Features

Operations: Customer focus

Positively encouraging your current clients to mingle with your prospective clients would sound risky to even the most successful of businesses—but not if you base your operations on an honest and straightforward approach,  as Becky Done finds out from Derek Buchanan, CEO of Episys.

Supply chain: Five tips for recession recovery

As tempting as it might be to sit back and breathe a sigh of relief as the global economic situation begins at least to stabilise, there is plenty that manufacturers can do now to take advantage of the early signs of recovery.

Innovation: Business transformation

If necessity is the mother of invention, then the same must be true for reinvention, too. It’s certainly true for Ricoh—once regarded as a manufacturer of office equipment, the company has been undergoing something of a transformation. Becky Done talks to Carsten Bruhn, VP of Ricoh Global Services Europe, to find out more.

Strategy: Exits & acquisitions

Kenneth H. Marks offers a framework for planning successful deals.

Operations: Customer service

Bob Vormittag, CEO, VAI, discusses the essential components for any business to compete in the new economy—improve practices, enhance customer service and perfect product lines.

Supply chain: Picking strategies

Thomas R. Cutler outlines the advantages of simultaneous picking strategies in light-directed order fulfillment: pick-to-light, pick-to-display, and now build-to-light.

Sustainability: Ethics

Dr. Abdullah Telmesani offers a simple but profound test for making ethical decisions in business—a useful guide for board members and executive committees to clarify the ethical basis for executive choices.

Special feature: The Lanesborough

Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, The Lanesborough is renowned for quality and service. Front of house manager Michael Naylor-Leyland explains to Gay Sutton how this enviable reputation has been achieved.

Sustainability: Ethical investment

The priority of most private investors is to see a healthy return on their outlay—with ethical considerations coming second. But the two do not have to be mutually exclusive, as Becky Done finds out.

Supply chain: Electronic trading

Trading electronically makes great strategic sense for buyers and suppliers alike; but technical complexity can be a barrier to realising the benefits of enhanced supply chain visibility.