Category: Business Evolution

Game-publisher Ubisoft has announced that it has taken over the Canadian special effects-studio Hybride Technologies. Together they'll work on movie versions of game series.

The Dutch Nationale apotheek (National apothecary) sends products of repeating prescriptions with the mail. This saves the consumer time and health insurance companies money. Since its founding last year 50,000 customers are using the apothecary's services.

Dutch webshop company Eperium has divided its branches neatly across different timezones to be available 24 hours a day. With the opening of the establishment on Curaçao the e-Commerce specialist offers service around the clock. On top of that the exotic location works as a magnet on the rare ITers.

Nespresso brought the costs for its contact center down with 16% with the help of Nortel's automatic speech recognition. Without intermediation of an agent customers can place their order for the small coffee cups. Mother company Nestle processes over 300,000 orders per year. The 180 agents in the contact center in Lausanne receive requests in German, French and Italian. The implemented speech recognition also understands and uses the English language. The system reduces the average waiting period and is active during peak hours.

Movie theatre chain Pathé is placing Sony Playstations in its lobby. This allows movie-goers to enjoy interactive entertainment before or after the movie as well as during the intermission.

Vodafone has taken over ZYB, a mobile social network, as a step towards the implementation of the 'Total Communications'-strategy. Users of ZYB can enter the data on their cell phone as contacts, appointments and messages and save it online. In that vision Vodafone isn't a (mobile) telephone company, but it's all about the contacts in the cell phone.

Thuisbezorgd.nl, the Dutch market leader in home delivered meals, forwards every order on its website by e-mail or fax to the restaurant it is ordered from. ‘At peak times on Sundays we process an average of 1 order per second. Things can go wrong then. A fax can be out of paper, or an e-mail doesn’t arrive. I think that 5 to 10 percent of the orders doesn’t directly get through. That’s why our call center makes follow-up calls for every order.’ (em, Dutch).

Thus Thuisbezorgd.nl changes the food chain. First she creates the market, and makes sure a substantial part of the orders is made through her site. Then software suppliers will come with reservation and order systems connected to the databases of Thuisbezorgd.nl. So that in the end no e-mail or fax will be necessary any more, and information is (almost) always correct. The consumer then can directly see if for example a certain dish is temporarily not available. And of course through Thuisbezorgd.nl, but also through other websites, they will be able to submit their order electronically. With that, we will also get connections with review systems and social networks. And then personal food brands can really come to life.

British broadcaster BBC sells programs through iTunes. Hit series like Little Britain, Spooks en Torchwood can be bought through the British iTunes store. One episode costs 1,89 pound Sterling (2,50 Euros) (bc, Dutch). Thus BBC slowly changes from broadcaster to production company. Programming the night of the media consumer will get less applicable - that task is taken over by personal media brands. In the long run, the government will determine what content is distributed to its citizens, for free (to every world citizen in fact), based on tax money. Paid content however will soon only be applicable for commercial parties who will make very high quality (interactive) content, the basis for the experience economy.

Philips had an internal worldwide CRM database built (mb, Dutch). Nowadays it is harder for brands to reach consumers (send their messages) through today’s media. It becomes more profitable to invest in existing customers, with whom a dialogue can be started, accompanied by their detailed profile. This move of Philips points to that direction.

Dutch professional marketing magazine MarketingTribune and leading Dutch marketing community MarketingFacts (of which I am one of the contributers) have signed a strategic partnership (mf). Publishers transform to be community managers. The community becomes leading, and paper is just a copy for background and entertainment. In the long run MarketingFacts can grow to be a personal career brand for marketers. By bringin together all the news, showing all jobs and all events, and making these relevant for the individual marketer, the personal development of the marketer can be carefully coached. A server the marketer will be willing to pay for (and not so much for the paper he gets in his mailbox at home). I wonder what the new title of the magazine will be (MarketingTribune, Facts from the daily marketing practice?).

Publisher Sanoma has bought Dutch living websites Leadz.nl and Woonwebsite.nl as an extension to their existing websites Woonklussen.nl and Allewoonwinkels.nl. The two newly acquired websites are both aimed at consumers who want to change their house or garden. At Woonwebsite.nl the user can ask for the services of a ‘Realtor’ to find the right contractor for a complete renovation. Leadz.nl is an auction site at which supply and demand for jobs on houses. Consumers can post their jobs, and professional companies can put their offers in.

The Dutch Directorate for Public Works and Water Management ‘Rijkswaterstaat’ want to make maps available for free (em, Dutch). Information will soon be free, everything will be freely available and connected worldwide, so that the physical world becomes completely transparent. Earning money on general information (which is still the foundation of most publishers’ business models) will be impossible. It will be the art to get to know individual consumers in-depth, and present them tailor-made information. Brands who are able to do that, and are even able to get the consumer to (re)act (I call them personal brands), are the strongest brands of the 21st century.

Binck bank sends 8 Mb videos to bloggers, as well as links to videos in a campaign sent via YouTube (I received them myself). Brands discover mavens: people who want to know everything in a certain area. They provide them with the right information, in the right way, at the right time. We used to get press releases of sites going live two days later. That doesn’t make sense: you can’t write about it or link to it. Online journalists are happy with pictures, videos, and live websites. In the end we want to have real-time image communications, as that is most suitable for humans. The campaign by the way wasn’t relevant enough for Mensmerk.nl, but it does deserve a posting because of the way it was done.

Dutch publisher VNU Media has placed displays in its hallway. Until recently, this high wall (probably about 5 meter, or 15 feet) was exclusively covered with magazines. This action will give the employees a sense of moving into a multi-medial direction. Publishers have enormous chances, but if they only keep being proud of the paper, they will keep thinking paper. Although there are still more magazines than displays on the wall, this step illustrates the internal changes at the company.

Cisco has opened its new Globalisation Center East in Bangalore, India. On top op being a center for research, IT and customer service, this location will also be the center for demonstrating the next generation of virtual techniques (think of advanced video conferencing). The Globalisation Center East is the biggest data center outside of the United States (cm, Dutch). While China is fully focusing on production and (product) design, India takes the lead in IT and customer service. The two biggest countries in the world will soon be the numbers 1 and 2 on the list of world economies.