Search Results for: Scotland

Given today’s uncertain global economic environment, it is up to CFOs to manage expectations and push for their companies’ long-term growth through clear planning and a responsible corporate culture. Business leaders from across the globe discussed how to navigate these issues at the seventh ACCA Poland CFO European Summit, staged in Warsaw, on November 19.…

THE ALCOHOL industry should withdraw its court case against Scotland’s plan to introduce minimum pricing per alcohol unit and allow five years for it to be trialled, said Donald Henderson, head of public health at the Scottish government.

“Let us do it for five years and if we fail, so be it,” he said, speaking at the European Alcohol Policy Conference in Brussels today.…

TAKING trends from runways and magazines and turning them into off-the-rack garments within weeks is no easy feat – but global fast fashion retailers consistently demonstrate that their supply chains are adequate.

While speed is, of course, an important part of the process, a shorter timeframe between garment design and point of sale does not necessarily mean a larger margin of errors.…

AS its name suggests, the lifeblood of the fast fashion industry is largely, speed to market – meaning that in many cases, traditional, weeks-long methods of shipping garments via sea or truck are no longer making the grade.

Fast fashion brands such as Hennes & Mauritz (H&M), Gap Inc, Uniqlo Co Ltd, Zara, F21 Red, Topshop, and Peacocks Stores Ltd rely on the air cargo industry to ship products quickly to stores around worldwide, according to a spokesperson from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).…

Tougher security regulations are restricting the ability of airport managers to provide adequate car and bus parking, a headache given these services are a frequent target of consumer advocacy groups. Complaints range typically from price through availability to ease and airports of all sizes need to balance customer satisfaction against the need for revenue and the demands made by security regulations.…

BRITAIN’S Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has refused to confirm reports that it is investigating banks over their use of government loan guarantee schemes set up to help UK small businesses through the credit crisis and into the recovery.
The Times newspaper claimed the SFO is considering allegations that banks abused the Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG), established in 2009, and its forerunner, the Small Firms Loan Guarantee scheme.…

THE HONG Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA) has welcomed the launch by the Hong Kong government of proposals to reform the special administrative region’s regulatory regime for auditors of listed companies and other organisations.

There will be three months of consultation (ending September 20) on the proposals whose goal is enhancing the independence of Hong Kong’s audit regulators.…

Big data is creating a growing range of opportunities that can help the global pharmaceutical industry develop and manufacture drugs more effectively. However, the industry faces a number of challenges in the way it manages and analyses the increasingly broad range of data that is available, with collaboration essential for the industry to capitalise on the potential of the big data explosion.…

Suspected users of BlackShades malware that can hijack, control and steal information from personal computers were arrested earlier this month in the first ever UK-wide multi-agency operation against cybercrime. A wave of 17 arrests across Britain followed searches and seizures co-ordinated by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) involved almost all regional organised crime units (ROCUs), as well as London’s Metropolitan Police and Police Scotland.…

LONG-TERM support for the wave and tidal energy industries has been announced by the European Commission, which this spring said it intended to support “the rapid development of key ocean energy technologies at the European level”.

European Union (EU) energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger said: “Ocean energy has a significant potential to enhance the security of supply”, adding that “a wide portfolio of renewable energy sources -including ocean energy” was necessary if non fossil fuels were to become “mainstream and integrated into the European energy system.”…