With more than 266,000 small businesses having reopened since the end of April, kitchen worktop businesses and Instagram marketplaces have seen an entire new generation of entrepreneurs to be able to get their products lifted off the ground. However, for many individuals and micro-businesses, the prohibitive costs associated with the rapid and accurate production and manufacture of their creations often prevents them from scaling up and making considerable profits.
Following the impact of COVID-19 on the economy, we have seen widespread business closures, pay cuts, reduced hours, and redundancies, resulting in many workers looking for a new venture. Today, LinkedIn is one of the go-to platforms for budding job hunters searching for a new role, therefore the competition is high. To help those looking to enter a new career field, online educational platform, Preply has provided tips on the things to consider when messaging a recruiter on LinkedIn.
The Dutch Fintech that already checks over 90% of Dutch payments with the IBAN-Name Check, SurePay, has announced the successful implementation of its UK Confirmation of Payee solution. NatWest Group chose SurePay as a vendor and partner to implement Confirmation of Payee. The service is already checking 25% of UK online Payments.
YHANGRY is a London-based startup providing private chefs for social get-togethers at home. We launched our beta website in May 2019, when Siddhi Mittal and I were still working on the trading floor at Barclays in Canary Wharf. We were 10 months into our startup journey when COVD-19 brought our business to a grinding halt.
Many businesses in the UK are both getting paid – and paying – later, with the COVID-19 pandemic causing a surge in late payments. According to the latest independent research from Close Brothers Asset Finance, three in five UK SMEs have experienced delays in receiving payments, while a significant number of business owners have admitted to being forced into delaying paying invoices.
Action, Allies, Achievements, and Accountability are the cornerstones of a strategy for achieving diversity goals. As the CEO of Hyve Dynamics, Cecilia Harvey works with the leadership team to ensure that diversity and inclusion is reflected in our strategy and operations. She does this, not just because she is passionate about it, or because the tech industry is one of the least diverse, but because it makes both moral and commercial sense.
A new index by Business Fibre has analysed 34 of the world’s Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) capital cities to find 2020’s best cities to be a tech student. The index has analysed each city according to metrics such as the number of universities offering technology and engineering courses, total tech companies and employees in each city, the monthly living cost and the top cities investing in tech-related research. An infographic is available here.
Ag-tech startup, Consumer Physics, is introducing SCiO Cup – according to the company it is the world’s fastest, portable, lab-grade forage dry matter analyser. The smartphone-operated device transforms feed analysis by enabling frequent dry matter analysis. SCiO Cup enables on-farm decision making ensuring consistent dry matter intake and reducing feed leftovers. In addition, SCiO Cup can be used on-field for planning silage harvest timing at optimal moisture levels.
New research from Santander UK reveals that a third (32%) of the UK’s SMEs who implemented changes plan to make their COVID-19 adaptations a permanent feature post-pandemic as almost half found they not only survived, but actually grew their customer base during COVID-19. The study – which polled 2,050 senior leaders in UK SMEs – suggests that the pandemic has driven long-term change to the way businesses operate.
Creator Fund, the university-focused venture capital fund, has released its “State of Student Startups” report, which gives a comprehensive national picture of what the UK’s best young minds are starting, and how to best support them. The report found that more than half of UK campus ventures have a foreign student founder.
COVID-19 (coronavirus) has significantly impacted businesses, but even more so for social entrepreneurs, BAME founders and females due to the difficulties and challenges around access to support, finance and funding as well as structural inequalities. We are on a mission to work closely with these founders to help them flourish in the face of adversity.
With the acquisition of eSoftThings, an expert in the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), based in Cesson-Sevigne (Rennes metropolitan area, France), LACROIX Group has consolidated its R&D division already present in Brittany in the area and strengthened its positioning in the industrial IoT and AI, particularly in the field of connected vehicles.







