UK/Ireland Small Business News Round-up – 21/03/2008

Here is this week’s news round-up for home business, micro business, sole-traders, freelancers, self-employed and any one who is interested in small business news from the United Kingdom and Ireland:

• SFA confident for small businesses: SFA remains positive about economic prospects despite downturn in economy.
• Local Council’s Could Save Post Offices: Post Office owners in some parts of the country have received a shot in the arm from local County Councils. Portsmouth councillors have become the latest local authority to throw a potential lifeline to local Post Offices, faced with the threat of closure.
• Taking the Plunge: Tales from the front: A new era of cost-effective and user-friendly technology is changing the way accountancy firms view CRM. Verity Gough reports on the products and practices taking the industry by storm.
• IDM announce new computing centre for Dublin: The Minister for Employment, Micheál Martin, has announced that IBM is to establish Europe’s first Cloud Computing Centre in Dublin.
• Bosses face jail threat over employment law breaches: Company bosses can be jailed for three years or fined up to €250,000 under tough new employment laws unveiled today.
• Business predicting a slowdown: Just over one-third of businesses on the island, both North and South, experienced turnover growth in the third quarter of 2007, October-December.
• Could you take on the Dragons?: Dragons’ Den continues to offer entrepreneurs from across the country the chance to make their business dreams come true. If you’re genuinely seeking investment for your business idea or invention, the Dragons would like to hear from you.
• £100 tax incentive from HMRC: HMRC is offering a £100 incentive for completing your employer annual return online. This offer applies to businesses with fewer than 50 employees. Read on to find out more.

As always this list is not exhaustive, but I hope it will give you a little overview. — ST

3 Responses to “ UK/Ireland Small Business News Round-up – 21/03/2008 ”

1. Will - ArenaFlowers.com
   
   Said on March 27th, 2008 at 7:12 pm

   The SFA may be confident about the ongoing prospects but, if you work in the business that I do (flowers), it’s a bit of a scary time at the moment – we get a lot of traffic from the US (which is hurting due to credit crunch and the weak dollar due to slashed USD interest rates). Our own currency has slid painfully against the Euro for similar reasons, but we buy our flowers in Euros so that’s cost us a huge amount. The UK economy in general is cautious due to the reverberations and concerns about the tax burden. And half our business comes from London, which is hit by the same pain of the credit crunch and all the associate fall out. Interesting times!

2. Stefan Töpfer
   
   Said on March 27th, 2008 at 8:50 pm

   Will,

   I hope you can scale your business in terms of overheads and maybe you could find new markets.

   I would love to rite about you – giving you some publicity – and maybe help some others in the process, let me know what you think.

   Stefan

3. Will - ArenaFlowers.com
   
   Said on March 28th, 2008 at 12:23 pm

   Hi Stefan

   Absolutely, I agree with what you say completely. We are always looking for ways to add incremental revenue off our existing fixed cost base and web site development, as well as look for new markets that we can enter, all while preserving the ethos of the business – namely a great product, at a great price, with a slick user experience and good ethical credentials.

   More than happy to help sharing what we’ve been through and (most importantly) what we’ve learnt, if you think it’ll be of interest to your readers. I’m amazed how much I’ve learnt in the 18 months since we launched Arena…I’m surprised my brain hasn’t exploded with all the information being packed in!

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