News and Blog Articles

Following the successful launch of the IOEE Campus and based on requests from members we have now widened the offer to include accredited distance learning courses. The first of these, our Professional Award in Enterprise Mentoring, is available now with a discounted rate for members. Our Award in Enterprise Mentoring programme is perfect if you’re […]

Written by Leigh Sear. In the late 1970s, David Birch – an economist at MIT in America, proposed that small businesses were the most important source of job creation in the US economy1.  The research undertaken by David Birch highlighted that 66 per cent of all net new jobs in the United States during 1969-1976 […]

London South Bank University (LSBU) is an IOEE Centre of Excellence, and their staff and students are doing exceptional work in the field of enterprise in education. We’re running a series of case studies to let you know about LSBU’s projects and people, and this month we met Anna Howard, LSBU’s Associate Professor of Enterprise […]

Danielle Sexton, 26, runs Aurora Creations, a wedding planning and crystal bouquet business servicing the North West of England. She began her journey to business success at the Wedding Planners Guild, an IOEE Academy that gave her both business knowhow and industry insights. Since starting her career as a florist’s apprentice aged just 18, Danielle […]

Paul Boross is also known as The Pitch Doctor; a company he founded to help corporate companies win business through ‘the art and science of persuasion’. He has worked with major organisations such as the BBC, Google, The Financial Times and MTV, and has released several books on motivational psychology. This month we met Paul […]

Paul French is an Executive Producer at Southpoint Films and a business mentor for local universities and the New Enterprise Allowance Scheme, as well as an IOEE Fellow. This month we shone the spotlight on him to find out how his mentoring career saw him transition into film production, and how forward-thinking is the key […]

Written by Richard Talbot-Jones. Husband and wife, Richard and Clare Talbot-Jones run Talbot Jones Risk Solutions, based in Felling, Gateshead. In a series of five blogs, Clare has covered highlights from her entrepreneurial journey including the first steps to starting Talbot Jones Risk Solutions with her husband. This month we hear from Richard, an IOEE […]

North Star Payroll, which has been up and running for around 18 months, is a Leeds-based start-up run by entrepreneur Liz McCarthy. On her journey to entrepreneurial success Liz enlisted the support of IOEE business mentor Dave Moore. We caught up with Liz to find out how the mentoring process worked for her. During the […]

Here’s a roundup from Chancellor Philip Hammond’s first Budget and how you as a small business could be affected… Business rates A recent topic in Think Enterprise was the recent business rate revaluation that has seen rates soar in some parts of the country. In our survey last month over 70% of our members believed […]

James Watt and Martin Dickie are the founders of Scottish craft beer megabrand BrewDog. In one short decade, the pair have taken BrewDog from a shared passion for good beer to an international enterprise success story. The business now has a staggering 55,000 shareholders, and has orchestrated the largest equity crowdfunding scheme ever, worldwide. It […]

This month, following a comprehensive re-accreditation visit, we’re delighted to announce that the outstanding Anglia Ruskin University has been reapproved as an IOEE Centre of Excellence. Anglia Ruskin University’s Centre for Enterprise and Development Research (CEDAR), as part of the institution’s Lord Ashcroft International Business School, originally achieved IOEE Centre of Excellence status in late […]

Last month saw the launch of our new member community, the IOEE Campus. Thank you to everyone for making the first month such a success. In just the first week we saw as much traffic as we usually get in a month! It’s good to know that members are so engaged in developing their enterprise […]

The green economy A brief review of reports produced by bodies such as the European Commission, United Nations and World Bank over the last five years or so have highlighted that there are a number of challenges relating to the sustainability of current modes of production and patterns of consumption. They suggest that there is […]

David Bozward is Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at the University of Worcester’s Business School, which is an IOEE Centre of Excellence. We shone the spotlight on him this month to find out about his own entrepreneurial past and the work his pioneering department is doing in the field of enterprise education. In 1995 David Bozward […]

The very first Newcastle Startup Week is only a few months away and it promises to provide the people of Tyneside and beyond with a rich and diverse programme of networking events, talks and workshops. We caught up with the man behind the event, Paul Lancaster, to find out more about his own experiences in […]

Husband and wife, Richard and Clare Talbot-Jones run Talbot Jones Risk Solutions, based in Felling, Gateshead. In this month’s blog, Clare explains to us the marketing strategies they have used, and found to be successful, to promote their business. So, what is marketing? This isn’t a rhetorical question. This is the search terms I fed […]

As we welcome in a new year, like thousands of others across the UK, you may be considering self-employment as a fresh route to explore. However, simply wanting to work for yourself isn’t always enough to achieve success. To help you out, we’ve created the online IOEE Campus, which is home to new learning content […]

For several years, New College Durham has been working towards putting enterprise learning firmly at the heart of its educational offer. Steven Bell, Head of School for Sport Business Public Services and IT at the college, talked to us about this process and about the organisation’s developing relationship with the IOEE. New College Durham, located […]

The SFEDI Awards Passport to Enterprise and Employment is a fantastic new Level 1 qualification designed to offer individuals real flexibility as they improve their social development, self-employment and employability skills. We spoke to Nic Preston, SFEDI Awards’s Head of Quality, about the carefully designed, comprehensive qualification. Over the past few months, enterprise educators have […]

Is it possible to help start-ups and other small business clients boost the resilience of their fledgling enterprises? The IOEE certainly believes it is and we’ve created a qualification specifically to help enterprise support professionals do just that. Healthy cash flow, good planning, intelligent marketing and fantastic customer services – these are all the factors […]

Apprenticemakers is SFEDI’s support project for businesses interested in apprenticeships. The project has recently launched a ‘Developing Mentoring Skills To Support Apprentices’ course for apprentice employers of all sizes. Here Apprenticemakers talks about how mentoring can support an apprentice in a small business and the areas to consider if you’re interested in doing so. Recruiting […]

Richard and Clare Talbot-Jones, who run Talbot Jones Risk Solutions, are based in Felling, Gateshead. In this, the first blog of 2017, Clare explains why moving from employment to self-employment has seen the couple’s happiness rocket! For years, my husband would often wrap his arms around my sagging shoulders at the end of my long […]

The IOEE’s member base is incredibly diverse, with people from all walks of life signed-up to enjoy the privilege, services and benefits associated with it. To let you know just how broad a spectrum of people we work with, we’ve created Spotlight On… which, every month introduces you to an IOEE member with an interesting […]

Robert Lundgren Jones is a second year student at Northumbria University in Newcastle. In November he attended the IOEE’s Celebrating Enterprise Awards in the House of Lords as a nominee in the category of Enterprising Learner of the Year. Although the ambitious student didn’t win the title this year, he’s certainly enjoying impressive success as […]