I like watching how my kids with a few toys in their hands, and their imagination at play, can create elaborate battles with sophisticated plots. Sometimes I get invited into their imaginative arena to join their forces to fight the enemies. Today we are all invited to fight an enemy we can’t see, but we have given it a name: COVID-19 (or more accurately SARS-CoV-2).

Wherever in the world you live and work, we are all in a scary place right now. More than ever, people are looking to their line managers, leaders and colleagues for guidance on how to cope with change and uncertainty.

Professor Malcolm McDonald offers these thoughts during these difficult times in order to encourage all those of us who are intensely worried by the effects of the COVID-19 driven recession.

Coronavirus (Covid-19) measures are seizing up the global supply chain and have become an emergency for board executives. Once more, the lack of risk management, resilience and agility in supply chains has been exposed. The argument for greater automation becomes stronger.

IT leaders have never been more essential to the success of any organisation – or had more demands heaped upon their shoulders. So how is the role changing? And what are the skills required to step up to the challenge?

As part of his executive development Scott Anderson of Luxfer Gas Cylinders, attended Cranfield’s Key Account Management Best Practice programme, so we spent five minutes with him to discover his thoughts on the programme.

*Originally published in December 2018. Updated for 2020.

Henry Ford is credited as once saying: “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” Now, we’re not suggesting that ongoing training and development is some kind of elixir for youth, but it is true that you should never stop learning: professional development should be an ongoing process throughout your career.

*Originally published in December 2018. Updated for 2020.

Moving up in your career can be more difficult the higher up the career ladder you rise. At lower levels, progression is almost a given with solid effort and time, but something changes at the higher levels.

Whatever the eventual details and impacts, businesses need to treat Brexit like a recession.

Key accounts are customers who help their suppliers grow, and consequently, they wield significant power. Although they are the key to market share and revenue growth, the costs of serving key accounts can erode profitability unless they are thoroughly understood and managed.