Your success blog

Archive for June, 2011


It’s not just for young people as you’re never too old to…

Published on: 29 Jun 2011

Passing exams is for the younger generation surely? Successfully getting through exams can be tough. Especially the professional exams such as ACCA, CIM and CIMA. In addition, the older you get the more you have other pressures placed on you. Family and career matters can distract from studying but those of you that think that [...]


Get rid of the Michelin star and you’ll be a better restaurant…

Published on: 27 Jun 2011

Running a successful restaurant is tough. Whilst a good restaurant can me it look easy, there are a lot of things you need to get exactly right to be successful. Everything from the ingredients, the menu, the chef, the ambiance and the waiting staff have to be just right. Plus don’t forget that it’s a [...]


Bum Fries? Surely that’s not real…

Published on: 24 Jun 2011

Picture the scene. You’re sat at home and suddenly you get that “eureka moment” where you think of an ingenious way to quickly make yourself nearly £7 million without too much effort. It’s a great idea but unfortunately it’s completely illegal. Still, with some cunning deception you may be able to get away with it [...]


Do you wear cheap chic or luxury clothes?

Published on: 22 Jun 2011

Floods earlier this year caused significant damage to major cotton crops around the world. A knock on effect of this is there is now a shortage of cotton and as a result cotton prices are currently at record highs. “Cheap Chic” is a business model adopted by various clothing companies where, as the name suggests, [...]


Do auditors have friends and can they sing?

Published on: 20 Jun 2011

“I’m an auditor so I really don’t have that many friends”. This was one of the quotes from Steve Beguhn in the short movie below. In case you haven’t heard of Steve he works for (or after the performance below it may now be “worked for”) pwc in America. I’ll keep this blog entry short [...]


Would you steal £30m from ING Bank?

Published on: 17 Jun 2011

How much would you try to steal from your employer if you work for ING bank and you’re an accountant? Hopefully most of you would not try to steal anything from your employer but if you were a lady by the name of Rajina Rita Subramaniam who worked for ING in Sydney, Australia for 20 [...]


Please complete the following: this hotel is great for…

Published on: 15 Jun 2011

If you run a hotel and everything is going well the last thing you want the public to think about is that you’re about to go out of business. The Ballymascanlon Hotel in Dundalk, Ireland is by all accounts a very nice hotel with a lot of advance bookings. In brief, it’s a nice hotel [...]


Is it acceptable for a client to hold your audit files hostage?

Published on: 06 Jun 2011

It seems that Deloitte has had a spot of bother in dealing with one of its Chinese clients. When they initially won the audit for Longtop they were no doubt very pleased. Longtop Financial Technologies Ltd., to give it its full name, is a Hong Kong-based maker of financial software. In 2007 it raised $210 [...]


Surely this should be the Next face of the future?

Published on: 03 Jun 2011

If you visit the website of clothing retailer Next you will see some stunningly good-looking male and female models. Next is a very successful company. They are part of the FTSE 100 index which means they are one of the 100 largest quoted companies in the UK. Their latest annual results show revenues of nearly [...]


Would you criticise me if I spent ALL of YOUR bonus on alcohol?

Published on: 01 Jun 2011

One of the ways that governments around the world have tried to kick start the economy during the recent recession has been through the reduction of interest rates. 10 years ago the Bank of England base rate was 11.38%. Today, the current rate is 0.5%. If individuals have variable rate loans or mortgages on their [...]