Most of us spend an inordinate amount of time online, checking our Facebook and catching up on the local news. Despite this, an estimated 25% of small businesses still don’t have a website , and of those that do only a small minority have mobile websites. Why is this?
10% of small businesses have no plans to build a website anytime soon. Small, long-standing family businesses often shun technology because they know nothing about it. Others stay away from the digital side of running a business because they don’t have the capacity to grow the business and a boost in sales could...
Small and medium sized businesses in the South West believe future success relies on their ability to recruit so-called millennials – those born between 1980 and 2000 – but recognise that they need to do more to attract them, according to new research by Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking.
More than three quarters (79 per cent) of SMEs across the region said that the growth of their business relies on their ability to recruit millennial talent. In fact more than a third (35 per cent) said they want a millennial to take over their business one day.
Innovative IT firm Hosted Desktop UK (HDUK), a pioneer in cloud computing and winner of the 2015 Express & Echo Small Business of the Year Award, is celebrating five successful years since its launch in August 2010. With over 12 years’ experience in the IT industry and following rigorous research and development into cloud-based technology, young entrepreneur and HDUK MD, Adam Chetnik, founded what has become one of the most respected hosted desktop providers in the UK.
HDUK’s virtual desktop solutions were an instant success when the company first launched five years ago – the...
Leading South West recruitment and training agency Acorn, has been awarded a place as a Crown Commercial Service (CCS) supplier on the non-medical, non-clinical, temporary staffing framework for the National Health Service (NHS).
The new two-year agreement will be rolled out across all its branches and specialist divisions throughout the UK, and will cover all non-medical roles within a number of sectors, including finance and accounting, IT, office administration, purchasing, technical and facilities management, HR and quality management.
Julie Waddell, award-winning food entrepreneur and creator of the market leading gourmet humous brand Moorish, is to launch the first and only food and drink business academy in the UK.
SouthWestfd, a team of consultant finance directors, are helping to nurture financial growth in Cornwall. Two companies that have experienced that growth are Mackerel Sky Events and Radix Communications.
Claire Eason Bassett, Managing Director of Mackerel Sky, a Creative Events Agency, heads a team of 12 with 3 offices spread across the south of England. Mackerel Sky started out with a traditional management structure and a small team of 5.
Back then Claire felt isolated as a director, she felt there was no one she could delegate to or turn to for advice. She added ‘I was...
Many of the country’s 1.8 million small employers approaching their pensions auto-enrolment staging dates are in danger of missing deadlines by underestimating the amount of data needed to complete the process, warns Lighthouse Group, one of the UK’s leading financial advisers.
Tens of thousands of SMEs and micro employers are now starting to grapple with the complexities of employer pension schemes for the first time - and with 513,000 SMEs in South West England these business leaders are being urged to act now. The Pensions
Regulator recently stated that only 29 per cent...
Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) today announced major plans to make superfast fibre broadband available to 20 more business parks across the two counties.
It means that a further 1,000 businesses will have access to speeds of up to 80Mbps* by the end of 2016.
The 20 new locations are in addition to more than 200 business parks across the two counties where CDS has already delivered fibre broadband or has plans to do so.
The news comes on the same day as the Government’s announcement that the nationwide rollout of superfast broadband has now passed more than...
The South West private sector registered a slower rise in output in July, according to the latest PMI® survey data.
Moreover, the volume of new business increased at the weakest pace since April 2013, signalling a further moderation in growth of total business activity in the coming months. More positively, prices charged for goods and services increased at the fastest rate since February 2014.
The seasonally adjusted Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking South West Business Activity Index remained well above the no-change mark of 50.0 in July, at 56.3, indicating a strong overall...
Research by Scottish start-up Create eLearning shows that as much as £56 billion is being lost in the UK every year to replace staff who leave their jobs due to poor training. The firm is hoping to change that with a software platform that allows training programmes to be condensed and distributed around an organisation.
Create eLearning, which is based at Entrepreneurial Spark in Glasgow, has picked up dozens of clients in Europe and the US since it started selling in earnest at the end of last year, and firms typically save between 35% and 60% on their training. And with 40% of...
