Laurent Descout, CEO and founder of Neo,, lists his forecast for the top six trends driving change in fintech in 2023. FX hedging will become a necessity for tackling market volatility “2022 saw market volatility increase and a prominent rise in the dollar’s popularity as investors rushed to purchase more of the currency due to the fear of a looming global recession. As the dollar increased in strength, many US companies which trade overseas saw a drop in their earnings. The rise of the dollar has since subdued but currency markets continue to fluctuate. “The importance of locking in rates ahead of buying and selling goods and services…
Author: sme-admin
Sopro, an award-winning email prospecting business has analysed over 15,000 campaigns and 50M emails in order to pinpoint the most fruitful time to activate your new business e-mail campaign. Data reveals that emails sent on Mondays at 11am will generate the highest lead rate from an email marketing campaign. More specifically, the email that lands at 11am on a Monday will need to be the third follow up to secure the most leads. The data also suggested that SMEs need to keep the email short and to the point with those less than 250 words being read and opened the…
Author: Charlotte Boffey, UK Head of Services for Employment Hero, leading HR and people management platform. Flexible working is more than laptops and Zoom calls. At its essence, it is the ability to have some control over when, where and how work gets done. This flexibility can manifest in many ways, from reduced working hours to choosing your own start and finish times. The UK government announced last week that it had plans to make flexible working the default and that employees could request flexible working arrangements from the moment they start a job. It also said about 1.5 million low-paid…
Stuart Pearce, the founder of energy efficiency specialist SMARTech energy Ltd, has shared some tips for owners of larger companies just in case the UK has to cope with energy blackouts in 2023. The Austrian Defence Minister has warned that energy blackouts are inevitable this year in Europe. France is also on standby just in case this happens and notably, in August 2022, the EU passed a regulation under which member states agreed to reduce their gas demand by 15%. Current figures suggest they are currently short of this total and are only saved by the milder temperatures experienced so far…
Author: Stephanie Clarke at SA Law. In November it was announced that Made.com was going into administration. Although the online furniture brand has been bought by retail giant Next, it was confirmed that 320 employees would still be made redundant. Some employees are pursuing legal action after they were informed they’d be losing their jobs with immediate effect on a video call. Made.com With the number of employees that were being made redundant, Made.com was obligated to go through a process of collective consultation with the employees if they wished to make redundancies lawfully. This involves notifying the Secretary of State…
Supporting employees with the cost of living crisis, providing access to healthcare services and looking after employee health and wellbeing will be top priorities for small businesses this year, according to Mark Fosh, Divisional Director at Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing. Fosh says, “2023 will bring some challenges for small businesses who will need to balance the rising costs of running their business with the need to retain talent and keep employees engaged. Financially, many businesses can’t afford to offer pay rises in line with inflation, however, there are other ways to support employees through this crisis.” “With the NHS…
It’s now less than three years until the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is switched off in the UK, which means businesses must switch to digital now. With so much misinformation around how to navigate this switch off, Kristian Torode, Director and Co-Founder of business telecoms services provider, Crystaline, busts some of the myths around the switchover to digital phonelines. Digital phonelines use a different type of technology to make calls — such as Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP. Instead of relying on physical, copper lines, VoIP transmits voice calls over the internet by converting the audio at one…
Irrespective of the broader economy the fight for IT talent remains and it starts with the companies’ senior managers. With the unemployment level in the UK at its lowest since 1974 and pay growth still failing to keep pace with soaring inflation, organisations looking to build out their IT teams need to look internally. This is according to managed services provider Espria. Clinton Groome, COO at Espria, stated: “For businesses large and small, organisations looking to bolster their IT teams, need to look within the organisation first to ensure that it is offering the most attractive careers.” Compounding this problem…
Author: Jeremy Kourdi, executive coach and director of leadership consultancy Kourdi Associates. Formerly VP of The Economist Group, he is an expert in leadership, business development & coaching and has written 29 business books. This may be controversial but I believe that preparing for a recession is something that every business should do, regularly, whether economic misery is on the horizon or not. Why? Because shifting mindsets, making constant improvements, and preparing for a future different to today are all vital for the sustained health of any business. That said, some actions that are always desirable become indispensable when a recession…
Louise Taft of Jurit LLP, Chair of the Employment Lawyers Association’s Brexit Standing Committee discusses the impact of the promise to scrap EU “red tape” After the political upheaval of the autumn, the Government is pressing ahead with its “Brexit Freedoms Bill”, officially known as the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. If passed, it will bring the most profound changes to employment law in decades. The Bill essentially reverses the position created by the EU Withdrawal Act, which preserved the status quo on EU derived law, creating a “snapshot” of the law as it existed at 31 December…