TrendTracker: The future is likely to be the age of virtual businesses. The newly opened two-person office will be able to look big, established, and successful. Build a really good website, toss in some color printers, fast computers, and cell phones, and you’re halfway there. After that, it’s a question of leveraging your creativity and ability to partner with other […]
Trend: Small Businesses go Virtual
Business Plans — The Inside Scoop
smallbusinesses.blogspot.com: “Entrepreneurs can be tempted to “push” the financials to show more value than can be supported. That’s especially true in service and technology businesses. For example, Internet entrepreneurs have a hard time valuing Internet traffic in a business plan. During the days of the dotcom boom, traffic tended to be overvalued. Today at least the overvaluation is gone. But […]
Mobile Graphical Content
Adverblog: A study by IDC (U.S. Wireless Wallpaper and Graphical Content 2004-2008 Forecast) reveals that graphical content has emerged in 2004 as the fastest-growing mass market for wireless data in the United States. The business, which includes wallpapers, caller ID graphics and screensavers, should grow from just under $150 million this year to over $1.1 billion by 2008. Despite this […]
2005’s New Business Ideas
Entrepreneur.com: From high-tech clothes to wine, eBay drop-off stores to tech security, the business ideas on our 2005 hot list run the gamut. But they have one thing in common: They’re sizzling hot and just waiting for you to bring them to life. 13 Hot Businesses for 2005 [Entrepreneur.com]
Customized Luxury
Having a branded product isn’t enough these days for the truly affluent. Apparently, there is a new trend in fashion where rich customers are seeking out unusual, personalised products that suit their wimps and fancies. Luxury brands from Gucci to Goyard are tapping on this new trend and offering personalized touches that allow customers to choose the color, fabric and […]
Teen Market
According to the New York Times, more retailers are rushing to take advantage of what has become a $17 billion market for room furnishings designed to appeal directly to school-age youths. It is a market, said Michael Wood, a vice president at Teenage Research Unlimited, that has “really exploded in the last two years.” And instead of leaving furnishing decisions […]
How To Keep Your Employees Happy
Genencor International, a US-based biotech company, has an ingeniuous way to keep its thousands of employees happy and productive: by allowing them to design their own headquarters. Fast Company reports: Genencor International’s headquarters in Palo Alto are the physical manifestation of what happens when you effectively transform employees into designers of their own work environment. The 1,260-employee, $380 million company, […]
Digital Homes
According to this Reuters article, Microsoft and dozens of other big-name technology companies, from France’s Alcatel to Japan’s Sony Corp to chipmakers like Intel Corp, are betting that big money can be made in the years ahead by changing forever the way that news, entertainment and information reach consumers: digitally, and over the Internet. “It’s all about giving consumers the […]
Small Boutique Hotels
Small Business Trends reports on a new trend in the tourism market: the emergence of small boutique hotels that compete against large hotel chains by offering a unique vacation experience. In the article, General Manager of The Hibernation Station, Zack Paul, is quoted as saying: “A small steady migration is taking place toward privatizing hotels. Hotels that have been part […]
Where Technology is Heading
The major affluent tech markets are maturing, with sales getting more sluggish by the years. Undoubtedly, the new growth markets will be those of China, India, Thailand, Brazil, and so on. With the masses in such countries getting richer, a golden opportunity presents itself in the developing world for tech companies to cash in on the new big wave. Business […]