Business to Business News

Direct Mail has been in the news recently with one or two major players that have been competing for the quickest and best methods of getting mail directly to your final goal as quick as possible. Now the main players in the industry like Royal mail and UPS are trying to dominate the whole industry but there are thousands of firms that do Direct Mail and they seem to be offering a lot better deals than the major players like cheaper costs or faster delivery times with a money back guarantee if they don’t get it there in the allocated time. I will always use these sort of companies if I need something delivering and its a absolute cert that I need it there, for instance by the next day before 12. Why would anyone use a company like Royal mail if there cant offer the same guarantees and charge more for it, so my recommendation would be look around if you need Direct Mail.

BT, in its serious bid to cut costs, is all set to axe 10,000 more jobs and slash final dividend up to 60%.

It is going to announce write-downs of more than £1.5 billion and scaling back of dividend next month when its preliminary results will be made public. It is cutting costs and trying to turnaround Global Services Division.

The job cuts, in addition to 10,000 it already chopped during last year, will be carried out across 150,000-member global workforce. BT had freezed salaries of 85,000 UK staff and senior management, only last month.

The company’s share prices, which tumbled to 81p, reduced BT’s worth to £6.3 billion and preliminary results next month are likely to be worst in its history. City analysts believe BT could further axe additional 12,000 jobs.

A poor performance by its Global Services Division, provider of telecom and IT services to government bodies and multinational companies, has adversely affected BT’s results. Its full-year profits will also be down due to payments of pension deficit of £8 billion.

Global Services suffered operating loss of £501 million in third quarter, as against profit of £22 million last year. Overspending on 3 contracts out of total 17, has led to loss of £336 million. Two contracts with Reuter and NHS are expected to result in loss of “hundreds of millions of pounds” in the fourth quarter.

Ian Livingston, chief executive of BT, who took over the reins in June 2008, claimed that company has proposed major changes in management and was making significant changes in business operations and finance.

Vodafone announced redundancy of 500 jobs in the UK as part of stringent measures to minimise costs.

The cuts from 10,000-strong workforce of the UK, is aimed at £1 billion of savings worldwide in next 2 years up to March 2011. Read the rest of this entry »

It sound like a simple task, but picking the right kind of phones for your company can be difficult. If it’s mobiles do you go for a smartphone such as the Palm Treo 700wx or for a simple yet sophisticated looking phone like the Nokia 6500 Classic. If it’s the landline phones you need to decide whether you need a full-blown communication service or just a simple phone and fax combination.

First of all is to determine the size of your business and relate that to how much communication you need to keep control of. Smaller businesses can get away with opting for cheaper low-end phone systems, while larger companies might be better opting for more intelligent and feature-rich services.

Another step is deciding what the communication level needs to be. If it is more technological, devices capable of handling emails and PC functions like the Palm Treo 700wx. otherwise, getting a phone that looks sleek and professional like the Nokia 6500 Classic might be a more ideal approach, it has plenty of features without looking big and clunky.

just remember not to rush and buy the first phones you see or the cheapest. Conversely don’t go for a phone system that does everything and costs ten times as much as the phone that does exactly what you need.

UK’s largest telecom company, BT, is joining the rush to trim down employee strength as a measure against economic slide. The BT chief insisted that group would have to face the coming downturn with hard measures.

BT will be cutting 10,000 jobs, 6% of its global strength, bringing total job losses figure in the UK to 20,000 in this week and giving another jolt to the country’s economy.

BT’s news of job cuts and 11% fall in profits in the second quarter was accompanied by more bad news from Britain’s manufacturing industry. The digger company, JCB, announce an output cut of 33% with reduction of 400 jobs. Another big manufacturer of trucks, Leyland, announced an extended shut-down of plant and elimination of 250 jobs due to big decline in demand.

News of production cuts and job losses have continued pouring in, reflecting on worsening condition of economy which has created panic in the industry. Virgin Media is planning to remove 2,200 workers, while Yell announced the removal of 1,300 staff. Thousands of Vodafone’s employees across Europe will be losing their jobs after it launched an initiative for cost saving worth £1bn.

4,000 employees for BT have already left the company and a remaining 6,000 from among 50,000 contract workers will leave by March, 2009. About 6,000 employees retire from the jobs every year and there are plans by the company, which once employed 250,000 people, not to fill these posts in future.

A surprise warning by BT on its profits made its shares lose almost a fifth of their value.

Telecom giant‘s division which provides services to multinational companies did not achieve targets. Although Global Services division continued growing strongly, it’s below expectation cost savings affected earnings.

BT also attributed adverse impact to the decline in UK business of higher margins. The overall impact would result in slight fall in group’s expected earnings of the second quarter.

BT claimed that its other divisions including BT Retail were doing well and results were expected to be in line with targets or ahead.

The group’s chief executive Ian Livingston, who took over in June, stated that BT’s performance was as per expectations in all divisions except BT Global Services. He acknowledged that division’s performance was unsatisfactory and BT was committed to rectify the situation through decisive actions.

He declared that new management at Global Services would accelerate implementation of measures for cost efficiency and improvement of margins.

A range of international companies including news and information group Reuters and consumer products company Unilever receive global communication services from Global Services division.

Division’s revenues increased by 15% year-on-year basis in second quarter with expansion of services to China and India, but BT warned that these earnings of £120m would be significantly below expectations.

Vodafone clinched second major deal in Africa by buying 70 per cent stake in Ghana Telecom for $900m (£454m). The Ghana government is likely to retain 30 per cent stake. The Ghanaian group has been valued at $1.3bn. Ghana Telecom is country’s third largest mobile operator. It holds 90 per cent of retail broadband market and is the biggest provider of fixed line in Ghana.

Vodafone is pursuing its policy of expansion in emerging economies. The domestic mobile market has already saturated. The low penetration of mobile in Ghana will provide very good prospects of business growth for Vodafone. 50% of Ghana’s 24 million population is below 25 years of age. It recorded an impressive GDP growth of 6.3 per cent and the recent oil field discoveries have provided impetus to its development activities.

Ghana Telecom will expand its network with investment of $500m in infrastructure in next five years, while targeting an increase of 8 per cent in mobile market share from existing 17 per cent.

Arun Sarin, chief executive of Vodafone, described Ghana as the most attractive market in Africa and hoped that Vodafone’s investment will generate substantial benefits for Ghanaian economy and Vodafone. He is delighted to work in partnership with the government of Ghana. Vodafone has the vast base of 37 million customers across eight countries in Africa.

Apple’s exclusive UK mobile phone partner O2 is running out of stock for customers who want to place advance orders for 3G iPhone. It is supposed to go on general sale from Friday. 3G iPhone was available for online booking on O2 website from 8.00 a.m. onwards. But due to heavy traffic the website crashed within the first hour and O2 ran out of stock in the afternoon.

Carphone Warehouse, the only independent retailer in the UK informed that it has stocks available for new O2 customers for pre-order. Upgrading of O2 handset to a new 3G iPhone will commence only after Friday.
O2’s rivals are considering the short supply as a ploy to add hype to the Friday launch. It is a fact that company used similar tactics when it staged a high-profile music act at London’s O2 arena.

O2 refuted the rival’s speculations by saying that half the quantity of phones it ordered was availed by the pre-order customers. It did not reveal the total number of handsets it plans to stock. As per O2’s claims it has more than 200,000 registrations for 3G iPhone. It had 35,000 registrations for the existing version before it went on sale. According to Carphone Warehouse, interest in 3G iPhone is 10 times more than it was for the last version launched in November 2007.

T-Mobile is going on the offensive in Britain’s mobile phone market. The firm lags in fourth place, and is trying hard to repeat its success of a couple of years ago with Flext tariffs that won customers from Orange, Vodafone and O2.

The new offer covers their £30-a-month deals for the solo service that has a 30-day rolling contract as well as Combi. Solo is a ‘sim-only’ deal. Vodafone and O2 have managed significant success with such sim-only offers that do not comprise a new handset. The T-Mobile guarantee is bound to increase competition in this segment of the mobile market.

T-Mobile’s Solo customers for £30 a month receive 1,400 minutes plus unlimited texts. Combi users receive 700 minutes plus unlimited texts. UK chief executive Jim Hyde stated, “For many of our customers, minutes do matter. The biggest application of mobile still remains voice, and for those customers a big pain point is ‘I signed up for a tariff last week and now there is a better offer with more minutes for same money’. What we state is, for the lifetime of your relationship with us, on either our Combi tariff or our Solo tariff, you will not find more minutes for £30. If you do, tell us and we will meet or beat it.”

In the pursuit of boosting its presence in the continent, Vodafone has offered £1.2bn deal to take over Vodacom, the largest mobile phone operator of South Africa. Vodafone has 50 per cent stake in Vodacom and wants to increase its shareholding in the venture by 12.5 per cent.

Vodafone has been planning to expand its business in the African market where mobile phone is the only means of communication for the large population. Its attempt for the de-merger of Vodacom did not meet with success due to the failure of takeover talks last year, between Telkom and MTN, the largest mobile phone operator of the continent.

Vodafone’s chief executive, Arun Sarin, at the announcement of annual results, made it clear that Vodafone does not agree with the estimated £19bn price tag set by MTN’s advisers. He also expressed Vodafone’s resolve to increase its exposure in Africa.

Sarin is confident of bulking up its African assets through a number of smaller deals. Increase in Vodacom stake would give control of operations in Tanzania, central Africa, Mozambique and Lesotho. Vodafone could buy out the whole business subject to diluting its stakes as per South Africa’s black ownership law. Vodafone would announce its plans to comply with the law, this month.