Business Network
Business Network of the Rotary Club of Nottingham
At the beginning of 2010 we created a Business Network Group within the club. It's purpose is to provide a support network for local businesses , particularly owners and managers in small to medium sized enterprises which employ about 95% of the working population.
We do this by providing a monthly meeting with business relevant speakers and discussion and industrial and commercial visits. For those visitors that go on to join Rotary they can enjoy the mentoring of our experienced business and professional members and a warm welcome to an international network of 33,000 clubs across 200 countries.
The aim of our club is to combine fun, friendship and business networking with service to the community at home and abroad. In doing this we find friendship, the ability to make a difference, fun and entertainment, business development, personal growth and development, continued learning and assistance when travelling abroad.
Some of the recent speakers we have welcomed to our monthly Business Network meetings are listed below. If you would like to join us then please call Paul Jones on 07855 508883, or email him at paul@integral-ifa.co.uk or Tony Poulter on 07802 712642 or email tony at tony@ip-online.co.uk
Family advice for Nottingham Rotary
Nottingham Rotary Business network received its annual analysis of the budget and the implications for individuals and business on Monday night (26th March) from the Poulter family. This year Iliffe Poulter partner Tony Poulter was joined by his nephew Roger Poulter of Accountants Poulter and Blackwell and together they went through the changes in the budget and the things to look out for.
On personal allowances the big news was the allowance will increase to £9205 from 6th April. For 2013/14 the 40% income tax rate starts at £32,246 and the new 45% rate at £150,000.
On savings and investments there are two schemes which can be used to achieve tax relief for investing in small unquoted companies: the seed enterprise investment scheme (SEIS) attracts 50% tax relief and the enterprise investment scheme (EIS) which attracts 30% tax relief.
The small profits corporation tax rate remains the same for 2012/12 at 20% but the large company rate is reducing each year to 22% from April 2014. The government wants to encourage more employees to acquire shares in the companies that employ them and the cap on the EMI share option scheme is likely to be lifted to £250,000 as soon as possible.
If you would like help on the above or any other tax or accounts matters then contact Tony of Iliffe Poulter on 0115 9552030 or www.ip-online or Roger of Poulter Blackwell Ltd on 0115 7143233 or www.poulterblackwell.co.uk
Advice on avoiding insolvency at Nottingham Rotary
Nottingham companies were given some practical advice on insolvency from Chris Murratt Head of Dispute Resolution with Actons Solicitors at Nottingham Rotary Club’s Business Network Meeting on Monday night (27 February) It was not a subject that most business people know much about and there was some useful advice on avoiding insolvency and the liability and responsibilities of directors.
Company and individual insolvencies were running at around 120,000 a year in 2010. If the economic climate worsened such as through interest rates rising, credit being more difficult to access or the economy moving into recession then insolvency rates could worsen.
There has been rapid growth in so called ‘Pre-Packaged Administrations’ with about 4000 in 2008 up from 1500 in 2003. Creditors often felt short changed by these administrations where the sale of the business and assets had been sewn up before the administration began often to existing management and directors.
However limited liability companies did not mean no liability and directors could face action from shareholders, the state or from creditors if it could be shown that they had not followed the requirements of the Companies Act.
More information from chris.murratt@actons.co.uk, www.actons.co.uk
Nottingham Rotary plays the stock market
The Nottingham Rotary Business network finished off its first year with a Stock Market game at the Park Inn by Radisson in Mansfield Road.Teams of 3 or 4 participants were given a notional £1000 to invest in three fictional companies from a list of 10. The team with the most money at the end of the evening wins the game. Companies included jobbing builders Bodgit & Run and merchant bankers Friskem’s Bank so the kind of events that happened and determined the rise or fall of share prices can be guessed at.
Game host Mike Storr who is competitions coordinator for the Rotary District narrated the fortunes of the companies during the evening with pace and humour. Although the teams tried hard to develop investment strategies to the evening most gave in to the realisation that it was just a game of chance. A bit like the real thing really.
The winning team amassed over £50,000 and the last of the losing teams lost most of their stake.
PA equipment was kindly provided by Jonathon Fish from Piranha PA which all worked perfectly with Jonathon's expert guidance and you can contact Jonathan at jonathon.fish@piranhapa.com or via his website www.piranhapa.com
Export to escape recession business urged
Export to escape the recession local businessmen and women were told at the Nottingham Rotary Business Network Meeting on Monday night (24th October)Ian Morrison, Deputy International Trade Director of UKTI East Midlands said that while the UK was facing the prospect of little growth many of the emerging economies were experiencing double digit growth. “If you are going to grow your business, go where business is growing,” he said. In particular the BRIC countries that are Brazil, Russia, India and China were the main driver in Global growth reaching 70% of growth in 2009.
There were additional benefits to exporting pointed out Ian. Exposure to overseas markets tended to improve productivity in exporting companies at a higher level than in non-exporting companies with a 34% improvement in productivity achieved typically in their first year of exporting. Exporters were also found to be more competitive than non-exporters and more likely to survive.
And it was not just manufacturers that benefited from exporting but service companies too. If you have never exported before you might be surprised by the companies in the Business and Consumer Services sector that do export. They include Business Networking Clubs, Accounting Franchises, Luxury Brand Marketing, Online Advertising, Consumer Research Companies and Recruitment Agencies.
Ian pointed out that we were building on a long history of successful exporting with the UK punching above its weight. We are the 22nd biggest country and yet we are the 11th largest exporter of goods and the 2nd largest exporter of services in the world.
Ian also mentioned some of the successes of Nottinghamshire companies which had been helped by UK Trade and Investment, East Midlands. Abacus Lighting of Sutton-in-Ashfield began exporting in 1965 to the Middle East and now has facilities in Shanghai and Russia and exports to all major European countries.
Emma Ball Ltd joined seven other companies from across the East Midlands in 2010 on an Export mission to Japan. The company, which produces a range of original watercolor paintings, prints, greetings cards, gift wrap and note books, currently sells its products in the UK, Italy, USA, France, Norway, Denmark and Germany, but was keen to crack the Japanese market.
Watercolor artist and company director, Emma Ball, told Midlands Business news: "The trade mission to Japan was fantastic. It's such an amazing place and the people are so friendly. We went with the goal of establishing at least one distributor, but after five company meetings we look set to do business with at least two, which is more than we could have hoped for.
If you are interested in getting support for exporting then contact the kerry.bailey@uktiem.co.ukat the UKTI
Cloud Computing best for small companies
For a small company starting up with 2 or 3 people it is hard to argue a case against using Cloud Computing,Nottingham Rotary Business Network heard this week (26th September).
Cloud computing is a buzzword of the day. But does it really make sense for a business to trust its email or documents to an internet service run by a third party?
Tim Anderson, technical writer and IT consultant who looks after the computing needs of a number of small businesses in the Nottingham area looked at the pros and cons of cloud computing from the perspective of small and medium-size businesses.
He emphasized that in the future the cloud model will almost always save money and ultimately businesses which do not adopt it will be at an economic disadvantage. The move toward mobile working will also be a huge factor in favour of cloud computing.
Comparing the economic arguments he estimated that on premise computing costs for a company of 10 employees with laptops, a small business server and maintenance would cost about £1800 per annum. By contrast cloud computing with Google was $5 per person per month and Microsoft office was in the region of £4 to £17 per person per month.
A range of applications were now available as cloud services:
Office type packages are available from Google and Microsoft.
Accounting: there are cloud services available from FinancialForce and Netsuite.
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is available from Netsuite and others.
CRM (Customer Relationship management) is available from Salesforce.com and others.
Tim explained the development of computing since the invention of the PC in the 70s to cloud computing, mobile and internet working in the 2000s. He explained the meaning of cloud computing was that your server/s are on the internet. You may not know or need to know exactly where they are. You can access your data and programmes from anywhere, store your data on the internet and do everything in a browser if you want to.
One of the advantages of cloud computing is that small companies can afford highly complex software because they share the resources with others e.g. Amazon, Google or Microsoft. One of the economic advantages was that it offered a pay as you go approach with scalability to grow or shrink in line with the fortunes of the business. There is a resilience to the model because you have an expert for backup and maintenance. Finally it was cheaper and provided flexible working so that business people could work anywhere.
Initially, businesses moving to cloud computing might be concerned about the loss of control. But if the system goes down all you do is call support rather than try to fix the problems yourself. You are ofcourse dependent on an internet connection but we are anyway countered Tim and these services are getting faster and more stable. And you have to be prepared to trust a third party for data security and backup though their expertise and resources for this will normally be many time greater than your own.
Nottingham business learns to use social media
Nottingham Rotary Business network were treated to a ‘dos and don’ts’ lecture on Social media by local IT expert Adam Harris on Monday Night (22nd August).
A number of companies were getting it right. By the end of 2009, Dell, the online technology company had generated $6.5m in sales from Twitter alone. Comcast, the internet services provider wanted to used Twitter to support its users when they have a problem and has helped more than 150,000 customers via social media.
Starbucks used social media to give their customers a voice in improving their business and received over 50,000 ideas.
Social media can give a business the kind of reach to its customers and potential customers that it has never had before. People had always liked to get together to share their passions, said Adam. It used to be Tupperware parties and then early internet developments spawned message boards and chat rooms. But with Social media millions of people can connect with each other for free.
1. The first thing businesses needed to think about in their social media strategy was their goals. What did they want to use social media to achieve?
2. The next thing is to listen to your audience. Who are they? What is their personality like? How or where do they consume? How or where do they engage?
3. Build your home base, perhaps a corporate site, a blog, a Facebook page etc. Then carefully select a few media channels to engage and drive traffic to your home base.
4. Next you need to engage with your audience. This means asking questions and engaging with your audience so people with a passion and a preference for interaction are important. They need to participate, create a plan and stick to it. You need to be transparent, show your audience your humanity, and be the conduit between your audience and valuable content and resources. Make sure your content adds value to your audience and is relevant. And never Spam.
5. Finally you need to analyse your results and optimise what you’re doing by working with just a few of the main social media. Sites like www.swixhq.com provide services in this area. You can measure things like reach, frequency and traffic, influence, conversation and transactions, sustainability and sentiment. There are many tools you can use such as Alexa, Blogpulse, Complete, Insidefacebook, Quantcast, Social mention, Technorati, Twittermeter and YouTube insight.
Facebook – has 500m active users worldwide with 45,000 m pieces of content shared each month. There are more than 1.5m businesses with face book pages creating more than 5,300m fans. The Coca-Cola page on Face book has more than 14m fans.
Twitter – has 156m registered users who produce 5.4 billion updates every month. 31% of Twitter users follow a brand and recommend 7.8m brands every month.
YouTube – had 144m users by 2010 and 3 billion videos are viewed a day. 48 hours of videos are uploaded every minute.