Category: In Business

The finalists of the 2009 Make Your Mark Enterprising Young Brits Awards have been named and must now pitch to a panel of judges including successful entrepreneurs and representatives from HM Treasury and the Institute of Directors (IoD), but now YOU the public have the chance to help them on their way to success.

The identities of the fifteen contestants taking part in this year’s Apprentice have been revealed.

Eight females and seven males will compete for a job working with multi-millionaire Sir Alan Sugar in the business-based reality show. The series kicks off on March 25 on BBC One.

This year’s hopefuls include a city stockbroker, a teacher, an award-winning restaurant owner and an ex-professional footballer.

Working from home has been a growing trend over the past five years. Now, with people taking redundancy payments and turning their backs on corporate life, it’s set to become even bigger. But before you take the plunge, consider the pros and cons in order to avoid the pitfalls.

“Don’t you watch TV all the time? Or sleep in?” are the two most frequent questions IT entrepreneur Katherine Mellon* gets asked when she reveals she works from home. They’re also the most common misconceptions about this increasingly popular way of working.

Low-risk approach, long-term view and lower borrowing advantageous in today’s business environment –
UK businesses can learn from adopting elements of the family business model

A new report entitled ‘Family Business: In Safe Hands?’ published today (2nd March) by Barclays Wealth and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), suggests that family businesses have leadership values and particular characteristics which may position them well to ride out the economic downturn.

A study has found that 1 in 5 British workers would rather have sex with their boss for a quick promotion than the drawn out process of working hard.

Frontline bank staff are denying small firms loans backed by the government’s £1.3 billion enterprise fund – because they have not been told how the scheme works.
The Federation of Small Businesses yesterday said that some bank workers were not even aware of the existence of the Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme.

Rented office provider Regus is to giving start-up firms free use of its business centres.

It’s all part of its £10m British Chambers of Commerce-backed Get Started campaign. Now Regus is calling on other businesses to join the cause and do what they can to inject new activity into the UK economy.

Over 80 per cent of UK small businesses see smarter use of communications technology as the lifeline to help beat the recession, according to a study of small and medium-sized business (SMB) owners participating in the Business Growth and Development Programme (BGP) at Cranfield School of Management. The study of the 31 small businesses between £500,000 to £20 million turnover, which was commissioned by Siemens Enterprise Communications, found that 84 per cent of those interviewed think that enhanced communications will deliver competitive advantage in the current recession. A further three quarters want improved productivity when they are investing in IT and communications.

Budding entrepreneurs and small businesses could inject over £5bn a year into the UK economy and meet the economic crisis head-on, thanks to Smarta.com – a cutting edge new online platform backed by some of the biggest names in British business.

More than 70% of British adults feel as though they have been bullied or witnessed bullying of some sort in the workplace and over 30% were too worried about the repercussions to report the problem.

A study of 934 Brits commissioned by the UK’s leading recruitment scoring website has found that 73% of Brits have, at some stage in their career, witnessed workplace bullying or inappropriate behaviour and almost 1 in 3 admitted they were too worried about their job security to report the incident.

Andy Lopata talks to Warren Cass about the success of his online business networking and events company Business Scene

With so many opportunities to network in the UK many business people are more than spoilt for choice; they are becoming increasingly confused by the range of choices available to them.

Once they have decided whether it is more convenient to network locally or regionally, they then have a range of events to choose from at all times of the day, with the opportunity to network over breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The New Year is traditionally a time for change with people promising to embark on more fulfilled lifestyles. Research has found that owning a business actually has a positive affect on the wellbeing of small business owners.

Spare room start-ups have increased by 16% during the past 12 months taking the number of UK home businesses to 2.5m, the report by BT and Enterprise Nation showed.

Released as part of Small Business Week, the study said home based entrepreneurs are also bucking the trend when it comes to confidence in their prospects during the financial crisis.

Women office workers spend almost three times as much time with their computer than their husbands or boyfriends – and they prefer it that way, an American study has revealed.

HSBC Commercial Banking has launched the UK’s first Business Internet Banking service specifically optimised for use on a BlackBerry device.
 
This new service, a first in the UK for businesses, enables HSBC business internet banking customers to monitor their transactions via a new free service optimised for the screens of their BlackBerry (8000 series) devices*.