Swindon Chamber of Commerce vote Auditel Consultant as their new President

Congratulations to Auditel Consultant Nick Beaumont-Jones who, after serving as Vice-President of the Swindon Chamber of Commerce since last October, has just been elected President with immediate effect.

In addition to the usual duties, Nick’s new role includes directorship of the Swindon Strategic Economic Partnership (SSEP) acting as the Chamber’s representative. The SSEP is regarded as the foremost body for business and public sector partnership in the Swindon area.

Naturally Nick is delighted to be taking on his new roles and is very excitied about the prospect of working with such important players in the local business community, and to cementing and enhancing Auditel’s place in that community. Once again, Nick, congratulations and the best of luck!

(P.s. The Swindon Advertiser was a bit later than us in ‘breaking’ this news, but you can read their 8th July article on Nick’s appointment here.)

Auditel gives helping hand to Scunthorpe’s young entrepreneurs

Congratulations to all the students who participated in this year’s ‘Young Enterprise in Action Challenge’ in Scunthorpe. The challenge, which is in its fourth year, aims to give students invaluable hands-on experience of the highs, lows, risks and rewards of working in a team to design, develop and construct a prototype product for a specific market sector. The programme is enhanced by involvement from local Young Enterprise volunteer business advisers, who include among their number Auditel Consultant Carl Windsor. Five teams made it through to the final judging stage, presenting mini ‘company reports and  PowerPoint slide shows to a panel of local business advisors and assembled parents. All very nerve-wracking, but as Carl reported back, all the teams showed an impressive level of talent, creativity, industriousness and commitment which bodes well for the future of entreprise in South Humberside.

Free advice for new businesses at the Excel Business Startup Expo

They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Perhaps, but if you visit the Business Startup Expo at Excel on Thursday 20th and Friday 21st May you can access lots of free advice about starting and running a business. Among the successful entrepreneurs who will be presenting free seminars at the event are Simon Morris (founder of LOVEFilm), Craig Sams (co-founder and President of Green & Blacks organic chocolate company) and David Gold (Chairman of Gold Group International which includes Ann Summers, Gold Aviation, Knickerbox, Greenwich House Properties, York Place and West Ham United Football Club).

And, as if this isn’t enough of an incentive, our very own Edward Brewer, General Manager for Business Development, will be presenting a seminar called ‘In business for yourself, but not by yourself’ in which he will explore how working for yourself compares with being employed and the benefits of franchising as a model for starting your own business. What’s more, Edward and our Commercial Director, Derek Chisnall, will be available on Stand 710 throughout the 2 days to discuss franchising in general and the Auditel cost and purchase management consultancy opportunity in particular.

To order your free tickets for the Expo and for a full list of seminars and workshops, visit the Business Startup website.

Franchising hits the headlines

If you’ve been watching or listening to the news over the past week or so you can’t have failed to notice that Franchising has become rather fashionable; a ‘good news story’ amid the almost unremitting bleakness of the nightly bulletins. Last weekend’s British Franchise Show at Olympia garnered unprecedented levels of media coverage, including features on BBC Breakfast, Radio Four’s Today programme and Radio 2′s Chris Evan’s programme.  Read more…

Tomorrow's World of Work Today

The Chartered Management Institute recently published a document called ‘The World in 2018’ – outlining what it believes to be the most probable picture of the world of work and management in 2018. The home as a place of work and business has a big part to play in this scenario planning.

This is what the Institute had to say about business models:

“Business models will change their nature, be more diverse, more customer-centric and change more quickly. We will see a polarisation of business models from global corporations to virtual-community-based enterprises. Large corporations will grow even bigger and there will be more small niche-oriented specialised associate businesses around.”

Auditel has been operating as a ‘virtual-community-based enterprise’ offering specialist niche services since 1994 so why wait until 2018 to be part of the new world of work? If you’d like to find out more about running your own Auditel consultancy, visit our website or call us on 0800 583 3355 for more information.

Calling all women entrepreneurs…

If you run your own business, or are thinking about running your own business, you might be interested in attending a conference being held in London on 30th September called ‘Realising your potential as a woman entrepreneur’. Read more…

How to survive a business crisis and come out stronger than ever

A few weeks ago, I posted a blog entry about a really interesting article ex-Dragon’s Den and Red Letter Day entrepreneur, Rachel Elnaugh, had written in the Franchise Magazine (Franchisees are entrepreneurs too). In this article, Rachel made a really good case for considering franchising as a way for anybody considering self-employment to flex and develop their entrepreneurial muscle. Read more…

Start a business from home and save money

According to the home business website Enterprise Nation, you can be at least £30,000 in pocket by starting a business from home when increases in the value of your home and savings on fuel costs and motoring expenses are taken into account.

Supported by research carried out by estate agents, Homefinder UK and motoring experts, The AA, Enterprise Nation reckon that having an office in the house adds an average £28,000 to the value of your home while avoiding the daily commute can save over £2,000 a year. Read more…

Franchisees are entrepreneurs too

There’s a good article by Rachel Elnaugh in the July/August issue of The Franchise Magazine in which she makes a very good case for franchising as a way to realise your entrepreneurial dreams. Rachel’s an entrepreneur herself, having founded the ‘experiences’ company Red Letter Days, and was one the original Dragons in series one and two of Dragons’ Den, so she’s well-placed to understand the pitfalls of starting a new business. Read more…

Women go about their business and take control of their lives

Women in their 30s and 40s are among the most entrepreneurial people in the UK, according to research carried out by the women’s business support network, Prowess. This isn’t a big surprise though when you consider that this is when many women either begin to experience the difficulties of, or simply have enough of, balancing their career with their family responsibilities. Any working woman with children or ageing parents knows only too well how difficult – not to mention expensive – it can be to balance their home-life and their career. Working part-time or in a job share can offer a degree of flexibility but not every career lends itself to such arrangements and, quite rightly, many women are reluctant to compromise their career advancement or salary potential in this way. Read more…