Looking around you, how many business people hold a business degree or specialist certificate/diploma in business? Do you think education is necessary to run business successfully?
Does a businessman need a business degree?
2019-03-12
Sectors and Industries: Latest News and Data
Future of Business and Finance: A Move Towards Greater Environmental and Social Responsibility
UK Moves Towards a Greener Shipping Future
Government invests £20 million to develop innovative zero emission vessels and clean port infrastructure.
- competition launched to develop innovations for a greener shipping future, including zero-emission vessels and clean port infrastructure
- maritime investment will drive economic growth and ensure the UK builds back greener from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic
- comes as studies announced to support the recreational craft and offshore wind vessel sectors to transition to net-zero
- driving economic growth
- revitalising coastal communities
- creating 1000s of jobs
- positioning the country as a leader in the field
UAE and UK Launch Sovereign Investment Partnership to Support Life Science Industry
Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company to invest £800m, alongside £200m from the UK, boosting the next generation of British life science companies.
The Department for International Trade and the Prime Minister’s Office’s recently-established UK Office for Investment (OfI) and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company, one of the world’s leading sovereign investors, today signed a long-term investment agreement. This is the first agreement of its kind for the UK and the Office for Investment and will deepen existing UK-UAE trade and investment ties that were worth £32 billion in 2019. The UAE-UK Sovereign Investment Partnership (SIP) will serve as a coordinated investment framework to grow a future-focused relationship between the two nations, driving economic recovery, jobs and growth. An initial £800m commitment from Mubadala to invest in UK life sciences over five years is the first focus for the SIP. The sum will be deployed alongside the UK’s £200m Life Sciences Investment Programme announced last year, a vital pool of patient capital for the sector that will enable more UK life sciences businesses to scale and grow. The OfI and Mubadala will work together to identify commercially viable opportunities for investment into the sector. Combined, these funds will provide much needed stable investment into the next generation of life science companies around the country. The industry, which generates £80 billion turnover a year within the UK and employs more than 250,000 people, is expected to benefit from stronger links in life sciences research, education and closer ties between the UAE and UK. Over a five-year period, the SIP will invest across several tech and innovation-led sectors such as energy transition and infrastructure that will support job creation in both nations, strengthen national research and development capabilities and develop new areas of investment collaboration. UK International Trade Secretary Liz Truss said: "The UAE is an important trading partner for the UK and home to some of the world’s largest and most experienced investment companies. It’s fantastic that we are collaborating more closely in the industries of tomorrow like science, tech and green growth." This is a major win for the Office for Investment and shows how the UK is an investment destination of choice. From Liverpool and Edinburgh to Oxford and Nottingham, the UK's world class life sciences clusters and innovative businesses will definitely see the benefits of this partnership. "The UAE and UK are aligned on the importance of global action on critical priorities such as healthcare innovation and delivery, climate change and the sustainable growth of high-skilled industries," Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, Managing Director and Group CEO of Mubadala added. "Coordination on investment and global innovation ecosystems is vital to enabling progress against these challenges and presents a significant post-COVID economic opportunity for the UK and UAE." Mubadala is already a long-term investor in UK innovation and growth, and the new partnership now provides a platform to allocate stable capital to priority sectors as part of a future-focused investment relationship. Gerry Grimstone, UK Minister for Investment believes that this partnership will enable the UK life sciences sector to develop cutting-edge technologies and research while retaining homegrown innovation and jobs. It will also leverage the UK and UAE’s mutual priorities in building better and stronger economies through investment. "Attracting and enabling strategic international investors to operate effectively in the UK is vital to job creation and our growth as a world leader in life sciences, clean growth, tech and innovation. Mubadala is exactly the calibre of investor that we want to partner with to enable vital pillars of our economy to advance," Gerry Grimstone said. Mubadala will also connect UK industries to research and innovation initiatives across its global portfolio spanning more than 50 countries, which has a major focus on innovation and technology-led sectors, including composite manufacturing, semiconductors, renewable energy, biotech and urban mobility. The UAE-UK partnership will build on the investment model Mubadala has established in other geographies. The SIP’s inaugural life sciences investments are expected to complete later this year. Image by unlimit3d / Adobe StockBook of the Year
“Principles” by Ray Dalio
As the founder of the world's largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates with over $150 billion under management, Ray Dalio shares principles in life and business that make him successful.
In his book "Principles: Life and Work," Ray Dalio recommends entrepreneurs and leaders to foster radical transparency in their organisations, align their and their employees' direction with their innate nature, and use a five-step process to make decisions. A large part of Ray Dalio's book, covering the principles of decision-making, is devoted to the description of the goal setting and achievement process. Once people realise what appeals to their nature, they need to choose how to invest their time. Dalio suggests a five-step process for this, comparing pursuit with a machine that has different parts interacting with itself to make it run better. By separating the parts individually into different compartments and addressing them from time to time, one can ensure that anything is within reach. The five steps are as follows:- Choosing a goal.
- Identifying and not tolerating problems.
- Diagnosing any problems to the root cause.
- Designing a plan to eliminate those problems.
- Executing the established plan.
"For example, the big-picture visionary should be responsible for goal setting, the taste tester should be assigned the job of identifying and not tolerating problems, the logical detective who doesn’t mind probing people should be the diagnoser, the imaginative designer should craft the plan to make the improvements, and the reliable taskmaster should make sure the plan gets executed... A team should consist of people with all of these abilities and they should know who is responsible for which steps."Here's other useful tips on organisational engineering that seemed to be most memorable from his book: On Principles:
"Principles are fundamental truths that serve as the foundations for behavior that gets you what you want out of life. They can be applied again and again in similar situations to help you achieve your goals."On Partnerships:
"Remember that in great partnerships, consideration and generosity are more important than money."On Choices:
"I learned that if you work hard and creatively, you can have just about anything you want, but not everything you want. Maturity is the ability to reject good alternatives in order to pursue even better ones."On Problems:
"You only have so much time and energy; make sure you are investing them in exploring the problems that, if fixed, will yield you the biggest returns."On Limits:
"If you’re not failing, you’re not pushing your limits, and if you’re not pushing your limits, you’re not maximizing your potential."On Giving Up:
"I saw that to do exceptionally well you have to push your limits and that, if you push your limits, you will crash and it will hurt a lot. You will think you have failed—but that won’t be true unless you give up."On Success:
"The greatest gift you can give someone is the power to be successful. Giving people the opportunity to struggle rather than giving them the things they are struggling for will make them stronger."On Struggling:
"In time, I realized that the satisfaction of success doesn’t come from achieving your goals, but from struggling well."On Strengths and Weaknesses:
"Remember that most people are happiest when they are improving and doing the things that suit them naturally and help them advance. So learning about your people’s weaknesses is just as valuable (for them and for you) as is learning about their strengths."On Quality Reflections:
"The most valuable habit I’ve acquired is using pain to trigger quality reflections. If you can acquire this habit yourself, you will learn what causes your pain and what you can do about it, and it will have an enormous impact on your effectiveness."