BT Business Direct

While the war of words regarding Twitter bowing to censorship pressure from dictatorial governments continues to rage, the UK is continuing to celebrate a thus-far uninterrupted right to free speech when it comes to social media. The latest example of this is the UK Supreme Court, which is getting with the times in quite a [...]

Recently we’ve been reading a lot about how the UK’s small businesses are using e-commerce, and have come across some surprising statistics. While the bulk of the week’s headlines have been about the UK’s position in Europe, research also suggests that SMEs here are flagging on the e-commerce front.  A study has shown that only [...]

How are other small businesses using it? Last week we looked at factors to consider when starting an online business – which got us to thinking about small business and social media. In the past year, we’ve seen a rise in the number of businesses using social media as part of their marketing strategies. Before [...]

 A couple of weeks ago we wrote about how UK companies are continuing to invest into their workforce even though many of them are finding it is difficult to recruit the right employees for a position.  Regardless of this skills shortage that many employers seem to be experiencing, seven out of ten businesses will be [...]

Everyone likes to be rewarded for their good work and, if your efforts are not being rewarded, or at least acknowledged, it can be extremely de-motivating.  So it is a shame to learn that a new study has shown that nearly three quarters of workers feel their employer either takes their efforts for granted or [...]

I think most of us will agree that it isn’t exactly the best time for small businesses in the UK. Combine, soaring unemployment rates, the biggest inflation rise for 20 years, and the prospect of energy prices increasing and this suggests a fairly gloomy state of affairs. This week it was also revealed that lending [...]

A few months ago, we wrote a blog post about whether or not working from home can help your work/life balance and many of you agreed that it does, however you also highlighted a key challenge: productivity. Based on the feedback that we received from this post, we decided to take a closer look at [...]

We are starting to see more and more people take the entrepreneurial route to business – for some it is the lure of the work/life balance, for others it is the freedom of a flexible schedule. Unsurprisingly, for most the biggest reason for entrepreneurs to start their own business is the feeling of being free [...]

Flicking through the pages of the May issue of Management Today, I noticed a discussion about the importance of reputation management for businesses. While those involved in the debate were used to managing the reputations of big businesses, there are still plenty of things that SMBs can learn from the article. The key point I [...]

One technology that has been growing quietly  in recent years is Unified Communications or UC. While traditionally the reserve of big businesses, UC technology has become more affordable every year, bringing it within the reach of even the smallest of businesses. The biggest names in enterprise UC, such as Cisco, have also been touting their [...]