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Analysis

The Chancellor Of The Exchequer Jeremy Hunt leaves 11 Downing Street on March 6, 2024

Spring Budget 2024: What it means

Let’s start with the most important things – Jeremy Hunt really upped his social media game ahead of the Budget. We got a sneak peek of the chancellor working behind the scenes and even a video of him watching old speeches… But Hunt’s enthusiasm for the Budget was not necessarily matched by others, such as...

Graham Ruddick

External photo of the Audley Cooper's Hill, Englefield Green

Retirement homes: The UK’s fastest growing non-tech sector?

Often filling the older population with dread, retirement homes and villages have had a seemingly bad reputation following previous years of poor management and ill conditions. However, changing opinions supported by increased awareness and education are aiding the popularity of retirement homes and villages in the UK. With some speculating that it has the potential...

Alice Cumming

Stack of vinyl records

A look inside vinyl’s resurgence

Last year, vinyl record sales hit their highest point since 1990. Vinyl’s resurgence also helped HMV more than double its profits. But will it last? The rise of vinyl According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the trade association for Britain’s recorded music industry, vinyl LP sales grew 11.7 per cent in 2023, marking the...

James Cook

Illustration of Menopause Symptoms

Menopause: Is your workplace leading or lagging?

Lauren Chiren, 55 from Bristol, suffered from debilitating anxiety, and extreme dizziness and couldn’t even remember the names of her colleagues while going through menopause. It drastically affected her work in a senior role in financial services. “In the end, I was absolutely terrified that I had early onset dementia,” she says. “At the age...

Patricia Cullen

Rachel Reeves and Jeremy Hunt, along with the chancellor's red briefcase

What can you expect from the 2024 Spring Budget?

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will announce his Spring Budget at 12:30 today with many expecting it to be the largest fiscal announcement before the next general election. Whilst speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Hunt ruled out borrowing to fund tax cuts. “This will be a prudent and responsible budget for long-term growth, tackling...

James Cook

Flat design of two businesswomen facing each others with ideas in their heads, team working or brainstorming illustration concept

Co-CEOs: Are more heads better than one?

Marks & Spencer announced that they would be adopting what Reuters called an “unconventional leadership structure” in 2022. Following the announcement that Steve Rowe was stepping down as the company’s CEO, Stuart Machin and Katie Bickerstaffe were confirmed as the new heads of the retail giant, as CEO and co-CEO respectively. Does this model actually...

James Cook

Will Butler-Adams on a bike

To be or not to B Corp

We are among the believers at Future Leap, a networking space and café on Gloucester Road, Bristol’s indie-shopping mecca. Forty or so people have gathered in the name of sustainability to learn about a better way of doing business. Paradoxically, the building was once home to that palace of consumer consumption Maplin Electronics. Signs of...

Andrew Lynch

A toy figure of a businessman with a briefcase, dressed in a smart suit, in the style of a little green army soldier

The art of business wargaming

It’s 8.30 AM and a team of senior managers arrives in a City boardroom to be greeted by a table groaning with croissants, Danish pastries and Colombian coffee. The managers have no idea why they have been called in. The phone rings and a voice at the other end says, “You are now in a...

Josh Dornbrack

A pattern with illustration featuring Larry Ellison

Inside the rise of Larry Ellison’s tech empire

Sukhendu Pal spent a decade at the heart of the database giant in its early days. Here he looks back at how a brilliant leader made Oracle an unstoppable force.

Josh Dornbrack

Two pound symbols fight in a street

Price wars: Strategies in the battle against inflation

Fraser Smeaton, CEO at Morph Costumes, is in a pickle. With inflation easing and a cost-plus model in play, he’s facing a tricky balancing act. He’s not on his own as business leaders across Britain are tackling a pricing challenge, deciding between cutting prices to win customers or fattening their profit margins. “Our prices have...

Patricia Cullen

Businessman hand protect chess king figure

Takeover immunity: Can it ever be truly achieved?

For some company owners, an acquisition is the perfect exit strategy. But for the leaders who want to continue growing, a takeover is likely to be the last thing on their minds. With the BBC recently reporting that Danish pharmaceutical giant, Novo Nordisk is “virtually immune to a takeover bid”, we investigated whether it was...

James Cook

Magnifying glass looking over employees

How employee ownership is shaping long-term business strategy

The number of employee-owned businesses in the UK increased by 37% between June 2022 and June 2023, according to the Employee Ownership Association (EOA). With the figure standing at 1,418 and looking set to grow further, we investigated the conduciveness of this ownership model to a successful long-term business strategy. Its rise in UK popularity...

James Cook

Two hands on a desk about to interlock two puzzle pieces

Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition: On the rise but no cause for concern

“Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA) is a fast-growing trend in M&A and we’re beginning to see the pipeline of work building in this area considerably,” says David Baverstock, corporate partner at law firm Marriott Harrison. With ETA on the rise, we investigated how it could affect the wider M&A market. ETA emerged from Stanford Business School...

James Cook

Eight people sitting around a table in a meeting

Should UK companies have employees on their boards?

Workers should be placed on company boards to “inject some much-needed common sense into boardrooms,” says Paul Nowak, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC). Nowak’s comments were featured in an article by The Guardian reporting that FTSE100 chiefs were paid more in the first three days of this year than the average worker...

James Cook

Understudy Wisdom

Understudy wisdom: Leadership lessons from renowned business duos

For every big name in business, there are understudies that act as sounding boards, confidants, and trusted ears. The world was reminded of the influence that a number two can have in life and business when Charlie Munger passed away just shy of his 100th birthday. We break down a few notable number twos and...

Josh Dornbrack

Advertising avenues 2024

Advertising avenues to consider for business growth in 2024

Brand visibility is critical and in a digital age, there are hundreds of ways to choose from to get your message in front of a potential consumer. As we welcome a brand-spanking new year, we highlight some advertising avenues to think about in 2024. Podcast advertising With over 4 million podcast shows available and 53,000...

Josh Dornbrack

‘Immortalists’: The companies behind anti-ageing

Billionaires have begun to invest in unknown companies with the promise of anti-ageing. The likes of Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, and Bryan Johnson are reportedly set on living forever. Historically, rich, affluent people have attempted to prevent ageing. From Countess Elizabeth de Ecsed of the Kingdom of Hungary killing and mutilating hundreds of young women...

Alice Cumming

Half gen alpha, half millennial

From Millennials to Gen Alpha: Lessons in workplace evolution and leadership

Generation Alpha are the first generation to be categorised entirely in the new millennium. Born between 2010 and 2025, this generation is widely defined by the birth – and use – of the iPad. Often the offspring of Millennial parents, there’s current discourse on Gen Alpha surrounding their behaviour, inattentive nature, and technology obsession. But...

Alice Cumming

HMV logo

HMV’s third act: The return to Oxford Street

Opened by The Gramophone Company on London’s Oxford Street in 1921, HMV has had a long-standing history as a high street brand. With the famous trademarked image from a painting by Francis Barraud titled His Master’s Voice acquired from the artist in 1899, Nipper (the dog in the painting) and the Gramophone became symbolic of...

Alice Cumming

Thatcher illustration

The remarkable legacy of the Enterprise Allowance Scheme and the case to bring it back

During the 1980s, in the midst of surging unemployment, Margaret Thatcher’s government rolled out the Enterprise Allowance Scheme (EAS), an initiative which provided a weekly allowance for unemployed people of working age with entrepreneurial ambitions. Although it had its critics, the ESA left a remarkable legacy. Rolled out nationwide in 1983, the Enterprise Allowance Scheme...

James Cook

Disrupting the disruptors

Disrupting the disruptors: Lessons from 5 businesses that failed to adapt to change

“Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.” – William Pollard It’s not easy being a business leader. No matter the size of your business, disruption is the goal but it’s around every corner. What separates Blockbuster from Netflix,...

Josh Dornbrack

The Sam Altman/OpenAI rollercoaster: Lessons from leadership turmoil

The CEO of one of the world’s most talked about tech companies has been sacked, employed elsewhere, and returned to OpenAI in less than a week. While the precise details remain unclear surrounding the dismissal of Sam Altman, who steered the $90bn (£71.7bn) company behind ChatGPT, what can businesses learn from the rollercoaster that is...

Patricia Cullen

Marvel studios logo smashed

The decline of Marvel Studios? What your business can learn

Marvel Studios is a household name around the globe. With 32 blockbuster movies released since 2008 and nine TV programmes coming out on Disney+ since 2021, Marvel Studios has become a multi-billion-dollar powerhouse. However, Marvel’s latest movie The Marvels is set to bomb at the box office on its opening weekend, the latest in a...

Alice Cumming

Booths self service

Has Booths signalled the beginning of the end for self-service checkouts?

Booths, the supermarket chain described as the “northern Waitrose”, has axed nearly all its self-service, becoming the first in the UK to return to fully staffed checkouts. The firm said that of its 28 stores, just two (Keswick and Windermere in Cumbria) will see staff return to checkouts. Booths said they took the decision because...

James Cook