Business

Tragic example of failures of privatisation and outsourcing requires Government to intervene to protect public sector work, says GMB. GMB, the UK’s general union, demands the Government intervene and protect Carillion workers’ jobs and pensions – rather than focussing on bailing out a failing private company. Carillion, one of the government's biggest contractors, is struggling under £1.5bn of debt, including a pension shortfall of £587m. The government is meeting Carillion and the Pensions Regulator today (Friday) to discuss the services...

Management is all about cost cutting. It is one of the main tasks of any manager. Whatever business you operate, the aim is to reduce costs and to increase control. Controlling is one of the most important stages of the managerial process. It enables continuous learning and up-skilling. It is rare that any process happens without defaults. In order to identify them, you need to track or to control. Then you need to eliminate the discrepancies in business scheme. Tracking...

In the post-Christmas and New Year’s haze many people choose to adopt pious resolutions; spend less, eat less, drink less, work out more. Despite this, it seems that British shoppers just cannot resist a deal. Undeterred by a weak pound and economic doubt, the Boxing Day sales reaped in an estimated total of 4.5 billion pounds. What December’s frenzied crowds show us is that consumers are always on the lookout for new deals and great shopping opportunities. In fact, it...

You have probably heard of the term ‘big data’ before, but wondered what exactly it involves. In essence, big data is a huge set of data that is analyzed by using many different algorithms that can help business owners to make better business decisions and follow up market trends. Big data is primarily used by larger corporations and big companies, but it can be very useful for smaller businesses as well. If you want to learn something more besides how...

The death or long-term illness of a key person in any small or medium-sized enterprise is likely to have a serious impact, even if it’s only short term. Any amount of time without a key player can have a considerable impact on the profitability of the business. Most SMEs have at least one person whose loss would cause significant disruption to the business and may even contribute to the business’s collapse. Here’s how losing a key employee could affect your...

A successful flexible working policy can be enormously beneficial for your company, whether your business is large or small. Effective workforce planning will help you achieve cost savings and productivity improvements, ensure adequate out-of-hours coverage and boost staff morale. Done properly, it’s a a win/win situation for your business. If you’ve decided to employ a flexible worker, here are 7 steps you should take to introduce the new member of staff into your company. Clarity from Day One No doubt,...

Once you know how to start your new e-commerce store, you will need to make three important decisions: Which items do you want to sell? Which supplier are you going to choose? and what is your favourite selling platform? Ebay, Amazon or your own platform. Dropshipping has became an e-commerce revolution, and nowadays there are many people wondering how to develop a home business. This is an extraordinarily easy way to earn extra money. But, what is dropshipping and how...

Britain's fat cat bosses will have made more by lunchtime today than the average worker will earn in a year. Chief executives of FTSE 100 companies are paid a median average of £3.45m a year, which works out at 120 times the £28,758 collected by full-time UK workers on average. On an hourly basis the bosses will have earned more in less than three working days than the average employee will pick up this year, leading campaigners to dub the day...

Big corporations are not going to volunteer to really rein themselves in, which is why we need greater restraint on the excesses of those at the top, says union. GMB, Britain’s general union, has commented on ‘Fat Cat’ pay day tomorrow – when the UK’s top bosses will have made more money than the typical UK full-time worker will earn in the entire year, according to calculations from independent think tank The High Pay Centre, and the CIPD, the professional body...