Business News Round Up (23/03/2021)
Find out more about Where Now Consulting. We update our business news daily.
Hybrid working must be at heart of plans for regeneration and growth, claims new report
A new report from think tank Demos and Legal & General calls on the UK Government to back policy change that supports growth of hybrid working and local offices to drive forward its plans for regeneration and economic growth. The report, Post Pandemic Places, claims that huge increases in home working, coupled with a desire for continued flexibility, could support significant increases in local spending. On the back of the findings, the report calls on the government to incentivise the establishment of more local offices and hybrid working initiatives. According to the new research, 65% of the working population were forced to change their place of work during 2020 as a result of the pandemic. Of these, 79% want to continue to have some form of flexible and remote working in future. However, the findings – taken from a large, nationally-representative poll of 20,000 adults – indicate that a desire to work remotely is not necessarily the same as wanting to work from home all of the time.
Scottish businesses feel optimistic about 2021, according to latest Business Gateway survey
A survey commissioned by Business Gateway, Scotland’s national business support service, has revealed that 40% of Scottish businesses feel optimistic about the future of their business in 2021. The pandemic is undoubtedly still an area of concern for Scottish businesses, with 31% of businesses reporting that they felt positive about the remainder of Q4 2021, while 37% of businesses stated they felt either pessimistic or very pessimistic about the future of their business for the same period. However, these concerns lift slightly when asked about the rest of the year, with 31% of businesses reporting that they are pessimistic. The research, which surveyed businesses at the end of February, represented a range of industries that have been impacted by the pandemic including retail and wholesale (11%), tourism (9%), hospitality, catering, and event management (8%) and food and drink (7%).
North-South tech divide highlights levelling up challenge
The North of England continues to lag badly behind the ‘Golden Triangle’ of Oxford, Cambridge and London in its ability to attract funding for science and technology businesses, according to a major new study from Impact Data Metrics. The findings are part of a wide-ranging report, Chasing Unicorns: Innovation-led Growth in the North and lays bare the challenges facing the government’s flagship domestic agenda, with its promise of ‘levelling-up’ the economy, and delivery of the UK Industrial Strategy, which is focused on innovation. The North of England accounted for only 14% of £37.1 billion that UK companies and academic institutions spent on research and development over the last five years, with 53% being invested in Golden Triangle areas. The figures mirror the levels of public money invested in private companies and universities through Innovate UK, the agency responsible for supporting business innovation. The report found that between 2015 and 2020, the North was awarded 14% of the £7.1 billion, with 47% going to the Golden Triangle. With the universities out of the equation, the balance between North and South for investment in business was 12% North, 56% Golden Triangle.
Research reveals multi-billion pound economic potential of Scottish space industry
Scotland’s growing space industry has the potential to help put the UK at the forefront of the worldwide launch market for small commercial satellites over the next few years, a new study has found. Market analysis of the UK space launch opportunity was commissioned by development agency Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and carried out by RSM UK and SpaceTec Partners. The report showed that the UK is well-positioned to access a growing global market that will send 3,814 small satellites into ‘near space’ orbit of up 62 miles, through 970 launches between 2020 and 2031. This scale of activity has the potential to generate cumulative spaceport services revenues of around £350m and £4.2bn in launch revenues. As satellites become smaller and cheaper to produce, the numbers being launched by commercial operators have increased dramatically. In 2009, only 986 satellites were in orbit around the Earth. Last year, that figure had almost trebled to 2,787 – around 61% of which were small satellites, weighing less than 500kg. Much of the demand has been driven by the number of products and applications now in daily use – from smartphones and health monitors to GPS devices – that rely on satellite data and technology.
https://www.insider.co.uk/news/research-reveals-multi-billion-pound-23777649