The Business Exchange Bath & Somerset Issue 10: Winter 2018/19 | Page 14

BUSINESS REVIEW OF THE YEAR
Business Review of the Year 2018
From GDPR to Brexit, 2018/19 is certainly producing its fair share of challenges
in the business world. But happily, it’s also been a time of successes in the
South West. We spoke to businesses across a range of sectors to find out how
2018 went for them… and what they are (and aren’t) looking forward to in 2019.
Recruitment: Sam Laite, Fwd Thinking Recruitment
“Bath and the
surrounding
area has an ever-
strengthening
digital and tech
sector”
How was 2018? Looking ahead to 2019....
The highs have certainly involved embedding the newly-
created Fwd brand into the Bath community via strategic
sponsorship partnerships. We also saw an extremely
effective collaboration with The Bath Life Awards,
sponsoring the opening of the New Innovation Tech Hub
at the Set Squared offices in Carpenter House, supporting
start-up and scale-up tech fast-track businesses, as
well as co-founding the MOB, Marketeers of Bath, a
unique forum for marketing and business development
professionals within Bath to come together for networking
and thought leadership. The challenges in the year were
around gearing up for GDPR back in May, as well as
continuing to address the skill shortage in the tech sector
which is a challenge right across the South West. Despite all of the ‘no deal’ Brexit talks, Bath and the
surrounding area has an ever-strengthening digital
and tech sector and therefore recruiting into this space
alongside more main stream marketing and sales roles
make 2019 a really exciting prospect. I think the retail
sector and the high street continues to be a contentious
subject for our city and this landscape is set to face
further changes over the coming 12 months.
Creative: Shane Carnell-Xu, co-founder and director, Ready
How was 2018?
We won a couple of quite important
pitches and some new clients, which
boosted our niche speciality in the
beauty and skincare sector. We set
a goal this year to become experts
in that field and we won some high-
profile brands, which has really been
a high.
One of the key things in 2018
was GDPR, which impacted our
business. We had to make sure we
were compliant, not only for us but
on behalf of our clients as well. We
hired solicitors, security experts and
IT experts to make sure we were
compliant, as well as organising
workshops to train our staff. It was a
huge amount of work!
Looking ahead to 2019....
We’re optimistic about it. We now
have a much bigger and more capable
delivery team that can handle the
workload we’re starting to generate,
so we’re geared up for a positive 2019.
Nobody really knows what to make
of Brexit, but it will be a big shake-up
in terms of how things are done,
especially in terms of exports – we
have a business that does a lot of
exports to Europe and I can see it will
have a massive impact. My biggest
concern is economic instability.
People should be looking at the
tighter regulations on social media
and data security because the
regulations are catching up with the
technological development. All this
plus the government’s willingness to
look at data security as a top priority
will have an effect on the marketing
community.
Human Resources:
“The abolition of
tribunal fees in
2017 has meant
that it is event
more important
than before
that employers
have up-to-date
policies”
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Jo Kangurs, KeystoneHR
How was 2018? Looking ahead to 2019....
One of the highs had to be meeting Theo Paphitis as
part of his Small Business Sunday initiative! Also, I’ve
loved continuing to grow the business and working with
lots of new (and old) clients. There haven’t really been
any lows, except maybe GDPR, just from the amount of
scaremongering that went around.
The abolition of tribunal fees in 2017 has meant that
it is even more important than before that employers
have up-to-date policies and procedures in place for
managing employee-related issues and that managers are
adequately trained to implement these policies correctly. I’m excited. I think we will continue to see an increasing
trend of atypical working – employees wanting to move
away from the traditional 9-5 working patterns to
something which better suits their lifestyle. There is also
going to be more focus on the whole employee experience
– looking at employees as customers. Employers are going
to have to start embracing this if they are to attract and
retain the best people.
It’s hard to say what impact Brexit will have, but
businesses employing EU migrant workers will need
to consider how best to support them and ensure they
continue to have the right to remain/work in the UK post
2020.
THE BUSINESS EXCHANGE 2018
“We’re geared
up for a positive
2019”