Several years had passed by and Britain’s manufacturing industry continued to decline. And today, this downturn has sparked renewed British interest in reviving manufacturing. Yes, China has gained so much attention with their cheap labor and cheap products offerings but don’t look down on Britain as they will probably give a good run by producing a far more better quality products.
Manufacturing has long been the poor relations of the British economy. It is often characterized by inexorable decline, overshadowed by the booming modernity of high finance among many other aspects. But when the recession came such as the collapse in the banking industry, manufacturing is just perhaps one word that is needed to turn the rhetoric into reality.
Although manufacturing output was falling in the past twelve months, which is perhaps the fastest drop since records began in 1948, there is one positive side. The industry still comprises 13.5 percent of the economy compared to the less than ten percent from the much vaunted financial services sector. They carry out 74 percent of business funded research and development and still has the highest employment rate of 2.6 million people. Moreover, it generated 53 percent of the country’s export earnings.
But the problem really is that there is not enough of it in the country. Britain is just 0.5 percent of big UK Manufacturing companies, they are only 1 percent of Europe and only 1.4 percent in the United States. So how is the situation to be solved?
Well, that is to revive to industry putting in more focus on large-scale manufacturing.
Obviously, it is easier said than done, as it is too late to resurrect mass market, world-leading industries of the past such as machine tools, etc. However, to take advantage of the revival is to realize the strong pull of genuine demand nowadays. The energy sector is a case in point. People now consume more and more gas and electricity.
Posted in: Management, Production.
Tagged: Britain · Demand · Energy · Manufacturing
It was once said that video and search may work effectively when separated. You know, nowadays, the two will always be separate and just cannot be mixed because there are two different niches. For one, search engines are perhaps for people looking for a document for a school project or report evidence while the video, might just be for people who wants hands-on experience. Different, isn’t it?
Not so long ago, Google sealed the deal on video search capabilities for its YouTube portal, saying it would provide auto-captions for all of its uploaded videos using a proprietary Google’s Speech Recognition Technology.
The plan actually began last November with a handful partner channels including PBS, Stanford University and National Geographic. As a matter of fact, it would be compatible in several worldwide languages in a few months from now.
The news establishes Google as the frontrunner in the internet programming arena. As a company who prides itself with effective search engine with accuracy hits of nearly 90 percent, they are now able to capitalize on its investment in speech to text technology to index videos, target ads, and create actual profit for YouTube.
But the most important news has yet to be told, the process is just simply deaf and hearing impaired friendly. They will be able to understand dialogue on uploaded videos, as this group of people had to constantly rely on the goodwill of YouTube users to manually add captions to their videos, which eats too much time.
Further, Google has now been removed from any ill will associated with Internet programming issues. This is truly one of the milestones of their company. And we do hope more innovations would come along the way.
Posted in: Information Technology, Technology.
Tagged: Google · SEO · Technology · Video
When nothing else happens, and everything else seems desperate, many companies try to resort in some innovative activities such as creating sexy and saucy ads thinking it would sell their product. Truly, the same thing happened with Chrysler, where they are heating up Dodges advertising campaign like that of Fiats with Gallic sizzle.
However, the sad story is that sex appeal had virtually disappeared from American car marketing. This is practically perhaps of their liberated culture where everything seems to be natural for them. It doesn’t create a head turn. Unlike in Asia, it does create a head turn because sex appeal isn’t natural in their conservative culture.
Moreover, Chrysler is turning European car again from time. However it is no longer the Germans who are calling the shots. It is now the Italians from Fiat and their French marketing chief are in charge. The next generation of Chryslers and Dodges will resemble the quirky little cars at that zip around Rome.
And they are doing a branding makeover with the goal of attracting younger, hipper, and wealthier customers. But they were too much known for creating controversy. For one, Fiat apologized to China after a European Lancia ad starring Richard Gere obliquely backed and independent Tibet. In US, they featured Mikhail Gorbachev, Poland’s Lech Walesa, and Mohammed Yunus, who founded microlender Grameen Bank. Each man climbs out of a 300 sedan, and a fourth car arrives empty. An announcer dedicates the ad to jailed Burmese democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.
Whatever their plans may be – their planned sexy and saucy advertisements must take into consideration the cultural differences among nations. Because obviously, no on wants their past mistakes to recur again and again.
Posted in: Advertising.
Tagged: Advertisement · Chrysler · Dodge
According to a research, online film demand is cooling down, thus causing a massive decline. Now Hollywood’s dream to built around movies in digital downloads has been in danger. The film industry has been banking so much on digital distribution, where they hope it would replace the income it generates from sales of DVD’s.
But it just didn’t happen as the past two years saw a massive decline.
This is perhaps due to the culture of movie watchers I believe. They want to spend movie time with families, which apparently watching it on your personal computers could not give. Watching the digital format means lesser fun and lesser of those happy moments munching some popcorns in between. The market seems to be just cooling off, which practically wasn’t caused by any other economic factors. The level of interest just isn’t there any more.
While sales in digital films rose sharply in 2007 and 2008, growth stuttered in 2009 according to a report sent by Screen Digest. The media research company forecasted total online movie sales in US for 2009 at 360 million dollars, based on the sharp growth from the previous two years.
Moreover, the media research company believes consumers have been deterred by an array of competing online platforms that prevented viewers from watching digitally downloaded films comfortably at their own place too. Say for example, a consumer buying a film from Apple’s iTune Store is unable to watch it on their MS Xbox Console.
There are so many restrictions, which is all about viewers cannot do, rather that what they can possibly do. This stirred a problem in Hollywood, which is obviously making ways on how to address the digital distribution issue.
The sad story though is there is no immediate solution to the issue, which would obviously make Hollywood concerned about the issue.
Posted in: Information Technology, Technology.
Tagged: Digital Download · Film · Hollywood · Online Film
Good business treat designs as a holistic process that pulls in savvy marketing and research, as well as smart ideas. Although, it may not always be equal to good business, the point is the companies which create new sources of value in the world are most often achieved through a well structured design process that is more holistic and inclusive that the notion of good design.
In our world today, when one speaks of design, it would seem to be always a noun or even an adjective. They would always follow it with a question about what color? Etc. But more than ever, good design has come to stand for something similar with style. It comes in a largely relativistic judgment of aesthetics and semiotics informed by a constantly shifting zeitgeist.
Although at times, many people would tend to go for things that are aesthetically pleasing, sometimes it reach through a point that design is actually a class of shallow of luxury goods aimed at a specific set of buyers. And this doesn’t represent any lasting value at all.
And to provide remedy, it would always be better to treat design as a verb, a process, and a way of approaching challenges to learn to use, to create positive change in the business arena. At first, it might be hard due to the notion instilled to us on what design is. But with dedication, you would eventually realize the enormous value of design to humanity.
The relationship of design and market success is always parallel to each other. Success in the marketplace is always a result of understanding complex endeavor that allowed one to create a good process design. More than good design actually.
Take the case of Apple, Google, Microsoft, these are all companies who prides themselves with good design. And the result? A very successful presence in the industry.
Posted in: Management, Marketing.
Tagged: Brand · Design · Why Design Matters
Brandings seems to be one of the biggest challenges in many companies in the United States. If you’ve got brand, it is important that one creates a good image out of it as well as good public relations.
Today, increased access to personal data has enabled brands to communicate more effectively with their audiences. It even motivates them to change lifestyles. Personal data nowadays are easily accessed. For one, the social networking sites have contributed a vast majority of this, while the world wide web (technology) has also made its share of contributions. From just a mere person you knew, today, with the help of social networking and technology, it enables each one of us to know common friends as well.
Gone are the days when brands only broadcast one-way messages to an audience with no expectation at all. The most trusted brands today engaged in conversations with people that even reach at a personal level.
And so marketers are using your data in order to achieve the following:
- Create simple tracking tools that help customers gain insights about themselves and even change behaviors.
- To create better relationship between customer and brand changes, that would lead to building trust.
- Allow customers to invest in monitoring their constant progress by using a specified brand.
In their raw form, often, this data often look like Excel spreadsheets intended for statisticians. But more than that, it is integrated within a simple, intuitive interface; the numbers can come to life through gorgeous visualization and robust functionality. However, recently, one of the main limitations of traditional data visualization was it focus on aesthetics over usefulness.
As data continue to become the motivational force for social good, we need to put in mind that the most important thing perhaps, is how we can translate them into business strategy.
Posted in: Management, Marketing.
Tagged: Brand · Data Branding
Do you own a small business? Do you want to have a little business however don’t know how to go about it? Well, Business in Blue Jeans could be the answer to what you like. One of your options. You know I just like choice for it speaks of potential. It’s an expansion of ideas and explosion of originality. It makes you want to get up and go!
Run a small business – a preschool to be exact. Looking back, I wished then that we had a tutor or a business coach who would have guided us. However since we had none, we just groped in the dark and made our way cautiously and very slowly learned from our mistakes and triumphs. I realized though that our failures were an necessary part of growing, but I also saw how expensive those mistakes were. It was only years later that I was mentored by a brother in community and he helped me a lot in seeing my business in a special way.
Another way to keep motivation to shop at its highest? Expand a ‘bring a friend’ discount to shoppers who buy from your store over a exact time period; it’s a easy way to get two people into the store, and punctual them to make a purchase.
Posted in: Business Regulations.
Tagged: busines
A slogan is a necessary marketing tool for any small business. A company slogan has the capability to capture the image you like your company to express quickly and creatively. Too often small businesses do not take full advantage of this wonderful brand building strategy. They either use a generic slogan or don’t use one at all. Small businesses must center on developing a great slogan.
Slogan development does not have to be a difficult effort. In fact, a lot of marketing firms promise to do the process for you. These firms vary from multifaceted operations to simple slogan web companies. There are a huge variety of firms out there. Some firms charge into the thousands of dollars for skillfully crafted and tested slogans. This is out of the price choice of most small business owners. The more appealing choice is the tiny web slogan company. A quick Google search for ‘creative slogans’, reveals multiple companies that fit this bill.
With the attention span of the customer apparently in a stable state of shrinkage, it is of great significance to get your audiences’ attention with an efficient and memorable slogan. Small business owners must consult with a web slogan company to develop a perfectly matched slogan for their business.
Posted in: Financing.
Tagged: small business slogan
