Made Smarter Adoption North West, the trailblazing digital technology adoption programme, has secured an additional £230,000 to help more SME manufacturers access transformational technology. The allocation from the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) will fund at least 10 new companies to adopt technologies such as sensors, robotics and 3D printers to increase productivity, growth, create new high value jobs and support decarbonisation. This cash boost is more good news for the business support initiative that will continue from April 2025 as part of the Government’s £16M commitment to expand into all English regions. Made Smarter offers SME manufacturing and…
Author: sme-admin
As we commence a new year and reflect on key lessons from 2024, company culture remains a hot topic – from rising expectations for employees to return-to-office reports of declining employee engagement. It all stems from a lack of cohesion between existing culture and the real-world needs of the business, with leaders everywhere called upon to better align their corporate cultures with their organisational strategies, recognising the role that culture can play in driving business growth. We sat down with Charlie Coode – CEO and Founder of Culture15 – to find the answers, learning how his SaaS platform, running on…
As starting a business emerges as a key New Year’s resolution for Brits in 2025, experts have revealed the most common reasons startups fail and how to avoid them. The experts at money.co.uk business credit cards have analysed survey data about common causes of startup failure – with lack of financing and investment ranking top. The most common reasons for startup failures: Rank Reason for startup failure Percentage of respondents 1 Lack of financing/investor 47% 2 Running out of cash 44% 3 Poor timing 21% 4 Legal challenges 19% 5 Lack of a business model 16% 6 Product not user friendly 9%…
The power of influence in business isn’t just about selling a product or service — it’s about shaping the conversations that drive industries forward. When you establish your brand as an authority in your field, you become more than just another option for customers; you become the first choice, the trusted partner, and the guiding force in your niche. This is the essence of thought leadership. Helena Osborn, from integrated marketing company Protean Inbound, explores how thought leadership can advance your brand’s reputation and create long-term value by positioning your business as the trusted voice that leads the conversation in your…
January is the busiest month for heading to the gym across the UK, and as 2025 gets going, searches for ‘cheap gyms near me’ have soared by over 5,000% across the UK in the past month. In light of this, the experts at Live Football Tickets conducted a survey of 2,000 UK participants, to find out how many Brits plan to join the gym in 2025, and how likely they are to give up on their New Year’s resolution. Expert advice has also been provided by Maarten Zomerdijk, Co-CEO of Live Football Tickets, on sticking to your gym goals in 2025. How much money are…
The Agile Manifesto is a short document outlining four values and twelve principles of agile software development. Over 20 years since the Manifesto was first published, many businesses have ‘gone agile’, but we’ve strayed from the founding principles, says Craig Cook, chief engineer at Agile consultancy Catapult. The Agile Manifesto is an acknowledgement of two things. First, software is often wrong and secondly, even if you get it “right”, the software is never done. The best way to get it closer to “right” is to deliver it in small increments and get regular feedback. You may have given customers exactly…
According to new research from Dext(1), the leading bookkeeping automation platform provider, the UK’s small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) surveyed (2) could be losing a staggering average of £742 every month from incorrect invoicing stemming from poor tracking of rechargeable expenses. With the UK home to over 5.5mn SMBs, the figures indicate up to a £1.1bn (3) monthly shortfall in the economy, signalling the need for a massive overhaul of outdated expense management practices. The newly-released data, which compiled survey responses from over 500 UK SMB leaders as well as 100 accountants and bookkeepers, revealed inadequate client invoicing and expense management…
HR experts predict 2025’s biggest work trends, including ‘corporate catfishing’ and ‘burnout-blocking’ Molly Johnson-Jones, LinkedIn Top Voice & CEO of flexible careers specialists, Flexa, issues a warning about the trend for ‘corporate catfishing’: “Many employers want the talent attraction benefits of flexible work, but not all can or want to accommodate different ways of working in reality. This can make for false claims and misleading job adverts. The Employment Rights Bill will only increase cases of ‘corporate catfishing’. Since new flexible working rights will give all employees the default right to request and access flexible work, all employers will technically be ‘open to…
Joy Johnson, Head of Client Services and Operations for the UK and US at Intelliworx, the IT consultants, discusses how going virtual is helping UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) significantly reduce costs, enhance their cybersecurity and boost productivity. The UK’s smaller businesses are constantly seeking innovative ways to cut costs, enhance security and improve employee productivity, with many starting to adopt virtual desktops to achieve this. A virtual desktop, like Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD), resembles and feels like a physical workstation, but unlike physical machines, it operates in a virtual environment. By leveraging cloud-based infrastructure, such as virtual desktops, organisations are eliminating…
iStock, a leading e-commerce platform providing premium content to SMBs, SMEs, creatives, and students everywhere, has released its 2025 Marketing Trends Report, packed with practical strategies to help businesses thrive in today’s trust-driven marketplace. The report comes at a critical time when consumer trust in social media—a key tool for small businesses—is declining. According to iStock’s VisualGPS research platform, 80% of British consumers don’t trust social media content, citing concerns over misinformation. However, trust in businesses remains high, with 63% of Brits favouring businesses over celebrities or influencers, or even politicians, and 51% preferring brands whose values align with their…