of safeguarding concerns to their internal teams while their students…
After a full year of working from home, business cyber security is more important than ever. The number of cyber attacks has risen dramatically in the last few years – 2020 in particular – as scammers have capitalised on the uncertainty and vulnerability of home workers. As the digital transformation of business and industry has progressed, more and more businesses have found themselves becoming the target of opportunistic cyber criminals, causing widespread disruption, financial loss and reputational damage. While larger businesses certainly offer criminals greater financial gain, small-to-medium-sized enterprises are far from being safe from opportunists. The outbreak of COVID-19…