Black Friday

5 things to expect from Black Friday

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This Friday marks one of the biggest shopping days of the year. Is Christmas really coming early for Britain’s retailers? Here’s what they can expect.

Bargain hunters have their credit cards ready. The holiday season kicks off this week with Black Friday – one of the biggest shopping days of the year.

‘You have to join in with Black Friday but it’s not a trend I particularly enjoy,’ admits Ted Baker founder Ray Kelvin. ‘The Americans brought us over Halloween in a big way and now we have Black Friday – I think the second one is scarier!’

Are retailers right to be fearful? Here’s what we can expect from Black Friday:

BREAKING RECORDS

Despite tightened household budgets, Britons are expected to set another retail record on Black Friday by spending an estimated £2.6bn – or £1.8m per minute – according to forecasts by VoucherCodes and the Centre for Retail Research (CRR). That’s an 8% increase on the £2.4bn spent last year.
Read more at here.

House on Field Green Lane

Gross negligence manslaughter: ‘Precedent set’ as technician jailed in gate installation case

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A technician who fitted an automated gate to the garden of a house near Norwich has been jailed for manslaughter after it fell onto the home owner and killed her.

Jill Lunn, 56, died in April 2013, when the automatic gate fell on her at her home in Blofield Heath, near Norwich.

When the remote-controlled automatic mechanism failed, Mrs Lunn tried to pull the 300kg iron gate closed. However, safety-stop devices had not been fitted to prevent it sliding off a steel track on the ground when opened by hand.

Precedent

The gate was installed by Robert Churchyard, 52, who was working for Automated Garage Doors & Gates Ltd. He had worked for the company for 20 years. Both he and the company were found guilty of safety offences at Norwich Crown Court in September. They were sentenced yesterday.

Churchyard was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for manslaughter by gross negligence; the company was fined £12,000 for breaching the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008.

Read more here.

The Apprentice

Four crucial business lessons from The Apprentice

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The new UK series of The Apprentice aired on October 2 with the latest batch of determined candidates, all vying for a life-changing job opportunity with Lord Sugar and 15 minutes of fame.

As well as being a great source of entertainment, the programme also provides a wonderful insight into business and some valuable lessons on how to succeed in the workplace. With this in mind Peninsula Founder and Managing Director Peter Done provides his top four business lessons we can learn from watching The Apprentice:

1. Be a team player

Being an effective team player can really help your chances of succeeding in the workplace.

Your role within a team can vary; sometimes you might be required to lead and on other occasions, you will be asked to work in the background organising things or carrying out certain tasks.

We have seen numerous times on The Apprentice where an individual candidate ignores their designated role and instead aims for a leadership position. This often leads to tension and friction within the team and can have a negative impact on the job in hand. Ultimately, a good team player can lead when required but ultimately puts the team’s objectives above their own.

Read more here.

WHSmith

WH Smith: Bad carpets, good business

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Though much maligned, WHSmith has found a way of making the best of a bad situation.

There’s an established narrative of corporate decline and fall: incumbent grows bloated and stale; innovative, ambitious new competitors seduce its customers, leaving it overstretched; losses mount, debt piles up, talent departs, death spiral ensues.

WHSmith stands as a curious exception to this pattern. It long ago lost its place in customers’ hearts. Overpriced and understaffed, its stores have become a byword for shabby un-chic – overpriced, understaffed and adorned with disastrous, tattered carpets that seem to have a life of their own.

Yet every year, WHSmith seems to reports rising profits and rising dividends, largely because of a near-miraculous ability to find new costs to cut. Methuselah-like, it just refuses to die.

Find out more here.

Marketing attribution

70% of marketers can’t act on attribution insights

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Almost three-quarters of marketers are struggling to use the insights they get from marketing attribution, according to research by AdRoll.

The firm’s study, The State of Marketing Attribution 2017, found the proportion of those who said they don’t action the insights they get from attribution was 70% during this year, up from 57% in 2016.

But the survey did find the percentage of businesses using attribution modelling on the majority or all of their campaigns has risen from 31% in 2016 to 39% today.

The research identified the primary barrier for businesses not carrying out marketing attribution was lack of knowledge, cited by 59%, and the limitations of technology, which was an issue for 53%.

Read more here.

Sales

Do you know what sales really do with your leads?

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Almost half of B2B marketers say their top challenge is making sure their sales teams follow-up and convert the leads they create.

In this exclusive research, carried out by B2B Marketing in association with Cyance, we reveal B2B marketers’ biggest hurdles and frustrations with the way sales deal with the leads they’re sent – and how to overcome them.

Download this free study to find out:

  • Why leads not being followed up promptly is the number one concern for B2B marketers
  • The reason why almost half of marketers still send leads straight to sales without scoring them
  • The average time it takes sales to follow up on qualified leads send by sales
  • How many organisations are still operating without definition of what makes a qualified lead
  • How predictive marketing can tackle many of the frustrations marketers have around lead management.

Find out more and download the report here.

Emergency Planning

Emergency planning: ready for anything

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The Management Regulations expect many organisations to draw up an emergency plan, while COMAH sites will have to go further in preparing for worst case scenarios. Steve Pace outlines the steps employers need to take.

The impacts of an emergency on an organisation, its employees, third parties and the public can be profound: the events of this summer have provided ample evidence of that.

A key focus in organisations’ responses to the risks they face is to implement measures to prevent incidents from occurring. However, in spite of all best efforts, there will remain a risk that an emergency does happen, and all organisations should prepare for such an eventuality. Events at Manchester Arena (pictured above), London’s Borough Market or, indeed, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, demonstrate the need for organisations to be resilient and responsive.

This article looks at what organisations should consider to anticipate and prepare for an emergency and to manage one; to mitigate the effects on people and the environment; and to minimise the affect on the business.

The key pieces of legislation that give duties to employers on emergency preparedness are the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (the Management Regulations) and the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations (COMAH). Also relevant in this area is the Civil Contingencies Act, and associated regulations in the Civil Contingencies Act (Contingency Planning) Regulations. This legislation specifies the roles of parties that will be involved, and their duties as responders in an emergency,  including the emergency services, local authorities, the NHS, the HSE, and transport and utilities companies.

Read more here.

Delegation

Get a handle on delegation

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‘It’ll take longer to explain to someone else how to do it, so I just do it myself.’ We’ve heard it many times, but in today’s collaborative business context, it’s not an approach that is generally productive

So says Denise Fryer, programme director for the Henley Business School Developing Management Practice (DMP) programme.

You need to consider whether you are doing your own job effectively, and why delegation is needed. But as well as maximising time efficiency, delegation can develop the skills of your team and its members, build morale, and ensure that the best person is being used for each task.

Self-awareness improves team capabilities

Understanding team members’ capabilities is key, but the process often needs to start closer to home, so part of our programme looks at your own individual styles, strengths and weaknesses, and understand where delegation would yield positive benefits.

We also consider reasons why you tend not to delegate, such as control freakery, lack of resource or time. Having confidence in the capability of every team member is essential, so the recruitment or development process has to be sound too.

Communication is key

Clearer planning and better communication will usually help overcome the panic to get things done quickly, so we look at a range of issues to help managers find positive solutions.

Expectations have to be realistic and all parties must be clear about what success will look like, and how and when progress will be reviewed.

When it’s used to best effect, delegation is a powerful tool for building performance across a team, so in such a competitive environment, neither you nor your organisation can afford to ignore it.

Find out more here.

Leadership development

Leadership development is stuck in the dark ages

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Today’s bosses need better help to deal with new technologies, working practices and generational shift.

The modern workplace has become complex, volatile and unpredictable. The skills needed for great leadership have dramatically changed and include intelligent behaviours, adaptive thinking and emotional intelligence. However, the methods being used to develop our leaders have not really changed at all.

Bosses are facing increasing challenges – information overload, complex and competing objectives, new technologies that disrupt old work practices and the associated differing values and expectations of new generations entering the workplace. Not to mention increased globalisation and the need to lead and build effective teams across cultures.

Still primarily developed through on-the-job experiences, training, coaching and ‘360-degree’ feedback, our leaders are simply not developing fast enough or in the right ways to match the new environment. Supported by a growing belief among senior executives and up and coming talent that the leadership programs they are attending are insufficient, we need to completely redefine our approach to developing the leaders of tomorrow.

The renowned business thinker Marshall Goldsmith has commented, ‘Many of our leadership programs are based on the faulty assumption that if we show people what to do, they can automatically do it.’

However, there is a difference between knowing what “good” leadership looks like and being able to do it. We have arrived at a point where we face diminishing returns from teaching managers more about leadership, when they still have little understanding about what is required for real development to occur.

Read more here.

GDPR

GDPR: 8 things you need to do right now

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The juggernaut that is the GDPR is heading your way – not even Brexit can stop it – and your organisation needs to be ready. Paul Snell highlights eight things you can do straight away to make sure you don’t get caught in the headlights.

As much as you might like to close your eyes, put your fingers in your ears and pretend it’s not happening, it’s only a matter of months until the GDPR comes into force across Europe.

This new data protection law will significantly affect the way B2B marketers collect and process personal data, and imposes some seriously significant fines for non-compliance – up to €20 million or 4% of annual global turnover, whichever is larger. It introduces new and strengthened rights for individuals with regard to their data, imposes tougher obligations on firms in terms of data security and privacy, and creates a higher standard of consent for using personal data. But alarmingly, with less than a year to go in May, just a third of marketing and advertising business had even heard of it.

Our essential free download, Getting to grips with the GDPR: A B2B marketer’s guide, aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the regulation, its implications, and practical steps that can be taken to prepare. In the meantime, here are eight things you can do straight away to get on the path to compliance.

Eight practical steps to begin GDPR compliance:

1. Carry out an information audit

Look at how your organisation collects and uses information. Where is data collected and stored? Who’s able to access this data? What security measures do you currently have in place?

2. Raise awareness within your organisation

Most employees will have some connection to personal data the organisation holds and processes. Ensure they understand changes are coming, and the potential impact this could have on the business – and the potential penalties. Make sure senior management is engaged in the process, and establish cross-functional teams to tackle the challenges.

3. Review your privacy policies and statements

Look at what you currently tell users about how you use their data, and assess how far this goes to complying with the GDPR.

Find out more here.