NBTA Day Two: Bag Fees, Business Opportunity Grants, and Biofuels

On August 26, 2009

Customer Service? Not Something We Need to Think About

Customer service is a concept that in the UK, we are still getting to grips with. But as customers, it's something that we are learning to demand more. However good it gets though, some companies we deal with are never likely to give good customer service, because they don't have to. Here's a list of industries, which don't care, because they know you'll keep coming back. This list is for B2C companies. I will compose one for B2B companies in good time. Rail travel is expensive and uncomfortable at the best of times. At worst it's extremely unreliable too. While there are a number of franchises, there's no competition on any one journey, so if you don't like it, you...
On August 26, 2009

Appirio Opens New Front In Services Software

Appirio, itself a professional services firm, thinks it's identified an area that software vendors have thus far ignored: planning and management software for professional services firms. Vendors like SAP and Oracle sell enterprise resource planning (ERP) application suites that customers use to manage their business, managing everything from supply chains to human resources. But the various modules of the software have generally been created with manufacturing businesses in mind, and have to be customized for them to be of much use to services firms. Appirio, which is primarily in the business of helping customers migrate from software they own and manage themselves to cloud-based software from the likes of Salesforce.com and Google, is introducing cloud-based applications that are intended to...
On August 26, 2009

Carbon Trust Joins Growing Band of Scrappage Merchants

News came through to us of an initiative from the Carbon Trust involving interest-free loans for retail  SMEs so that they can replace inefficient and power hungry equipment with brand new, carbon friendly stuff. It's a trend that's catching on in all sorts of ways. The Carbon Trust is saying that £100m in loans is available, in trenches of between £3,000 and £400,000 to 5,000 retailers in the hope of saving the sector £41m in annual energy costs. The loans are available for three types of equipment – heating, lighting and refrigeration. I like this initiative for a number of reasons: This is just the sort of shot in the arm that this vulnerable sector needs right now. It frees up capital...
On August 26, 2009

3 MBA Tricks to Shorten Boring Meetings

On the bad days, in off moments,  it seems like my two years in business school were mostly about learning the definitions of a few key buzz words to use in meetings. 1. ROI Stands for return on investment, as in profits divided by total investment. For fun in boring meetings, think of it as “run out [...]
On August 26, 2009

Manage Your Projects on the Web with Peago

If your projects are getting big enough that you need to graduate from using Excel to track tasks and dates to a full-blooded project management program, then you might already be considering Microsoft Project. But that's sort of like launching a nuke when waving a spear around might do. Peago, for example, is the latest in the current generation of Web-based project management tools that can help you take control of even deeply complex projects for free.  Peago is a gorgeous-looking project management program that runs in your browser. It is Flash-based, so you can use it much like a desktop app -- you can create tasks, for example, and drag and drop them to assign them to people and...
On August 26, 2009

Renewable Energy Firms May Buy Old Ford Plant

Green energy advocates have been saying it all along: If the industry gets a chance, it will recreate the manufacturing base in America. So far, that thesis has been hard to prove. They need a really clear example -- an example like two renewable energy companies buying Ford's shuttered Wixom plant in Michigan and refilling it with workers, as just reported in the Detroit Free Press. Purchasing and repurposing the plant would cost $725 million to start, which is a rather hefty price tag for any renewable energy company, most of which still haven't grown past being small- and mid-sized companies. But my first worry on reading the story, that the plan would turn out to be a pipe dream,...
On August 26, 2009

Ford’s Uses Federal Money to Accelerate Electric Car Plans

Ford was the biggest winner back in June when the Department of Energy announced the first round of its $25 billion loan program for electric vehicles and battery manufacture. The company was funded with $5.9 billion through 2011 to improve the fuel efficiency of a dozen popular vehicles—from the Taurus to the F-150 truck. Ford is also the recipient this month of two grants from the DOE’s complementary $2.4 billion grant program. Mike Tinskey, manager of sustainability and electrification, said in an interview that it will be using part of that money, $62.7 million (matched by Ford), to transfer production of a key electric transaxle—the heart of both battery cars and plug-in hybrids—from Japan (where it is made currently by...
On August 26, 2009

The New Backlash Against Online Buying

After about a decade of hearing that buying online is the buyer's utopia, a growing number of consumers and businesses alike are finally screaming: ENOUGH!  Two polls recently revealed that while people are willing to shop online, when it comes to BUYING, they much rather speak with a human being. The first poll (from Harris Interactive) revealed that more than three quarters (77%)  of online shoppers say they'd like to "have contact with a real person before they make a purchase."  Note, that people don't mind shopping online, but when it comes to BUYING, they want a real person. The second poll from the market research firm GfK Technology (and co-sponsored by Brightkite, a mobile social networking service) revealed that...
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