The FSB ‘Voice of Small Business’ survey revealed that small businesses still have difficulties finding suitably skilled staff despite a steep rise in unemployment. In order to solve this global crisis, businesses will have to look at new flexible approaches as a knowledge driven work environment makes it much harder to find the right person for the job, regardless of geographical location or business size.

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.

The ultimate outcome of an effective CRM strategy should be customer loyalty and increased customer life time value, which will positively contribute to your bottom line.

As a rule it is more expensive to recruit a new customer than to re-serve an existing customer, as the relationship of trust already exists. It therefore makes good business sense to spend some time on developing a CRM strategy that engages your customers.

I read an article a few days ago about how you can build Emotional Capital on your balance sheet by inspiring everyone connected to an organisation. Even though emotional commitment is very important, I see something wide of the mark with this approach.

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.

In cut-throat markets small improvements in your business processes can put you ahead of the competition. But it’s important to decide which process are the ones that matter. Once identified you’ll have to develop the disciplines to manage and also sustain these processes.

In the current economic climate, many businesses can find it challenging to secure finance, even potential high growth businesses might find it more tricky than normal. It is therefore very important to ensure that you are thoroughly prepared for meetings with possible investors.

To a business owner growth is most often an exciting prospect, but before you get carried away I’d like to make you aware of the pitfalls of sudden excessive growth so that you are able to manage your risk and optimise your business growth over the long-term

More often than not growth is driven by leaders who inspire their teams to be more effective and to contribute to the overall goal of a business. On the other hand it is quite easy for leaders to get caught up in the business instead of focussing on leadership and growth.

If your business is doing just ok, but you’d like it to do more than just ok, it’s often more productive to take a step back and look at things from a different angle.

Payback time has arrived for years of government overspending and in particular the bail out of the banking system. The economy is no different from any household in that it cannot borrow forever; indeed banks often tell their borrowers, in return to the riposte of “well you are earning interest from us”, that they ultimately would like their money back.