Professional indemnity insurance is a must, as you’re bound to make a mistake in business August 23, 2018 As professionals, we all make mistakes. Or sometimes, we are just accused of making mistakes that we didn’t make. For example, the Home Office is alleged to have lost thousands of sensitive documents. And so too in the business world: mistakes happen, and people lose money as a result. Without naming names, some of the [...]
DEBATE: Is Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley the best person to turn House of Fraser around? August 23, 2018 Is Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley the best person to turn House of Fraser around? YES, says David Blair, global chief executive of FITCH. The British high street is crying out for a saviour, and why shouldn’t it be Mike Ashley? He’s a shrewd retailer driving Sports Direct to win against new-age competitors like Amazon. Ashley [...]
DNA testing is in danger of undoing everything business has worked hard to changee August 23, 2018 Since the discovery of DNA, we have been fascinated by our genetic makeup. What do we comprise of at the most fundamental level? How does this contribute to who we are? Our growing comprehension of DNA has also proved critically useful – helping to identify criminals, proving paternity, and showing propensity for certain medical conditions. [...]
An innovation culture is about far more than shiny new tech August 20, 2018 This summer, Airbus became the poster company for business anxiety in Britain. In June, the aerospace giant warned that it might have to consider its future in the UK if we were to crash out of the EU in March 2019 without a deal on trading, saying that the potential outcome would be “catastrophic”, throwing [...]
The Urbanologie app shows you how to live the high life like a globe-trotter August 17, 2018 Picture this. You’re on holiday in an exotic locale, travel guide in hand – probably one produced by a big brand like Lonely Planet or some other pocket guide. The pages are dog-eared from where you’ve bookmarked all of the things you want to see and do. But half the time, the recommendations made by [...]
Congratulations, students – welcome to a broken system August 17, 2018 It is hard to think of a more eccentrically British fixation than the national obsession with A-level results day. And there’s something for everyone in the results announced yesterday A rise in the proportion of students achieving As and A*s (“exams have become too easy”), a fall in the numbers achieving above a C grade [...]
Being an entrepreneur isn’t a real job – or is it? August 10, 2018 THE NEW SERIES of Dragons’ Den starts on Sunday, bringing with it an assortment of budding entrepreneurs, all pitching for cash investments from the beady-eyed “Dragons”. The show, now in its 16th series, is a brilliant opportunity – for the right candidate. Being television, naturally it has to be entertaining, which it is, [...]
Be selfishly generous in business – it pays off August 10, 2018 In 2014, at a rather pompous event in the City, I met Fred. In a room full of big characters straight out of a Tom Wolfe novel, the two of us – office-looking and hassled – clearly stood out. I wore a dress that I also used as a blanket on overnight flights; he had [...]
All work colleagues have irritating office habits, but there are ways to make your co-workers bearable July 31, 2018 If an email titled “New research reveals” lands in your inbox, don’t open it. Most of this stuff is so bad that a glorious tweet comes to mind: “Jesus regrets dying for each of you”. Recently, however, I broke this rule and read a “study” on irritating office habits – the morbid appeal of this [...]
Elon Musk’s fall should bring our stratospheric expectations down to earth July 20, 2018 Stop what you’re doing, everyone. Elon Musk – serial entrepreneur, space crusader, and cult figure to climate progressives – has given us the one thing we never expected to see from him: an apology. The Tesla founder had little choice. While the world was celebrating the miraculous rescue of the 12 boys and their football [...]