EDITOR’S COMMENT & CONTENTS
CONTENTS
4 THE BUSINESS ZONE News, views and case studies from SMEs around the country
14 HELP IS AT HAND Heart of the City’s Sarah Mitchell on SMEs and corporate responsibility
16 TOO FEW WOMEN We need to deal with the gender problem in the tech industry, says Louise Doherty
18 COVER STORY Britain’s tennis No. 1 Andy Murray on how he is helping support SMEs in the UK
22 WORTH EVERY PENNY SME owners reveal the best investment decisions they have ever made
24 THE £5m CHALLENGE Keely Deininger on how she has grown her children’s fashion brand
26 SWEET TASTE OF SUCCESS How one of Britain’s oldest chocolate makers found new life in Lancashire
28 ONLINE SPECIAL Rafferty Gifford wonders whether your website offerings are as good as they should be
30 GOOD TIME ZOO How a husband-and-wife team transformed Exmoor Zoo into a tourist hotspot
37 A STITCH IN TIME Charlotte Meek on making aprons – and fighting cancer
40 PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT The SME in the south west of England that is helping to look after endangered species
Winter 2017/18 I £4.99
42 YOU AND THE GDPR David Carlson on how to make sure your business is compliant
45 THE SOLUTIONS LAB The best advice from experts in the business world
Editor SME
daniel.evans@publicationsuk.co.uk
INSIDE COULD
YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE PUT CUSTOMERS OFF?
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GAME, SET & MATCHED
Tennis star Andy Murray shares his investment success with up and coming businesses in the UK
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+ BEATING HEART
Sarah Mitchell on how Heart of the City encourages SMEs to support their workforce – and their local community
GENDER IMBALANCE
There are too few women in the tech sector and so the industry is failing to reach its full potential, says Louise Doherty
YOU AND THE GDPR
Data protection laws are going to change next May and if you run a small business, this will certainly affect you
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FIGURING OUT OUR FUTURE A
s data analysis takes over from gut feeling when it comes to business
decisions, some interesting figures have found their way to my desk – or, more accurately, to my computer screen – which confirms my belief that life is going to get tougher for the next and future generations. I realise we have moved on from following your parents into their line of work but we are now looking at people taking on several very different jobs during their career. Much has recently been written about former Guardian editor Peter Preston spending 55 years at the same organisation, something I wager is unlikely to happen again in this century, to anyone. According to the experts
at McKinsey Global Institute, some 15% of the global workforce will need to switch jobs within the next 15 years. By 2030, 75 million to 375 million workers will change occupation categories while another 400 to 800 million could be displaced by automation and will be required to find new jobs entirely. Now I am not a Luddite and realise that,
while some jobs disappear, new ones will be created but a few questions remain: Will workers have the necessary skills to take on these new roles effectively? Will job security be strong enough or will too many worry that they are next for the chop? Will our education and training programmes keep pace with changes needed in the
workforce? What sort of workplace should we expect in future? And how can we shape it to produce more satisfying jobs and more healthy and successful companies?
In their 2017 Future of Work programme, the people at the Royal Society of Arts summed up the challenges rather neatly:
Technology and automation: How might AI and robotics be used to enrich rather than diminish the lives of workers? The social contract: What is the appropriate balance of rights and responsibilities between workers, the state, consumers and employers? Lifelong learning: How can we create an affordable yet effective system of continual learning that can aid career
progression in this new era of work? Worker voice and employee engagement: What would it take to give workers a meaningful stake and voice in their organisations?
Such questions are on the radar for
every SME in the UK and finding the right answers will probably be the difference between staying in business and going over the edge. And, while we at SME Magazine do not claim to know all the answers, we are sure that our analysis and insight in our magazine and on our website will give you a head start over your competitors.
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