Ten years ago the management mantra of the day was all about Doing More With Less. In response talented young bankers were busy building successful careers surfing the concurrent waves of eBusiness and online banking.  

At the same time the industry’s leaders were openly posing the Million Dollar question: Who would we rather have as a customer? The Millionaire driving the BMW or 1o,000 Pensioners?

This was the start of the decade long trend in Retail Banking away from competing on product to competing for relationships.

What followed was a global rush in mergers and acquisitions as each of the industry leaders tried to build the comprehensive Bancassurance model that was needed to service this emerging High Net Wealth Market.

The strategic objective was to profit through stronger relationships.

Different models appeared as each of the industry players either merged or pursued Joint Ventures and Partnerships to achieve their strategic goals of increasing their share of the customer’s wallet and profiting from stronger relationships.

Having successfully acquired or merged with Investment Banks, Funds Managers, Insurance and Advisory Services, Retail Banking now found itself in the Wealth Management Business. Seeking high touch, high value relationships at the expense of the daily grind of managing low value, high maintainance retail transaction accounts.

However, in taking its eyes of its core business, the industry accidentally opened the door to a new type of retail bank experience. Today it is the heavy weights of the retail sector who are providing millions of retail customers with full service, “face to face” Retail Banking.

The idea of Bankers and Retailers coming together to offer customers financial services is not a new concept. Assisting customers with their personal credit has been an integral part of modern retailing since the second world war. What is new is the idea of retailers becoming banks.

The old model was loosely based on a partnership or joint venture model. The retailers provided the outlets and the customers and the financial services industry provided the products and expertise.

In 2007 Wal-Mart put America’s Retail Banks on notice by making an application for a Banking Licence. (See Wal-Mart: Your New Banker?) In response, an industry that had grown complacent on a high fee:low service model, objected strongly to the prospect of an innovate new entrant introducing a new service rigour and pricing accountability to their lucrative market.

Wal-Mart later withdrew the application but as the New York Times reported at the time  it already had the strategies and partnerships in place to provide its customers the  financial products they were seeking without holding a Banking Licence(See At Wal-Mart, a Back Door Into Banking).

Two years later and those same Banks are facing a crisis of confidence of their own making. The Global Financial Meltdown has left a lot of the Retail Banks across the US and the UK seriously exposed.

Today commentators are actively questioning if providing Wal-Mart with a Banking Licence would help to improve the overall performance of the Financial Services Industry in the USA (see National Bank of Wal-Mart?, For Wal-Mart, No Bank Charter Is No Problem and Wal-Mart Can Do Us Good Taking on Bank of America).

Meanwhile, in the UK, Tesco is out to prove that Banking and Mobile Phones are the perfect value add for retail services. It has bought out Royal Bank of Scotland’s share of their Tesco Personal Finance joint venture and has applied for a full banking licence. 

“There is a real gap in the market for a bank which looks after customers in a simple, straightforward way and rewards their loyalty” 
Benny Higgins – Tesco Bank

Take the time to evaluate the presentations available from Tesco’s Investment Center (see Putting Tesco into banking, Banking proposition for Tesco customers, Delivering the customer experience) and you’ll see that Banking now delivers 7.5% of Tesco’s group profits.

Tesco Bank has 6 Million Customer Accounts. About 40% of these accounts are Credit Card Holders which equals just under 8% share of the total UK credit card market. Ironically 65% of Tesco Banking is done online.

Only 10% of Tesco ClubCard members are also credit card holders and so you can see where Tesco believes it needs to focus to achieve its growth targets.

Package Tesco’s Banking, Mobile, Insurance and Online offering together and you’ll discover that these fledgling services now account for 15% of Tesco’s Group Profits.

A brave new world of banking is on the horizon with the biggest industry shake-up for a generation.

The core business of Retail Banking was, and still is, a volume game. Most retail customers have high transaction accounts with small account balances.  The only way to profit from this sector is to increase your fees and/or reduce your costs of doing business. Online banking was, and still is, helping retail banks achieve this. Just as today mobile banking has the potential to deliver even greater savings.

However not all retail banking can be conducted online and there is still the customer satisfaction issues that can only be addressed “face to face”. Retail Banking made a fundamental mistake when it closed branches and tried to outsource the problem of Customer Relationship Management to offshore call centres.

Ten years ago the Global Banking System embarked on a program of mergers and acquisitions while at the same time attempting to do More with Less. In its quest for the high touch, high value relationship with the high net wealth individuals of the world the industry failed to maintain its ongoing relationship with the low touch, low margin, high volume customers who are the “cash cow” of retail banking.

Today the industry faces massive restructuring if it is to emerge from the wreckage of the Global Financial Crisis. It also has to address the growing belief among its retail and business customers that Banks just don’t “get it” anymore.

All this at a time when new market entrants, like Tesco and Wal-Mart, and new mobile payment providers, like Nokia Money and PayPal, are seeking to revolutionise the Retail Financial Services marketplace.

Oh dear oh dear, Tesco’s service went down in my estimation when I could hear a self service machine say ‘your card has been declined’  well it was along those lines!! I was at the cheese section, this is a small store so everyone would have heard this, I couldn’t believe I heard it and thought how embarassing, I’m thinking about it today and hope that I’m just mental and thats not what I heard at all!!!!

Ah well, I hate the fact I self doubt, it’s not the most er assuring but when somehting shocks you that’s just natural!!

O2 will now unlock your iPhone if your contract has expired or you’ve been had a Pay As You Go iPhone for 12 months.

Sine O2 lost exclusively of the iPhone to Orange and Vodafone early next year. O2 have said they will unlock the device.

However it comes with a price, customers will have to pay £15 to get the code to unlock the device.

This makes me believe there must be a similar method, as used on other phones to unlock the device via a code which will be calculated by O2.

Related:
Tesco To Sell iPhone’s Before Christmas
O2 Will Allow Unlock For UK iPhone’s
Orange Release UK iPhone Details
Reports Suggest iPhone 3G Could Be Coming To T-Mobile UK

Phillip Blond, leader of the ResPublica thinktank, has launched an attack on Britain’s supermarkets. Mr Blond is allegedly influential with the Conservative leadership.

Mr Blond suggested that the government should “create new models” for supermarkets’ businesses. He wanted them to charge for their car-parks, and he wants new rules to stop new supermarkets being built.

New rules to stop new stores being built would of course be a big boon to the existing supermarkets, entrenching existing local monopolies and preventing new entrants. It is often believed that the four supermarkets that now lead the pack always did so. That is nonsense. Morrison’s has only in the last few years emerged as a challenger. If Mr Blond’s new rules had been in place, it would have prevented Morrison’s rise, and protected the other three of the current big four from their competition.

I’m not sure what Mr Blond meant by the government “creating new models” for supermarkets. But he should remember that they are private businesses, operating in an intensely competitive industry. A player that weakens even for a short time can find its position under serious threat. Sainsbury’s found that out the hard way over the last few years, although they have now recovered.

The only people creating models for supermarkets should be the supermarkets – responding to the demands of customers. And that is something that they do extremely well. When governments create models for business, they typically mess it up.

Almost everybody buys most of their food in a supermarket. That is not because the supermarkets have those customers in some kind of vice-like grip from which they cannot escape. It is because the supermarkets provide the customers with what they want.

Customers want good service, and the supermarkets provide better service than most small shops.

Customers want cheap prices, and the supermarkets deliver those in spades. They are often able to sell food at cheaper prices than the small shops have to pay to buy in their stock. Which is, of course, because there are big wholesalers acting as middle men in the small shops’ business models – companies like Booker. For some unknown reason nobody ever seems to complain about the profits they make.

Customers want good quality, and the quality controls of the big supermarkets are far superior to those any small shop could espouse.

And customers want to be able to drive to the supermarket, park for free and load their shopping into the car. They haven’t got time or energy to go shopping every day and carry the food back in bags on the bus.

But of course supermarkets screw suppliers, don’t they? Yes, they do. And they themselves are being screwed by their customers – that’s you and me, demanding ever lower prices, ever more choice, ever better stores and ever better service. That’s how markets work.

Mr Blond has apparently described himself as a “Red Tory”. Nope. He’s a socialist.

Just to clarify some of the points I put across last week. At no point did I want to give the impression I was in favour of a reduction in fuel costs; I am in favour of petrol price increases as long as they going to offsetting the damage to the environment they cause. I am not 100% that this is happening as one of the main oil corporations made record profits when everyone else was making record losses, fuel prices were at their highest and jobs were being lost left, right and centre. Anyways, I was merely using this as an example of how our economy is addicted to carbon.

Moving on to the title of the blog… The Anglican Church has got it, last week, they issued a press release encouraging people not to use credit cards over the Christmas period and use cash instead. These principles are in line with those of the CAP Money course; if you can’t afford it don’t buy it. For the full article follow this link: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news/pr10209.html. This really is good advice, it will help you to keep control of your budget and make sure that you are not spending money you don’t have Preventing you from ending up with a massive bill in January that nobody wants to have to deal with. Exciting news of people 9 who became Christians last week, one of them was 86. How amazing is that.

ASDA has now usurped Tesco as worst supermarket of the week, as they have an offer of any 3 items for £5, seems like a pretty simple offer doesn’t it… Trust me it’s not, because you can’t actually have any 3 items, you must have 3 of the same types of item, so raw meat with raw meat and cooked with cooked. Getting the picture? Well how about this curve ball, cheese, ham and Muller rice? I would also like to give Sainsbury an honourable mention as they managed to put Merlot in the fridge and we all know Merlot should only be in the fridge if it is a Rose Merlot. Tesco are not fully exonerated from their sins as they sent me an apology for the repeat email, but they are still not going to switch their own brand coffee to Fair Trade which sucks.

Today I started to swimming training again, as I am planning on doing an open water swim to raise money for CAP in summer 2010 swimming Lake Coniston, in the Lake District. Wasn’t a good start for me as I forgot my goggles, so now I have chronic red-eye!

THIS lunchtime I took part in the BBC Radio Merseyside programme Roger Phillips’ Phone In debate on the Skelmersdale Vision/Kirkby debate.

You can hear my ramblings by clicking here - scroll to around 0:52.16 and you’ll hear me being introduced.

Be warned though, at the end of the interview my dogs decided to put in an ‘appearance’ by barking loudly in the background as the postie had just arrived at that point. They now have the most famous barks in the region!

I decided to save my banana for later.

Tesco Multi Grain crumb eyes with a Tesco Value Banana.

Nota di Pao: Trovo ironico il fatto che in Italia la TNT abbia aderito* al Progetto10×10 di Quattroruote con il quale ci si impegna a ridurre del 10% le emissioni di CO2 dei veicoli e poi in Inghilterra sia inserita nella lista dei più cattivi in assoluto.

* Vedi > http://www.quattroruote.it/eco10×10/azienda_tnt.cfm

°°°

Rimandati a settembre, o forse addirittura bocciati. Questa dovrebbe essere la sorte scolastica di molte aziende inglesi, che dimostrano un atteggiamento ancora troppo poco collaborativo nelle proprie politiche ecologiche.

Secondo una ricerca britannica (promossa da Marketing magazine e Brand Republic, con la collaborazione di ENDS Carbon e l’Università di Edimburgo) dal titolo Brand Emissions che ha coinvolto 600 marchi, molti hanno ancora politiche ambientali lacunose e non pubblicano nemmeno i dati riguardanti le emissioni di gas serra. Ma non c’è limite al peggio e c’è chi addirittura, in tempi di allarme climatico, è riuscito ad aumentare le proprie emissioni di CO2.

Gli insufficienti, a vari livelli, sono circa i due terzi dei marchi più noti che sono molto lontani dall’obiettivo governativo del 2020 di ridurre le emissioni del 20 per cento rispetto al 1990.

Tra i più attenti all’ambiente troviamo Tesco, T-Mobile, Dell, BMW, Eurotunnel, Accenture, Standard Chartered, Ericsson, KPMG, AMD, mentre tra coloro che dimenticano di pubblicare le informazioni ci sono Google, McKinsey e Amazon.

Per ben 320 delle aziende osservate, tra cui Porsche, Harvey Nichols e McDonald’s, non è stato registrato alcun proposito di ridurre le proprie emissioni inquinanti. Inoltre 122 brand, tra cui Barclays, Sky e eBay, sono riusciti addirittura ad aumentare i propri gas serra nel corso del 2008.

Infine ci sono i più cattivi in assoluto, tra cui Acer, Juniper Networks, Billabong International, Finnair, Premier Inn, Costa, Gossard, Aegon, Unisys, TNT, ovvero quelli che sono riusciti nel duplice obiettivo di innalzare le emissioni di anidride carbonica e di non avere alcun proposito di cambiare.

Fonte: www.corriere.it

F&F Collection Animal Sequin Dress

This gorgeous grey sequined animal print dress is perfect for those up-coming Christmas parties.

Tesco’s new online cothing range is full of glitz and glamour with prices that are so cheap, it’s worth buying a whole new wardrobe.

The sequin trend is going from strength to strength so be the envy of your friends and snap up this knee-length wonder for only £12.50 – half price in the current sale!

Available in sizes 8 to 22, team with a waist-cinching belt and some killer heels and get ready to sparkle.

OK it’s not that bad yet but its going that way. I have to admit I am undecided on how I feel about the way the iphone is moving. On the one hand I think that it is a great phone (in most areas) and should be available to all, on the other hand it feels as if the gloss is being rubbed off it.

Part of having an iphone was the wow factor, all those early adopters out there loved showing how the screen bent and zoomed and turned upside down etc, that was amazing at the time. Anyone who had an iphone early will have been centre of attention to the vast majority of people, if only through sheer curiosity to see this famous piece of kit. This video summed it up;

Now everywhere you look there is an iphone hanging off someone’s ear, all the other phone manufacturers have caught up in most of the technology capabilities and overtaken in some, it’s just not as interesting anymore. When the Mini launched everyone loved it but it lost something when Foxtons and now many others adopted it as their car of choice. Seeing an Iphone next to the carrots in Tescos does not feel right, where is the next level of exclusivity and novelty from them?

BMW, like them or loathe them understand this and have always brought out new cars regularly, its annoying if you buy one as it’s ‘an old shape’ very quickly, but they do it for a reason. It means those who want to pay for the latest can do and those who aspire to owning a BMW can get one second hand, BMW keep everyone happy. That said BMW were too successful and the roads are flooded with them, they are the equivalent of the iphone in Tescos.

I still love my iphone, it’s user interface and App store is still second to none but I do hope they bring out something else to wow us before that Apple gloss starts to fade.

I never thought I would say it but I am beginning to get envious of my wife’s Blackberry, now there is a company thats trying hard to bring the wow factor.

All flavours 500ml or £1.99 each. Offer ends 2nd dec

Double clubcard points too!

GOOOD SHITTTTT

Sounds like good news in the UK market ‘opening’ up to more distribution channels for the iPhone. Tesco’s annouced it plans to start selling the iPhone by the end of the year and promised to add value to the market, where prices are stagnating between O2 and Orange.

What this probably means is that Tesco will be just another distributor like the Carphone Warehouse — and so it didn’t seem clear if customers will have a choice of O2 or Orange.

It would be more exciting in the UK if Tesco have made their own deal with Apple to distribute the iPhone and allow customers to connect to the Tesco Mobile MVNO.

Sounds like good news in the UK market ‘opening’ up to more distribution channels for the iPhone. Tesco’s annouced it plans to start selling the iPhone by the end of the year and promised to add value to the market, where prices are stagnating between O2 and Orange.

What this probably means is that Tesco will be just another distributor like the Carphone Warehouse — and so it didn’t seem clear if customers will have a choice of O2 or Orange.

It would be more exciting in the UK if Tesco have made their own deal with Apple to distribute the iPhone and allow customers to connect to the Tesco Mobile MVNO.

If you don’t yet have a contract or an unlocked iPhone, don’t sign up just yet! Now that Orange and Vodaphone are confirmed to have the iPhone on their UK networks (Orange is already offering the iPhone, Vodaphone comes in the New Year) there was a general expectation that we would see price cuts. So far, this hasn’t happened and generally speaking lots of range customers are pretty pissed off about it.

However, that may soon be abut to change. The word is out that Tesco are to sell the iPhone and rumours are that they will have it availble for Christmas. With their reputation for cutting costs and their ambition to expand their mobile phone netwotk presence, we could be abut to see a price war… good news for the consumer and something that will no doubt upset the big network players, especially Vodaphone who will, in effect, be trumped by a supermarket chain, ouch!

Related articles by Zemanta

• UK to get 4th carrier for iPhone (tuaw.com)
• Tesco poised to kick off iPhone price war (telegraph.co.uk)
• Tesco aims to have iPhones in store by Christmas (guardian.co.uk)
• iPhone to be sold by Tesco in the UK, hemorrhages cachet (engadget.com)
• Orange to start UK iPhone sales on November 10 (tuaw.com)
• Tesco To Offer Apple iPhone Too (ubergizmo.com)
• Vodafone nabs iPhone in prelude to UK price war (engadget.com)
• iPhone price war ready to erupt as Orange wins contract for the UK (telegraph.co.uk)

Coming soon to selected branches of Tescos

Supermarket giant Tesco has unveiled plans to begin selling the Moon on a stick in selected stores in the run-up to Christmas, as part of its ongoing drive to obliterate all element of consumer choice by the year 2013.

The news comes in the same week that Tesco announced that it expects to have iPhones available for purchase at reasonable rates over the next month or so and comes as a blow to other leading supermarket chains, all of whom were banking on bumper Christmas results to increase profits.

Asked why Tesco decided that stocking the Moon on a stick in the run up to the festive season was a good idea, Marketing Manager Keith Harold said: “We take great pride in listening to what our customers want. So when one of our customers filled out one the questions on our feedback forms, asking him if there was anything he would like to see in our stores and said: ‘The Moon on a stick’ we knew what we had to do.”

What followed was a mission into outer space, costing many hundreds of billion pounds, which saw Tesco construct a giant towing device, whereupon the Moon was dragged back to Earth to be sold in bite-sized chunks on a stick to consumers.

“The Moon is actually being held in a warehouse in Wapping at the moment.” Harold confirmed, “I mean, sure, people will grumble about the tides being disrupted, the lack of moonlight and that sort of thing – but we’re sure that once our customers have experienced the great value of our Tesco Moon on a stick range, they’ll put all of that behind them. Think of it! The actual moon! On a stick!”

The Tesco Moon on a stick range is expected to be available in selected Tesco stores from December 7th and will see chunks of the Moon available for purchase on a variety of coloured sticks, in a number of shapes and sizes.

“Customers can pick their favourite stick from a number on offer,” Harold said. “We have big, little, fat, thin, pointy, not pointy – something to cater for all tastes. Unfortunately, our moon chunks only come in a sort of metallic grey colour and we can’t really change that.”

In terms of future projects, Harold would not be drawn but did confirm that they would continue to monitor customer feedback. “I had one guy last week saying he wanted a time machine,” he sighed. “What do these people want? The Moon on a…oh, wait.”

At 16 months, my little toddler has only 3 little tooth and another one on the way. Fortunately he has really strong gums so solid food is not really a problem tho he sometimes would take his time chewing on his food. Thus he eats very little quantity of solid food just for snacks. His main intake is still milk.

So running away from the topic, last night at Tesco, we finally came across the trolley that has a baby seat attach to it and this one was VACANT … After 16 months of going back and forth to tesco, this was the first time we got to use it. Hence we, the very excited parents placed Arees on the seat and buckled him up. Arees just sat quietly enjoying the view as we pushed him in the cart. Seronok plak dia

Oh did I mention that I had Prosperity Burger for dinner!!!! however it was not as yummylicious as it use to be!!! The burger reduced in size and the beef patty was just merely covered with black pepper sauce. HAJI BAKHIL TUL!!! I’m gonna taste more prosperity burger at other outlets just to compare. Probably this outlet didn’t maintain its supposed standard. I’m hoping that is the case.

Let’s count with me .. ONE …TWO … THREE!!!!  There are 3 little tooths … *thunder blazing*

When I tell Arees to say “EEEEEEEEEEE”, he says “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!” … tat’s my boy

Strutting himself to onlookers

Cant u see that he just loves this

Sudah gila kereta … didn’t wanna let go of the steering when we wanted to leave …

Tesco will begin selling the Apple iPhone 3G and 3GS before Christmas in a surprise move that may spark a price war.MBT   

The exact pricing and launch date have not been confirmed but Tesco Mobile said that it expected to sell the handset in its stores and via Tesco Direct “shortly”. That means that customers picking up a turkey and a Christmas pudding may also be able to throw an iPhone into their trolley.

The UK’s fastest-growing mobile operator will offer both contract and pay-as-you-go deals. It is still in discussions with Apple about the exact pricing and start date.Mbt sport shoes    

The move is a blow to both Orange and Vodafone, which have fought hard to win the right to sell the handset after O2’s exclusive two-year agreement with Apple lapsed this month.Mbt walking shoes  

With Orange hoping to attract substantial numbers of new customers after launching the iPhone in time for Christmas and Vodafone not able to launch the phone until next year, Tesco’s entry into the market could offer potential new customers a cheaper alternative in the next month.

Tesco’s move will be welcomed by consumers who had hoped that Orange would kick off a price war, only to be disappointed when the operator revealed a pricing structure similar to that offered by O2. However, with Tesco potentially shaking up the market, more people may be able to afford an iPhone.Mbt Chapa

The iPhone move is a coup for Tesco Mobile, 50 per cent owned by O2, which has beaten not only Vodafone, but also T-Mobile and 3, in the race to sell the handset. For O2, the move makes sense as it moves to focus its efforts on the Palm Pre, which it sells on an exclusive basis.

Orange also sells the iPhone in supermarkets through kiosks in Asda.Mbt Lami

Tesco, the UK’s largest retailer, revealed plans last week to strengthen its broadband and fixed-line telecoms positions. It hopes to generate £2 billion in annual sales and £200 million in profit in the medium term.

If you run a business or a marketing and promotions program based on a loyalty card, rewards card, points card, advantage card, club card, credit card or debit card then very soon (if haven’t already) you’ll be thinking about the benefits of migrating your customers to New Plastic.

New Plastic? You guessed it, the Mobile Phone.

Now your “New Plastic” strategy could take shape in one of two ways.

• You could just build lots of Mobile Apps and distribute them to all your members (Thereby adding to the costs of managing the program), or
• You could turn your Loyalty Program Cost Center into a Profit Center by offering your customers the opportunity to sign up to your branded mobile phone network.

Interested in Plan B? Let’s show you how and why you should be thinking about becoming a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO).

First, let’s deal with the obvious question. What is an MVNO?

If you take a look at the diagram of the MobCon value chain below you will see a group of activities called Service Provision (i.e. Customer Care, Billing and Marketing). In this MVNO model a third-party steps in and takes over these functions from Telco and “owns” the retail customer relationship.

What this means is you own the customer and the Telco owns the transport system. You provide your customers with mobile phones and plug them into the Telco’s network. You buy wholesale air time and then bill the customer based on the network data records provided by the Telco.

Sounds simple in theory? Obviously it takes some effort to implement but as you will see much later on the financial benefits can make it worth the effort.

Why would the Telco allow this to happen?

Historically the Telecoms industry has struggled with 3 key aspects of customer relationship management.

Firstly their customer acquisition costs are very high. Secondly they struggle to retain these customers. Customer loyalty is poor and consequently the industry suffers from a high level of churn. Then there is the ongoing problem of billing.

The final problem the telcos face is the Voice problem. Essentially they need to increase ARPU on Data to replace the trend downwards in Voice ARPU.

In a nutshell Telcos are very good at building, maintaining and managing the “Dumb Pipes”. What they are not very good at is Customer Relationship Management.

The reality is any organisation operating an efficient and successful loyalty program can address all these issues of Customer Relationship management more effectively than the Telcos.

To begin with the Loyalty program operator has already resolved the customer acquisition and retention problem. They also have an effective customer service and billing platform. The challenge for the operator of the loyalty program is to add value to that customer loyalty by providing them with goods and services which will help keep the customer sticky and more profitable.

Mobile phones add value, deliver a new revenue stream and provide the perfect platform for mobile communications and mobile web commerce applications.

Properly implemented and managed, the SmartPhone not only becomes the perfect customer loyalty platform it can also add tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars to your bottom line.

The MVNO model is not for everyone. There have been some well documented disasters over the past 5 years. The most notable being Disney and ESPN. (Om Malik’s piece from 2005 A MVNO Train Wreck Coming?)

The most successful global brand in the MVNO space is of course Virgin. In fact Virgin have been so successful in the US that their Telco has just bought them out. (See Sprint buys out Virgin’s US MVNO business for or around $483m).

The other success story is of course Britain’s Tesco. 2.25% of this national grocery retailer’s profit  is now generated by its MVNO business Tesco Telecoms.  Today they are seeking to significantly expand their market reach with their investor announcement of plans to double their profits in the sector by pushing into traditional sectors of the Telco market like broadband and home phones (e.g See the Telegraph’s Tesco plans assault on broadband market, The Times Tesco links with Cable & Wireless in broadband and home phones push and UK Compare Broadband’s Tesco aims to be the new BT) and moving into the premium iPhone market (See TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher: The iPhone comes to Tesco — will a price war follow?)

All this success is prompting retailers around the globe to take a good look at the MNVO model. (See Woolworths (Australia) Launches Its Own Mobile Network and Walmart launching own pre-paid cell plans)

Want to see who is getting it right today? Then start your search here at TelecomPaper.Com . Here you will find an up to date list of the MVNO’s and their Telco partners operating in every market around the globe.

So how do you know if you can get the model right? The simple answer is this.

The EGO:ID of CRM or How to profit from managing the customer lifecycle

If you have the EGO:ID of Customer Relationship Management in place then you are ready to profit from introducing a MNVO loyalty program (See Customers for life?).

The quickest and biggest losers so far in the MVNO market (e.g Disney and ESPN) made a fundamental error of judgement. They thought that content was the hook to build a successful MNVO business. As Virgin proved they were wrong. What you need to succeed is great Customer Relationship Management. Get that right and the rest is relatively easy.

The primacy of CRM in the MVNO Business Model is the reason why the MVNO model is not the answer to the future of Newspaper or Web Portals. Yahoo!, MSN, The New York Times and News Corp may have enormous online traffic but they do not have a relationship intimacy with their customers in the same way that a retailer, bank, hotel chain, rental car or airline may have.

I guess you could say they have followers rather than customers. Sadly,the Disney and ESPN experience proves that these online followers do not easily translate into profitable mobile phone customers.

Hands up all of you who have purchased a mobile phone from Tesco’s.

*keeps on typing*

Nah, me neither.
Irons, yes. Steam cooker, yes. Egg poacher – ah, now that was a bargain, yes.

iPhone?

What?!

Yep, the news is, way before Vodafone get their grubby mitts on the iPhone 3G and 3GS Tesco’s is going to beat them to it. In fact, Tesco’s is looking to sell the iPhone, both pay-as-you-go and Monthly, pre-Christmas.
I’m trying to think of a joke.
It feels like it warrants a joke.
I can’t think of one.

However I did pop on to the Tesco Mobile website to have a closer look – feel free to register your interest here and found the following – which I thought wouldn’t help their sales

£376 *MILLION* bills c/o your kids... Oh & here's iPhone.

Dnes se mi v Tescu opět stalo, že jsem dostal špatnou účtenku.

V Tescu zapomínají odečítat různé slevy a podobně. Pokud si zajdete na infomace je nedostatek neprodleně (asi to není nic neobvyklého) napraven – a pokud se neozvete, tak přispějete vaší oblíbené prodejně.

Je samozřejmě otázka zda je to úmysl (a halíře dělají talíře), nebo zda je to jen neschopnost plánování, každopádně jsem si nevšiml, že by se někdy spletli v můj prospěch.

Entao que eu resolvi retornar a postar aqui (Nao que eu fosse abandonar esse blog, nao mesmo, mas eu realmente nao tinha animo/vontade pra escrever alguma coisa decente aqui).

Estou a quase 4 meses em Dublin, Irlanda, e algumas coisas ja me aconteceram nesse passar de tempo.

Uma delas foi que eu realmente decidi que assim que eu retornar ao Brasil, vou procurar um psicologo. Por que? Minha depressao ta a flor da pele. Qualquer coisa, eu ja comeco a sentir como se estivesse sozinha e abandonada, como se nao tivesse para onde correr e que tudo que eu faco eh meramente figurativo para as pessoas que eu gosto (Nao que nao exista mesmo alguem que nao olha pra nada a nao ser as coisas que eu erro ou que acha que eu erro, mas prefiro nao comentar).

Alem disso minha baixa estima ta OVER 9000!! (Maldita baixa estima! Que poder monstruoso! Mal consigo ver seus movimentos!)

Em resumo basico, eu choro por qualquer coisa, entro em desespero, fico angustiada, me frustro, jogo a culpa do mundo na minhas costas e acredito que sorrir eh para fracos.

Belo modo de aproveitar a Europa, nao acham?

Nao vou dizer que nao estou aproveitando aqui, nem me divertindo, por que seria mentira. Apesar da gripe estar firme e forte aqui, eu to conseguindo me divertir, sair, conhecer novos lugares (Queria ir pra Berlin em Janeiro, mas com essa grime nao me deixando sair de casa, comofas para eu comprar a passagem???), conhecer outras pessoas, falar besteiras, paquerar um pouquinho, aprender a beber (Ops), conversar em ingles e ter um pouco mais de confianca nele, virar uma pessoa responsavel, que paga contas e tem que ficar calculando quanto eu posso gastar por mes pra nao morrer sem dinheiro, comprando as coisas que eu queria comprar (Como esse novo pc (y), teclado irlandes sem acento) e por ai vai.

Nao ando tirando muitas fotos primeiro pq nao tenho passado por muitos lugares diferentes, segundo, aqui SO chove, comofas pra tirar o cell pseudo-novo (Ja vai fazer um ano, vixe!) pra tirar fotos?

Mas vamos tentar olhar outros lados da minha viagem. Como eu disse, nem tudo eh  caos e panico.

Eu moro numa casa agradavel(Terreo e primeiro andar) que eh protegida por um portao eletrico (Que eu acho que metade da populacao Brasileira de Dublin deve saber a senha) e do lado de um rio (Ele tem peixes ate grandinhos, os meninos vivem falando que vao pescar ali ainda). Tem 3 quartos, um eu divido com um Brasileiro, outro que era de um Irlandes, com cama de casal, mas ele se mudou um mes depois deu entrar e dois (agora tres) Brasileiros ocuparam seu lugar e o ultimo eh uma suite bacanildz de um Irlandes muy loco e legal.

Na casa moram, atualmente: Eu (Vanessa), Pedro, Patricia, Bruno, Sabrina e Owen. Porem, durante o final de semana as Au Pair (Babas) bem para ca. Isso aumenta a populacao da casa em 3 (Amanda, Mariana e Tatiana). As vezes eh divertido, mas as vezes eu passo raiva por que perco parte da minha liberdade na casa durante o final de semana…

O unico problema daqui eh quando tem que limpar, eu acho que a Irlanda eh um pais feito de poeira, por que se bobiar, voce acabou de limpar, ja tem poeira infernisando o lugar. O andar dos quartos tem carpete e eu tenho bronquite asmatica (Isso pode ou nao ter algo haver com eu estar pegando gripe a torto e a direito, mas quem sabe?), ai eu acabo limpando a sala. Eu acho, sinceramente, que a gente deveria fazer uma vaquinha e comprar um aspirador de por pra essa casa, mas sei la, neh.

O transporte publico aqui eh bom, os onibus quase nunca se atrasam (Eles tem horario para passar em cada ponto) e aonde eu moro passam varios, entao eh bem facil ir pro centro. Alias, eu moro uns 20 min a pe do centro da cidade, mas com esse frio, nem caminho pra la.

Eu achei a cidade bonita, os predios antigos dao um ar diferente do que estou acostumada no Brasil. Sei la, ainda acho estranho entrar em uma loja de eletronicos onde a fachada lembra aquelas de 1800 e tanto, eh um contraste muito grande, mas que as pessoas aqui nem dao muita bola.

Alias, eh dificil aqui ter construcoes novas. Acho que eh por isso que quando os europeus vao para o Brasil, eles se encantam bastante. O Brasil eh um pais de construcoes novas, tudo parece ter cheiro de novo, se comparado as coisas daqui (Pelo menos em Dublin. Queria ter a oportunidade de ver outros lugares para ter uma opniao bem mais baseada.). As construcoes mais novas que eles tem sao os Shoppings (alguns) e algumas partes da faculdade. Tem partes da cidade que lembram aqueles filmes de comedia romantica ou infatis com as casinhas bonitinhas, uma do lado da outra, praticamente sem muro, onde voce pode olhar para o lado e acenar para o seu vizinho, outras que me faz lembrar estar em um lugar meio rural bem cuidado. E tudo isso em uma cidade pequena (Duvido que Dublin seja muito maior que Brasilia, na real).

Alias, curiosidade: Eles falam que Dublin eh uma cidade grande /rimuito. Perguntei pro meu professor o que ele achava de Sao Paulo e Nova Iorque e ele nao soube dizer hahahahah.

Alias, aqui tem algumas coisas curiosas:

• O interruptor da luz fica do lado de fora do banheiro – Isso mesmo, do lado de fora. Quando eu cheguei, lembro de ter entrado correndo no banheiro e ficar procurando o interruptor no escuro por minutos antes de desistir e usa-lo no escuro. Depois que eu descobri que se ligava a luz por fora.
• Papel higienico se joga no vaso – Todos os papeis higienicos daqui sao biodegradaveis, logo todos eles podem ir tranquilamente junto com o numero 1 ou 2.
• Voce tem que ligar um interruptor especifico para tomar banho – E quase como aquelas casas que a agua eh aquecida a gas e voce tem que acender antes de entrar no banheiro.
• Tesco eh o seu senhor e nada lhe faltara – O mercado mais barato da Irlanda, melhores precos para quem nao pode gastar de mais.
• Nutela grande da marca Tesco eh 1,36 euros – Por isso que toda mulher que vem para a Irlanda perde as esperancas de ficar magra ou manter o peso por muito tempo.
• As marcas genericas dos mercado SAO BOAS – Diferente do Brasil, que voce so compra as coisas derivadas dos mercados se tiver passando necessidade por que sao ruins, aqui as coisas ‘genericas’ dos supermercados sao tao boas quanto os produtos de marca (y) (Reler item do Tesco, tambem valido para alguns produtos da Dunnies).
• As roupas aqui sao baratas – Eu faco a festa na Pennies e na Dunnies com 50 euros, capas de sair com sacolas e sacolas de roupas e acessorios.
• Se voce veio para Irlanda fugir de Brasileiros, esqueca – Nem que voce va so na padaria da esquina, voce VAI encontrar um brasileiro no caminho.

Entao, o que eu lembro sao so esses… hmmmm. Se tiver algo mais, eu posso postar depois.

Hmmm, mais alguma coisa para falar? Ah sim, andei de Limosine Rosa sabado passado e me peguei com um ruivo gato (y). So tenho uma coisa a reclamar: Por que eu sou tao FUCKING timida??? erhjiuogndihvomdnnnl

Nao sei se tenho mais alguma coisa pra falar… Na verdade nao to me lembrando agora, os topicos felizes a cima me fizeram perder qualquer outra coisa que eu tivesse pra falar hahahaha.

Ah, semana passada teve um evento de anime aqui na Irlanda, o Eirtakon. Eu me diverti, foi quase um Espaco Otaku ahaiuhaiuahaiuahiu. Eu nao sei se sao eles que nao tem costume, alias, acho que nao tem mesmo. O evento foi meio fraquinho, pra quem eh acostumado com Kodama e AnimeFriends, quase nao havia estande e os estoques eram muito limitados, mesmo assim comprei algumas coisinhas. <3

A artist alley deles tambem era meio fraca, apesar deu ter achado uma das minas que eu do watch no DeviantArt. <3~

Alias, esser final de semana tem VGL Ireland <3<3<3 Eu to na primeira fileira, de frente para o palco! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH *Risada maligna do Larhal*.

Quem sabe depois eu nao venho falar como foi?? =3

Bem, agora acredito que nao tenha mais nada pra falar mesmo. Ate mais o/

UK supermarket giant, Tesco, has unveiled that they will start to sell iPhone’s this year. Offering ‘competivie contract prices’. A spokesman for the firm said that it hoped to offer the phone “in time for Christmas”. They have not yet revealed tariffs but are offering “competitive prices”.

Tesco has now joined the iPhone party: O2, Orange, Vodafone and now Tesco will sell both the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. Orange said that they had sold more than 30,000 handsets on its first day of release.

The phone will still be running on O2 as Tesco Mobile and O2 are in a joint venture. You will be able to get the phones both on contract and pay as you go.

Image Source: http://kollin.hu/amazingplaces

This week on the Inovis UK blog, Tracey Robertson wrote two more posts that are worthy of a quick read through:

• It’ll all end in tears – In this post, Tracey provides some pointers on how to avoid charges, undelivered or incorrect orders and delivery, unpaid invoices or even being dropped as  a supplier.

• It’s enough to make anyone have a lie down – Tracey’s second post of the week discusses a recent mistake Tesco made recently when they paid almost £1 million for six bikes which should have cost less than £1000.”
  

To read these blogs and other blogs from our favorite UK bloggers, click here.

Study of 600 brands finds two-thirds are either increasing emissions, have weak targets on cuts or do not publish data

Having just posted about McDonalds supposed new ‘green’ image I thought this was a good followup.

Consumer expectations that favourite brands are actively tackling climate change will be challenged tomorrow by a report showing that some of Britain’s top corporate names, including Barclays, Amazon and Sky, are lagging behind their competitors and failing to respond to the lead set by the government.

A survey of the carbon performance of 600 of the UK’s biggest brands reveals that two-thirds are either increasing their greenhouse gas emissions, have targets that are weaker than the government’s Copenhagen goal for carbon cuts, or are failing to put information about their carbon emissions in the public domain.

To tackle global warming the government has set a national target for 2020 of a cut of 34% on the 1990 emission levels.

The companies offered their own information for the survey, entitled Brand Emissions, and the data revealed that only one in five brands was demonstrating a reduction in emissions and had ambitious targets in line with the UK’s aims.

The “leaders” emerging from the research included the supermarket giant Tesco, the phone company T-Mobile, the computer company Dell and the car manufacturer BMW.

At the other end of the scale, and for 250 brands, researchers found no carbon emissions information at all reported; this group included Google, McKinsey and Amazon. There were no public emission reduction targets for 320 brands, including Porsche, Harvey Nichols and McDonald’s. Around 122 of the brands that did report their carbon output were seen to have increased their emissions in 2008. This group included Barclays, Sky and eBay.

The project, launched tomorrow,was developed by Marketing magazine and Brand Republic, with ENDS Carbon, a specialist carbon ratings agency, and the University of Edinburgh business school. The aim is to give an annual rating of leading UK brands.

Craig Mackenzie, research director of the Brand Emissions project, said: “The 100 or so leading brands show just how much can be done if you set your mind to it. But to keep global temperatures within the 2°C safe zone we need all brands to demonstrate the same level of ambition and achievement.”

Rachael Stilwell, publishing director of Marketing magazine, said: “These results will become an important reputational milestone for brands.”

Some of the companies that had a poor rating said revealing information could have been beneficial to their competitors. A spokesperson for Google, which claims to have been carbon neutral since 2007, said: “We have taken concrete steps to improve the efficiency of our computing infrastructure and reduce the energy used by our facilities.

Friends of the Earth’s Mike Childs said: “The government must ensure that businesses cut their carbon emissions through well-targeted regulation, taxation and financial support.”

Best brands

Tesco, T-Mobile, Dell, BMW, Eurotunnel, Accenture, Standard Chartered, Ericsson, KPMG, AMD

Worst brands

Barclays, Sky, correcteBay, Toyota, RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland), Travis Perkins, Bosch, Axa, British Gas

No information or targets

Google, McKinsey, Amazon, Porsche, Harvey Nichols, McDonald’s, Amazon, Burger King, Chanel, Facebook

Brands that increased their emissions last year and have not published a target to reduce them

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