Features

Woody Allen once said that 80% of all success is down to showing up, but for many startups finding the right people – both partners and employees – is an equally important step on the road to success.

Few things are more exhilarating than the feeling of starting your own business.

In the last few years there has been a dramatic increase in trademark applications before the UK registry.  This brings with it an increased risk that an identical or confusingly similar application to your rights might be filed.

After pivoting with pace and entrepreneurialism during the Covid-19 pandemic, SMEs are now adapting again to a new set of challenges. Our recent Business Barometer research found that over half (52%) of SMEs state that rising costs present the biggest challenge to the running of their business.

Budgeting for 2023 will be one of the most daunting tasks marketers will face this year. This is due, in part, to the current economic climate. Marketers around the world are planning for next year knowing that they will have to reduce their budgets.

Rupert Dean, CEO of x+why, looks at the future of the workplace in the hybrid working era and how companies should be using them to best effect.

“My experience of working from home is you spend an awful lot of time walking very slowly to the fridge, hacking off a small piece of cheese, then walking very slowly back to your laptop,” said Prime minister Boris Johnson. Worryingly, he’s not the only person to believe the office is essential.

Looking at the distribution of venture capital investments today, women receive five times less financing than their male counterparts. In 2020, only 2.3% of venture capital funds went to businesses started by women around $3.7bn and, more than $160bn went to companies created by men. Moreover, only 12% of decision-makers at venture capital firms are women, and many VC companies have no female partners.

Black Friday in the United States has become somewhat of a religious movement bordering on hysteria, with people camping outside of department stores for several days—subsequently disregarding Thanksgiving, the family holiday which summoned Black Friday in the first place—with people literally getting mauled and trampled to death just over some discounted products.

Owning a small business is hard work at any time, let alone right now. In fact, for many owners, the combined impact of the pandemic and the cost of living crisis probably adds up to the most challenging economic circumstances they’ve ever experienced.

While customers searching for Black Friday deals online are advised to follow a few simple guidelines to stay safe and avoid cybercriminals taking advantage of the annual shopping frenzy, tech experts explain what retailers can do to keep their devices and data secure.

Jeremy Hunt’s pledge in last week’s Autumn Statement to make the UK the “world’s next Silicon Valley” was music to the ears of those involved in Britain’s thriving technology community. It is a laudable ambition, but as everyone working in UK tech knows, the foundations that can turn it into a reality were laid many years ago.  

When launching any enterprise, commercial or social, the key question to ask is why? Why am I creating this business? Who is it for? Do they need it? Does it help people get a job done in a better, more effective way? You need to know a project will be economically sustainable.

We live in a world where businesses constantly reinvent themselves to remain competitive. Automation and digitisation goals feature in well over half of all today’s businesses’ long-term corporate strategies, according to PwC’s most recent annual Global CEO Survey. Which is why artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual worlds or ‘metaverse’ related technologies and tools have risen to prominence, particularly in relation to improving on-the-job training and upskilling new talent.

The chatter around quiet quitting is hard to ignore – this is when an employee doesn’t actually quit but remains in their job without performing above and beyond – but have you heard the buzz about quiet firing?

In 2017, a YouGov survey found that 10% of British people admitted to having lied on their CV, while subsequent surveys have found that this number could be substantially more.  In this article, we explore the legalities of an employee lying on their CV, what employers can do to mitigate the risk of employing such an individual, and how they should respond if they later find an existing employee has been dishonest.

Mathematicians once proclaimed that there are over 177,000 distinct ways to tie a knot in a necktie. Users of customer relationship management (CRM) software may also feel like they’re forever learning something new – there’s always a new trick or updated module to get to grips with.

At first glance, you’d probably think to yourself, robot with a human face? Hell yeah. That sounds chill. Does it though?

Employees are facing the greatest decline in living standards in over 50 years: the cost-of-living crisis. Between double digit inflation figures (10.1% in September) and skyrocketing energy bills, many people’s financial security is under real threat. According to Mintago’s most recent research, employees in the UK have voiced concerns about their financial woes to their managers significantly more than usual this year.

Stress can be a useful element of working life, helping to boost motivation and spur us to hit deadlines. However, Google search data suggests that more of us struggle to cope with workplace stress; UK searches for ‘reduce stress at work’ in the last three months have increased by 27%.