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Challenges of Doing Business with Large Corporations: A Masterclass with GlobalScot John Fox

The prospect of working with a large organisation can be a somewhat daunting prospect.  It brings a whole new set of questions, paperwork, considerations and regulations.  It’s also an exciting opportunity for your company to grow and develop in both existing and potentially new markets.

This masterclass on the Challenges of Doing Business with Large Corporations’ draws on John’s insight of the culture of large US headquartered corporations from the perspective of the insider. If you are interested in ideas of how to differentiate your offering to US based business or how to navigate large corporate culture please join us on Wednesday 6th February at 10am at the Scottish Enterprise offices in Edinburgh. For more details or to register for the event please using this link.

John recently retired after a long successful career of 39 years with Johnson & Johnson; a multi-national corporation that in 2017 had a revenue of $74.65bn, ranked No. 37 on the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue and has over 130,000 employees worldwide. As Vice President of the Global Payroll for the entire group and in his previous role as Group CIO for Pharmaceuticals, John was responsible for administrative functions such as IT, finance and back office, including the payroll operations across 80 countries.

GlobalScots are members of a worldwide network of professionals who have built their reputations in the highest echelons of the international marketplace.  Since 2001, they have been giving back to Scotland by donating their time and expertise for the benefit of Scotland’s future prosperity.

Would your business benefit from an in-depth piece of research and analysis?

The University of Edinburgh is currently looking for projects for MSc Business Analytics, MSc Banking and Risk, and MSc Finance.

Their students are among the best in their field and combine their strategic business and management skills and specialist knowledge with the refinement offered through our 12-month, intensive programmes. They offer different types of projects and will match you with an individual postgraduate student with the specialised skill set suited to your research needs.

The University of Edinburgh MSc in Finance covers all aspects of investment, corporate and energy finance. MSc Banking & Risk projects could cover such topics as analysis of corporate financial information, credit risk management, econometrics applications and many others.

They University can consider almost any topic that has a finance, accounting, investment, energy market, banking or risk focus. Successful projects tend to have an empirical element, which has practical relevance. Most students are keen to work with practitioners on projects which will be of real value to them, helping them find solutions to strategic financial issues such as validity forecasting, forecast asset market returns, risk modelling, dynamic lifecycle strategies etc.

The MSc in Business Analytics (recently ranked 9th in the world in the QS Global Business Masters ranking) is designed to train analysts capable of taking on complex challenges and getting them industry-ready. The programme prepares students not only to be able to analyse and digest data available, but also to translate this into effective decision-making.

A key part is a research-based dissertation project. They are particularly interested in dissertation topics in optimisation or data science. Can you help?

If so, the University is looking for companies to submit project ideas by 26 January 2019. In return, you’ll benefit from the insight of one of the high-calibre postgraduate students, including a substantial report featuring extensive research, rigorous analysis and practical conclusions. To find out more, visit Sponsored Dissertations

To discuss further, contact Ksenia Siedlecka, Business Development Manager, ksenia.siedlecka@ei.ed.ac.uk for MSc Business Analytics

or

Aidan Hetherington, Corporate Engagement Manager aidan.hetherington@ed.ac.uk for MSc Banking and Risk and MSc Finance

Fintech onboarding guidelines by UK’s 5 largest banks

Tech Nation’s Fintech Delivery Panel, in association with the British Standards Institution (BSI) has just released new guidance to improve engagement between fintech companies and financial institutions.
This is the first time ever that such a document is being produced.
RBS, Barclays, HSBC UK, Lloyds Banking Group, and Santander worked with many fintechs produce this document. One of this fintech was Scottish based fintech The ID Co.
Call For more collaboration
We can expect a 82% increase in partnerships between fintech companies and large financial institutions within the next three years.
However collaboration isn’t always easy and these guidelines are trying to address some of those issues.
Some of the key points
Communication: it is important for fintechs to focus on explaining to banks how a long term partnership is possible as opposed to focussing on a specific problem at a given time.
Be prepared: Regardless of one’s willingness to partner with a fintech commercial considerations, checks and controls can’t be bypassed. Fintechs need to be ready to answer questions on preparation, data gathering, due-diligence, onboarding, commercial and contractual processes, as well as data protection and information security considerations.

AccelerateHER by Investing Women: Bootcamps and Angel Investment opportunities

Investing Women, Scotland’s only all-female business angel group, is organising a series of free bootcamps for female entrepreneurs focused taking their venture to the next stage.
AccelerateHER are full day events organised in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. They are supported by Scottish Government funding for entrepreneurs. Alison Gray (Skillfluence) will be the host and will be accompanied by angel investors from Investing Women and advisers from law firm Burness Paull.
The dates are:
The bootcamp will focus amongst other things on optimising the value proposition, improving pitching skills and connecting with women angels.

Launch of AG Elevate 2018 for Scottish fintechs

For the first time Scottish FinTech firms are actively being targeted to join the programme. The law firm already deals with a large number of fintech companies including some Scottish ones such as FNZ, Money Dashboard and MiiCard.
They propose a 12-month programme with 2 variants, one for small start-ups (< £1 million of investment) and one for bigger start-ups (at least Series A’ funding of more than £1 million). Both tracks offer mentoring services and free legal advice as well as training and networking.
David Anderson, a partner in AG’s Scottish FinTech team mentioned FinTech Scotland as evidence of a vibrant fintech eco-system in Scotland and one of the reasons that leads the firm to target Scottish fintechs.
This initiative will be manned by AG’s most experienced FinTech lawyers. AG have been winning many awards in recent years for their focus on innovation.
Some of the fintechs AG is currently working with: Delio, Pace Invoice, Penta, Moneyfellows and Mespo.
Fintechs who want to register can do so by clicking here