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.  (more…)

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.

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’. (more…)

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. (more…)

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. (more…)

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…)

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…)

Despite its apparently epoch-making levels of tediousness, Mr Darling’s first Budget was actually pretty good news for anybody thinking about starting up and running their own business. In addition to the usual plans to tax all the fun out of our lives, there were a number of new initiatives and pledges of cash designed to kick-start the UK’s nascent entrepreneurial culture and to encourage innovation and wealth creation. (more…)

Reassuring news for anybody who is thinking off setting up a new business from home in 2008. You’re not alone and, what’s more, your aspiration is key to the UK’s economic future. According to a new survey carried out by the website, Enterprise Nation, home-based businesses account for 60% of new start-ups, with professional services like Auditel accounting for many of these. (more…)

The greatest challenge any business faces – especially a small, newly-established business – is cash-flow. Profits are neither here nor there if the money isn’t in your account when you actually need it. As most businesses have a ‘seasonal’ element, with peaks and troughs of demand, this instability is an added pressure small business owners could well do without. Just because the majority of your income is generated in one or two short bursts during the year, doesn’t mean bills stop coming in during the quiet times.
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