EREC 2008 will be the UK’s largest executive recruitment exhibition. It’s being held at the Business Design Centre in Islington and will be open 12pm-7pm on Thursday 26th June and 10am-6pm on Friday 27th June.

Representatives from the Auditel support team - our MD, Chris Allison, our Business Development Manager, Ed Brewer, our Commercial Director, Derek Chisnall and our Facilities Services Director, Howard Ward - will be at the show on both days to discuss executive franchise opportunities within the Auditel network. If you’d like to meet with them, register your interest to get in for free, and they’ll be on Stand 58.

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. (more…)

Management consultants looking for new opportunities can visit a virtual careers fair tomorrow, Friday 20th June, being hosted by Top-Consultant.com. You’ll need to pre-register but once you’ve done that will be free to ‘wander’ around exhibition booths and chat with representatives from over 50 of the UK’s top consultancy organisations including Accenture, Ernst & Young and, of course, Auditel. 

To pre-register and for more information, click here. You’ll be able to visit our ’stand’ to find out more about starting your own consultancy practice as an Auditel franchisee from 9am and our Recruitment Manager, Ed Brewer, will be online to chat throughout the day.

Most organisations, like most individuals, assume that the cost of their essential business services is the amount that appears on their monthly or quarterly bill. In reality though, the real cost is likely to be much higher. This is because it includes lots of hidden costs, such as the cost of checking the invoices for overcharges and errors, the cost of paying for services that don’t meet their needs or are over-specificed, the cost of missing opportunities to make savings because they don’t know where to look or how to successfully implement changes, the cost of sorting out mistakes, the cost of falling onto default rates or getting tied into unreasonable contracts, the cost of poor service and so on. (more…)

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. (more…)