Entrants have the opportunity to win £15,000 in Grand Prize

Winners of 11 categories will each receive £5,000 cash to boost their business

Awards launch as eBay UK reveals June saw the biggest year-on-year spike in new businesses joining the platform during lockdown, up 335% compared with June 2019

eBay has today opened entries for this year’s eBay for Business Awards, offering eBay entrepreneurs the chance to win up to £20,000.

The eBay for Business Awards is eBay UK’s fourth annual nationwide competition to find and celebrate the most successful, innovative, and inspiring entrepreneurs from the platform’s 300,000-strong community of small businesses.

Following an incredibly challenging start to the year for many small businesses, each of the 11 category prize winners will receive a £5,000 prize. They will also be given a free one-year eBay Anchor Store Subscription and access to eBay’s Concierge, the gold-plated customer service team, together valued at over £15,000, to support them in navigating the effects of the crisis. This year’s Grand Prize winner will receive an extra £15,000, totalling £20,000, as well as a unique marketing bundle worth over £100,000, in recognition of their entrepreneurial success.

The launch of this year’s Awards comes as eBay reveals the trend of setting up a start-up has become more mainstream in lockdown, as the number of new businesses joining eBay surged 335% in June. This figure represents the biggest year-on-year spike in new businesses joining eBay UK since the pandemic began.

The data also shows the number of new start-ups joining eBay UK grew consistently each month during lockdown, as the number of new businesses joining the platform in June was almost 40% greater than in April when the impact of lockdown was first felt.

Rob Hattrell, VP, eBay UK, commented: “This year has been an undoubtedly tough one for many small businesses, as SMEs up and down the country have fought to continue trading throughout the pandemic. Our sellers have shown real agility and resilience in dealing with the disruption to keep their businesses moving, which is why we want to celebrate the achievements of our valued sellers with bigger prizes than ever for the 2020 Awards.

“I’m looking forward to finding out about the unique stories behind the brightest and best of our small business community on eBay. Whether you’re a kitchen table side hustle, a family-run business or a lockdown start-up, we want to hear from you!”

 Jake Harris, owner of Into Music and winner of last year’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award commented: “Working closely with the eBay team over the past year has been one of the best parts about winning my award. As a Young Entrepreneur, to receive this recognition has given me the confidence to take my small business to the next level. I used the prize money to help secure a lease on a new premises, in order to increase our online capacity and also open a physical store. Even though this had to close during lockdown, I could never have expected that sales would be up by 120% on the first six months of this year compared to 2019!”

Winners will be chosen by a panel of expert judges, including eBay UK VP Rob Hattrell and a selection of last year’s award winners, and will be announced on social media at the end of October. Entrants should submit their entry on the eBay for Business awards website www.ebayawards.com.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post eBay opens entries to 4th annual eBay for Business Awards to celebrate entrepreneur success appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

It’s been predicted that business recovery will rise in the following 28 weeks, which however would suggest a much longer lockdown , as it will take longer to rebuild. But despite this, more than two-fifths of businesses (41%) report a positive outlook for next 12 months, offering a glimmer of hope for economy

One in ten businesses in the wholesale and retail sector (9%) are facing a collapse as it’s been stated they will not survive another month of the lockdown period, which is being said by the latest wave of the Opinium-Cebr Business Distress Tracker.

Furthermore, the long-term damage the economy will have to face continues to grow as the time that businesses anticipate they will need to recover from the crisis is now 28 weeks. This is a 3 week rise since the last Tracker, just a fortnight ago, and suggests the longer the lockdown persists, the longer it will take for businesses to rebuild.

Business Distress Tracker topline results

• Despite the damage that is piling up, there is a glimmer of hope that some businesses have made it through the lowest point of the coronavirus crisis, as more than two-fifths (41%) reported a positive outlook for the next 12 months. This is the first time during the crisis that the number of businesses with a positive assessment of future conditions has outweighed the number with a negative assessment.
• However, even though there are improvements in sentiment, conditions remain extremely challenging by any historical standard, and more than half a million (510,000) businesses are at a high risk of entering insolvency.
• The severity of the crisis varies between sectors. While, nearly one in ten (9%) businesses in the wholesale & retail sector state that they will not survive another month of the lockdown, manufacturers appear more resilient.

The Opinium-Cebr Business Distress Tracker checks the pulse of the UK business community on a fortnightly basis, as firms across the country grapple with the unprecedented challenges brought about by the coronavirus crisis. The Tracker is based on a survey of 500 business across the country, representing a broad range of industries and business sizes.

James Endersby, CEO at Opinium said “We are all going through the most immensely challenging time and all businesses are doing their best to keep their head above water. The good news is that there is no further bad news, with businesses adapting to life in lockdown as best as they can, but it is hard to avoid the large number still facing the risk of insolvency.

“Another ray of hope is that B2C businesses appear to be responding to steadily rising consumer demand by bringing some of their workers back from furlough. However, the incredibly challenging trading conditions across the board means that B2B businesses are yet to see any noticeable improvement in their outlook.”

Pablo Shah, Senior Economist at Cebr said “The latest results of the Tracker show that long-term damage to the economy is stacking up. Businesses now anticipate needing 28 weeks after restrictions are lifted to return to pre-crisis levels of production – 3 weeks longer than in the previous edition of the Tracker. Meanwhile – at more than half a million – the estimated number of businesses at high risk of insolvency remains alarmingly high.

“With that being said – while present conditions remain challenging to the extreme – the survey results suggest that we could perhaps be starting to see some break in the clouds. More than two in five companies now describe their prospects for the next 12 months as positive, while assessments of current trading conditions have also picked up marginally.”

Business insolvency risks

Insolvency risks for the business community as a whole appear to have receded marginally, with nearly 3 in 5 (58%) of businesses indicating that they are safe from insolvency as a result of coronavirus-related disruption. However, 9% of firms – amounting to 510,000 – remain at a high risk of going insolvent as a result of the current crisis.

Eight weeks after the national lockdown was introduced, many businesses are now on the cusp of closure. 5% of firms surveyed indicated that they could not survive another month if trading conditions remain as they are currently. The situation is particularly dyer in the wholesale & retail sector, where nearly one in ten (9%) of businesses do not think they can survive another month of lockdown.

Trading conditions and employment impacts

Though there has been a slight decline in the number of businesses making workplace adjustments, over four fifths (84%) of UK businesses continue to make changes to their operations. Positively, there has been a small reduction in the average number of employees on furlough (32% down from 35%), though the number of staff facing reduced hours (33% up from 32%) and wage cuts (34% up from 33%) have increased very slightly.

Most noticeably, B2C businesses have appeared to turn a corner. In our first wave at the height of lockdown two thirds (67%) said their trading conditions were poor, but this has dropped by 8 percentage points to 59% in our latest wave. Although they remain in incredibly difficult circumstances, it suggests both business and consumers have improved their ability to navigate their way through the lockdown measures. This has resulted in B2C businesses reducing the proportion of their staff on furlough (30% down from 36%) or with wage cuts (36% down from 41%).

Business activity rates

The latest business survey was conducted between May 7th and May 11th. At this time, all of the restrictions introduced on March 23rd remained in place, meaning that there was not a material change in the trading conditions faced by most businesses relative to two weeks prior when the previous survey was conducted. Profits over the previous 30 days were 30% lower than would have been expected under more normal circumstances. This is a fractionally larger fall than the 29% recorded in the previous survey.

Economic recovery

Although businesses have become marginally more optimistic about their prospects over the next 12 months, the survey results also suggest that the longer the lockdown lasts, the longer it will take for most businesses to rebuild once restrictions are eventually lifted. On average, businesses anticipate needing 28 weeks to return to their pre-crisis levels of production – up from 25 weeks two weeks ago. Meanwhile, more than a fifth (21%) indicate that they will need at least a year before output can recover fully.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post 1 In 10 Businesses Face Collapse As The Economic Crisis Deepens appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

What is summarised in this presentation are the following ideas related with the concept of open innovation, open communication and open government as the new key drivers for businesses and society:

Ubiquitous Comms (communication) Platform + New Culture of Open x People = Open Government
Ubiquitous Comms Platform + New Culture of Open x People = Open Business

The conclusion isn’t simply that better reputation management is needed. Rather that the age of spin is finally over. White-washing, green-washing, washing does not work full-stop. Being as clean and open as one can be in the grubby real world of business is the only answer as popular judgement is passed daily with real and lasting impact to share prices. The most recent example is a boycott ofPayPal @: via hashtag  #OpPaypal wiping $900m off the share-price of parent company eBay in just 15 min of trading on the NASDAQ.

This doesn’t mean not making mistakes. It means being open what and when you do in order to improve, adpating towards the needs of your customers, clients, audience. Domino’s Pizza are another great recent example of using social media to demonstrate being an open business as a matter of pride. They can do this because they know they will excel and they understood they have to be open. Without being a business as open as possible all the old methods of communication will not work. The flip is it’s no longer what you say but what you do.

One must appreciate this is going to be the most significant shift modern business has ever had to make and a long, difficult and continous process of change. Following the initial insights and disruption started by social media, businesses are now obliged to shift for open business models. And this is actually a great oportunity for them. It’s why Open business Council appears as a platform and champions the model of Open Business as its raison d’etre (manifesto). It’s why we co-founded The Open Business Council to work with companies, organisations, governments trail-blazing Openness in their business and management processes to understand the value, impact and consequences of their work.

To conclude it is inevitable that brands, companies and organisations must restructure to meet the expressed needs and/or opinions of the public and the disruptive new trends of technologies, economy within the scope of social media. It’s not a question of if, but when they must move to meet their customers collective practical and moral needs. Those companies and organisations that make that move first will be first to convert apathetic consumers into engaged partners  – scaling what they can achieve together rather than spending millions second guessing their needs from a distance.

Maria Fonseca

Maria Fonseca is the Editor and Infographic Artist for IntelligentHQ. She is also a thought leader writing about social innovation, sharing economy, social business, and the commons. Aside her work for IntelligentHQ, Maria Fonseca is a visual artist and filmmaker that has exhibited widely in international events such as Manifesta 5, Sao Paulo Biennial, Photo Espana, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Joshibi University and many others. She concluded her PhD on essayistic filmmaking , taken at University of Westminster in London and is preparing her post doc that will explore the links between creativity and the sharing economy.

The post Why Social Media Means Open Business appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Open comms; an admirable world of voices to listen to and to watch wind blowing data!

When we think about communications for business, were is the wind blowing? Optimists can point to the introduction of new areas powered by social technologies that somehow open business towards a relation and interaction with customers, new structures of defining strategies and change management that opens a lot of new enterprise oportunities. Pessimists can point to the continuing deluge of all negative spam attention, ever-more sophisticated phishing techniques, and of course the burdens of increased regulatory compliance, legal and difficulty to reach an audience, target customers in the right way, listen to the voices around you or your business and analyse its data and analytics.

Open Communications – Open Comms are the Next generation for collaboration

Open Communications – Open Comms – is the next generation of human communications and collaboration in any organisation leading the field in delivering new ways of communicating and creating co-creation process and synergies. I am one of the positive ones looking at it. Open Comms can and is indeed shifting the way business, organisations and contries deal with their communications. And let me tell you this is hard, difficult and new, but amazing.

Some recent stats show that 57% of businesses currently monitor online conversations about the brand, products or services, according to a recent study by Capgemini. But the reality is that 20% do not listen at all and another 23% of respondents weren’t sure whether or not the company is listening to online conversations in the same study.

This reveals the importantce of a proper communication strategy and a lot about the importance and the necessity to invest in an open communications strategy.

Why am I a defender of Open Comms?

Because I believe in creating value and listening to different voices, even when sometimes we might hear things that we don’t want to hear and that are different from our own perspectives or ideas. I believe that the only way to deliver successful strategy is challenging certainty, especially our own. When you or your business might think you’re undeniably right, ask yourself “What might I be missing here in this communication?”. And when you start listening to your clients, users, customers you might want to adpat, change or evolve. (Although I must underline this does not mean forget your core values of principles).

In a world with a huge increasing variety of principles, cultures and lack of clear hegemonies things are flowing. It is rather difficult to understand everything form one’s own perspective.And social media fast adopting technologies and tools just created a world without barries: economic, politic, financial where change and continous change and evoltion has been radical.

The market of communications has been through a revolution with an entire new industry for listening services rapidly maturing with vendors such as Radian6, Spiral16, Crimson Hexagon, Research.ly, Lithium, Sysomos, Marketing Sentinel (Skyttle) and many others improving businesses communications and monitoring consumer conversations and experiences. Nevertheless the wide array of these new communications tools and capabilities are nothing less than baffling. They somehow require proper stratgey open mind set for business and expert analysis prior to committing any significant investment of finances or organizational resources now and over time.

Some perspectives for the future of Communications = Open Communications:

– The need for an Unified Communication: from internal to external, from traditional to social;
– Open IT-Based Communications, make sure software is fast in execution
– Powerful set up in a content and SEO friendly way;
– Fixed Mobile Convenience and convergence with the advent of the mobile tablets and smartphones;
– Agile Business Process Integration towards the concept of a Open Business;
– Rich User Experience and knowledge how to navigate in the data and analytics;
– Deployment of Choices, clear transparent management capable of communicate internally and externally;

– Business Continuity and Integrity, key for a good communications, the importance of a good continuity story telling.

Maria Fonseca

Maria Fonseca is the Editor and Infographic Artist for IntelligentHQ. She is also a thought leader writing about social innovation, sharing economy, social business, and the commons. Aside her work for IntelligentHQ, Maria Fonseca is a visual artist and filmmaker that has exhibited widely in international events such as Manifesta 5, Sao Paulo Biennial, Photo Espana, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Joshibi University and many others. She concluded her PhD on essayistic filmmaking , taken at University of Westminster in London and is preparing her post doc that will explore the links between creativity and the sharing economy.

The post Open comms and the future of communications? appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Open Business Council aims to organise and promote events for the discussion of the main challenges and worlwide inititives being managed in the field of open business. With the evolution of web and with social media opening a new array of possibilities and risks for business any business will have to aim towards a concept of transparency and openness.

Openness can be defined as the quality of being open, but being open in business is a huge challenge and of course also an enormous oportunity. In an economy of scale and continous crisis the concept of openness is critical to the present and the times to come. Also all the business that adapt towards this concept and adapt it as part of their strategy can indeed grow in the direction of engagement and synergies of their businesses, audiences and growth of their offering, wether products or services.

Part of this project and the DNA of the Business Council project is to establish itself as a space to give voice and promote events. Also this platform will organise events that refers to a very general philosophical position of openness in businessand the best insights about change management. Companies, individuals and organizations need to operate, often highlighted by a decision-making process recognizing communal management by distributed stakeholders, wether users/producers/contributors rather than a centralized authority: owners, experts, boards of directors.

Welcome on board and get in touch with us to engage in our programand promote your events and initiatives!

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Events: Open Innovation appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Open Business Council platform have just begun phase 1 of the its Co-creation Project. Open Business Council is a Pan European organisation with a global reach and network that wants to create anm active development of solutions and reflection towards the practice of Open Business.

Open Business Council is actively contacting and recruiting a varitey of professionals that have in common the passion for innovation and business. This invitation and contact will be done to international authors, university professors, industry leaders, international speakers who are thought leaders or passionated about the new directions of business strategy and thinking. Open Business Council wants to join together professionals and experts and discuss, create an action plan to answering the challenges overal business faces with the new development and future development of social media and continous digital environment in the broad concept of Open Business theory.

This invitation and contact is being done bearing in mind the goal to help develop the Project Framework including definitions and understanding of the discipline across:

Open Innovation,
Open Planning,
Open Research,
Open Data and
Open Communications
Open Government

These areas will serve as a clear and common dictionary / direction for all Council members.

If you would like to be involved please register here

or send us a mail to editor@openbusinesscouncil.org

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Project Framework: Phase 1: Creating a Council for Open Business appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Research is critical for business. The systematic investigation about what is necessary for a given business, product, audience is something that any organisation needs to bear in mind, namely in a social media world. This can also be done though a concept of Open Research: a study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach the necessary conclusions about business.

Open Business Council in the ever increasing competitive landscapes, blurring and with bigger consumer demands is working and defends an open business approach with focus in agility. This is the only way for business’ capability to adapt rapidly and cost-efficient to that landscape and its target audiences. This is a critical area where the enablers – social media and co-creation – fuel business agility through continual innovation.

Social media as a doorway for opening up business

y using social media as a doorway and opening up business, entities that actually force/create the changes in demands are involved, to swiftly act and react with them and their intelligence. This applies to any supply- and value chain. When speaking about intelligence, this can be consumer insights (their needs and current experiences, market intelligence and competitive intelligence.

As resources spend in digital peer-to-peer environments rise, it is necessary a rapid and consequential change in the digital and social marketing way of management for organizations. Business needs to be open and to take control – to get serious with his propositions and efficient. The organization as a whole: infrastructure, work flows, stakeholders, technologies and so on, needs to be reconfigured and enhanced where needed for cost-efficient and effective social media usage. As soon as as the groundwork has been laid, it’s time to bring in the continual innovation process.

Continual innovation as the driver for business

Continual innovation “may be the most powerful of any competitive advantage for a business. It creates game-changing breakthroughs. Along parallel lines, bit by bit, it also tweaks improvements in existing products, chips away at costs and debugs processes — in every corner of the company, all non-stop. In a turbulent business environment like today’s, it’s essential for helping a business move from playing defense to playing an aggressive, and winning, offense.” Take this and overlay it with social media and co-creation, real-time consumer insights that can be extracted, molded and poured back into the right supply chain.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Open Research: consumer demand and business agility appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.