The marketing landscape has changed significantly in the past few years with the shift mainly driven by new technology, changes in customer needs and the evolution of consumer tolerance.

A few years ago marketers were talking about customer relationship management and brand management to drive loyalty and retention. Fast forward a few years and the new buzz words are customer engagement and brand experience. So you may ask, what is the difference? Notice that the words management has evolved into less authoritative terms, engage and experience.

To secure sustained growth an organisation must have the ability to jump S-curves at the right time, doing this effectively separates an organisation from the pack and puts them in the star player category. The ability to climb and jump S-curves distinguishes star players from those who never manage to transform brief periods of accomplishment and single wins into an ongoing series of successes.

The DWP has recently released an updated Work Programme prospectus giving more details of contractual arrangements with providers, but what does this mean to employers?

To summarise, the Work Programme is central to the Government’s plan to reform welfare-to-work provision within the United Kingdom. The programme will replace a large portion of the numerous existing programmes that support unemployed people and will be designed to assist a range of people back into sustained work. Providers will be given the flexibility to design support during the bidding process based on specific customer needs.

The business case study is a much vaunted business development weapon, but what is your experience? For me, a case study is not something that, once completed, should be filed away somewhere as an example of good practice and never used.

With the long awaited emergency budget announcement tomorrow and the last two years of recession, my mind has turned to thinking about what the Government needs to do to encourage and help SMEs through the recovery and into a new period of sustainable growth.