There is a simple question that says a lot about how accessible a business really is, and it has nothing to do with your website, your branding or how many followers you have on social media.

It’s this: if someone wanted to become your customer at 7pm tonight, could they?

Not because they’re in an emergency or because they expect you to be working late, but because that’s when they finally have the time. After a full day at work, the school run, dinner and everything else life throws at them, the evening is often the first chance people get to deal with the jobs they’ve been putting off. They remember they need to book the dentist, find a solicitor, arrange a quote for a new boiler or speak to an accountant before the weekend.

When that moment arrives, they’re not casually browsing. They’ve decided to do something about it.

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The Hidden Cost Of After-Hours Enquiries

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For a long time, businesses haven’t really questioned what happens next. If the office is closed, the phone rings out or goes to voicemail. The assumption has always been that anyone who is genuinely interested will simply call back tomorrow.

The trouble is, tomorrow has a habit of getting in the way. The person who was ready to book last night is back in meetings by 9am. They forget. They get distracted. They search again during their lunch break and call somebody else who happens to answer. Sometimes they never make another enquiry at all.

It’s easy to underestimate what an after-hours call actually represents. By the time someone has searched for your business, looked through your website and picked up the phone, they’ve already invested time. They’re much further along the decision-making process than someone scrolling through adverts or comparing options for the first time. In many cases, they’re looking for reassurance rather than persuasion.

That’s why evening enquiries are often some of the strongest leads a business receives. They come from people who have already decided they need help and are looking for someone who can make the next step easy.

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Customer Expectations Have Changed

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Customer behaviour has changed a lot over the last decade. We don’t think twice about ordering groceries late in the evening, booking holidays on a Sunday afternoon or managing our banking from the sofa. We’ve become used to doing things when they fit around our lives instead of arranging our lives around opening hours. The problem is, service businesses haven’t always kept pace with that shift.

Nobody expects a receptionist to work into the evening, and no business owner should feel they have to answer every call personally. The issue is about making sure customers don’t reach a dead end when they’re finally ready to get in touch.

How AI Receptionists Keep Businesses Available

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This is where AI is starting to make a genuine difference, not because it replaces people, but because it fills the gap between when customers want to act and when businesses are available.

An AI receptionist can answer questions, collect information and book appointments while the business owner is having dinner, spending time with family or simply enjoying a well-earned evening off.

For the customer, it feels like progress instead of delay. They don’t have to remember to call back tomorrow because they’ve already taken the next step. For the business, it means opportunities aren’t quietly slipping away overnight without anyone even realising.

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Is Your Business Ready For The 7pm Test?

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The businesses that grow over the next few years probably won’t do so because they’re using the newest technology for the sake of it. They’ll grow because they’re removing small points of friction that have existed for years but were easy to ignore. A missed call at 7pm doesn’t feel like a major problem until you realise how many potential customers never come back.

So perhaps every business should ask itself the same question. If someone decided tonight that they wanted to work with you, would they be able to do something meaningful, or would they simply be asked to call again tomorrow?

The answer might reveal more about your customer experience than any online review ever could.

The post Could Your Business Pass The 7pm Test? appeared first on 91̽��.

Microsoft reported fiscal Q4 revenue of $90.1 billion, up 18% year-on-year. Azure grew 43%, crossing $100 billion in annual revenue for the first time. Profit rose 31% to $35.8 billion. Microsoft 365 Copilot surpassed 30 million paid seats. Meta reported revenue up 28% to $60.8 billion. And free cash flow fell 91%, from $8.55 billion to $784 million, as capital expenditure on AI infrastructure rose 83% to $31.08 billion in a single quarter.

Two tech giants navigating the same era of heavy AI investment, yet yielding wildly different financial results.

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Why Microsoft’s Numbers Work

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The real strength of Microsoft’s AI strategy comes down to anchoring on software people already pay for.

Azure provides the essential foundation. AI workloads are driving cloud migration and consumption, with AI services contributing an estimated 16 percentage points of Azure’s growth in recent quarters. Copilot is a direct monetisation play inside Microsoft 365, a product with enormous enterprise reach. When a company upgrades to Copilot, Microsoft gets paid more for something it was already selling. The AI investment flows through existing, high-margin channels into incremental revenue that shows up directly in earnings. The Intelligent Cloud segment, which houses Azure, grew 32% year-on-year to $39.3 billion.

AI isn’t a cost centre here, AI actively drives profit for Microsoft. Setting aside $190 billion for 2026 capital spending feels justified while Azure scales at 43% and Copilot commands 30 million paid seats.

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Why Meta’s Numbers Don’t Work

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Meta’s situation is structurally different, and that changes how the numbers read.

Revenue was up 28%, driven by AI improvements to ad targeting and content recommendations. Those improvements are tangible and they’re working. But they’re incremental gains on a mature advertising business, not new high-margin revenue streams. Meta hasn’t yet launched a widely adopted, directly paid AI product comparable to Copilot or Azure AI services. The AI investment is improving what already exists rather than creating something customers pay for separately.

The essential metric here remains the cash flow figure. Free cash flow of $784 million on $60.8 billion in revenue translates to a margin of barely 1%. The prior year quarter produced $8.55 billion in free cash flow. That collapse reflects $31.08 billion in quarterly capital expenditure, an 83% year-on-year increase, for AI infrastructure whose returns are still largely theoretical.

Meta’s 2026 capex guidance sits at $115 to $135 billion for the full year. The payoff, when it arrives, may be large. Right now it isn’t arriving.

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What This Tells Founders And Operators

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The Microsoft-Meta divergence is the clearest picture yet of what good AI investment looks like versus what AI spending as a long-term bet looks like.

Microsoft’s approach, embedding AI into products that already have paying customers and clear monetisation paths, is generating returns that accrete to earnings and cash flow today. Meta’s approach, heavy infrastructure investment for products whose commercial form isn’t yet clear, is consuming cash at an extraordinary rate. Without Meta’s balance sheet, it wouldn’t be sustainable.

For founders weighing up AI spending in their own businesses, the Microsoft model is the more useful perspective. AI that improves a product people already pay for, at a price point that reflects the improvement, generates returns. AI that builds toward a future product without a current monetisation path generates costs. Both strategies make complete sense assuming one has the scale and financial backing. Most companies only ever have the breathing room to try one.

Meta may prove its bet right. The foundations it’s building could underpin products that generate returns at scale within a few years. But the 91% free cash flow drop is a reminder that big bets on AI require extraordinary balance sheets to absorb the cost of being early. For the vast majority of businesses, the lesson from this earnings season isn’t to spend like Meta. It’s to build like Microsoft.

The post How Microsoft Proved AI Returns While Meta’s Cash Flow Collapsed appeared first on 91̽��.

Ten years ago, decisions of this scale might have travelled through several layers of headquarters and taken weeks. Today, they need to be made within a day.

Consider two familiar situations.

A distributed marketplace wants to launch an experiment, but the discussion has already lasted three weeks. Some stakeholders support it, others have concerns, and everyone continues to contribute but nobody makes the final call.

Elsewhere, headquarters spends months developing a global initiative. Meanwhile, a local team has already built its own version under a different name and budget. When the overlap emerges, nobody can explain who originally owned the problem.

These are symptoms of the same organisational condition. And it cannot be fixed by hiring more senior people, introducing another coaching programme, or rolling out a new OKR system.

It took me time to understand that. I deal with this complexity every day, and one lesson has stayed with me: the problem is rarely the people. It is the system in which they are expected to operate.

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Why Speed Has Become A Condition For Survival

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Speed is not a quality of individual people. It is a property of the operating model.

As a business expands across markets, products, and customer segments, dependencies multiply. More teams become involved, responsibilities overlap, and even straightforward decisions get stuck between functions and levels.

Hiring stronger people does not solve a structural problem. Exceptional people working within an unclear system will still make slow decisions, duplicate work, and compete for ownership.

Uncertainty makes this more urgent. Currency movements and regulatory changes can reshape a market within days. Competitors change local rules with every launch. AI is redefining how organisations operate so quickly that a decision made in January may already be outdated by June.

In this environment, the most powerful lever an organisation can control is its decision-making model: who makes which decisions, at what level, and how quickly the organization can act.

If this model is not designed deliberately, it will emerge on its own, usually through committees, endless cycles of approvals, and endless Slack threads. Speed was once a competitive advantage. Today, it is a condition for survival.

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The Three Levels Of Decision-Making

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Complete centralisation is too slow, while full local autonomy creates duplication and inconsistency. The main challenge is deciding what must remain centralised and what should move closer to the market.

In my experience, a mature distributed operating model has three levels. Global core owns the decisions that define the organisation: strategy, capital allocation, brand principles, technology platforms, safety and security standards, ethics, and the hiring bar.

Regional hubs translate global principles into regional reality. They allocate resources across groups of markets, identify common patterns and scale successful approaches from one market to similar ones.

Local edge owns decisions that require immediate market knowledge: local supply and demand, operational tactics, competitor response, campaigns, and pricing within agreed boundaries.

The closer a decision is to the customer, the greater the role of local expertise should be. The exact distribution across these levels matters less than whether it is explicit and understood consistently.

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Three Principles That Make The Model Work

Trust Local Expertise Without Losing The Global View

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Local teams are often the first to notice changes in customer behaviour, competitor activity, or operational conditions. They should be able to test ideas based on what they see.

But one local example should not automatically become a global policy. A strong distributed organisation allows markets to test, learns from the results, looks for patterns, and then decides what should be scaled. Local teams provide depth; the centre provides perspective.

Accept That Data Will Always Be Incomplete

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Data should inform decisions, but the complete picture will never arrive. External conditions change, reporting reflects the past, and some information cannot be captured.

Waiting for certainty is not a neutral choice. A decision made too late can be as costly as a decision that turns out to be wrong. The goal is to use consistent metrics, look at trends rather than isolated data points, and distinguish between reversible and irreversible decisions.

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Make Decision Rights Explicit

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Many complaints about organisational slowness come down to one basic problem: nobody knows who has the final say.

A simple structure can resolve much of this:

• One accountable person makes the decision
• One informed person receives the outcome
• No more than two consulted people provide input

A meeting is also not a decision. Every decision-making meeting should end with one sentence stating what was decided, who owns the next step, and when it is due. If that sentence cannot be written, the meeting produced a conversation, not a decision.

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Five Practices To Start On Monday

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1. Create a one-page decision map. List the ten decisions your team needs to make. Name one accountable person for each and allow no more than two consulted people. If you cannot identify the accountable, the problem is the operating model.
2. Record decisions in writing. After every meeting, write one sentence: what was decided, who owns it, and when it is due.
3. Apply the rule of five. One unusual signal may be noise. If the same pattern appears in five different places, it deserves investigation.
4. Review how leaders spend their time. Operational teams may spend most of their time on execution. Leaders should spend most of theirs on the horizon and the system. When leaders personally resolve every daily problem, the organisation becomes dependent on them.
5. Create a shared language around a few metrics. Five to seven consistent metrics are more useful than dozens of disconnected ones. If a team cannot name its most important metrics from memory, its members may be optimising for different outcomes without realising it.

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A Simple Diagnostic For Every Operating Model

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Take five decisions your team made during the past two weeks and ask:

1. Who was accountable?
2. Where was the decision documented?
3. Was there a clear owner and deadline?

If the answer to several of these questions is “I don’t know,” the operating model needs attention. No senior hire, coaching programme or new goal-setting framework will solve that problem on its own.

Ultimately, every distributed organisation depends on three things:

• How quickly it understands what is happening
• How quickly it makes decisions
• How clearly it knows who has the authority to decide

Speed does not come from asking people to work faster. It comes from building a system in which capable people know when to act, what they own, and which decisions do not require another round of approval.

Speed is not a property of the people. It is a property of the system.

Evgenia Matrosova is a Chief Ride-Hailing Officer at InDrive, running teams across 48 markets at once. The views here reflect personal operating experience, not the position of any single organisation.

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Remote work, access to global talent and digital collaboration tools mean companies are increasingly building teams that span multiple countries and currencies – and it’s been incredibly advantageous for both businesses and individuals in a plethora of different ways. But, according to new research from Native Teams, there’s another factor that we may have been missing up until now. That is, the financial systems supporting those global workforces may not have evolved at the same pace.

Native Teams’ latest report, “Global by Default, Financially Exposed: How Global Payments and Employment Reshape Financial Risk for North American Companies”,�� suggests that cross-border payroll is becoming a significant financial operations issue for many organisations. Based on research conducted by Censuswide among more than 500 senior finance decision-makers across the US and Canada, finance teams are facing growing challenges around foreign exchange (FX), compliance, cash planning and payroll administration.

Basically, it’s not actually that easy to deal with finances across borders.

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Payroll Is Becoming More Than An HR Function

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According to the report, 97% of finance leaders said foreign exchange movements changed their total payroll costs over the past 12 months, while 77% believe their organisation is exposed to payroll-related financial risk today.

Native Teams argues that payroll is increasingly behaving less like an administrative HR process and more like part of a company’s wider financial infrastructure.

As Jack Thorogood, Founder and CEO of Native Teams, said,��“Payroll has quietly become one of the most exposed parts of scaling up to the global market. Once it runs across multiple banking systems, currencies and compliance rules, it stops behaving like a payroll workflow and starts behaving like a holistic financial infrastructure – and 77% of finance leaders now agree they’re carrying that risk.”

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He added that “the real issue is structural: how companies employ people across borders, and how they pay them, are still managed as two separate problems. Until that gap closes, payroll will keep being the most measurable tool of a business that has globalised faster than its financial systems have.”

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International Hiring Brings Operational Challenges

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The report suggests that managing payroll across multiple countries involves a range of operational pressures rather than one single challenge. According to the findings, 55% of finance leaders said cross-border payroll complexity has increased over the past year, compared to 19% who said it has decreased – a pretty big difference.

Respondents identified sisx main things as the biggest challenges involved in managing payroll across many different countries:

• Employee training (58%)
• Cash planning (55%)
• The number of systems used (52%)
• Foreign exchange movement (49%)
• Compliance and regulatory differences (46%)
• Manual work (44%)

The report also notes that many organisations are still managing international payroll using multiple systems, local providers and manual processes.

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Foreign Exchange Is Affecting Payroll Costs

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One of the report’s most significant findings, however, relates to the actual impact of currency movements. Indeed, according to the research, 97% of finance leaders said FX rate movements changed their total payroll costs during the previous 12 months. Meanwhile, 45% reported payroll cost variances of between 2% and 5% against forecast because of FX movements.

The report concludes that foreign exchange volatility is becoming a structural payroll planning factor rather than simply an external financial consideration. Thus, in many senses, they’re starting to need to expect the unexpected, so to speak.

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Payroll Timing Is Affecting Cash Planning

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The research also found that cross-border payroll timing is influencing short-term financial planning, which isn’t exactly a huge surprise given the report’s findings. Indeed, according to the research, 79% of finance leaders said payroll timing affects short-term cash planning over the next 30 to 90 days, with 27% describing the impact as significant.

The survey found that all finance teams surveyed had moved funds during the past 12 months because of cross-border payroll timing or settlement. Further to this, 99% had changed transfer timing to adjust cash positioning and 99% had held additional cash buffers to manage payroll-related cash exposure.

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Visibility Still Relies On Manual Processes

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While many organisations reported having visibility into payroll liabilities, the report suggests that this visibility isn’t always fully automated.��According to the findings, 84% of finance leaders said they have visibility into total payroll liabilities across countries and currencies before each payroll cycle. But, only 33% reported having full real-time or near real-time visibility.

The report also found that 62% spend between two and five hours manually consolidating payroll and payment data during every payroll cycle, while a further 13% spend between six and ten hours doing so. A time-consuming manual process either way.

As Thorogood said, “Cross-border payroll is no longer an administrative HR function. It is a live financial operations issue with direct implications for cash planning, visibility, compliance, and operational resilience.”

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Global Hiring Might Just Be Changing The Role Of Payroll Altogether

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The report doesn’t suggest that businesses should rethink hiring internationally. Instead, it actually argues that the financial infrastructure supporting global workforces is becoming increasingly important as organisations expand across borders.

Ultimately, the message here is that payroll is evolving beyond a traditional HR workflow and is becoming a broader finance, compliance and operational issue. As companies continue to employ people across multiple countries and currencies (as they absolutely will), the report suggests that payroll is increasingly connected to treasury, cash flow management, compliance and financial planning.

So, for businesses embracing global hiring, the research indicates that attracting international talent may be only one part of the equation. Managing the financial complexity that comes with a global workforce, however, is becoming more and more important too, and something that can no longer be overlooked.

The post Could Global Hiring Be Costing Businesses More Than They Think? appeared first on 91̽��.

According to the European Commission, the EU is actively studying a purchasing programme for permanent carbon removals, with the goal of creating predictable demand that would allow startups and investors to finance large-scale direct air capture and bio-based storage projects. The Commission has also published the first EU-wide certification rules for permanent carbon removals, covering DACCS, BioCCS and biochar. That makes those credits legible to regulators and buyers in a way they previously weren’t.

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The Power Of Guaranteed Demand

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The core problem with scaling carbon removal has never been the technology – it’s been the financing.

Direct air capture plants are capital-intensive, energy-intensive and slow to build. A project that takes four years to construct and fifteen years to pay back requires lenders who believe the demand will still be there. In voluntary markets, that confidence is hard to establish. Reframing state purchasing as infrastructure procurement reshapes project risk enough to finally get institutional capital flowing.

The European Parliament’s own look at direct air capture is direct about this point: the technology needs clear policy, financial incentives, streamlined regulation and sustained research and development, alongside cheap clean power and access to geological storage sites. A procurement programme addresses the first two directly. While this approach leaves energy and logistical challenges intact, it lowers commercial risk for investors to back projects previously deemed premature.

That’s the hypothesis the European Commission is working from: guaranteed demand may not make carbon removal cheap, but it can make it financeable. For the sector, financeable is the prerequisite for everything else.

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Which Companies Are Best Placed?

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The European Union’s certification model narrows the field in practical ways. DACCS (direct air capture with carbon storage), BioCCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage) and biochar have the clearest regulatory pathway under the Carbon Removal Certification model. Companies whose projects align with those methodologies and who can demonstrate verified, measurable and durable removal are the ones most likely to access institutional procurement.

Climeworks, the Swiss direct air capture company, is already repositioning itself around compliance-oriented markets. It has expanded its advisory and portfolio-building services specifically around the CRCF, CORSIA and Article 6.2 frameworks. That indicates where the market is heading. Intermediated, standards-driven offtake agreements are replacing spot-market credit sales.

The players best placed already have verified monitoring and reporting, access to geological storage and project pipelines large enough to meet institutional buyers’ scale requirements.

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Is Procurement The Right Mechanism?

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The European Commission’s case for procurement rests on a specific market failure: the demand gap.

Private buyers aren’t buying enough to prove that permanent removal projects can attract buyers at commercial volume. Public procurement creates a reference customer, establishes price discovery and gives lenders a bankable offtake. That logic is sound for early-stage industrial technology with high capital costs and long payback periods.

The risk is technology lock-in. If the EU commits large procurement budgets to specific pathways before the technology has matured, it could entrench approaches that turn out to be suboptimal or crowd out cheaper options that emerge later. The strongest case for the programme is therefore a staged approach: targeted procurement now to build project pipelines and demonstrate commercial viability, alongside continued certification development and periodic review of which technologies qualify.

What the EU is doing is repositioning carbon removal from a voluntary climate add-on into a regulated procurement category tied to European industrial policy. The rules of the game are shifting across the carbon removal space. Corporate sustainability budgets are taking a back seat to sovereign demand, rigorous certification standards and state procurement timelines. Founders who understand that pivot are those building for what the market is actually becoming.

The post Why Is The EU Pushing To Become The World’s Biggest Carbon Buyer? appeared first on 91̽��.

The Corporation Tax system has not changed and HMRC will still apply the same rates introduced in April 2023. Companies with taxable profits of £50,000 or less pay Corporation Tax at 19% and companies with profits above £250,000 pay the main rate of 25%. Businesses with profits between those thresholds pay the main rate with Marginal Relief, which slightly increases the effective rate.

The current structure came from the Spring Budget 2021. The government announced the main Corporation Tax rate for non ring fence profits would increase to 25% for companies making more than £250,000 in profits. A small profits rate of 19% also came into effect for companies making £50,000 or less.

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Does A New Prime Minister Automatically Change Business Taxes?

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A new Prime Minister cannot rewrite tax law immediately – Corporation Tax rates, Self Assessment rules and other business taxes stay in force until the government introduces legislation through a Budget or Finance Bill and Parliament approves it.

SMEs should continue planning around the current tax system because no new tax legislation has been announced. Existing rates and tax deadlines continue to apply unless Parliament passes new laws.

Business owners often keep an eye out for government tax announcements because future Budgets can introduce new rules. Until Parliament approves any legislation, the current system continues without any changes made for now.

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Which Tax Deadline Is Catching Many Business Owners Out?

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The 31 July Self Assessment deadline continues to catch many taxpayers by surprise.

According to Ridgefield Consulting, millions of Self Assessment taxpayers face a payment deadline on 31 July through HMRC’s Payments on Account system. The accountancy practice said many first time self employed workers, landlords, freelancers and people earning money through side businesses do not realise a second payment may fall due six months after the main 31 January deadline.

HMRC says Payments on Account generally apply when a Self Assessment tax bill exceeds £1,000 and less than 80% of the tax has already been collected through methods such as PAYE. Each payment is normally 50% of the previous year’s tax liability.

Simon Thomas, Managing Director of Ridgefield Consulting, said, “Every year we see business owners, landlords and self employed workers experiencing the stress of an unexpected HMRC bill, particularly where payments on account increase what they’re expecting to pay.

“The key issue is often cash flow rather than compliance. People aren’t necessarily doing anything wrong; they simply haven’t planned for how the system works or realised another payment is due in July.

“The good news is there are practical, legitimate ways to make tax payments more manageable and reduce that pressure, whether that’s budgeting throughout the year, reviewing whether payments on account are still accurate or speaking to HMRC early if you’re struggling to pay.

“Payments on account are designed to help taxpayers spread their tax liabilities, but they can create challenges when people are not aware of how the system works or have not planned for the additional payment.

“As the July deadline approaches, taxpayers should review what they owe, consider whether their circumstances have changed and seek advice or support early if they have concerns. Taking action before the deadline can help avoid unnecessary financial pressure.”

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��What Do SME Leaders Want From The New PM?

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As much as Burnham cannot immediately make changes, business leaders have spoken on their expectations should he eventually make changes. Here’s what they want…

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Our Experts:

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• Vipul Sheth, MD, Advancetrack
• Eamon Shahir, Co-founder and Co-CEO, Taxd
• James Poyser, CEO and Co-founder, The inni Group
• Ben Westoby, Senior Business Consultant, Forbes Burton
• James O’Leary, Corporate Tax Director, Kreston Reeves

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Vipul Sheth, MD, Advancetrack

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“The new Prime Minister has inherited an incredibly difficult set of economic choices, but top of his in-tray should be this: giving businesses the certainty they need to plan for the future. Entrepreneurs make investment decisions over years, not months, and constant speculation over tax policy risks holding back that ambition.

“If the Government wants to unlock growth, it should focus on creating the conditions for businesses to expand, recruit and innovate. That means avoiding measures that discourage entrepreneurship and instead backing the firms that drive jobs, productivity and economic growth.

“I’d like to see a clear commitment to supporting the UK’s entrepreneurial economy, whether that’s protecting Business Asset Disposal Relief, encouraging investment in skills and technology, or creating a stable environment for firms to scale. Our latest Accounting Talent Index found that 73% of firms still expect to grow over the next 12 months, despite the challenges they’re facing. The ambition is clearly there – Government policy should be helping to unlock it.

“Accountants have a unique view of what’s happening across the economy because they work alongside businesses of every size. The message we’re hearing is remarkably consistent: firms want to invest, hire and grow, but they need a policy environment that gives them the confidence to do so.”
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Eamon Shahir, Co-founder and Co-CEO, Taxd

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“SMEs are unlikely to be looking for wholesale tax cuts alone. What many want most is certainty, simplicity and a tax system that supports growth. For small businesses, unpredictable costs and complex compliance requirements can often be as challenging as the headline tax rates themselves.

“Under Andy Burnham’s administration, many SMEs would likely be hoping for a stronger focus on local economic growth, including reforms that make it easier for businesses to invest, hire (especially in the early days) and expand. This could include reviewing the burden of business rates, improving access to investment incentives, and ensuring smaller firms are not disadvantaged compared with larger organisations.

Alternatively, increasing the NI allowance could help a lot of smaller businesses too. More subsidies from the government would benefit existing SME’s and incentivise new ones. Increasing the age NI allowance starts from is a potential option also.

Cash flow remains one of the biggest pressures facing SMEs, so policies that improve payment times, simplify tax administration and provide clearer guidance would have a significant impact. Many small businesses would also welcome targeted support for innovation, skills development and digital adoption, helping them become more productive rather than simply reducing their tax bill.

The challenge for any government is balancing support for businesses with the need to raise revenue. The most effective approach is likely to be one that creates a stable environment where SMEs can plan confidently, invest for the future and contribute to regional economic growth.”

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James Poyser, CEO and Co-founder, The inni Group

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“Over the last few years, National Minimum Wage and Employers National Insurance have had a huge impact on our business. It doesn’t just increase the cost of employing junior team members, but it ripples up throughout the organisation, increasing our overheads. We’ve been forced to increase prices, but there’s only so much we can pass on to clients. Cash that would have been spent on growth has to be invested in operations. There are two main paths: outsource overseas to lower cost countries, or invest in AI and automation to drive productivity and efficiency.

“We’re choosing the latter. Our goal is to be a leader in the tax industry, one that leverages AI to support our workforce. But this needs investment, which comes at the expense of top line growth.

“We’d really like to see better support from the government to help us invest in AI so we can drive productivity and meet the government’s high wage economy dream. The current system (R&D tax credits) doesn’t work for these types of improvements. We’d like to see specific tax breaks or grants to allow companies like us to invest in AI. ”

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Ben Westoby, Senior Business Consultant, Forbes Burton

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“Burnham has already addressed the business rate issue that the hospitality industry has been crying out for over the last five years, and that will need to extend to the high street in order to help many more. Beyond taxation change, though, the majority of the SMEs we’ve been working with would seem to benefit far more from a reversal of the National Insurance contribution rises and more flexible payment options.

“Many of our clients see National Insurance, business rates and VAT bills landing at awkward times with little flexibility in how they’re able to pay them. This has seen scores of otherwise viable businesses closing due to stretched cash flows from a payment structure that’s far too rigid.”

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James O’Leary, Corporate Tax Director, Kreston Reeves

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“Kreston Reeves acts for hundreds of SME tech founders. They are the engines of the economy and typically share the same three frustrations. These would be a good place for Andy Burnham to start

“The cost of employing staff following the increase to employers’ National Insurance Contributions remains high and hits small tech businesses hard. It makes founders think twice about committing to often good hires. It would be an easy and popular win for the new PM.

“The R&D tax credit regime is a lifeline for SME tech businesses, but we find many are now reluctant to make a claim for fear of HMRC challenge, especially as the cost of defending an enquiry can be disproportionately high and can take too long to resolve. Whilst further reform is not needed, perhaps the decision making inside HMRC could be reviewed to send a strong message that the UK wants to support and nurture SME tech businesses.

“Finally, there is frustration around the curtailment of Business Asset Disposal Relief and increases to the rate of Capital Gains Tax. The tax system is used to incentivise certain behaviours and founders taking risks and building successful tech businesses should be encouraged by the Government.”

The post Experts Share: What Business Tax Changes Are SMEs Hoping To See From Andy Burnham? appeared first on 91̽��.

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What is a Commodity Trader?

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In order to profit from price fluctuations or manage risk for customers by examining market variables like supply and demand, weather, and politics, a commodity trader purchases and sells raw goods like oil, gold, wheat, or coffee. They manage risk, execute trades for clients, give advice, and keep up with international economic developments.

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What Are The Responsibilities Of a Commodity Trader?

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Profiting from the purchase and sale of tangible goods or their derivatives is the primary responsibility of a commodity trader. This requires careful market analysis of supply, demand, weather, and geopolitics in addition to risk management, effective trade execution, and upholding client and partner relationships in order to spot profitable price fluctuations.��

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Do You Need Specific Certifications to Become a Commodity Trader?

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In order to handle client assets and trade commodities lawfully, you often need certain licenses, certificates, and professional credentials, like as the CFA or CISI tests in the UK, in addition to pertinent schooling to demonstrate competence and satisfy regulatory criteria. Official licenses are essential for a professional career, guaranteeing market comprehension and compliance, even though some independent study is beneficial.��

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What Are the Essential Skills Every Commodity Trader Needs?

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Success in commodity trading requires far more than simply understanding market fundamentals or having access to capital. The most successful commodity traders possess a diverse skill set that combines analytical capabilities, technical proficiency, interpersonal abilities, and psychological resilience. Here are the top essential skills you need:

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Analytical Thinking

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Commodity traders must possess exceptional analytical thinking skills to interpret large amounts of market data, identify patterns, and make informed decisions quickly. This involves analysing supply and demand fundamentals, understanding how economic indicators impact commodity prices, evaluating historical price movements, assessing geopolitical events, and determining how various factors interact to influence market direction.

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Technical Literacy

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Modern commodity trading relies heavily on technology, making technical literacy essential for success. Traders must be proficient with trading platforms, charting software, data analysis tools, algorithmic trading systems, and market information terminals. Understanding technical indicators, reading candlestick charts, using automated trading tools, managing electronic order execution, and leveraging technology for market research are fundamental requirements.

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Time Management

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Commodity markets operate globally across different time zones, with prices moving continuously in response to news, weather events, economic data releases, and geopolitical developments. Effective time management skills allow traders to monitor multiple markets simultaneously, prioritise tasks, respond quickly to market-moving events, balance research with execution, and maintain focus during high-pressure situations.

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Effective Communication

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Commodity trading involves constant communication with brokers, clients, suppliers, analysts, and other market participants. Traders must articulate their ideas clearly, explain complex concepts in understandable terms, negotiate terms effectively, build relationships with industry contacts, and convey market views persuasively. Strong communication skills enable traders to collaborate effectively with team members and build a professional network that often provides access to exclusive information and opportunities.

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Adaptability

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are inherently unpredictable, with prices influenced by countless variables from weather patterns and political instability to currency fluctuations and unexpected supply disruptions. Successful traders must adapt quickly to changing market conditions, adjust strategies when initial assumptions prove incorrect, remain flexible in their approach, learn from mistakes, and pivot when opportunities shift

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Market Knowledge

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Deep understanding of specific commodity markets is fundamental to trading success. This includes knowledge of production processes, supply chain dynamics, seasonal patterns, major producing and consuming regions, quality specifications, storage and transportation logistics, and the key players influencing each market. Traders must understand what drives supply and demand for their commodities, how substitute products impact prices, what geopolitical factors matter most, and how related markets interact.

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Negotiation

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Commodity trading frequently involves negotiating terms for physical delivery, contract specifications, pricing mechanisms, payment terms, and risk allocation. Strong negotiation skills enable traders to secure favourable terms, build mutually beneficial relationships, resolve disputes effectively, and create value beyond simple price transactions.

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The New York Fed’s analysis of the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey found that businesses facing greater tariff challenges were less likely to expect higher revenues or employment in 2026. That’s hardly the profile of a business bracing for a short-term shock. It’s the profile of one adjusting expectations downward for the foreseeable future.

Exposure is concentrated across specific sectors yet broad in impact. Up to 80% of small retail and goods businesses integrated foreign supply chains in 2024, leading to widespread tariff friction for 55% of national goods firms and 67% of retailers the following year. Over 40% of small businesses described tariff-related costs as a burden, with retail and manufacturing hit hardest.

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The Split Response: Pass Through, Absorb Or Both

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The most consistent pattern in the available data is that most businesses aren’t choosing a single response. The New York Fed found that around 80% of affected goods and retail firms passed on at least some costs, around 60% absorbed some internally and many did both simultaneously, while others changed suppliers or adjusted purchase timing. The binary viewpoint of “price increase or margin hit” understates the reality. Most owners are doing multiple things at once, none of them clean and none of them fully adequate.

Jonathan Yee, co-founder of Mailers HQ, an ecommerce packaging company supplying custom bubble mailers to online sellers across the US, is in the absorption camp for now. “Tariffs have driven up our cost on the materials we import for our mailers, and right now we’re absorbing that hit rather than passing it straight through, accepting thinner margins to keep pricing stable for our customers, who are themselves small ecommerce sellers already squeezed on their own margins.”

The logic is valid, albeit fragile. Yee’s customers are themselves margin-compressed. Passing a price increase downstream to a business that can’t absorb it either risks losing the customer entirely. So Yee takes the hit instead, banking on costs normalising before the absorbed margin becomes unsustainable. “How long we can keep absorbing it is the real question. If costs stay elevated, this stops looking like a short-term shock and starts looking like something we have to build into our pricing model for good.”

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When Does A Shock Become A Permanent Cost Structure?

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That closing observation from Yee cuts to the core of the issue with more precision than any survey statistic. The businesses aren’t necessarily those facing the highest absolute tariff costs. They’re the ones whose customers are also small businesses with thin margins, creating a chain where no participant has enough pricing power to absorb the increase without consequence.

The New York Fed data supports the idea that this round is being treated differently from previous tariff episodes. Businesses with greater tariff exposure in 2025 were measurably more pessimistic about employment and revenue in 2026 than those without. This pessimism is showing up in hiring decisions. Businesses are delaying recruitment, holding positions open longer and in some cases cutting headcount to manage margin pressure that price increases haven’t fully offset.

The longer the elevated cost environment continues, the more these provisional responses, absorb now and review quarterly, harden into permanent operating model changes. A business that has repriced its products, reduced its headcount and switched suppliers to manage tariff costs has made structural changes that don’t reverse easily if the tariffs are reduced. The operational memory of the adjustment outlasts the policy that caused it.

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What Owners Are Watching

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The businesses holding up best share one of three characteristics: pricing power strong enough to pass through increases without losing customers, capital cushion enough to absorb margin compression for an extended period or supplier flexibility to source domestically or from lower-tariff jurisdictions. For many small businesses, none of those three conditions hold fully.

What owners are watching most intently is whether the current tariff structure becomes the baseline or reverts. This uncertainty is itself a cost: businesses aren’t investing, hiring or expanding while the operating cost picture is unclear. The damage from delayed decisions compounds over time even if the tariffs themselves are eventually reduced.

The New York Fed probably sums up the situation better than anyone else. This isn’t a situation where businesses break under tariff pressure. It’s a situation where businesses adjust their expectations quietly toward a more expensive and more constrained operating environment. Deciding if this shift is temporary or enduring is a reality most founders are hoping to postpone dealing with.

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A wrong automated reply can create a financial dispute. For businesses providing advice, designs or specialist recommendations, may help when a customer claims that incorrect information caused a financial loss. Insurance cannot repair a weak process, and a policy may not respond when the claim falls outside the insured activity.

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Incorrect Answers Can Become Business Commitments

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A chatbot may quote wrong delivery dates, invent features or promise refunds. Customers may rely on those messages when buying.

Under UK consumer law, businesses must not provide misleading information or omit important facts. Automation does not transfer responsibility to the software supplier. If a system advertises next-day delivery while stock will arrive next week, the company remains responsible.

Businesses should define which subjects automation may handle safely. Suitable examples include:

• Confirming that an enquiry was received
• Sharing approved opening times or delivery windows
• Linking to a published returns process
• Collecting basic details before human review

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Lost Context Can Produce Harmful Responses

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Automated tools often treat each message as a simple request. They may miss that the customer is vulnerable, distressed or unable to use a standard process. A rigid payment reminder sent after a bereavement notice can cause distress. A wellbeing business faces greater danger if a bot responds to symptoms without recognising urgency.

Escalation rules need specific triggers for urgent cases. Words such as fraud, injury, discrimination, chargeback, solicitor and emergency should pause the workflow. Two unsuccessful automated replies can be a practical limit before human review.

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Personal Data Can Be Collected Without Proper Control

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Chatbots and messaging tools may capture names, addresses, order histories, health details and payment problems. This information is personal data when it relates to an identifiable person. Health data and certain other sensitive information receive additional legal protection.

A business must know what the tool records, where information is stored, who can access it and how long it remains available. Staff should not paste customer databases into public generative AI tools without an approved contract and security assessment.

Automated marketing requires separate legal and practical care. PECR restricts unsolicited marketing by email, text and similar electronic messages.��

Before launch, owners should check:

• The lawful basis for each use of customer data
• Consent records and suppression lists for marketing
• Retention periods for transcripts and contact details
• Contracts with software providers and subprocessors
• Access controls for employees and agencies

Automated Decisions May Treat Customers Unfairly

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Communication software may rank leads, reject refund requests or decide which complaints receive priority. These actions can become automated decision-making when no employee meaningfully reviews the result.

The risk increases when the system uses incomplete or biased data. A customer with limited English may be marked as difficult because their messages require several exchanges. Someone using assistive technology may be scored as disengaged because they respond slowly. Significant decisions need safeguards, understandable explanations and human review.

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Cyber Incidents Can Turn Trusted Messages Into Fraud

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An attacker who accesses an email platform can send convincing payment requests from the company’s real address. Criminals may alter bank details, copy customer names and reuse templates. High message volumes can spread the fraud before staff notice.

Small businesses should use multifactor authentication, separate administrator accounts and alerts for new forwarding rules or large data exports. Payment detail changes should require confirmation through another channel. Customers should know that the business will never request passwords or one-time codes by message.

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Records Can Help Or Harm During a Dispute

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Automation creates detailed logs, but records only help when they are complete. Businesses should preserve the message sent, the approved template version, the data used and any human intervention. Screenshots alone may omit timestamps or edits.

Retention schedules should clearly define how long records remain. Keeping every conversation indefinitely increases exposure during a breach, while deleting complaint records too quickly can weaken the defence of a claim.

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Insurance Must Match The Actual Communication Risk

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Professional indemnity insurance may respond to allegations involving negligent advice, errors or omissions in a professional service. Cyber insurance may cover incident response, data restoration, privacy claims and specialist support after a breach. Some policies exclude social engineering losses or money transferred after a fraudulent email.

A business should tell its broker or insurer how automation is used, especially when a tool gives advice or makes decisions. Owners should ask whether the policy covers chatbot errors, privacy investigations, outsourced software failures, notification costs and business interruption. They should also check the excess, territorial limits and required security controls.

The safest approach uses controlled and regularly reviewed automation. Approved content, narrow permissions, human escalation and regular transcript reviews allow a business to gain efficiency without letting one flawed workflow create hundreds of identical mistakes.

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The two companies struck a licensing deal in 2024, reportedly worth $60 million a year, allowing Google to train AI models on Reddit’s data. Impending negotiations have forced a stark calculation. Reddit’s $60 million annual payout falls short of covering the referral traffic impacted by Google’s AI search features.

Investors read the situation the same way: if the deal that pays Reddit to train Google’s AI also enables the AI product that eats Reddit’s traffic, the economics of that arrangement requires a second look.

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The Deal That Might Not Add Up

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The clash between Reddit and Google pinpoints a bigger threat to online publishing. Traditional digital media relies on referral traffic to fuel monetisation through advertising, leads and subscriptions. AI-generated answers sever this cycle by answering queries before a user ever clicks through. Wealth accumulates on the platform side while publishers absorb the traffic losses.

A licensing deal changes the calculus, but only partially. The deal has to be judged against two variables at once: direct licensing revenue and indirect traffic loss. If the traffic hit is larger than the licence fee, the platform is effectively subsidising the AI product. Reddit’s reported reconsideration suggests that calculation may not be working in its favour.

This is also why the “we paid for the data” defence from AI companies only goes so far. Licensing fees for training access fail to cover the underlying migration of web traffic away from origin sites. Those are two separate economic events, and the licence fee addresses only one of them.

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What Are The Stakes For Everyone Else?

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Reddit enters negotiations armed with top lawyers, a $60 million recurring payout and true market power. Average online publishers operate without a single one of those advantages. AI engines routinely harvest, summarise and serve their material to users. Licensing conversations don’t happen, and these creators aren’t in the room where industry standards get set.

The businesses most vulnerable are those whose primary growth channel is organic search. SEO-driven content businesses, niche publishers, comparison sites, community platforms and service providers who built audiences through long-form helpful content. These are the kinds of businesses AI search summaries replace. They exist to answer questions that users now get answered before they click.

The problem compounds when you consider that many of these businesses have spent years producing the content that trained the AI systems now reducing their traffic. They received no licensing cheques, only the standard promise of web indexing.

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Why Smaller Businesses Are The Quiet Casualties Here

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Treating AI training and AI search as separate economic issues is something more businesses are starting to do. Licensing content may bring in revenue for platforms with the size to negotiate it. The traffic impact from AI search is a different problem, and it’s happening regardless of whether a licensing deal exists.

The sharpest publishers are adjusting their strategy by building audience channels through email lists, owned communities and paid acquisition. The rationale is quite straightforward. Channels that don’t rely on search engine goodwill remain immune when an algorithm changes its mind about sending traffic.

AI companies are building products on top of the open web while weakening the web’s traditional traffic economy. Reddit’s dispute with Google is the visible version of that tension, because Reddit has the scale to push back publicly. Smaller businesses experience that same shift without fanfare. They likely have neither the leverage to demand new terms nor a stock price to expose the loss.

The question the Reddit situation puts on the table for every content business is simple: are you being paid for the data, or only absorbing the damage?

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