NatWest has unveiled research, conducted by the Cebr (Centre for economic and business research) which reveals UK SMEs (defined as companies with 10 – 259 employees) could add up to £57 billion a year – more than the cost of Brexit – to the UK economy if they were as productive as SMEs in Germany …
Tag: SMEs
Jun 18
Help for SMEs to get practical
Under the above heading, Alison Rose, chief executive of commercial & private banking at NatWest wrote the following article which all SMEs would do well to consider As we gear up for Brexit, the UK’s flagging productivity performance is continually in the fore of media headlines and economic analysis Following a further fall in productivity …
Jan 29
Clusters of SMEs are a priority
According to research conducted by Opus Energy, the top three geographical areas in the UK where SMEs (Small and Medium Sized Enterprises) have productivity issues are: West Midlands North East London To compete, SMEs there are being forced to implement a wave of changes, including: Introducing flexible working Paying employees above the average wage Offering …
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Past Posts – 1. Productivity overall
- A productivity ‘cocked hat’!
- Technology is not enough for productivity that matters
- State of the Global Workplace: 2023 Gallup Report
- £300 bn annual UK saving ignored!
- Billionaire investor warns inflation to curtail gains
- The coming productivity boom
- Pandemic provides unexpected boost to UK’s productivity prospects
- How to solve the puzzle of missing productivity growth
- How We Work Has Changed Forever
- The Silver Lining of 2020*
- Something more to look forward to in 2021
- Debt may be cheap, but the UK’s poor productivity will cost us dear
- Why Software Won’t Eat The World
- CV-19 provides a giant leap for creative destruction
- Ridding ourselves of the productivity fetish will help us combat climate change
- Covid-19 kickstarts gigification of knowledge work
- Rebuilding the Economy Around Good Jobs
- Piketty tackles inequality
- Three Factors Of Successful Companies
- Mentalism overtaking Materialism
- Economists’ information gap
- The evolution and future of productivity
- Deaf ears encore une fois
- The future is mental
- Buffett bullish on the future
- Future wealth will be different
- Why chase productivity improvement?
- Productivity sure aint ‘dull’
Past Posts – 2. Scope to improve
- The universal ‘S curve’
- Forget productivity growth in future?
- NHS wastes £40 billion every year!
- The coming productivity boom
- Pareto at large
- Baumol’s disease
- It’s the rest, not the best, that’s the problem
- UK public sector wastes £120bn – every year!
Past Posts – 3. The Productivity revolution
- Inherited inequality
- 21C to be greatest century in history
- A short history of productivity improvement
- International trends in main sectors
- Immortality and galactic living beckon?
- Future lives of leisure, not work?
- Inequality is on the move
- The Fourth Industrial Revolution
- Five forces to reshape civilisation by 2030
Past Posts – 4. Productivity drivers
- “AI could replace almost all forms of labour”!
- Why is HR going ‘under the radar’?
- AI may boost government productivity by $1.75 trn a year
- How To Win? – Manage well
- “AI will double productivity in next decade”
- AI offers a massive uptick in productivity growth
- Will AI be good for workers?
- Altman updates ‘Moores Law’
- AI – Generative AI
- The price of poor managers
- The metaverse is next
- AI – Seven AI apps beyond ChatGPT
- AI – Ways to use ChatGPT
- AI – ChatGPT – The next big thing?
- AI – ChatGPT – The next General Purpose Technology?
- An AI productivity boom is coming
- A short history of jobs and automation
- Many ways to stuff up productivity
- Entrepreneurs – Naturally More Productive
- AI and productivity
- The Pandemic Is Widening a Corporate Productivity Gap
- The future of work?
- WFH results = Productivity Up, Innovation Down
- AI will unlock USD 15.7 trillion in global productivity by 2030
- How much does bad management really cost the UK?
- Are You Leading Through the Crisis … or Managing the Response?
- Can COVID-19 solve the UK productivity puzzle?
- AI promises huge productivity gains for financial services
- AI, the future of work and inequality
- AI increases productivity
- New technology needs new models
- Gallup’s ‘most profound’ finding
- Catching the right fish
- Invest more to raise productivity
- The skills delusion
- AI will automate tasks, not skills
- Hire better managers
- Competition drives innovation
- New technology for improved productivity
- Absentee leaders are worst of all
- Winners and losers with AI and robotics
- AI pluses versus minuses
- Has innovation really peaked?
- AI to spark a new productivity boom?
- Business schools are failing the nation
- UK management skills lacking
- AI will transform the future
- Mongrel, not pedigree, leaders needed now
- Digital investment benefits need time
- Greatest AI value needs new business models
Past Posts – 5. Productivity improvement process
- Public sector waste
- Wokism against climate change
- How to Answer America’s Productivity Slump
- The Occam’s Razor Of Productivity
- Billionaires reveal their secrets
- Effective change management
- Help for SMEs to get practical
- Be single-minded
- The ‘Unipart Way’
- Vanguard lead way for big improvements
- Basic steps to big improvements
Past Posts – 6. Corporate plans
- Faulty Economic Forecasts!
- A clear vision for the post-crisis future?
- UK industrial strategy
- Most plans go unseen or unused
- Free markets need reins
- Business lives getting shorter
- Implementing plans requires stamina
- By George, ‘every company is dying’
Past Posts – 7. Cardinal measures
- Why do we still measure things in horsepower?
- It’s time to redefine workplace productivity
- Microsoft software criticised as workplace surveillance
- Small Businesses measure up differently
- US views on employee performance measures
- Current measures have huge gaps
- Measure what you need, not what you can
- Tesco’s ‘Steering Wheel’
Past Posts – 8. Financial cardinals
- Absolute returns
- Financial cardinals needed
- Financial metrics are not enough
- Value overtakes price
- Bank Loans need Trust, Growth needs Credit
- The need for money
- Financial data can be ‘dangerously misleading’
- UK economy depends on private debt!
Past Posts – 9. Customer cardinals
- Boeing’s MAX 737 disaster
- Customer measures needed
- Customers don’t measure up
- The mighty CSR hits the buffers
- BA put customers last
Past Posts – 10. Productivity & Waste cardinals
- Counting hours worked isn’t cutting it anymore
- Knowledge workers are more productive from home
- Potential £145bn productivity boost for UK economy
- The ‘Circular Economy’ to boost national productivity
- It’s output results, not input hours, that matter
- Organisation productivity measurement
- Current NHS productivity measurement
- Waste murders productivity
- Current productivity fog
- Aggregation hides info needed
- Work hard or work well?
- Waste leaves productivity dead in the water
- Misleading research metrics
- More demand, more productivity
- Steel industry productivity
- Micro and Macro productivity
- SoL and QoL outcomes sought from productivity
- Scanning the productivity horizon
- Why only labour productivity?
- If productivity so vital, why not measured?
- Myths about productivity?
Past Posts – 11. Employee Motivation cardinal
- Profit Share for a Productivity Rise
- Germany trials a 4DWW amid labour shortage
- Team Morale Is Vital
- How to run a business – Lord Wolfson
- Well-being matters – a lot
- Wellbeing – Why Does It Matter?
- How becoming a kinder version of yourself boosts productivity
- How to boost productivity with ‘Autonomous Motivation’
- Collaboration Overload Is Sinking Productivity
- Prioritise employee wellbeing
- A 5-hour workday is most productive?
- Don’t Underestimate the Power of Kindness at Work
- Flexible work schedules are attractive to many remote employees.
- Now is the time to embrace a four-day workweek
- Tolerance is good for all
- The post-pandemic world?
- Covid -19 should make ‘working from home’ the norm
- Mavericks don’t fit straitjackets
- Wasting time is not wasted time
- At work but not working
- The Secret Sauce for productivity?
- Ethical capitalism
- Where measuring engagement goes wrong
- Productive recidivists
- 4 day weeks to boost productivity
- A famous fire that changed workers’ rights
- Unmotivated workforces cost $7 trillion, annually!
- The bullsh**t job phenomenon
- Time to change time at work
- Low productivity for low wages – and vice versa
- Flexi-time and flexi-places of work
- Work hard, then play hard, for best results
- Employee engagement drives productivity?
- Lifestyle changes are on the move
- More job satisfaction, more pay!
- Depression costs billions
- Core human needs at work
- Remote working
- Wages up, demand up, productivity up
- Happiness at work
Past Posts – 12. Corporate Knowledge cardinal
- Boost your productivity … do absolutely nothing
- Why are some countries rich and some poor?
- Is everything preordained?
- Leonardo paints knowledge path
- Current knowledge levels
- Knowledge measures needed
- National knowledge Indices
- UK skills shortages
- Are we equipped for the digital revolution?
- Train in what employers need, not what employees like
- Knowledge ladders
- Skills mismatches, training failures
Past Posts – 13. Targets
- NHS targets have had their day
- Target setting
- Run hospitals like Tesco stores
- FDI boosts productivity of UK firms
- Human targets are best
Past Posts – 14. Productivity Analyses
- Steve Jobs’ advice on becoming more productive Is quite brilliant
- Zipf’s Law
- Blinkered analyses
- Pareto analyses
- Pin factory productivity
Past Posts – 15. Special improvement projects
- Management consultancy – ‘The Big Con’?
- Winners need stamina
- What kills change?
- Wisdom of Groups
- Unconventional meetings
Past Posts – 16. Organisation level improvement
- The NHS’s productivity conundrum
- NHS – ‘The Times Health Commission’ recommendations
- NHS – Measures needed?
- An ‘AILING NHS’?
- UK Civil Service expansion ended whilst quality of services to rise!
- German army efficiency grid
- WFH – A clash of productivity and morality?
- The problem is the rest, not the best
- Big Bad Data Is Sapping Your Team’s Productivity
- Elon Musk’s rules of ‘insane productivity’
- Stretching police productivity
- Increasing productivity won’t lead to higher wages, it’ll just increase corporate profits
- Why Isn’t New Technology Making Us More Productive?
- The ticking time bomb at work
- Unions can be good for labor and business
- Five Days a Week in the Office? It’s Better for Everyone.
- Your boss wants to boil you slowly like a frog
- The COVID ‘productivity boom’ is a myth
- Employers want workers in the office for the company culture, not productivity
- The rise of intangible capitalism
- Having the power to put a spanner in the works pays very well
- Digital Solutions empower the employee experience
- 4 reasons hybrid offices won’t work
- History tells us what will decide whether we work from home in the future
- World’s largest trial of a shorter work week
- A government review of social care
- Long-term planning for remote work
- COVID brings productivity into sharp focus
- Are office clusters as crucial to productivity as they once were?
- How a Fully Distributed Company Keeps Its Team Engaged
- Chinese Companies’ Response to Covid-19
- How to make ‘remote work’ more productive
- Office productivity
- A shorter work week?
- M/S says “Remote working is here for good”
- Will the Pandemic make us more productive?
- A pandemic positive!
- Important trends for SME productivity
- Beware ‘snooptech’
- Wealth gains and distribution
- The perfect working environment?
- UK manufacturing to become ‘smarter’
- NHS must suppress demand and cut waste
- Freelancing is good for many
- The birth of life insurance
- Clusters of SMEs are a priority
- Scrap traditional organisation structures
- Passports to productivity Improvement?
- Diageo appoints a CPO
Past Posts – 17. Process level improvement
- The key to solving the NHS productivity puzzle
- Workers become happier, more productive with AI assistance
- It’s not process that matters, it’s content
- Don’t fear robots
- Could AI solve the UK’s productivity problem?
- Capital Spending Boom Helps Raise Productivity
- Automation – friend or foe?
- Busy but not productive?
- Why Computers Didn’t Improve Productivity
- How Artificial Intelligence Will Shape Our Future
- Looking To The Future: Redefining Work
- Improve Productivity By Getting Better At Being Better
- Dramatically improve customer service so as to cut costs
- Why working from home is bad for productivity
- Coaching Your Team Through Uncertain Times
- How to boost office productivity
- Process productivity decided by humans
- Boeing seek at least 20% improvements, not 1-4%
- ICT for processes – Pearls from Gates
- Sheffield’s answer to the puzzle
- Beware taking the IT plunge
- Outsourcing and immigration have downsides
- AI will create millions of jobs
- Economic impacts of automation
- IoT to transform many processes
Past Posts – 18. Task level improvement
- Meetings are a productivity killer
- Extra task performance measures
- Robots at Work
- Failure demand
- Groupthink waffle or results needed
- CBI calls for more companies to use digital technology
- Robots to transform Education
- AI becoming mainstream in Retail
Past Posts – 19. Continuous improvement – CI
- Productivity improvement must involve all employees
- Nigeria seeks CI benefits – the West ignores them!
- Japan pushes CI into Africa
- Great performers employ CI
- Continuous Improvement is a must for all
Past Posts – 20. National productivity
- “Not another” public sector productivity drive!
- Can Labour really get Britain growing again?
- Local Government to produce ‘productivity plans’?
- Does Britain need a new public body to spur productivity?
- “Does anyone even understand productivity?” – The Critic
- UK Civil Service expansion ended whilst quality of services to rise!
- Productivity relatively ignored!
- Brexit, strikes and labour shortages
- Our productivity problem may not be as bad as it looks
- Stalling UK wage growth costs £11,000 a year
- How to narrow the UK’s productivity gap
- Government waste!
- Are French People Just Lazy?
- Public sector productivity – TPI reports
- Train in Vain?
- Ditch ‘costly, restrictive’ skills list for migrants to help speed up economy
- Computer Saturation and the Productivity Slowdown
- Turning Around The Productivity Slowdown
- Britain faces crises in energy and productivity
- Wealth of nations via TFP?
- Inflation: there’s a vital way to reduce it that everyone overlooks – raise productivity
- Productivity is key to “levelling up”
- Sunak’s economic growth philosophy
- Britain’s productivity has been battered by the scarcity of affordable homes in cities
- A brief history of GDP
- Productivity down under
- Clusters to level up UK
- Weak investment, innovation and management hamper UK productivity
- The British Government’s approach to the economy’s productivity problem needs a rethink
- Low-paid migrants are no answer to labor shortages
- Who Will Win and Lose in the Post-Covid Economy?
- Britain is running out of new ideas and it’s killing productivity
- High productivity figures pre-Covid masked some underperformance
- Back to dreary normal?
- £300 million to boost UK manufacturing productivity by 30%
- Academics to boost productivity growth and level-up living standards
- Next CBI boss finds ray of hope in coronavirus crisis
- CBI a closed-shop for McKinsey alumni?
- Pandemic offers a productivity boost?
- Financial data can be ‘dangerously misleading’
- Universal Credit conflicts
- Following the wrong stars?
- The puzzle to persist?
- Wasted time at school
- Productivity crisis fixed?
- More recognition of ‘consumer surpli’
- National inputs also ‘seriously flawed’
- At last, official recognition of the ‘GDP gap’
- New UK ‘Productivity Institute’
- A National ‘Balanced Scorecard’
Past Posts – 21. Global productivity
- Productivity leads to prosperity
- World Bank says ‘global economic growth is nearing a speed limit’
- TFP = ‘Mix & Methods’, not ‘Magic Fairy Dust’
- Australia’s Productivity Commission has a 5 year productivity plan
- ‘Ocean forests’ counter global warming
- It’s time for business to end its Faustian pact with autocrats
- Faster productivity growth would solve many problems
- How does South Korea surpass Japan in real GDP per capita?
- How can technological innovation mitigate climate change?
- Productivity After The Pandemic
- U.S. May See Post-Pandemic Productivity Surge
- Productivity is almost magical, but don’t forget the side effects
- Four-day week could boost jobs in Spain
- France planned to reverse globalisation but is still bleeding jobs
- The post-pandemic brave new world
- Is the pandemic making us more productive?
- How Fed Policy Is Wrecking the Economy
- How to reverse the productivity slowdown
- 5 Questions About China That Boards Should Be Asking Right Now
- Will companies shift from China to India?
- Coronavirus statistics: what can we trust?
- The economic impact of CV-19?
- CV-19 kick starts new mentalist era
- Capitalism or Communism?
- BIF drains, not lines, national coffers
- 2020 foresight for fossil-free energy
- Productivity stagnant despite global stimulus
- All nations need a National Productivity Centre
- Protectionism ensures slower growth
- NZ shows way for public sector productivity
- Communism versus Capitalism
- UK works longer hours than EU
- Energy is unlimited
- Free trade is good for all nations
- Global recovery good for others too
- NZ Productivity Commission slams their public sector
- What do the East want from the West?
- Japan falls down productivity ladder
- How does Germany beat UK at productivity?
- Productivity Commission (Aus) shows the way
- Dismal productivity trends need not continue
- Cheap labour slows productivity growth
- National productivity positions built on sand
- Low Australia productivity affects all, not just a few
- Wage levels versus Productivity