Cheriton Blog

SMEs continue the uphill struggle to get paid on time…

The Times recently reported a study by fintech firm Previse which showed that small suppliers are paid an average of 30 days later than the largest firms. The Times Analysis of almost 11m invoices totalling £24.6bn showed that suppliers invoicing for less than £10,000 a year did not have their bills processed until 35 days […]

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Late payment woes continue

Amicus Asset Finance Daily New reports Sathnam Sanghera in the Times looking at the impact late payment has on SMEs. Sanghera notes the Federation of Small Businesses analysis which suggests about 50,000 businesses fail every year due to larger firms neglecting to settle bills, while Lloyds Banking Group research suggests that 65% of firms which […]

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Strategic AI – the way to improve productivity and inter alia help the NHS…

Emmanuel Macron Talks to WIRED About France’s AI Strategy with €1.5bn financial support over 5 yrs…This technology will be a major disrupter and a force for greater productivity – especially health care and mobility sectors https://www.wired.com/story/emmanuel-macron-talks-to-wired-about-frances-ai-strategy/?mbid=social_twitter_onsiteshare … via @WIRED

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Big companies and academics can help the UK economy by supporting SMEs to become more productive…

  Andy Haldane, chief economist if the Bank of England, believes that even modest management improvements amongst complacent companies could lead to an overall productivity leap.   The FT recently reported the success story of a four-decade-old glassworks at Cumbria Crystal near the Lake District, where molten glass is still blown by mouth and where […]

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The apprenticeship…

As with the USA, improving the UK’s sagging productivity is a big economic issue. One of the issues is developing skills and SMEs are often happy to help support this by taking on apprentices. However, currently such employers have to pay full wage for the 2 days a week or so that apprentices are at college (less […]

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Where do we need humans…?

With currently demonstrated technologies available today, McKinsey estimate that in the USA at least, 60% of all occupations could see 30% of their constituent human activities automated…   This is higher in workplaces involves performing physical activities or operating machinery in a predictable environment. In this environment workers carry out specific actions in well-known settings where […]

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“Most car-owners believe they are above-average drivers, most companies might well believe they have above-average levels of productivity”…Andy Haldane, Bank of England

  Unfortunately, according to the Office of National Statistics in February 2016, “The U.K.’s ‘productivity gap’ of about 14% is about twice as large as the gap for the rest of the G7”   Quoted in the FT, Ann Francke, chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), said one problem is that in the […]

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For the world, the times they are a-changin’…

Despite the rise of populism, the economic scorecard for the last 50 years hasn’t been that bad under the old liberal regime, where half the people who have ever lived, live now. Some extracts from the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) report  “A World of Change” below:   The world population grew from 3 billion in 1965 […]

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The post truth productivity challenge to the British economy…

As we have said before, productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything…this was Nobel prize-winning economist, Paul Krugman’s statement that a country’s ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker hour. As Martin Wolf points out in today’s […]

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The government has at last set out measures to increase transparency of payment practices to support small firms. Clear legal sanction for non-compliance is now needed.

Large companies will be required to publish details on how quickly they pay their suppliers, under draft regulations released on 2 December 2016 by Small Business Minister Margot James. This is part of a package of measures to tackle late payment, which will also include the appointment of a Small Business Commissioner From April 2017 […]

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