Industry News

June 21, 2012 The Age The best places to work Kayaks and massages, flu packs and subsidised canteens – just some of the reasons why software and IT companies are some of the best Australian workplaces, according to business magazine BRW. After researching 291 workplaces and 68,005 employees, BRW and the Great Place To Work Institute Australia have announced Melbourne-based IT consultancy OBS as top of the 2012 BRW Best Places to Work list. NetApp and Google came in at number two and three, respectively. A combination of transparency, skill, pride and fun has seen OBS named among the nation’s 10 most desirable workplaces each year since the BRW awards began in 2009. Andy Neumann, OBS managing director, said: “The point of being a great place to work is that you have to be able to produce that environment consistently. You can’t just achieve a set of conditions and forget…

Ian McIlwraith June 25, 2012 The Age If you were busy watching banks and fund managers happily dak Billabong International in its capital raising last week, you may have missed seeing some canny investors snuggling up to Pillow Pets-licencee Funtastic’s $24.6 million issue. The $6.8 million placement has been done, and Insider understands that the $13.4 million accelerated institutional offer was bedded down over the weekend, with investors like Simon Marais’ Allan Gray stepping in to take up the shortfall from those fund managers that did not want to play. Unlike Billabong’s hugely dilutive, heavily-discounted share offering, Funtastic was asking investors to stump for only one share in every three that they already owned and pitched the offer at 14.5 cents — a discount of less than 10 per cent to the market. The difference between the two companies, apart from scale, seems to be that Funtastic is showing tangible…

CSD Staff Jun 13, 2012 Traditional gasoline and c-store brands continue to sell the most gasoline, but consumers are increasing their tendency to fuel-up at grocers or warehouse retailers. A survey of 4,500 consumers, completed by Market Force Information, reports that Costco and Kroger are consumers’ favorite places to fill their gas tanks as of April 2012. The survey found that Shell, Costco and Kroger are top-picks for fuel among Americans. Consumers reported they stop at gas stations and c-stores based on location and availability. Both warehouse retailers and grocers are growing in sales and profits for the gasoline category, creating more competition for c-store and gas station operators. Although 56% surveyed said they visit national gas station brands to fill up, one-third (32%) stop at mass retailers and grocery stores, instead. The survey also found that convenience and price are top drivers for how consumers choose where to get…

Jun 12, 2012 CSNews WASHINGTON, D.C. — When it comes to consumers “following” retailers on social media sites, Facebook and Twitter are not No. 1. Instead, it’s Pinterest, according to the 2012 Social and Mobile Commerce Study. According to the study, a joint research project conducted by Shop.org, comScore and The Partnering Group, online U.S. consumers follow an average of 9.3 retail companies on Pinterest, compared to 8.5 retailers on Twitter and 6.9 on Facebook. “Retailers have done a commendable job embracing social media — engaging their customers where it makes sense while keeping their brand relevant, interesting, appealing and exciting on each platform,” said Shop.org Executive Director Vicki Cantrell. “Specifically, Pinterest has given retailers another channel to ‘listen’ to and interact with both existing and new customers, telling an ongoing visual story through images of their products and their brand ‘spirit,’ a story that customers can then tell again…

STEPHANIE STROM June 12, 2012 New York Times Frito-Lay has long dominated the snack-food business by relentlessly focusing on the middle swath of America that eats chips and pretzels and party mix without regard to the effect on the waistline. Now, though, Frito-Lay, a unit of PepsiCo, is building a “company within a company” to pursue what might be called a 1 percent-99 percent strategy: creating high-end snacks as well as those that appeal to what it diplomatically calls “value” customers. The effort is all about what Tom Greco, president of Frito-Lay North America, has called the “bifurcation” of American snackaholics. By that, he meant that “the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer,” said Ann Mukherjee, chief marketing officer at Frito-Lay North America. “Demographics, the aging population and changing ethnic mix, and bifurcating income are the trends reshaping the way people are eating,” Ms. Mukherjee said.…

Bruce Kasanoff & Michael Hinshaw 06-04-2012 This article is written by a member of our expert contributor community. Fast Company Massive disruption is coming, and the only question is whether your firm is going to cause it or fall victim to it. Disruption is not easy–either to create or to confront. We have no illusions about that. But in the spirit of helping established firms best serve their customers, we offer seven ways your firm could disrupt its own industry, raising the standards of customer experience and creating new opportunities for growth: 1) Totally eliminate your industry’s persistent customer pain points. Each industry has practices that drive customers crazy. Technology providers drive customers crazy with technical support that often requires long waits on hold and hopelessly complex interactions (“Just find the serial number on the back of your device and type that into the space provided along with your IP…