On Vodafone and how to live off a brand name and nothing else

Calvin Ltd. has had a small business account with Vodafone for a few years now. We tried first with Virgin, then T-Mobile but they proved pretty deficient in terms of service and signal coverage, so in the classical crowd wisdom, we signed up with Vodafone. Surely a mammoth of telecommunications would know how to do [...]

On working for the NIGAZ. Another marketing blunder

I know I might wake up a bit late, but after thinking that Microsoft Poland’s advertising savvy was one of the worse ever, I just heard of Russia’s Gazprom and Nigeria’s NNPC joint venture. The baby’s name? NIGAZ.
Unbelievable, you may say, but thinking heads of two continents couldn’t even get this straight.
I just finished [...]

On Spain looking down the tunnel, is that the exit or just a train coming?

I am sorry, I know I am a voluntary expat, but Spain is just the land of the joke. Yesterday three things happened that made me corroborate as a right idea leaving the Peninsula.
1. The financial health The FT informs us that “Spain acts to help lenders”. Is this the same [...]

On the new clothes of the Spanish economy, where’s a child to tell the truth when you need it?

Hobbes, what Spain needs now, is the child in the crowd that that the emperor is walking down the street fully naked, and tells the truth. But they do not listen.
Today, it was the turn of the FT.com (Spain’s recession: After the fiesta). Paul Preston is considered one of the top specialists in the Spanish [...]

On talking about the weather and the hell we are going through

February 2, 2009. What a day to remember. It was a Monday, right after… a Sunday.
Freezing weather from the East brought us the “biggest snowstorms in 18 years!”
No trains in or out of London, no buses in the city, curiously even the underground underground services cancelled… the great ex-Imperial capital brought to its knees by [...]

On Pret-a-Manger running out of fresh ideas. Are private equity firm Bridgepoint and Goldman Sachs squeezing the customer?

Hobbes, they say that the first step is always to recognise the problem. OK Hobbes, I agree, I have an addiction. Well, more than one, but this one is cheese-related.
I am a keen Pret a Manger victim, and the guilty sin is their Posh Cheddar & Pickle Artisan Baguette. I have gone through many tantrums [...]

On Steve Jobs and decoupling the man from the business

Last January 5 Steve Jobs posted a letter on Apple’s site stating that he had a “hormonal imbalance” that caused him lose of weight. The guy is a genius, let’s face it (being a Pixar addict as I am, I owe him my only hours and hours of amazement in front of a non-computer related [...]

It’s Good To Know: Keiretsus

I was just reading Mark Anderson’s SNS blog (A Bright Fire) when he used the word Keiretsu (系列).
I have done some business reading myself, but I had never heard of that word before, so wikipedia came to the rescue:
A keiretsu (lit. system or series) is a set of companies with interlocking business relationships and [...]

On taxpayers being fooled again, 2% VAT reduction? In this sale season, I see it like a helping hand for retail businesses

So, as of December 1 darling Darling told us that the VAT rate in the United Kingdom would go down a massive 2% from 17.5% to 15.0% (-14.28%)..
At first signs of Germany getting into trouble, they rose their VAT rate last January 1, 2007 from 16% to 19% (+18.75%). At the time, everybody thought [...]

On satirising business in the UK, trying to pay a VAT return to HM Revenue & Customs

Oh Hobbes! Her Majesty the Queen must be so jolly these days! The first waves of the financial tsunami are drowning the young, the old and the sick who don’t know how to or need help to swim. Other waves will come, but she must feel safe surrounded by an army of trained civil servants.
Not [...]