Getting engaged

Are you maximising the potential of your staff? Remove the outer layer of fluff from theories on staff engagement and you’re left with a way to better manage your employees and improve operational efficiency.

Business intelligence

If the potential of your business rests on its intellectual property, a patent could prove invaluable.

A sure thing

Finding the right insurance policy can be a tedious process, but the cost of not doing so could be disastrous for your business.

Good mileage

Better driving habits can save money and reduce accidents

A safe pair of hands

Whether you need training expertise or some legal advice, there’s a range of HR solutions available

Go global for growth

Four entrepreneurs discuss how exporting has helped their businesses to grow

Talking freely

Why web-conferencing is the way forward

Beat spyware and spam

Five ways to keep your email clean and secure

Money matters

How currency moves can work in your favour

Fitting in

Get that senior hire right the first time 

Online presence

Four entrepreneurs discuss how their website reflects their brand

Weighing up the cost

For many companies that use a payroll service, it is one of the great outsourcing no-brainers.

Too hot to handle

Here we look at four must-have gadgets for the tech-loving entrepreneur – and one you can probably do without

Powers of persuasion 

Why contracts can be changed 

A wealth of options

Share options can be a tax-efficient way to retain and motivate key staff

Get ready for reform

Start planning now for the 2012 pension changes

IP in the digital age

Why copyright is getting messy on the web 

No train, no gain 

Give some additional power to your people

Green shoots or wishful thinking?

Dealmakers discuss the supposed economic upturn 

My first £10 million

Hitting those double digits is no easy task, as three entrepreneurs can testify

The importance of due diligence

What can you expect from due diligence in a recession? 

The benefits of a JV

Even Simon Cowell and Sir Philip Green are seeing the benefits of a joint venture 

Sister act 

Female entrepreneurs are finding that mentors can reinvigorate their business

Cut those legal bills

Keep lawyers at bay with e-discovery

Filling a Gap

Talent on demand

Utility computing

Pay-as-you-go IT

Solid state storage

How hard is your hard drive?

Company voluntary arrangements

Steer clear of liquidation through a CVA

Google Voice

Get your own universal phone number 

Virtual networking

Paying the price for network access 

Office space to suit 

If the cost of your office isn’t leaving much breathing space on the balance sheet, there may be alternatives

Smart cards

Prepaid cards can save you a lot of hassle

Outsourcing IT

The costs of using a third party can soon add up, but you can really trim the fat if it’s done properly

Print smarter

Maximising the efficiency of your printing could save more than just ink and paper

Look before you leap

Beware the SaaS hype 

Open source content management

Keep your business tidy 

Pay no money now

IT vendors are fighting the downturn with interest-free finance

Risk avoidance

A risk assessment health check could prevent your business getting hurt

Know your customers

Big tech companies eulogise the benefit of CRM, but does it really deliver?

Social networking

Make social networking work for your business

Surviving litigation

Some tips for making a painful process go as smoothly as possible

IT staff and confidentiality

Do you trust your IT staff? 

Joined-up thinking 

Keeping ahead of the competition 

Open Source Odyssey

Sometimes it’s better to do it yourself 

Roadrunners  

Take a look at five cars at the top end of the market 

Taking a Pounding 

Piers Cracknell, commercial director of currency specialist Moneycorp, comments on the heavy fall of the pound

Smart thinking 

Studying for an MBA could help you and your business

Virtualised disaster recovery

How to combat every eventuality

VIP card

Beat fraudsters with a VIP security card 

Enterprise search

Searching for a file no longer has to be like trying to find a needle in a haystack 

How I beat the last recession

Three business veterans tell us how they weathered previous economic storms

Ones to watch

Here’s a look at five popular fleet cars for under £25,000

Keep track

Out of sight shouldn’t mean out of mind

Instant trouble

Email is no longer the biggest security threat

Brand monitoring

Find out what your customers really think about you

YouTube in the workplace

Social networking and real work may not be such strange bedfellows 

Currency dilemmas 

UK companies are adapting to sterling’s decline

Email data leaks

Safety on the web should go beyond a virus scanner and firewall

Deceptive appearances 

Legitimate websites are now spreading viruses

Constructive cost-cutting

How online marketing company Infoserve cut £700,000 worth of costs by focusing on its strategic objectives and letting go of projects which were unlikely to make short-term returns.

Get web-wise

While a good website can have a huge impact on sales, it’s very easy to do the job badly. Testing companies can help you make decisions based on hard data rather than individual taste.

Save money with the latest communications technology

New 'unified communications' technologies, such as internet telephony, online white-boarding and 'presence' engines, can offer your business large cost savings

Dealing with the email overload

Help is at hand for those who hate to delete. Using web-based email, or even outsourcing your email archives, can help reduce the need for expensive storage

Companies Act Part Five

In its sheer scale, the Companies Act has set a new record for business legislation. Tom Shaw, partner at law firm Speechly Bircham, says it is ‘three and a half inches thick’ – ironic when one of its stated aims is to simplify regulation.

Deduplication

Too much information can really bring your business down. The amount of data stored by businesses may surpass the world’s storage capacity by 2010, claims market research firm IDC.

A greater whole

Exporting data from one database to another can be a source of real problems for a growing business. Often, the task has to be performed manually which, aside from being time consuming, generates a lot of errors such as typos or multiple entries.

Green power

‘It’s not about green as much as it is reducing operating costs,’ says Kevin Klustner, the CEO of energy management specialist Verdiem. ‘The green component is interesting and relevant and topical, but in the end it saves money.’

Promoting from within

The average cost of bringing in a new employee is £4,500 to £8,000, according to figures from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. So it’s no surprise that promoting internally is popular with employers.

At your service

When your business is expanding rapidly, a serviced or managed office can offer greater flexibility than a typical five- or ten-year lease. We look at the pros and cons.

Virtual PAs

An engaged tone doesn’t create the best first impression. Mike Smithson, founder of web development company The Property Jungle, uses a virtual PA service to field incoming calls. ‘For our business, the service is a must-have,’ he says. ‘Every call to the company is answered and an email is sent so I can prioritise who I want to get back to.’

Web analytics

Internet marketing is big business – search spending alone is expected to more than double to $18.5 billion (£9.25 billion) by 2012, according to Jupiter Research, and that’s just the money businesses are feeding into search engines to get prospects to glance at their sites.

Talking freely

Technology moves quickly and voice over internet protocol (VoIP) is no longer tied to the desktop PC. It’s now possible to make VoIP calls on a handheld device such as a mobile, which saves lugging a laptop around as well as drastically cutting the cost of communication while travelling overseas.

Getting away from it all

There comes a point when you need to switch off from the world of work and have a little “me time”. Three owner-managers reveal how they kick back and relax.

Exploding laptops

Putting the expense and impact on productivity to one side, there are hefty compliance issues surrounding the loss of confidential data. We look at ways to protect business-critical information.

Car-sharing: the benefits

It may be the adult equivalent of the school bus, but there are practical benefits to car sharing that may make it an attractive prospect for your business.

Desktop virtualisation

One size rarely fits all when it comes to IT, and many businesses are finding they can reduce costs and improve flexibility by adopting desktop virtualisation to bring computing power to their employees.

Time for giving

Charity in the workplace shows that the bottom line isn’t everything - and it can give a big boost to team spirit.

Redefine your market

If you've hit a ceiling in terms of your rate of sales and number of customers, it may be time to seek pastures new. Three owner-managers including Richard Haddon, chief executive of AIM-listed facilities management company Fountains (pictured), explain how it can be done.

Trailer park stash

Data centres are considered the preserve of a large enterprise that has the scale to justify such a costly piece of high-tech real estate, with specialist power supplies, reinforced flooring, and air and temperature controls.

Find the right customer

An industry has sprung up that takes the old adage of ‘knowing your customer’ that stage further.

Sharing at the speed of light

WAN optimisation can make wide area networks feel more local

How we doubled revenue in a year

Three business leaders reveal how they supercharged their sales

Team building with a difference

Few business leaders will have considered circus training to incentivise staff or, for that matter, installed a “think-u-bator”, in which employees can ponder and have moments of greatness. Yet there are companies out there that are doing exactly these things.

High but not dry

When heavy rain began to fall across swathes of the UK in June and July 2007, few organisations envisaged the devastation that would immediately follow. Fewer still had prepared their business and IT infrastructure for such a disaster.

How to reduce your tax bill

Death and taxes may be the only certain things in life – but there are ways of minimising the impact of the latter.

Outsourced staff training

Keeping your employees up to speed with the latest training programmes can take up a lot of time you don't really have. Outsourcing may be the answer

Workplace management software

The world of business software can be mind-boggling – a fact not helped by the proliferation of acronyms and jargon that mean little to the outsider

Companies with character

Consumers increasingly want products that show imagination and creativity. This opens up unprecedented opportunities for entrepreneurs to exploit niche markets

Comfort versus cattle class

The offers from the air travel industry are as wide-ranging as the destinations they can carry you

Fit for work

Obesity is a killer, according to the latest furore in the press. So how can you bring health and happiness to your employees?

Protecting your identity

Online identity theft is big business for those of a criminal persuasion

Spread your wings

If you’re looking to expand internationally, franchising could be a sound choice

Work experience that works

Forget pimply youths doing the filing: the right work experience programme can give your business a real boost

Perfecting project management

If you’re taking on a new contract or have an ambitious plan for growth, it might be wise to heed the advice of project managers

Becoming a business master

A Masters degree in business administration (MBA) could help you see the big picture for your venture

Going to market

The saying goes that first impressions count and it’s never truer than when launching a product or service

Smile, you’re at work

A cynical workforce can devastate your business as surely as any economic downturn

Be sure you’re covered

As your business blossoms, don’t forget about the reams of red tape out there

Grow profits by going green

Appease the green brigade and put a smile on your FD’s face at the same time

Sensible employee benefits

Louise Hudland, HR director at law firm Shoosmiths, is wary of cash benefits. ‘If you start playing around with bonuses, in my experience you end up hacking people off,’ she says, pointing out that half of Shoosmith’s 1,400 employees are support staff.

Better business travel

Business travel accounts for 39p of every pound of employee expenses, according to research from expense management provider GlobalExpense – and if you include accommodation, the second-largest category, the figure rises to 58p.

Look! No wires

We are becoming a nation of workers on the move - or so media hype surrounding the so-called “wireless revolution” would have us believe. But more recently, this hype has begun to take on some substance.

Polishing the payroll process

When Lesley Jeffs, director and company secretary of electrical contractor Instalec, joined the company in 1995, she found that all financial functions, including payroll, were being done manually.

Why IT security is vital

The internet is providing rich pickings for the criminal underworld. Mark Dixon, an IT manager at EMS, which provides wireless alarms, says he used to spend two to three days a week cleaning infected PCs.

Effective viral marketing

If you want to exude cool and generate a buzz, then maybe you should look at releasing a viral on the web

Attract the best graduates

While there are fears that the standard of graduates is in decline, a university degree remains mandatory for many employers.

Maximising business banking

A little relationship building can go a long way when it comes to you and your chosen bank.

The benefits of data recovery

Data loss can be catastrophic for businesses, causing costly downtime and the loss of valuable customer information.

Recruiting an HR manager

Far from being an unnecessary extra salary burden, a human resources manager can take staff matters off your hands and even bring in more revenue...

Hotdesking

Constantly moving your staff from desk to desk was a popular craze in the 90s, but advocates of hotdesking say it’s even more relevant now because mobile technology is changing work practices...

Publicity stunts

Celebrities are usually the ones grabbing headlines for their sometimes downright crazy attempts at generating positive publicity, but growing businesses are also getting in on the act with some innovative stunts...

Radio frequency identification (RFID)

Manufacturers, event organisers, airlines – even Government departments; everyone seems to be heralding the potential of radio frequency identification these days. But what exactly is RFID and why should growing businesses care about it?

The perils of corporate blogging

Venturing into the blogosphere may improve communication and offer new marketing inroads, but uncontrolled content could damage your business...

Navigate the employee pension scheme maze

How to offer your employees a scheme, now that pensions provision is shifting focus onto employers and away from the Government...

Small Firms' Loan Guarantee Scheme

There’s nothing more attractive than funding growth without giving away equity, as entrepreneurs who’ve used the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme can testify...

Psychometric testing

If you thought it was just amateur psycho-babble, think again. Meet the business folk that swear by this analytical approach to staff recruitment...