Call me an old-fashioned ex southerner ‘up north’ but up here a successful farm shop sells meat, fresh vegetables and produce, home baking and the odd bulk buy products with short shelf lives. I have never bought a shake or a soup from a farm shop and nor would I expect to do so.

This weeks task was dominated by a complete lack of understanding of the task at hand, the inability to listen once more and the two project managers demonstrating just how ruddy rude they really could be.

Louisa’s tone was patronising at best, but appropriately ‘bullish’ when trying to guide Evolve through the muddied fields of buffalo meat products, whilst Neil’s direct approach was not ‘watered’, or milked, down at all when he talked over them ignored attempts to engage with him and make alternate suggestions.

Instead he allowed Kurt to highjack the task for his own means – that of showing Lord Sugar his business idea; milkshakes. To say Kurt was focused is an understatement – bombastic and boastful would be better descriptors.

I know I keep banging on about it but yet again maths played apart. No budgets were given to assist the sub teams, and Alex looked like a buffoon (or buffalo) when he failed to calculate the mark up and best price for milk in front of the supplier, even after boasting he was from Wales (like that made a difference?) and he would dress like a scarecrow if needed (each to their own I guess, but not sure how that would have helped? Sadly we didn’t get to see that!)

Instead the only dressing up were the girls pigtails and their extraordinary heels when trying to sell farm produce; because after all that’s realistic right? Killer heels in the farm yard?

When the results were announced Jordan’s ‘get in’ marred his otherwise impressive performance and he was suitably chastised by Lord Sugar for behaving like he was at a football match. His cry was for Evolve’s success with the shop ‘Buffalocal’ who pipped ‘Fruitycow’ to the post by a mere £91. However Louisa’s smug look was wiped off when Lord Sugar told her she was lucky and had she team to thanks for that result. I have to admit I didn’t want either team to win to be honest, I felt neither deserved it as they didn’t fundamentally met the remit – it wasn’t a farm shop as we know it.

So Neil entered the boardroom with Uzma and Kurt after a clear division in the team – half saying he was a good leader and the other half saying he gave no direction or budget, that they sold only half the number of shakes Kurt had said they would and none of the produce itself. Uzma was told she could have been absent for all the contribution she made, for the third week (did they not see how hard she worked at wearing those sky high heels while selling a tray of blackberries?!) and Kurt was told his attempt to pitch his idea to Lord Sugar had miserably failed though the lack of sales he delivered.

He may have put his neck on the line and tried, but sadly he failed; end of.Uzma was dispatched for failing to do… well anything. Stating in the car we hadn’t seen her fire was as great an example of ‘too little too late’ as I have seen for some time.

Neil’s cockiness and Kurt’s over confidence live to see another day, another episode. Isn’t it time we had the girls step up and lose a chap? Surely they can stop bickering and pouting long enough to show us what they are really capable of? Otherwise the final teams will be all men. Women are apparently supposed to be better at listening and engaging on a people/personal level. Let’s try a bit more of that and maybe they will succeed? So what do you think?

Come share your thoughts and opinions with us at @BizMattersmag or follow us on twitter @3domSolutions

The post The Apprentice – episode four appeared first on Business Matters.

The new funding will enable Hyperoptic to meet its ambitious plans to reach more than 500,000 homes with its market-leading 1 Gbps true fibre hyperfast broadband within the next five years.

In September 2011, Hyperoptic was the first to deliver a 1 Gbps symmetrical residential broadband service in the UK, 83 times faster than the current national average, and recently announced that it had surpassed 20,000 homes in London. The company now aims to bring its ground-breaking FTTH technology to as many as ten additional UK cities by the end of the year, with locations for these ‘hypercities’ to be prioritised based on consumer demand.

In addition, the company will soon be expanding to provide hyperfast broadband to business and commercial premises, as well as developing new products such as IPTV and cloud computing offerings for its consumer customers.

Hyperoptic was founded in 2010 by entrepreneurs Boris Ivanovic and Dana Tobak, who also successfully established a number of other pioneering and highly successful ISPs including Be (now part of BSkyB) in the UK and Bostream in Sweden.

As part of the investment, three additional non-executive directors are set to join Hyperoptic’s board to oversee the company’s rapid expansion. They include Bruno Ducharme, chairman of TIW Capital Partners and founder of European mobile operator TIW, along with Waldemar Szlezak and Joshua Ho-Walker of Soros Fund Management LLC.

Boris Ivanovic, chairman and co-founder of Hyperoptic, commented: “Today’s investment is a resounding vote of confidence in both our business model and the bright prospects for FTTH technology in the UK. As momentum continues to build for ‘smart cities’ and an increasingly technology-fuelled economy and society, the need to future proof our infrastructure has become absolutely critical and Hyperoptic will play a key role in doing just that.”

Bruno Ducharme, new non-executive director of Hyperoptic, said: “In Hyperoptic, I see an exceptional team of entrepreneurs in the ISP marketplace, a proven business model to deliver cutting-edge broadband technology, and a big opportunity to meet the growing appetite for superfast broadband. I am pleased to play a part in supporting their rapid growth trajectory through this long-term infrastructure investment.”

Louis Armstrong, non-executive director of Hyperoptic and former chief executive of the RICS, added: “Hyperoptic is clearly paving the way for the UK to take a significant leap forward when it comes to superfast broadband. The UK’s major property developers, managers, investors and owners alike are awakening to this reality, and will soon begin to realise the significant benefits – including increased value and marketability of a property – of ‘future proofing’ their assets, taking smart decisions today about what will be absolutely critical for tomorrow.”

The post George Soros gives £50M investment boost to UK broadband appeared first on Business Matters.

Recently I was asked to look back over the previous 20+ years working in the City to recall women I have worked with who showed no pity and were merciless in business. I honestly couldn’t think of one. The only person that kept springing to mind was Miranda Priestly from the Devil Wears Prada and I don’t know one woman who would aspire to the nature of that character or who wouldn’t have an internal battle about acting in such a manner.

Being ruthless is certainly not a trait I would encourage any of my mentees to use in order to get ahead. From a personal perspective, there were times in my own career when I have adopted a ruthless approach, but it involved business decisions rather than people. Whenever there was a person involved I found I wrestled more with the business decision, because being ruthless is not something that comes naturally to me or to most women.

Women who believe they have to adopt ruthless tactics to get ahead are sorely mistaken. Adopting such behaviour will win you no friends or respect. It is far better to fine-tune other strings in your bow than to spend your time stepping on others to get to the top, or being an individual who cares for nothing but their own progression.

It is unfortunate that women seem to get labelled far more easily that our male counterparts. If we display passion it is perceived as emotional, if we display frustration, it is seen as anger, so if we make a decision that is perceived to be out of line with our normal “caring demeanour”, it wouldn’t be hard to pick up the word ruthless as well!

I truly believe there are more opportunities for women than there has ever been and that we should celebrate the amazing skill sets we have and use what comes naturally to us to get ahead. Taking in the advice of mentors and role models and listening to how other women manager their positions in business are vital to success and longevity.

Slowly but surely there a realisation that the qualities that come naturally to women, such as emotional intelligence, attitude towards risk and organisational management are needed more and more in both times of crisis and at a senior level.

I’ll never forget an article by the Economist back in 2009, which discussed how the financial crisis would have been handled differently if it were Lehman Sisters as opposed to Lehman Brothers. We should celebrate our indifference to our male counterparts and not try to emulate behaviours that don’t come naturally to us as women.

I speak to hundreds of women every month and over the past few years I have started to see a new kind of female emerge. I am pleased to say being ruthless is not part of her make up. She pushes boundaries and has clear expectations about what is acceptable both in terms of behaviour and what to expect in terms of her employers’ and partner’s support.

She knows it is as much about who she knows as what she knows. She is aware that there are support networks where she can gain new skills and expand her peer group outside her normal working environment. She also knows that if she is not getting what she needs from her employer she should move on, set up on her own or get the required flexibility and opportunities elsewhere. She is also aware that her boat may not necessarily come in; there is a good chance she may need to swim out to it.

As women, we will always have our challenges and a different set of constraints to men, but it is up to us to set the playing field for the future and for those in senior positions to encourage and develop the female talent pool and appreciate the professional value and skills we bring as women (as a collective). If the senior leaders in our organisations don’t see the value, we will never grow the gender balanced culture we so desperately need to address some of the pervasive issues we face in business today.

The post Do you have to be ruthless to succeed in business? appeared first on Business Matters.

While exploring the impact on work relations and working lives, researchers – a new generation of policy-focused social scientists – will examine the implications for gender, ethnicity and different age groups at work.

The pioneering research project will be launched on Friday 24 May at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, with presentations from Professor Birger Simonson, University of Gothenburg and Professor Steve Jeffreys, Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University.

Speaking ahead of the event, Professor Paul Stewart, Project Coordinator from the University of Strathclyde’s Department of Human Resource Management, said: “This is an outstanding research agenda bringing together a range of critical social scientists and new researchers concerned with the transformation of employment relations and conditions of work across Europe.

“The research will identify the nature of the restructuring of European labour markets and economies as a result of current economic and social change, and the impact that this has on work relations and working lives.”

ChangingEmployment  will support supporting 15 researchers (12 PhD and three post-doctoral) with partners from eight European universities and social and industry partners, including the European Trade Union Institute, Consultingeuropa, EDF, Edrington, the International Labour Organisation, Neuroedukacja, UNISON, Volvo and CAIRDE.

The post Multi-million project will map the changing nature of employment appeared first on Business Matters.

So how can you help your team get the most out of working together?

Sarah Lewis is a chartered psychologist and author of ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and she has five tips to help you get your team working more effectively:

Create a positive working culture
Very few people like to be in an atmosphere that is critical, hostile, unfriendly or cold. Yet many teams manage to create precisely this culture because they overly focus on achieving the task and fail to account for basic human nature.

Research over the last 10 years has convincing backed up what many of us intuitively knew; a good working atmosphere makes a huge difference to a team’s productivity. What the research found is that the key to the difference between high performing and low performing teams is the ratio of positive to negative comments in team meetings. Interestingly this doesn’t need to be balanced, it needs to be weighted in favour of positive comments, at least by a ratio of 3:1.

When people feel good they are more able to think well, be creative, and to work with others.

Help people play to their strengths
Many people have put much effort into attempting to address their weaknesses over the years – to little avail.

However recent thinking is that attending more to our strengths will reap greater benefit in terms of performance improvement. This is because when we are using our strengths work feels effortless, we are energised and confident, we are engaged and probably experience moments of flow.

Help your team members discover their true strengths and then find ways as a team to utilise everyone’s strengths to achieve the team task. Think of your team as an economy of strengths, and work out how to create extra value by trading your strengths.

Create commonality amongst team members
Teams are often made up of people with different skillsets and areas of expertise that tend to see the world, and the priorities for action within it, differently. This can lead to a great awareness of difference, and the differences can come to be seen as insurmountable. Yet at the same time there will be areas of commonality amongst team members, often in the areas of core values and central purpose.

A very productive way to access these commonalities is through the sharing of stories. When people are asked to share personal stories of their moments of pride at work, or moments of achievement or success, or the part of their job that means the most to them, they are expressing their values and sense of purpose in an engaging, passionate and easy to hear form.

In the best scenarios, as people share their highlight stories, a sense emerges in the room of ‘wow, these are great people I’m working with here, I’d better raise my game!’

Move from the habitual to the generative
Groups can get stuck in repeating dynamic patterns. When this happens listening declines as everyone believes they know what everyone else is saying – they’ve heard it all before. And so does the possibility of anything new happening. To break the patterns we need to move from rehearsed speech to generative speech.

To help the team make the shift you need to ask questions, or introduce activities that mean people need to think before they speak, that brings information into the common domain that hasn’t been heard before. Positively or appreciatively framed questions are particularly good for this. So too are imagination based questions, or example ‘If we woke up tomorrow and we had solved this dilemma, how would we know, what would be different?’ Sometimes just getting people to switch from their habitual seating pattern breaks old and creates new dynamics.

Create Future Aspirations
When teams suffer a crisis of motivation or morale it is often associated with a lack of hope – a lack of hope or belief in the possibility of achieving anything.

In hopeless situations we need to engender hopefulness. Appreciative Inquiry as an approach is particularly good at doing this as it first of all discovers the best of the current situation, unearths the hidden resources and strengths of the group, and then goes on to imagine future scenarios based on these very discoveries about what is possible.

As people project themselves into optimistic futures clearly connected to the present, they begin to experience some hopefulness. This in turn engenders some motivation to start working towards those more aspirational scenarios of how things can be.

By using the techniques described above it’s possible to get a stuck team moving again and a move a working team from good to great.

The post Five Ways To Get Your Team Working More Effectively appeared first on Business Matters.

And there is clear evidence that the ability of companies with good CSR records is becoming a success factor in their recruitment, particularly of younger people. A report by US based NetImpact for example, reports that 58 per cent of students want to work for a company with like-minded values and over a third would take a pay cut to work for a company committed to CSR.

Go to any FTSE company’s website and you will usually see sections devoted to their CSR activities. what can SMEs, without the budgets of the big corporates, do to promote their own CSR credentials?

Don’t suffer greenwash
Firstly, CSR should not be about using your work in the community and environmental credentials to simply make more profit. Deepak Soni, Head of Direct Commercial, Hiscox say that ‘s why some businesses get doused with the ‘greenwash’ tag by a (rightly) cynical public. There should be a genuine motivation behind why your business is involved in CSR but that’s not to say there aren’t business benefits. I’ve already mentioned one of the employee benefits, but a report in Marketing Week says that Marks & Spencer made an extra £50m from its Plan A eco campaign.

It won’t cost the earth
Secondly, building CSR into your business needn’t cost the Earth – if you’ll pardon the pun. Aside from limiting your impact on the environment there are some relatively easy things you can do to put something back into the community.

Here are five suggestions:

Work for a charity (for free)
Why not have one charity client that you work for on a pro-bono basis? If you’re a website designer, produce their website; an accountant, then do their books. Use your existing skills to offer them something they would normally have to pay for. Or you could become a charity trustee. Taking on a trustee role need not be an onerous time commitment but could be an interesting experience for you or an employee. The Do-it volunteering site has a database of available trustee roles and some great advice. Alternatively you could approach charities near you directly.

Nominate a company charity

If you have employees, nominating a charity to raise funds for can be very good for company morale and provides a great focus for CSR work.

Be a school governor
Local schools are crying out for governors who can offer business and marketing experience. You don’t have to have a child at the local school to stand as a governor. Go to the government’s website on becoming a governor to get more details.

• Use more local suppliers
Supporting the community isn’t just about charitable or volunteering endeavours – using local suppliers is important too.

• Offer flexible working
What else can you do for your employees? Offering them a more flexible working pattern not only often improves productivity in many cases but again reflects your business’s approach to creating a better work/life balance. Great CSR.

We’re not naive – most of us are in business to make profit. But remember that triple bottom line. There’s no reason why we can’t do our bit for people and planets at the same time.

The post Small businesses can ‘do good’ too (& it needn’t cost the Earth) appeared first on Business Matters.

Little wonder then that celebrity watchers were jolted when The Real Housewives of Atlanta star, Porsha Stewart revealed she was continuing to live with her husband of two years, despite the divorce proceedings he had initiated.

While this particular case was caused largely by the fact that one party was finding it hard to absorb a new reality, it is not unusual for ordinary separating couples to live under the same roof.

Financial pressures – exacerbated by the current economic climate – may lead people to believe that building separate lives whilst sticking it out in the family home is the best and only option. So with the best of intentions one partner moves into the spare room and the couple attempts to live separate lives until house prices rise and the economy improves.

What may appear a practical solution is rarely workable in my experience. In fact, this domestic arrangement can have a detrimental and lasting impact on children.

When both parents feel trapped, children will pick up on any hostility, anger or resentment. A collaborative, non-confrontational approach that puts children first in a divorce is lost in the inevitable enmity. Such an arrangement, which parents may see as pragmatic and ‘grown up’, may also give children false hope that mum and dad are staying together after all.

In the short term, living separate lives under the same roof may save money but the long term emotional cost may be high. If you do have to stay together for just a short time here are some tips to help everyone in the family cope.

• Set yourself a realistic timeframe for one partner moving out.  Consider temporary arrangements whether returning to parents or renting a flat
• If you are struggling to sell your home take advice from your estate agent. Should you drop the price for a quick sale – and what are the financial implications?
• Sort out your finances and take professional advice – what does each party need to live an independent life and to ensure that children are provided for?
• Agree arrangements for how you will live together under one roof – set some ground rules about sharing space, who minds the children and how you divide bills
• Aim to keep the peace and avoid arguments in front of the children
• If one partner is in a new relationship it can be particularly challenging for a couple to live together in the marital home. Be sensitive to the feelings of your partner and children and avoid bringing your new romance into their lives
• Take legal advice so that both parties know the options available for divorcing as amicably as possible.  Family lawyers will also be able to help with referrals to family therapists and counsellors if you need extra support in particularly challenging circumstances.

The post If you live in a war zone who gets caught in the crossfire? appeared first on Business Matters.

The industry as a whole has accepted a need to proactively promote itself to new job-hunters. The recent FTA Logistics Report revealed that CEOs in transport and logistics are more likely than their counterparts in other sectors to be using workforce development programmes that encouraged diversity as part of their succession planning*. The winners unveiled today will help to raise awareness to job-seekers that the industry is fast-paced, diverse, challenging and satisfying.

The winners in the FTA everywoman in Transport & Logistics Awards for 2013 are:

Woman of the Year – sponsored by FTA
Jacqui Gavaghan, Performance Director, Reading Transport Limited from Reading

Rising Star of the Year Award – sponsored by Motor Transport
Charlotte Laval, Supplier Performance Service Manager, Wincanton plc from Chippenham

Driver of the Year Award – sponsored by TNT
Shauni O’Neill, Train Operator, London Underground Ltd from London

Director of the Year Award – sponsored by Asda Stores Ltd
Lindsay Haselhurst, Development & Marketing Director, Wincanton plc from Chippenham

The Warehousing Award – sponsored by UKWA
Adele Waite, General Manager-Consumer Life Science Division, DHL Supply Chain from Banbury

Industry Champion Award – sponsored by DHL Supply Chain
Ruth Waring FCILT, Managing Director, Labyrinth Logistics Consulting Ltd from Leamington Spa, Warwickshire

Innovation & Sustainability Award – sponsored by DHL Supply Chain
Danielle Kozlowska, Process Improvement Manager, Stanley Black & Decker from Northampton

Team Leader of the Year Award – sponsored by MAN Truck & Bus
Marion Roberts, Station Manager, Network Rail from London

In addition, in recognition of her commitment to championing the role of women in the industry, Nikki King OBE, Managing Director of Izuzu Truck (UK) was presented with the inaugural Spirit of everywoman Award.

Commenting on the awards, Maxine Benson MBE, co-founder of everywoman, said: “The transport and logistics industry in the UK is vast and there are so many opportunities for women with the determination, enthusiasm and passion to succeed. With transport and logistics becoming an ever-evolving, fast moving, technology – driven industry offering long term, sustainable careers, it is critical that the women playing an influencing role in shaping and leading this sector should be celebrated. Today’s winners, boasting a varied skills-set, are examples of this – resourceful, pioneering and innovative women who represent the very essence of what makes the industry great. We are proud to be able to celebrate their achievements and are confident their success will inspire women of all ages, experience and skills-levels to bring their talents to the industry.”

Theo de Pencier, Chief Executive of the Freight Transport Association (FTA) adds: “FTA is exceptionally proud to be the Title Partner of the 2013 everywoman in Transport and Logistics Awards. Women are an essential part of every aspect of supply chains, from drivers and warehouse staff, to transport managers and managing directors. Industry cannot be passive in attracting women, and the FTA everywoman in Transport & Logistics Awards are the perfect opportunity to showcase how women can make a career in transport a successful and fulfilling one which is why FTA is delighted to support this event. FTA is leading by example through the high proportion of female specialists and managers it employs and women also hold key positions on its Operating Board.

The post Winners announced in the FTA everywoman Transport & Logistics Awards. appeared first on Business Matters.

Website Construction
The important first step to setting up online is to create a website which clearly displays your goods and services. Making a decision about your domain name and hosting site can be overwhelming, but off the shelf, all-in-one e-business packages are available. These are often a very simple and cost-effective way to create your online presence.

Banking Essentials
You will need to open a Merchant Account – a bank account specifically designed to process online credit and debit card charges, and to transfer the funds before you set up online. Although these services are readily available from several banks and financial institutions, their specifics can vary so it is worth doing some research before you sign up. It is important to ensure that your provider accepts all payment methods, including multiple currencies, and offers fraud screening services so that you have peace of mind and don’t have to work with multiple suppliers.

Legal Regulations
E-business trading brings with it a few extra regulations that you must comply with, such as Distance Selling Legislation, HM Revenue & Customs, Health & Safety and the Data Protection Act 1998. These include terms and conditions that your customers can print off, displaying information such as your business name, address and contact details plus clear prices and logos for the cards that you accept. It’s crucial that you adhere to these.

Fight Fraud
The most important step is to establish a fraud policy setting out what should be done if fraud is suspected and ensure that all members of your staff are trained to act. When an order looks too good to be true, it probably is. Frequent, late night, high quantity or high value orders where a shopper orders an unusually large amount of an item without preference for the size, colour, make or model should be investigated. Identifying fraud can be done in two ways – manually and automatically. A combination of both is the ideal scenario.

Make the most of industry tools like Cardholder Authentication, Card Security Code and Address Verification Service checks. Use these along with fraud screening measures that include technology to filter card transactions, UK third-party name and address checking techniques and methods of validating cardholder data. Screen your transactions and consider applying risk scoring and alerts to flag suspect activity that merits further checks. You may be able to design your own in-house system or ask your payment service provider.

Manual checks include comparing new shopper information to data you already hold, and keeping records of previous fraud attempts. Look for patterns such as similarities between transactions and repeat use of the same shopper name, e-mail address or IP address. Test their contact details to see if they work – send an e-mail and call the telephone number. You may also ask for copies of utility bills, card statements, passport or driving licence (with any sensitive details obscured). Investigate further anything that you consider suspicious.

We also recommend that you regularly search the Internet for websites using similar names to your own. These may have been set up to impersonate your company illegally.

Offering online shopping to your customers can greatly increase your revenue, and setting up online is relatively easy. Just make sure you following legal and banking codes to set up, and that you are careful to screen transactions.

The post Guide to Setting Up eCommerce Payments appeared first on Business Matters.

Chase grew up in Herefordshire where he raised potatoes. Then he developed the Tyrrell Crisps brand before moving on to produce high-end vodka and gin on his 400-acre farm in Herefordshire.

“The UK needs to regain its traditional position as a leading exporter. We’re an island. It would be in our best interest to supply the world rather than depending upon it for everyday items,” Chase said.

In 1998, the UK accounted for 5.8 percent of the world’s export market of goods and services. By 2008 that figure had declined to 4 percent, even though overall exports had increased. The UK used to supply 40 percent of the world’s trade.

“Exports account for about 30 percent of my business now. I expect exports to match my UK sales quite soon and then become 50 percent more,” Chase said.

Chase Distillery’s largest export markets are Spain, with nearly 33 percent of the company’s annual exports, and the United States, with about 20 percent. Europe (including Spain) makes up about half of the company’s export market.

However, Asia is a growing export market that soon will eclipse the U.S. Asia — including China, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and the United Arab Emirates — accounts for about 20 percent of the company’s nearly £900 billion in annual exports.

“Turning the UK’s export figure around isn’t as difficult as it seems. The latest figures from the UK Trade and Investment agency show only one in five UK small- and medium-sized businesses are exporters,” Chase said.

“Increasing that to one in four would make a noticeable difference. That’s just another 10,000 businesses. It’s not as daunting as it seems.
“It just requires a simple shift in attitude to embracing exports instead of being afraid of the process,” he said.

Chase said UK Trade and Investment works with the country’s banks and has field offices in 96 countries to identify potential export markets for small businesses.

The agency can help businesses pool resources to reduce expenses such as shipping and provide export insurance to cover extended payment periods, he said.

The post Empty Containers Leaving UK Ports is a ‘criminal waste’ appeared first on Business Matters.

Have you read any Webmaster Guidelines?
To begin, it’s vital that your link building strategy remains 100 per cent ethical at all times. Therefore, we would highly advise reading up on the webmaster guidelines provided by the major search engines, such as Bing and Google. This will ensure that there is zero chance of any manual or algorithmic penalty being placed on your website.

Whatever strategy is currently in place, it would be incredibly frustrating to lose years of work as a result of a demotion within the search engine results pages. So try and keep up-to-date and know the difference between the ethical and unethical means of link building.

Building a natural backlink profile is key to creating sustainable rankings within the search engine results pages.
This touches upon the previous tip. Search engine algorithms have advanced a lot in recent years and can detect numerous kinds of patterns and unethical activities that break the webmaster guidelines. Therefore, it’s wise to avoid the older link building techniques, such as:

• article spinning
• mass directory submissions
• buying links

Don’t fall into the trap of believing that building a set number of links per month/year is the road to success. Doing so will only leave you chasing your tail.

Instead, the aim should be to source a range of backlinks from relevant and authoritative websites. These will help build trust and act as a clear quality signal towards your website.

It is vital to create a link building strategy that focuses on long-term goals and combines a variety of activities and functions. These include building long-term relationships and being pro-active with existing and new content, whilst also leveraging social media and other means of outreach.

Don’t forget that content plays a significant role in every SEO campaign. As they say, “content is king”.
The importance of content is often underestimated and many times considered an after-thought, especially when there is a new site build planned. However, the implementation of a content strategy should always be at the heart of every SEO campaign.

Updating existing content and creating new content, including resources, on a website is a great way to keep content fresh and can also be a great way to build assets that can provide a lot of value over time, especially when you consider fresh content being a ranking factor.

Content can be used to bolster link building activities to help increase a website’s competitive edge, and its ability to attract links. For example, creating what is known as ‘evergreen content’, ranging from simple step-by-step guides to content that may have a seasonal element, can help reduce any gaps or reduce what may have previously been thin content, thus creating focus and drive that will become part of a long-term link building strategy.

Don’t forget, out-of-date web pages may drive visitors away, and reduce conversions.

We believe that link building accounts for 55 per cent of the SEO mix.

The SEO mix is split between technical elements (10%), on-page work (35%), and linkbuilding (55%). Search engine optimisation involves a complex blend of activities that will be carried out at specific points during an SEO campaign, with each playing an important role regarding search engine performance. Therefore, understanding the importance of link building is important, but ensuring the foundations are built right is the only way to improve within the search engines.

Try weeding out your very own website’s backlink profile.
If you own a website that was impacted by the Google Penguin update (that was introduced on the 24th April 2012), or have received an unnatural link warning within Google webmaster tools, it may be worthwhile getting to know your backlink profile. Intimately.

Conducting an in-depth backlink audit on any website can help identify unnatural links and prevent any future algorithmic penalties. Although it may sound difficult and time consuming, there are many structured step-by-step guides that make the process simple. Here is a blog written by myself on the specific topic of carrying out a backlink audit and identifying unnatural links, suitable for beginners.

Once you have isolated the individual links that may be causing a problem, contacting your webmaster to have the links removed will be the first step. The second step will involve a re-inclusion request (carried out through Google) and if required using the link disavow tool.

The post Simple Webmaster Guide To Building An Ethical Backlink Profile to get Google to love your site appeared first on Business Matters.

Ensuring your business is eco-friendly reflects well on you, it could be the boost your business needs in the sense that your business becomes a more desirable entity to your existing and potential customers, as well as helping to secure your place as a credible business within the market.

With all this in mind, we’ve compiled the top 10 ways that SMEs and start-up businesses can ensure their office is environmentally friendly without incurring high costs. Katherine Evans, from 08 Direct, takes us through how your business can reduce its carbon footprint and boost profitability as a result.

Email instead of snail mail
Paper is one of the biggest wastage that an office incurs, so why not email instead? Before you print anything out, ask yourself, do you really need a paper copy? Not only will you save on paper wastage but your paper spend will decrease as well.

Use call management features such as fax-to-email
Instead of installing an expensive fax machine in your office, along with incurring the extra costs it will entail, why not have your incoming faxes delivered to your email inbox? That way, you not only have a permanent copy on your hard-drive but you save yourself a lot of money.

Get a non-geographic number
By connecting a non-geographic number to your business telephone, you immediately give yourself flexibility and reduce your costs. With a non-geo number you can choose where your calls are directed to so instead of always having to travel to the office, you can receive calls straight to your mobile, saving further electrical usage and cost from extra telephony equipment and installations.

Work from home
Instead of you and your employees travelling to and from work every day or travelling around for meetings, why not work remotely? By doing so, you’ll decrease travel costs as well decreasing the amount of emissions that are created.

Encourage shared transportation
If it’s unavoidable to be out of the office, why not encourage car-sharing or the use of public transport amongst your staff? That way everyone will be in the office but will have sent out less carbon emissions on their commute.

Cloud storage
By moving your IT system to a shared data network, it has been found that your carbon footprint can be reduced by almost half. The potential for energy saving here is huge and by storing your business data remotely, every employee will be able to access documents from anywhere, encouraging better productivity, less paper usage and better profits!

Turn things OFF
Here, you have the potential to slash both your energy bills and your carbon footprint. If you make even just the smallest of changes, for example, unplugging your laptop once it’s charged, turning everything off overnight, you could potentially halve your business bills.

Hosted solutions
Similar to cloud storage, this allows your telephone system to be hosted remotely and lets just one supplier provide all of your telephone system. This also lets you have one call with instant messaging, video and voice all included, so meetings can be held online, reducing further the need to travel! By doing this, your business lowers its running costs and emissions whilst ensuring all calls are still received.

Recycle
Make sure you recycle anything you can as it’ll not only reduce your waste production but your carbon footprint as well.

Energy saving
Everyone loves having a tea or coffee while they’re at work, but boiling the kettle over and over wastes a lot of energy. So earn yourself some brownie points around the office and offer your colleagues a drink when you’re making one!

The post Top ten tips to making your start-up business eco-friendly appeared first on Business Matters.

What’s more, it can last for 10,000 charge-recharge cycles, compared with 1,000 cycles for conventional rechargeable batteries, according to Khare

“My cellphone battery always dies,” she told NBC News when asked what inspired her to work on the energy-storage technology. Supercapacitors also allowed her to focus on her interest in nanochemistry — “really working at the nanoscale to make significant advances in many different fields.”

To date, she has used the supercapacitor to power a light-emitting diode, or LED. The invention’s future is even brighter. She sees it fitting inside mobile phones and the other portable electronic devices like tablets and laptops, freeing people and their gadgets for a longer time from reliance on electrical outlets.

“It is also flexible, so it can be used in rollup displays and clothing and fabric,” Khare added. “It has a lot of different applications and advantages over batteries in that sense.”

Khare’s invention won her the Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award and $50,000 prize at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

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If you haven’t used Vine yet, it’s the official video app for Twitter and videos are restricted to a length of six seconds. Here’s what a Vine looks like (courtesy of Doug Richard).

Richard’s Launcher programme provides funding for 18-30 year-old budding entrepreneurs. The best three pitches will get the chance to participate in a live Google+ Hangout with Doug to try and convince him that their business deserves a £10,000 loan for their idea.

The winner will also receive ongoing business advice from Doug and enjoy a private lunch with him.

Do you think that you are able to pitch your business in six seconds? Simply tweet your business idea in a six second Vine using the hashtag #S4SLaunchMe. You’ve got until the 28th May to get your entries in. Check out SchoolforStartups for Terms and Conditions.

The post Pitch your business to former Dragon Doug Richard in 6 seconds to secure £10,000 loan appeared first on Business Matters.

The results of the survey into start-up costs comes just a few days after Lord Young, the prime minister’s enterprise adviser, published his ‘Growing your Business’ report, and stated that this is a ‘very good time’ to start a business.

However, initial costs such as renting an office and taking on staff can put tremendous strain on small businesses at the outset and in the critical first year of operation. But the modern, mobile business owner can utilise flexible working practices, using remote freelance staff on a project-by-project basis, rather than committing to full-time staff.

And according to those micro-business owners polled by the freelance website PeoplePerHour, 86 per cent said they were ‘spare room’ start-ups, running their businesses from a home office, rather than from a serviced office or shared workspace. Also, rather then giving up their jobs and putting a strain on their finances, more than a third of micro-business owners said they started their businesses while they were still working.

How did people fund their businesses? From a variety of sources it seems, with just over three quarters using personal savings, 20 per cent asking for help from friends and family, while 13 per cent used their redundancy money. Only 2.5 per cent of those business owners polled secured a bank loan. Similarly only 2.5 per cent received a grant of some description and less than one per cent said that they had help from a private investor.

In Lord Young’s report, he recommended extending the government-backed Start-up loans scheme to those micro-business owners over the age of 30.

According to the reports figures, 60 per cent micro-business owners were over 30 when they started their business, which means they wouldn’t have been able to apply for the Start-up loans scheme. More than a quarter polled were actually over 40 when they launched their start-ups, and 11 per cent were over 50.

What micro-businesses have Britain’s budding entrepreneurs launched? Almost a quarter of start-up micro-businesses launched in the past year have been internet-based, while technology, design, marketing and PR in addition to professional service businesses also featured strongly.

Xenios Thrasyvoulou, founder and CEO of PeoplePerHour, comments: “Starting a business is now most definitely open to anyone. You don’t have to be from a wealthy family, have a background in finance or have started on your entrepreneurial journey while in your teens. The online revolution means that it’s never been easier or cheaper to launch a business at any time in life. You can market yourself and find new business leads online, recruit skilled freelance staff online and then manage them remotely, and even seek expert advice when you need it through online platforms.

“The outdated belief that it takes thousands of pounds of start-up capital to launch a business is simply not the case any more. A large number of micro-businesses are launched from home offices with very limited funds.

“For most businesses the first year is generally the make or break year, and many companies fail because they have cash flow issues. But now big expenditures such as office and staff costs can be controlled. Businesses can adopt more flexible working practices, tapping into a global pool of skilled talent through online freelancer platforms and only hiring staff when they need them for specific projects, rather than recruiting full time employees, and facing having to still pay salaries during quiet periods.

“Similarly with office costs, the modern business owner can run operations from a home office, or even on the move, managing a remote workforce without having to pay for additional desk space. Businesses are being launched and grown from kitchen tables across the country, as the online revolution has knocked down any barriers to entry.

“Starting a business from scratch is no longer the daunting prospect it once was. The internet has given everyone access to a global marketplace of opportunities and expertise – and that should encourage a lot more people to give it a go.”

The post Want to start your own business? The people who have say it costs less than a weeks salary appeared first on Business Matters.

And, while small business users may be looking out for phishing attacks asking for bank account or credit card details, too few are as cautious when entering account details for social networking sites. Attackers know this and are using it to their advantage and it is reported that the number of phishing sites that spoofed social network sites increased 123 percent last year, we are ourselves were subject of an attack recently.

We asked security specialists Symantec’s to give us some top tips on how SMEs and their employees, who use social networks both professionally and personally, can protect themselves

1. Check the social networking site’s address – typo squatting sites are often used to attempt to capture user credentials.
2. Scrutinise the site’s security certificate to ensure you are logging into legitimate services and look for “HTTPS” in the address.
3. Be suspicious of links sent from unknown users and even emails that claim to come from a social networking site, as this is a popular phishing tactic. And, don’t click on links in messages, even direct messages from a known “friend” or “follower,” that seem strange or out of character. A common method used by attackers is to pose as a friend/follower and send messages with links to sites that are infected with malware.
4. Install security software on user machines that protects against phishing attacks.Use different passwords for each account; that way, even if one account is compromised, the others will stay safe. Passwords or passphrases should be difficult to guess and not in the dictionary. Ideally a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special characters should be used. And remember to change your passwords regularly.
5. Don’t answer yes when prompted to save your password to a computer or browser. Instead, rely on a strong password committed to memory or stored in a dependable password management program. Using a phrase known to you with some combination of characters from the URL is one approach to creating an easily memorable password for each site.
6. When the site offers it, use two-factor authentication that requires not only your user name and password, but also a trusted device (like a mobile phone) that can be used to confirm the identity of the account holder.
7. Report any suspicious or potentially malicious activity to the social networking site’s administrators.

The post Beware the Phishers who want to access your social networks appeared first on Business Matters.

British office workers feel stressed in their own jobs but adopt a ‘keep calm and carry on approach’ to chaotic working environments and take unpredictable changes at the office in their stride.

Despite the challenges facing staff over half of those questioned  considered themselves to be ‘thriving’, with only 2 per cent say they are ‘struggling’ – and their sense of wellbeing at work is amongst the highest in the world.

Although many UK workers remain dissatisfied with working conditions, they are unique in rounding off the working week in the pub with their colleagues.

The insight into British office life is revealed ‘Culture Code’, a new analysis by Steelcase, the global leader in office interiors and workplace research. Culture Code compares and contrasts the working and lifestyle habits of 11 countries around the world.

The study which compared  environments in China, France, Germany, the UK, India, Italy, Morocco, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain and the US. It compares, among other things, office layouts, employee/management dynamics, working hours, cultural influences, work/life balance, and job satisfaction and security.

According to Zoe Humpries, one of the authors of the report, said: “British workers face constant pressure to stay longer at work and do more. Workers are stressed and dissatisfied with their working conditions.That said British workers are competitive and most are convinced they have to be tough to succeed.

“The British rank very highly on individualism and have embraced mobile working easily. However, they move jobs quite frequently. Close personal relationships are not regarded as important in business.

“The variation in approaches to work across the world is striking and while globalisation is a key theme, there is some very strong national characteristics.”

Among the key findings of the report are:-

Longest working day – China. 25% work 11 hour days every day but take long lunch breaks during which naps are common.

Early risers – Germany. Workers like to start early and leave early and are highly productive. Distractions at work, such as social celebrations, are kept to a minimum. Achieving financial success and status at work are often prioritized.

Anyone for coffee? – Italy. Coffee breaks are important social times in the workday. Meetings are intense and lively, usually led by management, and often start late.

Shortest working week – the Netherlands. Typically less than 40 hours. Amongst the first to embrace flexible working and do lots of work away from the office. High job satisfaction.

Fast and furious – Russia. Pace of work is fast and intesnse. Older workers nostalgic for security – younger workers want more free time. Job hopping common.

Life before work – Spain. Spaniards put less importance on job satisfaction; personal life is the realm for doing what you want to do. Most Spaniards believe fun and work don’t mix; spaces for relaxing or socializing in the workplace are less common.

Wedded to work – The USA. At least a third of Americans don’t take all of their allotted vacation days and consider it important to demonstrate they are sacrificing their personal lives for career. Despite ongoing economic uncertainty, Americans score high in wellbeing; 57% of population consider themselves thriving, only 3% suffering.

Late for work – India. Chaotic traffic and overcrowded public transportation lengthen the average workday. Bringing lunch from home and eating at your desk is common. Turnover is high due to booming employment opportunities, especially in high-tech and media. Plus for young Indians, challenging work is as important as the reputation of the company and salary.

Work/life balance – France. On the one hand, they are deeply invested in their professional roles and career advancement. On the other hand, they prize the overall quality of their lives and consider protecting it a serious matter.

Loyalty – Morocco. Traditionally, workers build close, loyal bonds to their employers. Younger workers seek more engagement and satisfaction from their work.

The post Despite 50 hour weeks, over half of UK workers describe themselves as ‘Thriving’ appeared first on Business Matters.

David Karp, 26, who owns 25 per cent of the privately-owned company he co-founded with Marco Arment in 2007, said he was “elated” to have the support of Yahoo and will continue as chief executive officer of Tumblr.

Buying Tumblr will open up Yahoo to a younger generation as long as they don’t impose any rules and too much advertising on their new $1.1 billion acquisition, says a digital communications expert.

The $1.1bn price tag for Tumblr represents a significant premium on its $800m valuation when it last raised money from private investors.

Tumblr’s 2012 revenue was just $13m, according to a report by Forbes magazine, leading analysts to suggest Yahoo had overpaid for the deal.

“Even if revenue was $100 million, it means Yahoo paid 10 times revenue,” said BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis. “Ten times is what you pay to date the belle of the ball. It’s on the outer bands of M&A.”

Professor John Baptista believes it is a good move by Yahoo and will help them catch up with Google and Facebook in the social media market.

Yahoo makes its money from advertising through its email service, but Professor Baptista says this is a dying technology and Tumblr’s blogging know-how will help it to deliver a multi-platform service that users are increasingly demanding.

The Warwick Business School Professor said: “Yahoo is pretty ‘old school’ now, as email is slow and old, so this is a good move for their brand image. Acquiring Tumblr will make it more edgy and allow them to engage a younger generation. They seem to be targeting the Google+ type of platform where they can combine their expertise in email technologies with a more dynamic platform for blogging, pictures and video, which will make them more attractive.

“This puts Yahoo on the map for the young and technology-savvy generation. From my research I have found that the use of email is reducing more and more and so Yahoo have to find a way to operate to challenge the likes of Google, by offering the same kind of functionality and speed of communication.

“But Yahoo has to be careful to keep Tumblr’s integrity as if it starts imposing rules and interfering with the functionality of the platform with advertising they will kill it.”

Professor Baptista doesn’t believe Yahoo has paid over the odds for Tumblr, saying the $1.1 billion price tag shows the potential of the site.

“The markets might be surprised by the price, given Tumblr’s revenues, but I think it shows Yahoo has a clear plan to monetize the operation,” said Professor Baptista. “Yahoo paid what Tumblr is worth for them and this could reflect a premium over the market price because its a quick way to expand and grow their capabilities and service.

“I think they will keep Tumblr separate, but they will use the expertise to enhance their operation and provide a dynamic platform where their traditional advertising strength can be utilised, though they can’t over play this too much. It is a good move and gives Yahoo an edge.”

The post Yahoo pays $1BN for Tumblr to make it relevant for a new young generation appeared first on Business Matters.

Their historic analysis detected increases in views of financially related Wikipedia pages before stock market falls.

Dr Moat said: “These results provide evidence that online data may allow us to gain a new understanding of the early stages of decision making, giving us an insight into how people gather information before they decide to take action in the real world.”

Wikipedia is a popular online encyclopaedia that all internet users can view and edit. Crucially, Wikipedia does not only make its contents freely available, but also data on how often people view and edit its pages.

Suzy Moat and Tobias Preis, of Warwick Business School, UK, along with Chester Curme, Adam Avakian, Dror Y. Kenett and H. Eugene Stanley, of Boston University, USA, looked at how often the 30 pages describing the companies listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, such as Procter & Gamble, Bank of America, and The Walt Disney Company, were viewed between December 2007 and April 2012.

They found that a simple trading strategy based on changes in the frequency of views would have led to significant profits of up to 141 per cent.

Similarly, a strategy based on views of 285 pages relating to general financial topics, such as macroeconomics, capital and wealth, would have also generated profits of up to 297 per cent. A buy and hold strategy during this period would have led to only a 3 per cent profit.

The researchers also measured how often these pages were edited during this period. No evidence was found that information on editing activity could have been used to anticipate stock market movements. Trading strategies based on how often people viewed 233 pages relating to actors and filmmakers, a topic with less obvious financial relevance, were also not profitable.

Dr Moat said: “We know that humans are more concerned about losing £5 than they are about missing an opportunity to gain £5. If investors spend more time and effort gathering information before making what they consider to be a bigger decision, then we might expect to see people looking for more financial information before stocks are sold at lower prices, in line with our results.”

Preis, Moat and Stanley have previously found links between Google searches and stock market movements.

Dr Preis, Associate Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School, said: “Our latest results provide further evidence that data on online information gathering may contain precursors of collective decisions taken in the real world.”

The post Can Wikipedia predict stock market price fluctuations? appeared first on Business Matters.

So what exactly are the benefits of using 4G and where should you start? Mike Tomlinson, Director of Small Business at EE, shares his ten top tips on how companies can use 4G to innovate and beat the competition:

Get more done out of the office
An estimated 20 per cent of UK employees (over 6.5 million people) now work while out of the office, according to cyber security organisation, the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure. 4G download speeds are up to ten times faster than 3G, so small businesses can send and receive more data in less time from mobile devices.

A small photography company that took part in a recent 4G trial in Cumbria last year, for example, has slashed the time it takes to transfer an image to its clients from five hours to one and a half. This has transformed their business, vastly improving productivity and customer satisfaction.

Take advantage of the mobile cloud
The days of returning to the office to back up mobile devices are well and truly over. With 4G, small businesses can automatically back up their documents, images, settings and address book whenever and wherever they are. As a result, free cloud applications (such as Google Drive) are growing in popularity among small companies, as employees use 4G to instantly access their work while on the move 

Enhance customer experiences
Small businesses can use 4G to provide a better service to their clients. For example, architects and surveyors can download 3D CAD plans while on site and review them instantly with their clients, rather than waiting to send them over a fixed line connection back at the office.

Set up a new business location instantly
Getting to market quickly is crucial for small businesses, yet many have to wait for a fixed line connection to be installed before they can begin trading properly. 4G lets new businesses set up instantly, rather than waiting a month or more for a telephone line and internet connectivity to be installed.

Give your marketing a boost
Videos and photos really improve online visibility and can help small companies bring the human element of their business to life. 4G’s superfast upload speeds mean small businesses can instantly upload videos to Twitter, Google+, Facebook and YouTube. For street food sellers, videos profiling their cooks and of food being prepared on the stall, all help to market the business more effectively.

Reinvent and innovate
Small businesses can use 4G to introduce new ways of working. For instance, service engineers on the road can instantly connect to office systems. This improves information to customers on fault fix times, which in turn improves quality of service and customer satisfaction.

Save time waiting for downloads
Downloading image-heavy attachments can cost businesses time and money. A 20MB document takes 8.3 seconds on average to download with 3G. Downloading the same attachment using 4G can reduce this waiting time to less than a second.

Take creativity to another level
Supercharge business ideas by organising brainstorms in unusual and inspiring locations, be it a park, castle, or riverboat. With a 4G mobile wi-fi device, your team will have instant access to online research and background information. At the end of the session, they can upload ideas and supporting documents to the cloud for use back at the office.

Foster a good work-life balance
One of the benefits of remote working is it allows employees to maximise time during the office commute or avoid these journeys altogether at times of travel disruption. With 4G, they are able to connect and work at a moment’s notice. This allows workers to organise their time in a way that suits them, rather than being governed by location or time.

Follow the four steps to 4G connectivity
Finally, there are four steps to getting up and running with 4G. First, check you are in a 4G coverage area explore.ee.co.uk/coverage-checker. Second, check you have a 4G-compatible device. If you do, then choose the 4G price plan that works best for you. Finally, obtain a 4G SIM card and enjoy all the benefits a superfast connection can bring small businesses.

The post Guide To Using Technology in Business: Serving up a productivity boost with 4G appeared first on Business Matters.

If you ask the question ‘why do businesses fail?’ many people will attribute the blame to problems with cash flow. But is this the true root cause – or a difficulty that businesses experience on their way to failing? As an accountant, it’s true to say that many of the struggling businesses that I have encountered have experienced cash flow issues, but these have usually been caused by other existing factors which were problematic in their business.

Why do businesses fail?
So, to identify the reasons why businesses struggle or ultimately fail, we have to go further back and analyse things more deeply. There may be certain things which went wrong or which were never right. For example, prices were set incorrectly, key contracts were lost, costs increased, sales and marketing wasn’t strong enough or maybe there were serious staffing issues.

However, whilst these are all significant problems, they still don’t get to the crux of why businesses fail.

The real reason is the management of a business and its failure to adapt or respond to whatever problems it is experiencing. In more serious cases, they may be unaware that there is a problem in the first place – until it is too late. Your accountant should play an intrinsic role in identifying any potential issues, as well as suggesting possible solutions.

The role of your accountant
An accountant isn’t just an add-on extra who crunches the numbers – they should form a key part of a company’s management, from creating a tax efficient company structure to identifying problems and monitoring profit and loss so any potential cash flow issues can be managed proactively. Much more than a trouble shooter, they should know your business and bring a fresh eye to its needs, suggesting areas for development, possible revenue streams and advising on issues such as minimising tax liability and research and development.

A simple formula
Being a numbers person, I’m a great fan of simplicity and often apply the following equation to my clients to help them both manage and grow their businesses.

E + R = O

E is event: something that has happened and cannot be changed as it is in the past. R is the response and O is the outcome. The variable factor in this equation is R; E is fixed whilst O depends on what the response is.

If we apply this in the context of the possible business problems I mentioned earlier, we see how the response influences the outcome.

Prices weren’t right (the event). If the company’s accounting information system is good it should identify that profitability is insufficient; this may be because prices are too low to earn enough or too high and sales volumes have dropped.  If management are made aware of the problem early enough, they can implement change (response), experimenting with different pricing policies for example, to find the right balance.

The SME issue
Identifying potential problems can be difficult for SMEs who may have very small management teams, lacking suitably qualified professionals to confide in who understand their business well enough to help. Due to pressures of time and money, many business owners are guilty of ‘working in’ their business rather than ‘on it’, which is why a good accountant is so fundamental to the success of SMEs, acting as a business mentor to help focus on the key issues.

Your accountant should be proactive, ultimately adding value to your business. They may not be experts in your specific market, but they should be able to help you with benchmarking so you are operating competitively with other organisations in your sector. With experience of many different kinds of businesses, a good practice will also have insight into a whole range of problems that companies experience – and how to avoid them.

Keep talking
Communication is key: it’s not enough to go through the figures annually when it may be too late to address problems that have become entrenched over the past 12 months. I encourage clients to hold monthly or quarterly meetings to discuss the business. This could be based on the SWOT method where strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are identified. Involve your accountant and aim to come out of every meeting with two tasks – one to strengthen a weakness, and one to build on an opportunity. If you act on these, and the advice that a proactive accountant can offer, your business will go from strength to strength.

The post Guide to Business Growth: How your accountant can help your business grow appeared first on Business Matters.

The British retailer has been expanding its online operations to several countries across Europe with a new marksandspencer.eu site, hoping to grow its business in a difficult economic climate, reports The Guardian.

But internal M&S documents seen by the Guardian show the firm’s structure involves shipping goods from one country – the UK – while invoicing the transaction to another – Ireland.

Orders made through the site by customers from France, Germany, Ireland or other countries are shipped from M&S’s UK warehouses – but the transactions are all made with, and charged to, Marks & Spencer (Ireland) Limited, a subsidiary located in the Republic of Ireland, which has the lowest corporation tax rates in Europe.

M&’s UK branch is paid a wholesale price for the goods it ships by M&S Ireland, and this is subject to UK corporation tax, but the rest of the retail markup is subject to Ireland’s much lower corporation tax rate of 12.5%.

This process of using internal billing between countries in order to ship goods from one country when doing business in another is referred to as “transfer pricing”, and while perfectly legal is the practice highlighted by tax campaigners who object to Amazon. However, M&S only uses this structure for sales outside of the UK: all sales in UK stores and online to UK addresses are processed through the UK and are subject to UK corporation tax.

A specification document prepared last year when the site was being designed specified that “[t]he corporate tax structure will be aligned to that of the Irish website”.

The document then detailed how, while the goods would be shipped from the UK, M&S UK would only receive a wholesale – not retail – price: “Goods issue from Hardwick DC [distribution centre] in the UK at cost price … intercompany invoice at cost price in GBP with a variable mark-up % by country (of order) plus UK VAT”.

Earlier this year, after George Osborne announced a further cut to UK corporation tax in his 2013 budget, an M&S employee sent an email to a superior questioning the need for the complex operation of Marks & Spencer’s international site, giving their personal view as to why the structure existed:

“Given that it was developed as a means to avoid UK corporation tax when it stood at 26% it now seems appropriate to reassess this,” it read. “Corporation tax will be 21% by next year. Does this not render many of the advantages of having an Irish company obsolete?

“From a tax management perspective there may have been advantages in avoiding the UK 26% tax rate but the process and IT overhead with the additional VAT complexity may negate these advantages. Needless to say there is also the reputational damage to M&S should it be seen to be avoiding UK tax in the current climate, as seen with recent examples such as Starbucks [and] Amazon.”

The revelations come amid mounting cross-party political focus on corporate tax avoidance, as Ed Miliband pledges to act unilaterally to tackle tax avoidance, just days after the public accounts committee chair, Margaret Hodge described Google’s tax structure as evil.

Tax avoidance has also been made a central component of next month’s meeting of the G8 economic summit by David Cameron and George Osborne.

Marks & Spencer said Ireland was used to host the website as it was the largest international market for M&S, and therefore the logical host for the EU site. It said: “M&S is a major UK taxpayer, contributing over £800m to the UK exchequer in 2011/12.

“We pay UK corporation tax on all profits generated by UK sales and comply with the tax laws of all jurisdictions in which we operate. We conduct our tax affairs in a transparent and legally compliant manner that is consistent with our longstanding values and complies with the tax laws of all jurisdictions in which we operate.

“Our European websites are owned by M&S Ireland. This is made clear to all customers shopping on our European websites. Ireland is our largest international online market, taking over 50% of our online European sales, which is why we structure our other European websites around it. It would not make good business sense for us to set up anew in every market we enter.

“These are not UK sales, these sites do not serve UK customers and there are no sales made in sterling. All tax is legally and fairly paid both in the UK and in Ireland.”

But tax campaigners have been angered by the revelations of how M&S operates its international division, accusing it of trading off its British reputation.

“Given that Marks & Spencer portrays itself as a British institution, it is disgraceful that it is choosing to avoid paying tax in this country,” said Suzy Blackwell of UK Uncut, which has pushed for changes to the law to cut down on legal tax avoidance measures.

“The government must stop letting companies like Marks & Spencer dodge tax which could go towards funding vital public services. It’s an outrage that the government is allowing this behaviour to continue while making devastating cuts across the country.”

Richard Murphy, an accountant who writes for the UK Tax Justice Network, agreed. “There is no doubt that this is Marks & Spencer is ‘doing an Amazon’ by setting up an arrangement in a low tax jurisdiction where little or nothing happens to avoid tax where the trade really takes place.

“As Ernst & Young told the public accounts committee last week, such arrangements are common. But what that means is big business is now used to playing games with tax authorities, who appear to have meekly accepted there is nothing they can do about it. That has to change.”

The post Marks & Spencer under fire over online tax arrangements appeared first on Business Matters.

“Britain’s businesses cannot grow, export and innovate without proper access to bank credit. But they also need alternatives when looking for finance,” said Mr Cable. “The government wants to see a shift in the market structure towards non-bank lending.”

Bank funding for SMEs has shrivelled in the wake of a global banking crisis, which has made traditional lenders more cautious and, according to a recent UK study, created a cash-flow crisis that is stifling small firms.

Mr Cable’s comments coincided with the launch of a guide to alternative sources of financing, published by business lobby group the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).

The CBI said high-growth, medium-sized businesses could be worth an additional £20bn pounds ($30.4 billion) to the British economy over the next seven years if they can gain access to finance through alternative channels.

The CBI highlighted traditional but underused funding options, such as the retail bond market and private debt placements, but also promoted more innovative approaches such as online “crowd-funding” platforms which enable individuals and businesses to back specific projects.

Mr Cable’s comments came as data showed that the number of small companies complaining about bank loans to Britain’s top financial arbitrator rose sharply last year, supporting persistent claims by companies they are being denied access to finance despite a government push to boost lending.

The Financial Ombudsman received 17pc more complaints in 2012 compared with the previous year, according to figures obtained by UK finance provider Syscap.

Companies were most likely to complain about banks refusing to renew loans or overdrafts or renewing them with punishing interest rates or higher fees, Syscap said.

Firms were also unhappy at being offered the wrong type of finance, such as overdrafts that carry high rates and can be recalled at any time instead of loans.

New regulations brought in after the financial crisis have forced traditional lenders to cut risky financing and left many small businesses short of funds.

The British government has made increasing the flow of credit to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) a central part of its plan to revive the UK’s flagging economy.

The rise in complaints to 612 from 522, along with other recent data, calls into question the effectiveness of its efforts.

“It is clear from the number of complaints that small businesses continue to face major difficulties when it comes to getting the appropriate kind of funding they need from banks,” said Syscap Chief Executive Philip White.

“We hear from small businesses that banks still use the tight credit environment as an excuse to impose high fees on their customers,” he added.

Only firms with fewer than 10 employees and annual revenues of less than €2m can complain to the Ombudsman, which deals with cases where banks and customers cannot agree a settlement.
Syscap’s White said SMEs’ access to funding could soon improve thanks to the government’s decision to extend and expand its flagship Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS).

Last month, the government said the FLS, which offers banks cheap credit if they increase lending to households and businesses, will last until January 2015.

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Mr Meredith, 74, has launched Project Bulldog, which aims to channel his expertise from operating 52 ports in 26 countries into concrete advice for budding exporters, reports The Telegraph.

In an advert published on Thursday in The Daily Telegraph, Mr Meredith says: “I would like to offer a personal commitment to assist your company in any way I can.”

His “completely free service” spans everything from helping find contacts in foreign markets to advice on tax, legal, transport and customs issues.

Hutchison Ports is a subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa, the multinational conglomerate controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, 84, whose portfolio includes retailer Superdrug, mobile phone network 3 and gas and water businesses. It owns Britain’s biggest container port Felixstowe, as well as the ports of Harwich and Thamesport.

Mr Meredith said he decided to launch his initiative after being asked a year ago by Government export agency, UK Trade & Investment, to give a presentation on “export opportunities in Asia”.

“I found a pretty strange response,” he said. “Most of the people who came forward afterwards were security people, or lawyers or consultants but not many people who were actually making things.”

He said this was mirrored by what was going on at Felixstowe where the “stuff that’s moving out is mainly empty containers or scrap – but no products. I got irritated by this so I set up Project Bulldog.”

He said Britain needed to focus on manufacturing, including offering tax breaks and cheaper energy for exporters, or risk getting left behind by other more innovative nations, including America.

“You can’t rely on North Sea oil and gas and the City of London. We have to go back to basics and start making stuff,” he said.

Referring to vacuum cleaner entrepreneur Sir James Dyson, Mr Meredith added: “Everyone admires the Dysons of this world. The UK’s got a lot of potential Dysons but they are not getting products to market. We should be teaching innovation in schools so people think laterally.”

He believed his initiative would not get in the way of his day job, from which he has no intention of retiring. “You don’t think of retiring if you work for Mr Li,” he said. “I’m 10 years behind him.”

He said he was not afraid that he would be inundated with requests for help. “I would welcome it,” he said. “I’ve got a particular bug on this issue.”

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But when we look at top management and boards, the picture looks very different. In the UK, women account for only 17% of FTSE board positions . In the US the number is 16% . In politics the picture is not much better. The UK Parliament has 22% women and the US Congress only 17% women .

Why is this even important? Studies have shown that gender balanced teams make better decisions and achieve stronger results. Companies with a high proportion of female leaders have higher increase in shareholder value than those that do not. This awareness has led to many organisations in the UK and elsewhere to start initiatives in the past decade to deal with the talent gap (see figure below) or sometimes known as ‘The Women Problem’.

But despite all these efforts, the Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI) ranks the UK 18th, down from 9th in 2009, and the US 22nd (23rd in 2009), after countries like Cuba, Philippines and Lesotho, on gender equality. And the latest studies from Cranfield School of Management and The Professional Board Forum have found that the number of women appointed to boards in the UK is less than half of what it was a year ago.

So, what is really the problem? At the risk ruffling some feathers, I have compiled a list of what’s holding us back… the common sins both men and women are guilty of:

The 9 Sins of Gender Equality

No.1 Ignorance in High Places
I had the displeasure of listening to Chris Wiscarson, Chief Executive, Equitable Life and Subramanian Ramadorai, Vice Chairman, Tata Consultancy Services, on the topic of Boardroom Diversity: a Man’s Perspective at the Women of the Future (WOF) Summit last week. When asked the basic question: “Why do you want women on boards?” the best they could come up with was: “Because they are at least as good as men.”

Not sure if this was by design or accidental, but WOF certainly managed to illustrate the ignorance that unfortunately exists. Numerous studies have shown that gender diversity produces better results. Studies from MIT published in 2010 showed that with more women the social sensitivity in the group increased, leading to 30-40% better outcomes. Other studies show that female managers perform better than their male counterparts at the upper levels of management.

You’d think Chris or Subramanian might have cited some of this or at least come up with a better answer. Instead the embarrassment continued with simplistic ideas like: “Let’s change the wording in Boardroom Diversity Booklet because women aren’t inspired by words like courage.” Really? What sort of women do you work with? …and finally Subramanian desperate attempt to save face: “I really like working with women. I have women in all my support functions.”

I’m glad you’re happy with your female administrative staff, but with all due respect, Mr. Ramadorai, I think you’re missing the point … unless you plan on appointing your secretary to your board?

No.2 Thinking Structural Change = Culture Change
A Norwegian born and bred, I never considered my opportunities limited by my gender. Growing up there in the 1980’s, the vast majority of us had mothers and fathers who both worked full-time, and numerous strong women role models to look up to like Hanna Kvanmo and Gro H. Bruntland.

I’ve since had the privilege of living and working in the US, Japan and the UK, experiencing those and many other different cultures in the process. While it is easy to place Nordic countries up on a gender equality pedestal (as the GGGI does), I think we should be careful to assume that copying what works there in the UK and US will magically produce the same results.

Culture trumps quotas, guidelines and systems any day. In Norway, we have a long tradition of eating dinner with the family, and thus leaving work at 4pm to go home and see your children is not frowned upon. In Japan, face time is very important and leaving the office before your boss is unheard of. Thus ‘working’ until 10-11pm is not uncommon. In the US, there is an expectation that career comes first and family time is for the weekends. In the UK you either work late or go to the pub, you certainly don’t rush home to pick up the children if you’re serious about your career!

I’m not arguing for or against structural changes or quotas. All I’m saying is that simply enforcing quotas and extending maternity and paternity leave and pay does not turn the UK into Finland (the GGGI’s highest ranking country) or the US into Norway. Nor should that be the aim.

We have to stop thinking that simplistic structural solutions will create culture change. The failure of most organisational change initiatives is an excellent example of how starting with structure to force through change is not only illogical, but usually hugely unsuccessful. People support what they help create. Much like large-scale organisational transformation, the gender issue requires a persistent and systematic grass roots movement supported by the very top, and many, many years of conscious effort by all of us. And each country and organisation needs to find a model that works for its own culture and people.

No.3 We Are Our Own Worst Enemies
For every woman fighting for gender equality, there is another one doing us a disservice.
What male dominated workplaces need is a substantial number of women who are strong, capable and stand up to any sexist behaviour. But that is rarely the case. I’m glad women are no longer expected to look and act like men to be in business. But that doesn’t mean we should use our looks or gender to get what we want either. In many ways, gender equality has gone backwards in this regard. At a recent visit to BI Norwegian Business School the undergrads look more like they’re auditioning for a modelling job than going to class. A director in a London firm I know uses short skirts and coercion to get what she wants. Some women purposely cry to influence their male colleagues. These women are enforcing biases and stereotypes and making the path just that much harder for the many, many competent and professional women out there.

Another example is how women treat other women. Many women act bitchy, catty, jealous and are sometimes outright bullies toward other women. As women today the pressure is on. We have to be beautiful, successful, intelligent, good wives, good mothers … the list goes on. We might have wanted female liberation, but I don’t think we really thought this one through. The pressure has never been more intense (and often self inflicted!) and yet here we are tearing each other down, putting sticks in each other’s wheels. Why? It’s not like there are too many women at the top… and the only thing you end up doing is looking insecure and pathetic.

No.4 Not Speaking Up
We cannot sit around and wait for promotions and salary rises to land in our laps. Nor can we except to be noticed if all we do is sit quietly in meetings and only speak when asked. Want a promotion? Go ask your boss what you need to do to get one. Think you deserve more pay? Go ask for it!

Early on in my career, I used to be very passive in meetings. But as anyone who’s worked with me recently can testify, I’m anything but now. I see so many women, especially junior ones, who take a passive role, afraid to say something stupid, think out loud or come across as aggressive. Participation doesn’t mean you have to be bossy or aggressive, you can contribute and discuss in a collaborative way. The key is that you participate. Otherwise, you won’t get noticed and people will assume you have nothing interesting to say.

No.5 Not All Women Want It
This isn’t a problem, but just a fact more people need to be aware of. The truth is not all women want the demands and hard work that come climbing to the higher echelons of business and political life. The same goes for men of course. But perhaps, because of biology and societal expectations, a higher percentage of women feel this way.

Some women these days also feel like they don’t need to prove anything, but rather have the choice of career, motherhood or a combination of both. And that’s what it should be all about. Choice. And even though it can be hard to understand people very different from ourselves, if what they’re doing makes them happy, we need to shut up and respect their choice.

If a higher percentage of women don’t want it, then a merit based 50/50 split at the top of business and politics is unachievable, and we need to accept that. How so? Well, assuming men and women are equally talented, equally educated and entering the workforce in equal numbers, then there is no way we will ever achieve 50/50 at the top while more women are still opting out… unless we want to include less qualified women just to meet a quota! The goal shouldn’t be 50/50. The goal should be that men and women all feel they have the choice and opportunity to do what they desire … and that we compete on equal footing.
This brings me to my next point.

No.6 Men Are Scared of Strong Women
Even considering that some women opt out, I believe 30-40% is achievable in today’s world. But there are plenty of qualified women out there who are not being appointed to management teams and boards due to one specific fact. Many men are scared of strong and intelligent women. There, I said it! I’ve seen this manifest itself in two ways: (1) highly qualified women candidates are not chosen due to some made-up excuse from the selection committee and (2) meek women are appointed to tick the gender box, but with the knowledge that they won’t say much, and thus control is held safely in the hands of men.

Worried this might be happening in your organisation? Things to look out for: (1) the kind of women that are hired and promoted, (2) the kind of women the senior decision makers have chosen to marry…

No.7 Choosing The Wrong Life Partner
Sheryl Sandberg has been talking about this recently. I couldn’t agree more. In fact the only piece of advice I have for ambitious women choosing a life partner is to choose one that loves that fact that you’re driven, strong and intelligent. And I’m not just talking about on the surface, but someone who deep down finds this one of the most attractive parts of who you are.

Easier said than done, but better to be single than having to fight the battle at home as well. As women, we do so much damage tearing ourselves down and putting immense pressure on ourselves to be some mythical superwoman, we shouldn’t make the battle harder by spending our lives with someone who doesn’t bring out the best in us.

No.8 How We Raise Our Daughters… and Sons!
Culture change starts with us. Think about the language we use, the expectations we have of men and women, boys and girls… and how biases are embedded in every fabric of our society.
As parents, educators and role models it is our responsibility to bring out the best in the children around us and help them realise their potential. Yet, mothers’ still treat their daughters as dolls and smother their boys to the point of being incapable of washing their own clothes. Sometimes the problem is so much subtler though. Why is Sally seen as being too aggressive whereas Tom is considered assertive? Why is it a problem if Jane hasn’t got married at 30, but no one worries about John who’s 40 and single.

I truly believe we are only limited by the boundaries of our own thinking… and as adults we help shape those boundaries in the children we spend time with … making them see through a narrow lens (“you should marry a rich guy”) or a wide screen (“you can do anything you set your mind to”).

No.9 Playing a Victim
The best way to deal with sexist colleagues and bosses is to prove them wrong through your work. Some women spend too much energy playing the victim or blaming the system. I think this is nonsense! Yes, the system is unfair. Yes, you’ll probably have to be smarter and work harder to become Chairman, CEO or Prime Minister if you are a woman …or a minority for that matter. That’s life.

Taking everything personally and letting it get to you only hurts you. If you actually experience harassment, speak up, but if someone just gave you a compliment or made you uncomfortable once, let it go. Instead, spend your energy participating, learning and growing as a strong, female leader. The sooner you do that, the sooner other people will start treating you like one.

Last but not least, I’d like to say that the question of diversity goes far beyond gender. To fully take advantage of the potential in our workforce, we need to see past the usual categories like gender, age and race, and focus on creating diversity of thought – embracing and encouraging subtle differences in values, habits, perspectives and assumptions. Only then will we have diverse teams, organisations and with it, a massive increase in potential.
In many ways it amazes me that it’s 2013 and we’re still talking about gender and glass ceilings. It just goes to show how unevolved we truly are.

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