Business minister, Anna Soubry is planning to appoint a Small Business Commissioner whose services will enable smaller firms to resolve disputes with other businesses and, in some circumstances, public bodies quickly and easily, preserving important commercial relationships and without the need to go to Court. Its key functions will be: Providing information, general advice and […]
Continue ReadingBusiness minister, Anna Soubry is no stranger to speaking her mind, rebuking Alex Salmond for his comment to her to “behave yourself woman” and amongst claims that she swore at Ed Miliband in the House of Commons, she has also given some fairly graphic descriptions of Nigel Farage… Becky Milligan, reporting from the BBC said […]
Continue ReadingThis was one of the conclusions reported by Oxfam in January 2015 tying in with Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Report for 2014, which showed that the 0.7% of the world’s people with assets more than $1m controlled 44% of all the world’s wealth. The Oxfam report goes on to show that in 2010, the very […]
Continue ReadingAnil Stoker, CEO of Market Invoice has weighed in to the debate on the support needed to be given to SMEs struggling against slow payments from larger businesses. As Cheriton commented back in March, the first-ever Small Business Bill, the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act (SBEE) has been promised to enable radical action on […]
Continue ReadingMark Berrisford-Smith, the Head of Economics for HSBC UK Commercial Banking, gave an insightful address to Buckinghamshire Business First’s Focus Funding event in High Wycombe last week. He opened with the comment that the next economic downturn is closer than the last and then went on to say that can’t be a surprise since the […]
Continue ReadingResearchers at the University of Southern California (USC) have found that by thinking in terms of days instead of years, we are more likely to achieve our goals. The simple trick is to think of the future as now. The researchers found participants who thought of their future goal events in terms of days ahead […]
Continue ReadingBy any measure, today’s debt is cheap if you can get it. Not only cheap, but in many countries the cost of debt, of borrowing money, is tax free. Cheap untaxed borrowing means that equity has comparatively less attraction and companies tend to be more leveraged and thus operate at a higher level of financial […]
Continue ReadingOngoing uncertainty both at home and abroad are causing UK businesses to sit on cash surpluses, according to a new survey from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. ICAEW’s director of business Stephen Ibbotson said: “The results suggest that businesses have learnt their lessons from the 2007 financial crisis. We have seen […]
Continue ReadingThe latest labour productivity report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) makes grim reading. The ONS report that “…the absence of (UK) productivity growth in the seven years since 2007 is unprecedented in the post-war period…” Put that into context with the head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde’s statement on 9th April that the […]
Continue ReadingWith the average French worker producing in four days what the average British worker does in five, the productivity of UK business is not helped by excessive government bureaucracy. Confounding stereotypes, Italians are 9% more productive than the British and of the 15 initial members of the EU, only Greece and Portugal now have lower […]
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