We all want to feel safe in the workplace, both physically and mentally. Whether you manage a site or own your own business, both the safety and welfare of your team is paramount. This article will explore some of the ways you can ensure that your workplace is an inviting space.

Starting up a business can be all-consuming, the pressure to succeed and the fear of failure both conspiring to pile on the stress so that you simply feel overwhelmed. It’s easy to think that the solution must be to manage your time even more tightly, do more and find ways of being more efficient.

Imagine an employee or a customer sustaining a serious injury in your workplace; fines, lawsuits, damage to your reputation - not to mention the trauma inflicted on you and your staff.

Sustainability hasn’t just remained a province for non-profit organisations. Many companies are coming forward to embrace the responsibility of creating an environmentally sustainable future. 

The pandemic encouraged business owners to rethink their methods of operation. One of the ways businesses adapted to the growing online market was hybrid selling, where you sell products both online and in-store.

Following the turbulence and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s no secret that businesses throughout the UK have been forced to adapt to the evolving demands of the new normal.

As we head into 2022, when we’re likely going to see further impacts of the Great Resignation, it’s more important than ever that HR leaders and hiring managers get comfortable with these kinds of conversations. According to our Employee Movement and Retention Report, 55% of UK workers will consider seeking a new job in 2022. That’s a lot of job interviews, and a lot of salary chat!

With a new year comes a new set of exciting opportunities, as well as challenges for every business - meeting set targets and goals, as well as improving organisational strategy and productivity. However, the mental wellbeing of employees and workforces shouldn't be left to the wayside.

As Amazon’s CTO since 2005, Werner Vogels has observed macro trends around the technology industry, giving him a unique perspective to distinguish substantive progress from mere fads. He recently published his views on what he sees in store in 2022 for cloud technology and the technology world in general.

As the UK moves away from lockdown restrictions, businesses can start making solid plans for growth; diversification can be the most efficient route to take as businesses who spot an opportunity to capture a broader market and are the ones who flourish.  

Over the past two years now, the world has been thrown in to disarray and disruption and one sector hit particularly hard is the events industry. I know, we have read a number of pieces highlighting the struggles and what this means, this isn’t another article like that.

For any business, you need market research or analysis to compete better. Market research simply gathers information from people to know the feasibility of a new product or service. With reliable market research, one can make viable decisions and take the right steps towards achieving their business goals.

We all know that the double-edged sword of Brexit and the pandemic has led many to despair - but for small businesses, the very real fear of collapse is evident and very troubling.

Lots of startups face something of a culture crisis in their early years. The problem with this is that you probably won’t find out that something is wrong until much later, by which point your imperfect culture will be endemic and difficult to change.

At GNR Solicitors we are eagerly anticipating the UK Government’s announcements in Spring 2022 in relation to the introduction and reform of visas targeting high-skilled migration.

At the start of the month, HMRC revealed that around half of the 12.2 million UK taxpayers who need to submit a tax return by the 31st January have yet to do so. With the deadline looming, over five million business owners are wondering how to make the process of filing their tax return as easy and efficient as possible. But, with recent research showing that one in ten entrepreneurs stores their essential financial documents in a drawer or shoebox, chances are the process of filling out your tax return is causing some stress.

Startups Magazine shares its top 10 healthtech startups from CES 2022. These are just 10 out of hundreds of innovative ideas shared at the exhibition.

For any modern, forward-thinking business having an effective strategy in place to store, manage and process data is vital. And the more an organisation can harness its power to then use this data strategy to its advantage, the more successful that business is likely to be.

Until a few years ago, it was quite common for us to treat ourselves to brand-new equipment and tick it off our wish list without thinking twice. However, times have changed, and we’ve all had to deal with some hardships along the way. Whether it is job instability or other personal difficulties, we’ve truly started to keep an eye on how purchases affect our finances.

At CES 2022, innovation within the healthcare industry was at the forefront of many conversations, seminars and exhibitors stands.

As Benjamin Franklin famously said, only two things are certain in life: death and taxes. And, as we approach the end of January, all attention turns to the latter. That’s right – it’s time for self-assessment tax returns to be compiled, reviewed and submitted. 

2022 is set to be a bit of a rollercoaster as we galvanise the promises made at COP26, navigate long term hybrid working and continue to deal with COVID-19. 

“Losers quit when they fail”, as they say, “and winners fail until they succeed.” But why risk success? You know the story. Founders brag about their failures but often aren’t even legally allowed to talk about their successes.

The influencer entrepreneur culture is all around us, and it’s exhausting. It expects us to build our businesses and leave a running commentary as we go, creating on-brand content to match each stage in our ‘glamourous’ entrepreneurial journeys. Once we start, it is easy to get into a cycle of chasing likes and prioritising our feed before our wellbeing, and even our businesses.

Scaling is everything. The majority of businesses have to try and do this without incurring extra costs, and it is how good they are at this process that can define the trajectory of most small to medium sized businesses.

Zorka.Agency marketing team together with SOLYANKA conducted “Startup Marketing Research: challenges and opportunities in digital promotion”.

The world is going digital and NFTs are a technology which can provide unique, infallible data for this digital world in industries beyond art. You might be wondering how, as a startup founder, you could take advantage of non-fungible tokens (NFTs)?

I have been founding businesses for over 35 years and over that time I have managed to make almost all the mistakes possible when launching a startup. In the last 10 years I’ve also been involved in mentoring startups in various universities, business schools and incubators. It is clear that founders are still making many obvious mistakes: they continue to do the things they enjoy about a starting a business, rather than the things they need to do to make it successful.

It’s reasonable to say that many of us anticipated 2021 to be a year of recovery. If 2020 was the year that forced us to reset, 2021 has been the year to start again, re-strategise and grow.

In this age of globalisation and e-commerce, expanding your business internationally can be an exciting idea. With just a few clicks, small businesses now have access to a vast global market that can be brimming with new opportunities waiting to be discovered. 

2021 was one for the history books. It’s a year that saw entire workforces shift and adapt to remote working models, transform their product offering and make decisions based on simply staying afloat.

When the opportunity for distraction is rife, startups must empower employees to focus deeply within their home environment.

Gender lens investing has seen impressive growth in recent years, with the Wharton Social Impact Initiative reporting a 58.6% increase in the number of female-led funds - clearing $4.8bn  in capital raised internationally.

With so much change in the workplace over the last couple of years, many employees may have found themselves falling into negative working patterns. These toxic traits - such as working too many hours or skipping a lunch break - could have a huge impact on wellbeing, job satisfaction and productivity.

COVID-19 has forced companies to adapt. Transforming in-house workers into remote employees has become a necessity. It’s estimated that 27% of teams will continue remotely after the pandemic, and, in five years, the number of remote workers will double to over 35 million in the US.

Startups encounter a lot of hurdles on their way to success, one of the biggest is their approach to marketing.

In the era of the digital worker, it’s fair to say that none of us can predict how the world of work will look a few years from now from VoIPs to paperless law offices.

When my co-founders and I decided to seek our next round of investment, we wanted to make sure the funding process brought our community closer to our business, or even, into our business.

Co-working spaces are an integral part of the startup ecosystem – they offer entrepreneurs equipped and comfortable workspace, in addition to being an affordable solution as compared to traditional offices. Many also choose co-working spaces because of their flexibility and opportunities to network.

The world of law has always seemed impenetrable to the uninitiated. In Charles Dickens’ Bleak House from 1852, characters are entangled in an inheritance dispute spanning several generations.

Since the news broke that Meta Platforms Inc (formerly known as Facebook) will be leading the work on the metaverse, I often get asked what will happen if this new virtual realm looks like Meta itself, the tech industry, or even the broader professional world, in terms of female representation.

When I first took on the role of Chairman and CEO of Barry-Wehmiller in 1975, the definition of good business management looked very different. Then, as it largely is now, the focus was on managing people, with very little attention paid to leadership. 

It’s been a tricky year for business management. From pandemic fatigue to workplace burnout, startups of various sizes are faced with a similar challenge – to rethink and reignite employee engagement. Some might approach this as a one-off event – like a holiday bonus. But leaders in their fields know that it demands a long-term approach. It’s an opportunity to start listening to the needs of your team members and committing to ongoing adjustments.

When you are doing something really well, people immediately think it’s easy. A pro-golfer nailing that hole-in-one, a dancer seemingly suspended in the air - real excellence looks effortless.

If you’re serious about tackling B2B customer churn, there are several things you can do. One key strategy is to focus on building more revenue with your existing customer base. Before we go into that, it’s important to note that a state of zero churn is nearly impossible to achieve. It's going to happen at some point.

If you have a startup located in popular cities, investing in security enhancements is wise. Places abundant with new businesses are witnessing a rise in crime, from night time raids to property damage.

Demand for digital skills is rapidly growing as businesses in every sector find new innovative ways to use technology to their advantage. However, mounting evidence shows that sufficient job requirements are not being met to effectively bolster the number of workers in the rising digital economy. 

For many businesses, the days of going into the office five days a week are over for good. Numerous studies have shown that those able to work from home are just as productive, if not more so, than in-person workers.

Many business owners and entrepreneurs are likely to cite their parents as the inspirational force behind their career path, but for myself and Mirthy Co-Founder Dhruv Haria, it was a specific and pivotal point in our parents’ lives that provided the inspiration for the business – retirement.

Startups Magazine caught up with Chieu Cao, CEO of Mintago. Mintago is dedicated to changing the world of pensions and personal finance for both employers and employees.

Startups looks at a cyber security concern that faces ecommerce startups and major online shops alike: Magecart attacks.

Two thirds of 16 to 35-year-olds stated they have experienced one form of harassment over a 12-month period. Similarly, one in two women stated they feel unsafe walking alone after dark in a public place. It is no wonder that from a young age, ways to ensure my safety were drilled into me.

In this great universe, everything lasts for a certain period. It is especially true for the technology world as change happens there fast. The latest terminology metaverse, a new level technology, is the addition in that list that would connect our real life with the virtual world. Though metaverse doesn't exist yet, it will be a changed reality soon.

Raising funds for your startup can be challenging at the best of times. Throw a pandemic into the mix and you’re faced with an even bigger mountain to climb.

Startups begin with a great idea, but it’s the people behind that idea that make sure a business gets off the ground in the first place.

To understand the how the role of leadership has changed in modern society, you need to look at how our perceptions of ‘the job’ has evolved. 

With the rise in popularity of cryptocurrency, many people are becoming more and more interested in this brand new form of investing and money-making. Since 2009, when bitcoin was first released to the public, cryptocurrencies have completely shaken up the world of finance, and have now become a mainstream form of investment. What once was a part of underground internet culture, has in recent years become something that the people we meet in everyday life discuss and are interested in. But, just what is cryptocurrency?

We spoke to Rahim Hirji, UK Country Manager of leading online learning platform and app, Quizlet, who reflected on education in 2021, looked forward to 2022, and offered expert insight into the future of the education sector.

A lot goes into running a successful ecommerce business. And with the rapid adoption of online shopping, the ecommerce market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 16% during 2021-2026.

Automotive technology at CES has grown so much over the years that for 2022, the show devoted the entirety of its new Las Vegas Convention Centre West Hall to what is now widely recognised – if it were a stand-alone event – as one of the largest auto shows in the world. At the recently concluded celebration of technological innovation, show attendees witnessed the launch – or the visionary introductions – of such features as the color-changing BMW iX Flow, Cadillac’s InnerSpace automotive theatre (for when self-driving cars become a reality), LG’s Omnipod 'office in a car' and more.

With COVID-19 already pushing the narrative across the globe, it came as no surprise that healthcare technology emerged as one of the top areas of focus at CES 2022.

No organisation wants to think that it will be subject to a negative reputational issue – a crisis – but the truth is that every business should be considering this possibility.

The dawn of the contract marketplace spelled a period of relative simplicity for startups. It meant the easy accessibility of a whole range of talent.

The UK’s energy industry is under ever increasing strain. From rising wholesale energy costs, the impact of Covid and uncertainty around Brexit, providers and consumers are facing pressure from multiple fronts.

Founded in 2017, by 2021 Primephonic boasted over three and a half million tracks, and was considered the world’s largest specialist library of classical music. It had become so successful that when Apple was looking to extend its music offering into classical music the obvious solution was to acquire Primephonic.

With more customers shopping online than ever before, retailers are being forced to either debut online or significantly increase their online presence. There are obvious and significant costs involved in moving online for retailers of all sizes. The opportunity to make up for lost sales by expanding or launching online has been a lifeline during COVID, but have retailers done enough to identify and tackle the hidden costs of eCommerce?

Customer data decays at an alarming rate (approximately 37.5% every year), with thousands of people moving home or passing away daily.

For the past eighteen months, economic uncertainty has frozen a vast proportion of the world’s workforce to the spot. It didn’t matter whether employees were content with their jobs at the onset of the crisis: the prospect of losing rights to redundancy pay, falling foul of the ‘last in, first out’ method, or joining a new company that could have a less certain outlook was enough to delay any major career decisions.  

Having a strong relationship with the media can help your brand to increase its reach without spending millions in advertising. By making connections with the right journalists and organisations, fast-moving companies can get themselves noticed, building awareness that can help them reach their goals in a number of different ways. 

Over the past two years, the pandemic has forced many businesses to rely far more heavily on technology than ever before, as lockdown and other restrictive measures caused persistent disruption to day-to-day operations.

When investors make the decision to give funding to a startup they are effectively saying ‘I believe that the vision of this business will manifest itself in tangible value in the future.’ Data sometimes back up this belief, but often it isn’t. This means that an investor's decision to invest in a startup is more emotional than rational in the early stages. For this reason, investors must believe in the value that the startups create not just for themselves as ROI, but for everyone that is and will be using the product.

While the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic unravel, there has been an increase in the number of claims being made on personal guarantees against directors or other individuals who have guaranteed business debts.

When starting a new business, the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of budding entrepreneurs are underpinned by the desire to secure a bright and prosperous future. Positivity, adrenalin and energy combine to drive them forwards. Hurdles are overcome, goals are pursued, and time flies by in a whirlwind of activity and excitement – at least, that’s the plan.

Global collaboration facilitates scalable innovation. And there has never been a more important time than right now for our best minds globally to work together to shape a better future.

Over the last few months, the world has entered a new phase of work that adopts tropes of both pre- and post-pandemic living. Whilst people slowly return to the office, the pandemic-related changes around how and where people are working seem here to stay.

Suffice it to say, 2021 was a challenging year for UK businesses. Brexit and COVID-19 have continued to dominate the news agenda throughout the previous twelve months, presenting challenges for organisations of all sizes. That said, new challenges began to emerge throughout the year; supply chain problems, for example, caused major disruption and product shortages for businesses and customers alike.

What is the entrepreneur mindset, and how do we develop it? These are questions that often go amiss during conversations about successful business leaders. Much is focused on reputation, a penchant for spotting talent, and of course, the all-important sales figures. While important markers, these fail to address what truly sets apart those destined to be entrepreneurs from the rest.

Obviously, when creating a startup business, the main goal is to achieve success – to find your business in a position to grow, evolve, and scale in line with your ambitions.

The topic of returning to the office has been a contentious one for staff across the world as they have been forced to adapt to new ways of working. The digitisation of the office has become a warmly welcomed addition for some, but not everyone works the same.

You’ve set your business up, you’re doing something really quite different and exciting, and the website looks great. What’s more, you’ve even acquired some customers quite early on thanks to your solid network. But, in an attempt to reach wider audiences, you attempted a PR push and it got you… nothing. Zilch. No coverage whatsoever. (Unless of course you were willing to pay £250 for a publication to print it but then who wants to do that?!)

You want your startup business to be an instant success. But challenges can crop up quickly and hamper your startup long into the future. However, if you understand these challenges, you can keep an eye out for them. From here, you can address these issues before they cause long-lasting damage. You may even identify opportunities to prevent such problems from damaging your business in the first place.

As the year draws to a close, with the Christmas rush nearly over, retailers are starting to look back at how the past year has played out and consider what it can teach us about the year ahead.

As the world of fashion is growing at a rapid rate, but so is the footprint the industry is leaving on the planet, we spoke to Stefan Hauswiesner, CEO and co-founder of Reactive Reality, the augmented reality leader enhancing e-commerce for retailers, who explained more about the vital role that AR will play in reducing the carbon footprint of the fashion industry and some of the key consumer fashion trends of that we will see in 2022.

As a business owner, your wellbeing and ability to deal with the demands of your company is inextricably linked to the wellbeing and longevity of your business.

Before entering into a potential brand licensing agreement as either a licensor or licensee, it is crucial to have a clear idea of your positioning and future aims for any licensing negotiations. This will help you to achieve a successful licence agreement for you and your business.

It is true that many people do not like change and shy away from it. But it is equally true that periods of change bring much more opportunity for innovation and for businesses to adapt and pivot and supply products and services to fulfil needs that have opened up or changed in some way. In times of rapid change as we have seen over the last few years then the opportunities are both bigger and more abundant.

As any startup founder knows, there’s an ongoing battle that you wage with yourself to do with staffing. More specifically, whether and when to staff up – or to keep trying to spin all the plates yourself. When you’ve grown a business from the ground up, it’s hard to pass responsibility to other people. In fact, I’d liken it to a kind of bittersweet grief; I’m happy things are going so well but it is hard to take a step back and hand the reins over to someone else.

Startups and corporates are often depicted as advisories. The challenger and the incumbent; the plucky upstart and the behemoth. But, in truth, there are an increasing number of partnerships forming between these two groups, particularly when it comes to the development of new technologies.

Ask any established business leader for the secrets of their company’s success, and it is almost certain that having inspirational role models – be they other entrepreneurs or businesses - would have played a key role in their growth.

Do you ever find yourself alarmed by the stark contrast in ecological attitudes between friends, family and colleagues? For many, net zero targets are a top priority. Others’ mindsets vary, with some making small adjustments to their way of life, and some refusing any personal responsibility.

Deadlock (a lack of unanimity between co-directors/co-shareholders) is a situation to be avoided by all SMEs. Unfortunately, it is all too common, particularly in private, owner-controlled businesses and during times of economic crisis such as has been precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

We all have a personal favourite when it comes to a pet, some are dog people while others love cats.

Startups Magazine caught up with Tarryn Gorre, Co-Founder and CEO of Kafoodle. 

As a digital layer continues to be applied across everything we do, the world we are living in will seem to get smaller. Boundaries and borders and even language hurdles will be broken down via this new digital world and time zones and currencies will become less important.

Customer data decays at an alarming rate (approximately 37.5% every year), with thousands of people moving home or passing away daily.

Starting a business is not always easy. But scaling a business, any business, often brings many more challenges than actually starting one. A typical small business is quite simple, bat as that business grows it becomes more complex and has more moving parts which become ever more complicated to coordinate.

Technology never stands still. Anyone running a company has to accept this fundamental truth if they want to stay on top of cyber threats and run their business as securely as possible. New products emerge, workflows develop, and habits evolve along with them.

Over the last 10 years we've gone from being a £500 startup with myself and my wife trading from our spare bedroom at home, to a business worth hundreds of millions, employing nearly a hundred people globally and having one of the best selling chocolate bars in the UK.