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The Evolution Shopping

Selecting which gifts to buy for any occasion is difficult and comes with a variety of challenges including choosing your budget, getting a gift the recipient(s) will be happy with and getting a gift that will be remembered by whoever is receiving it. However, when choosing which gifts to buy purely online, there are additional challenges to be found.

Because you are not shopping for the gift in a traditional sense (going to a shop and examining it before purchasing), you need to assess the item of product very differently. Furthermore, many people find shopping for anything, let alone a gift for someone else, extremely challenging and quite a headache at times (source: Cotton Twist).

The Evolving Purchasing Process

In past years, any gift bought for anyone, from items of clothing to novelty items and even electronics would need to be properly seen, examined and assessed in store by the purchaser.

This was to ‘qualify’ the item; to make sure you bought what you were hoping for and to check that the item met expectations. For example, it may be the case that online or in a magazine, an item has a stated size, but in reality, it didn’t match up and would come up too large or too small, with different clothing retailers’ sizes slightly varying.

Nowadays however, with the death of the traditional high street appearing to be an evolving reality, more and more people are shopping online for all nature of gifts. This evolution in consumer behaviour has come about in part due to the surge in popularity of the likes of Amazon, ASOS, eBay and other well-established online retailers and marketplaces. These online retailers make selecting gifts easy as can be online.

Because customers can view, zoom in on and even sometimes ‘test’ items (for example in a simulated test environment), the need to physically ‘go and see’ a product is greatly reduced. Apart from items which are dependent on senses of smell and taste, it is perfectly feasible to select an item online.

Shops, Outlets and the High Street

Shops, outlets and other retail premises on the high street do still have their places although for many, it is an accepted practice to go to a shop to physically view, taste or smell the product or gift idea in question. Once the product to be purchased is decided upon, many consumers will then go online and buy the exact same product, often at a cheaper price.

Hence, the high street and high street-dependent businesses are for the most part, in a steep decline. Some retailers and shops do however have their places on the high street over some others. This includes food and drink providers and the likes of coffee shops. Additionally, shops selling fragrances and ‘testable’ items such as perfumes, alcohol, chocolates and similar do see visitors, with people needing to experience the products to validate them as a purchase from time to time. An issue faced by such businesses though is that people may simply use the shop to taste or test an item, only then to purchase it online thereafter.

The future does not look brilliant for the high street in a traditional sense with many shops and businesses being forced to close, unable to afford drops in profits twinned with expensive business rates and staffing costs. That all said, it may well be a case that the high street evolves rather than disappears, although that remains to be seen.

How to Make the Best Printed Booklet for Your Business

Booklets are very useful in promoting any kind of business, giving you the opportunity to introduce your products or services to potential customers in a detailed, clear and attractive way. In the same time, these informative materials represent the image of your business and, because of this, it’s important to use the proper content, a good quality printing service and an interesting design when you decide to create a booklet.

Establish the purpose of the booklet

The first step in creating the best printed booklet for your business is to decide how do you want to use it and what’s the message you want to send to your audience. All the other decisions are based on this and identifying the purpose of your booklet can help you channel all the available resources in the same direction. To make it easier, ask yourself some questions and decide the features of your booklet according to the answers:

  • Do you want to include storytelling in your booklet?
  • Are you marketing a product or a service?
  • Who is your targeted audience – business partners, clients, a certain group of people?
  • Is this a supportive material for your sales department or are you planning to use it just as an informative material?
  • Will the booklet end up in the hands of existing or potential partners and customers?
  • Will you hand other informative materials – flyers, leaflets, brochures – together with the booklet?
  • Are you planning to keep the booklet for customers visiting your office or do you want to use it in exhibits and trade shows?

Once these details are clear, you can move to the next step and create the proper content and design that will help you reaching your goal.

The content of the booklet

The ideal content of a booklet is on point, simple, but not boring. It might be a good idea to ask a specialist to create the content. A freelance copywriter or content writer, an agency – the choice is yours and it mainly depends on the budget.

Make sure the content is catchy, informative and easy to read. Divide it in short paragraphs and use subtitles – nobody likes a huge text block. Use clear fonts and combine the text with different colours and graphics or pictograms to make it more interactive, but remember that less is more. Don’t overload the pages, because you will risk confusing the reader. You must focus the attention on the main point, so dosing the elements in the proper way is something important.

Image resolution and colours

Your booklet should look professional and for this to happen you must use high resolution pictures. If the images don’t have the proper quality, it will appear blurred or pixeled when printed, thus the booklet will look bad. Most of the times, the pictures you are seeing on your computer have a 72 dpi (dots per inch) resolution, enough for your laptop’s screen, but not enough for a printer, where the pictures should have a resolution of 300-400 dpi.

It goes without saying that your booklet should be coloured and not black-and-white, unless you choose the greyscale design to make a point – for vintage images or for an old school design. But this matter is not only about which colour palette you will use. It goes beyond the taste issue, getting a little bit technical: you have to know the difference between RGB and CMYK colour models. RGB (red, green and blue) is used for displaying images on electronic devices, while CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) is used in printing. In order to have control over the accuracy of the utilized colours, it is recommended to use a software like InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop or similar, that allows designing in a CMYK colour space.

Paper type and weight

You should choose the paper for printing according to the design of the booklet. Silk, uncoated, natural, gloss or recycled – these are all different types of paper in terms of looks, feel and quality. It goes the same for the cover, where you can choose from different types of finishings: matt, gloss or soft touch lamination, matt, gloss or spot UV and so on. Choose carefully, considering the purpose of the booklet and the targeted audience. A bad quality paper and finishing will look and feel cheap and all the efforts made for a flawless design and content will not matter anymore.

The paper weight is also something to be considered. For the inside pages, the weight can usually range between 90 gsm and 250 gsm, but if you’re not on a budget and you’re aiming for a durable product it is recommended to go higher than the minimum. As for the covers, the available options usually start from 170 gsm, but a high-quality booklet will have a cover paper with a weight of 300-350 gsm.

If you focus on quality when designing and printing your booklets, the chances to impress a potential customer and to determine him to work with you are higher. More customers or business partners means a higher revenue, and this should be enough reason for you to be interested in making the best booklet for your business!

What does success look like?

Part of our vision at Naked Marketing is to generate positive impact for our clients and help their organisation achieve success through our ideas, design and approach. This desire for positive impact is built on our belief that design should be an investment, not a cost. When design can deliver tangible, or even less-tangible, results against set objectives, it becomes effective – and through that we maximise value to the client

The effectiveness of design in business is a well-explored narrative. The Design Council established in 2007 that for every £1 invested in design, businesses can expect over £20 in increased revenues. Since 1997, shares in design-led business outperformed the FTSE 100 by more than 200%. But the positive impact of design goes far beyond the bottom line and it can mean different things to different businesses or communities – it can improve customer experience, raise levels of engagement, generate new revenue streams, improve sustainability, raise morale, create new jobs and much more.

This is why, when first discussing a new project, we ask the question: “What does success look like to you?”

Perhaps you aim to increase footfall at your next event (tangible), or it could be that you wish to increase the perceived value of your brand in your customers minds (emotional). One may be easier to measure than the other, but in the course of time the outcome for both objectives can be tracked and analysed.

This mindset isn’t something that you can switch on overnight, it’s a culture that has been embedded in Naked from Day One. Our philosophy of always delivering more value than we charge is built on the idea of having a positive impact on the goals of an organisation. It’s all very well developing good design in response to a business challenge, but, without objectives for success in place and measuring against those, how can you track if your budget was wisely spent with your marketing and design agency? As an example of this, we’ve seen recent success with a relatively new client of ours, Abacus Hotels, who were part of the Best Western group. Naked were asked to help build the brand equity as a standalone group of hotels. The project, of rebranding each hotel and redesigning individual websites, alongside marketing activity, was set against clear objectives for success. After six months, the brand identities have been rolled out across the hotel group, and the website results are now offering tangible rewards. In this period the group has seen an increase in web bookings of 370%, and revenue from these bookings has climbed by 415%. We are confident enough to say that Abacus Hotels have seen a return on their investment within a month. Now our ongoing focus for Abacus is very much on retention of new customers, whilst continuing to build on the growing brand reputation we have helped to create. You can find more on that project here » So before your next project, why not first ask yourself ‘What does success look like?’ …you know we will!

nor(DEV):con 2019 schedule live now!

nor(DEV):con 2019 Thursday 21st to Saturday 23rd of February 2019, The Kings Centre, Norwich, NR1 1PH, https://nordevcon.com Tickets: https://nordevcon-2019.eventbrite.com Friday opening keynote: The Failure of Focus, Liz Keogh We know that in our landscape of people and technology, aiming for a particular outcome doesn’t always lead to us getting what we want. Sometimes the best results come from approaching a problem obliquely. But in Agile our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through the early and continuous delivery of valuable software. We like to start with the outcome, meet the needs of our users, delivering high-quality working software with happy teams and true agility… but how might that focus be holding us back, and what are the alternatives? In this talk we look at some different strategies for approaching complex ecosystems, starting from where we are right now, and allowing innovation to emerge through obliquity, naivety, and serendipity. Friday closing keynote: Software doesn’t always work out, Kevlin Henney Looking at the number of software failure screens in public places, it can sometimes seem that software developers are the greatest producers of installation art around the planet. Software failures can be entertaining or disastrous. They can also be instructive – there’s a lot we can learn. Saturday keynote: Plain Wrong?, Heydon Pickering I love writing JavaScript. The trouble is, so does everyone else. When people aren’t writing JavaScript, they’re usually writing frameworks for writing JavaScript in JavaScript. In fact, most of the JavaScript that’s around these days seems to either be written for, or within, a JavaScript flavor like React, Vue, or Angular. Frameworks make writing your own code faster and more ergonomic, but they do not come without problems. Code written with Framework A depends on the environment Framework A provides in order to work – and this dependency often represents a lot of code to transmit, decompress, parse, and compile. What about ‘plain’ JavaScript? Is it always naïve to think anything worthwhile can still be achieved just writing some straight-up code? It turns out this is a tricky question to answer, because the line between plain and flavored JavaScript is kind of blurry. It’s also not clear who should be the ones to get to write JavaScript, for what reasons, or when. But there’s no doubt the little we do as web developers is often done with much more than we need. See the full schedule here: https://nordevcon.com

Archant Local Impact: Unlocking the value of content marketing

Content has become one of those buzz wordy sounding things that it is trendy to bash, marketers can be very quick to channel their inner hipster in this way. Content marketing could be cast as crusty and old fashioned in the light of more technical, data driven ‘new age’ marketing techniques, but maybe all it needs is a bit of a polish. The reputation of content marketing has been dented, not because of it not ‘working’, but because a big chunk of the advertising industry has forgotten how to use it. You will have seen this in sponsored articles that are little more than text based adverts and sales features that look like they came straight from a brochure. To really work, content marketing has to be better than this. Content marketing now has to be useful; it has to be interesting, engaging or entertaining in some way. To cut through all the fluff pieces that usually sit under sponsored content banners good content marketing has to be…well… good.   Content marketing should also not just be about words: video, photos and infographics all have a valuable part to play.  Being ahead of the curve, we are transforming the way we create content marketing. Starting with a process of topic modelling, we are able to take a subject and research questions being asked online. Questions that start with ‘How do I…’ or ‘What is the best…’ can bring some interesting and useful answers. Good content marketing delivers expert answers to these questions and maybe even asks the questions in the first place. One of the things we have seen with our new content marketing approach is that it really does deliver results. It builds awareness, delivers visibility on search engines, it builds reputation and interaction on social channels and it really does deliver new customers. Done right content marketing is a really valuable, relevant and effective piece of the marketing puzzle.

Why you should be using behavioural economics in your business…

“Understanding your consumer in any industry is vital; especially when they’re irrational.”

The ‘perfectly rational’ individual wakes up in the morning in complete darkness…

He gets dressed for work but never turns the light on because he knows exactly where all of his clothes are. He rationalises to turn the light on would be irrational. Spending an extra penny on lighting would take away an unjustifiable figure from his concise and dotted budget.

He drinks a cold coffee for the same reason. Boiling a kettle is one of the least energy efficient appliances in the home. The caffeine is just as strong as if the drink was slightly cooler than 100 degrees. He thinks the potency of caffeine is not related to the temperature of the drink, so why boil the kettle?

After he is dressed he heads to work. He does not need to travel to work because he sleeps at his desk. If you asked him why he would say that to own or rent is irrational; “when it is possible to sleep at work why waste the paycheck on a house and commute?”

Does this sound like someone you know? Human beings are not one hundred percent rational. We are emotional beings.

As science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein once said: “man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalising animal.” In other words, we always try and explain our behaviour without knowing why we do it.

In the 1970s, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky highlighted just how irrational human beings can be. These two academics helped develop the idea of “cognitive biases,” showing that humans systematically make choices that defy clear logic. A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment.

An example of this deviation occurs every morning for some people. How many of us are guilty of skipping breakfast. Is breakfast not the most important meal of the day? Not eating in the mornings knocks our capacity to function throughout the day. Breakfast kick-starts the metabolism, helping you burn calories and helping us perform efficiently throughout the day. So why do we do it? Because we don’t have time in the mornings or we are too rushed or… and so on. Little things get in the way and we end up making poorer choices because of it.

These seemingly insignificant irrationalities can have a big impact on our perceptions of our customers. Understanding the customer is crucial in any industry; especially when they’re irrational. Knowing the exact problem your customers are trying to solve, and what shortcuts they might take to solve it is what is demanded by today’s consumers.

Take any everyday consumer product such as washing up liquid or toiletries, consumers generally have a preference for a small number of ‘trusted brands’. Knowing what makes a brand ‘trusted’ and why someone would pick one trusted brand over another is crucial insight in today’s competitive world however irrational the thought processes are.

Behavioural economics is a research field that uses psychology to understand more accurately how people make economic decisions. The insights provided by academics can be used by businesses to work with people’s irrationalities rather than against them.

One of the ideas within behavioural economics is framing. In a nutshell, framing is the difference between painting something in a positive or a negative light. This taps into our biological desire for immediate gratification or loss aversion (depending on if the frame is positive or negative) making us more likely to shift our decisions a particular way.

At the heart of behavioural economics lie nudges. These small hints, tweaks or changes are used to ‘nudge’ very specific behaviours in order to create larger lasting changes over time. This can be as simple as putting fruit before a chocolate sundae on a lunch menu or having to enter your pin rather than tap your card.

Putting fruit higher on a lunch menu means the reader has to actively reject the healthy option before they can accept an unhealthy one as their eyes scroll down. Entering your pin rather than using contactless creates friction. That friction that creates a half a second pause can be enough to make you think, “do I really need this?”

In theory, the wealth and range of products available means people should be able to have their exact needs met more so than ever before. In practise, people become overwhelmed and resort to rules of thumb; some businesses don’t understand that people don’t have the time the energy or the desire to seek out the best option.

While having a fleet of behavioural scientists might be a bit excessive for your company, taking a behavioural approach to your products and services could be the difference between a happy customer and one that is misunderstood.   

Naked Element Takes Pole Position

t’s obvious that everyone at Naked Element love all things tech, but did you know our Director Paul Grenyer also loves cars? It makes sense then that we have teamed up with fellow techie Nick Moore to sponsor his racing career! “I met Paul through work” said Nick “We got talking about tech but then also discovered we both had a shared passion for cars and racing. That common interest, and Paul’s motivation to promote Norfolk in tech and as a county, led to this partnership. It is something I am really looking forward to building.” By day Nick works in technology recruitment, specialising in Data Science, AI and Machine learning based positions for multiple clients in East Anglia. “SoCode, the company I work for based on the research park, specialises in multiple tech areas and for a company that is only two years old, things have gone extremely well!” But at the weekends he races at the likes of Brands Hatch and Snetterton. While Paul’s favourite machine is a Lamborghini, Nick has a soft spot for TVR. “My dad used to own a Chimera which I used to love driving. But if I was going to have any car, I think it would be an old school Mustang or Shelby Cobra.” Both Nick and Paul are proud Norfolkites, techies AND petrolheads – it is a partnership made in heaven! Paul and everyone at Naked Element are super excited to be part of Nick’s sponsorship team and we’ll be watching his progress with hopes of a win! You can follow Nick’s progress on his facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/nickmooreracing/

Emerging talent at the DevelopHER Awards 2018!

A couple of weeks ago I was honoured to be asked to judge and present the overall winner of the DevelopHER Awards 2018. There are a number of categories in the awards, including TechStar which I also judged, and the overall winner is chosen from the winners of the other categories. I believe that the best developers start writing code at an early age and continue throughout their lives and on through their careers. As well as learning all they can, all the time, they give back to community around them and help other people develop as well. Federica Freddi, who also won the Emerging Talent award, is clearly passionate about software development and is fully deserving of the DevelopHER award and I couldn’t have been more delighted to be able to present her with it on the night. Federica told me “It is fantastic to see so many women recognised for their contribution to our industry. It is a huge honour for me to be able to represent so many talented people that are making the difference in tech. As an Emerging Talent, I still have a long way ahead and I don’t know what awaits for me in the future, however I am sure I will never forget to stop along the way to give back to people and help the next generations of tech stars to grow too.” I am hoping we’ll see Federica back in Norwich very soon.

Asset Finance- Why Choose Chatsbrook?

Asset Finance – Why Choose Chatsbrook?

Here at Chatsbrook, we support businesses through our bespoke finance packages. We whole-heartedly believe that nothing should stand in the way of your business ambitions.

At the beginning of consultations, we attentively listen to your requirements, so we can consistently deliver tailor made funding solutions that transcend all expectations.

Asset finance is useful for when you need to free up cash flow, or if you want to expand areas of your business. For instance, you may be interested to know that we could offer finance for materials that you already buy in bulk. Our expertise of asset finance has nurtured hundreds of businesses by providing a means to become more efficient and sustainable.

Our clients Richard Pike Associates financed new software and hardware to help with their building, design and planning processes. The benefits reaped by new equipment is exponential as not only does it modernize their business, but it helps to provide a flexible and efficient service to customers.

Keeping up with the changing markets and technological progression can allow you to maintain a competitive edge. If you decide to work with us, you will be consistently supported from the offset. It is important that our clients not only continually receive the most competitive rates on the market, but the best service too. Our competency serves to advise you on ways to make strong, financial decisions so that your business can continue to grow.

Having financed a range of assets for many businesses, we not only have a wealth of knowledge, but our vast panel of lenders means that we provide finance perfectly suited to your industry. Our client The honey b company were able to finance a new Ford Ranger to help with the day-to-day running’s of their business- sometimes a new vehicle is all you need to improve overall efficiency.

We always go the extra mile for our clients. This can even involve sourcing, supplying and financing vehicles in certain cases. Our ethos of honesty and transparency means that we offer businesses a stress-free, seamless and attentive service whilst they still remain in control.

Smarter solutions are just around the corner, all you need to do is get in touch with our experts today call Chatsbrook now on 01603 733500 or email info@chatsbrook.co.uk.

Making Tax Digital: counting up the benefits to business

Making Tax Digital can be simple to set up and will have positive effects on businesses in terms of time and cost savings, according to a leading firm of chartered accountants in the region.

Martin Bugg, of Larking Gowen, says businesses need to act now if they haven’t already started the process of moving their VAT returns onto software.

“Larking Gowen is Making Tax Digital ready and fully accredited for two of the leading software packages, QuickBooks and Xero,” says Martin.

 “As a Platinum Partner with QuickBooks, we have an excellent working relationship with them and first-rate support for all our clients,” he continues.

 “This includes providing our clients with the newly released Welcome Hub for QuickBooks online, which delivers free up to date training and support on the software, together with an email series of training material.

 “Larking Gowen is one of a small number of firms in the UK to offer this support free of charge to its QuickBook clients,” says Martin.

 By 1 April 2019, most VAT registered businesses in the UK must submit VAT digitally, and by 1 April 2020, other businesses need to get on board.

 “With our help, getting the software and transferring your company data onto it can be a straightforward process,” says Martin.

 “We start with a conversation to find out where any difficult issues are, and where efficiencies can be made. We can then recommend the software package that is most appropriate to your business,” he says.

 In a ‘one-stop shop’ service, Larking Gowen can then convert their client’s data into the software.

Once set up, the client can receive ongoing support and checks, if they need it, to make sure they are using the correct VAT codes in each part of their return.

 “Making Tax Digital is something all businesses have to come to terms with, but it delivers a number of positives which make the process worthwhile.

 “By using MTD, you are in effect buying your time back. The time savings you make can be used to generate more income for your business.

 “In addition to this, you have the benefit of seeing your business in the here-and-now rather than historically, which is a great benefit to decision-making. You can get your accounting data on the move, either on a phone or tablet.

 “My clients can see the impact of any business decision much more quickly, and can follow up or reverse it as necessary,” explains Martin.

 As well as the main packages, Larking Gowen can provide a number of ‘bolt-on’ packages, such as Chaser (automated credit control system) and Receipt Bank (which manages your receipts) which can bring further automation and therefore more efficiencies to a business.

 “We have also found bringing these services to our clients and talking about efficiencies, connects well with our business advisory offering, which can have a tangible effect on growth and profits.”

 For more information, please call Martin Bugg on 01603 624121 or visit www.larking-gowen.co.uk

Should you cash in your final salary pension?

Have you got a final salary pension? If you do, you should consider yourself very lucky! Just 19 companies on the FTSE 100 stock exchange still offer them so they are a bit of a rarity these days. 

Recently, lots of people have been rushing to cash in their final salary pension but why is that?

What is a final salary pension

Just in case you didn’t already know. A final salary, or defined benefit, pays a guaranteed retirement income for life, based on how much you earned and how long you worked at the company for. Pay outs can be generous, and it’s certainly a more reliable prospect than the alternative defined contribution schemes which rely on stock market returns to fund your retirement.

But a final salary pension generally doesn’t offer the flexibility of a defined contribution plan. And that’s tempting people to cash them in.

In 2017, the amount transferred from final salary pensions to defined contribution plans rocketed up from £7.9bn to £20.8bn. That’s 92,000 transfers at an average of £250,000 each.

What does cashing a final salary pension in mean?

Essentially, you’re transferring money out of your company plan and into a personal pension pot. You can then invest it wherever you like. Or, if you’re over 55, you can simply withdraw cash from the new pot and spend it on whatever you like.

Why are more people cashing in now?

In 2015 pension freedoms were introduced by the government. It gives those over the age of 55 the flexibility to take their pensions as cash instead of an annuity. An attractive option for people who do not want to be tied down to an annual income. 

In addition, transfer values being offered on defined benefit pensions have been at record highs. A combination of low interest rates and low gilt yields has caused this rise in transfer values. When interest rates fall, it can become more expensive for companies to buy the investments which pay pensioners their guaranteed incomes. So bosses are keen for workers to cash in, and offer bigger incentives to get them to do so.

People are being offered sums far above their annual pension to transfer, making it an appealing offer.

However, yields have begun to rise from these historical lows, and we’ve seen the first interest rate rise for a few years. The impact may be that schemes begin to reduce the amount they offer people to transfer. So now could be the right time to take advantage of the offers, before they start to drop. 

But just because you can doesn’t mean you should!

When might it be a good idea to cash in a final salary pension?

Immediate access to a lump sum of money might be too tempting for some people to resist. But that alone is a very poor reason to make the leap, particularly if you don’t have any other guaranteed incomes. 

However, there are some circumstances which may mean this is something to consider.

  • If you have children(or other beneficiaries), they stand to receive nothing under a defined benefit scheme. They can, however, inherit funds under a defined contribution scheme tax-free if you die before you’re 75. If you die after 75, the fund will still pass on, but will be subject to tax.  
  • If you’re sick,a lifetime income isn’t much use to you if you’re not going to live long enough to receive it. A transfer might be a better option if you’re a heavy smoker with a family history of heart disease!  
  • If you’re worried about the scheme collapsing. Pensions schemes are costing companies as much as 40% of payroll, three times more than 30 years ago. This has led to lots of pension schemes in the red. If an employer goes bust, the Pension Protection Fund steps in to compensate, but pay outs are likely to amount to less than they would have done. As BHS employees, and more recently Carillion employees, found out to their detriment.  
  • If you need more flexibility. Under a defined contribution scheme you can spread withdrawals and reduce your tax bill. But you are also responsible for making sure you don’t run out of money.  
  • If you need access before you’re 65 (the age at which most final salary schemes will start to pay out) – with most defined contribution schemes, you can access funds at 55.

Why might you be better off sticking with your final salary pension?

  • With no guaranteed income for life, you put yourself at risk of running out of money before you die.  
  • With a defined contribution scheme, you’re at the mercy of the stock market. The value of your fund could fall, leaving you with less to live on. A final salary pension doesn’t have this risk.  
  • With final salary pensions, pay outs rise with the cost of living, so you have some protection from inflation.  
  • If you have a spouse (particularly one who’s younger and fitter with no retirement income of their own), a final salary scheme may hold value for them too, typically 50% – 75% of the original value.  
  • There’s no going back! Once you’ve transferred out, you can’t transfer back in, so it’s not a decision to be taken lightly!  
  • If you’re offered more than £1.03 million to transfer, this will push you over the lifetime pension limit and you’ll be charged 55% tax on anything over that value – something to bear in mind.

What next?

The best thing to do it get some advice!  The FCA has made this a condition of being able to transfer a fund worth more than £30k. Transferring from a defined benefit scheme to a defined contribution is irreversible, so it’s worth it no matter what the size of the fund to avoid making a mistake you will later regret.

Everyone’s circumstances are different. Getting advice means you can be confident you’re doing the right thing for you and your family.

Naked Element Back Winning Team at Sync the City

Sync The City is an annual event that brings together budding entrepreneurs and developers to pitch and build a start-up in just 54 hours. This year our Director Paul Grenyer was a mentor for one of the teams and they had great success with their idea ‘Seren’, taking home one of the prizes! Paul says “John Fagan has asked me to be involved with every Sync the City since it started five years ago, but this is the first time I’ve been in a position to commit to the 2.5 day event. Originally I was providing technical support via nor(DEV): but Sync the City were short of mentors so I was embedded into team Seren. I had to put my work for Naked Element on hold but I was more than happy to do so to be part of the event. My only regret is that I wasn’t able to do it sooner!”  Lily Beel, a trainee solicitor at Leathes Prior, explains the idea behind her winning pitch, saying “the general idea was to connect those beginning to suffer from mental health conditions with those who have recovered/are in recovery. The waiting time to be seen through the NHS is 9 months for mild/moderate conditions – which means that people are likely to get worse during that period. If they had someone to talk to, who had been through similar mental health issues, it might stop them from reaching a crisis point and harming themselves or worse.”  “I pitched it by providing figures received from different organisations about mental health and how long it takes to be seen. I explained that it would be good to have venues which allow people to connect and chat (whether about their mental health directly or about other subjects)” Lily and the team of eight worked together under Paul’s mentorship, to build the business start-up, but the process was not without its obstacles. “It was particularly difficult to work out how to reach those suffering and how to fund the charity. We overcame this hurdle using research and speaking to people. Contacts are invaluable – as you are limited to 54 hours, you need all the help you can get!” But this wasn’t the hardest part of the process, as Lily had never taken part in Sync the City before, let alone made a business pitch, she found the idea of doing this in front of everyone a daunting prospect. “I wanted to make sure I got the point across as I feel really passionately about mental health and feel that more needs to be done – it was hard to keep my emotions in check when I was pitching. We had a performance workshop beforehand and my team were incredibly supportive, which really helped.” “When we came out of the workshop with the performance coach” Paul adds, “I was really pumped up, as I knew Lily had something special and the drive and talent she exhibited had the potential to go a long way.” Between Lily, her amazing team and the support of Paul and all the other mentors and experts, team Seren took home the People’s Choice prize and £1000 between them! Paul says “I put winning down to the amazing drive and determination of Lily BeeI and to listening to the other mentors and following their advice.” “Sync The City is so important to Norwich and the tech community for so many reasons,  but mostly because it helps get new ideas off the ground and is great for the tech community, especially the collaboration with the UEA which brings so many business and computer science students to the event.”