But June Williams, Investors in People (IIP) UK director, responsible for small and medium-sized businesses, insists that this is not the case. More than 60,000 organisations in the public and private sectors use it as the basis for developing their staff and it has also been adopted by businesses in 27 countries around the world. The fact that achieving the standard involves assessment to ensure an organisation has in place strategies for improving business performance, the means of implementing those strategies and a mechanism for evaluating and adjusting these strategies suggests that it is the preserve of large businesses with the resources capable of managing such activity. RFIP Ltd was launched by David Armstrong, 55, and Chris Turner, 54, to exploit their expertise in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).. The Investors in People standard, which celebrates its 15th anniversary next month, has become an accepted weapon in the battle against underperformance and low productivity. Business opportunities built around a new technology are often restricted to large companies with large R&D budgets.

But small businesses can find a role among the bigger players when the founders have that most valuable of assets: "know-how". David Armstrong and Chris Turner established RFIP Ltd in 2005 ( www.rfip.co.uk; 01869 255 772). And the results of a survey, published to coincide with the event, revealed that there was general discontent with these issues. Thirty per cent of those responding thought that health and safety was the area of regulation that placed the greatest cost on their business, with employees' tax and National Insurance Contributions next, cited by 25 per cent of respondents..

In this respect, the first Small Firms' Summit, held last week by the Forum of Private Business (FPB) went according to type. Delegates were vociferous in moaning about employment rules that apparently put firms off taking on new employees, about the detrimental effect rules and regulations from Europe were having on business performance and about high, confusing taxes. If shareholders back the offer, the deal will be worth more than three-quarters the combined value of all previous foreign acquisitions by Indian companies.. Gather any number of owners or managers of smaller business together and it is unlikely to be very long before they start to complain about regulation, tax and other burdens visited upon them by the Government. When Jamsetji Tata, perhaps India's most revered industrialist, aired the idea of starting the subcontinent's first steel mill in 1907, Sir Frederick Upcott, the British commissioner of railways in India, seemed to think it was no more than hot air. He is said to have remarked at the time that he would "eat every pound of steel rail" the plant produced. So executives at the Mumbai headquarters of Tata Steel, the country's largest steel producer, could be forgiven a chuckle after the board of Corus, the former British Steel, recommended Tata's audacious £5.1bn bid last week.

The people you work with for a long time, you can fool around with them when it is quieter - they can pick you up when it has been a hard day."But if New York does follow in London's footsteps, all that could be lost for good.. And within the past two days, Credit Suisse is believed to have axed almost a third of its staff on the floor, firing seven traders and moving two to jobs elsewhere in the bank.Mr Thelen is hoping against hope that the floor remains vibrant and its camaraderie can endure "This place has the atmosphere of a sports locker room. But he adds that it will be brokers and their customers who ultimately decide whether the floor withers.LaBranche, one of the seven firms of specialists, said last week that it was already planning job cuts. Louis Pastina, who runs the hybrid project at the NYSE, accepts the logic that this could mean a two-thirds cut in the number of specialists required, and a similar decrease in floor space for trading. The key statistic monitored by the NYSE executives in charge of the hybrid system is "keystrokes" - the number of keys that specialists enter to execute trades routed through them. But for long-term investors most interested in getting a decent price, there could still be a benefit in the gruff but precise exchange of information between brokers and specialists on the floor.At least that is the hope of veterans like Doreen Mogavero, who heads Mogavero Lee, an independent broker. After 27 years on the floor, she says she plans to be "the last person left".She points to the wireless gadgets carried by today's brokers as they walk the floor, priming them instantly with news of the latest orders.