These articles illustrate why leadership matters. Few great businesses are built without inspirational leadership and we can all learn from the people in the news who are doing this well. What can you learn from the people described in the articles below?
“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 many worldwide, had a pretty awful Christmas. Sales over this critical period were down 15 per cent, as its share price collapsed to 4p from […]
“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.” Aga Rangemaster reported pre-tax profits of £7.5 million on sales of £250.9m for 2011, down from £19.9m and £259.1m last year. However, the company has […]
“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 are having a difficult time telling a compelling story about their financial performance. Air France-KLM, Europe’s second-largest “flag-carrier” by revenue, says its results will deteriorate […]
“Rarely do you see such a well positioned and aligned business.” Engineering group IMI is doing rather well. It has just posted pre-tax profits of £301.4 million, on revenues of £2.1 billion and says it is going to increase its dividends. IMI, formerly Imperial Metal Industries, was founded in 1862 and has had a fascinating […]
“Rupert Murdoch could learn something by reading Buddenbrooks, Thomas Mann’s saga of a merchant dynasty. So could you if you own a family firm.” James Murdoch has got himself into the sort of mess that only the son of the owner could manage. He now thinks he can extricate himself by resigning as chairman of […]
Continually harping on about the decline in UK manufacturing is a PR exercise to persuade us that the government has the power, or the will, to do something about it; but clearly it doesn’t. Anthony Bamford, chairman of construction machinery company JCB, has just come up with a nine-point plan to boost the role of […]
Facebook needs Zynga to succeed, with that sort of backing who wouldn’t bet on it? The social games developer Zynga has just announced fourth-quarter results with revenues of $311 million, up just 1 per cent on its third quarter, but up 59 per cent on the same quarter a year earlier. It also reported […]
Is David Cameron’s enthusiasm for more top women just pandering to half of the electorate, or something else altogether? “The case is overwhelming that companies are better run if we have men and women alongside each other”, said David Cameron yesterday during his stay in Stockholm to discuss all things Nordic. He was referring to […]
When the world changes, past experience is less valuable than it once was. Comet, the electrical retailer, has just been sold to OPCaptia. Previous owners Kesa, the third largest electrical retail group in France, effectively paid OPCaptia £50 million to take Comet off its hands. Comet is anticipating a loss of £35m or so, on […]
Just what are the consumer benefits of having one supplier rather than many? Sony’s chairman and CEO, Howard Stringer, has announced that after 7 years, or so, at the top he is handing over to his successor. Sadly, he isn’t handing over a business that has been reinvented in quite the way that he intended. […]
