Archive for the ‘SMEs’ Category
Monday, May 14th, 2007
£17b A Year Wasted On Unneccessary Face-To-Face Business Meetings
Polycom, the leader in collaborative communications solutions, today announced results from a ‘Congested Lives’ research study of over 1,200 businesses employees in the UK, indicating that unnecessary face-to-face meetings cost UK businesses £17 billion annually. Additionally the findings of the survey, showed office workers waste 23 days on average each year traveling to and from appointments.
The research shows that two-thirds (67%) of office professionals across the UK travel at least once a week for work-related meetings, and that an overwhelming majority (82%) who have travelled to meetings in the last year believed many of these meetings were unnecessary and could have been accomplished over the phone.
• Nearly a quarter (23%) of those surveyed believe 1-2 hours of their time could be saved each week by not attending off-site meetings, with one in five (21%) saying 3-4 hours of their time could be saved per week and one in ten (11%) believing 5-6 hours could be saved
• Over one half (57%) of people who travel for business say they are less productive in their job as a result
• The vast majority of respondents (88%) of people leaving the office for meetings weekly are board-level executives, followed closely by senior managers or directors (76%)
• 50% of professionals have to plan their work schedule around external meetings, and believe meetings impact the speed at which their company can make business decisions
• 48% say they travel more on business than they did five years ago
• Office workers in London, Yorkshire and The Humber and East Midlands (70%) travel the most for out-of-office meetings and only 53% of office workers in the North East travel for meetings
• Those working as business, management and professional consultants travel the most to off-site meetings (83%). Those working in the retail sector travel the least (46%)
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SMEs, Customer Satisfaction, Industry News, B2B News |
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Tuesday, May 8th, 2007
Microsoft UK recently carried out online research to find out where in Britain most small businesses were being formed and to see if there was any correlation between geographies and the types of vertical sectors that dominated the small business landscape. It also sought to identify how successful small businesses were developing their business and their employees, and where they were investing money to help it succeed further.
Click on the following link to view the highlights of the key findings for each of the UK regions excluding Northern Ireland (regions defined by Government Office) - http://regionalhotspots.co.uk/default.htm (rollover each of the regions to view research findings).
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SMEs |
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Wednesday, April 25th, 2007
Getting a good understanding of market trends is essential if your business is to make the most of its opportunities and remain competitive. You will need to understand your competitors and keep an eye on what they are doing.
To build competitor intelligence try to get information on the following 8 areas:
1. Demand for your product or service - is it growing or shrinking?
2. General economic and market trends.
3. How customer requirements and buying behaviour could change in the future.
4. What new products are in your competitor’s pipeline - could they make yours look outdated?
5. How competitors are changing - what are their plans?
6. What competitors offer and the prices they charge.
7. How your competitors advertise and promote themselves.
8. Any forthcoming legislation which could affect your market.
B2B International are experts in carrying out market research to answer the questions posed above. If you are interested in how we can help your company please visit our website at www.B2B International.com
Posted in
SMEs, Market Assesment |
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Tuesday, April 10th, 2007
This week’s podcast (available at www.themarketresearchpodcast.com - B2B International’s podcast website) discusses the topic of of making your ads work harder. In doing this, it looks at how market research can improve the effectiveness of your advertising.
As well as being able to download the podcast from www.themarketresearchpodcast.com you can also listen to it on this very page. For your convenience we have poasted the mp3 below:
Making Your Ads Work Harder (06:36)
[http://www.themarketresearchpodcast.com/podcasts/b2b_podcast_24.mp3]
Making Your Ads Work Harder (Right Click and Choose Save As - if you wish to download)
Posted in
SMEs, Market Assesment, Branding, Podcast Audio, Market Research |
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Tuesday, March 6th, 2007
This week’s podcast (available at www.themarketresearchpodcast.com - B2B International’s podcast website) looks at the issue of differentiation and ‘how to avoid competing on price’.
For your convenience you can listen to this Podcast using the player below or visit our podcasting site.
How To Avoid Competing On Price (24:49)
[http://www.themarketresearchpodcast.com/podcasts/b2b_podcast_19.mp3]
How To Avoid Competing On Price (Right Click and Choose Save As - if you wish to download)
Posted in
SMEs, Pricing Strategy, Market Assesment, Market Research |
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