It is active giving week in Ulster Bank What better way to start the One Week In June campaign, than a charity staff GAA battle of the provinces in Croke Park. A total of 68 players were picked from across the bank, who each gave donations and fundraised to support the month-long initiative. Our Ulster Bank GAA Ambassadors Finian Hanley (Galway) Thomas McElroy (Fermanagh) and Karl Lacey (Donegal) along with Ray Boyne (Dublin Selector) took up the managerial positions for each province and there was a real competitive edge from [...]
Small Business and Cloud Computing
Are you taking advantage of the cloud in your organization? Cloud computing can help level the playing field between small businesses and large corporations by giving smaller firms access to software and services that may be too expensive to license outright. Currently, only 30 percent of small businesses are using paid cloud services, and another 14 percent are using it for email only. These numbers are expected to rise in the next 2-3 years, however, as 48 percent of SMEs have plans to start using the cloud, at least in [...]
How to Make Your Business More Eco Friendly
The number of small businesses throughout the UK trying to ‘go green’ has almost doubled in the last two years, according to recent research, with many of them planning become more and more environmentally friendly in years to come. This is great news for the environment, but actually lowering a business’ ‘carbon footprint’ can be something that’s easier said than done when it comes to small and start-up business, what with limited resources in both funding and technology. Ensuring your business is eco-friendly reflects well on you, it could be [...]
Social Enterprise Award finalist – Bryson Charitable Group
Bryson is Northern Ireland’s leading social enterprise, making a real difference to people’s lives for over 100 years and is now the 3rd largest social enterprise in the UK. Operating seven distinct businesses with a combined turnover of £35m, it uses a modern business model to tackle our major socio-economic challenges; caring for vulnerable people and families, eradicating fuel poverty, getting people back into employment, assisting asylum-seekers, supporting black and minority ethnic families and enabling people to recycle. It is one of Northern Ireland’s largest employers with an annual turnover [...]
Recommended Not To Read Business Books; At Least the Sun Was Shining
I saw a video of Jason Silva talking about lots of things but what struck me about his talk was how he talks about “awe”. Awe makes you happy, awe is necessary; in fact awe resets the brain. Which probably explains why really good business books make me happy and bad books make me grumpy. It is awe. Awe of the new ideas, the new insights, the awe of realising how little we know, the awe of the inspiration, the story, the guts and the awe of the learning. And [...]
QED Training
As part of an effort to increase employment throughout the country, FÁS launched the Momentum Initiative late in 2012. It is an initiative designed to train and equip 6,500 people with the necessary skills and tools to move off of the live register and back into employment. As part of Momentum QED Training are delivering a programme called “Don’t Just Get A Job, Build A Business”. The aim is to get 90 of the overall 6,500 Momentum participants started in their own business by the end of 2013. Each of [...]
8 Marketing Tips For Small Businesses
If you want to start your own business and sell your own product, you always have to ask yourself about making that product as popular as possible. Here’s 8 Marketing Tips For Small Businesses… 1. Find understanding for your clients One of the most important things in marketing is to understand and get to know your clients better. Social networks can help you with that, things like Facebook or Google+, because those kind of social networks have all information you need in order to know your clients better. Collecting this [...]
How to Generate Insurance Leads
Selling insurance is a numbers game. The more leads you have coming at you, the more sales you are going to make. However, keeping a steady flow of leads coming down the pipe is a formidable task even for a seasoned agent. For a new agent, getting that flow of leads going is a daunting task. However, by efficiently utilizing a number of sources to generate leads, your pipeline can be kept flowing to near capacity. Here’s a few tips on How to Generate Insurance Leads… Purchasing Leads Over the [...]
Smokers Cost Employers
As reported by Radio Station Newstalk, staff who smoke cost companies thousands of euro more to employ. That is according to new research featured in the British Medical Journal. It shows that an average employee who smokes costs around €4,600 more a year than a non-smoker due to time off, smoking breaks and healthcare costs. Smokers cost employers The research has been published online by US researchers in the Tobacco Control journal and found that several factors result in a greater cost to the employer for having a smoker on [...]
Meet the Propellers – “Briefed”, Orlagh McGahan
Aiming to fast-track new and innovative businesses that can export successfully to markets around the world, Invest Northern Ireland’s latest Propel Programme embarked on a new phase this month as 26 successful candidates entered its crucial second stage. Invest NI’s Propel Programme provides entrepreneurs with an invaluable range of practical business support mechanisms required to develop an initial concept into a winning product with international appeal. The uniquely nurturing and progressive learning environment encompasses intensive business development workshops, mentor-led expert guidance, market entry advice and vital financial support. In the [...]
Time Management is a Waste of Time
No one manages time – all you can manage is yourself. Forget CRM systems, task managers, on-line calendars and Filofaxes. They’re useful tools, but they don’t address the fundamental issue. What are you actually doing in work? Do you suffer from: email overload; too much work accumulates for you to take time off; things don’t get done properly if you don’t do them yourself; other people ‘slack off’ while you carry the load? Are you indispensable? Are you frustrated or fulfilled? Here are some time management tips to help you [...]
Grant Funding for Small Business
The inescapable truth of building a business is that it requires investment. How you obtain that investment is critical to your enterprise in the short and long-term because regardless of how good your idea is, costs will always play a role. Eagerness to get results can result in poor decision-making and often involves more expensive solutions than carefully planned and well-executed investment through grant funding. This is why securing grant money sometimes involves lengthy application processes with lots of red tape and successful proposals often receive funds in stages. On [...]
The choices you make…..
A very interesting perspective on the difference in income between man and women.
It’s a double for Ulster Bank!
Thursday night Ulster Bank had double success at the Business in the Community NI Awards. The Awards recognise and celebrate local companies demonstrating innovation, creativity and a sustained commitment to responsible business practice Ulster Bank’s MoneySense for Schools received a special award from the judges in the Community Impact category. The judges praised the bank’s long-standing commitment to MoneySense in helping young people learn about responsible financial management. More success followed when Ulster Bank was announced as overall winner of the Sustained Impact Award for the wide range of community investment, [...]
Apple Hacker Fired: 3 Lessons
Brilliant and extraordinary—these two words perfectly describe ex-Apple hacker Nicholas Allegra, a.k.a Comex. He was so skillful and extraordinarily brilliant that he managed to break into the world’s most protected consumer operating system, a move that shocked the entire information security community. Shortly after unlocking Apple’s tightly secured iOS, Allegra created a website called JailBreakMe that enabled users to lift Apple-installed restrictions from their devices. This was a huge blow to Apple and its developers. Dino Dai Zovi, a process security researcher and a hacker himself, said that Allegra is [...]
