View The Made Simple's Group 'Briefing Document' for more information about the Group.

Latest Press:

Save money. Boost your street cred. Try a virtual office.

Charles Seadon, CEO of Direct-Healthcare.com, doesn't have offices in London. But all his clients think he does.

"Any entrepreneur thinking about starting up in business needs to consider all the costs involved and decide which ones are really important. For example, it’s easy to believe it is absolutely necessary to invest in an office. Some of the best advice that I received when starting up Direct-Healthcare was to keep capital expenditure to an absolute minimum in the early days. We started to invest in the business when we knew it was taking off.

"But you still need to have a presence in the right locations. So how did we do this?

"We decided to use virtual office services from Londonpresence.com. This gave us all the core services we needed to look as if we were established in London. We were able to avoid the high cost of leasing, equipping and staffing business premises. Instead, we were able to provide customers with a London address and telephone numbers...

Well Hung Meat

Well Hung Meat could make more of its ethical credentials online, say our experts.

Steve Walter

Health, safety and environmental adviser at manufacturers' body EEF

"I have not seen anything to suggest that the number of [health and safety] prosecutions is increasing but what generally is increasing is the size of the fines.

"Sentencing guidelines are coming out later this year which will be pushing for larger fines for more serious cases, where there has been a fatality,

"By law, any business with more than five employees has to have a health and safety policy. It is worth speaking to a trade association, which could do a check on your policy.

Chief executive of Made Simple Group, an online business support service, and director of Secrets Direct, a vegetable box delivery service

"I had a look on the website and what surprised me about Well Hung Meat is that it does very little wholesale work. The margins aren't going to be as good but the ticket prices will be higher.

"The website has a very impressive rigour for numbering every carcass so you can potentially trace back everything you have bought. Wholesale traders are into that.

"Well Hung Meat is top of the free listings on Google when you search for the phrase 'organic meat'. The business needs to make something out of that."

EC urged to overhaul red tape regulations

Entrepreneurs have attacked the European Commission's move to slash red tape in business administration as confusing and inadequate, and called for an overhaul of the regulations.

In spite of the Commission's claim that the moves could save small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) €600m (£473m), Howard Graham, founder and chairman of Made Simple Group, a business advisory group, said they did not go far enough. "Changes in the tax system each year are heralded as a simplification, but that just isn't the case," he said. "The rapidity and range of changes that are brought in on a regular basis make running a small business even more of a challenge than ever before."

In March 2008 MSG engaged a PR consultancy to share news and developments within the Group.

Latest news, articles and press releases relating to the Group:

May 08 http://www.realbusiness.co.uk/

May 08 http://www.ft.com/

April 08 http://www.ft.com/

April 08 http://www.businesszone.co.uk/blogs/startingup.html