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As we count down to Christmas, why not take the CramdenTECH 12 days of Christmas quiz! A fun way to test your knowledge of all things to do with the Yultide Season!
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The Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (ISME) has said Irish shoppers should support their local economy by shopping at local SMEs and buy Irish quality products.
They have asked consumers to consider the economic value of their purchases and the effect that local shopping can have on local job creation by keeping money circulating in their community.
According to their research, every €10 spent locally on Irish products generates €24 of benefit to the local community while 45 cents of every euro spent is reinvested locally in comparison to only 15 cents for the foreign multiples.
For more on this article, please visit: Business World
A new survey carried out by consultants Mercer forecasts a rise by over 2% in Irish salaries in 2016.
Mercer surveyed 135 organisations and 97% said they were planning on increasing salaries in the next year.
Firms in the life sciences, hi tech and services industries are forecasting the largest increase of between 2.5% and nearly 3%.
As well as pay, some firms are attracting and retaining staff with benefits including pensions, health insurance and flexible working hours.
For more on this article, please visit: RTE Business News
The PwC 2015 SME Pulse Survey has been launched today. It is carried out amongst Ireland’s SME community defined as having less than 250 employees and is the second year of the survey.
The survey highlights that fewer SMEs when compared to last year expect overall costs to increase in the year ahead. The top economic and policy threat now is political change (68%). The next greatest concern is inadequate business infrastructure (66%).
Other concerns have eased substantially such as the Government’s response to debt burdens, increasing tax burdens, exchange rate volatility and over-regulation, while nearly two- thirds (63%) remain concerned about cyber threats.
Nine out of ten (91%) Irish SMEs are confident about the prospects for the Irish economy in the year ahead, up from 87% last year. Furthermore, one in eight (81%) are favourable about their own business. This reflected in the significant surge in capital investment being made, with over two-thirds (68%) now planning to invest in their business when compared to 51% last year.
For more on this article, please visit: Business World
A new research released today by Irish telecoms provider, Pure Telecom shows half of people claiming they couldn’t survive Christmas without broadband or internet.
Furthermore, 85% of people said they will purchase at least one present online, while the average person expects to buy six presents online. In total, Irish shoppers will spend €852 million online this festive season, averaging €247 per person.
The survey also found that women are more likely to say they couldn’t survive Christmas without broadband, with 52% claiming Christmas would be a disaster without it, compare to 48%of men.
More than one in five (21%) will rely on the internet to watch their festive flicks, with 14% saying they will use a streaming service such as Netflix, while 7% will download movies from the likes of Apple or Amazon.
Pure Telecom found that almost half (48%) of people expect that there will be at least one internet-connected device under their tree this Christmas. One third expect their households to be unwrapping one or two internet-connected devices on the 25th, while a sizeable 15% expect that figure will reach three or more. Almost one third (32%) of parents said they will be give at least one of their children an internet-connected device for Christmas.
For more on this article, please visit: Business World
New CSO figures show 85 per cent of homes are now connected to the internet and 90 per cent of under 30s connect online daily.
The latest Information Society statistics from the Central Statistics Office estimate that 85 per cent of households have access to the internet, up 3 per cent on 2014. Households that don’t have internet access say they don’t need it or in 44 per cent of cases said they didn’t have the skills to use the internet.
Email (84 per cent) was the most common activity carried out on the internet by individuals. The second most common activities selected from the options were social networking (66 per cent) and internet banking (64 per cent).
Irish people are also becoming more reliant on e-commerce to satisfy their needs. The most common types of goods or services being purchased by internet users were clothes or sports goods (31 per cent), travel arrangements (29 per cent), tickets for events (29 per cent) and holiday accommodation (27 per cent).
The CSO figures also reveal that Irish internet users have embraced the cloud as the mainstay for their data storage needs.
44 per cent of internet users stated they used storage space on the internet to store files electronically (documents, pictures, music, video or other files). This was an increase of 9 per cent when compared to 2014 results.
Fixed broadband is the most common the of internet access in household, with 77 per cent of homes using fixed broadband and 38 per cent use mobile broadband.
Of the 16-29 age category, 90 per cent accessed the internet every day, compared with just 29 per cent of the 60-74 age category.
76 per cent of individuals in the Dublin region accessed the internet every day, compared with 59 per cent of individuals in the west region.
For more on this article, please visit: Silicone Republic