Our guidance is based on our founder's experience and is provided for information purposes only to aid SME businesses. It should not be treated as advice or used as the sole basis for business decisions.
(also look at our information page or blogs. Or request a possible managed introduction page to a provider)
These should be completed every year, if you are in a long term contract at least 6 months before renewal. These are not difficult, but can be time consuming because you need to provide a bill for comparison and chat about your usage. NOTE: your existing supplier will ALWAYS come up with a better deal once they know you are doing a comparison (they will know because the information required for a comparison is rarely on the bill so they have to be contacted) don't be fooled they will increase it over time but they should have given you the deal before you had to look around.
Two things to consider, if you have less than 5 handsets you are not seen as a commercial customer by ANY supplier so will not get the best deal and the best deals are NEVER in the high street. As with energy you have to provide your old bills and have the time to answer questions. NOTE: In Addition, consider your date usage and ensure its shared around your employees and not fixed to a single phone. (Example, A salesperson can use all their data while admin staff or engineers may not use their full allocation, suddenly you are charged more for the salespersons phone)
As with ALL grants 80% of the success is how you ask for a grant and 20% is why you want it, so talk to an advisor in R&D grants. R&D Tax Credits can be claimed by almost any limited company investing in creating better
products, processes, services, materials or devices, and the claims can range from £20,000 to 250,000. However, less than 0.25% of SME Businesses have made R&D Tax claims according to the latest statistics.
Recognising and scoping R&D for Tax Credits requires a detailed knowledge of HMRC Guidelines and the experience of R&D claims. The first step is to ascertain that the company qualifies, scope out their R&D activities, identify scientific and technological
advances and uncertainties, write the technical justifications document to support them
claims and in dealing with HMRC.
Strength’s Weaknesses Opportunities Threats.
Our founder has not used this in many years, but it has long been regarded by some as an important business tool. However, this is pointless if the management team does not answer the headings honestly.
Use it to get a snapshot of how you and your management team feel about the business, ensure that you allow them to answer without recourse, (this is why he stopped using it, it became a stick to beat staff with, so pointless.) If it’s used in an open management discussion it can be useful, as window to your business and how everyone feels……sometimes the ideas and suggestions from SWOT help the overall business.