Connections are crucial to the success of any business. Visit our latest news to keep up to date with the latest business news from across the region.
Connections are crucial to the success of any business. Visit our latest news to keep up to date with the latest business news from across the region.
Connections are crucial to the success of any business. Visit our latest news to keep up to date with the latest business news from across the region.
Become a Chamber member today and access a range of benefits to connect, support and grow your business
Connections are crucial to the success of any business. Visit our latest news to keep up to date with the latest business news from across the region.
Whether you are looking to recruit an apprentice, develop your own skills, or enrol your staff on a training course, Chamber Training can help you grow stronger.
Blogs
Check out our blogs section where Chamber representatives, members and high-profile business figures write about a range of topics. If you are a member and want to submit a blog, please click here.
Eight digital marketing trends for 2019
By Aneela Hoque | Digital Glue
2019 is set to be an interesting year for the digital marketing industry, with new technologies and trends emerging all the time. Here are a few key things we’ve picked out as our ones to watch in the year ahead: 1. Invest in paid advertising on social media Social media offers tremendous opportunities for digital marketing – if done properly. It’s very important for digital marketers to really focus on who their target audience is, and to choose the right social media platform to target that audience. Let’s dig into the big 4: Facebook Facebook is still King of social media, however 41% of Facebook users are over the age of 65, which makes it the ideal social media platform for businesses...
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Late payment issues
By Jennifer Raines | Your Right Hand Finance Team Limited
Late payment issues...How bad is the problem, what are businesses big and small doing to address it and how can Government, industry and others solve it? Can or will it ever be solved? My team and I meet hundreds of SME business owners every year, and in our experience late payments are a chronic and widespread issue for them, and I believe many business owners suffer late payment issues needlessly as the scale of the issue can many times be due to the lack of rigour around their credit control process. To be fair many SME business owners just don’t know the value that having a robust engagement and credit control process can have on their business, what they suffer are the consequences – at...
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Diversity in Leadership: Succeeding dispute adversity
By Nabila Zulfiqar | Solicitors Regulation Authority
This blog is part of the Asian Business Chamber of Commerce’s (ABCC) Diversity in Leadership campaign. The Diversity in Leadership campaign works with some of the regions’ biggest employers in order to boost the numbers of women and those from black and minority ethnic (BAME), lesbian gay bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and disability groups being represented on boards of directors and in leadership roles. Click here to find out more about the campaign. Growing up in inner city Birmingham in a working class family to immigrant parents meant that my chances of succeeding were poor. My way out was through education, learning and challenging myself. The education part was relatively easy because...
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Women in spraypainting
By Kirsty McMenemy | we spray anything
Gender equality is a topic that is still being widely discussed and is deemed an issue in 2018, it is not a female issue; it is a social and economic imperative. The benefits to achieving full gender equality for women in the ‘messy’ middle is deemed apparent; it would possibly mean that there would be equal pay for equal work, paid parental leave polices being put in place for both male and female worker and a more equitable shouldering of caregiving responsibilities. If gender parity is achieved, it would not only be women who would win but men, businesses and the economy would also win. Spray painting is one of many industries where there are not enough women employed within it, for reasons...
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Art and wellbeing
By Joanna Colley | Reuben Colley Fine Art
‘This gallery is better than chocolate!’ That was the verdict pronounced by one new visitor to Reuben Colley Fine Art a few weeks ago. Looking at the works of art on our walls lifted her mood and flooded her with a sense of well-being. Looking at art does you good. That is why museums and art galleries are increasingly inviting people who have various forms of stress in their lives to enjoy their collections. At Reuben Colley Fine Art, we spend our working day surrounded by the work of talented artists, and this year we hope to welcome more Chamber members through our door. Our exhibitions are free and you won’t be put under pressure to buy – but if you do want to begin collecting or enhance...
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2019 New Year industry insights
By Sam Wright | Gough Bailey Wright
• Goodwill to all approach A recent poll featured on Campaign Live found that people a) want fundamental change in the world, and b) want businesses to drive it. High profile communications campaigns in 2018 that mirror the trend include Iceland palm oil ban, Tesco paying the tax on tampons on behalf of customers and Walkers introducing a crisp-packet recycling scheme. From Apple telling us how much time we’re spending on our iPhones to help manage our screen time, to Sainsbury’s introducing labels for "food-bank friendly" products, guiding consumers to make better choices – and be more accountable for them – isn’t just great CSR, it’s something people actively want. An ethical approach to...
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Data protection for manufacturers
By Mandy Webster | Data Protection Consulting Limited
In November 2018 the Information Commissioner’s Office announced that it was targeting enforcement activity on the manufacturing sector, particularly around the revised requirements for data protection registration. Under the old Data Protection Act (1998) there was a “core business exemption” from registration which applied if the core business did not involve processing personal data except for customer accounts and marketing and staff administration. So many manufacturers would not have needed to register. The general rule is that you needed to register if your “stock in trade” was personal data, for example lawyers, consultants, accountants, doctors etc However, GDPR removed the need to...
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Diversity in Leadership: Spotlight on female leaders
By Neely Khan | Neely There
This blog is part of the Asian Business Chamber of Commerce’s (ABCC) Diversity in Leadership campaign. The Diversity in Leadership campaign works with some of the regions’ biggest employers in order to boost the numbers of women and those from black and minority ethnic (BAME), lesbian gay bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and disability groups being represented on boards of directors and in leadership roles. Click here to find out more about the campaign. This blog is a spotlight on female leaders blog, written by Neely Khan, founder of 'Neely There'. Passion. It seems to be an enigma for many professionals. You hear many of us talking about it, writing about it, using it as a hashtag on Instagram;...
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Five essential tips to improve your company's cyber security
By Sheetal Sharma | OmniCyber Security
Cyber security attacks and data breaches are an increasing trend. In a recent report published by The Varonis Data Lab, it was found that more than 41% of companies had more than 1,000 sensitive files including credit card details, health records, PII among others left unprotected on their network. The leak of this sensitive information could cost a business millions. It would therefore be a wise decision for companies who currently have little to no cyber security in place to think about implementing some measures – before it’s too late. The following is a list of basic measures your business can adopt to help improve your cyber security. 1. Know your systems – Mapping out the functionality...
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Common misunderstandings of legal obligations: “Do you have a tap?”
By Diane Rainsford | SQE Assurance Ltd
In our experience as both auditors and consultants we have reviewed many legal registers, too many to count. Most have identified the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health and the usual duties have been identified by the various company’s such as carrying out COSHH assessments etc. but so often when we ask about Legionella controls, we are immediately told “it doesn’t apply to us” Our response “do you have a tap?” The legal duty to manage risks from harmful biological agents including Legionella arises from the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002. To assist businesses and landlords with understanding the requirements of this element of the COSHH Regulations the...
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