The Christmas break provided a brief respite from the almost continuous stream of negative news about the state of the world economy. As you would expect, it hasn’t taken long for the Christmas cheer to be swiftly replaced with some New Year pessimism!
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) figures released this week confirm what we all knew – growth will be slower, borrowing higher and the recovery will take longer than we had hoped. What fosters even more uncertainty is the fact that the forecasts are based on the assumption that policymakers find a solution to the eurozone sovereign debt crisis. Given that a resolution seems as far away as ever, further downgrades to growth forecasts seem almost certain. (more…)
Given the level of economic uncertainty, the fevered interest in today’s autumn statement came as no surprise. The Chancellor’s political and economic credibility is bound up with sticking to plan A, so any deviation would inevitably be pounced on by his critics as a sign that his plan is not working. It is clear that George Osborne has no intention of abandoning Plan A, but as he will be acutely aware, he has to be seen as doing more than just tackling the deficit. He has to be seen to be going for growth too. (more…)
*For those who attended the session today, as discussed, please feel to add comments below to further the debate*
BAG Open Space Event – How can we grab senior management attention and sell the Quality message
Tuesday 29th November 2011
Facilitator, Jim Wade, The Business Improvement Network
An Open Space gathering organised on behalf of Intellect’s Business Assurance Group by The Business Improvement Network (www.bin.co.uk)
With Chinese wages rising at about 17% per year and the value of the Yuan continuing to increase, the gap between Western countries and Chinese wages is narrowing rapidly. Some analysts overseas expect net labour costs for manufacturing in China and the US to converge by around 2015. After adjustments are made to account for American workers’ relatively higher productivity, wage rates in Chinese cities such as Shanghai and Tianjin are expected to be about only 30% cheaper than rates in low-cost US states. And since wage rates account for 20-30% of a product’s total cost, manufacturing in China will be only 10-15% cheaper than in the US – even before inventory and shipping costs are considered. After those costs are factored in, the total cost advantage will drop to single digits or be erased entirely. (more…)
Following Intellect’s successful 4G Mobile Broadband conference, I would like to thank our speakers and panellists for their enlightening and provoking presentations and insights during the panel discussions.
Our day was kicked off by John Higgins who introduced John Woodget of Intel, followed by H Nwana of Ofcom and Frank Mather of the European Commission.
John Woodget spoke about the service provider sector - particularly the need for the industry to regain leadership. Intel believes this can be facilitated by a number of measures including; swift release of spectrum, development of longer term strategies, regaining international influence and the promotion of UK industry. (more…)
Take a look at any newspaper on any given day at the moment and the narrative focuses on economic matters, more specifically the uncertainty in Western European countries. Markets are dominating the political landscape with profound effect as both Greece and Italy take drastic action and draft in sober-looking technocrats to steady the tiller. Nevertheless, uncertainty remains and the prospect of the dreaded “double-dip” looms large. So how is this affecting the Outsourcing industry?
According to the outsourcing analysts HfS Research, over 40% of corporate IT leaders surveyed in their recent analysis said that a double-dip recession would lead to increased outsourcing. (more…)
With one day until Intellect’s 4G Mobile Broadband Conference in London, O2 have begun 4G trials in London.
These trials represent a significant ramping up of 4G development and signify O2′s serious intent to provide the first 4G service in the UK. Trials are usually performed in areas with low populations and medium radio traffic, allowing data to be captured easily without fear of interfernce. Trials within London represent a serious undertaking both technically and financially by O2. Their customers can expect data reception to devices at around 50 MBits per second or less for the duration of the trial – the current average being 1.5 MBits per second. (more…)
Last night’s Stuff 2011 Awards caused a little bit of a stir in the mainstream press this morning. Apple iPad2 missed out on the headline prize of Gadget of the year making way for the more alternative Asus Eee Pad Transformer. Cynics might say this was a cunning ploy to promote the event, I’ll reserve judgement. However for me, the more significant story of the evening was the winner of the Innovation of the Year, deservedly awarded to OnLive.
For those of you who don’t know, OnLive is the cloud based video game service. It is undoubtedly a game changer for the traditional console market. All you need is your controller, screen and a good broadband connection. You buy your games like you buy your apps on your smartphone, instantly. The service was launched in the UK in September and is expected to experience rapid growth. An interesting question that struck me was how the growth of Cloud services in the fun private consumer sphere can affect its takeup in the Corporate world?
In the business world, Cloud Computing is still the hot topic of the day and Intellect will be addressing the current state of play at our Cloud conference on the 22nd November. However, there are still considerable barriers to adoption in the business world, often with decision makers and CIOs not wanting to take a risk on something new.
In terms of the name itself, Cloud has not been used as much in terms of naming of services. Does the average Gmail user appreciate they are using Software as a Service? Probably not. Whereas in the business world, Cloud is much more ubiquitous. My prediction is that the presence of companies such as OnLive and the success of features such as iCloud on the new iPhone 4S will win people over to cloud-based services in general. In other words, it will become socialised, accepted and legitimised.
It’s been a hectic few weeks in Westminster, both inside the halls of power trying to deal with the Eurozone crisis, and outside said halls where anti-capitalist protesters in designer tents appear to be well on the way to toppling a cathedral that’s been going along happily since 1697.
The debt crisis and its implications are being extensively covered by commentators, and rightly so, but I wanted to take this opportunity to draw attention to a perhaps less well known area of Intellect’s work… (more…)
