The electorate has decided that the UK should leave the EU. How best can SMEs respond to the coming changes? Whether you are pleased with the outcome or dismayed is irrelevant. The decision has been made. What you need to focus on is how best to manage and grow your business in the short to medium term. Long term planning is more difficult as the Brexit option only leads to many uncertainties. The first thing is - Don't Panic. Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems. Every triumph always has at least some form of downside, and every disaster (except perhaps illness and death) is never as black as it first appears. There is almost always some benefit to be found, and things are very rarely as bad as they seem initially. As small business owners we are naturally optimistic people. We would not have started and continued to run our businesses if we were not naturally hopeful. Now is the time to start thinking … [Read more...]
>France – a few things you did not know!
>Name a country with a productive, highly skilled work force. Germany, you say? Sweden? Singapore?You can do better: France."People in France are very well-qualified," says Clara Gaymard, vice-president of government strategy and sales for General Electric International and President and CEO of GE France, in Paris. This U.S. company has had a presence in France for over 40 years, where it employs 10,000 people.According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), France is ranked just after the U.S. and Norway for hourly labor productivity, calculated by dividing gross domestic product by the number of hours worked. This calculation works to France's disadvantage though, as Norway's GDP is inflated by oil revenue, which isn't entirely the fruit of a person's labor.Germany and Sweden, which are both well below France for hourly productivity, along with Singapore, which is lower still, don't even bear comparison, while productivity in Europe's "cheap" destination, Romania, is a … [Read more...]
>France – a few things you did not know!
>Name a country with a productive, highly skilled work force. Germany, you say? Sweden? Singapore?You can do better: France."People in France are very well-qualified," says Clara Gaymard, vice-president of government strategy and sales for General Electric International and President and CEO of GE France, in Paris. This U.S. company has had a presence in France for over 40 years, where it employs 10,000 people.According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), France is ranked just after the U.S. and Norway for hourly labor productivity, calculated by dividing gross domestic product by the number of hours worked. This calculation works to France's disadvantage though, as Norway's GDP is inflated by oil revenue, which isn't entirely the fruit of a person's labor.Germany and Sweden, which are both well below France for hourly productivity, along with Singapore, which is lower still, don't even bear comparison, while productivity in Europe's "cheap" destination, Romania, is a … [Read more...]
