I, like many others, was sad to learn of the hundreds of jobs lost when Australia’s biggest steel maker, BlueScope Steel announced the closure of its Port Kembla, NSW steelworks and its Western Port steel mill at Hastings just outside Melbourne.
Since then we have heard a litany of responses sheeting home the blame at everything from the high Australian dollar to the failure of Government to insist on Australian content clauses in resource contracts. During the debate we heard from many Australian engineering companies and smaller operators who should be prospering from the resources boom and are obviously not.
Explore our historical blog articles for nuggets of wisdom (and random musings) from our crew.
I guess it’s true that retailers and I just don’t see eye to eye. Like a hungry stomach, I hear the grizzling mumbles of so many dissatisfied voices all bemoaning the fact that for one reason or another the retail business is on its last knees. Onliners have usurped their customers; shopping hours are too long, or too short depending on who you talk with; the GFC has robbed them of their bread and butter and margins are lower than a snake’s armpit.
Continuing from my rant last month about the lack of personalised email marketing, this time I’d like to delve into some of the smaller (but very important) elements of managing an email database: thankyou pages, double (and triple) opt ins, and auto responders.
It’s easy to criticise the failure of an idea after the event, but every now and again we are alerted to a situation where business is guilty of massive error. For instance, I cannot for the life of me understand why, some ten years ago the board of Coke gave a marketer the freedom to change the flavour of the world’s most popular drink. You’ll recall they attempted to change the flavour to ‘cherry’, and what a veritable cod’s head Coke made of that.
Business name registration is one of the most complicated parts of creating a business, and up until now its been managed differently across each state in the country, making it even more complicated. Very soon, however, this could all be changing with a national business name registrations system.
“If you build it – they will come” and they did – according to the movie ‘Field of Dreams’. Sadly, being in business is no longer akin to the miracles of a Hollywood fantasy. Today, building a business is recognised as a tough assignment and we are constantly being told “it begins at the first stages of preparation”.
As a big fan of cider, I’ve watched with interest the recent revival in this category. I can’t put my finger on what exactly triggered it, but cider has reinvented itself in a big way. There are so many more brands on the market, and the cider drinker is no longer just a beer-averse female. Cider is making an impact on beer drinking territory across Australia, and it’s not slowing down.