Jun 11
Research shows that many small businesses lack the necessary legal support to fully understand their commercial requirements..
It is vital that small businesses grasp the basics early on in order to minimise the risks of possible penalties or failure.
It was recently stated that 15% of small businesses have difficulty understanding the regulations they are required to follow, which has led to 100,000 companies being fined for breaches of rules.
A survey carried out by NatWest has revealed that 80% of new businesses do not have professional advice on matters that concern their commercial law requirements.
This not only causes difficulties with understanding the law, it makes it difficult to obtain the services and tools that will make trading and growth possible for businesses.
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May 30
Lockheed Martin, the largest defence contractor in the US, revealed this weekend that it fell victim to a successful cyber attack.
The company, which is also the US government’s top IT supplier, said that no personal data was stolen thanks to swift action taken when the attack was detected on 21 May. “The information security team detected the attack almost immediately, and took aggressive actions to protect all systems and data,” Lockheed said in a statement.
Unconfirmed reports have linked the breach to a separate cyber attack on security provider RSA Security in March, in which web security certificates were stolen by hackers.
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May 28
Insolvency rates among the UK’s small businesses have improved dramatically, new research revealed.
According to Experian’s latest Insolvency Index report, 0.1% of the entire active business community, which totals 1,808 businesses, became insolvent in April 2011. This was a slight decrease compared to the same period in 2010 when 1,818 businesses failed.
However, it has been highlighted that small businesses in Wales saw the majority of these positive results. Failures fell at a faster rate where small businesses with 3 – 5 employees saw 17% fewer closures. Busin
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May 22
Shares in business-focused social networking site LinkedIn more than doubled on their first day of trading yesterday.
The price for a share in the US-headquartered company began at $45 and rose to $94 before the end of trading. This put the value of the company at $8.5 billion (£5.3 billion), 35 times its revenues last year, making it the largest IPO for a US Internet company since Google went public in 2004.
LinkedIn, which allows users to list their professional achievements, court job offers and make business contacts, is particularly popular in the IT industry.
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May 19
Despite committing to reducing red tape, Government plans to extend flexible working and parental rights will burden liability insurance holders.
The Government plans to extend flexible working and introduce changes to parental leave. These changes are expected to hit small business with more administration although allowing for effective planning.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) acknowledges that parental leave is already complicated for small businesses to administer and the group have been calling for a reform for quite some time.
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May 17
Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest IT company, revealed today that its revenue grew by just 3% in its most recent financial quarter.
By way of comparison, the average rate of revenue growth in the business IT industry – as measured by the Information Age Index – is currently just over 10%.
The company’s overall performance was blighted by a 5% drop in sales for its PC and laptop division, down to $9.4 billion. This drop reflected a 23% plunge in consumer device sales. The
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