The cheapest and most effective form of advertising for any business is a referral from an existing customer. Sharon Davis highlights five effective ways to increase referrals – and your bottom line.

Getting ready to file year-end tax returns can be an annual recurring nightmare for advisers. These simple tips will help reduce your year-end financial stress and streamline your filing process in 2015 and beyond.

It's easy to get blasé about certain aspects of your business, and easy to overlook pain points that customers might experience when dealing with your company. Many business owners get so caught up in running their business that they don't stop to question their procedures or investigate ways to improve their customer's experience.

Asia’s relatively high growth forecasts make it an alluring market for businesses with expansion plans. Find out more about the pros and cons before you decide whether breaking into the Asian market is for you.

Trade Me, one of New Zealand’s leading e-commerce sites, is a maturing business but CEO Jon Macdonald says it still has strong growth potential. SHARON DAVIS finds out more.

Delegat’s Wine has grown from a family-owned business to New Zealand’s second-largest listed wine company by revenue with an internationally recognised brand selling two million cases a year. JIM DELEGAT, Delegat’s CEO and MD, talks to SHARON DAVIS about the Group’s growth and future potential.

Cloud-based accounting software solution provider, Xero, has just been awarded a sizeable R&D grant on top of a recent $4mn investment. ROD DRURY, Xero’s CEO chats to SHARON DAVIS about Xero’s growth and plans.

The revolutionary role of social media. Has Tunisia and the events that followed empowered and emboldened ordinary citizens, now armed with social media solutions, to make a stand for their basic human rights?

The generation and distribution of electricity is vital to the sustainable growth and development in South Africa. Sharon Davis finds out whether Eskom’s plans are sufficient to meet the country’s growing electricity needs and carbon footprint goals.

The importance of water for economic growth in South Africa, a largely semi-arid country, was recognised as early as the 1960s when the government started an extensive dam-building programme on our major rivers to ensure a regular water supply for both agriculture and industry. South Africa’s future growth is going to be constrained as much by water, as the availability of electricity. Sharon Davis tells us more.

Arguably Africa's most famous modern-day explorer Holgate set off on his first epic journey with his wife, Gill, and son, Ross, in 1993. The mission before them was to travel from Cape to Cairo, but with an additional element of tackling the route in open inflatable boats on inland waterways with back-up vehicles.

As has become a hallmark of all Holgate's trips, they filled a beaded calabash with water from Cape Point and took it with them across the waterways of Africa facing bandits, wildlife and malaria.

Sailors tell of a phantom ship, first seen at the turn of the last century, sailing towards Durban’s harbour. Stevedores noticed it at dusk, rounding the Bluff headland, with just one blue-green light swinging at the fore. They waited for the small steamship – but it never arrived!

A few weeks later it was seen again; a little closer to shore, moving slowly, with the same eerie blue-green light. It had no name, failed to answer any signals, and no flags flew… it wasn’t long before it was known as the phantom ship.