Feature Articles

Many businesses and organisations have announced their intention to become carbon net zero. This is possible for larger companies, but what about the small business community?

When the UK left the European Union, special arrangements were put in place for trading with Northern Ireland. Here we examine the current operation of the protocol.

A familiar and established market in the Middle East Gulf, Oman is a country ready to do business with UK exporters as its economy diversifies and expands.

For many years, most exporters have relied on local representation to generate business in other countries. Exporters have typically found it invaluable to have a way of achieving a physical presence in each target market, such as a distributor, a commercial agent, a sales representative or franchisee. This is still the way that most exporters work, but in this feature we look at how the growth of e-commerce is making other methods more feasible and Covid-19 may have hastened a process of change.

One of the massive success stories of the last five years has been crowdfunding. If you have an idea for a new product, you can ask your potential customers to help you realise your dream.

During the weeks immediately after the UK left the European Union, Government ministers were quick to dismiss initial difficulties as teething problems with the implication that, once these were sorted out, the promised advantages would come on stream.

Businesses have been going through one of the most tumultuous periods in living memory. Brexit and Covid have had serious, but wildly varying impacts on performance. Do we assume that these are exceptional circumstances and look forward to a return to normal sometime soon? Or has the game changed permanently? We discuss the supply chain.

A new UK trade preference scheme to grow trade with developing countries is being proposed by the Government. The so-called Developing Countries Trading Scheme will take effect in 2022 and will replace the UK’s current Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) which itself replaced and largely replicated the EU’s GSP from 1 January 2021.

The Republic of Ireland, an EU member, is a market that is integral to the UK and widely perceived as an ideal starter market for new exporters.

In a sharp critique of the Northern Ireland Protocol this month, the well-known Irish writer Fintan O'Toole said: “If you ask a stupid question, you get a stupid answer”.