A new collaboration between five of the South East’s leading research institutions launched today. South East IP brings together the latest research from five research institutions across the South East, making it available to business and investors in a single, easy-to-search format. The service is designed to help businesses and investors to find the new technologies they need to grow their businesses, and for researchers to a route to market for their ideas.

With initial funding of £75,000 from the UK Intellectual Property Office the new site will accelerate the exploitation of Innovation in the South East by providing a single place for investors and companies looking for specific technologies, to look for IP from a collection of institutions in the South East; .providing a service to help participating institutions source specific expertise and equipment from other institutions in the network, and; .encouraging collaborations and joint funding applications.

The South East IP partners are The National Physical Laboratory, the Universities of Surrey, Reading, Sussex and Royal Holloway University of London.  Together, these five institutions produce a large part of the South East’s research. Now, for the first time, investors can find up to date information on research output from every institution in one place.

The launch of the new service marks the beginning of intensified collaboration between Research Establishments and universities in the region to develop more effective routes to market for their research.

David McCallum, Intellectual Property Officer at the University of Surrey, said,

“For the first time, details of new techniques and technologies developed at our five partner institutions have been brought together in one place, and in a form that investors and businesses can search to find the opportunities they are looking for. This is a big step forward for the whole region in matching technology research in the South East with investment, and we are excited to be a part of it.”

He was calling for action in a debate in the European Parliament initiated by the European Parliament’s petitions committee which has received more than 400 complaints, and the internal market and consumer protection committee chaired by Conservative MEP Malcolm Harbour. MEPs from across the chamber said that the commission was not doing enough to clamp down on companies that offer small companies a free listing in their directory yet the small print of the contract subsequently enables the directory to present them with extortionate charges.

The European Commission has already said that the practice is illegal but there are questions over whether there is a need for tighter implementation of the EU’s misleading advertising directive, or even a rethink.

Speaking in the chamber today, Struan Stevenson said:

“It is often elderly people who run B&Bs or let holiday cottages who fall foul of this criminal activity. They enter their address into a supposedly free directory and then receive a bill for a thousand Euros. Elderly people are terrified when they receive letters supposedly from legal representatives of these companies.

“This is cross-border criminal activity. These companies give their addresses so we need to track them down, prosecute them and ensure people are protected from them. Whenever victims contact me I tell them to ask the directory to refer all future correspondence to me. They never hear from them again.

“The people need to be in prison.”

Malcolm Harbour MEP said:

“I have recently received what looked like a perfectly innocuous free opportunity to advertise my business, which upon reading the small print turned out to be a scam. Fortunately I have dealt with this scandal for long enough to be aware of it but many other businesses have not been so fortunate. This activity is illegal and we need to make sure that national governments are taking action to close it down. In the meantime, anybody who falls foul of this scam should refuse to pay and get in touch with their MEP.”

In addition to people’s inner drive or motivations, the UK government is also trying to encourage more of us to go into business. One example is George Osborne increasing the bank levy by £800 million for 2011 to persuade lenders to finance small businesses.

To better understand why people start their own business, professional indemnity insurance specialists, Hiscox ran an online poll asking entrepreneurs what motivated them to turn their idea into reality.

Possibly surprisingly, the main reason wasn’t financial gain.  Rather, Hiscox found 32% of responses indicated people went into business to be their own boss (although the option ‘to make more money’ was a close second at 27%).



Reasons to start your own business

The remaining results showed:

•    16% hoped to bring to life a great idea
•    14% wanted to escape the corporate world
•    10% had started their own business as a result of being made redundant

As the poll allowed users to choose more than one option, it will come as no surprise that some of the participants had more than one reason for going it alone. Taking the leap and starting your own business isn’t an easy decision when weighing up the pros and cons (as some of us well know).

Although making money will always be important to business owners, it is interesting to see the main driver is a desire to be their own boss. This could suggest that people are taking the plunge because they want independence and the freedom to sculpt their own future, with or without a bread slicer.

If you are thinking about this as the path for you, there are many aspects which you’ll have to consider. As part of the initial planning process the first thing you’ll need to do is sit down and consider all of the costs that will be faced by your new venture in the first three years of trading. It is no surprise to learn that a new business will have a much better chance of survival if it is able to get through its first year, so planning all your costs appropriately is essential if this is to happen.

Beginning this process then you’ll need to know and consider many different costs whether they relate to premises, payroll, taxes, rates and business insurance. In order to get the best and most appropriate business insurance quote from a broker you’ll have to provide them with detailed information on the business.

The benefit of getting this done at an early stage is that you can factor this indication into your costs for your first year to see whether or not you are likely to stay afloat in that all important first year.

As a small business owner and/or employer, you have a legal responsibility towards your employees, customers and the public. Depending on the type of business insurance you take out, a policy could provide financial coverage in the event that you are sued if an employee or a member of the public is injured due to your negligence. Public Liability insurance from Towergate Insurance is designed to cover legal defence costs for alleged negligence and to pay compensation where the business is found to be at fault.

If you provide a service (for example if you are an architect), it may be wise to take out professional liability insurance, to provide coverage in the event that you are sued by a client for compensation for what they believe to be erroneous or bad professional advice.

So, fully research the provider you feel will give you the best insurance to cover the needs of your company and speak to other small business owners about the specifics of their business insurance. Once you have this important first hurdle out of the way, you’ll be well on your way to getting trading.

The new EIB funding complements Santander’s commitment to UK companies and follows its pledge to increase lending to small and medium-sized enterprises by 25% in 2011. In total this equates to an increase in overall lending of £6.7 billion, with £4 billion set aside for SME’s.  This follows a 26% rise in lending last year.

Steve Pateman, Head of Santander Corporate and Commercial Banking, said:

“Ensuring businesses are able to access affordable investment capital is crucial for the UK’s economic recovery. Thanks to our partnership with the EIB, we will be able to assist more small and medium-sized customers with their expansion plans at discounted rates, helping to create local jobs and fuel this recovery. This new fund quickly follows our recent £100 million fund specifically aimed at the higher education sector, also in partnership with the EIB.”

Simon Brooks, European Investment Bank Vice President, responsible for the United Kingdom, said:

“The European Investment Bank is pleased to increase funding for British SMEs through Santander. This is part of our wider engagement to assist SMEs across the UK and elsewhere in Europe to continue to access investment finance during economically challenging times.”

To date, Santander has lent £129 million through the EIB scheme, helping 136 companies to invest in and grow their businesses. Recent examples include: financing Country Court Care Homes’ acquisition of Sheffield-based Abbey Grange Nursing Home after it was placed into administration; financing the expansion of Hampshire-based manufacturing firm St Clare Engineering Ltd with the acquisition of additional premises; and financing the purchase and restaurant expansion of Somerset’s historic hotel, The Old Vicarage. All three purchases helped protect or generate local jobs.

Last year 115,000 European SMEs benefited from EIB funding, and over the last three years EUR 30 billion has been provided to SMEs across Europe by the bank.  Over the last three years the EIB has signed EUR 2 billion for SME funding in the UK.

The £150 million fund will help support firms looking to invest in their businesses, in turn helping to generate new jobs and drive local economic growth.

The new funding is available immediately to companies with fewer than 250 employees looking for loans of up to EUR 12.5 million for a minimum of two years. Some sector restrictions apply.

But today, the need for professional indemnity cover goes much wider than that and covers many sections of the public and not-for-profit sectors as well as the private sector. Social enterprise groups and community organisations are also affected.

With increasing sections of our society needing care and support – whether it’s the vulnerable child or the old person living alone – more and more organisations in the public and not-for-profit sectors are realising that they are going to need specialist and wide-ranging help with their professional indemnity cover.

This article was presented by Markel UK. For more information visit their website today

Whether you like it or not, we’re increasingly living in a ‘blame and claim’ culture – and that doesn’t just mean answering “yes” when the TV ads ask if you’ve fallen over on a wet floor. Today, many sections of the public and not-for-profit sectors have a duty of care to the vulnerable in society. But it’s becoming increasingly evident that even the most vulnerable members of society (or their relatives) are prepared to make a claim if they believe they have a case.

The number of groups who may be at risk from a claim is surprisingly high – it’s not just the local authority with responsibility for a care home, or the charity looking after clients with a learning disability.

Any organisation running an after school club or a nursery; charities offering help with rehabilitation, or any sort of children’s organisation – all of them will be at risk from claims and will need to seek expert help with their professional indemnity insurance. As the law becomes ever more complex, and opportunities for claims increase, even the small local charity will need to move away from the local insurance broker to companies who specialise in professional indemnity for the public and not-for-profit sectors.

Of course, for the directors and management of the organisations affected, the buck doesn’t stop with public liability insurance – they also have to worry about the vagaries of employment law, the duty of care they owe to staff… The list goes on, but the most likely source of a potentially devastating claim is their professional indemnity. Expert help from a specialist broker is an absolute essential: without it, they might not be able to carry on helping their vulnerable clients.

Today, Vaultium warn SME owners could risk heavy fines as well as disruption, if they fail to keep adequate records for tax purposes under the latest HMRC proposal.

Under a new proposed HMRC inspection regime, as many as 50,000 UK small businesses may not be keeping records in line with HMRC requirements. If, when an inspection takes place, records cannot be produced, firms risk a fine of up to £3,000. Other regulators are also taking a hard line as Record Management becomes central to meeting increasingly complex compliance obligations.

To this end, Vaultium is launching a new, easy to use online Records Management extension, in response to a growing number of requests from organisations wanting more cost effective and robust recording systems to support compliance and record retention requirements.

Traditionally the preserve of larger organisations or heavily regulated industries, Records Management has been somewhat of a mystery to SMEs. But times are changing, with organisations of all types and sizes, increasingly required to manage their business records.

Retaining the right records and disposing of those that legislation and regulation say you must, is a time consuming and onerous task. Software solutions to this problem have traditionally been too expensive, difficult to implement, require specialist knowledge to deploy and operate and often do not deliver the benefits or outcomes sought.

May Ladd, CEO and founder of Vaultium comments “Traditional Records Management systems were overly complex and really only understood by experienced librarians and professional records managers. Businesses rejected changes brought on by records management practices, resulting in poor uptake and inconsistencies. Few understood the terminology, found the change management too overwhelming and simply couldn’t find the time to store, classify and tag information in the appropriate way.

“While Records Management provides great discipline, it should be easy to use, available to all and be integrated in to the day to day routine, without the need to change ways of working or require a great deal of training. Vaultium’s online Records Management extension is more than capable of supporting a whole raft of compliance and regulation needs. In conjunction with our private-cloud based solution, firms now have it within their power to implement an affordable and effective Records Management strategy.

“We are all becoming more mobile and working from numerous locations, we want to have instant, anywhere and anytime access. We also need to share our information in a secure manner with partners and third party organisations more frequently. This has implications, for example, under the Data Protection Act, where we often using many data processors, some of whom may be overseas, we have to have the right controls in place to limit access and retain a record of who did what, and when, including when information has been securely destroyed, disciplines that Records Management addresses.”

Vaultium’s new ultra-easy-to-use, affordable online Records Management extension is capable of supporting some of the worlds most sophisticated compliance regimes and provides functionality normally only found in much more expensive and complex systems, such as:

• Comprehensive audit histories and version control
• Store any kind file, instantly searchable content and metadata
• Ultra -secure, including ISO27001 support
• UK Data Protection compliant
• Manage long term records, archives and backup
• Tag vital records to help with disaster recovery and prevent important files from being deleted by accident
• Create and track retention and disposal schedules

Established in 2002, Vaultium set out to provide online document, content and file management, accessible securely online via any internet browser.

Vaultium online Records Management is available as an extension to Vaultium’s Business Package – more details are available at the Vaultium website.

All business owners should consider purchasing different kinds of insurance for their business, such as employers’ liability insurance to protect their company.

As exciting as it might be to start your communications agency and round up interesting individuals with standout personalities, you need to consider the risk that having a business poses. Owning a business doesn’t need to be scary; if your protect yourself it can be exciting and highly rewarding.

Take comfort in knowing there are ways to avoid risks posed by taking the necessary precautions. All small business owners should consider purchasing different types of insurance for their business before they start getting things going. These insurance options will not only protect your company’s assets but will protect you and your employees too.

Unfortunately, we live in a ‘claims culture’ where people target small businesses by taking legal action. They do this in hope that they will acquire large financial rewards. Regretfully, many claims are dishonest and far-fetched in nature.

Small businesses that have not purchased insurance become vulnerable to such claims. However, if you prepare for the unforeseen, then you will be able to take responsibility for your business and its wellbeing.

Perhaps we should look at the so called ‘claims culture’ as being somewhat ironically positive. As the public has become driven to take legal action, it is creating a business culture that is ready to combat risk. This in turn has fostered a professional workplace that is ready for anything.

So before you start your client list and your next up and coming marketing strategy, research different kinds of insurance options small business owners can acquire. Three insurance types popular with most business owners include the following: professional indemnity insurance, employers’ liability insurance, and public liability insurance.

Professional indemnity insurance protects your business in the situation that a claim is brought against you of professional negligence. This can take the form of a negligent act, breach of duty, or a civil liability.

This insurance type is most valuable to businesses that are offering consultancy-based services. Therefore, in the case of marketing, advertising, and PR agencies, if you lead your client astray in the information you provide them with they can take legal action.

Any misguiding or incorrect information you give a client can translate into a direct financial loss incurred on your client. With any financial loss you are responsible for, they can then take legal action. Professional indemnity insurance will protect you in this type of situation.

Professional indemnity insurance, like other forms of business insurance, usually only covers you while your policy is ‘live’. So if you happen to cancel your policy and close your business it is a good idea to acquire coverage for the period of time afterwards.

Another type of insurance you should consider getting is employers’ liability insurance. Through this insurance, you protect your business’s assets from employees’ claims of damage as a result of being employed by you.

Employers’ liability insurance will protect you if an employee gets injured in a work-related accident. The plan will help cover things such as lost wages, disability coverage, and also support payments to their dependents.

Through the purchase of employers’ liability insurance, you are benefiting both your business and your employees. They can rest assured that if something bad does happen they will be protected and your assets will be protected from any lawsuits that may occur.

Finally, every small business owner should consider the purchase of public liability insurance. This insurance option focuses on civil wrongs. For instance, a member of the public might sue your business based on negligence.

The term ‘duty of care’ refers to the standard people should be treated to when under another person’s care. Most claims brought against businesses are based on some injury brought against a member of the public that violates their duty of care.

The degrees of duty of care are situation dependent. For instance, if you invite someone into the grounds of your marketing agency they now fall under your duty of care.

Under the court of law, you should guarantee the wellbeing of individuals you have invited onto your business property. However, if they are harmed in some way then you have failed your duty of care, and they can then take legal action against you.

This could happen in many different kinds of instances where you would then be liable. For example, perhaps you invite a client over for a meeting and when they get there something falls on them and they get hurt. Although you hope this would never happen, accidents do occur!

We live in an unpredictable, unfair world. This is why in building your business you should take the necessary measures of protecting it from anything that might put it in harm’s way, in order to put your mind at rest.

Once you have purchased insurance for your business, you will be able to focus on your business ventures without worrying about the risk. This will transform you into a responsible and dedicated business owner, with employees that know you are looking after them.

So, begin speaking to other small business owners to see what kind of options they have purchased. Many will provide you with stories of how business insurance has already saved them when things went wrong. This can be the first thing you successfully accomplish as a business owner with many more to come!

There is absolutely no doubt that the internet and in particular the World Wide Web has changed the way that most of the population of the UK go about their business.

Of course having a shiny all bells and whistles website is only the start of the journey and getting your website seen on the first page of search engines is a time consuming and costly process that may never be achieved.

Smaller businesses and the self employed seldom have the time or money to spend on optimising their sites for the internet search engines and many such websites are seldom seen and therefore have little value to the company.

Before the advent of the internet we all knew that if we were looking for good painters or decorators for instance we could find hundreds listed in the Yellow Pages phone book or in local press small ads.

Without recommendation finding suitable tradesmen was still a minefield, but the Yellow Pages was a local publication and we felt safer in the knowledge that the advertisers were also local businesses.

These days it is possible to restrict a search on the internet to local based businesses but the smaller or self employed tradesman who have not invested in search engine optimisation are still unlikely to be seen.

Fortunately for these tradesmen websites have sprung up over the last couple of years where smaller companies and self employed can advertise and tout for business.

These websites work on two levels and entering a search for good painters or decorators would bring up a list of people who are looking to have work done that tradesmen can then quote for. Clients who accept a quote are then encouraged to feed back to the site a suitable rating for the work they have had done by a particular business.

On the second level these sites can be used as directory for finding local tradesmen who have been recommended by users of the site, allowing you to check out the best ranking people to do your job.

The more people that use these sites the more information is gathered making life easier for those looking to have work done and of course offering some form of recommendation.

Despite often clearly spelling out their payment terms SMEs are having to wait an average of 41 days over the agreed payment terms from many of their customers.

Recent research shows that in 37% of cases customers are stretching payment terms by up to three months and at any one time £24billion is owed to SMEs.

The increase in VAT will only worsen the situation warns the Law Society and urges small business owners to guard against the problem of late payment.

The Society says that not enough businesses are aware of the protections available to them which safeguard against cash flow blockages. Solicitors will be able to help SMEs take advantage of these.

Law Society President Robert Heslett says:
“Average commercial debts caused by late payments are high in the UK, and for SMEs a lack of cash flow can be crippling. With credit less available to those businesses from banks, late payments have a far more serious consequence for SMEs.

Considering the amount of red tape SMEs and start-ups are faced with, it is no surprise that seeking protection against late payment from customers does not come top of the to-do list. However, it could be the difference between the business surviving or not, especially in the uncertain economic climate.

A carefully worded contract drawn up by a solicitor between a business and their commercial customers can include clear terms on late payments, including penalty clauses and strict time frames for payment. Such terms can act as an effective deterrent for late payment and encourage timely payment for services, thus avoiding these terms coming into play.”

The Law Society says that contracts between businesses which include late payment clauses need to become a common feature of the SME market. The European Union is currently looking at updating a directive aimed at tackling late payments such is the impact on the SME sector across Europe as a whole.

Robert Heslett adds: “Many smaller businesses perhaps felt the recent budget did not do enough to tackle cash flow problems head on, and although the EU is looking at it, the safest bet is to protect against cash flow blockage between the customer and the business with a solid, solicitor-drafted contract.”

Avoiding court
The Law Society says that should SMEs and start-ups hit problems with customers failing to meet payment deadlines, court is not the only next-step option. Alternative Dispute Resolution and mediation are alternatives for SMEs.

Law Society President Robert Heslett says: “There is a presumption that going to court is the only course of action when late payments cannot be resolved. However, many solicitors specialise in ADR and mediation, which can prove an effective way of solving the problems for SMEs and other businesses. ADR and well-drafted contracts can be effective in avoiding the last option, going court.”