As FCC fines T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon $196M for selling users’ real-time location data, the natural question arises: if the first failure is selling user data without consent and the second is losing control over who ends up with it, how should companies actually police both ends of the chain? Vaidotas Šedys, CRO at Oxylabs, shares his insights on the situation. 1. What does this case reveal about how user data is really handled? The issue is that companies sold user data without consent — users were never informed it was happening. Situations like this break the transparency contract between…
Author: sme-admin
By Lisa Cleaver, COO of eCapital Company insolvencies remain persistently high. Every day, 38 businesses in the UK close their doors. Not because they built something nobody wanted, or because the market moved on, but because the money owed to them simply did not arrive in time. Government research shows that late payments create significant cash flow pressure for SMEs, costing UK businesses an estimated £11 billion annually and contributing to thousands of business closures each year. For many firms, the issue is not whether the business is viable. It is whether it can withstand the delay between doing the work and getting paid…
81% of UK based employers who already have employees overseas are intending to increase their workforce abroad according to fresh statistics. However, as businesses prepare for the annual surge in summer leave requests, managing annual leave across international teams is becoming increasingly complex. For companies employing people in multiple countries, holiday policies are no longer just an internal HR issue. Different legal frameworks, employee protections, and cultural expectations can create significant compliance risks if businesses apply the same approach globally. For example, while UK employers have broad discretion over when leave can be taken, rejecting a similar request in Germany could…
SAP hiring managers may be missing key signs of candidate suitability by focusing too heavily on technical screening and not enough on judgement, communication, pressure-handling and team fit. Daniel Patel, Recruitment Director at Eursap, a specialist SAP recruitment agency, says the best interviews go further by testing how candidates think in real project situations, particularly during complex implementations, go-lives, stakeholder disagreements and documentation-heavy work. He explains that strong SAP candidates should not only understand the system, but also be able to explain business processes clearly, work across modules, manage urgent priorities and respond calmly when projects become difficult. “The biggest mistake…
In today’s hyper connected world wealth attracts attention and not always the good kind. Rather than targeting highly protected corporate networks, cybercriminals have turned their focus onto people they see as softer targets, including high net worth individuals, many of whom are far easier to infiltrate electronically than businesses, according to insurance experts, Everywhen. Darren Walsgrove, Personal Lines Director at Everywhen says: “For these individuals, it’s not just their wealth on the line, it’s their reputation and personal data. As a high-net-worth individual’s influence and public exposure grows, they become more of a target.” Whether it is a suspicious login…
New research commissioned by Elevate Employment Services reveals that almost half of senior decision makers in UK small and medium-sized businesses (44%) believe most or all young people aged 16-18 are leaving education without the skills and attitudes needed for work — raising serious questions about the effectiveness of current education-to-employment pathways and the level of investment in employability support. The polling, based on a survey of 500 senior SME decision makers across the UK, found that 36% believe most school leavers are not work-ready, with a further 8% saying almost no young people leave education prepared for employment. By contrast,…
Iran war inflation shock complicates recovery just as financing conditions were beginning to improve The UK property market is navigating a more uncertain path through 2026, with the inflation impact of the Iran war materially weakening confidence that the Bank of England will be able to deliver rate cuts later this year, according to Heligan Group’s latest Real Estate Sector Update. Bank Rate was held at 3.75% in March 2026, and what had appeared earlier in the year to be a straightforward trajectory of two cuts now looks considerably less certain. CPI rose to 3.3% in March from 3.0% in February,…
Rob Morgan, Chief Investment Analyst at Charles Stanley Direct, part of Raymond James Wealth Management, outlines the potential fallout from the upcoming ISA reforms. From April 2027, the annual Cash ISA allowance will be cut from £20,000 to £12,000 for those under 65, while the overall ISA allowance will remain at £20,000. Older savers will retain the full £20,000 cash allowance. Alongside this, the Chancellor is reportedly planning to introduce a 22% charge on interest earned on cash held within Stocks & Shares ISAs – effectively aligning with the basic rate of tax on savings from next tax year (2027/28).…
Customer relationship management (CRM) sits at the centre of almost every modern sales and marketing operation, yet many still have serious flaws that can negatively impact sales and revenue. The experts at the B2B lead generation agency Sopro have collated and analysed the latest industry statistics to highlight the top issues sales teams face with CRM systems. Top CRM implementation challenges and barriers: 1 – 51% of sales leaders say tech silos limit AI and CRM effectiveness Disconnected systems remain a major barrier to realising value from CRM platforms. Over half of sales leaders report that technology silos delay or restrict the…
Pipedrive, the easy and intelligent CRM for small and medium-sized businesses has launched new project management and communication capabilities designed to help sales teams manage customer relationships and post-sale execution more effectively within one platform. As sales teams scale, the transition from closed deal to successful delivery is often slowed by disconnected tools and lost information. Pipedrive’s latest release solves this by bringing post-sale execution directly into the CRM. “Sales doesn’t stop when a deal is closed,” said Joe Futty, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Pipedrive. “We believe that when sales teams are freed from the burden of disconnected…