well, before I start I have to explain that the term “second” here is equivalent to “another”. To be more specific, it is the bank’s second major strategic move to enter the lower retail banking market. One of German leading financial institutions, the Deutsche Bank, has started its associated company “Norisbank” to enter the German market [...]

If you just wondered what on earth ‚Evonik’ might be, I have already brought my message across. Evonik is the brand-new name of a very old German industrial group, formerly known as Ruhrkohle AG. Ruhrkole AG, or briefly RAG, has just separated its activities into two different businesses: the mining business will remain branded as [...]

As one can notice in terms of missing new posts, we have been on vacation for the last weeks. During out stay in Canada, we “had the opportunity” (of course!) to enjoy commercials. One was really worth to keep in mind. It’s a commercial from Subaru for the car Impreza WRX 2008. Four German engineers [...]

A word in advance: I have no idea if this is a special German phenomenon or if these parties are popular in other countries too. There is a concept called “Ü-30 Party” (an abbreviation from “Über 30”, roughly translated as 30-something party) here in Germany for about a decade. These are parties that are targeted [...]

I made a quick and dirty competitor benchmarking today in the office. This was a spontaneous idea when I worked on the profile of one of my company’s competitors. When doing this I realised how many buzzwords this company used to describe how great it is and why customers should do business with this company [...]

A couple of weeks ago I posted my concerns about Sony and its DSLR business activities. This week “Sonys camera strategy” was presented in a German PC Magazin “CHIP” (June special edition “Foto Video digital” 2007). Takashi Kondo (Vice President Digital Imaging Sony Europe) explained some of Sony’s business concepts. According to him Sony regularly reviews [...]

We experienced some examples of excellent customer relationship management during our vacation on Majorca last week. The funny thing is, that most of these experiences probably were not even intended to be something like “superior customer service” or “activities to increase customer loyalty”. To fully understand our “customer experiences” you need to know that we [...]

I really like this: Lebanon’s First National Bank offers Loans for Plastic Surgery. With the slogan “Beauty is no longer a luxury….  With FNB’s Plastic Surgery Loan you can cover all your Plastic Surgery operations and Orthodontics” they offer loans from USD 500 to USD 5,000. All you need is a certain minimum salary. I [...]

What distinguishes an “average product” from a “high class product” or service? Robert Reppa and Evan Hirsch (2007) argue that superb service is the crucial ingredient of successful high-end brands. In their previous article “The Luxury touch” REPPA and HIRSCH present four major principles to deliver customer satisfaction year after year.

Recently I have started to analyse the options to “upgrade” my analogue SLR camera. To be more precisely: to buy a digital SLR camera. Actually that should be a simple decision. We have a Minolta SLR (Dynax 700 SI) that we bought in Canada more than a decade ago. Over time we have added some accessories [...]