It’s Time to Jump!
Nokia’s desperate move to regain smartphone market share just won’t work, but it may delay the inevitable for a while. Finnish company Nokia, the once dominant smartphone manufacturer, is struggling…
The articles below illustrate the importance of risk management. Businesses often end up taking much bigger risks than they intended and you should learn something from that and not do what they do. The future is always uncertain; take small steps forward so you can at least survive if things go wrong.
Learning from Failure
Is there a better way to fail? I have failed at many things in my business career; fortunately, these failures have been interspersed with a few successes along the way.…
Google’s Squillion Dollar Problem
Just how much shareholder’ cash should a business hang onto? I’m not afraid to say I am a fan of Google: I love it to bits and want to publically…
Airline: WARNING!
It’s about time Michael O’Leary relocated to Mumbai. I have this slightly crazy picture in my head, probably formed during boozy breakfast meetings in Wetherspoons, drinking pints of lager with…
Simply Buying
In business, how you buy stuff is often more important than it seems. In the long and distant past, I was the supply director for a large telecoms company involved…
Joint Ventures Don’t Work
You need complete control to make the most of any business. I once worked for someone who one day shouted at me across his rather palatial office “I will, never,…
Low Tech Wind
Being the biggest isn’t of much economic value if others can do what you do just as well. Vestas, the Danish company that can proudly claim to be the…
Copy Richard Branson
Being too much of a specialist is a burden when faced with radical change. If you had been in the railway business, when the first aeroplanes took to the…
Shakespeare’s Veolia
Aren’t utilities supposed to be boring? Surely, not even William Shakespeare could have made up such a fanciful tale as this. Wouldn’t you have thought that running a water utility…
What’s Next?
Is Next’s business model strong enough to survive the next half of the Networked Era? I bought my first suit from a Hepworth’s store in Dartmouth in Devon, from Mr…