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.
The Working Progress report, from Orange and think-tank Demos, highlights the damaging disconnect between graduates and employers and how this is affecting UK PLC. The report also provides solid and practical recommendations of ways in which the two can reconnect.
Employing & managing staff
Employing & managing staff
Workplace relationships do happen, unsurprisingly when you consider how much time is spent at work by many in the UK.
Legal advice
As a business owner you'll be required to sign hundreds of contractual agreements with suppliers, customers and shareholders. But what happens if circumstances change and you want to get out of a contract?
Marketing
Internet advertising has rapidly come of age and is a method by which small businesses trading online can drive large numbers of customers to their sites at relatively little cost. This guide should prove useful in getting started on the pay-per-click road.
Legal advice
From a legal perspective, the rights and obligations affecting business owners vary greatly from country-to-country, so it is essential to understand the environment you are heading into prior to departure.
Legal advice
What is the legal entitlement to breaks relating to hours worked?
Business management
For many Britons, France is the obvious choice to start a business, given its proximity, excellent transport links with the UK and the fact that many UK expatriates are located over the Channel, meaning a potential ready-made British market awaits. However, there are several things to bear in mind before you book your Eurostar ticket.
Productivity Zone
Business technology has enabled today's small businesses to do as much work in one day as their 1966 counterparts managed in two whole working weeks, according to recent research.
Business management
For many Britons, France is the obvious choice to start a business, given its proximity, excellent transport links with the UK and the fact that many UK expatriates are located over the Channel, meaning a potential ready-made British market awaits. However, there are several things to bear in mind before you book your Eurostar ticket.
Productivity Zone
Business technology has enabled today's small businesses to do as much work in one day as their 1966 counterparts managed in two whole working weeks, according to recent research.
Business management
Ask any business owner and they'll tell you time management is absolutely key. It's a fact of business life that there are never enough hours in the day to get everything done, so it's vital to make every second count. Here are some tricks to help organise your workflow and find clever ways to save time and be more productive.
Employing & managing staff
Employees who spend a lot of their day in front of computer screens can experience eyesight problems and it is the employer's responsibility, to a certain extent, to pay for eye tests and, if necessary, the spectacles themselves. This guide will explain in more detail your obligations.
Legal advice
Holiday entitlement for sole traders and the self-employed can be a tricky business. In the intance of a self-employed decorator who has worked for the same company for nearly two years, Peter Done explains why it's such a complicated issue.
Finding and selling to customers
Online auction websites such as eBay and Amazon have spawned a generation of online entrepreneurs setting up their own ecommerce sites. These top ten tips may help you follow in their footsteps.
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