How would you invest £100k? Do entrepreneurs have super-human levels of optimism? How can you keep ownership of a great idea? In a first for The Bottom Line, Evan Davis puts questions like these - sent in by listeners - to a panel of business experts.

Evan is joined by:

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Self-checkouts have become a staple in supermarkets, fast food chains and other shops, but now some companies are reconsidering their use. Evan Davis explores the technology's role in the retail landscape and asks whether we’ve reached peak self-checkout, or if they’re just a step on the way to an even more digitised shopping future. With insights from industry leaders and experts, he examines the economics behind un-manned tills, generational differences in consumer acceptance, and their links to a recent rise in shoplifting. Plus, is automation actually making our lives easier, and what's lost if the personal touch disappears from shopping?

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Presenter: Evan Davis

After a year in which a number of big companies decided to list in New York rather than the UK, Evan Davis asks what can be done to attract firms to the London Stock Exchange. With Julia Hoggett, CEO at the London Stock Exchange, Charles Hall, Head of Research at the investment bank Peel Hunt and Conor Lawlor, Managing Director, Global Banking Markets and International Affairs at UK finance.

With the success of the BBC programme The Repair Shop, Evan Davis examines the business opportunities of companies which offer to repair things from clothes through to electronics. Is it easier to try and fix something yourself or pay for it to be done professionally? Do we still have the skills that previous generations had to do even relatively simple things like sewing on buttons? With Kyle Wiens, CEO of Ifixit, Katharine Beacham, Head of Sustainability, Clothing & Home at Marks and Spencer and upholstery repair expert and Repair Shop presenter Sonnaz Nooranvary.

Major US businesses have begun ditching or scaling back their diversity initiatives. Will UK firms be next? Evan Davis is joined by three guests who specialise on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) schemes, as well as environmental and sustainability issues. Do they see signs of UK companies shifting their stance? And to what extent is the DEI industry - and their jobs - under threat?

Guests:

Daniel Fellows, General Manager of Diversio UK and EU

Production team

Evan Davis talks to the Estonian Ahti Heinla, co-founder of robot delivery firm Starship Technologies, which is hoping to expand across the UK. Evan hears about Ahti's early life in Estonia, how he competed in a Nasa competition, the start of the delivery system in Milton Keynes and how he thinks robot deliveries will grow in the future in Britain and worldwide.

Can businesses operate without managers? It's an idea Amazon, Meta and Citigroup are exploring. Evan hears from the leaders of three companies who've already tried working that way, but with varying degrees of success.

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Presenter: Evan Davis

Evan Davis explores if working the traditional five day week could be replaced by working four, eight hour days. Could working more efficiently benefit employees and bosses? With Joe Ryle, director of the 4 Day Week Campaign, Claire Daniels, CEO of Trio Media and Jen Thompson, managing director of the Crate Brewery.

The advertising exec behind some of the most successful adverts of recent decades shares some of the decisions that have influenced his career, including an early decision to accept a lower salary and instead pursue and opportunity that would bring him more opportunities. Sir John would go out to co-found successful agencies Bartle Bogle Hegarty, and Saatchi and Saatchi.

Today, Sir John says he shuns five year plans, instead focusing on 'five minute plans' and says he tries to make each day as interesting as it can be.

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Evan Davis gets up-to-date tips on finding a new job and hears how the process of making yourself stand out to an employer has changed over the years.

Episode guests:

Presenter: Evan Davis

The Bottom Line is produced in partnership with The Open University.