Big Beer Man
How much more room is there for JD Wetherspoon's pubs on British high streets? The fewer sales you have, the more profit you need to make on each to make…
“A Handbag?!”
Mr Worthing was found in one, the Iron Lady used one as a weapon and girls used to dance around them at discos. Today they are full of money. As…
Peak Shopping Experience
The nation’s shopkeepers never had it so good, until now. The value of Tesco shares plunged on Thursday, after the retailer issued a profit warning in the wake of “disappointing…
The Pilgrim Fathers’ Flicks
We are good at exporting our culture, but Hollywood is better. David Cameron has urged British film makers to shift their focus from art house cinema to more mainstream movies…
Competing by Appointment
Can you afford to keep recruiting senior folk from your biggest clients, or do you have to compete more directly for new sales? Siemens has hired Stanley McChrystal, the four-star…
Monty Python’s Banking
Can I pay you to borrow some money from me please? To many people, the Financial Times headline “Germany issues debt with negative yield” must sound very confusing. Yet, “issuing…
The Pret Phenomenon
They just sell sandwiches don’t they? If I have an early morning meeting in London I am often the first customer in my favourite sandwich shop Pret a Manger. There…
Vince’s Big Idea: Shuffle the Chairs
FTSE directors taking 100x the average wage is just too much, for most of them. Thankfully, Britain is a pretty stable place to live. It’s one of the benefits of…
If Only The John Lewis Partnership Owned a Bank
Does John Lewis provide a blueprint for a more equitable economy? Although it may not be doing quite as well as last year the John Lewis Partnership has had an…
The Post Office Haircut
Hanging around in the nation’s one-stop shopping experiment. I went into my local post office yesterday to buy some stamps. It was raining and there was a queue out of…