Category: News

Especially among SMEs, outsourcing is becoming more commonplace; here, Michelle O’Connor – Chief People Officer at Hive Support Services – discusses the benefits of doing so, alongside some of the challenges her team is seeing across the UK business sect

Introduction: The Hidden Cost of Manual Finance Admin Invoice processing and expense administration are rarely the most visible parts of running a business, but inefficient processes can consume hours of staff time, delay approvals, and make it harder to see w

For a long time, payments were treated as a back-end problem: pick a processor, integrate it, move on. That assumption held while everyone did roughly the same thing — card payments, one or two acquirers, a standard checkout. It stopped holding once mark

For twenty years, the small business search story was a story about money. Bigger competitors bought more links, published more content, hired bigger agencies, and occupied the first page. An independent firm could win a narrow local niche, but the broad comme

Think about the last time a company won a significant new customer. The sales process, the demo, the proposal, the negotiation. The onboarding. The first few months of the relationship, where every team is on their best behaviour, every response is prompt, eve

The UK has a large retail investment market, with FCA data showing that revenue from retail investment intermediation reached £6.5 billion in 2025. Trading and investing are now familiar parts of the financial market for UK consumers. Instant funding has

For any small or medium-sized business, sales management is a critical process that directly drives business growth. One of the biggest challenges SMEs face is a lead management process scattered across disconnected tools. A form here, a spreadsheet there, a N

Many small businesses run on spreadsheets longer than they should. In private healthcare, the same pattern often appears inside prescribing operations. At the start, a spreadsheet can feel practical. It helps a small team track patients, prescriptions, payment

A practical guide to the Level 4 AI & Automation Practitioner Apprenticeship Most SMEs have already tried AI. Staff use ChatGPT or Copilot, someone has built a useful prompt, and a few tasks take less time. What usually hasn’t changed is the process

A spreadsheet can serve a small UK brewery when the product range is limited and a few people know what is stored where. As the brewery grows, more batches, seasonal lines, customer orders and storage locations mean more stock information has to be kept accura

Remote Work Without the Headaches: Practical Security Habits for SME Teams There are many key benefits to remote working. It helps your team stay flexible, productive, and gives employees greater freedom over where and how they work. But it’s not without its

One day, you enter your office and find out your director is charged with a criminal offence. The first thing that comes to mind is your company’s reputation and financial position. SME owners spend years gaining a competitive edge. Just in a moment, losing