The Boothroyd Room in Portcullis House in Westminster was an emotive place yesterday. It was the venue for the UK parliament’s, Public Accounts Committee, to interview on the record, leaders from Starbucks, Amazon, and Google on the taxation of multinational corporations. Whilst this is obviously an emotive subject, the element of the discussion that I was surprised…
You would have to have been isolated in a bunker for the last few years to have missed the number of natural disasters that have happened. It can be debated whether they are becoming more frequent or more violent, however, what is indisputable is that the impact of these natural shocks is of greater significance and impact on global…
As Apple fans the world over waited for the release of the iPhone 5 last month the focus was really on the hardware as most of the new features of the next release of the iOS6 operating system had been publicized already. In general there have been no real issues with the new hardware this time round,…
Through the ages children the world over have used storytelling and game playing to learn and develop knowledge and judgement. Yet in everyday business we see so little focus on its use to help make sense of the increasingly complex and interlinked world that we live in. Latitude Research, who help clients create engaging content,…
As anyone who has worked in a consultancy, law firm, accountancy practice, or the like will know only too well, to keep your position you have to bill as many hours as possible. Managing a firm that runs a consultancy or partnership model relies on balancing order intake, sales, utilisation, and margin. Order intake and its…
With all of the publicity around insurance or legal referral fees earlier in the year it won’t surprise many people that the insurance industry is one of the largest spenders on legal services in the UK, about £5Bn pa, 20% of the market. Unless you’re in the legal services industry though it’s likely that the…
I listened to an interesting interview recently about a new service which brings airline style ticket pricing to restaurant booking. We are all used to seeing the cost of an airline ticket fluctuating with demand. What is going on in the background in simple terms is that the airline, with a fixed supply (i.e. number of seats), …
There have been many column inches spent over the last week discussing General Motor’s decision to move from an outsourced model to an insourced model in relation to its IT. What drives much of the debate is the skills agenda and can GM manage the transition. If you look at the reasons that GM gave…
Do you remember careers guidance when you were at school? If you were lucky enough to get any then it was likely bite-size in nature. You either knew what you wanted to become, or you had no idea. In which case the 10 minute chat didn’t add any depth to your decision making and the…
If you think back to the 80’s you’ll probably think of the music of Queen, Madonna, Prince and Duran Duran, you may well have gone to the Live Aid concert and the most technologically advanced device in your house was a Walkman! You may have seen and touched a PC for the first time. What…