Legal Issues with SME Funding from UK Banks

The world is moving out of the ‘flat’ mode of the economic cycle. The uneven recovery is making businesses hesitant and some are panicking as we appear to enter the feared double-dip.

The Third Wave is the final phase of the recessionary cycle where the market bottoms out and turns towards strong recovery. While the double-dip recession might be a worrying place to be for some business owners, it also provides a hugely significant wealth creating opportunity.

Timing what you do in response to the market, is key.

This seminar will provide you with the market and business insights that will enable you to act with confidence to grow your business faster through the next phase of the economy.

Specifically, this seminar will:
•Help you identify where your business is in its lifecycle and how that impacts your decision-making
•Demonstrate how the current economic cycle presents a unique challenge for business owners wanting to maximise the value of their businesses
•Show you some of the key strategic investments that will enable you to overcome that challenge to build value faster
•Teach you how you can do more with less to free up resources for growth


The Presenters:
The 45-minute seminar will be presented by Rowan Andrews of business coaching firm Shirlaws (www.shirlawscoaching.co.uk) and Christopher Jenkins of accountants Wingrave Yeats (www.wingrave.co.uk).
Shirlaws was founded in 1999 and quickly became one of the fastest growing business coaching companies in the world. The firm helps business owners accelerate growth to achieve higher business valuation.
Wingrave Yeats is a Partner-led, award-winning firm of Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors, based in W1 with international reach through the Ecovis Network.

Virtualization is a proven software technology that is rapidly transforming IT landscape and fundamentally changing the way people compute. This video webcast provides a basic overview of virtualization solutions from VMware and explains the technology and products that enable these solutions.

In this webcast, Michael Adams, Sr. Product Marketing Manager at VMware, will discuss the core functionality of VMware vSphere, the industry-leading virtualization platform for delivering the next generation of flexible, reliable IT services.

According to Symantec’s 2011 SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey report, the findings show that though SMBs are at risk, they are still not making disaster preparedness a priority until they experience a disaster or data loss. Half of the respondents do not have a plan in place, even though 65 percent of respondents live in regions susceptible to natural disasters.

The data also reveals that the cost of not being prepared is high, putting an SMB at risk of going out of business. The median cost of downtime for an SMB is $12,500 per day.

According to the survey, downtime not only costs SMBs several thousands of dollars, it also causes their customers to leave. Fifty-four percent of SMB customer respondents reported they have switched SMB vendors due to unreliable computing systems.

Symantec’s Monica Girolami will discuss the findings from the Symantec 2011 SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey report, and share tips for small businesses to follow when pulling together a disaster preparedness plan.

Achieve more for less by delivering predictable and consistent services.

Stop 'one-off' project mentality and move to delivering repeatable, high-quality engagements to increase efficiency and improve resources utilization.

ITIL's service catalogue has primarily been focused on productizing support maintenance services. As a result, services delivered through projects have traditionally been left outside the scope of service catalogues in the belief that projects cannot be productized.
Join us for an in-depth discussion with eTask Technologies CEO Juan Manrique as he explores the benefits of productizing project based services and shares tips on how to capitalize on this new industry trend.
•Key attributes of a productized service offering
•How delivering productized services improves quality and margins
•To PMO or not to PMO (Project Management Office.)

Learn how to achieve more for less by productizing your services.

A study by the University of Worcester shows that nearly 60 per cent of businesses polled currently have no security policy in place and are ill-prepared to meet the real and increasing threat to their business information. The research also shows how businesses who fail to maintain adequate information security measures are putting their supply chain partners at risk of being targeted.

A complementary study published by the Information Commissioner's Office cites the need for an affordable information security certification for SMEs that will encourage good security practices and encourage business with their customers without complicated forms and second-party audits.

IASME is a national programme that provides qualifying SMEs (less than 250
staff) with certification that has been specifically designed with the small business in mind. The programme is well grounded in international standards and has credibility and affordability built in.

IASME certification reassures your customers that you manage their information securely; it can be the make or break decision as to whether you get their business.
IASME certification can be the credentials you need to form supply chains and partnerships for effective and successful business deals.

IASME certification is a framework for effective and efficient information security practices that are designed to keep you working and the keep authorities who can fine malpractice at bay.

IASME is a programme to ensure that profits stay with you rather than compensate for information security breaches.

It’s hard to ignore the hype surrounding cloud computing, or the column inches dedicated to smartphones and tablet devices. But how are they linked, and what does it all add up to (really) for those of us involved in running, working for or supporting Small and Medium Businesses? Is one more relevant? Join us as we look into how each is driving the other and changing the landscape of doing business on a global scale and understand how they could help your organization gain serious competitive advantage.

It’s been said that “Culture will eat strategy for lunch any day of the week.” For many business leaders, culture is an important part of what impacts business results but for those same leaders “culture” can be a difficult concept to wrap their arms around into tangible, measurable and actionable items. This workshop creates a step by step process to help leaders understand the five simple yet powerful aspects of culture that can be managed on a day-to-day process. Based upon more than ten years of work in their consulting business The Culture Coaches bring real world business experience as a sales and marketing executive, a newspaper publisher, and a senior Human Resources professional with experience in training and organizational development, performance management and recruiting. The Culture Coaches will share how these five concepts are interconnected in many ways. Participants will walk away with a more simplified yet inspirational view of a complicated and important issue – culture. Participants might be surprised at just what simple, easy and affordable things really make a positive and productive work environment.

You need to grow your top line in order to grow your company. In this webinar we’ll help you determine which customers are “right” for your company, i.e., easiest to sell and service/generate the most revenue. We’ll also review some “go to market” strategies you can use to reach them.

Research shows that 50 to 70% of all change efforts will fail to meet their goals. The same is true for growing companies. Growing companies face unforeseen challenges of change: more employees, new structures and procedures and maintaining entrepreneurial spirit. In this interactive webinar, including the latest research, case studies and polls of attendees participants will learn:

-The 5 reasons change efforts fail
-How to handle the 83% of employees worldwide who are skeptical of any organizational change (PeopleNRG research conducted Nov 2011)
-Strategies to move people from thinking about “me” to “we”
-Practical strategies to overcome resistance
-The 3 key elements for a compelling case to change
-What to Say in Meetings to Avoid Meeting Fatigue
-The One Action to Take When Everything is Urgent
-How to create MORE conflict and why
-Preventing Pot Roast Planning

Business decisions should not be driven solely by tax results. However, businesses can improve their bottom line by factoring in the tax consequences of business actions. The session will cover some key areas such as staffing, realty, R&D, and marketing.

There is no such thing as a quick-fix, get-rich programme… but this list of 10 things you should do in the next 10 days will significantly improve your business performance.

Businesses that have followed the 10/10 ology significantly increase their sales and profitability.

Most businesses need to look closely about whether they’ve got the “right things right” but in the meantime this quick ‘n’ dirty action planning session will invigorate you and your team to take action.

Robert’s quick-fire presentation is a concentrated version of his highly successful one-day and two-day events.
He starts, ”spend one hour with your business partner…, take a blank sheet of paper… and make these tough decisions… then implement them, now”.

MD of The Directors’ Centre, the consultancy for growing businesses, Robert is mentor and coach to a number of the UK’s leading entrepreneurs.

The recession has caused businesses to retrench, many have shed jobs, ceased or cut investment in training & development and suppressed wages and benefit packages. A perceived lack of investment in employees and the importance lifestyle now plays in employee satisfaction are key reasons why in a recovering market talented employees will look externally for career advancement and lifestyle enhancement. This discussion will explain why attracting managing and retaining talent is so important and will also provide hints and tips on how businesses can improve their capabilities.

A discussion on what business angels are looking for when appraising an investment opportunity. A review of the reasons investors reject proposals, what makes an attractive proposition, the key elements investors will focus on, a discussion on valuation, and how to ensure a smooth transaction

How real time information can help fuel business decision for growing businesses.

David Calder and Cat McLean, litigation lawyers, have witnessed over the last few years some questionable behaviour from of some of the UK's best known banks.

More recently they brought the Royal Bank of Scotland to court and won in the case of Royal Bank of Scotland vs. Carlyle a client of their legal firm and a well respected property developer who has suffered at the hands of his bank despite many years of loyal business.

Far from being an isolated case, David and Cat are finding and hearing many more companies coming forward with similar stories. The evidence suggests that the problem which brought Derek’s case to court is in fact far more widespread than first thought. There will an opportunity to contribute and ask questions of Cat and David during this live webcast.

Join this webinar to learn the critical strategies, avoidable mistakes and new business approaches every company must implement to grow their business.

As markets develop and products mature customer needs can change. This is a fundamental area for businesses to get right, but how do I start and what are the things to watch out for? A simple beginners guide to help you on your way

Marc is an experienced leader with a track record of delivering world class customer and consumer solutions on an international scale, having won three global accolades, he works with an ethical and sustainable stance. He pioneered the ‘making life easier’ management philosophy, one based on clarity, and has coined a ‘renaissance management’ theory, where senior leaders understand clearly the total context in which they operate. As a consultant to some key blue chip businesses Marc is adding value across the globe, he is a fellow of the RSA, a recent DBA graduate and a member of the IOD.

His employment and assignment history covers middle and senior leadership roles in global organisations across multiple industries. Regular expert contributor to The Telegraph Business Club.

4 minutes is all you have: 4 minutes to make your pitch, 4 minutes to make your case, 4 minutes to transfer the passion you have for your business, 4 minutes to change your corporate fortunes. What makes a pitching event a successful exercise for an aspiring entrepreneur?

Join Ramon Ray in this presentation on how to safely grow a mobile and flexible workforce.