Use your local post office or lose it to the long list of high street casualties April 30, 2019 Owning and operating a post office couldn’t be any harder. The ongoing high street decline and the difficult retail environment over the past 12 months have hit subpostmasters hard, and it has never been tougher to make ends meet. We recently conducted a national survey of our membership, and found that more than one in five [...]
We are hardwired to see the unknown as a threat, so how can you stop resisting change? April 30, 2019 None of us have to cast our minds around very far to alight upon an area of our lives that is currently in a state of flux. Change, we learn, is the new normal, and I – in common with many others – have made a career of helping people and organisations figure out how to [...]
Atomic London wants to modernise the creative agency landscape and help solve marketing problems April 29, 2019 The big ad agencies are struggling. WPP’s challenges since Sir Martin Sorrell’s departure are well documented. Last week, it was reported that car rental company Hertz was suing its former marketing partner Accenture over a piece of shoddy web design. More broadly, brands are bringing their marketing in-house, denying revenue to agencies. For advertising executive [...]
London gym chain Frame talks fitness, health, wellbeing, and babies April 29, 2019 Fitness is big business. There are over 7,000 gyms in the UK, and the market is worth almost £5bn, with around one in seven people paying gym membership fees. The sector has swelled thanks to the health and wellbeing trend which has grown in importance over the last decade, but also because of the huge [...]
Avengers, Assemble – Marvel’s superhero franchise can teach your business how to tackle digital disruption April 29, 2019 It’s fair to assume that for Marvel fans sitting down to watch the recently released Avengers: Endgame, their first thought won’t be what it teaches us about digital disruption – they’ll be wondering how the dream team will defeat the Mad Titan Thanos, and who will still be standing when the credits roll. However, with [...]
Protecting the UK’s creative treasures by bringing the digital pirates down a peg leg or two April 26, 2019 The gathering storm of state-backed piracy is high on the agenda, as leaders from creative industries gather for World Intellectual Property Day today. As you read this, a pirate media empire is illegally broadcasting 10 channels of live sport – including one of Britain’s most valuable exports, the English Premier League – to a region [...]
How to cope with culture clashes and different time zones when collaborating across global offices April 25, 2019 "If everyone is moving forward together, success takes care of itself." While this Henry Ford quote sums up a simple idea for businesses, sustaining a culture of collaboration across a global organisation is more difficult than it sounds. When offices are split across different countries, operations and communications, departments can quickly become siloed. The trick [...]
We’re calling on British business to step up in the global fight against Malaria April 25, 2019 Today is World Malaria Day, a time to take stock of what we have achieved in the fight against this disease, and what more we all can do. In 2017 alone, malaria – a disease that is both treatable and preventable – killed 435,000 people worldwide. Nearly half of the world’s population was at risk, and [...]
Why playing a different version of ourselves at work can cause stress April 24, 2019 Just be yourself. It’s a mantra that’s been drummed into us since we were kids. Yet when you leave the comfort of home and school life to start your first job, it can feel like a completely different story. People often adjust their personality in the workplace. Sadly, research indicates that over half of employees [...]
An office romance may be fun, but don’t burn your career on the flames of passion April 24, 2019 Office relationships happen. Given how much time we spend at the office, it doesn’t come as a surprise when some people develop friendships, crushes, or even fall in love – Melinda and Bill Gates being a prime example. Friendships which remain platonic within the office are great and can last for a lifetime. A report [...]