Smiths News, the Swindon-based newspaper and magazine distributor, has delivered a 14% hike in full-year pre-tax profits. The increase, taking profits to £41.9m against £36.6m last time, came on a 0.4% rise in revenues to £1.81bn for the year to August 31. It said that it is now on target to achieve 50% of...
Swindon-based retail giant WH Smith has shut down its website after it was discovered the retailer was selling pornographic ebooks online. According to the Sunday Express and Mail on Sunday, more than 60 of the books were found on the site but WH Smith said they were placed there by a third-party company. WH...
Businesses using digital press releases as an integral part of their web presence now risk penalties from Google, according to digital marketing specialist Darren Moloney, managing director of Highworth-based online marketing consultancy All Things Web. Savvy companies have for some time been using online press releases, among other techniques, to optimise their website ranking....
Shares in Chippenham-based specialist IT and software firm SciSys fell by nearly 11% today after it revealed a 19.8% drop in interim pre-tax profits and warned that its markets remained challenging. The group, whose blue-chip customers include the Ministry of Defence, European Space Agency and major broadcasters, blamed the decline in profits to £749,000 on...
Building a brand – why bother? is the red-hot question at this Friday’s Swindon Chamber of Commerce Swindon Business Breakfast. Allison McSparron-Edwards, managing director of Blunsdon-based consultancy Consultrix, will ask “Is your brand brave enough?” and go on to examine who engages with attendees’ brands, how they have evolved and do they have “personality”?...
We thought BrandSoup was alone in having opinions about the advisability or otherwise of government agencies getting “creative” with logos (see our recent blog – Bonfire of the Quango Logos). But following revelations of the US NSA’s acquisitive attitude to everyone’s emails and Facebook postings, this thorny topic is now global headline news. The...
Following the success of the inaugural South West PA of the Year Awards last year, Bristol Business News and its sister titles including the recently-launched WestBusinessNews magazine, have again teamed up with prestigious Ston Easton Park Hotel, near Bath, to stage the South West PA of the Year Awards 2013. PAs are often the...
TV show The Apprentice is giving young people a great appetite for business, Nick Hewer, Sir Alan Sugar’s right-hand man on the programme, told West business leaders. Speaking at the annual Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) West of England dinner, he said whenever he spoke at schools and colleges the...
Smiths News, the Swindon-based specialist distribution firm, has acquired a number of academic library services contracts from book retailer Blackwell UK for £2.1m. The acquisition of the European and African interests further strengthens Smiths News UK book supplier Bertrams’ established international footprint. Smiths News said the deal “brings with it a complementary customer base...
You can’t get a better illustration (forgive the pun) of the power of a brand than the recent abortive sale in Miami of a Banksy which had last been seen attached to the wall of a north London Poundland. Setting aside the furore over who actually owns the work and who has the right...
