WEEKLY REPORTS FROM THE DECADE AHEAD
It is a brave person who dares to question the appropriateness of developed countries donating billions of dollars a year to nations deemed to be poor. Hence the fact that Britain’s Coalition Government, while imposing “austerity policies” at home, has protected the country’s aid budget in a move that will see it rise to £11.5bn […]
All companies claim to be dedicated to customer service. Many even state this aim in their mission statements, slogans or advertising. But few actually come anywhere near achieving it. For most of us, the “wow” experiences are far, far outweighed by the memories of seemingly endless queues while those supposedly serving us get on with […]
To most people, it appears, smart technology is confined to those mobile phones and other portable electronic devices that are increasingly capable of doing a lot more than just making and receiving phone calls. Sure, smartphones are a key component in the technological revolution, but just as important – from a business point of view […]
The idea of categorising people according to their level of social influence may be as old as the hills and the subject of extensive academic research in fields as diverse as politics, psychology, biology and economics. Yet the ability to measure social influence and equip it with statistical credibility appears to be entering a new […]
When the England cricket team inflicted its heavy defeat of India earlier this summer it taught the business world a lesson. When usurping their guests as the top Test match nation in the world, it is arguable that it had less to do with individual brilliance – though there were instances of that – than […]
This week we look behind the theoretical arguments for working more virtually to see what companies are doing in practice. We also look at some of the latest innovations in work technology that might shape the way businesses go about their day-to-day activities over the next 10 years…. the silver lining in the cloud Shine […]
There is an increasingly appealing notion that rather than providing anything new, the internet is merely bringing back the best of the old days. From home deliveries, to not losing touch with people just because they move, to reaching people at the drop of a hat, the internet is a big slice of nostalgia – […]
Many commentators think the next decade will be an information gold rush and certainly more companies than ever are now involved in the design, creation and trading of information. In some respects this is not big news. If our future is increasingly driven by clever technology to simplify the complexity in modern life, then its […]
The language of business has always reflected the prevailing fashions in business thinking at any point in time. Not so very long ago the dominant fashionistas were the great business schools of Harvard, INSEAD, Yale, Stanford and MIT, who introduced to the world a new commercial lexicon, populated by acronymns like TQM, CRM, JITD, These […]
Policy makers and commentators put a lot of store by high-growth small and medium-sized businesses that in recent years have generated about half of all new jobs. This is especially true in tough economic times, when such enterprises are seen as the engines of growth that will lead the economy out of the doldrums. There […]
Future of Business 