As firms look to re-launch projects and resuscitate their business beyond COVID-19, the importance and value of freelancers as a critical requirement to retain skill at an affordable rate is essential for recovery. Someone only too aware of the importance of this is the CEO of The Future Strategy Club (The FSC), Justin Small; this is a benefit he has been aware of for a long time.

One of the few positive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic had been the renewed focus of the climate agenda. Over the past few months we have seen companies like BP begin to divest from their traditional oil and gas business and set aggressive net zero targets. For startups this represents a huge opportunity.

While car MOTs were scrapped during lockdown, taking the same approach with a business could be a mistake that leads to catastrophic consequences. Just as leaving unchecked, unroadworthy vehicles on the road is potentially dangerous, by not taking control of a business and leaving success to chance is a gamble at the best of times, but right now that approach could be the beginning of the end.

Much like any relationship, co-founders start their journey together full of optimism and excitement for the future. Falling out is far from their minds. But, with research showing that as many as 65% of promising startups fail because of founder disputes, smart founders should put a plan in place to deal with disputes.

As the UK high street continues to battle for survival in the aftermath of lockdown, new data shows that online retail sales are up 72% year-on-year in the UK. It’s the latest evidence that our retail future is going to be online-first, and hence it’s no surprise that, across the country, many independent retailers are shifting their businesses into the digital domain to stay in touch with changing consumer preferences.

Commercial real estate, HR and technology professionals are focused on finding innovative ways to meet the challenges of a post-COVID workplace through safe and effective back to work strategies. John Williams, Head of Marketing at Instant Offices, considers what this means for businesses heading back into the office.

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.

Startups Magazine caught up with Flavius Plesu, Founder and CEO of OutThink, the world’s first Predictive Human Risk Intelligence platform (SaaS), aimed at revolutionising security awareness and giving security teams the power that comes with identifying high risk users – fully understanding who is not behaving securely and why. 

What do startups need to know to ensure that their website is secure and safe against cyber attacks? Innovators, investors, and entrepreneurs, launching startup companies have hundreds of issues to deal with. Often setting up their website and internal communications drops in the list of priorities. And usually, at the bottom of that list, is ensuring that the company’s communications and website are secure.

Having formed new habits around remote work, many of us have settled into new routines and habits, adjusting to the shift and integrating this new way of working into our lives. But, bigger organisational processes might have been missed in the scramble to equip teams with the day-to-day tools needed to maintain business continuity.

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.

In this day and age, building the right content marketing strategy can either make or break a business. Content marketing has the power to shape the way audiences perceive and engage with your organisation.

Having set up a business there are some very logical next steps that have common features irrespective of what your business will do. Any business needs to sell its product or service and make a profit so that it can reinvest in its future and pay the shareholders. 

When starting a business, the implementation of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system may seem like an additional and unnecessary expense, but committing to it from the outset will realise a number of benefits including the development of a clear and focused sales strategy, together with the opportunity to strengthen new client relationships.

Over the years we’ve seen Twitter celebrities get their accounts hacked. But this recent hack goes way beyond anything we’ve seen before. This latest security breach calls into question the security of Twitter and social media platforms and even the foundation technology they are built upon.

Whilst social media and too much screen time can increase the risk of depression and anxiety, technology can also have positive outcomes on our mental wellbeing too - even in our busy digital world. Many us will be familiar and fond of clever apps like Headspace, Calm and Stop, Breathe & Think which can offer support with a number of mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression. Here Natasha Bougourd from TSG, chats to Startups Magazine about tech aiding stress in the workplace.

This crisis period has proven what so many of us in our industry already knew. The UK manufacturing industry is and always has been resilient and adaptable, and has continued to grow even in times of trouble. Overall, the UK’s industrial sector has increased by 1.4% a year since 1948, according to the ONS. Much of this has been down to the fact that we always adapted and moved forward fast; year on year we shifted production from low to high productivity goods, invested more in research and development and adopted automation and technology.

A crisis seems an unlikely time to use for improving growth, but for many startups there’s an unexpected opportunity to slow down and refocus their growth and marketing plans on their fundamental, long term growth opportunity. It’s crucial for startups to build resilience and a path towards sustainable growth by building the right growth marketing framework and strengthening customer relationships.

What's the secret to innovation? Is it all about having work spaces peppered with chill-out zones, ping-pong tables and climbing walls? Actually, the truth is far more down to earth.