2020 flipped everyone’s plans for the year upside down, with no corner of the world left untouched. In this state of complete disarray, the primary business challenge for many was to keep customers happy while rapidly shifting staff to remote working. With this now mastered for most businesses and homeworking being the new norm, the next hurdle for leaders will be getting the balance right between the many conflicting desires of those in their workforce.

Through all the advancements seen over the past century, international trade has been slow to change. For example, Letters of Credit (LCs) continue to be an important trade finance product for global traders, but they rely on paper-based processes, which are fundamentally slow and prone to error. Now, with the need to change how organisations work in a post-COVID world, there is a greater need to improve how trade and trade finance operate

Rosa von Krogh is Head of Insights and Innovation at the North Alliance, one of the largest companies in Scandinavia marrying design, media and e-commerce. She is speaking at the global SHE Conference, alongside guests like Hillary Clinton, Norwegian PM, Erna Solberg and Icelandic PM Katrin Jakobsdottir, from 5-19th March 2021.

Nearly a year on since the onset of COVID-19, many companies have realised their staff are able to (almost) work as effectively remotely, as they did in an office. For tech companies and their investors, the transition to remote working was relatively seamless, as the culture and infrastructure needed to succeed was already in place. It has, however, prompted many startups to reconsider whether they need an office at all, and whether high rents in cities like New York, London, and San Francisco can be justified.

Today, the sales funnel is more buyer-focused. It’s no longer about sales professionals and their understanding of products and services, but rather a concentration on buyers and how a business can fulfill their needs. And if you are a business wanting to get more prospects and clients, you need to put enough information about your brand where your targets spend the most time.

What are the blueprints needed to start your own blockchain tech startup? How can you navigate through the tech tools, software, hardware, platforms, resources, projects, processes, methods and strategies necessary for success?

The success of your endeavors depends on your approach and perspectives towards things. Ultimately, it is all about how you train your mind to be at the helm of your pursuit. Yes, passion is a lot synonymous with following the heart, but you also need to develop a positive mindset. It is all about the mindsets after all! Positivity, confidence, persistence, and possibilities are all attributes of your mindset. Besides, it is a well-established fact that the prowess of our minds shapes our lives. Being in the right frame of mind is paramount.

New ideas are overrated, you can find them on every street corner. We’ve been in a holding pattern for a year, where everyone you meet is an expert on COVID and has their own ideas about what should happen. I’m sick of hearing them.

At the recent SaaStock exhibition, Philip Edmondson-Jones, Oxx, a venture capital (VC) company investing in ambitious B2B SaaS companies, explained the best practice when scaling your business rapidly.

Despite the global growth of women-led businesses, funding continues to be a significant challenge. Having gathered multiple data and research, Instant Offices revealed 35% of female business founders still face gender bias when raising their business capital. Female entrepreneurs also receive an average of 5% less funding than their male counterparts.

A few years ago I was sitting in a meeting, working while I waited for it to be my turn to present. The engineer sitting next to me asked me what I was doing - I said that in order to make it home in time before my children’s bath time, I had to work through every single free moment. He replied saying he preferred to not get home until after bath time.

Adapting and pivoting. For businesses, these two words sum up 2020 and the COVID pandemic perhaps more than any other words. Each and every business has had to reinvent itself in some form or another during the last year or so.

Working at Startups Magazine, we come across some extremely inspiring, empowering and all-round incredible women, but it would be impossible to name them all. As we celebrate International Women's Day 2021, we wanted to highlight our 20 most influential women of 2020 from our last Women in Tech edition.

Women throughout history continue to make their mark creating innovations and discoveries that impact our lives today. To celebrate International Women’s Day 2021, Miranda Kent, Managing Associate at intellectual property firm, Mathys & Squire, reflects on inspiring female inventors in each decade since 1910 - when the firm was first founded - to demonstrate the significant value that realising new ideas and inventions can bring.

Disputes in business are inevitable, but they don’t have to cost the earth or damage your reputation. Here are some tips to avoid commercial disputes from escalating.

The Digital Women’s Day, JFD in French, was started up by Delphine Remy-Boutang back in 2013, (back then just an annual meeting), but has since evolved into so much more. It is now a platform for the promotion of digital entrepreneurship for women, and JFD has brought together and celebrated a large number of women who all share the same goal - to revolutionise the world digitally both in Europe and Africa.

Today is World Book Day and primary school children across the UK will be dressed as their favourite fictional characters in front of laptops with their classmates.

Employees are at greater risk than ever of suffering burnout and employers should consider putting in place preventative and curative measures. For startup employers in particular it is important to look at tackling burnout in a sustainable way, eradicating the factors and issues before they take hold.

China can be a tough market to enter, however it is far from being as impenetrable as some startup leaders may believe. Yes, there are cultural attitudes and government roadblocks to overcome, but new sectors and opportunities are opening up in China all the time.

The Government is exercising extreme caution when it comes to easing lockdown restrictions. This is a sensible approach. After all, the UK is in its third national lockdown, and the Prime Minister will be keen to avoid another. That said, the slow road out of lockdown will likely frustrate many UK businesses. Many non-essential, retail and leisure businesses must now remain closed until 12th April, and even then, many will be unable to operate at full, pre-pandemic capacity.