The current pandemic will encourage organisations of all types to consider how they operate optimally in the future. As we inevitably adapt to the challenges of remote working and enforced isolation, we are seeing individuals react with incredible ingenuity, resilience and creativity.

Chinese workers isolated at home as a result of the Coronavirus are using a range of remote working tools to keep working. Elsewhere in the world, others are doing it simply because they can.

The art of place-making is all about connection. The best places stem from a clear local identity which connects its people.

Psychological Capital is a concept which relates to an individual’s positive psychological functionality.

A New Year offers the chance to inject new energy and ideas into your business. Here’s a checklist of five things we recommend you do to get 2020 off to a winning start!

As we enter a new year and decade it feels appropriate to take a moment to look back and reflect. There’s no doubt that the prevailing winds of 2019 presented some challenges as well as opportunities for UK business.

In the news last week was the forecast that 2019 global automotive sales will be down by as much as 4 million. It amounts to a crisis for the industry and articles blame Brexit, the US-China trade war and an array of other factors. We think it’s something else.

As Universities seek to differentiate themselves more effectively in an increasingly competitive war for talent both in terms of students and academics, is there a trick being missed to develop the asset of cultural identity?

A senior executive within the Higher Education system recently stated that ‘running a university is now more complex than running an FTSE 100 company.’ A fair call given the scale of resources to be managed. But if universities are now being run like businesses, why aren’t they yet branding like one?

In Mauri culture, ‘Utu’ refers to the preservation of balance and harmony within a civilisation. It was designed to create and strengthen social connections.

Social capital can be described as the value embodied in a strong and well-functioning community. It is a crucial measurement for government in seeking to drive up the quality of community in, for example, Britain’s town centres. They use it to measure the impact of redevelopment investments.

Talk to most very successful people in any business field and they will tell you that their success has been built on their ability to build relationships.

Twelve years ago, we were asked by the DTI to create scenarios for the future of work in the UK, imagining how 2030 might look, as stimulus for government policy making. 2030 seemed a long way away in 2006, but that ‘future’ is now only twelve years from now!

Most CEOs at some time will expound on the idea that their company’s people are their greatest asset. They undoubtedly mean it and the oft quoted ‘war for talent’ suggests that their competitors are as anxious as they are to attract and retain the best people.

An office building is a sophisticated communicator of the purpose and style of the people who inhabit it. In the corporate context, it is a ‘living’ communicator of a firm’s brand and corporate culture.

Of the many companies we have enjoyed working with on corporate brand proposition development, Miele stands out. It is a wonderful brand with a wonderful reputation but at least in the UK, like all great brands, sometimes benefits from a fresh pair of eyes.

If a building could talk, of what would it speak? The answer is that buildings do talk, they communicate very effectively but how, why and to what purpose is not well understood. Workplace branding in its broadest context can be an essential and valuable part of a company’s communication strategy.

The corporate brand is perhaps the best understood and managed of a firm’s intangible assets. Many firms include brand value on their balance sheets though relationship capital, for example, has rarely been treated that way. One reason is that it is apparently obvious that the marketing team are responsible for it.