Category: News

Whether you’re starting up a business or an experienced entrepreneur, managing how to dispose of your waste, in both a cost efficient and ethical way will always be a challenge.

Wastage, as in what the business actually throws away, can accumulate costs as high as 4.5% of a business’s overall turnover according to CIPS, and in some extreme cases, can accumulate up to 10% of the business’s overall gross profits.

The costs can by concerning for many businesses if they are not making the necessary attempts to recycle and dispose of their waste in the correct way. With rising landfill taxes, as well as recycling and sustainability becoming a main concern within ethical business principles, creating a reliable waste management solution is more important than ever for any forward-thinking business that is looking to make a change.

Responsibilities
Based on the UK’s legislation and the government stipulations, businesses have key responsibility to manage and dispose of their waste properly. The requirements that you should meet are broadly as follows:

·  Adopt the Waste Hierarchy principles in order to keep waste to a minimum by preventing, reusing, recycling, and recovering waste where possible.

·  Store or sort waste securely in a safe environment.

·  Complete a waste transfer note for each load of waste that leaves the premises.

·  Check to establish whether your waste carrier is registered.  This can be done by visiting the official Environment Agency website.

·  Do not let your waste carrier dispose of waste illegally. As a producer of waste, the legal responsibility for safe and correct disposal falls on you, and not the waste carrier. You have a responsibility to ensure safe disposal through an auditable document trail.

Organising and storing your business waste
To store waste safely and securely, businesses should as standard:

·   Use suitable and EU-approved containers to prevent leakage.

·   Label containers in a way which clearly stipulates what type of waste they contain.

·   Use waterproof covers — where appropriate — so that no contaminated run-offs are created.

·   Use lockable containers to safeguard your waste.

Dispose of business waste
As specified, for any non-hazardous waste that you want removed from your premises, you will need a waste transfer note or a document containing the same information such as an invoice. You should register online with the appropriate services if you wish to fill in a waste transfer note, or you can create a season ticket for a series of loads that will occur in the future.

·   Both your business and the third party that collects your waste will need to do the following: Fill in the sections of the note that applies to them.

·    Sign it.

·    Keep a copy for two years.

·    Be able to present it to an enforcement officer from the local council or the Environment Agency, if requested.

Reduce the cost of your waste disposal
For most businesses, there is an aim to bring down the disposal cost of waste produced. However, this can be a leap in the dark if business owners are uncertain of how to do this effectively.

A solution is segregation, but you will need to monitor closely and conduct a report to see the volume, material and cost of your waste in order to do this. From this you can set your strategy, highlighting your own targets and goals to ensure the best results possible when it comes to disposal.

It’s important for businesses to be aware of TEEP as well, which stands for technically, environmentally and economically practicable. This determines whether a business should segregate and store various types of produced waste within the business premises prior to its collection by a waste management contractor you have teamed up with.

As part of EU legislation in 2015, the EU Waste Framework addresses that commercial and municipal waste producers are obliged to manage their waste correctly. They can use a third party to achieve this, but businesses will continue to remain responsible.

Business need to separate the waste that they produce for many reasons and one which stands with the highest ethical standard is whether there will be an environmental benefit or reduce a negative that currently exists.

Measuring waste disposal
Waste management providers are likely t=o use online automated systems to help monitor the business waste volumes and spend – giving their clients a greater insight to their overall waste plan. Through waste management portals, each business can have tailored permissions that help provide them with an overview of waste statistics and management information.

To experiment on how much waste your business is producing and before going to a waste management contractor, it might be worth visually assessing how much waste your company is disposing on a regular basis, monitor the bins over the week until they are collected by noting how much waste a bin holds and how full it is before the collection date.

It may be beneficial for all businesses to reduce the amount of waste collections that they currently have and to help with this, set themselves a challenge to think about what they throw away, which will eventually lead them to make better decisions and in the end, save them money. They will have to deal with the limited bin space they have for waste ensuring that every decision is important.

These evaluations are crucial when production a waste management solution, especially with the cost of landfill tax that is rising.

The cost per tonne of landfill was priced at £80 on 1st April 2014, then it was increased to £84.40 on the 1st April 2016, and on the 1st April 2018, It went up to £88.95. With the cost of landfill waste rising year or year, it’s clear that businesses need to ensure that their waste solution system is driven towards recyclable methods to keep the costs of landfill waste to a minimum.

We’ve teamed up with Reconomy, the UK’s leading providers of outsourced waste management provider with unrivalled 8 yard skip hire coverage. We hope it article advises on how to dispose of your waste properly and how to put in place a business-wide waste management strategy that can save your business money.

Spoon Guru co-founder, Markus, is passionate about understanding and bringing to market digital technologies that can empower consumers and provide a meaningful service to people around the globe.

Launched in 2015 in London, UK, the Spoon Guru technology originated when CEO and Co-founder Markus Stripf’s wife Jeany developed multiple food allergies and struggled to shop for foods she could eat, due to lack of transparent information about products that catered to people with allergies and specific dietary preferences.Spoon Guru’s overarching ambition is to build the world’s leading dietary management solution. Based on a pioneering food classification platform, Spoon Guru is capable of supporting endless combinations of unique consumer dietary preference and needs.

Before co-founding Spoon Guru, Markus held a variety of executive positions in the music business. As a Warner Music Group MD, he was responsible for setting up and running Warner’s international direct to consumer business. Markus has more than 15 years digital experience and and was at the forefront of the music business’ transition into digital. Markus holds an MA in Composition and a BA in Commercial Music

What is the mission that Spoon Guru rests upon?

64% of the world’s population now actively exclude foodstuffs from their diet, yet finding suitable foods on supermarkets’ websites or in stores is a serious challenge. Our mission is to transform the world of Food Search – whether shoppers have a nut allergy, follow a vegan diet or simply prefer healthier options, Spoon Guru makes it easy for consumers to find the right foods for their individual food preferences, needs and tastes.

How is AI used by Spoon Guru?

At Spoon Guru, our main innovation is the fact that we combine machine learning algorithms with nutritional domain expertise to produce game changing consumer solutions for the food industry.  We use AI to produce proprietary food attributes by augmenting and enhancing data from a complex array of sources.

This allows us to provide highly scalable and accurate tech solutions to end consumers via our app and as business solutions to grocery retailers like Tesco, who then use our proprietary dietary tags – classifying a product or dish as nut free, lactose free, vegan, halal, low sugar, etc. – to make their products and recipes more searchable, discoverable and ‘shoppable’. The technology increases choice for their customers with specific dietary preferences and removes friction across the entire shopping process.

What does Spoon Guru do to find new users?

Our business model is B2B2C, in other words we license our technology to retailers and to food businesses who want to be able to respond to an unmet consumer need for more transparency and personalisation. This allows us to reach millions of people with our capabilities without having to spend marketing dollars on trying to acquire new users.

There’s an enormous amount of content on the internet produced by people with dietary restrictions – how does Spoon Guru tap into this?

We are part of this exciting community because we champion consumer empowerment. For example, our Spoon Guru app is a tool that is widely promoted within those communities and we cherish the ability to have a direct interface with the various groups that represent people with dietary restrictions, whether that’s vegans, the gluten-free community or people who are trying to make healthier choices.

What’s the long-term goal for Spoon Guru?

The frustration, confusion and lack of choice consumers have had to endure for so long is no longer necessary. Struggling is no longer acceptable, and food search and discovery must be simplified. Our role is to create technology solutions that overcome these barriers, and this will manifest in multiple forms, and across all channels.

Business leaders must invest in retraining existing workforces before they are forced to replace incumbent employees with those with specialist digital skills. That is the advice from global talent acquisition and management specialist, Alexander Mann Solutions.

“To ensure an organisation is future fit, business leaders will need to map and analyse existing capabilities” 

The recommendation comes following the recent announcement that Lloyds Banking Group will cut 6,000 existing positions in the UK – while simultaneously creating 8,000 new roles – in an effort to strengthen its capability to offer customers new ‘leading-edge’ digital banking products and services.

It is understood that existing Lloyds employees whose jobs disappear will be offered the chance to apply for new roles, however the bank has admitted that some specialist roles will need to be sourced externally.

Commenting on the announcement Vanessa Byrnes, Sector Managing Director, Retail Banking & insurance, Alexander Mann Solutions, notes;

“While we have long advised that continual professional development is crucial to ensure that teams remain engaged and productive, amid the digital revolution investing in upskilling has never been more vital.

“Recent research from PwC highlights how finding and hiring employees with the key skills they need to succeed in the digital world continues to keep business leaders awake at night, with 80% of all CEOs admitting that it is a key challenge. In the retail banking sector, this issue is arguably even more pertinent, with the rise of mobile banking, video appointments and tech-enabled ‘micro-branches’ creating a climate where skills demand is shifting at a remarkable rate

“In our experience, retraining and redeploying internal resources is one of the most efficient ways of bridging future skills gaps. When faced with the option to ‘buy, build or borrow’ expertise, growing your own talent comes with numerous benefits, not least the retention of culture and reduced recruitment costs. 

“However, in order to know exactly what skills need to be developed to ensure an organisation is future fit, business leaders will need to map and analyse existing capabilities against projected demand – and there are tools and specialist consultancies available which can help with this.”

Lack of cohesion at the top sees organisations struggling to secure most important digital assets

Responsibility for information security is not falling to any one senior executive function, according to the 2018 Risk:Value report from NTT Security, the specialised security company of NTT Group, which surveyed 1,800 senior decision makers from non-IT functions in global organisations.

At a global level, 22 per cent of respondents believe the CIO is ‘ultimately responsible’ for managing security, compared to one in five (20 per cent) for the CEO and 19 per cent for the CISO. In the UK, fewer respondents point to the CIO (19 per cent) and CISO (18 per cent) while the CEO gets the biggest vote at 21 per cent. The US (27 per cent) and Norway (26 per cent) buck the trend with more than a quarter of respondents suggesting the CEO is responsible, while in Singapore, one third say it is the role of the CISO – the highest figure across all 12 countries. Interestingly, around one in ten people in Switzerland believe the CFO is responsible for security.

“Responsibility for day-to-day security doesn’t seem to fall on any one particular person’s shoulders among our response base,” says Azeem Aleem, VP Consulting & UK&I Lead, NTT Security. “This narrow gap between the roles of CIO, CEO and CISO shows that no one executive function is stepping up to the plate. It could be a sign of unclear separation between the CIO and CISO though, as often they are the same or collaborate closely. 

“On the other hand, should we be concerned that the CEO is not more involved in security matters, given the potentially damaging affects to the business, or should we be relieved that they are not managing a specialist task like this over and above other critical corporate responsibilities. The question is where do you draw the line?”

According to the 2018 Risk:Value report, although more people see the need for regular boardroom discussions about security, their organisations are failing to raise it sufficiently at the C-suite level. While 80 per cent of all survey respondents agree that preventing a security attack should be a regular boardroom agenda item (up from 73 per cent in last year’s report) only 61 per cent say that it is, an increase of just 5 per cent on last year.

Data security poor due to lack of cohesion at the top

NTT Security’s report also suggests that this lack of cohesion at the top of the organisation means that many are struggling to secure their most important digital assets. Fewer than half (48 per cent) of respondents globally – 53 per cent in the UK – say they have fully secured all of their critical data. But with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) now fully in effect, this is no longer an opportunity, but mandatory.

However, companies are beginning to take control of their data as cloud computing best practices mature. Around a quarter (27 per cent) report that the majority of their organisation’s data is currently stored on premise or in data centres (25 per cent). However, in 12 months’ time, a similar proportion (25 per cent) of respondents say that it will be stored in a cloud environment.

For further information on NTT Security’s 2018 Risk:Value report and to download a copy, visit: https://www.nttsecurity.com/en-uk/risk-value-2018

As many of us our aware, advertising is all about grabbing a person’s attention and encouraging them to follow through on an action. Arguably, one of the most effective methods of making someone pay attention is with a large billboard placed strategically in a public place.

It is thought that the billboard originated in New York around the mid-1830s, with the earliest record of a leased billboard space being documented in 1867. However, since then, this form of print marketing has become a staple of advertising and has even played a part on the silver screen as a crucial prop in recent blockbuster, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

And, if you’re looking to maximise your marketing ROI, a billboard is certainly worth considering. If you’re not convinced, find out why billboard advertising might be the boost your brand needs…

The power of a billboard

In statistics gathered by Route, the average Brit was found to be ‘out and about’ for three hours and ten minutes every day, spending around 16 minutes in the view of advertisements. Why not target your consumer during this window of opportunity with a large, quality, well-located billboard in a place with high footfall or traffic?

Don’t let time constraints put you off either. Another reason that billboards are an excellent option for marketing a product or service is that they’re simple to design and print — no putting together multiple pages in a brochure. Need something effective up and running in a hurry? A billboard is a single page of design, which should save you time when putting together a template that will offer maximum ROI.

Take the ‘Marketing Rule of 7’ as inspiration. By placing an outdoor banner in a public place where people will pass every day or a few times a day — like on the way to work or when dropping off and picking up their kids from school — you can help hit this number and potentially increase your brand’s chances of a conversion.

It’s clear to see that billboard advertising could be a beneficial branch of your wider marketing campaign. So, how do you make sure your billboards are as effective as possible?

How to design a successful billboard

We all know that the best adverts are eye-catching. However, if your billboard will be placed at the side of a high-speed road, this creates an even greater demand for noticeability. Think strategically about what you want on your billboard — someone driving past at 40mph is only going to be able to take in so much. What is your marketing objective? Do you want to sell a specific product? Are you spreading brand awareness? Promoting an event? Determine exactly what you want to achieve from your advertisement and provide only the essential information — like contact number, name of product or date and location of event.

An advantage of a billboard is that it’s the ideal platform for a big, conceptual image — which can work wonders from a marketing perspective. According to research, people generally only recall 10% of information they hear three days later. However, using a relevant image alongside this information increases retention by 55%. When designing your billboard, try and think of a funny or quirky image that will grab and hold a passer-by’s attention — such as cake brand, Mr Kipling’s, clever and unusual image of a bunny made using only Cherry Bakewell cakes as part of its Easter marketing campaign. Due to the size of a billboard, your images can pack a more powerful punch, so focus on getting the image perfect and then build your design from there.

Another thing to bear in mind is clarity, especially if you want people to not only notice your billboard but also consume the information on it. Utilise bright and bold colours to catch the eye — contrasting colours are reportedly stay in people’s memories for longer, too — and opt for a simple background and large, readable text — Sans Serif is a good shout.

Consider the placement of your billboard too, is it going to be on a roadside? A driver typically has five to ten seconds to view an ad, which means you need to consider copy length. The more relevant and informative your image is, the less you should need to convey with text — stick to a brief, punchy message of seven words and you should get your marketing message across, no problem.

Think about your target audience when selecting the location too. For example, if your products are for 18-21-years-olds, find a site near a university or college. Otherwise, you could reduce your ROI due to not being in sight of the people who are most likely to engage and act on your ad.

Creating a local campaign? Why not create a stronger connection with the residents by including something that references the town or city? Include an image of a local landmark to create a sense of familiarity or reference the local traffic in a funny way. Humour generally works in advertising. According to a review of 6,500 ads, the funniest were usually cited as being the most appealing and memorable. What’s more, adopting this personal and familiar approach creates a sense of friendliness, so you’ll also exude a more welcoming brand persona — which will be more encouraging to a potential customer.

As we can see, billboard marketing is an excellent way to drive a successful marketing campaign — try it at your business and start increasing sales and customers!

This article was created by Where The Trade Buys, service providers of foam board printing.