More photos here courtesy of the Guardian This photo is amazing. First, I would like to know why Nissan would build a test track in the U.K. Are UK drivers really that different from Japanese drivers? Nissan and its predecessor, Datsun, did fine for 20 years before building a test track in the UK. [...]
Browsing Posts in Business Strategy
Storage is the biggest problem most of us face. I have several external drives lying around, containing music, videos, photos, etc. Once every few months I buy yet another drive that is bigger than the sum of all my existing drives, and copy everything onto that drive, and dump that drive at the safe deposit [...]
Ralph’s is a supermarket that is owned by Kroger’s. This company is facing strong competition from Fresh & Easy, which is run by Tesco. It is also fighting off Trader Joe’s. I don’t think Ralph’s will survive another five years. It does not have Trader Joe’s focus on private labels and turnover, and it [...]
I like the seekingalpha.com site. ‘Alpha’ refers to trying to make a movement in the financial markets with no risk. It is very tough to do, almost a mirage. Unless you are Bernard Madoff, feeding all the rich yutzes some Kool-aid. A gent by the name of Richard Lounsbury, has written a very cogent analysis [...]
creditkarma.com A credit reporting agency is just one big database. It is astounding to me how they can charge consumers between 15 and 40 dollars a month just for access to data. They charge companies pennies for the same type of data. Due to the three-company credit bureau oligopoly, there is effectively [...]
I have written several times about the inefficiency of the modern airline industry, and here is one more reason that I feel the airline industry needs to reinvent itself. It’s called a “Round the World Ticket”. It allows you to fly around our circular world, visiting places along the way. You have [...]
Computer software is fifty year old business. In its infancy, it helped win wars: one of the first uses for computers was to calculate artillery tables, so that cannon could be fired accurately. Today, computer software makes everything happen: we could not fly planes or run large enterprises without computer software. But it is the [...]
The hiring process is the most important function that an organization can undertake. People brought onboard can turbocharge a company or drive it into the ground. Zappo’s, the online show company, takes a very unorthodox view of the hiring process. They will train you, and offer to pay you to quit at the end of [...]
A lot has been written about how GM and their Detroit brethren Chrysler and Ford are a bunch of dummies. The news that they all took separate jets to plead for a bailout does not make them look any smarter. This post over at graduated taste is awesome. It talks about what Richard Branson, one [...]
The Japanese government is forcing their industry to modernize and become more efficient in exchange for helping them with a handout. The government responded two weeks later with the $700 million aid package that promised to pay 90 percent of fuel price increases since December, but only to fishermen who found ways to reduce their [...]
