While business confidence is getting stronger, recent events demonstrate that not all is sweetness and light.

Hallmark UK’s decision to outsource greetings card printing – threatening around 300 Bradford jobs – was a blow. The bitter pill was sweetened somewhat by the deal with Herbert Walker to have around 20 per cent of cards printed in Shipley. Everything else will go to Far East producers by the end of 2014.

Hallmark UK boss Steve Wright says he had to make tough choices about the future direction of the US-owned business, whose UK and international operation is based in Bradford.

It’s a sad economic fact of life that printing bog-standard cards can be done far more cheaply in China than here.

Mr Wright insists that Hallmark remains committed to Bradford and can best succeed in the long term by focusing on its creative and distribution strengths.

The huge distribution centre at Dudley Hill, from where printing will go, will continue.

Hallmark will also invest in creative activities including designing ever-more sophisticated cards, which Mr Wright says gives the company its competitive edge.

While the opinion of one retail analyst that Bradford-based retailer Morrisons is ‘in meltdown’ is over the top, its results for 2013 – showing an annual loss of £176 million amid falling sales and after one-off costs of £903 million – did not make happy reading.

The results encapsulate the corner the UK’s fourth largest supermarket finds itself in.

Late into online trading, catching up in the convenience store sector and replacing 1950s IT systems was one thing. Fighting off aggressive discount chains like Aldi and Lidl, with which Morrisons has more customer overlap than its main rivals, is another thing – and possibly the biggest test for Dalton Philips and his team.

The answer? A price-cutting war costing £1 billion over the next three years, which will halve future profits.

Morrisons’ efforts to meet the challenge will be fascinating to watch. Fingers crossed that it succeeds – after all it is Bradford’s largest private-sector employer and much rests on the outcome.