For the past 20 years, Netflix has steadily taken over the home entertainment industry. It went from a struggling DVD-to-home mailing company to an entertainment powerhouse that produces its own big-budget shows and movies in addition to its large library of third-party releases.

People don’t usually think about small businesses when discussing cyber security. The media covers breaches in governmental and big-business security in excess. These entities usually have lucrative targets that attract the attention of hackers but are often backed up with an extremely protective network security system that’s difficult to crack.

When I think of the old definition of leadership, I think of corporate CEOs pretending they don’t have weaknesses. Instead of using more productive leadership habits, they’re focused on fixing, managing and controlling perceptions to get what they want (the same way a drug addict fixes, manages and controls perception to get the next hit).

Great leaders in the future will lead in a fundamentally different way.

After a roller coaster of a ride in 2020 and into 2021, businesses just like yours are looking to the future. Their eyes aren’t just on recovery. Many businesses are eager to make up for lost time, and they want to bring new customers into the fold.

Guest article supplied by Stella Marshall - Starry1HRconsulting www.starry1hrconsulting.co.uk

Avoiding poor work standards can demotivate other staff and be costly to your business and reputation. It is a common complaint from my clients and action is often left too late when behaviours have already become entrenched.

Guest article kindly supplied by Anne Taylor, Chief Executive, Thorngate Churcher Trust – Housing and Social Care

Anne Taylor leads a third sector Hampshire organisation with eighty staff delivering residential social care and housing services.

Today, when companies need to be lean, nimble and brutally efficient to survive in a competitive marketplace, cutting unnecessary costs is paramount. Unfortunately, it can be easy when you’re on a tight budget to accidentally strip away components of your business that may seem gratuitous, but are actually essential to your success.

These days, small businesses are more dependent on IT systems than at any other time in history. Because of this, even the slightest technological hiccups in our cyberspace-centered workflow can have expensive, lasting consequences. Perhaps the most dramatic illustration of this occurred back in 2013, when Amazon went dark for half an hour.

Two months after hurricanes Harvey and Irma wreaked havoc on coastal cities in the USA, large swaths are still reeling from their impact. In their wake, the nation has been moved as they witness numerous communities uniting to rebuild and find their bearings among the devastating flood damage and rampant destruction that they have been affected by.

We are getting reports that business websites are being attacked by ransom-ware (Ransom ware is a type of malicious cyber attach which locks up all of the files and data on a computer until you pay the criminals to release it). This effectively takes the website offline until the ransom is paid.