Publications

Managing Principal Viewpoint What a year! Much has happened since our last Shipshape. A new government is in place, along with a new Chancellor. We also had a glorious summer of sports, including the Euros in football, the Olympics and t...

Managing Principal Viewpoint Get ready to navigate Despite this spring’s rather mixed weather, I hope you’re enjoying the additional daylight hours and (slightly) warmer temperatures! 2024’s second quarter is underway and, as I write, it...

Managing Principal Viewpoint The time to plan is now I can’t believe it’s December already. What a year it’s been – although that’s been the conclusion for the past few. A welcome highlight of recent months was the fall in inflation. The...

Managing Principal Viewpoint Mixed signals A year on from the economic fallout caused by the Truss government, many of us had hoped for more progress signs by now. Summer 2023, however, brought a mixed bag. Despite the small growth in th...

Managing Principal Viewpoint Remaining resilient 25 April 2023 I hope you’ve enjoyed the additional daylight and spring’s sights and sounds in recent weeks. In times dominated by change and challenges, it’s reassuring to see signs of res...

All hands on deck 7 December 2022  What a turbulent autumn it proved to be on the political and economic stage. Most clients I speak with are now hoping for some much-needed respite after the recent turmoil. Standing by you A period...

Rising to the challenge (again!) 1 September 2022  I hope you were able to enjoy the sunshine and warmer temperatures this summer. On a positive note, the season also saw live events return to their full, pre- pandemic glory such as...

Hoping for a smoother ride   The first few months of 2022 have certainly been memorable. While it’s been good to gain greater freedoms from the withdrawal of Covid restrictions, a wave of fresh social, political and economic developments...

AND THE BEAT GOES ON Time for a change Regular readers of Shipshape Viewpoint will spot that, unusually, this time it’s a double-act – no comparisons please! Having completed my second term as Shipleys’ Managing Principal, I passed on th...

Back to life… Taking comfort from the growing signs of recovery I hope you all summered well and are looking forward to the months ahead. With some live events to go to and other sectors reopening, it has felt that the slow return ...

Little by Little It’s so good to see more positive signs blossoming as the UK tentatively emerges from lockdown. With the vaccination programme’s continued roll-out and the Government’s roadmap for...

In all of my professional career, I don’t think I’ve ever known a year of such dramatic change. When I look back at the different missives I’ve written over the past 12 months, it’s incredible just how much and how fast events, the econo...

The Long And Winding Road I trust all is well and you are finding your way through this ‘new normal’ way of life. So much has happened since my last Shipshape introduction and at times it seems there is still a mighty long road ahea...

Right by your side (albeit virtually) Just when it looked like we could all move forward with more clarity around Brexit, the coronavirus pandemic has transformed life and business on a global scale. It’s a time of unprecedented and rapi...

Don’t stop me now More than three years of Brexit uncertainty have left many business owners itching to just get on with things. Regardless of the path politics finally takes us down, a number of the busine...

Unbelievably, we’re already over halfway through the year and it’s been quite a rollercoaster.  Aside from the cricket and Brexit antics, the year so far has also seen a further swell of  public op...

Whichever side of the fence you sit on, one cannot deny that the past couple of years of heated political debate have left most of the country with an overwhelming sense of fatigue.  At the time of writing it is still...

As I sit and type this the American electorate is going to the polls to deliver their critique of the first two years of Trump’s Presidency. Here in the UK the news is full of conflicting signals about the Brexit negotiations, with 21 No...

In the unseemly rush to the 25 May GDPR deadline it was very easy to get caught up in all the ‘love’ being shown by all those companies still wanting to be able to bombard you with messages post the cut-off date (and if you’re reading th...

Inertia is often the default position when any of us are asked to do something boring or complicated especially, when the implementation date seems way off. One such deadline is the much vaunted EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDP...