Business Partner Magazine - Issue 41 by Business Partner Magazine

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Car Rentals as the Future of Transportation

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Coming Off of Furlough | How to deal with it

Sandra Hinshelwood EDITOR

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10 Tips to Prepare and Survive a Financial Crisis

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Business Partner Magazine is issued bi-monthly by Sandra Hinshelwood of Effective Website Marketing

Does your Business Model focus on Your Most Valuable Asset?

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The Benefits Of Cloud Storage For Your Business In The Age Of Remote Working

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5 Ways Small Brands Can Build Strong Connections with Their Audience

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Business in the Spotlight – Songstats Aljon Sampaga LAYOUT/DESIGN

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Drone Shows to Become a New Niche for Event SMEs in PostPandemic World

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MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR Welcome to Issue 41. As many countries and regions are beginning to emerge from lockdown, many are returning to work. The release of lockdown is causing anxiety for some, while others are waiting to see what the “new normal” will be like. What is clear is that specific measures and practices will be in place for some time to come. One area of concern for many is using public transport and coming near fellow commuters. This concern has led to people opting for cycling or using their vehicles. If you do not have a car, that means digging deep into your pockets. Where this is not an option, you may want to consider a long-term car rental. Read our lead article for more information. If you are an employer in the UK who has taken advantage of the Government furlough scheme, you may be a little confused as to what the next steps are. The article “Coming off of Furlough | How to deal with it” offers some great tips and advice. What has been evident throughout this pandemic is that everybody has felt the impact in one way or another - whether that is mentally, physically, or financially. For those of you that have been affected financially, we have some great tips for surviving and preparing for the ongoing crisis. There are many other great articles in this edition, and we encourage you to take your time to browse. To wrap up, we focus on a business success story. See our business in the spotlight to read about Songstats, who are making great strides in the music app industry. Until next time, we wish you all the best, Sandra

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Car Rentals as the Future of Transportation

s the pandemic of COVID-19 is coming to an end, people are anxious to see what the ‘’new normal’’ means. Owing to the circumstances, many aspects of people’s lives will be immeasurably affected and changed forever. Adhering to certain measures and practices, such as social distancing will become an integral part of their lives. For many, going back to using public transportation when the lockdown is relaxed is not an option. This is why an increasing demand in modes of transportation allowing little or no contact with others is expected. Commuting to work by car is an option for some, but not for all. In this case, what other options for safe transport exist?

Long Term Car Hire

Given the on-going economic crisis, pay cuts, and job losses, this option goes out of the window for most people. For this reason, other alternatives, such as car rentals, deserve full attention.

One of the more obvious alternatives to public transport is using a personal car. But not everyone owns a car. Buying a car means digging deep into one’s pockets.

Rent-a-car companies have been providing valuable services all around the world for decades now. However, they seem to have taken on new post-coronavirus

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in the long run. Longer trip, one-time assignment in another city, or getting by while the personal car is in maintenance and servicing — whatever the reasons are, long term car rental has got it covered. For those who need a car at least for a month, this option is a great choice. Unlike short term rental, most vehicles don’t come with mileage limitations if rented long term. Also, with prearranged insurance and depreciation, if used sporadically, renting a car is more affordable than owning one.

Safety Measures Before the coronavirus struck the world, clients of rental companies demanded clean and neat vehicles, among other things. Today, safety and cleanliness standards have significantly increased and become critical. Now more than ever, strict standards of cleanliness and safety have to be enforced and sustained. significance. As more people shy away from using crowded public services, renting a car seems like a good idea. Most companies offer car, truck, or van hire for shorter or longer periods. Short term car rental is great for running errands, going away for a weekend, and business, or road trips. On the other hand, for commuting to work, renting a car long term pays off

Following recommendations from leading health organizations, companies have started practicing social distancing. In addition to limiting physical contact, clients no longer have to queue.

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Instead, they can contact the company online or by phone and make a reservation. Despite minimizing physical interaction, employees are fully available for everyone in need of their services. Equally important is rigorously adhering to cleaning practices and protocols. Apart from the usual car vacuuming and general cleaning between rentals, additional scrupulous hygiene practices are followed. Using disinfectant for sanitization of more than 20 main areas in the car keeps it sterile. Similar protocols apply to shuttle busses. A limited number of passengers, social distancing, and disinfecting all surfaces are some of the measures implemented.

All of these preventative safety measures are taken to protect the clients and keep them safe while using car rental service. On the whole, people still fear the coronavirus, so they desperately need alternatives to packed public transport. While some have their cars to use, others don’t. With the economic recession, for many people, investing in a brand new vehicle isn’t an option. For this reason, they might consider renting a car long term for commuting to work. With strict sanitation, safety policies, and social distancing, drivers can feel safe in their rental cars.

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COMING OFF OF FURLOUGH | How to Deal with it The Furlough Scheme As the lockdown restrictions ease, some businesses are taking staff off of the government’s furlough scheme. Despite this, some businesses are still struggling and furloughing more members of staff.

Bringing Furloughed Staff Back As time goes on, business owners will consider when is the right time to bring furloughed staff back to work. It’s a simple decision if you can operate as normal, pre-lockdown. If this is the case, bringing someone back off furlough is simple. All you have to do is issue a notice to your member of staff informing them their furlough is ending. This will depend on the terms you agreed at the beginning of the furlough.

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Where things were more complicated is if you only need a member of staff to return for a short time. This is possible under the flexible furlough scheme that begin in July. Under the previous furlough scheme, this was not possible. The furlough scheme will close to applications on the 30th of June. It will now not be possible to furlough anyone before this date, as the cut-off date was the 10th of June. Businesses were required to furlough an employee for a minimum of 3 weeks. The flexible furlough scheme allows employers to bring staff back for one day or two. If you both agree, they can be placed back on the furlough.

What if You Need to Furlough a Member of Staff? For example, a company may ask their web developer to consult on a website design over the 22nd and 23rd of June, and then re-furlough them. But, this will mean the owner will not be able to claim from the 24th and 30th of June. This is because they won’t be able to have a three-week gap going into July as it will be overlapping months. If possible, a solution is to wait and claim on the 1st of July. From this date, employers can work at a flexible work schedule with

their staff. One that means they work some agreed dates while remaining on furlough for other days. This is possible as there are no minimum periods between furlough.

Using The Furlough Scheme in The Future Every business is operating in a perilous time. This may mean that many businesses are considering furloughing members of its team. Companies will also be looking at whether to use the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). Either way, it’s important to put a plan into place now. If you have two employees on furlough, you could create a job share program. This will involve one employee working while the other is furloughed and this will change intermittently. You and your team can negotiate how this will work. Whether it is over a week or a longer period. What businesses need to consider is putting furlough plans in place. It’s vital to make arrangements in advance not only for staff but for the business itself.

Contact Us If you have any questions please do contact us on 01753 889 995 or alternatively head over to our contact page to fill in our online enquiry form.

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10 Tips

to Prepare and Survive A Financial Crisis

nyone who feels a significant negative incident strikes them, such as a job loss, an illness, an automobile accident, or a pandemic, may keep them awake at night. However, if you are adequately trained, it will make the possibility of something costly and beyond your control less risky. Ten measures to deal with an economic crisis are listed here.

1. Determine the problems The first step towards solving the financial crisis is to recognize the most challenging issue. In general, economic issues mean a big question, and you must determine the underlying cause of your financial struggles to come up with long-term solutions. The purpose of disclosing a particular problem is to find a permanent solution. Much like a leaky tap in your home, it is a temporary solution to place a seal underneath. Remove the valve, and permanently the leak ceases. Concentrate on fixing the problem, with the help of an outsourced cfo, that causes your financial difficulties rather than focusing on your stress.

A personal financial crisis can occur in a variety of ways, from market crashes and recessions to events closer to homes such as a lay-off or sudden disease or injury. An outsourced cfo can help you solve these problems. It is why a financial plan can allow you to prepare yourself better for any financial disaster that may take your path. The idea is to put your financial house in such a put that you are safe regardless of the economic storm.

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2. Create a budget. The development of a budget plan is one of the easiest ways to tackle financial problems. A budget is a weekly, monthly, or annual spending schedule for your money that advises you on essential items. As your budget is made, it is necessary to monitor your expenditures for at least a few weeks to see where and how much you are spending objectively.

3. Set goals for the financial sector. To overcome any financial crisis, determining your financial priorities is essential. These priorities help you make tough business decisions, such as paying

your credit card bill. Setting priorities allows you to adjust your money issues and get back on track. You should look for new ways to make money come in, including a second career, a reduction in size, or even using assets like a mortgage to allow financial stability for yourself. your financial goals include

4. Solve the problem. Most people can solve financial issues by reducing spending and increasing income or by combining a small number of them. For people, changing habits is the toughest challenge, but we are compelled to adapt to the money crisis.

5. Develop a plan and follow-up. When you have ideas to solve financial issues, create a concrete plan to achieve your business goals with a time frame of weeks, months, or years. Just a few minutes to check your progress once you are on your way to achieving it. Review and review your strategy to see if you are moving towards your objectives and are open to schedule improvement.

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6. Pay off your debts. One of the critical causes of financial difficulties when times are tough is credit card debt. Pay the whole balance at the end of the month, if possible. While it sounds good, most people don’t have it. However, in times of financial crisis, it is essential to eliminate these balances to protect yourself. See the outstanding credit card balances you have. Take a look. Start with the lowest balance and pay more than the minimum monthly payment. When you collect the full refund of the account, use the payment you made and apply the next lowest remaining balance to your credit statement. You’ll see the balance descending much faster here. It might take a little time to finish, but it’s worth the effort.

7. Reduce your expenses monthly. Review the current monthly expenses list to see where excess can be reduced. For starters, if you eat lunch every day in restaurants, begin packing a luncheon to take to work.

You will slowly reduce this cost with a little perseverance and have more cash to save or assert to pay the debt.

8. The insurance change. In case of an environmental catastrophe, is your personal property covered? The debt created by medical costs (injuries or disease) may also be daunting and leading to threats. Debt is also the leading cause of failure. Make sure your policies are up to date to ensure they are correct and appropriate, and you take the time to update your coverage. Furthermore, it could be an option to help offset your monthly costs if you find that you offset too much or redundant coverage.

9. Enhance your resume. There is no better time to polish your curriculum vitae than the present. Check your history of employment and any new skills after the previous update. Ensure you stay in touch with your former employers or other professionals.

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Have you been postponing any career development courses? It may now be an excellent time to learn new skills that will boost your marketability.

10. Establish an extra stream of income. The second source of earnings is one way to build up your savings and pay off your debts. Look at your skills for more money and see what you can do. Maybe by researching on your own, such as preparing income tax returns or designing websites, you can extend your job into your home. It is possible, for example, to sell household products on eBay or to become a free contractor in various ways to make money for the home. While your daily pay does not equate, it will allow you to keep your primary source of income afloat if you lose it.

Get started now.

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Does your Business Model focus on Your Most Valuable Asset?

usiness models of the past focused on their product/service, bottom line and market expansion. Modern business models must include wellbeing and evidence of having a social conscience to stay relevant in the current global marketplace. People are the most valuable asset in a successful business. It is a mutually beneficial long-term investment to promote wellness agendas and cultivate a progressive working environment for positive mental health.

In a 2016 report entitled: Health at Work - Economic evidence for workplace health; ERS Research & Consultancy deduced that some £29bn was lost per year due to people being absent from work or falling ill. The report also mentioned that illness was the reason given for an employee taking an average 6.6 days of work. Another report published from the International Social Security Association (ISSA) states that every €1 invested in occupational safety and health saw a return of €2.20. Such

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reports or other statistics aside; there is a reasonable argument for the link between higher productivity and a proactive effort to look after your staff. People work better within a culture of positivity and growth as opposed to an environment where they are genuinely underappreciated and feel undervalued. A culture of wellness does not have to include elaborate gestures or grand presents. It is about consistency in creating an environment that respects and reinforces the value that each employee brings to the business through his or her skillset. Offering an all-expenses paid vacation is as valuable as an hour of early to collect a child from school and as valuable as a handwritten card to say thank you. Providing fresh fruit and healthy snacks are better than sugar filled alternatives. Health experts generally acknowledge that refined sugar is rapidly broken down in the body which then causes blood sugar levels and insulin to skyrocket. Providing spring water for consumption throughout the day will help fellow work associates to avoid dehydration, sugar cravings, frequent illness, and dehydration headaches. Stress caused through impractical deadlines, unreasonable targets and daily tension resulting from poor interpersonal skills have the potential to wreak havoc in the business environment. This is likely

to have a negative impact on the mental health of all concerned. When team members are unsatisfied, they demonstrate their dissatisfaction in personal ways such as not going the extra mile on customer service, answering telephone calls as if they are bored or calling in sick. The values of your business are best represented through the people who directly work with you. Their loyalty will lead to increased productivity. Your business values should also connect with social justice and other contemporary issues. Businesses must show they connect with social issues to remain relevant. The higher profile the issue; the greater the need to show your customers that you care as a business. Your social responsibility must be clear in the minds of your customers in the similar way that your commitment to overall wellness is evident in your business.

About the Author Malik Muhammad was raised and educated in Jamaica and read law in London. He created The Empowerment Mastery System to influence, help and inspire businesses to cultivate their visions. Malik enjoys vegan cooking and quad biking. He is an afterdinner speaker, event host and convenes empowerment seminars internationally. His latest book COFFEE & CONTEMPLATION: a taste of empowerment is available on Amazon.

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THE BENEFITS OF

CLOUD STORAGE

FOR YOUR BUSINESS IN THE AGE OF REMOTE WORKING

n 2020, remote working is a hot topic, as the Coronavirus has forced companies to close offices and move their staff home for the foreseeable future. Many businesses have noticed the myriad of benefits that remote working offers and decided to permanently offer employees the option to work from home. If your business is looking to adapt to these developments and offer more, or all of, your employees the opportunity to work remotely, then you need to consider Cloud storage. Storing company data and information on the Cloud, as opposed to a physical hard drive or disk, is the best solution for companies whose staff work remotely, as this article highlights.

CLOUD MIGRATION IS EASY AND HASSLE-FREE One of the main barriers to implementing any new technology is that business leaders believe that it will take too much time and effort. They don’t want to completely shutdown their organisation for days while they add a new tool or solution, even if it would save them money and time in the long run. Thankfully, there are Cloud consultancy specialists such as nubeGO who make the process of migrating your data stress-free and straightforward. Their team also offers training and development, so you can instruct them to create a custom Cloud storage solution that benefits your organisation and then have them teach your staff how to use it effectively.

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CLOUD STORAGE IS COST-EFFECTIVE Depending on your provider, Cloud storage is usually more cost-effective than using a physical storage solution. That’s because you don’t have to pay for any hardware, storage or the electricity used to power it. If something goes wrong with a Cloud system, then the maintenance can be done remotely, saving you money paying for an engineer to visit your premises. As Cloud storage is scalable, you won’t need to replace your hardware as your company grows- you can simply upgrade your plan. All of these factors combine to make Cloud storage a cost-effective solution.

CLOUD STORAGE DOESN’T REQUIRE A PHYSICAL PREMISE If your company is considering allowing all of its staff to work from home, then one of the issues you face is where to store your data. While you can rent space in an outsourced data centre, this means that you’ve got to pay for the data centre storage and the upkeep of your data storage solution. However, the Cloud is hosted on the internet, and as such, you don’t need a physical base to store it in. As such, you’ll be able to enjoy a scaleable storage service without having to rent space or maintain

an office that none of your staff wants to use.

CLOUD STORAGE IS MORE SECURE THAN PHYSICAL DEVICES Thanks to the implementation of GDPR and increased awareness about data leaks, now more than ever, cybersecurity is crucial for every business. No matter what data your company has, you need to make sure that it is secure. Cloud storage solutions are safer than physical storage solutions, as they can’t be physically picked up and carried off. Also, most Cloud storage providers have robust security procedures in place to ensure that your data is safe, which are updated on a regular basis. It’s harder to update physical storage units, and as such, they can quickly become outdated and vulnerable. As you can see, Cloud storage is a practical solution for many remote businesses. This article should help you to see the benefits of Cloud storage for your remote workforce so that you can adapt around this latest corporate development quickly and get back to providing the exceptional service and solutions that your clients rely on.

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5BRANDS WAYS SMALL CAN BUILD STRONG CONNECTIONS WITH THEIR AUDIENCE

hether you’re just starting in business, or you’ve been running a company for a while now, you know how difficult it can be to win over a new customer. Many brands spend a significant amount of time and money marketing to their customers, in hope that they’ll be able to convert them into long-term buyers. However, there’s a lot more to earning a loyal consumer base. You will need to develop a plan for deeply connecting with your consumers on an emotional level. We’ve got some handy tips here that brands can use to promote themselves and

create valuable relationships with their target audience.

1. IDENTIFY YOUR AUDIENCE The first step in successfully building a relationship with your target audience is getting to know them. Unless you know who your customers are, what their likes and dislikes might be, and what they need from your brand, it’s going to be impossible for you to speak their language. Start by creating some buyer personas. These are documents that highlight crucial information about your customers,

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including where they’re from, how old they are, and even what kind of jobs they might have. You can use various sources to supplement your data, including: • Polls and surveys of existing customers • Competitor analysis: Your competitors are likely to have similar customers to you • Market insights and research • Google Analytics and social media marketing tools

2. BUILD A COMMUNITY WITH A BLOG Once you know what your audience looks like, it’s time to build an affinity with them. The easiest way to do this is to publish blogs that answer your customer’s most crucial questions or articles that show that you understand how you feel. Using the surveys that you conducted above, competitor research, and market insights, you can get a feeling for the kind of things your audience wants to read about. There are even tools like BuzzSumo.com on the web that can help you to find the trending topics related to a specific niche or keyword.

Remember, the key to creating a thriving community with content is making sure that you provide genuine value. If you can answer your customers’ questions in a convenient and entertaining way on your blog, then you’ll keep them coming back time and time again. Also, you’ll strengthen your position as a thought leader, making it more likely that clients will trust you.

3. CREATE PERSONALIZED EXPERIENCES The last thing that today’s customers want is to feel like just another number in your profits list. You need to make sure that you’re connecting with each customer on an individual level, which means investing in personalization. Adjusting your blog topics and website content to suit the material you know your customers will like is just the first step. You can also go a lot deeper with the right digital software. For instance, if you have an email marketing tool, you can use it to segment your audience into several different groups. Once you have your groups, you can send different messages to specific customers based on things like:

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• • • •

Their favorite products and services Their place in the buying journey How often they interact with your brand The products they’ve previously purchased • The tools they use to access your website (computer or phone) The more personal your messages are, the more special your customers will feel.

4. BUILD RELATIONSHIPS THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA Social media is one of the easiest ways for businesses of all sizes to develop stronger relationships with their customers. You don’t need a huge profit margin or a large budget to get started on social media. You can start with simple things, such as hosting regular competitions to keep your audience engaged or posting about trending topics on Twitter.

5. DESIGN AN APP If you can afford it, designing an app for your business could be one of the best ways to connect with your clients on a deeper level. After all, an app allows you to live in your customer’s pockets, on a device that they interact with every day. Mobile apps can be used for everything from reaching it to clients with custom offers to sharing useful information, engaging with customers, and collecting user feedback. You can even embed push notifications into apps that allow your users to see an offer whenever they pass by a brick and mortar store. These days, acquiring an app for your business is a lot easier than it used to be. You may be surprised by how affordable it is to get started.

According to studies from Sprout Social, 91% of people say they believe in the power of social media to keep communities connected. Find out where your target audience spends their free time online and begin building a social media presence on the platforms that appeal to them.

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COMMIT TO CONTINUED IMPROVEMENT

Finally, remember that it’s essential to listen to your customers if you want to provide them with the best possible experiences. Feedback in the form of reviews and testimonials will give you an unbeatable insight into what your customers like and dislike about their experiences with your company. This means that it will be much easier for you to construct the perfect moments with your target audience. In the competitive business environment, there’s nothing more important than building a reliable connection with your customers. Make sure you follow the tips above to strengthen those crucial relationships.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ashley Wilson is a content creator, writing about business and tech. She has been known to reference movies in casual conversation and enjoys baking homemade treats for her husband and their two felines, Lady and Gaga. You can get in touch with Ashley via Twitter.

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BUSINESS IN THE SPOTLIGHT

SONGSTATS

Tell us about the exciting features that Songstats has to offer? Think of Songstats as the all-in-one home for your music data. Anything that happens to your tracks across the most important streaming services and download stores will show up here. It’s the result of your hard work, and also the opportunity to grow even further. Songstats is a productivity tool that helps you to save time and makes sure you never miss an important activity

of any of your releases. Playlisted on Spotify? You will know right away. Entered the Beatport Hype Charts? Within one hour you’ll receive a push notification. Songstats will make sure that you no longer have to search for all of those things and highlights them for you in an easy to use way.

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Tell us about the data Songstats generates and how valuable it is becoming in the industry? At its core, the idea behind Songstats was always to create a tool that empowers musical creators with the knowledge they need to amplify their careers. The app today does this better than ever before, by providing a comprehensive overview for over 30 million playlists and charts across Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Shazam, Beatport, Traxsource, SoundCloud, iTunes and 1001Tracklists.

Tell us about Songstats moving forward, what is next in the pipeline? We’ve been receiving an incredible amount of feedback from our rapidly growing subscriber base and are constantly prioritizing what’s most important to work on next. Probably the most requested data source right now is Amazon Music, and we’re going to work on a full integration of their service soon. A lot of product updates are in the pipeline as well, including an overview page for artists and labels that essentially functions as a resume and summarizes all of their data in one aggregated place.

How does the app help artists engage with the fans? Songstats gives you real-time results of all the promo work you are doing and is an endorphin machine that shows you immediately when a track is taking off! It helps you to build on that momentum and encourages you to be more proactive about sharing new milestones with your fans. It’s great that your track got added to a big playlist, but what is even more important is to not let that achievement go unnoticed. It’s vital to share these activities, engage with your fans and recognize supporters, so that they feel acknowledged and continue to support your future releases. Songstats helps to do just that and has built-in tools to immediately post new milestones on Instagram and Twitter and lets you autogenerate custom artworks to share with your fans.

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What were your main influences for Songstats? The inspiration for Songstats has always been the artists. In today’s climate it’s difficult to make a living out of music and still it’s the passion and love for creation that keeps them so focused on their career path. We always felt encouraged to share this attitude towards the tools we’re building and want to do our part in helping them achieve their dreams.

Over recent years there have been considerable changes to the way that music has been bought and consumed. How has this influenced the way that your business has developed? The streaming age is here and it’s here to stay. Of course, this transition wasn’t easy for more established players in the business, but we constantly need to adapt, and we believe that this development is for the better of the entire industry. Streaming essentially killed piracy, made music affordable and accessible to new listeners around the globe and is a sustainable business model. We embraced streaming from day 1, which is why the most important integrations into Songstats are streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer.

There has been criticism about the way that the internet has negatively impacted the music industry. What are your thoughts on this matter? This criticism is outdated. A few years ago, the music industry was definitely in a rough state, with declining record sales and no real perspective on how to monetise web traffic. Today this all has changed. Big players like Apple and Amazon entered the market, and innovators like Spotify have led the way to a very bright future for music. The internet is bringing artists closer to their fans, opens new business ventures with merchandise and virtual events, and simplifies the entire distribution chain of releases.

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The effects of COVID-19 have been devastating for many industries; however, the events industry has been particularly hard hit. How do you think concerts, festivals, apps and similar events will recover?

ADVERTISEMENT We earn commissions if you shop through the links on this page.

It’s definitely a tough period for the live industry. From issuing refunds for cancelled events to handling the unknown situation of when business can continue to resume as normal. Events might never be the same and will probably be required to follow more strict health guidelines in the future. For now, it’s again all about being able to adapt. It’s a time of virtual festivals and social distancing, and it’s important for brands to stay visible. People are spending more time online, and that’s where they need to position themselves now so that they can be at the right spot when regulations are loosening up again.

What would your advice be for someone wanting to start a career in music? Build a personal network of friends and like-minded people that you can grow together with and that you trust to build a career with. Probably more than any other industry this scene is built entirely on personal relationships and favours. Help others, get your foot into the door and keep being smart and adapt.

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DRONE SHOWS

to Become a New Niche for Event SMEs in PostPandemic World

he drone show industry is one of the youngest but probably one of the most prospective types of entertainment in post-pandemic world. Drones bring completely new opportunities to event businesses and to the entertainment industry in general thanks to its most appreciated advantage: drone shows can be enjoyed from distance. What many don’t seem to realize is how affordable drone shows can be. An event agency can enhance its portfolio with futuristic aerial performances with as few as 20 copters.

2016 could be marked as the first milestone for the drone show industry when 500 of the drones designed by Intel were used in a light show to set the new Guinness World Record for the “Most Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) airborne simultaneously”. Since then drone shows have appeared at the Olympics, the Super Bowl, Coachella festival, Cirque du Soleil performances, and many other landmark events: state, corporate and private. Such shows are associated with large scope and, as a result, huge investment.

However, there are a few event SMEs globally already proving this prejudice is not true. For instance, let us have a look at South Korean Pablo Air, UAV specialized company. Back in 2018, it performed its first 20-drone show getting from the idea to their first drone show in 90 days. Since then the company has been arranging drone shows in APEC and managed to turn COVID-19 challenge into an opportunity. In April it performed a tailored drone show devoted to healthcare and all essential workers. Pablo Air was not alone to initiate a CSR drone show to salute frontline heroes. Between April and June 2020, the pandemic is thought to push a global wave of drone art shows expressing gratitude to COVID-19 front liners. The key elements included symbols to emphasise the heart full gratitude to health workers, to give hope and positive emotions. Some well-

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promoted shows took place in April in West Philly based out of the University of Pennsylvania and in June in Dubai on Sheikh Hamdan’s behalf. There were, in fact, dozens around the world performed by SMEs with no limitation to language and creative goals. SPH Engineering had a chance to work on gratitude shows with Pablo Air, Great Lakes Drone Company in the USA and Platinum Fireworks Inc. in the Philippines. It is a great honor to Drone Show Software developers seeing the technology applied globally to support COVID-19 front-liners in a creative way. Drone shows used to be a thing from the future, but in the past few months they have helped to open a new chapter in the entertainment industry. Very soon they could bring a bit of magic to post-pandemic social-distanced reality: lighting up sky at car parties or drive-in movie nights, small corporate or private events like birthday or engagement.

Speaker’s BIO Alexey DOBROVOLSKIY is Chief Technical Officer, Member of The Board and CoFounder at SPH Engineering, the world’s premier UgCS software developer and integration services provider for unmanned aerial systems. Since 2013, he has introduced a number of solutions recognized by the global market like a software to manage drone shows and a drone-based industrial product line. Currently, Alexey is responsible for strategic management and development

and liaises with a few main customers. He also works extensively in the field to test SPH solutions in real-life scenarios. Before founding SPH Engineering, Alexey had gained 20+ years of experience in the software industry. He graduated from one of the leading tech universities in Eastern Europe and started his career as a software developer. Later, he worked as a senior project manager and led teams of up to 450 specialists (analysts, software developers, Q&A specialists, consultants). The main focus was on custom software development for multiple industries (financial, insurance, logistics, manufacturing etc.), while project scale varied from tens to tens of thousands of users. https://www.facebook.com/alexey. dobrovolskiy.12382

About SPH Engineering SPH Engineering (sph-engeneering.com) is the world’s premier UgCS software developer and integration services provider for unmanned aerial systems. Founded in 2013 in Latvia, the company has created a rich global customer network, while over 45% of customers are located in North America. SPH has developed UgCS, UgCS CC, UgCS Mapper, ATLAS, Drone Show Software, and Industrial Integration Solutions for UAV with Echo Sounders, Ground Penetrating Radars (GPR), Methane detectors, and Magnetometers enriched with radar/laser altimeters. The company’s solutions are applied across a wide range of industries worldwide.

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