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Business Articles
Trust in the modern marketplace
So you thought that complying with the European Data Privacy Directive -
or Data Protection Act (DPA)) was enough
to make to customer focused and increase your profits? Well, think again,
because since the implementation of the DPA, the issue of trust
has become a major talking point. Why should we be interested in this now;
surely we should always have been trustworthy?
Have you wandered down the high street of a market town lately? What are your thoughts on the state of the offering? One estate agent after another? Overrun with charity shops? Or worse still – empty, boarded up units?
Predicting the future has never been easy, but in business we have certain indicators that provide us with a good idea of what could happen. Companies such as British Telecom employ "futurologists" - not a job the school careers officer usually talks about!
We have all been there - the annual forecasting and budgeting. For accountants the numbers are easy, but for the rest of us, this is where the trouble starts. It is not enough to have to estimate our sales, market penetration over the next 12 months, we also need to do the 'numbers'!
I have always regarded customer insight as the Holy Grail for all businesses. On a one-to-one level, it is customer relationship marketing (CRM) on steroids as it allows you to read between the lines of customer responses and actions.
Death of Trust in the Banking System
The UK financial services sector is the single largest contributor to the UK balance of payments – recent measurement of the sector suggests financial services are now 7% of the economy.