Search results
Use competitor research to improve your business
The ways you can improve your business using knowledge about your competitors.
What you need to know about your competitors
Examine how your competitors do business, what they offer and how they treat their customers.
How to do competitor research
How to research your competitors using the press, exhibitions, the internet and trade associations.
Who are your competitors?
Where to look for your competitors and how to identify them using sources such as business directories, advertising and press reports.
Learn about customers’ needs from competitors
How learning about a customer's current supplier can help you, if you identify why the customer buys from a rival supplier you can work out how to better them.
Ten things you need to know about your customers
Ten things you need to know about your customers to enable you to sell more products, more efficiently – consider who they are, what they do and why they buy.
What do you know about your customers?
Understanding your customers can help you improve your sales and marketing and offer them what they really want, ask questions like who, what, why and how.
What is your unique selling point?
Understand why customers need or want your product or service and your unique selling point (USP).
Ways to find out about your customers
Different methods of obtaining the information you require on your customers, their buying habits and preferences, such as CRM and business libraries.
Understand your customers' needs
Why understanding your customers' needs is crucial to the success of your business, no matter how good your offering is, customers must want it.
Segment your customers
Putting your customers into groups could help you understand and target their needs more effectively and identify the most and least profitable customers.
Allowing time off work
When staff have a statutory right to time off, when it must be paid, and how to deal with discretionary requests.
Time off work for training and certain job-related duties and activities
Time off for training for those to be made redundant, union and safety representatives, and pension scheme trustees.
Who has the right to time off work and when is it paid?
Time off for trade union work, TUPE consultation, pension scheme, and public duties is a paid, statutory requirement.
Time off work for information and consultation purposes
Time off to be a representative in redundancy and transfer situations, and to attend information and consultation meetings.
Time off work for personal commitments and emergencies
An employee's right to unpaid time off to look after dependants in an emergency, discretionary and extended leave.
Time off for public and judicial service and duties
Time off rights for employees taking part in activities relating to public bodies and the legal system.
Statutory time off work for parental reasons
Time off for maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental leave or parental leave, and time off for pregnant employees.
The eCommerce Directive and the UK
What you need to do now that the eCommerce Directive no longer applies to the UK.
Assured Skills: delivering skilled employees through pre-employment training programmes
The Assured Skills programme offers you the chance to recruit high quality individuals who are 'job ready'.