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…
Author: sme-admin
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…
Youth Sports Nutrition Brand ‘ProYouth Nutrition’ is celebrating one of its best months to date following an appearance on Channel 5’s ‘Rich House Poor House’. Marina Wegorek – mother of two and founder of ProYouth Nutrition – and her family took part in Rich House Poor House, which saw them swap lives for a week. During the experience, the family were able to discuss challenges, assess their family set-up and re-strategise their business growth plans which has led to an incredibly successful 6-months for the brand. After the show aired on Sunday 14th March, ProYouth Nutrition witnessed one of its…
Covid-19 is still very much the top story in the media during these unprecedented times of pandemic and lockdown. Over 100,000 people have now lost their lives to Covid-19 and many bereaved families have been left concerned about how to deal with the estate of their loved ones. Who can advise them? What is the estate worth? Gordon Brockman, who is an experienced Probate professional, has just launched his new website, ‘True Values’, to assist grieving relatives make these challenging and confusing decisions. With nearly 20 years’ experience as an auctioneer and valuer, Gordon, who lives in Melksham, said: “I…
Allica Bank has made four appointments to its award-winning Business Relationship Manager team to further strengthen its operational capacity in commercial property finance and asset finance lending. All four will be focused on developing Allica Bank’s broker distribution channel. Michael Mann and Maria Fraughan join the bank as Business Relationship Managers, specialising in commercial mortgages. Michael has more than 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry across corporate and commercial markets, while Maria has worked in high-street banking for more than 30 years, with the last five years in the broker arena. “My goal is simple,” says Maria. “To work with brokers to help small and medium-sized…
The John Lewis Partnership has announced that it is not planning to reopen eight of its 42 John Lewis shops from lockdown, as it rebalances its store estate to reflect how customers want to shop. The Partnership also confirmed plans to transfer the running of its Waitrose Distribution Centre in Leyland to XPO Logistics. The remaining 34 John Lewis shops will reopen from 12 April subject to Government guidance – with the exception of Glasgow, which will reopen from 26 April, and Edinburgh, which will reopen on 14 May. The eight shops identified for closure include four ‘At Home’ shops in Ashford, Basingstoke, Chester and Tunbridge Wells,…
Propel, a leading specialist UK asset finance provider, and Azets, the top ten UK accounting, tax and business advisory firm and the largest SME regional practice across Europe, have today announced the formation of a significant strategic partnership. As a result of the alliance, thousands more SMEs will be able to gain access to fast and flexible asset finance to acquire the equipment and vehicles they need to drive growth and prosper. Propel is a specialist asset finance lender, helping more than 40,000 businesses across the UK over 25 years, to access finance to acquire business-critical equipment quickly and easily.…
Dan Thornton, Associate, Patent Attorney, Mewburn Ellis LLP Picture the scene – an investor is looking at two SMEs. Each has a strong leadership team, motivated staff, and fresh technology. Both are profitable and have strong business plans to expand, but only the first has any intellectual property rights (IPRs). Only, the first has a pending patent application, with the option open for obtaining patent protection around the world, which protects their key technology innovations. The first also has a trade mark registration protecting their branding that is beginning to gain traction in the market, along with a design registration…
Innovative green projects, which are creating the next generation of electric trucks and hydrogen-powered buses, are set to secure nearly 10,000 UK jobs and save millions of tonnes of carbon emissions thanks to over £54 million of funding by Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng. The 3 projects in Cwmbran, Warwickshire and Ballymena will receive more than £54 million of funding from the UK government and industry, and are forecast to secure nearly 10,000 jobs across the UK. They could also save up to 45 million tonnes of carbon emissions, equal to the total amount of emissions produced by 1.8 million cars…