Business and Other Briefings
CBI: The CBI has called on SMEs to consider the broad range of finance options available to help them grow, including asset-based lending, equity investment and peer-to-peer lending.
Launching a new alternative finance guide, Ripe for the picking, the CBI highlighted research showing that high-growth medium-sized businesses could be worth up to an additional £20bn to the economy by 2020. It comes as a GE Capital report shows that SMEs plan to spend £51bn over the next 12 months, but will need the right funding to realise their potential.
Launching a new alternative finance guide, Ripe for the picking, the CBI highlighted research showing that high-growth medium-sized businesses could be worth up to an additional £20bn to the economy by 2020. It comes as a GE Capital report shows that SMEs plan to spend £51bn over the next 12 months, but will need the right funding to realise their potential.
CO: A series of videos to help SMEs & voluntary organisations pitch for & win government contracts have been released.
BIS: Energy intensive businesses are being told how to claim compensation to offset the cost of energy policy in their electricity bills with the publication of new government guidance, which is being published alongside the government response to its consultation on a £250m Energy Intensive Industries Package.
Eligible firms will be able to apply from 3 June 2013 as part of measures to reduce the impact of energy & climate change policies on the cost of electricity for energy intensive industries in the UK.
CO: New details of future government business opportunities have been updated so suppliers big & small can plan ahead, invest and ultimately bid for more public sector contracts.
Information about what government will be buying over the next 4 to 5 years across a range of industry sectors, including ICT, health and those across local authorities, brings the total of available contracts to nearly £79bn. Visit Contracts Finder for future government contracting opportunities over £10,000.
Information about what government will be buying over the next 4 to 5 years across a range of industry sectors, including ICT, health and those across local authorities, brings the total of available contracts to nearly £79bn. Visit Contracts Finder for future government contracting opportunities over £10,000.
BIS: The PM has announced that the UK government intends to sign up to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which was set up to ‘help tackle corruption, to improve the way revenues from oil, gas and minerals are managed and to make sure that people across the world share in the economic benefits of the natural resources in their country’.
HO: Small businesses can help protect themselves from cyber crime, Security Minister James Brokenshire said at an industry conference last week. A report published by the Federation of Small Businesses, Cyber security and fraud: the impact on small businesses attributed the cost of cyber fraud to small businesses as around £785m a year. The conference heard there are simple steps that businesses can take to protect themselves from cyber crime.
DWP: The government has welcomed an announcement by Commissioner Barnier that he would postpone his plans to introduce Solvency II-style rules for defined benefit pension schemes – See ‘In the News’ section for more information
