Category: In Business

The inventor of an ingenious way to help children sleep while in a pushchair has won the England heat of the Pitch, a competition which is rewarding some of Britain’s best small businesses.

A survey of SME owners has revealed that more than a third of small and medium businesses would not dream of hiring a candidate from the BBC series The Apprentice.

Five lucky small business owners have made it through to the English heat of a competition tracking down Britain’s best new entrepreneurs.

With many staff off on holiday this week to coincide with school half term a survey has revealed that over a third of UK employees take business calls on holiday, with top level management and the over-65s being the guiltiest of never switching off from work. Men are 66% more likely than women to pick up a call.

Every year the National Business Awards, in partnership with Orange, uncover hundreds of examples of British business leaders and entrepreneurs who are taking a unique approach to overcome major challenges and achieve business excellence, however time to enter the 2011 awards is fast running out.

Lights, camera, action! Hollywood Director, Oliver Stone – known for his box office hits like Platoon, Natural Born Killers and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps – is turning his talents to the small screen as judge of a unique online video festival, conceived and run by vzaar, the leading business online video hosting platform.

Small business publisher Brightword has teamed up with BlackBerry to launch a series of eBooks that will deliver bite size information to anyone starting and growing a small business.

The 2011 bfa HSBC Franchisee of the Year Awards are now open for entries, with top franchisors urged to nominate their most enterprising franchisees. The Awards highlight the outstanding efforts and achievements of the franchisees in the UK who ‘set the standard’ for the industry.

Lord Heseltine has kicked off a series of road shows today to promote the second round of the Regional Growth Fund and encourage bidders to compete for a share of £950m.

Organisations looking to take on new staff in the lead up to the London 2012 Games can now access a central pool of enthusiastic and available talent, all seeking roles related to the Games.

This year’s successful Apprentice will no longer win a six figured salary job working in one of Lord Sugar’s businesses, but instead the winner and their business idea will found the basis of an equity partnership with Lord Sugar making an investment to the value of £250,000.

Office supplies company Staples has put its full weight behind a new StartUp Britain campaign in an effort to create a 500,000-strong army of entrepreneurs to help get the economy moving.

A shortlist of 13 franchisors has been announced in the 2011 bfa HSBC Franchisor of the Year Awards, supported by Express Newspapers. The finalists were selected from entries spanning multiple sectors, business size and locations across the UK to reveal this year’s potential Award winners.

The quest to find the UK’s most inspirational entrepreneurs has commenced – the prestigious NatWest everywoman Awards are now open for entries.

A new international study has found that, while young people in the UK are more ambitious than many of their European counterparts, they need a boost to their self-belief and determination to turn that ambition into success.