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Here, we’ll look at the components you should include in your marketing plan and how your method of accepting payment can impact your business.

Let’s get started:

Developing a Marketing plan

Effective marketing requires time, money, and preparation. To stay on a budget and schedule when marketing your business, you need to have a marketing plan. A marketing plan involves the steps you’ll take to market your business to potential customers.

Your Business plan needs to include the basic essential elements of your marketing strategy.

Essential Sections of a Marketing Plan

Most marketing plans include these components. As usual, only use what works best for your business.

Market Research

Research is a key component of a marketing plan. You can start by checking with your local library offering market reports. You can even access some library cards online.

Study the size of the market in the industry, customer buying habits, market growth or decline, and other current trends.

Target Market

A detailed market description can help identify your potential buyers. Consider the market size, unique traits, demographics, and demand trends.

Competitive Advantage

Describe what puts your products or services ahead of other products. It could be a lower price, a better product, or excellent customer service. Having eco-friendly certification, or “made in the USA” label, can mean a lot to customers.

Sales Plan

How will you sell your product or service to your customers? List the sales methods you plan to use, for instance, retail, wholesale, or online. Let your customers know each step to take when they decide to buy.

Marketing Strategy

Your marketing strategy will determine whether you’ll reach your sales goal or not. Ask yourself, “how do I find and attract potential buyers?”

Look at the entire market and then come up with specific tactics to use, such as events, email, direct mail, content strategy, social media, couponing, street teams, seminars, webinars, partnerships, and any activity that can help reach potential customers.

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Budget

How much do you want to spend on your marketing plan? Here try to be as accurate as possible. You’ll need to track your costs when executing your plan.

Measure and Update Your Plan

Be sure to check how marketing costs compare with generated revenue. You’ll want to ensure you’re getting a good return on investment.

Some tactics, such as word-of-mouth, are hard to measure. So get creative and get advice from other people. The key thing here is to be consistent in measuring the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Selecting Payment Methods

Do you know the kind of payments you accept can affect your marketing and sales? Be sure to choose secure, cost-effective forms of payments. Such payments offer a positive experience for your customers. No matter what payment methods you accept, you’ll require a business bank account.

No matter what payment methods you accept,

you’ll require a business bank account.

Credit Cards

To accept debit and credit cards, you’ll need either an account with a third-party payment processing company or a merchant services with your bank.

In addition to the cost of setting the required equipment, you’ll be charged a processing fee for each debit or credit card transaction.

Accepting debit and credit cards can expose you to fraud risk, but most providers offer a certain degree of protection for your business.

Checks

To accept checks, you need to have a business bank account.

To avoid fraudulent or bad checks, you need to develop a policy for accepting checks. For instance, you can decide to only accept checks from in-state banks. Or require checks to include only the validity of given checks by taking a photo of them using mobile banking apps (some banks allow instant check clearance using mobile apps) making the transaction much more fluid.

Checks can not only be used to receive payments from customers, but they are a nifty financial tool for making business payments. The best thing is that you can buy your checks online, thus saving money when reordering business checks. You just need to google online and choose a vendor that matches your needs.

Cash

Some small businesses only accept cash because it’s easy, fast, and inexpensive.

However, this option increases the accounting time and security risk. Be sure to develop a secure way to hold your cash, like a safe and register.

Online Payments

If you run an online business, you have the option of using an online payment service to accept payment through your website.

Typically, online payment services accept debit and credit cards. You’ll be charged a small fee to accept payment online.

 

The deadline to negotiate the exit was recently prolonged to October 31st, 2019. What are financial and economic consequences going to be for the UK? Public opinion has changed a lot lately. Theresa May has stepped down from the position of the UK’s Prime Minister and got replaced by Boris Johnson on 24th July. He promised that Brexit is going to be executed by 1st November with or without a deal with the European Union. Labour party demands another vote, as their members don’t think that leaving the EU would be a good idea at this moment.

Great Britain would no longer have the tariff-free trade status with other European countries if they decide to leave without a deal. This would have a significant increase in exports cost and automatically make the UK goods more expensive in Europe and potentially weaker the British Pound.

The prices to import goods to the UK would be higher, which also means some of them would simply reconsider distribution to Britain.

The same thing would happen with European merchants. The prices to import goods to the UK would be higher, which also means some of them would simply reconsider distribution to Britain. One-third of the food is coming from the European Union, which means inflation and a lower standard of living would be inevitable for UK residents. No deal agreement could also reignite the issues with North Ireland. This country would stay with the UK but there would be a custom border introduced between them and the Republic of Ireland. The last two things we would like to mention as a potential consequence of no-deal exit are rights for EU citizens living in the UK and outstanding bills. In case of an exit like this UK would have to pay $51 billion of debt and find a solution to guarantee rights to EU people within their borders.

Hard Brexit is the second alternative, and it is different in so many ways than the above-mentioned exit. This one would include a trade agreement with the EU; but this would require another re-schedule of the exit, as there is no enough time to negotiate it. Hard Brexit could have serious consequences on London as the financial centre. A lot of companies would stop using it as an English-speaking entry to the European Union economy. Also according to the latest research, more than six thousand people could lose jobs because of this and turn the real estate market into a disaster. There would be hundreds of office buildings in London sitting empty, without anyone to rent them. By comparing housing prices now and two years back, the price has already started to drop drastically. Another significant impact on UK companies would be the inability to place bids on public contracts in any European Union zone. This would take a massive toll on banking as well. Best betting sites experts have publish some odds that show that Hard Brexit deal would also increase costs of mobile phone services and airfares. Could the UK lose Scotland in case of Hard Brexit agreement? Potentially, yes. Scotland might have a bigger advantage of being an EU member, which also means a referendum to leave the United Kingdom. One of the most profitable industries in the UK is online gambling, and this one shouldn’t be affected much by any option.

Here Leigh Moody, Managing Director at SOTI UK, explains the full extent of AI’s impact on the mobile workforce of businesses across the nation.

At one level, automation and AI offer helpful solutions when recruitment is challenging, or where staff can be better utilized in other parts of an organisation. More broadly, there is no doubt that AI can add value to an increasingly digital workplace, and adoption is rising while some barriers remain. Consequently, one in five businesses intend to implement AI across their organisation in 2019.

Some organisations are already experiencing the benefits of AI as it becomes mainstream, and there is a definite fear that those who are not already experimenting with AI will be left behind. When evaluating the impact that AI will have on the future workforce, it is essential to explore practical use cases in business.

AI’s return on investment

For many companies today, AI represents an exciting opportunity to improve efficiency and enhance business performance. At an individual level, AI automation gives workers more options and the chance to be freed from routine tasks so that they can focus on bigger, more rewarding challenges. For many, this means working in a mobile, flexible manner facilitated by Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and remote access to data and work-specific applications and programs, most of which are in the cloud.

AI benefits workers and organisations alike, because it can optimise personal autonomy and convenience while reducing capital costs, especially where there is a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy in place. In 2018, research for the UK government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport found that 45% of businesses routinely allowed staff to use personal devices for work. But BYOD must be implemented with care, since it inevitably leads to a number of unknown and possibly unsecure devices being connected to an organisation’s network which can have dire consequences for security.

AI in the fight against cybercrime

At this point, however, key aspects of AI that make it attractive for business begin to interface with a much less ideal use of the technology. AI-powered cybercrime – which, ironically, often mimics enterprise-level AI applications – is a very serious and rapidly increasing threat to businesses and individuals alike. In 2017, just under half of all UK businesses identified at least one cybersecurity breach or attack, and this showed no signs of slowing down the following year. Hacking, phishing and malware are now key threats to businesses of all types and sizes in the UK.

Mobile workers are tempting targets for cybercriminals as mobile endpoints are often a weak point in an organisation’s cybersecurity system. Cyber criminals deal in data: on the dark web, the most mundane personal details can be bought and sold for cash. Greater volumes of data mean greater profit, so criminals have used AI to automate hacking to an industrial scale, harvesting massive volumes of corporate and personal data. Where those criminals deploy or threaten malware, ransomware and distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), companies can lose vast amounts of their data at a keystroke, which is often permanent.

Even where corporate-owned mobile devices are mandatory, if they are not properly protected, criminals can use them as a vulnerable point of entry to the network, and BYOD environments carry an even greater risk. It is more difficult to control the exposure to dangerous websites or applications in non-work settings, which can put an unsecure network at risk.

Yet, while AI has fuelled this situation, it can also help solve the problems that are arising. This is because AI technology has been instrumental in the development of real-time security and device management solutions, which – like cybercriminals’ use of AI and enterprise automation – learns from past experiences, patterns of behaviour and incoming data, and responds intelligently and immediately to evolving threats.

If companies want to stay competitive, they have little choice but to expand their mobile deployment, while ensuring they are protected against evolving cybersecurity threats. By securing all endpoints under a single, integrated enterprise mobility management solution, companies can reap the full benefits of their mobility investments while enjoying the peace of mind that only real-time cybersecurity can bring.

Here Jamie Johnson, CEO and Co-founder at FJP Investment, discusses with Finance Monthly the real impact of Brexit on the UK property market.

While it may seem like the country has ground to a standstill as the political standoff in Westminster continues, we cannot let this overshadow the activity and trends underpinning many of the UK’s leading sectors.

The property sector is a case in point – domestic and foreign investment continues to pour into the market, increasing house prices grow and in turn producing attractive investment opportunities. Recent research suggests that property investors also stand undeterred despite Brexit uncertainty –almost half (45%) of property investors have expanded their property portfolio since the EU referendum, whereas only 7% said they had sold one or more homes as a direct result of Brexit.

To understand why the UK continues to be a prime property hotspot despite the current state of political affairs, it can be valuable to reflect on how the sector has fared over the last two and a half years. This including understanding the key trends that have played a central role in shaping the real estate market.

Strong regional growth

In times of uncertainty or transitions, commentators like to take a keen interest into how different sectors are performing in London. As a cosmopolitan hub renowned for its residential and commercial real estate opportunities, the capital has faced some challenges. Since the EU referendum, house prices have largely stagnated, and in some postcodes even fallen.

However, focusing on primarily on London risks overlooking the progress taking place in regional markets. Indeed, national house prices have actually been on an upwards trajectory in recent months, driven largely by strong growth in places like the Midlands and North of England.

Birmingham (up 16%), Manchester and Leicester (both up 15%) have experienced the fastest rates of house price growth since the June 2016 referendum, followed by Nottingham (14%), Leeds (12%), Liverpool and Sheffield (both 11%). In real terms, this means that the average property in Birmingham now stands at £163,400, while the average house in Manchester costs around £168,000. For an investor, this attractive capital growth few assets can match.

So, what are the underlying reasons for these strong performances? Much of it comes down to large-scale regeneration projects which are reviving infrastructure, construction and transport links. Some of the construction works include the redevelopment of land close to new stations that are being created for High Speed 2 (HS2).

Property as an attractive asset class

Significant public and private investment is undoubtedly bolstering the sector, yet another important trend to note is the volume of property transactions taking place even at the height of Brexit uncertainty.

In January of this year – just weeks from the original Brexit deadline, and without a clear vision of what the UK’s transition from the EU would entail in practical terms – the number of transactions on residential properties with a value of £40,000 or greater was 101,170, or 1.3% more than a year prior.

This is testament to the underlying popularity of property as an asset class able to deliver long-term returns, and weather political and economic transitions. In fact, recent research revealed that Brexit hasn’t dampened investor sentiments towards property; the survey of over 500 property investors revealed that 39% plan to increase the size of their property portfolio in 2019, regardless of the ongoing negotiations.

Challenges facing the market

Notwithstanding the obvious challenges facing the UK – namely, setting out a clear direction for the future of the country outside of the EU – there are some pressing national priorities that also deserve attention.

Perhaps most important of all is the housing crisis. At present, there are simply not enough affordable and accessible houses on the market to meet growing demand. And while the government has set targets to address this issue, there is an overwhelming fear that these goals will ultimately fail to materialise.

Last year, Prime Minster Theresa May committed the government to delivering 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s. Although a positive step in the right direction, the current pace of progress suggests that construction efforts will fall short of reaching this target.

Figures released by the housing ministry in March 2019 showed that building work began on 40,580 homes in England during the final quarter of 2018. This is down 8% on the previous three months. Further to this, a National Audit Office report recently concluded that half of councils are expected to miss house building targets.

While Brexit has largely taken priority over important issues, the Government cannot put off committing the necessary time and resources towards rebalancing housing supply and demand. Creative reforms are needed, and debt investment projects, such as off-plan property investments, are but one of the many solutions that could promote the construction of new-build properties.

Despite the current obstacles facing the property market, UK real estate has proven itself to be a resilient asset class even in times of hardship. Bricks and mortar remains a popular destination for domestic and international investment, and looking beyond the more immediate challenges lying on the horizon, it is important to recognise the resilience of property as a leading and desirable asset class.

Effectiveness So Far

The run up to the implementation date of the EU General Data Protection Regulation on 25 May 2018 saw a flurry of activity – most visibly in communications with customers; notifying them of changes in privacy policies and seeking their opt-in consent for marketing activities. While many communications were not strictly necessary, they reflected the focus of many businesses on external-facing compliance initiatives, such as their public facing privacy policies and contractual arrangements with vendors.

The key practical challenges for businesses have centered on thoroughly operationalising GDPR and creating a GDPR compliance culture. The GDPR introduces some new and enhanced rights, such as the right to erasure, but equally importantly, it introduces principles which require changes to internal procedures and systems. Technology changes have often been time-consuming and expensive to implement. Creating a GDPR compliance culture has, for many businesses, been equally challenging. For many organisations, the area of focus in the short to medium term is the work required on internal-facing compliance initiatives, such as staff training and policy formulation and integration. While many aspects of GDPR compliance have taken the form of a ‘re-papering’ exercise, the challenges in becoming compliant are generally much deeper.

For many organisations, the area of focus in the short to medium term is the work required on internal-facing compliance initiatives, such as staff training and policy formulation and integration.

Practical challenges faced by businesses

Some of the practical challenges faced by businesses have been in identifying and understanding the scope of the personal data held and processed – including its nature, location, security requirements and, most fundamentally, the business drivers and legal grounds for collecting and processing such data in the first place. While principles of data minimisation and purpose limitation are not new under the GDPR, they were frequently overlooked under previous legislation as businesses collected increasing amounts of personal data and used them in ways in which were not necessarily consistent with the original purpose. Many businesses have not properly addressed these fundamental issues which are frequently coming to light in practice in two key areas: managing data subject rights and responding to data breaches.

For example, the right to erasure applies in a specific set of situations but many organisations do not possess the level of granular detail about their processing operations required to respond accurately or efficiently. Organisations which have made superficial policy changes will lack the deeper understanding of the internal business processes resulting from a detailed data mapping exercise or a thorough analysis of an organisation’s grounds for processing. This often makes responding to such requests much more time-consuming, and in certain cases leads to organisations fulfilling requests by default to save administrative burden. This is far from ideal, particularly where some data categories processed about an individual are likely to be outside the scope of the right to erasure. Moreover, there may be legitimate business reasons for retaining such data. A related practical issue is the lack of uniformity across European jurisdictions on exemptions to and derogations from the rights of individuals to have access to their personal data, and the lack of guidance from regulators on the scope of some of the exemptions.

Organisations which have made superficial policy changes will lack the deeper understanding of the internal business processes resulting from a detailed data mapping exercise or a thorough analysis of an organisation’s grounds for processing.

Another area where the lack of internal awareness becomes apparent is in respect of data breaches. The GDPR defines a data breach extremely broadly. Media attention is often focused on large-scale breaches involving millions of records containing financial and sensitive personal data. However, practically any unauthorised access to personal data (including within an organisation) can amount to a notifiable breach. This reflects the volume of data breaches which regulators are handling – with some European regulators handling between six and twelve breach notifications each day. The GDPR imposes a well-publicised default period of 72 hours during which the appropriate regulatory authority must be notified. This frequently exposes, in real time, knowledge gaps within an organisation relating to the nature and location of the personal data held, security arrangements and internal processes.

Overall impact on businesses

The GDPR is a reflection of the increased importance placed by EU law on personal privacy as a fundamental right, which needs to be taken into account when treating personal data as an essential input in business processes, if not a commodity in itself. That is simply an unavoidable cost of doing business. While increased awareness of such rights has been positive, the notification fatigue suffered by individuals has been less beneficial. This resulted partly from the lack of concrete guidance from regulators sufficiently early in the run up to the implementation date. Similarly for businesses outside the EU, the uncertainties regarding the GDPR’s extra-territorial scope has often resulted in protracted discussions and unnecessary compliance burdens. That said, there is an almost inevitable harmonisation upwards towards EU privacy standards. For example, Japan has harmonised its laws to EU standards, and there are forthcoming changes in the United States – currently the state of California, but potentially at a federal level – to move towards GDPR standards. The key test of the GDPR’s effectiveness and overall credibility will be in enforcement. Six months in, it is still too early to gauge regulatory appetite for the headline fines of up to 4% of global revenue. In the coming months, the results of investigations and enforcement actions will start becoming clear. The internal costs to businesses are more difficult to assess, although they are largely unavoidable.

Website: https://www.faegrebd.com/

Chief Financial Officers (CFO) are playing a critical role in driving digital disruption across the organization, according to new research from Accenture. Today’s CFOs oversee more than just the finance function and are now integral players in directing enterprise-wide digital investments and managing their economic outcomes and impacts.

The research report, The CFO Reimagined: From Driving Value to Building the Digital Enterprise, finds that CFOs have expanded beyond their traditional finance roles into areas that have broader consequences for the whole organization. In the UK, eight in 10 CFOs see identifying and targeting areas of new value across the business as one of their main responsibilities. More than three quarters (78%) believe it is within their purview to drive business-wide operational transformation.

"CFOs are increasingly stepping out from the confines of their role to act as strategic advisors as well as innovators across the entire enterprise," said David Axson, Senior Strategy Executive Principal at Accenture. "In an era of unprecedented disruption, this repositioning of the role will continue as CFOs take the role of digital stewards, using data to drive value and improve efficiency while mapping out the digital investments required for their organisations to remain competitive."

CFO as the Digital Investment Sherpa

UK CFOs are emerging as drivers of the digital agenda, with 80 percent heading up efforts to improve performance through adoption of digital technology, and 73 percent also exploring how disruptive technologies could benefit the entire organization and the business eco-system. Not only are CFOs carrying out their own tasks faster and better through automation, they’re also increasingly ushering in the “digitalization” of other functions and finding new ways to use technology to change business models and open new revenue streams.

CFOs: Get Your Data House in Order

The standard CFO to-do list is shifting towards strategic planning, advisory and analytics roles as CFOs continue to automate routine accounting, control and compliance tasks. Automation of these finance duties is enabling the finance function to focus on newer and more challenging tasks and bring the C-suite together to act on insights gleaned from data analysis. Today, 34% of finance tasks are carried out by technology; by 2021, almost half (44%) of these duties will be taken over by automation.

“CFOs’ use of data is expanding to other parts of the business. As a result, they will need to be more entrenched in transformational technologies such as AI and analytics to usher in digitization of the broader organization, create new business models and unlock new revenue streams,” said Dr. Christian Campagna, senior managing director, Accenture Strategy, CFO & Enterprise Value. “The CFOs who step up to manage these opportunities will be the true guardians of the enterprise.”

As the role of the CFO continues to evolve, so do the skillsets required to become a finance executive. Today’s finance function must include employees with a wide range of capabilities, from data visualization to flexible thinking. Most CFOs recognize that finance skills will continue to move away from core finance to advanced digital, statistics, operational and collaborative skills (79 percent). And more than three-quarters (76%) say the change must be rapid and drastic, as traditional finance roles may soon become obsolete.

Future Finance Talent Is Calling

The biggest challenge for CFOs will be recruiting or training the talent to understand how to collect data and gain insight from data. Almost 9 in ten (87%) UK CFOs agree that data storytelling is an essential skill for today’s finance professional. They must be more open-minded and collaborative to work effectively with and serve as strategic advisors to leaders in other business functions.

“It feels like there are two camps for what people look for in a CFO: the control or accounting background versus a more strategic finance role who partners with the CEO,” explains Chris Weber, CFO and executive vice president, Halliburton Company. “Over time, I think the shift has been towards this second role, even if that means the candidate isn't an accountant by training.”

(Source: Accenture)

Politicians have a widespread and long term impact on so many things every time they speak or do anything. But to what extent do they affect currency volatility?

Forex market experts DailyFX have created a guide that looks at 59 key dates in 2017/18 where world leaders may have had significant influence on currencies. The lists of key dates includes US President Donald Trump, UK Prime Minister Theresa May, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker.

Brought to you by DailyFX

Two years on from the CMA market review which initiated Open Banking, Jake Ranson, banking and financial institution expert and CMO at Equifax, anticipates profound long term impact.

Open Banking was established to encourage competition. It’s well known that current account switching remains low, but this doesn’t reflect the full story. The initiative has been a wake-up call for traditional banks to improve their understanding of their customers and tailor services to their needs. Consumers won’t necessarily have to switch to experience improvements in their banking services.

Since inception two years ago, Open Banking has prompted exciting and much needed product developments to facilitate faster and more effective banking services for consumers. Many providers have applied for Open Banking regulatory permissions, showing the huge appetite to offer new and improved services.

The services that will really take off are the ones that give consumers transparency, control and save them valuable time. Consumers need a compelling reason to share their data, whether it’s faster lending decisions or the ability to access financial products better suited to their needs, and providers must articulate the value clearly in order to succeed.

The potential next steps are vast. We could see services that go beyond banking data, encompassing for example social media information so that consumers can manage their data in one place to gain easier access to tailored services. More and more companies are likely to get involved, potentially including players as varied as online estate agents and debt management companies.

Momentum is building but there’s still a need to educate consumers on how Open Banking can improve their financial lives. Equally important is reassurance that they maintain control of their data, it will only be used with their permission and they can revoke access at any time.

General Data Protection Regulation is a ‘game changer’ for the financial services industry and many small firms are unlikely to be fully compliant with the new rules.

Nigel Green, the founder and chief executive of deVere, is speaking out since the implementation of GDPR, a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union and the European Economic Area.

Mr Green says: “GDPR is a game changer for the financial services industry – the biggest shake-up I can remember.

“Not only is it protecting clients further by putting them back in control of their personal data, but it is going to make the industry work smarter, harder and better.”

He continues: “One of the main day-to-day ways GDPR will impact financial services is that no longer will firms be able to poach staff asking them to bring client data with them. Unfortunately, this has been a highly unethical modus operandi for many smaller financial companies for far too long. This is now no longer possible.

“Another key way that GDPR will affect the admin operations of financial services companies is the storage and management of the data. Holding data without good reason to do so will no longer be allowed.”

Mr Green goes on to add: “Despite them having ample advance notice, due to the breadth and scope of GDPR, and because it represents a fundamental shift for some companies’ business models, many smaller firms will find it extremely challenging to meet the requirements.

“It is likely that they will have found, and will continue to find, it difficult to dedicate the time and resources to getting this right and being fully compliant – especially as many are still struggling with the costs and demands of Mifid II and other complex regulatory reforms.

“As such, we can expect that many smaller firms will be hit with hefty fines for failing to meet GDPR’s stringent standards.

“Bearing this in mind, GDPR will prove to be a ‘burden’ too heavy for some smaller companies, forcing them to exit the industry.”

The deVere CEO concludes: “GDPR represents a watershed moment for the financial services sector. This is an opportunity for all firms to redouble their efforts to overhaul their business practices where necessary, ensuring the clients’ interests are always front and centre.”

(Source: deVere Group)

The latest research from national audit, tax and advisory firm Crowe Clark Whitehill, together with the University of Portsmouth’s Centre for Counter Fraud Studies (CCFS), reveals a national fraud pandemic totalling £110 billion a year. For context, that figure would build more than 110 Wembley Stadiums, or cover the annual budget for every single local authority in England combined. Put differently, the figure would cover the UK’s Brexit divorce bill almost three times over, or cover the salaries of 4.8 million nurses for a year.

The Financial Cost of Fraud 2018’ estimates that the UK economy could be boosted by £44 billion annually if organisations step up efforts to tackle fraud and error.

Globally, fraud is costing £3.24 trillion each year, a sum equal to the combined GDP of the UK and Italy, or enough to build more than 3,000 Wembley Stadiums.

The report, which is the only one of its kind, draws on 20 years of extensive global research from 40 sectors, where the total cost of fraud has been accurately measured across expenditure totalling £15.6 trillion.

Since 2008, there has been a startling 49.5% increase in average losses with businesses losing an average of 6.8% of total expenditure. Driven by technological advances and increasing digitisation, businesses now face a threat which is growing in scale and mutating in complexity.

Fraud is the last great unreduced business cost. Included in the report are examples where fraud has been accurately measured, managed and losses minimised, including a major mining company which reduced losses due to procurement fraud by over 51% within a two-year period, equating to USD 20 million at a time when commodity prices were falling.

Insurance fraud is an another sector to look into. It is happened by changing the beneficiaries. A proper investigation can minimize the vast effect. When any individual is getting life insurance over 75 years, the particular company must go through all the original documentation and proper channels.

Jim Gee, Head of Forensic & Counter Fraud at Crowe Clark Whitehill, comments: “The threat of fraud is becoming increasingly like a clinical virus – it is ever-present and ever-evolving. The bad news is that digitalisation of information storage, and process complexity, coupled with the pace of business change, have created an environment where fraud has thrived, grown and continued to mutate. The better news is that there are examples where organisations have measured and minimised fraud like any other business cost and greatly strengthened their finances.”

“In the current climate, to not consider the financial benefits of making relatively painless reductions in losses to fraud and error is foolhardy. The message to all organisations is measure, mitigate and manage fraud, or your bottom line will continue to suffer.”

Mark Button, Director of the Centre for Counter Fraud Studies at the, University of Portsmouth, adds: “This research shows that the most accurate measurement of fraud in organisations continues to show an upward trend. Many organisations are losing significant amounts to fraud and much more can be done to reduce losses.”

“Organisations could do much more to enhance prevention through a number of measures such as effective vetting of new staff, investing in data analytics and developing an anti-fraud culture.”

(Source: Crowe Clark Whitehill)

Worldwide spending on blockchain is set to top $2 billion in 2018, according to the International Data Corporation.

Stacey Soohoo, research manager, customer insights and analysis at IDC, said: “The year 2018 will be a crucial stage for enterprises as they make a huge leap from proof-of-concept projects to full blockchain deployments.”

There is, clearly, a lot of time, money and effort being spent in tapping into the potential of this technology. But, how can we expect to see the benefit of all of this? How far will blockchain go in terms of changing the way we do business?

Finance

Having originally been met with some scepticism in the banking sector – probably due to its disruptive nature and the presence of scams targeted at early adopters – blockchain is increasingly being harnessed by financial institutions to change the way they do business.

Perhaps most obviously, this can help to add speed and security to the process of transferring money, something that everyone from a holiday-bound consumer to a novice investor dabbling with a forex demo account through to a FTSE100 CEO can appreciate.

Yet, as the FT notes, the process of clearing and settlement, the verification of a customer’s identity and the raising of syndicated loans can all be made more efficient with blockchain.

Traceability

Yet, to focus solely on banking and payments would be to ignore the broader scope of the benefits of blockchain.

In industries where ‘traceability’ is crucial, this provides a clear, immutable record of a financial transaction. Examples of where this is necessary include the charity sector – where organisations need to prove that donations ended up at the intended target and, perhaps most pertinently in a business context, for diamonds.

For diamond companies, being able to create and manage a record for customers and clients will enable them to be clear that their product in genuine and sourced responsibly – two things that will help reputable firms to stand out from companies engaged in practices that have threatened to tarnish the sector.

Privacy

While speed, security and a transparency are clearly important, so too is privacy, especially in sectors such as healthcare where it’s vital to protect patients’ data and, typically, there are issues with out of date security software and records systems.

While the US’ private healthcare system has already embraced blockchain, the NHS could benefit too. As Tech UK notes, tracking medical test results in real time, sharing data between medical teams in different locations for research purposes, speeding up compliance paperwork processes and handling documentation for short-term staff could all be done quickly and – crucially – with the required level of privacy. This doesn’t just benefit the NHS but also a number of science and healthcare companies that rely on the NHS for work as third parties.

In some respects, blockchain’s real power is not necessarily that it changes what can be done as a business. Rather, it enhances the way in which companies operate in the digital age, allowing to carry out the processes and practices that they have developed in recent years and allows them to be done quicker, safer and cheaper.

Last November, the Bank of England raised interest rates by 0.25% - the first increase for ten years. The Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, warned that we could see two more increases over the next three years – but then in February of this year, the Bank’s policy committee warned that rates may actually need to rise “earlier” and by a “somewhat greater extent” than previously envisaged. Below Steve Noble, COO at Ultimate Finance, provides excellent insight into protecting against rate changes from hereon.

This will concern many SME owners. Research has shown that a quarter of SME entrepreneurs have funded the growth of their business through their own personal finances. The higher payments required when rates rise across mortgages, credit cards and other loans could put a squeeze on them at a time when conditions are already challenging. This is particularly true if high street banks tighten their lending to specific sectors, as happened during the last recession.

If this happens, good businesses could find themselves pressurised on both sides – putting jobs and entire organisations at risk.

My advice to small business owners and entrepreneurs worried about the prospect of almost certain rate rises is to assess the situation in a series of steps:

Work out what impact a rise of 0.25% or 0.5% would have on your repayment costs

Get your calculator out! Pool together all the finance products you have on variable rates and see how much a rate rise could add to your repayments. Many finance websites have handy calculators that will do this for you. The impact of a 0.25% increase may be small on one individual product, but if you have several it could add up.

Is this something that you can absorb, or will it put a strain on already stretched cash flow?

Think about what the likely increases mean for your business. If you are funding the company through your own finances, will rate rises create difficulties? If finances will be too tight following rate rises and banks reign in on lending, there’s no option but to look at the alternatives and rather than expecting the high street to come up with the answers.

Review your business costs and income

Are there are any unnecessary expenses you can cut out? Little business ‘luxuries’ you’ve been allowing that might need to go? On the income side, have you been undercharging for certain services or are you running ‘special offers’ that might need to end?

Fight back against late payments

Research by the FSB shows that late payment costs the UK economy £2.5bn every year and results in more than 50,000 business deaths. If rates rise as expected, black holes in your cash flow caused by late payments will have increasingly dire consequences. Have serious conversations with your partners and suppliers to lessen the problem, rather than accepting it as a usual part of running a business.

Explore the finance options

There are many forms of finance outside of traditional bank loans. For example, invoice finance that enables you to borrow funds against the value of invoices you have issued but not yet been paid for. Purchase finance that pays your suppliers for goods you buy from them. Asset finance for the purchase of business equipment. Or simply short-term loans to help you meet your needs.

Although banks will offer services of this type, the customer experience will be vastly different. Where high street banks will reject a business that doesn’t meet its pre-set criteria, other providers will offer a more flexible, tailored approach. A solution can be produced with payments terms that suit the business in question, rather than a set agreement which simply won’t work for many in need of financial support. As rate rises seem to be looming, now is the time to begin doing your homework.

SMEs are the growth engine of the UK economy and now more than ever its vital they are supported at every turn. Although rising interest rates will prove difficult for many, for those who plan for the future now, the road will become much less rocky.

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