ReleaseWire

The challenges of 2020 and beyond have seen many businesses taking increasingly innovative approaches when it comes to looking for opportunities to improve and evolve. For one organisation that included setting up a remote fleet solution to enable it to help clients - including the NHS - cope with the HGV driver shortage that hit the UK this year. The company has seen a significant rise in profits over the past year - an impressive 40% spike - as more organisations around the UK start looking for ways to deal with the shortage of HGV drivers by outsourcing part of delivery requirements or finding alternative warehouse space to store products.

The supply chain crisis has been a rolling topic in the UK news over the past year. However, despite many recent troubles, there is one sector that appears to be shrugging off the impact of this difficult time - the construction industry. Despite being one of the sectors most affected by the supply chain crisis, UK construction achieved considerable output growth in October. In fact, the most recent data shows that industry recovery accelerated from the eight-month low that affected construction in September. While the main driver for this growth remains residential construction, there was also a notable increase in the commercial part of the sector.

Tech skills as a whole have been considerably in demand over the course of 2021 as many organisations have tried to accelerate their digitisation strategy. However, some skills have even more value than others in the technology world right now. In particular, those who are able to provide support when it comes to cloud computing are especially highly sought after.

Many of the most recent trends in the supply chain world have been geared towards planning for greater flexibility, minimised waste and a more agile approach to responding to the demands of consumers. Among them, lean manufacturing, mobile warehousing, global sourcing and just-in-time production are some of the most obvious. However, while these trends can create positive conditions when things are going well, they also introduce a lot of complexity that presents many challenges in terms of risk management.

VoiceNation has entered the audio journalism scene with a new podcast, Answer the Call, a business-focused podcast designed for small business owners. The first episode premiered at the end of October with Sheila Davidson discussing hiring trends and tactics.

Research & Development (R&D) positions are in high demand within the life sciences sector. Switzerland has great success rates within the pharmaceutical sector with access to funding and development of chemicals and inventions which are not commonly used. The competitive nature of the life science sector means that certain some sectors rely heavily on the invention of medicinal products to guarantee their survival. Recent reports have suggested that large multinational drug companies spend 17%, on average, of their revenues on R&D. This is a significant percentage and suggests the importance of this service for the industry. EPM Scientific have expert consultants who are trained in R&D recruitment to ensure professionals looking to progress to the next stage of their career can do so in safe hands.

The IT and technology sectors are facing immense change and disruption caused by innovation, competition and digitalisation of the world. Companies in the industry are having to think hard and fast about the moves they should make to ensure they stay afloat and thrive during the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Glocomms provides permanent, contract and multi-hire recruitment solutions from their global hubs across the world. They allow companies to have peace of mind when it comes to the challenge of talent acquisition today.

The European cloud computing market is forecast to grow significantly over the next decade. It is estimated that by 2028 the market will be worth $140 billion as more and more businesses start investing heavily in this as a resource. One of the key drivers for upcoming expansion of the market is the increasing number of data centres that are being established all over Europe.

The supply chain crisis in the UK has created a lot of frustration for both customers and suppliers - other than the pandemic there has never been a timelier reminder that a single series of events can completely turn life on its head. The past year has shown us just how important a resilient supply chain is but the frequent disruptions have been worrying. While the recent fuel crisis can be attributed in part to the after effects of Brexit, plus the disruption to HGV training that came from COVID, there are also other factors that have had an influence.

Sky Glass is an innovative new product from the media giant that is designed to give millions of people access to its services without the need to find a way to attach a satellite dish to their home. It's the biggest product launch by Sky since it was bought by Comcast and has been earmarked as a watershed moment in terms of the development of the business in the years to come. Many people view this new product launch as a move by Sky to take on the big streaming providers, such as Netflix, especially when it comes to integrating direct access to this service via technology.

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp all recently suffered an unprecedented outage that left many users not only feeling rather bereft but also without access to what they consider to be essential services. The problems arose from an error during routine maintenance of the social media giant's data centres, which triggered a six-hour outage across all its platforms and a very public global meltdown.

Some of the biggest pension and investment funds in the world have announced a new goal to cut the emissions of their portfolio holdings by 25% by 2025. The group of 29 includes Allianz and the California Public Employees Retirement System and is following in the footsteps of many recent announcements of this kind across the financial services industry. Part of the reason for this wave of commitments is the urgency of taking action - as global greenhouse emissions need to drop by 50% by 2030, the time in which effective action can be taken is shrinking.

Machine learning has an increasingly big role to play in analysis for quantitative investors. While this technology continues to be viewed as embryonic and still isn't that widely used, it has application throughout the investment process as well as the potential to generate a broad range of quantitative analytics jobs. Machine learning in this field applies data-driven computer applications that can learn how to complete complex tasks to one of the most sophisticated areas of finance.

The National Environmental Policy Act is considered to be a bedrock piece of environmental legislation, key provisions of which were rolled back during the era of President Trump. Now, the Biden administration is restoring many of these, including federal regulations that set out the basis for environmental reviews of major infrastructure projects such as highways. These reviews were previously considerably watered down under Trump so that projects such as gas pipelines could simply be pushed through with no review or questioning of the impact this might have on something like climate change. However, the renewed emphasis on environmental impact is going to see many of these safeguards returning.

Identifying opportunities to reduce city traffic is something that has occupied some of the best engineers and planners in the country for many years. One of the simplest ways to do this has now been put forward by courier business UPS. According to UPS, eliminating left turns could have a very wide range of benefits, from convenience to environmental impact. This conclusion has come from a decision made by UPS in 2004 to minimize the left turns taken by its drivers, in particular the left turns that are necessary when drivers are sitting and waiting to cross over traffic.

A new minimum global corporate tax rate of 15% is currently in the process of being approved by 136 countries around the world. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said that she feels confident Congress is going to approve the legislation required to implement the tax rate minimum. She said that it's likely the steps that are necessary to bring America into compliance with this global minimum are going to be parceled up in the so-called reconciliation budget bill, which is the infrastructure for President Biden's spending initiatives.

The US government has recently carried out a full review of the economic and financial sanctions that are currently being used by the Treasury and made a number of new recommendations. These recommendations are designed to help adapt and modernize the approach that is taken to the effectiveness of such sanctions and how they can be used to support key objectives.

Apple's battle with Epic Games has left the technology giant with an injunction that ensures it has to allow developers to direct users to alternative payment methods other than just the App Store. The injunction means that developers can avoid the 30% 'tax' that the company was applying to purchases and Apple can't punish those developers that opt to offer users the option of making direct payment. While Apple was supposed to comply with the injunction by 9th December this year it has asked for a stay that means that affected developers will be stuck within the current, restrictive rules for another year.

Most employees never really know whether their boss is keeping an eye on what they do online and this can open the door to some people taking risks. However, the latest version of Microsoft 365 gives full notice that it contains changes that will allow companies to have a clearer perspective on what staff are doing when they're online.

The life sciences sector has faced a broad spectrum of pressures in recent years, including when it comes to an ever more complex regulatory environment, as well as ongoing pricing shifts and the constant change that comes from fast-moving tech. The compliance function of every organization needs to be prepared to meet these challenges, as well as those that have arisen over the past year. As a result, compliance and regulatory jobs are moving away from a hindsight approach and towards being foresight-focused.

The $3.5 trillion new infrastructure package that has been proposed by the Democrats is designed to take President Biden's first term domestic priorities and bundle them neatly up into one single bill. Within this there is a significant allocation for R&D spending, which is perhaps not surprising in the wake of COVID and also given the pressure on this administration to focus on innovation and growth.

The global pharmacovigilance market continues to expand with some estimates forecasting an increase to $12.98 billion by 2027. The need to monitor adverse drug reactions and drug toxicity has been recognized as vital by the World Health Organization, which estimates that around 5% of hospitalized patients are already admitted with an adverse drug reaction. The same source indicates that up to 10% of patients are likely to experience an adverse drug reaction during hospitalization, placing additional emphasis on the need for the essential process of pharmacovigilance.

The Nobel Prize is a much-coveted award and some of the most recent recipients are those who unlocked the secret of pain sensation. David Julius PhD, University of California San Francisco, and Ardem Patapoutian PhD, Scripps Research in La Jolla have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for groundbreaking research. Their focus is on the way that the body senses touch, as well as other stimuli, such as temperature. In particular, the scientists identified two ion channels that are necessary for the human body to respond to these stimuli. As a result of the research, it has been discovered that these mechanical pressure sensors control a broad spectrum of biological needs, from how our organs move to how we sense our body in time and space. The work is just the beginning of looking at how neurons gather information from organs and how this information makes its way to the brain.

Pressures have been constant on the construction sector in the past year, not just in terms of demand for housing, but in dealing with the cracks in the infrastructure and supply chains that normally provide support. It's now emerging that shortages of key materials are making it difficult for the organizations that are not able to procure them and effectively bringing some parts of the construction sector to a grinding halt. In particular, shortages of steel and PVC pipes are causing serious stalling in many areas of construction. In addition, the cost of many basic materials such as adhesives, drywall and electrical equipment has risen and many deliveries have been delayed. Over the past year lumber was one of the few materials to remain in plentiful supply and to see a drop in cost. However, even that hasn't lasted, as since mid-August lumber futures have risen by nearly 40%. There are clearly challenges ahead - but the right team can make all the difference.

In a post-COVID world, challenges exist for all employers. In the manufacturing sector, retention is a key goal for many businesses that have experienced a loss over workforce over the past year or so. Turnover is currently 15% higher than in the years before the virus first hit and this could mean that, by 2028, 2.4 million jobs will be unfulfilled.