Hang Onto Your Margins!
“Excessive margins always come with a sell-by date.” The mobile industry is an interesting place at the moment. Blessed with license-based market protection, not available even in the wildest dreams…
All these articles illustrate why you need to stay different. Difference, more than anything else, drives value and allows you to achieve higher returns on capital in your business. Most businesses fail to give Difference enough attention, not just when starting out, but over time as competitive pressures increase and things change around them.
Memento Mori
“One market changing technology is bad enough for market leaders, but what would you do if two came along at once?” I’m not sure if you can buy a…
How On Earth Did They Do That?
“How has Aquascutum gone bust when every other luxury brand is rolling in cash?” Sadly, Harold Tillman’s attempt to save the classic Aquascutum fashion brand has come to nought…
Late Learning Centre
"Look what happens when great brands do nothing as the world changes around them.” One of my fundamental building blocks of a great business is to “stay different”. This implies…
The Future of Retail
“The appointment of an American CEO is a very good move for Argos, as long as they listen to what he has to say.” Although Argos is the largest…
A Class Act
“One of the UK’s leading value brands has more to offer than sausage rolls and stottie cakes.” At one time you could stand on any street corner in central Newcastle…
Goodbye Game Group
“How can a market leader go out of business?” The Game Group, a video games retailer with more than 600 stores in the UK and Ireland, and nearly twice as…
Small is Beautiful
"Aga Rangemaster, the manufacturer of cast-iron cookers, among a lot of other things, has reported 2011 profits down by two-thirds or doubled – it depends how you look at it.”…
Airline Magic
“Ryanair will be the main beneficiary of the painfully slow restructuring of Europe’s flag carriers.” Even with the famously creative accounting that some airlines have used over the years, many…
Bribery Works
“Why bother with all the difficult stuff when you can gain competitive advantage by other means?” I have worked in more than one country where you need a Mr Fixit…