Company Spotlight: IndigoBlue

Among those joining us for our next event on Wednesday 14^th at Buttle UK will be the Head of Public Sector Services at IndigoBlue, a leading agile technology consultancy.

Since their conception, IndigoBlue has been at the forefront of a number of cutting edge projects in the UK, working with a wide range of clients from the British Council to IPC Media to BrightHouse. They are the current holders of the prestigious Agile Consultancy of the Year award.

IndigoBlue believe that change within their clients' businesses should be driven by the clients themselves, rather than prescribed at the beginning of their relationship and then imposed. They believe that this will help businesses to achieve self-sufficiently much earlier than would otherwise be expected.

With a focus on hands-on development of skills and experience, they provide their clients with the skills and insight needed to transform successfully to digital organisations, creating a dynamic culture and structure to allow businesses to more effectively respond to their customer's needs.

Agile Management

IndigoBlue operates under the principles of Agile Management, an umbrella terms for a set of ideas, principles and methodologies for developing software which share a common philosophy. Examples of Agile methodologies include Adaptive Software Development and Pragmatic Programming.

The term was invented in 2001 by a group of 'luminaries' in the field of software development. They recognised that they held similar views and met to agree on their areas of commonality. This meeting was concluded by the signing of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, a document which summarised their approach to software development and introduced the term Agile to combine their ideas.

The core principle of the manifesto is that 'a project should continually and incrementally deliver value to the customer'. IndigoBlue works with organisations to fully embed Agile. They have developed and refined a number of ideas to help people understand how and why Agile works, and enable projects to be governed without compromising the agility of the approach.

Key Ideas:

• Collaboration,
• incremental planning,
• and dynamic uncertainty management.

For example, the Agile Manifesto promotes 'working software over comprehensive documentation' – i.e. the need for iterative, incremental delivery. A good Agile project reduces time to market and maximises early value, delivering regular increments. Therefore, incremental planning is seen as critical to success. It provides clear direction to the project and involves a more thorough understanding and management of value then is normally required on a more traditional project.

Click here to see our membership packages or leave a comment below.

Our next event will be at Buttle UK on 14th September. We hope to see you there!

Business Today

Philip Hammond to make autumn statement on 23 November

Philip Hammond will present his first budget statement as Chancellor of the Exchequer on 23 November, setting out how the government will use tax and spending plans to shore up the UK economy after the vote to leave the EU. Appearing before a House of Lords committee, Hammond hinted that he would use the autumn statement to create room for the government to step in to support the economy as households and businesses absorb the shock of the referendum result. The statement will be accompanied by the latest forecasts for the economy and public finances from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). Economists expect the OBR’s outlook for growth to be significantly lower than at the time of the March budget.

UK trade deficit shrinks in July

The UK trade deficit shrank from £5.6bn in June to £4.5bn in July, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The narrowed gap reflects a 2% increase in exports of goods and services, with imports falling by 0.5% to £48.3bn. The value of the pound fell sharply in the wake of the Brexit vote, which should make British products cheaper abroad, however the ONS said that it was too early to make firm conclusions.

Read more: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/bulletins/uktrade/july2016

More than 900,000 UK workers now on zero-hours contracts

According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), 903,000 of the employed workforce are on zero-hour contracts, up from 747,000 in 2015, suggesting that insecure employment is becoming a bigger feature in the jobs market. In response, TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said that the government needed to provide workers ‘living at the sharp end of the labour market’ with extra support.

Sports Direct's biggest investors want independent review

Shareholders in Sports Direct have notified founder Mike Ashley and chairman Keith Hellawell that they want a full independent review of working practices and governance after City investors voted for Hellawell’s removal. At a summit on Wednesday, the Investor Forum, which represents the company’s institutional shareholders, told the board that a further review being carried out by a law firm linked to the company would not be enough.

Want to future-proof your career? Be a life-long student

Lifelong learning is becoming more and more important in a world where the work force is on of ‘rapid knowledge obsolescence’, according to futurist and speaker Jim Carroll. He suggests that we need to ‘continue to reinvent ourselves, by updating our skills in order to maintain our relevance’ throughout our working lives. He says that it is not only employees that need to adapt, but also universities, colleges and employers in order to stay competitive and compete in the fast-paced world of modern business. The key, he suggests, is to emphasize certain skill sets as opposed to degrees.

German exports fall in July after global demand weakens

In July, German seasonally adjusted exports fell sharply in July by 2.6% compared with the previous month, posting their steepest drop since August 2015, after the country’s goods saw lower global demand. Industrial orders barely rose in July and output fell sharply, with demand for goods dropping the most from countries outside the EU. Despite the slowdown, the country still posted a €19.4bn

Read more: https://www.destatis.de/EN/PressServices/Press/pr/2016/09/PE16_315_51.html;jsessionid=E2D0AA944C02849AA134B47DDF032AEE.cae4

Construction output flatlines in July in wake of EU referendum

In yet more news from the Office of National Statistics (ONS), recent data on construction covering the period after the Brexit vote shows zero output growth from the sector in July. However, this was better than the 0.8 contraction predicted by City of London analysts and broke a two month run of declining output. The ONS had estimated that construction, which accounts for around 6% of the UK economy, contracted in the first two quarters of 2016, dragging on overall GDP growth, although new revisions now suggest output grew in the first quarter.

ECB keeps interest rates at 0%

The European Central Bank (ECB) has left interest rates in the Eurozone unchanged. However, they have not ruled out more cuts in the coming months and have renewed calls for politicians to do more to support the economic bloc’s recovery.

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-stocks-idUKKCN11F13W

In Other News:

• Wetherspoons founder launches scathing attack on EU as pub chain announces record profits - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-wetherspoons-tim-martin-uk-eu-trade-deal-a7233481.html
• Former Tesco directors charged with fraud over accounting scandal - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/09/sfo-charges-former-tesco-directors-with-fraud
• UK expectations for rate hikes lowest on record - http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-boe-inflation-idUKKCN11F0YZ

Click here to see our membership packages or leave a comment below.

Our next event will be at Buttle UK on 14^th September. We hope to see you there!

How to Use Social Media Effectively in Your Business

Social media is no longer just the domain of high schoolers and hipsters posting about Sunday brunch. There over 3 billion internet users, over 2 billion of which have active social media accounts. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and even Snapchat have become vital to success in the business world, particularly for start-ups and those looking to extend brand awareness beyond their core audiences.

In 2011, Hiscox commissioned a study looking at business usage of social media with responses from 305 owners, partners and senior decision makers from UK SMEs with between 1- 249 employees. They found that 57% of small businesses use social media in their marketing with the most common purpose being to increase brand awareness and boost sales. Facebook was the most popular platform with 19% using it for business related activity, compared to 14% using LinkedIn. These figures have only increased in more recent years.

Social media is mostly free and can provide businesses with valuable metrics about their customers and the ways in which they engage with specific content. In fact, social media generates a massive amount of data about your customers and their online habits in real time, every day.

Engagement

Through daily active engagement and ‘social listening’, you can gather customer data and use that information to make smarter, better informed decisions about your business. This means directly interacting with customers to find out what they’re talking about, what they want and how they use your products. Respond to tweets, ask questions and follow hashtags.

There are many tools that you can utilise to make analysing the data collected by social media platforms easier, in order to gauge customer reactions to content, tap into conversations happening around your brand, and find out what works and what doesn’t. For example, Hootsuite Insights enables users to gather together information from across all their social media platforms in real time and in one place.

Social Media Listening

Basically, social listening means actively seeking out what is being said about a company, brand, topic or person on social media channels. This could mean anything from tracking mentions of your company on Facebook to keeping track of trends in your industry that competitors are posting about on Twitter and LinkedIn.

There are many ways to engage in social listening. You could set up Google Alerts to track keywords in your industry or use Social Mention to monitor over 100 sources to measure what people are saying about you and your business. TweetReach offers basic, easy to use listening tools and ViralHeat allows you to not only listen to conversations about your brand but also to ‘identify trends to drive insights around your social media performance’.

Social media listening can massively aid in customer care – if you are actively hearing what your customers are saying, you can jump in and solve problems or just engage with your happy, satisfied customers. In the same vein, it provides direct access to feedback and can generate higher converting leads, through solving problems and highlighting your great customer service to future customers.

Targeted Advertising

Advertising on social media can be targeted towards specific demographics, promoting your business and distributing content to the people who you most want to reach. And then you can track and measure the performance of those ads in real time, allowing you to measure whether your desired audience are responding well to the copy and design.

For example, an ad campaign on Facebook can be targeted by location, age, interests, behaviours and friends among many others, making your advertising more effective. So if your company sells, for example, textbooks to university students and is based in Cambridge, you can ask Facebook to show your ads to people who are students at Cambridge University or are based in Cambridge and have expressed an interest in higher education.

Top Tips

1. Build your channels early. Start as you mean to go on – become a resource for information and a trusted communicator right from the start.

2. Find your audience. Different audiences can be found on different platforms so figure out where your target market can be found and focus on those platforms. For example, younger audiences are more likely to be found on Snapchat and Instagram, whilst older demographics tend to favour Twitter and Facebook.

3. Discover and create relationships with influencers. It’s not just what you know, but who you know.

4. Be a part of the conversation. Know what people are talking about and actively interact with them – social media is all about community and the personal touch.

More Information

How to Use Social Media to Boost Business - https://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2013/aug/29/social-media-boost-business-tips

20 Social Media Marketing Tips from the Pros - http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-tips-pros/

The Top 10 Benefits of Social Media Marketing - http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/11/the-top-10-benefits-of-social-media-marketing/#2f67f83d2a4d

Company Spotlight: Buttle UK

In their own words, Buttle UK focuses on 'maintenance, education and advancement
 in life of children and young people who through poverty and family circumstances are in need of, and will benefit significantly from, Buttle UK’s support'.

Buttle UK was founded on the vision of an East End clergyman who endeavoured to raise £1m to 'launch 1,000 children a year out of poverty'. His name was Rev Frank Buttle and he died on February 1953 when he was just £80,000 away from his original target. This money was used as an endowment to fund the charity as it exists today and is now worth almost £50m.

The endowment was set up to be permanent, meaning that the Trustees are required to balance the potential needs of future beneficiaries of the fund with current ones. The fund therefore can never be fully spent but has been re-invested and multiplied countless times since its inception, creating an income which the Trust then spends on an annual basis. As they have grown, Buttle UK have expanded Frank Buttle's original vision to include research and project work, but the core of their work remains providing support and relief through grant aid.

In their 2014/15 review, they note that in the previous year, they 'gave out more than 11,000 grants worth a total of £3.7 million' but that in the future they plan to do even more. Recent projects include ground-breaking research on 'kinship carers' and a study into the effects of boarding school places for vulnerable children.

Key Areas of Focus

Their key areas of focus include:

• boarding places,
• domestic abuse,
• emergency essentials,
• estranged young people,
• and kinship care.

In 2015, Buttle UK launched 'Boarding Chances for Children', funded by the Education Endowment Foundation. This is a research project looking into the ways in which boarding schools can 'offer a transformative experience for certain groups of vulnerable children'. The charity is currently working with local authorities to place children at boarding schools starting from year 7 in September 20-17. In comparison with the majority of children in care, only 15% of which achieve 5 good GCSEs, 60-70% of children supported by Buttle UK to attend boarding school achieve at least 5 good GCSEs.

Buttle UK also runs the BBC Children in Need Emergency Essentials Programme, providing quick and direct financial support, in collaboration with their Small Grants scheme. The programme provides up to £300 for families or young people who are 'living in crisis', helping to alleviate stress caused by financial pressure and help families buy essentials such as white goods or even beds. Buttle UK's extensive network of 5,000 frontline partner agencies allows them to target funds to reach the most vulnerable children and young people in the UK; 28,057 children were helped by the charity within the last year alone.

Kinship carers refer to those who are taking care of the children of relatives because their parents can no longer look after them. A study commissioned by Buttle UK, conducted by the University of Bristol and funded by the Big Lottery Fund revealed in 2001 that approximately 173,200 children were living in this kind of situation. Changes in policy and demographics mean that this number has increased over time and with no statutory provision for local authorities to make provision for them, many kinship carers receive no formal support.

Buttle UK are developing projects to help carers meet the specific needs of children in these arrangements and are currently able to provide extra support to kinship carers in Northern Ireland as well as some parts of Scotland and Wales.

Click here to see our membership packages or leave a comment below.

Our next event will be at Buttle UK on 14th September. We hope to see you there!

Business Today

BHS closes its doors for the last time

The final 22 remaining BHS stores finally closed on Sunday 28 August, ending the department store's 88-year high street history. BHS rose from humble beginnings as an affordable general store in Brixton to become one of the stalwarts of British retail. However, a recent collapse into administration in April saw it become one of Britain's biggest retail failures since Woolworths. While staff oversaw the final closing-down sales, former owner Sir Philip Green continued his holiday in the Mediterranean on board his new £100m yacht. The retail tycoon has been accused of 'plundering' the company and described as an 'asset stripper'. The Serious Fraud Office is currently investigating whether the collapse was caused by fraud or deception.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37207481

Southern rail owners report £99m profits, despite widespread misery for commuters

Go-Ahead, that company that owns Southern Rail operator Govia Thameslink Railway has reported a 21 per cent jump in pre-tax profits to £99.8 million, while revenues for the 12 months to July 2 rose 4.5 per cent to £3.4 billion. The results sent the FTSE 250 company's shares surging by 8.6 per cent. This is likely to anger commuters who have suffered months of delays, cancellations and chaos exacerbated by strikes sparked by an industrial dispute between the RMT union and GTR.

Read more: http://www.ft.com/fastft/2016/09/02/go-ahead-apologies-over-southern-rail-strife/

UK factories bounce back from Brexit shock

A closely watched measure of factory activity swung to a 10-month high in August from a 41-month low recorded in July, suggesting that manufacturers quickly shrugged off the shock of the vote to leave the EU in June. However, there were signs a weaker pound was stoking inflation and raising the cost of imported materials for UK factories.

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-britain-economy-pmi-idUKKCN1174B7

FTSE rises as house builders and miners rally

UK shares rose on Thursday as house builders rallied and mining stocks rose on recovering metals prices. The blue chip FTSE 100 index .FTSE was up 0.3 percent at 6,799.70 points by 0903 GMT, slightly under-performing the wider European market. Data on Wednesday had shown British house prices rose more than expected in August.

UK hiring remains subdued after Brexit vote

According to recruitment firm Hays, hiring of new permanent staff in the UK has stalled following the decision to leave the EU. Alistair Cox, Hays’ chief executive, said some sectors, and particularly businesses based in London, had been hit particularly hard. However, in its temporary jobs business, activity levels in the UK had remained broadly at pre-referendum levels.

Big energy firms are best at dealing with complaints

Some of Britain's biggest energy suppliers are within the best at dealing with customer complaints. A Citizen's Advice league table shows that the SSE had the lowest level of complaints at 22.5 per 100,000 customers. They were closely followed by EDF, British Gas and E.On in second, fourth and fifth place respectively. A small supplier, Extra Energy, was worst of all the 21 firms measured, with a complaints rate that was 80 times greater than that of SSE.

Brown shoes and loud ties 'hinder investment banking hopefuls'

A report by the Social Mobility Commission found that candidates who wear brown shoes, "loud" ties or ill-fitting suits can fall foul of "opaque" codes of conduct at investment banks. It said that firms recruiting for front of office roles tend only to hire those from a few elite universities and those who 'fit in'. The report found that, when interviewing candidates for client-facing roles, managers often select those who fit the traditional image of an investment banker.

In Other News:

• Barclays Accused Of Making $3bn ‎Loan To Fund Qatar Share Deal http://news.sky.com/story/barclays-accused-of-making-3bn-8206loan-to-fund-qatar-share-deal-10561352
• Berkeley Group set to drop out of FTSE 100 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37228778
• Fund manager backs MP's plan to rein in executive pay https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/01/fund-manager-backs-mps-plan-to-rein-in-executive-pay
• Peer-to-peer giant Zopa cuts lending rates after interest rate cut http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/01/peer-to-peer-giant-zopa-cuts-lending-rates-after-interest-rate-c/

Click here to see our membership packages or leave a comment below.

Our next event will be at Buttle UK on 14^th September. We hope to see you there!

Welcome to the Brain Exchange!

About Us

Founded in October 2013, the Brain Exchange is an exclusive, diverse and high quality network for experienced business professionals. We are focused on solving problems and developing ideas through real, face-to-face connections and a passion for collaboration, learning and knowledge exchange. Busy, experienced business people come to our events to relax, reflect and review their situation honestly.

Join the Circle

No two meetings are the same – the participants, venue and topic change every time. Each group is comprised of a small, diverse group of people with a range of business skills and experiences to bring to the debate. With the benefit of professional moderation in a confidential, relaxing environment, the group focuses on a work-based issue presented by a member and as a team, participants analyse the issue and work towards a practicable solution.

By becoming a member, you gain access to a wealth of ideas and different perspectives on a range of business topics. Our events provide members with experiential learning about effective problem-solving and teamwork, as well as a new ideas for their business and their own professional development. We also offer regular interaction with the wider Brain Exchange community via an exclusive online forum and regular e-newsletters.

Our Blog

Every week we will be posting a variety of articles on our new blog from news round-ups to tips to interviews of high profile business people with something to say.

Mondays will be a profile of a business or person, Wednesdays will feature tips and advice for a successful business, and Fridays will be our weekly news round-up day. And look out for special Thursday posts after a meeting, where we offer a summary of what was discussed and any useful conclusions that the group reached.


Click here to see our membership packages or leave a comment below with any questions.

Our next event will be at Buttle UK on 14^th September. We hope to see you there!