Nick Jenkins, founder of Moonpig.com, says the event is ‘a great opportunity’ for business owners

Entrepreneurs are being offered the opportunity to pitch their businesses to a former Dragons’ Den star at a free event in Wiltshire next month.

The owners of early-stage, product-based companies who are preparing for their first investment are being invited to pitch their proposal – in return for “constructive feedback” – to a panel that includes Nick Jenkins, founder of Moonpig.com, at the West Wiltshire Business Expo.

Mr Jenkins, who starred in the hit BBC show for two series, said he was “excited” to be “helping Wiltshire businesses on their journey”.

The former ‘Dragon’ has lived in Wiltshire since 2010 and founded the online greeting cards and gifting company Moonpig in 1999 after an eight-year career as a commodity trader with Glencore in Moscow.

The business grew to five million customers before it was sold in 2011 for £120m and floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2021 with a valuation of £1.2bn. Mr Jenkin’s current investment portfolio features low-carbon tech and biotech businesses.

He will be joined on the panel by Monty George, co-founder of Wiltshire online furniture brand Furniturebox, which has a turnover exceeding £25m and recently opened a £3m state-of-the-art distribution centre in Chippenham.

“The Dragons’ Den [session] is a great opportunity for the founders of Wiltshire businesses to fine tune their business pitches and get ready for their first investments.” said Mr Jenkins.

Mr George, who started Furniturebox with his friend Dan Beckles in 2015 while still at school, said: “I’m delighted to be taking part in the Dragons’ Den panel at the West Wiltshire Business Expo.

“Having started Furniturebox at 17, I understand first-hand many of the challenges young entrepreneurs face when building a business. I’m looking forward to sharing some of the experiences and lessons I’ve learned along the way and to hopefully offering some useful advice to those taking their own ideas forward.”

The West Wiltshire Business Expo, which is free to attend, is organised by the Trowbridge Chamber CIC, one of the largest business groups in Wiltshire, in partnership with the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).

Speakers include the CEOs and directors of some of Wiltshire’s largest businesses, including Apetito, Nutricia, Good Energy, Danone, Wiltshire Farm Foods and Wiltshire College & University Centre. The leader of Wiltshire Council and a number of West Wiltshire MPs are also attending.

The event is taking place at The Civic in Trowbridge on Thursday, October 8. Entrepreneurs looking for pitching practice and business advice are being asked to email dragons@trowbridgechamber.com to request an application form for the event.

Free tickets to the West Wiltshire Business Expo can be booked via Eventbrite.

Economists have warned that pressure to increase rates is mounting as inflation rises to a five-month high

The Bank of England is expected to maintain interest rates at 3.75 per cent, though economists have cautioned that pressure to increase rates is building as inflation climbs. Most economists believe the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will choose to leave interest rates unchanged at its forthcoming meeting on Thursday.

It would mark the sixth consecutive occasion the MPC has held rates steady, having remained at the same level since December.

Experts believe policymakers will persist with a “wait-and-see” strategy, particularly regarding the Middle East conflict and its impact on the UK economy.

Nevertheless, three members of the nine-strong MPC – Huw Pill, Megan Greene and Catherine Mann – voted to raise rates to four per cent at the previous meeting, and economists anticipate the same outcome at the next one.

This comes amid a backdrop of rising prices across the UK, with Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation climbing to 3.1 per cent in August, up from 2.9 per cent in July, according to the most recent official data.

This represented a five-month peak and demonstrates that CPI inflation has drifted further from the Bank of England’s two per cent target rate.

Numerous economists are predicting the cost of living will rise further, with households confronting another increase in their energy bills from next month, which could prompt the Bank to lift interest rates in the coming months.

Experts have said that services inflation — which reflects pricing trends within the UK’s dominant sector — held steady at 3.4 per cent in August, suggesting an absence of so-called second-round effects, such as escalating wage demands and broader increases in shop prices.

Nevertheless, inflation is widely anticipated to climb once Ofgem’s next energy price cap comes into effect in October, which will push household energy bills up by four per cent for a typical dual-fuel household.

Thomas Pugh, chief economist at RSM UK, said: “The rise in inflation in August is just the start of a new upward trend as higher energy, food and memory chip prices continue to make their way through supply chains.

“We now see inflation peaking at almost four per cent in early 2027, before gradually dropping back to two per cent in 2028. The MPC will hold this week, but inflation at four per cent is realistically too hot to ignore.”

Charlotte O’Leary, associate economist for the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr), said the MPC would also be keeping a close eye on the recent surge in oil prices, with Brent crude oil rising above 107 dollars a barrel this week.

“Nevertheless, with limited evidence of second-round effects so far, we expect the MPC to hold rates on Thursday,” she said.

“However, mounting inflationary pressures, alongside resilient growth data, may eventually grant scope to raise rates without materially damaging the economy.”

Economists for Pantheon Economics said there is a possibility the MPC “toughens its language” at the next rates announcements “to open up the possibility of a November hike if energy prices keep ramping up”.

“A four per cent inflation peak would already be too hot to hold, but further energy price rises could take inflation even higher,” they said. “The MPC needs to be ready.”

Last week, the European Central Bank lifted its interest rates for the second time this year, cautioning that the Iran war continues to generate inflationary pressure.

Meanwhile, the US Federal Reserve is broadly anticipated to raise its rates for the first time since 2023 on Wednesday evening.

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SAN FRANCISCO — Salesforce Inc. has not disclosed a dollar estimate for how much Wednesday’s global service outage cost the company or its customers, and no independent analyst had published a specific figure as of Wednesday afternoon, leaving the financial toll of the disruption an open question even as the technical incident itself has been resolved.

The outage began around 7:50 a.m. UTC, roughly 3:50 a.m. Eastern time, according to Salesforce’s own status page, and affected customers across all three of the company’s operating regions, with reports of disruption spanning the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, India and Japan. Salesforce said the root cause traced to an internal login service, where incoming requests were stalling while waiting for a response, consuming available server resources and cascading into broader access failures across the platform. The company said it validated a fix on a test instance and began rolling it out fleetwide by roughly 10:56 a.m. UTC, with independent monitoring services logging the core disruption at around four hours and 22 minutes, though shorter, related incidents continued to appear on the company’s status tracker later in the day.

Quantifying the financial impact of a cloud outage like Wednesday’s is notoriously difficult, and companies rarely disclose precise figures even after an incident is fully resolved. Unlike a factory shutdown or a single retailer’s website going dark, Salesforce’s customer relationship management platform underpins day-to-day operations for a vast and varied customer base, one that Salesforce itself has described as including major global companies such as Amazon, Walmart, Coca-Cola, Toyota and IBM. An outage affecting that platform generates costs on at least two separate ledgers: the direct hit to Salesforce’s own business, largely through service-level agreement credits and reputational damage, and a far larger, harder-to-measure set of costs borne by the customers who rely on Salesforce to run sales, service and marketing operations.

Salesforce’s own scale offers one way to think about the stakes involved, even without a specific outage-cost figure attached. The company reported fiscal second-quarter revenue of $11.35 billion, up 11% year-over-year, with full-year revenue guidance raised by $200 million following that report. Spread across a full fiscal year, that revenue run rate implies Salesforce generates tens of millions of dollars in revenue on a typical day, though a service disruption does not translate directly into lost revenue on a one-to-one basis, since most Salesforce customers pay through annual or multiyear subscription contracts rather than per-use billing, meaning a several-hour outage does not necessarily reduce the total amount Salesforce ultimately collects from an affected customer.

The more significant financial exposure from an incident like Wednesday’s typically falls on Salesforce’s customers rather than on Salesforce itself. Businesses that rely on the platform for order processing, customer service ticketing, sales pipeline management and marketing automation can face lost productivity, delayed transactions, and in some cases direct revenue loss if the outage prevents customer-facing sales or support functions from operating during the disruption window. Because those costs are dispersed across thousands of individual Salesforce customers rather than concentrated at Salesforce itself, they are rarely aggregated into a single public estimate, and no such aggregate figure had been published in connection with Wednesday’s incident as of the most recent available reporting.

The timing of Wednesday’s outage added a further layer of reputational, if not directly quantifiable, cost. The disruption struck on the second day of Dreamforce, Salesforce’s flagship annual conference in San Francisco, an event expected to draw more than 40,000 in-person attendees and more than 200,000 additional registrants online, with more than 400 sessions this year built around Salesforce’s push into AI-driven “Agentic Enterprise” software. An outage occurring in the middle of an event explicitly designed to showcase the platform’s reliability to customers, prospects and partners carries a cost in credibility and marketing impact that is difficult to translate into a specific dollar figure, even if it does not appear directly on Salesforce’s income statement.

Financial markets offered one immediate, if imperfect, gauge of investor sentiment following the outage. Salesforce shares had already closed Tuesday at $255.65, down 1.46% from Monday’s close of $259.43, a decline that occurred before the outage began and therefore cannot be attributed to the incident itself. Shares slipped a further roughly 0.5% in Wednesday premarket trading, changing hands around $254.40, though broader market conditions, including anticipation ahead of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision, were also weighing on technology stocks more broadly that morning, making it difficult to isolate how much of Wednesday’s modest share price movement, if any, reflected the outage specifically.

Wednesday’s disruption was not an isolated event in Salesforce’s recent history. The company has experienced a series of significant outages over the past year and a half, including a June 2025 incident that took its Heroku platform-as-a-service offline for more than six hours alongside disruptions to Commerce Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Tableau, Service Cloud and MuleSoft, and an earlier four-day disruption that crippled core customer service functions including Email-to-Case and Web-to-Case features. None of those prior incidents resulted in a publicly disclosed cost estimate either, consistent with the broader industry pattern of treating outage costs as commercially sensitive or simply too diffuse to calculate with precision.

Absent an official disclosure from Salesforce or a published third-party analysis, the true financial toll of Wednesday’s outage, spanning lost productivity across its global customer base, any service credits owed under customer contracts, and the harder-to-quantify reputational cost of the disruption occurring during Dreamforce, is likely to remain an estimate rather than a confirmed figure, unless Salesforce chooses to address the matter directly in a future earnings call or regulatory filing.

Cockpit windows, Vermont says, are “totally different”.

They are generally made of glass, which is chemically reinforced by adding potassium to it. This involves swapping smaller sodium ions for larger potassium ions, which helps to fill out the molecular structure of the glass, meaning that when it cools during production, it compresses into an extra strong, tight formation as it cools.

Some of the latest aircraft feature cockpit windows that are also curved, to make the plane more streamlined, which improves fuel efficiency. But curved cockpit windows are challenging to make – the slightest distortion or defect is clearly visible to the pilot.

Quality control checks are used to ensure no such impediments exist in the final product.

All aircraft windows must be resistant to impacts but cockpit windows, at the front of the plane, are especially vulnerable to bird strikes, says Vermont: “The issue is not the speed of the bird, the issue is the speed of the aircraft.”

Saint-Gobain uses numerical simulations and “physical tests representative of a sizeable bird impact” to test its windows against this threat.

“Typically, if you go through a hailstorm or if you hit a large enough bird, the external ply will crack,” says Vermont. “The cockpit window is designed for that.”

A London to Londonderry flight was recently affected by a cracked cockpit window. While a mid-air emergency was declared, the plane landed safely. “There can be [such] cases,” says Vermont, though he adds that Saint-Gobain’s windows have not been involved in any recently.

“You’re obviously dealing with a surface that is interfacing with two very different environments,” says Stengel. “That’s why these are more highly-engineered products.”

Those lessons shaped a career that has spanned sacred writing, Hebrew calligraphy, Judaica art, and education. Today, his work continues to focus on preserving Jewish heritage while sharing those traditions with future generations through teaching and craftsmanship.

“I have always believed that making a positive difference in people’s lives is what matters most,” Rabbi Karro says.

From Russia to a Life of Learning in Jerusalem

Rabbi Steve Karro was born in Russia before moving to Jerusalem with his family at the age of 10. The move marked the beginning of a lifelong commitment to Jewish education and personal growth.

He attended Hebrew school before continuing his studies at Yeshiva Ponevezh in Bnei Brak, where he immersed himself in rabbinical studies. During this time, he earned his rabbinical diploma while also developing a passion for Hebrew calligraphy and art.

For Rabbi Karro, education was never simply about acquiring knowledge. It was about preparing to serve others.

“Learning never really ends,” he says. “The more we learn, the more we can share with others.”

That philosophy continues to influence both his work and his outlook on life.

A Career Dedicated to Sacred Writing and Art

After completing his studies, Rabbi Karro devoted his career to sacred writing and traditional Jewish craftsmanship. His work includes writing Torah scrolls, mezuzot, and tefillin, as well as restoring older Torah scrolls so they can continue serving communities for generations.

Every project requires careful attention to detail and respect for traditions that have remained largely unchanged for centuries.

Alongside his work as a scribe, Rabbi Karro is also a Judaica artist who creates oil paintings and Hebrew calligraphy inspired by Jewish history and culture. Together, these disciplines allow him to combine creativity with preservation.

“I believe making good changes is important,” he says. “Every piece of work should leave something positive behind.”

Why Teaching Has Always Been Part of the Mission

While craftsmanship has defined much of Rabbi Karro’s professional life, education has always been equally important.

Throughout his career, he has shared his knowledge of Hebrew calligraphy, sacred writing, and Jewish tradition with others, believing that preserving knowledge is just as important as preserving artifacts.

He hopes that by teaching others, these skills and traditions will continue long into the future.

“Teach what I learned so more people will be able to do good for our universe,” he says.

Rather than keeping specialized knowledge to himself, Rabbi Karro sees education as an opportunity to multiply positive influence.

Staying Focused Through Challenges

Every career brings obstacles, and Rabbi Karro has faced his share of personal challenges.

He has spoken about experiencing attempts to damage his identity and reputation. Instead of allowing those experiences to define him, he remained committed to his values, faith, and work.

“Many challenges came when enemies tried to take my identity away and put me through worldwide embarrassment,” he says. “I’m still standing and going with God and what I have always believed in.”

His response has been to continue creating, teaching, and helping others rather than becoming distracted by negativity.

That resilience has become one of the defining characteristics of his journey.

Building a Legacy Through Service

For Rabbi Karro, success has never been measured by recognition alone. Instead, he believes lasting impact comes from helping people and preserving traditions that matter.

Whether restoring a Torah scroll, teaching a student, or creating a work of art, he approaches each opportunity with the same sense of purpose.

“When I make a happy difference in people’s lives,” he says, “that is what matters most.”

He also believes that good actions inspire more good actions.

“My goal is to duplicate my good actions so others continue believing they are important and can make positive changes.”

That philosophy has guided his work for decades and continues to shape his future.

Looking Ahead While Preserving the Past

Today, Rabbi Steve Karro continues his work as a Hebrew calligrapher, Judaica artist, educator, and scribe. His career reflects a deep respect for history while emphasizing the importance of passing knowledge from one generation to the next.

Although his work centers on ancient traditions, his message is timeless. He believes every person can make a meaningful contribution by acting with integrity, serving others, and remaining committed to lifelong learning.

“When your close family is happy, others around them become happier too,” he says.

For Rabbi Karro, preserving tradition has always been about more than protecting the past. It is about ensuring future generations inherit the knowledge, values, and craftsmanship needed to continue making a positive difference.