Back in his pomp Lord Sugar was a genius at developing products for the mass market… One of his many successful strategies was to create the perfect product for the time at a disruptive price point, and then bring out an enhanced model priced at a reasonable premium. As with their first computer. The Amstrad

Creating the right culture in your business is critical… Personally, I don’t think many people rank its importance, but if you don’t get it right it can bring an organisation down, no matter their size. AOL Time Warner is the perfect example: At the end of 1999 AOL had 22 million subscribers and were valued

Good day… Depressed with another lockdown? Our first business book review of the year might help. Its Ant Middleton’s new book ‘Zero Negativity’. It’s his third book after ‘First Man In’ & ‘The Fear Bubble’, which were both excellent 5 star reads. You might think – what does Ant Middleton know about zero negativity and

The story of Greggs is amazing… Founded by John Gregg as a Tyneside bakery in 1939. It opened its first shop in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne in 1951. When John Gregg died in 1964, the bakery was taken over by his son, Ian Gregg (who wrote a book about Greggs in 2013), assisted by his

It’s time for another time loop journey in the revolving door, spin dryer or Dr Who’s Tardis… Reminding us of the brilliant 1993 film Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray (due to a severe snow storm) gets stuck in a time loop, continuously waking up at the start of the same day. Bill initially used each

Even Christmas didn’t stop our customers planting trees… Why? Our customers agreed 20 more home and office technology solutions in December. planting 20 more trees. You are truly amazing. Thank you SOOO much. Individuals, business & organisations who sign up to any of our print & scan technology solutions, internet phone packages or laptop with Microsoft Office 365 bundles. Get

The last business book review of 2020 will take you on Ray Kroc’s roller-coaster ride of a lifetime… His book ‘Grinding it out’ (written by Kroc) is not just about the making of McDonald’s, it’s also about the longest period of his life before the McDonald’s opportunity came along. I can imagine not a lot

During the UK’s darkest days… Churchill returned to his old school Harrow to give an inspiring commencement speech. Before the speech, the headmaster looked worrying across at Churchill, who had fallen asleep, and stayed that way for most of the ceremony. But when introduced, Churchill made his way to podium, looked out over the students,

According to Bloomberg the top 5 leaders in driverless cars are… Waymo Cruise Argo AI Aurora Aptiv Waymo. Is the self-driving car division of Alphabet Inc, which is the holding company for Google and many other former Google subsidiaries. Why Google split like this, we’ll explain another day. It’s thought Waymo remains ahead of the competition by

Good day… This week’s business book review follows on from ‘Good to Great’ (reviewed in November), which details how good companies became great, and sustained it for years. ‘How the Mighty Fall’ also written by Jim Collins, investigates why these once mighty companies (some even in the last book) suddenly start to crumble and even

Do you remember Zenith personal computers from the 80’s? They grew massive and became the 2nd biggest maker of IBM compatible personal computers, and could have become the DELL, HP, or Lenovo of today. But what stopped them? Well, they’ve got an interesting back story, which many don’t realise. In the 40’s eccentric mastermind Commander

Sometimes you’ve just got to know when to quit doing the same old things… Back in the 70’s Intel had 80% market share of the DRAM (dynamic random accessory memory) industry, and it accounted for 90% of their revenues. But due to strong competition from the East (who would copy and undercut Intel’s new releases

Techstars is a worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed… It was co-founded in 2006 by David Cohen & Brad Field, both of which are experienced technology entrepreneurs and serial investors. With the aim to provide first-time entrepreneurs with the tools, insights, and experiences of successful founders and mentors to help them do more faster. Today’s

2 brothers (born in Russia & brought up in New York) wanted to start a cloud hosting business… But to grow at scale, they needed investment, so they applied to join TechStars programme, which help tech ideas succeed. TechStars co-founder (David Cohen) originally laughed at their idea saying, “Rackspace & Amazon already dominate this market,

The realm of business may seem one that narrowly escapes the reach of creative writing… Oftentimes one’s perception of writing for business is cordoned off by a succinct, “Dear XXXXX, I am writing to inform you of XXXXX.” Whilst this traditional, formal, and economical style of writing certainly has a place in the concise, fast-paced