Business

Aston Martin has issued another profit warning and agreed to sell the permanent naming rights to its Formula One team for £50m, as the British marque grapples with falling deliveries, mounting debt and the impact of US tariffs.

The carmaker, majority-owned by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, said earnings for 2025 would be worse than City forecasts, marking its fifth profit warning since September 2024.

Analysts had expected the company to report a loss of around £184m when it publishes full-year results next week.

Aston Martin delivered 5,448 vehicles last year, nearly 10 per cent fewer than in 2024, as sales in the US were hit by a 25 per cent tariff on imported cars imposed by former US president Donald Trump. The group also missed targets for high-margin special edition models.

Shares fell as much as 4 per cent in early trading before trimming losses.

Cash reserves stand at around £250m, broadly stable over the past six months but down from £360m at the start of 2025. The company’s debt pile has risen by about 70 per cent since early 2024.

To bolster liquidity, Aston Martin has agreed to sell the permanent right to use its name in Formula One to its F1 team for £50m. The team is operated by AMR GP Holdings, a separate entity also controlled by Stroll, meaning the deal effectively represents additional funding from its owner.

Because Stroll sits on both sides of the transaction and holds a 32 per cent stake in Aston Martin, the deal requires shareholder approval. Investors representing more than half the company, including Stroll’s vehicle, Geely and Mercedes-Benz, have already indicated they will vote in favour.

A similar naming rights arrangement was struck in 2024, granting the F1 team rights until 2055.

Since taking control in 2020, Stroll has sought to reposition the brand through new model launches and repeated capital raisings. However, the turnaround has been marked by persistent losses, production setbacks and inventory challenges.

The US tariff regime added significant cost pressure in one of Aston Martin’s most important markets. A subsequent UK-US trade agreement reduced tariffs to 10 per cent on up to 100,000 British-made cars from mid-2025, offering partial relief.

In October, the company cut £300m from its investment plans and scaled back development spending on new models, citing tariffs and subdued demand in China.

Despite the headwinds, Aston Martin pointed to upcoming deliveries of its £850,000 Valhalla hypercar as a positive sign. Around 500 units are due for delivery in 2026, with more than half of the limited 999-production run already sold.

Nevertheless, with its share price down roughly 50 per cent over the past year, Aston Martin’s efforts to restore profitability remain under intense scrutiny as it navigates a volatile global automotive market.

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Aston Martin issues fresh profit warning and sells F1 naming rights for £50m

Depop has been sold to eBay for $1.2bn, marking a 25 per cent discount to the price paid five years ago by Etsy.

Etsy acquired the London-founded second-hand fashion platform for $1.6bn in 2021 at the height of pandemic-era ecommerce growth. The resale comes as Etsy refocuses on its core handmade and vintage marketplace.

Founded in 2011 by English-Italian entrepreneur Simon Beckerman, Depop built a strong following among younger consumers seeking sustainable and affordable fashion. The platform counted roughly seven million active buyers at the end of last year, nearly 90 per cent of whom were under 34.

For eBay, the deal represents an attempt to deepen its appeal with Gen Z shoppers and strengthen its position in the fast-growing resale segment. Fashion accounts for more than $10bn of eBay’s annual gross merchandise volumes, with second-hand clothing a key driver of growth.

Jamie Iannone, chief executive of eBay, said Depop would benefit from the group’s scale and operational capabilities. “We are confident that as part of eBay, Depop will be well positioned for long-term growth,” he said.

However, analysts suggest the acquisition is partly defensive. Aliyah Siddika of GlobalData described the transaction as “as much about defence as growth”, noting Depop faces intense competition from rivals such as Vinted.

Etsy shares rose nearly 10 per cent after the announcement, reflecting investor support for the decision to exit a business that has delivered lower profitability than its core operations. Major shareholders in Etsy include BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and activist investor Elliott.

Depop is expected to retain its brand and operate with a degree of autonomy under eBay’s ownership, subject to regulatory approval. The all-cash transaction is scheduled to close in the second quarter of 2026.

Peter Semple, Depop’s chief executive, said the deal marked a new chapter. “This transaction is a testament to the growth we have delivered and the strength of our brand and community,” he said.

The sale underscores the shifting valuations within ecommerce, as pandemic-era premiums give way to a more measured approach to growth and profitability.

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Depop sold to eBay at 25% discount to 2021 valuation

A Manchester business owner was left facing a £42,000 mobile phone bill after his daughter streamed TikTok on holiday in Morocco, a charge he said nearly pushed his small company into financial crisis.

Andrew Alty, who runs a curtains business, discovered the scale of the bill while on a family trip to Marrakech after receiving an initial £22,000 invoice from O2. A second bill for around £20,000 followed shortly after their return to the UK.

The charges stemmed from data roaming outside Europe, where the UK’s previous EU-wide free roaming arrangements no longer apply. Mr Alty had taken out a mobile contract via Currys for his small business, unaware that the agreement included a clause opting out of a “rest-of-world” data cap.

His daughter had spent around eight hours using TikTok during the trip. With no cap in place, data charges mounted rapidly, amounting to more than £5,000 per hour of usage.

“There’s no way they should be able to charge that,” Mr Alty told The Telegraph. “They made no effort to inform us and just allowed the charges to accrue. I don’t understand how they expect any small business to pay that sort of bill.”

Initially suspecting fraud or a technical glitch, Mr Alty attempted to contact O2 while still abroad but was unable to resolve the issue. It was only after returning home that the family understood the source of the charges.

Following weeks of complaints, both Currys and O2 agreed to waive the bill in full.

According to Ofcom data covering July to September 2025, O2 received among the highest levels of complaints per 100,000 customers, alongside Sky Mobile and Three. Almost a third related to complaints handling.

Mr Alty escalated his case to the Financial Ombudsman Service, arguing that the opt-out clause on data caps had not been clearly explained. However, the ombudsman ruled that contract explanations fell under Currys’ responsibility, not O2’s. The FOS does not adjudicate disputes with network providers directly.

An O2 spokesperson said the matter had been resolved following Currys’ internal review, with all charges waived “given the scale and circumstances”.

The case highlights the potential financial risks of using mobile data outside Europe without a roaming cap, particularly on business contracts where standard consumer protections may differ. While most major networks offer optional caps to limit overseas data costs, customers must ensure these safeguards are activated, or risk bills running into the tens of thousands.

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£42,000 roaming bill nearly bankrupts family firm after TikTok use abroad

Quentin Griffiths, the British co-founder of online fashion retailer Asos, has died after falling from a high-rise apartment building in Pattaya, according to local reports.

Griffiths, 58, is reported to have fallen from the 17th floor of his condominium. Emergency services attended the scene and confirmed his death.

Thai police said there were no immediate signs of disturbance inside the apartment but added that investigations are ongoing and foul play has not been ruled out pending further forensic analysis. Authorities said a full post-mortem examination would be required to establish the exact cause of death.

The circumstances surrounding the fall remain unclear. A source close to the family told The Sun that the situation was being described as “suspicious”, though no official determination has been made.

Griffiths had reportedly been involved in a legal dispute with his former Thai spouse over business assets. Last year, he was questioned by police following allegations that he had forged documents to sell land and shares in a jointly operated company. He denied the allegations and was released after questioning. Reports indicate the investigation was continuing at the time of his death.

Born in London, Griffiths co-founded Asos in 2000 alongside Nick Robertson and Andrew Regan. The company grew into a global online fashion retailer valued at around £3bn at its peak, with high-profile figures including the Princess of Wales and Michelle Obama among those to have worn its own-label designs.

Griffiths stepped down from Asos in 2005 after serving as marketing director. He later realised significant gains from share sales, reportedly making around £15m in 2010 and receiving further windfalls in subsequent years.

In later years, he pursued legal action against accountancy firm BDO, alleging incorrect tax advice had resulted in a multi-million-pound liability linked to share disposals in Asos and Achica, another online retail venture he co-founded.

Griffiths had lived in Thailand for more than a decade. He is understood to have been the father of three children.

Business Matters has contacted the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office for comment.

Investigations by Thai authorities are continuing.

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Asos co-founder Quentin Griffiths dies after fall in Thailand

Britain recorded its largest monthly budget surplus on record in January as rising tax receipts and a sharp fall in debt interest costs boosted the public finances.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show government revenues exceeded spending by £30.4bn in January, the highest surplus since monthly records began in 1993 and well above City forecasts of £23.8bn.

January is typically a strong month for receipts because of self-assessment tax payments, but this year’s figure far surpassed the £14.5bn surplus recorded in January 2025.

The improvement was driven partly by a steep drop in debt interest payments, which fell to £1.5bn from £9.1bn in December. Lower borrowing costs have eased pressure on the Treasury’s balance sheet after last year’s market volatility.

Total government revenues rose nearly 14 per cent year-on-year to £133.3bn. Income tax receipts increased by £12bn, while national insurance contributions rose by £2.9bn following higher payroll levies introduced last spring.

Grant Fitzner, chief economist at the ONS, said January had delivered the strongest surplus since records began, with revenue gains offsetting higher spending on public services and benefits.

Across the first ten months of the financial year, borrowing totalled £112.1bn — 11.5 per cent lower than the same period a year earlier and below the £120.4bn forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility at the November budget.

The improved position strengthens the Treasury’s hand ahead of the spring statement on 3 March, although analysts caution that fiscal headroom remains fragile.

Dennis Tatarkov, senior economist at KPMG UK, said weaker-than-expected growth in late 2025 may have eroded part of the government’s £22bn fiscal buffer, though falling interest rates have provided some offset.

The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is not expected to announce fresh tax rises or spending cuts at the spring statement. Government U-turns on business rates for pubs and inheritance tax changes have narrowed some of the available headroom.

James Murray, chief secretary to the Treasury, said the government was ensuring taxpayers’ money was spent wisely and that borrowing this year was on track to be the lowest since before the pandemic.

While January’s surplus reflects seasonal factors, the combination of robust tax receipts and easing debt costs provides a temporary lift to the public finances at a critical point in the fiscal year.

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Record January surplus boosts public finances as tax receipts surge

For years, security programs have relied on point-in-time snapshots to prove control effectiveness. They’ll run a quarterly audit here, a monthly scan there.

They’ll rely on spreadsheets frozen at the moment it’s exported. That approach might satisfy an auditor, but it fails the reality of modern infrastructure.

Cloud environments change by the hour, identities sprawl, and controls drift quietly between checks. By the time a snapshot tells you something is wrong, the risk has already existed for weeks or months. Security leaders need more than static evidence. They need continuous controls monitoring (CCM) to surface drift as it happens, while it still matters, and while teams can act with confidence rather than hindsight.

What Is Configuration Drift?

Configuration drift accumulates quietly, one well-intentioned decision at a time, until the environment no longer resembles the design leaders believe they’re governing. Here are some of the core sources of configuration drift:

Manual fixes in production: Engineers apply direct changes to restore availability or resolve incidents, bypassing change management and leaving no durable record in policy or code.
Inconsistent policy rollout: Controls are deployed unevenly across environments, regions, or accounts, creating gaps where standards exist in theory but not in execution.
Drift between infrastructure-as-code and live resources: IaC templates declare one state while real-world resources evolve independently, eroding the assumption that code reflects reality.
Shadow changes in cloud consoles: Permissions, network rules, or configurations are modified interactively during investigations or troubleshooting, often labeled as temporary and rarely reverted.

The Impact of Configuration Drift

The impact of configuration drift shows up where it hurts most: risk exposure, detection reliability, and credibility with auditors.

An expanded attack surface: As configurations diverge from their intended state, permissions sprawl, network boundaries loosen, and previously protected assets become exposed. Risk increases not through deliberate change, but through unchecked accumulation.
Broken detections and logging: Security tools rely on consistent configurations to function correctly. Drift disables logging, drops agents out of scope, and fractures detections, creating blind spots that undermine monitoring and incident response.
Failed audits and unreliable evidence: Point-in-time evidence no longer matches live environments. Screenshots become irreproducible, reports contradict reality, and controls that once appeared compliant fail under scrutiny, eroding trust with auditors and leadership.

Together, these impacts turn drift from a technical nuisance into a strategic liability for security programs.

The Limitations of Point-in-Time Snapshots

Most security programs still anchor control validation to fixed moments: a quarterly audit, an annual certification, a compliance push treated as a discrete project with a clear start and end. These moments create the illusion of control by freezing the environment long enough to document it, even as the underlying systems continue to change.

Security becomes episodic, defined by milestones rather than reality. Teams export CSV files from cloud consoles and security tools, capturing data that begins aging immediately. Screenshots stand in for evidence, flattening dynamic configurations into static images that cannot be queried, reproduced, or validated later. One-time scripts run against an environment that looks compliant for a day, then quietly drifts as new resources appear and policies evolve. Each artifact tells a narrow truth about a specific instant, stripped of context and continuity.

Point-in-time snapshots answer the wrong question. They ask whether a control existed once, not whether it is enforced now. In modern, continuously changing environments, that distinction makes static checks obsolete the moment they’re complete.

Here’s why point-in-time methods consistently miss configuration drift:

Drift can appear and disappear between assessments: Controls often fail temporarily and get fixed before the next audit window. For example, multi-factor authentication (MFA) may be disabled for 48 hours during troubleshooting, then re-enabled. The next snapshot shows MFA enabled and implies continuous enforcement, erasing meaningful risk exposure and operational behavior from the record.
Snapshots reduce controls to a single-day pass or fail: A control that fails repeatedly but happens to pass on audit day looks identical to one that never failed at all. This binary outcome hides frequency, duration, and patterns of failure that matter far more than a momentary state.
There is no historical timeline when issues surface: When a control finally fails an assessment, teams have no reliable way to determine when the problem started, how long it persisted, or what changed upstream. Root cause analysis turns into guesswork instead of an evidence-based investigation.

Together, these gaps turn assessments into hindsight artifacts rather than tools for understanding real risk.

How Does CCM Work?

Continuous controls monitoring works by shifting control validation from an event to a system. Instead of checking whether a control passes at a single moment, CCM runs automated, recurring tests against live environments and treats evidence as a stream of events over time. Controls are evaluated continuously as infrastructure, identities, and policies change, without waiting for an audit window or manual trigger.

Each execution of a control test produces a discrete result with a timestamp. On its own, that result answers a simple question. Over time, those results accumulate into a timeline that shows how a control actually behaves in production. Pass and fail states become data points. That history forms a trend line for every control, revealing patterns that static checks can never surface.

This longitudinal view exposes the real shape of configuration drift. Spikes in failure appear immediately after a deployment or policy change. Gradual increases in exceptions or ignored alerts become visible before they harden into accepted risk. Controls that toggle between pass and fail stand out as unstable or poorly designed. CCM replaces assumptions with evidence, showing not just whether controls exist, but whether they hold under continuous change.

Here are several core features that make continuous controls monitoring effective at scale:

High-frequency control checks: Controls are evaluated on a recurring cadence measured in minutes or hours, not quarters. This cadence aligns with the pace of cloud change and surfaces drift while it is still actionable.
Native, direct integrations: CCM connects directly to cloud platforms, identity providers, logging systems, endpoint tools, and GRC platforms. Evidence is pulled from the source of truth rather than assembled manually, preserving accuracy and context.
Centralized visibility across environments: Control status is unified across accounts, regions, and environments, giving security leaders a single view of posture without reconciling fragmented reports.

While CCM does not replace frameworks or audits, it makes them more accurate, timely, and actionable.

Outcomes Achieved with CCM

Continuous controls monitoring delivers clear technical gains by tightening the gap between intended policy and production reality. As controls are evaluated continuously, configuration-related vulnerabilities surface early, often before they can be exploited or operationalized by an attacker.  This consistency also changes the dynamic of audits and penetration tests. Findings become far less surprising because internal monitoring already reflects what external assessors will see. When issues do arise, time-stamped control histories provide a precise trail, making root cause analysis faster and remediation more targeted.

The business outcomes are equally material. Security leaders gain confidence in their compliance posture because it is supported by continuous evidence rather than episodic validation. Instead of defending a snapshot, they can demonstrate how controls perform over time and how quickly failures are addressed. Just as importantly, CCM produces a more complete picture of organizational risk. It reveals not only whether controls exist, but how reliably they hold under real operational pressure, enabling better prioritization and more informed decision-making across the business.

Avoid Configuration Drift with CCM

Static snapshots are a single page out of a book, while CCM is the whole story. And while drift is unavoidable, being blind to it doesn’t have to be. By identifying your top three drift-prone controls and instrumenting them with CCM, you can create a clear picture of production to prevent business risks. Explore how a graph-based CCM platform can visualize and analyze controls across the environment.

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Detecting Configuration Drift: Continuous Controls vs. Point-in-Time Snapshots

Recently published figures for Q3 of the 2025-26 financial year revealed gross gambling yield (GGY) for UK online casinos of £1.5 billion. Will they be able to continue posting such results amid rising costs in the coming months?

The cost of a UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) licence is likely to be increased later this year. It’s the latest piece of bad financial news for UK online casinos. Although the online gambling industry continues to post impressive results, there are also concerns about the dangers of addiction.

Last year saw a new mandatory levy come into force. UK gambling sites reviewed by Dailystoke.com had been making voluntary payments with funds going towards researching gambling harm and treatment of those who have been affected. However, the government felt not all companies were making an equal contribution and introduced a mandatory levy. This is aimed at raising £100 million a year with some of the funds going to the NHS.

Then came the Autumn Budget which included details of a rise in Remote Gaming Duty. A rise had been considered long overdue but companies were shocked when the rate went up from 21% to 40%. This will come into force in April of this year. A further rise in sports betting tax rates will take place next year.

There has been stricter regulation introduced in the past year and more is likely to come into force in the future. One major rule change last year saw maximum stakes for online slots introduced and this year, action has been taken against the bonuses UK online casinos offer.

Financial results published since the maximum stakes for online slots were introduced haven’t been bad news for online casinos. Slots provide a large proportion of GGY for sites and for Q3 the figure was £788 million 10% higher than recorded in the same period 12 months ago.

The average length of sessions for players has fallen from 18 minutes to 16 minutes but sites will be relieved to see the high GGY figure. The overall GGY of £1.5 billion was up from the £1.42 recorded in Q2. However, compared to Q3 of the previous financial year, there was a 2% fall.

Last month saw a consultation period begin regarding a rise in the cost of a UKGC licence. These are required for a company to legally operate in the UK. As you will read, there are many companies who are unlicensed and causing serious problems for the Treasury, legal operators and gamblers.

The UKGC has a tough task regulating the gambling industry and regularly investigates companies who may have committed regulatory breaches. This has seen several companies issued with fines when breaches have been confirmed. With the UKGC also looking to deal with the problems being caused by illegal sites, their costs have been steadily increasing and not been matched by their level of funding, hence the existence of a shortfall that needs to be closed.

That is why they are calling for a rise of an average 30% but there are other options currently being discussed in the consultation period. Other options are a 20% increase and the one that the government prefers. That would see a 30% rise in licence fees but only 20% would be used for commission-related costs with the remaining 10% ring-fenced and only used for specific regulatory priorities. These would include strengthening their enforcement capabilities and taking action against illegal operators.

The UKGC say that if the increase was to be only 20%, this would lead to savings of £15.8 million needing to be made and possibly a 10% cut in staffing levels by 2030-31. They would find it difficult to be able to carry on their current level of investigating suspected regulatory breaches.

How would UK online casinos be affected by a further rise in costs on top of the mandatory levy and tax increases? Stricter regulation is driving players to the black market and that is a worrying problem for the legal sites. It’s not good news for players either as the levels of customer protection are not as high as they do not need to adhere to the new rules. The Treasury does not receive any mandatory levy or tax contributions so a strong UKGC is needed to lead the fight against the illegal operators.

Top companies such as bet365, Flutter Entertainment and Entain are global businesses. If the levels of regulation continue to increase as well as the higher costs, they may be forced to make cuts in the UK and concentrate more on overseas interests in South America, the USA and Asia.

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UK Online Casinos Face Further Increased Costs

Advances in digital health have transformed fertility awareness from traditional methods into precise, personalized monitoring.

Today, individuals have access to tools that provide real-time insights into their reproductive cycles, helping them make informed decisions about conception and overall reproductive health. Central to this evolution is the ovulation tracker, a device that measures key hormonal changes to identify fertile windows with high accuracy.

For many women, pinpointing ovulation is essential. The fertile window is brief, often only a few days each cycle, and timing intercourse or conception-related interventions within this period can significantly improve the likelihood of pregnancy. While calendars, basal body temperature charts, and cervical mucus observation can offer rough guidance, they lack the precision of hormonal measurement. An ovulation tracker detects surges in luteinizing hormone (LH), the biological signal that triggers ovulation, offering definitive insight into the most fertile days of the cycle.

How Digital Ovulation Trackers Work

Unlike traditional paper-based or visual strip methods, modern ovulation trackers integrate technology to provide quantifiable data. They use biochemical sensors to detect LH levels in urine, translating subtle hormonal fluctuations into clear, interpretable results. This approach reduces the risk of misreading faint test lines and provides a numerical indication of hormone concentration, which is particularly valuable for individuals with irregular or modest LH surges.

Many digital trackers are paired with smartphone applications. The combination of physical measurement and software analysis enables users to automatically record results, visualize trends over time, and generate forecasts for upcoming cycles. These features transform a single diagnostic measurement into a comprehensive fertility intelligence tool, enabling users to understand patterns rather than relying on isolated data points.

Benefits of Consistent Ovulation Tracking

The value of an ovulation tracker lies not only in the immediate detection of fertile days but also in long-term cycle analysis. Hormone levels can fluctuate from month to month due to lifestyle, stress, illness, or metabolic changes. Consistent monitoring across multiple cycles provides a clearer picture of an individual’s unique hormonal rhythm, helping identify irregularities or shifts in ovulation timing.

Beyond conception planning, ovulation tracking offers insights into overall reproductive health. Irregular ovulation patterns can indicate endocrine issues such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) or thyroid imbalances. By tracking hormone trends consistently, users can recognize deviations early and seek timely medical advice. This proactive approach aligns with the principles of preventive healthcare, placing control and awareness in the individual’s hands.

Enhancing Accuracy with Technology

Accuracy is paramount in fertility monitoring. Advanced ovulation trackers employ calibrated biochemical assays and sensitive detection technology to ensure reliable readings. Devices often include features to account for baseline hormone variability, reducing the likelihood of false positives or negatives. This precision allows users to plan with confidence and provides data that can be shared with healthcare professionals if needed.

Digital ovulation trackers also improve accessibility. They reduce the need for repeated clinical visits, allowing discreet, home-based monitoring without compromising quality. This autonomy encourages regular use, which is crucial for understanding personal cycles and identifying long-term fertility trends.

Integrating Fertility Data into Healthcare

The integration of ovulation trackers into broader digital health ecosystems enables more personalized reproductive care. Data collected by the device can be securely shared with healthcare providers during consultations, enabling clinicians to evaluate cycle patterns remotely. This capability supports informed decision-making and enables timely interventions when irregularities are detected.

The combination of at-home monitoring, precise hormonal measurement, and digital analytics exemplifies the direction of modern fertility care. Users gain actionable insights, while healthcare professionals receive accurate, structured data to enhance clinical guidance.

The Future of Fertility Monitoring

As technology continues to advance, ovulation trackers will likely become even more sophisticated. Predictive algorithms may analyze multi-cycle data to anticipate subtle hormonal shifts, while integration with other health metrics could provide a holistic view of reproductive well-being. Artificial intelligence and machine learning have the potential to make cycle prediction more precise than ever before, moving fertility monitoring from reactive measurement toward proactive optimization.

Miracare ovulation tracker represents the intersection of biotechnology, digital health, and user-centric design. When providing accurate hormone measurements, consistent cycle tracking, and actionable insights, it empowers individuals to take control of their fertility journey. As the landscape of reproductive healthcare evolves, these tools will continue to play a vital role in enabling informed decisions and enhancing overall reproductive wellbeing.

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Understanding the Role of an Ovulation Tracker in Modern Fertility Care

In today’s market, every single company is a technology company. It does not matter if you sell clothing, offer financial advice, or run a local delivery service. Your customers find you online, they buy from you through digital platforms, and they expect your services to be available 24 hours a day.

Because of this massive shift, the pressure on business owners has never been higher. Consumers today have zero patience. If your mobile application is slow, or if your website lacks the features they want, they will instantly move to a competitor. To survive and grow, a modern business must be able to create and update its digital tools incredibly fast. However, rushing to build technology introduces a terrible risk: you might accidentally leave your digital doors wide open to criminals.

In this article, we are going to explore the ultimate balancing act for modern business leaders. We will explain, using simple and clear language, how you can speed up the way your company builds its digital products while ensuring that your customer data remains completely safe.

The Speed Limit of the Past

To understand how to move faster today, we must look at why companies used to move so slowly. In the past, creating new software or updating a website was a long, divided process.

Imagine a factory where the people who design the cars never speak to the people who actually put the engines together. That is how the tech world used to work. One group of people (the developers) would spend months writing computer code in a quiet room. When they finally finished, they handed the code over to a completely different group of people (the operations team) whose job was to put that code on the internet.

Because these two teams never communicated, things broke constantly. The developers would write a great feature, but it would crash the operations team’s computer servers. They would argue, blame each other, and spend weeks trying to fix the mess. This clunky, divided system meant that releasing a simple update could take months or even years. In today’s business world, waiting months to give your customers what they want is a guaranteed way to go out of business.

Breaking Down the Walls

To survive, the most successful companies realized they had to break down the wall between the code writers and the server runners. They needed them to work together as one single, fast-moving machine.

This new way of working is known as DevOps (a simple combination of the words Development and Operations). The goal is to use teamwork and clever automated tools to build, test, and release new software every single day, rather than once a year.

However, changing the entire culture of how a business operates is incredibly difficult. You cannot just tell two different teams to start working together and expect perfect results. They need new rules, new communication skills, and new software tools to automate the boring parts of their jobs.

Because this change is so complex, smart business leaders rarely try to figure it out alone. Instead, they look for outside guidance and invest in professional Devops Consulting.

Bringing in an expert consultant is like hiring a master coach to train your staff. These experts study how your business currently builds its technology. Then, they introduce specialized tools that act like a digital assembly line. Instead of a human manually moving files around, the automated tools take the new code, test it for basic errors, and push it live to the internet in a matter of minutes. This expert guidance helps a business transform from a slow, divided company into a high-speed digital powerhouse, allowing them to release new features to their customers constantly.

The Hidden Risks of High Speed

Thanks to these new methods, businesses can now build and update their digital products faster than ever before. But moving at lightning speed brings a very serious new danger.

When humans work quickly, they make mistakes. In a physical factory, a tired worker moving too fast might forget to tighten a bolt. In the digital world, a programmer rushing to release a new app update might accidentally make a tiny typing error in the computer code. They might accidentally leave a digital folder unlocked, or they might use an older piece of code that has a known flaw.

To the average person, these tiny mistakes are completely invisible. But to a cybercriminal, they are massive opportunities. Hackers are always scanning the internet, looking for companies that have left a digital window open by mistake.

Many small and medium-sized business owners think they are safe because they are not massive corporations. This is a dangerous myth. Cybercriminals actually prefer targeting smaller businesses because they know smaller companies usually have weaker security. If a hacker finds a mistake in your fast-moving code, they will break in. They can steal your private business plans, copy your customers’ credit card numbers, or lock your entire computer system until you pay a massive ransom. The financial and reputational damage from this kind of attack can destroy a growing business overnight.

Automating Your Security Guards

So, here is the ultimate business puzzle: how do you build technology fast enough to beat your competitors, but safely enough to keep the hackers out?

You cannot ask a human security guard to stop and read every single line of code you produce. If you do that, you lose all the speed you just worked so hard to gain. The only way to fight automated, fast-moving hackers is with automated, fast-moving defense systems.

You must set up a system that constantly checks your own digital building for open windows before the criminals find them. The most effective way to do this is by making regular Vulnerability Scanning a core part of your daily business routine.

Think of this scanning process like having a team of robotic security guards that never sleep. These advanced software tools are programmed with a massive, constantly updated dictionary of every trick and attack that hackers are currently using to break into businesses.

Day and night, these scanners inspect your company’s website, your cloud storage, and the new code your team is building. They rapidly test your defenses over and over again. If the scanner finds a mistake—like a password that is too weak, or a digital door that a programmer forgot to lock—it instantly sounds an alarm.

It alerts your technology team and tells them exactly where the weak spot is located. The team can then quickly write a “patch” to fix the mistake and lock the digital door tightly. Because this entire process is automated, it does not slow down your business. It runs quietly in the background, keeping you safe while you continue to move at top speed.

Conclusion: The Mark of a Modern Leader

Leading a successful business today requires a deep understanding of how technology drives your growth. It is no longer enough to just have a website; you must have an engine that can adapt and improve constantly.

By bringing in expert consultants to unite your teams and automate your building process, you ensure your company can keep up with the demands of modern customers. At the same time, by implementing constant, automated security scanners, you ensure that every fast step forward is a safe one.

When you master both speed and security, you do more than just survive in the digital age. You build a strong, resilient, and highly trusted business that will thrive for years to come.

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The Digital Balancing Act: How Growing Businesses Can Move Faster Without Sacrificing Security

UK businesses remain broadly confident in Britain as a base for growth, even as rising costs and economic uncertainty weigh on margins, according to new research from Barclays.

The bank’s latest Business Prosperity Index, analysing anonymised data from around one million clients alongside a survey of 1,000 business leaders, reveals a two-speed economy emerging at the end of 2025. Larger firms are pushing ahead with long-term borrowing and investment, while smaller companies are turning to short-term liquidity to manage tighter margins.

Despite ongoing challenges, 58 per cent of business leaders said the UK remains the best place to start, scale and grow a business. A similar proportion, 57 per cent, believe Britain is becoming a more attractive place to list, with London cited as the preferred market for a future float by 46 per cent of respondents.

Almost all firms surveyed (93 per cent) reported higher trading costs over the past year, driven primarily by energy (85 per cent), labour (80 per cent) and supply chain expenses (78 per cent).

In response, 80 per cent have passed some of these increases on to customers, with businesses transferring an average of 30 per cent of higher costs. A further 65 per cent expect to raise prices again this year.

Energy pressures remain particularly acute, with 34 per cent of companies reducing consumption to offset rising bills. More than a third (37 per cent) view cutting operating costs as the most effective way to unlock investment in 2026.

Barclays’ client data show cash inflows slipped 3.4 per cent year-on-year in the fourth quarter, signalling subdued spending. However, borrowing patterns differ sharply by company size.

Larger firms increased long-term borrowing by 8.7 per cent compared with a year earlier, suggesting confidence in future expansion. By contrast, smaller businesses reduced longer-term lending while increasing overdraft usage by 2.5 per cent, reflecting short-term cash flow pressures.

Two-thirds of large businesses and over half of medium-sized firms believe current economic conditions support long-term growth, compared with just 12 per cent of micro businesses.

Confidence in individual company prospects remains comparatively strong, with 86 per cent of small business leaders upbeat about the year ahead, although that figure drops to 68 per cent among micro firms.

Against this backdrop, Barclays has launched its 2026 Business Prosperity Fund, committing £22bn in lending to support new investment and refinancing among business and corporate clients.

Abdul Qureshi, managing director of Barclays Business Banking, said smaller firms were understandably cautious but still saw opportunity. “There is clearly more to be done to help turn confidence into tangible progress,” he said.

Matt Hammerstein, chief executive of Barclays UK Corporate Bank, added: “Even in a period marked by cost pressure, businesses show clear belief in the UK as a place to grow. Our role is to help bridge the gap between ambition and action.”

The findings suggest that while the macroeconomic backdrop remains uncertain, corporate sentiment towards the UK’s long-term prospects is holding firm — with access to capital, market reputation and investor depth cited as key advantages.

For policymakers and lenders alike, the challenge now is ensuring that resilience among larger firms translates into renewed momentum for smaller enterprises, where caution is still tempering expansion plans.

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