Archive for August, 2007

A little dodgy Idealog….

Published by Ben Kepes on August 24, 2007 in Branding and Strategy. 7 Comments

I subscribe to the Idealog RSS feed. I do so because Idealog interests me and the topics they post about are close to my interests.

I’m not however looking for a job in the creative industry and that’s why my reader surprised and annoyed me a little this morning.

It seems Idealog have started a creative industry employment service - which is a smart and logical thing to do.

What is not smart and logical is to fill the readers of those interested in the magazine with posts about job openings - I subscribe to receive feeds from the magazine - not job adds.

I’m sure it’s an oversight and there will be no employment ad feeds in my reader tomorow - perhaps the team (who, don’t get me wrong, do a great job of writing a mag) should come forward and apologise fo the oversight.

Perhaps?

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Any businesses out there who could use $6mill?

Published by Ben Kepes on August 23, 2007 in Business and Economic Development. 0 Comments

There’s a catch……..

Unlimited magazine and UK Trade and Investment are running the $6million investment challenge.

The process is;

1. REGISTER: Fill in the registration form before August 31.

2. INVESTMENT CHALLENGE FORUMS: Selected entrants will then be invited to submit a business plan describing plans for growth as well as attend a series of specialist forums throughout New Zealand to lay the groundwork for the Investment challenge.

3. MASTER CLASS: A panel of investors, entrepreneurs, business experts and sponsors will choose a Master Class of ten companies which will be invited to pitch to our investors, who have agreed to put up at least $6 million.

4. IN MARKET VISIT: The ten companies will have the opportunity to take part in a UK in-market visit, to network, research markets, and meet potential investors.

5. THE INVESTMENT PITCH: Your chance to prepare and pitch to the investors

Full info can be seen here.

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Lance on Telecom….

Published by Ben Kepes on August 23, 2007 in Business, Design, Efficiency, Governance, New Zealand and Strategy. 2 Comments

A visceral post here by Lance criticising Telecom - the gist of the post is Telecom should learn (again) to walk before it tries to run.

This in response to the news that Telecom will seek a replacement CFO for Marko who has,

“…experience in mergers and acquisition so it can take advantage of consolidation in the telecommunications market …”

I agree entirely with Lance but his post begs a number of questions. Bear in mind that this is not some fresh out of the blocks startup but a well established, well capitalised (well not as well as prior to the Gattung debacle but that’s another story), well resourced enterprise.

  • Telecom has more MBA’s LLB’s and BCom’s than most organisations, can they really not decide on a good M&A with the existing crop of talent?
  • Given the number of BE’s evident in Telecoms buildings, surely they can engineer solutions which don’t display the problems we’ve seen in the last few days
  • Why is it that Telecom seems unable to both do the core business and do the business of being in business? Most businesses of the small size are either good at their core skills but poor at non-core but general business tasks. Most big businesses have the luxury of affording both the engineering and the business brains to fulfil both sides of the equation. Telecom seems to be faltering on both counts

Bottom line - it’s a failure of leadership and this is where the new CEO needs to get in quick and wreak some havoc. Change the culture, change the teams, mix things up and hopefully come out the other end with a business that works. ‘Cos it sure seems dysfunctional right now…

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SaaS - don’t forget the service part

Published by Ben Kepes on August 23, 2007 in SaaS and Strategy. 0 Comments

Andy posts over here specifically about some dodgy storage charges Salesforce are introducing, and generally about customer service.

While the Larkster gets mighty hot under the collar about this, I have to agree with him.

Service providing business should have one measure - customer satisfaction - screwing them around will only send this measure in one direction - South.

So let’s remember SaaS should more correctly be writtn saaS - there only one capital there - and it’s at the start of the word “service” - forget it at your peril SaaS businesses!

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