Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs
This section takes you through every important aspect of how to run a successful business. It offers expert guides and advice articles on the key elements of business management such as employing staff, finding customers, marketing and sales, pricing, people management, office and home working, business technology and everything else an entrepreneur must tackle in order to succeed.
Staff absences can seriously affect the success of your business, your profits and your customer service, but it is possible to minimise the impact of absence by putting the proper measures in place to deal with it.
Employing & managing staff
Business Technology
As we become more and more dependent on computers for business, it is important to keep up to date with changes in technology and to protect our private information. Read our top IT tips, written in conjunction with the folk at Geeks-on-wheels, to find out how to protect your business and save money on IT spending.
Employing & managing staff
Proposed changes to the way official sick notes are issued may help reduce the number of non-genuine absences from work, say employment lawyers.
Marketing
What is the difference between the businesses that succeed and the ones that don't? Quite simply, customers.
Office & home working
What are the regulations for toilet and washroom facilities for a small, mixed-sex workforce?
Employing & managing staff
Employee sick leave is proving to be a headache for nearly a quarter of small to medium-sized business owners and managers in the UK, according to research from Bibby Financial Services.
Legal advice
It is tempting to set up as a sole trader while remaining in full-time employment, but it is wise to find out where you stand legally first. You will need to refer to your contract of employment with your current employer.
Legal advice
Can a verbal offer of employment be withdrawn?
Legal advice
It is tempting to set up as a sole trader while remaining in full-time employment, but it is wise to find out where you stand legally first. You will need to refer to your contract of employment with your current employer.
Legal advice
Can a verbal offer of employment be withdrawn?
Business Technology
You do not necessarily need an office to run a small business; a virtual office could be all you need. Or with the advent of even more technology, you may not even need that.
Legal advice
Entrepreneurial businesses can make their fortunes through intellectual property. If they can hang onto it long enough, that is. Robert Tyerman investigates the murky world of IP protection
Finding and selling to customers
Nobody likes disappointed customers, but if your business handles complaints well you could find an angry one becomes a loyal advocate of your business. Alex Tomlin explains how.
Legal advice
All businesses need to stay on top of legislative changes. It has never been easier to do so thanks to the introduction of Common Commencement Dates. This means that most new laws affecting businesses now come into play on one of two dates each year, either April or October, making it easier for business to remember compliance timings.
Business Loans
Everything you need to know on what small business loans are and what types of loan are available for your business.
Partner content
Hospitality businesses have faced a number of challenges in the last couple of years. Find out what funding and support is available.
Employing & managing staff
In Aviva’s latest SME research*, 57 per cent of employers surveyed agreed that nowadays employees expect benefits to protect against loss of income or earnings. What do you offer your people?
Partner content
Business broadband offers a host of advantages over standard domestic connections, here’s why you should be considering an upgrade