MamunAhmed.com » Business

International Calling Cards – A Hidden Gem for the UK Telecom Industry

Mamun Ahmed — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:17:16 +0000

A quick Google research on how much the International prepaid calling cards in UK market worth did not bring any results, if it were bringing any results at all that would be a surprise. However, it brought some information about North American domestic and international calling card market, that combined are $2.75 billion in 2008. In 1995 the same market was worth merely $750 million.

The increasing amounts of the immigrants bolstering the sales of the International calling cards in both side of the Atlantic. UK mobile operators are more often offering plenty of “free minutes” with the mobile phone packages, but visibly failed to attract the customers with the need of international calls.

Hopefully the mobile phone industry would not repeat the British Airways fiasco, by not counting the “budget customers”. Vodafone already sensed that hidden market, which prompted them to offer a package with free roaming in EU.

Most of the news agents have a long list of calling cards on display to show the availability. The cards are very easy to use, anyone can use the cards. Also it gives a great amount of mobility, if someone has free minutes on the mobile and a calling card on the pocket; it gives them licence to ring any parts of the world from anywhere. Leisure and business travelers are quite frequent in UK. Keeping contact with home and family is one of the biggest challenges for travelers. These cards allow them to ring anywhere using payphone’s free 0800 number.

All of the cards are pre-paid so the companies do not need to chase people up for the incurred bills, even sometimes the frequent travelers do not spend all of the available minutes before leaving the country. From that unused numbers calling card companies also making money.

The biggest challenge of this industry is to maintain the quality of the calls. Most of the companies always make some money at the beginning but after that most of them become greedy and lower the quality of the service. Customer care service virtually not existed in this industry. Therefore the customers are looking forward to a reliable company they can trust.

Time for Self Service Postal Machines for Royal Mail?

Mamun Ahmed — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:17:27 +0000

I wonder what people do when they have a Mon-Fri hectic jobs, but need to post something recorded or next day delivery items. Posting something which needs customised pricing is a night mare, if you have hardly anytime in your hand during the week. It leaves only option of Saturday posting. But only specialised post office branches are open on Saturday for few hours.

In the era of technology and Do It Yourself services, Post office do not offer self service posting facilities yet, it sounds a bit odd. You can do banking, shopping , buying train tickets and many other things using self services but you can’t post recorded delivery letters.

According to The National Federation of SubPostmasters, services designed to boost incomes are failing to deliver. They also called on the Government to introduce “tangible new work” for post offices.

There are plenty of people out there those who are avoiding to use the Royal Mail services just for it has a time consuming method of working. Just to post a letter using the counter service you need to wait average 15 minutes. People do not have that amount of time in their hands anymore. Well, Royal Mail do have a service where people are able to print off the stamps off the net, but if anyone wants to have a next day delivery or recorded, still you need to queue up on a post office.

I wonder why the Royal Mail not introducing 24/7 self service postal machines? If Royal Mail been compared with other services, it seems it is so old fashioned.

Perhaps Mr Mandelson can request his advisors to think about this idea.

Everyone is Green

Mamun Ahmed — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:24:41 +0000

There is a competition going on in UK among all of the companies to prove how green they are. Everyone is trying to relate the message to the public that they are the greenest company in UK. There is a surge of proving everyone that they are environment friendly by making everything green.

They are adding a slogans next to their brand name and sometimes changing the colour of their fonts. But is it enough to prove themselves as a green company?

Tesco introduces zero emission delivery fleet, which says “Blue on the outside, Green on the inside” , According to The Sunday Times 60 Best Green Companies, Tesco came fifteenth. Not bad for a company with a size like this.

i-TV gone green as well. During the commercial breaks they will show a big green button saying “i-TV”. So the viewers will think i-TV is a green company?

All of the energy companies are in a rat race to prove how green they are, as far as I remember it was the BP who initiated this trend. Even conservative party is trying to be green. Don’t you think all of these are nothing but PR activities fuelled by hypocrisy?

Vodafone Summer Roaming Offer – A Strategy To Becoming Market Leader

Mamun Ahmed — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:27:48 +0000

Vodafone introduces the summer roaming option which allows their customers use the phone while abroad.

Arun Sarin – the former CEO- had the vision to expand the brand and safeguarding their dominance by expanding to emerging markets. By the year of 2010 Vodafone looking to be the largest player in Indian market by securing at least 25% share.

Vodafone Coverage in the World

In Europe, which is a matured market for mobile operators, only unique offers will brought new customers, having realising that Vodafone have introduced the free roaming option on a tester basis.

Although it is very tempting to sign up for this summer offer, but since the customers are more conscious and smarter than ever, they will think twice to switch operators, clearly because there is no guarantee that Vodafone will do the same next year as well.

However, Vodafone has been planning for this quite a long time, now they are closely monitoring how many new customers making queries about this offer, based upon that they will permanently introduce the free roaming option in EU.

Vodafone Market Share in Europe

If any other operators do not act swiftly and quickly jump on the free roaming offer boat, there is a significant possibility that Vodafone would be the number one in the UK market, regardless how hardcore customer retention policy the other companies follow. Remember the TalkTalk and BT fiasco?

However, the Vodafone strategy certainly welcomed by many customers. The overpriced roaming charges are unscrupulous. Vodafone ushering other operators towards a proportional market where the EU customers will certainly be benefitted.

The Response of the UK Government and The Regulatory Authorities to the Recession

Mamun Ahmed — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:33:41 +0000

Jeremy Paxman philosophically asked a question on 1^st July BBC’s Newsnight -

“nearly a year on from the banking crisis, has the government have any idea about how to stop it happening again?”

That is the question from bonus fueled city traders, bankers, the local corner shop owner as well as the all of the taxpayers in this country.

Although there was an amid speculation from the economists and analysts that the 2008 recession going to hit hard to UK economy and perhaps UK GDP set to fall more than 1990’s recession. But UK government took extra few months to acknowledge the presence of the recession in the country.

However, the UK government and regularity authorities acted swiftly to resuscitate the economy. Government increased spending to revamp the money circulation. On the other hand, the FSA and the Bank of England have been drafting a strategy to tame the wild horse natured super size banks.

After the 1990’s dotcom bust, the city became extremely desirous towards the bonus culture than ever. The treasury was controlling the bankers by using their “eyebrow controlling method” before the FSA era, there was no written rule of how to run a bank. But after the birth of FSA, the eyebrow controlling evaporated and FSA handbook become the control margin. Everyone is happy as long as you follow the banking rule bible produced by the FSA.

Now the 64 million dollar question, are the UK government and the financial regularity authorities doing enough to take us out from these crises?

At the beginning of the recession volatility controlled the trading Market. FSA banned short selling for a short period, hoping the recession would end soon. Many people believed short selling was the main reason for the sharp falls of HBO’s share before Lloyds TSB rescued it.

UK government cut the VAT to make public to spend money instead of saving it, but is it good enough help the SMEs?

Bank of England slashed the interest rates to all time low, asked all of the high street banks to pass it on to the consumers, but still there is no definite sign of recovering from this crisis.

Marvyn King – Bank of England governor- declared that big banks with complex structure should be divided in two divisions. One will be operating by taking risk with little capital, the other would be dealing on the high street in good old fashion- ordinary banking. Banks have to have a healthy capital as a back up to allow the banks to absorb the losses should any arises in the future.

The size of the banks and the capital are a vital factor to allow them to fail. Already this “suggestion” been criticised by some analysts. They argued that the problem is not with the banks’ operational structure, it is something else.

However, so far today the UK government and the regularity authorities significantly strengthen regulation supervision and governance to ensure the risk of failure is reduced from future crisis.

Are The Bankers Are Really Wankers?

Mamun Ahmed — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 10:31:25 +0000

Since the much hyped credit crisis begin, everyone started to blame all of the bankers and the whole banking industry fuelled by the media. No one ever dared to blame anything to the golden boys before the crisis. It reminds me a story my dad told me when I was a kid. The story was like-

“Once upon a time a king went to jungle to hunt. After few days of hunting on the way back to his castle he was attacked by a group of monkeys. After few hours battle, eventually the herd of monkeys flee to save their life. Suddenly the king and his troops realise a baby monkey left behind, who was crying for food. The king ordered to feed him and bring it to the castle with them. The king didn’t have any children so he started to treat him as his son.

Time gone by- the baby monkey became an adult. He has been trained to fight, how to ride horse, taught Mathematics, Finance, Accounting, Statistics, Economics many other things. The monkey was very good learner, went to the best university. The king was well pleased with the monkey. He started dreaming that the monkey will be his next successor. Wherever he goes the monkey goes with him. Whatever decision he takes monkey give him advice. The advisor, bodyguards, all of the ministers around the king were eventually replaced by the monkey as the king realise the monkey takes better decision than anyone on his cabinet. The monkey’s strategy was to expand the king’s territory as much as possible. Taking monkey’s advice the king started many battles and beat his opponents. The king’s reign were bigger than ever. The monkey became the most powerful man after the king. The king was extremely happy seeing his country became wealthiest than ever. The king introduced higher tax and started to monitor to every single citizen in his country on monkey’s advice. So there will be no traitor in his country.

The king became deserted from general public and most of the time of the day he spends with the monkey. Monkey brief him, guard him, select his food and even decides what he is going to wear. When the king sleeps, monkey await next to him to save him from his enemies.

In one lazy afternoon while the king were having a siesta, the monkey realise there is a fly lurking around on kings face. The king was trying to get rid of the fly while snoring. But the fly keeps coming and sitting on king’s nose. The monkey got an idea to get rid of the fly. He slowly move towards the king, aimed his sword to the fly, then he vehemently swing his sword aiming to the fly which was sitting on king’s nose.

The End”

Shall we blame the monkey ? Shall we blame the king for spoiling him? Or shall we blame the cabinet of the king for not having enough courage to speak up against the monkey?

How We Got The Credit Crisis

Where is the Speed Controller in My Car?

Mamun Ahmed — Sat, 02 May 2009 10:09:09 +0000

I am just back from a week Holiday in South West part of England. Everyday was consist of quite good few hours driving for site seeing purposes.

Whenever I drive in UK, I feel it is so confusing. Too many instructions on the road, too many speed cameras with “watch your speed” signs. While I was driving through this instructions and signs jungle, literally I was going above the national speed limit (70 mph/112 kmh) time to time. Also while I was overtaking any vehicles, it was very tempting to raise the speed and overtake more.

Albeit the government is trying to “kill the speed” by introducing tough rules and regulations by penalising the drivers in various way. But there is no sign they will impose any tougher regulations to car makers, which might help to reduce speed on the motorway. A driver has the same experience of driving since the first drove a car. Nowadays the cars are more sleek, easy to speed up, quicker in turns but there is no effort has been made from the car industry to introduce any technology on the car, which will make the drivers to drive within the speed limit.

While I was driving in a comparatively less busy road sticking to the speed limit, I was missing a device which allow me to stay under the speed limit. The device could be like – the driver can set up the speed limit and “lock” the speed. Until he unlocks the limit, the car wouldn’t drive more than the speed he has intend to drive. If he needs to speed up he can override it. The use of the device can be voluntarily.

The car manufacturers are moaning and groaning about how their sales plummeting day by day and blaming the economy, but why don’t they realise that they have lack of innovation?

Whatever car you buy it serves the same purpose regardless how much you are paying. They have been marketing the cars as a sign of prestige, ego and social status. But they forget to promote them as a “need”. Nevertheless they completely ignored the necessity of introducing new features on the cars by introducing new technology.

Time for a Complete Database of Books?

Mamun Ahmed — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:11:32 +0000

As I mentioned to an earlier post that I have been trying to get rid of few thousands book, some of them are very rare and published in 60’s 70’s. Some of them doesn’t have any description or synopsis. I try to find information of the book using different sites. i.e. Amazon, Play.com, Google Book search etc. But none of them have a fully completed database.There are plenty of books they don’t find with ISBN number neither by title nor the author name.

I was listing the books on different sites one by one, which is very time consuming. I realise Green Metropolis.com and Amazon are the easiest place to list books for sell. But still I think it is a time for a comprehensive database of every single book has published so far. Where anyone would be able to find the books with description simply using the ISBN numbers.

I wonder why not the big players of the online book market offering their sellers to buy a cheap handheld scanner to allow them to upload the books? The scanner itself will be connected to a main database, after scanning the barcode the information about the books will automatically come up.

To grow the database they might request the publishers to add new books on volunteer basis. The publishers would have an opportunity to promote their book as well.

Green Metropolis – A Place to Recycle Books and Earn Money

Mamun Ahmed — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:23:10 +0000

I have been looking for a way to get rid of few thousand books from my collection. My initial idea was to sell them on eBay. After checking the eBay’s pricing policy I was disappointed. Since I was planning to sell the paperbacks for around £1 each on eBay, after paying the insertion fees, final selling fees, receiving money fees, transferring the money in bank account fees – and maybe other hidden fees I don’t know in this stage- there will be nothing left at the end.

So I have decided to look different places. My next stop was Amazon.Amazon’s arrangement seems better than eBay, but the books I would like to sell every single of them is already listed there not one or two hundreds of them. It seems most of the sellers are happy to sell them 0.01p each. Undoubtedly these are professional book sellers they just want to get rid of the books and/or if they can make few pence from the posting they are happy with that.

My quest to look for a site to sell my books keep going. After few search on the net I found a site called GreeenMetropolis. They claim to be an ethical site to recycle books. The first look of the site seems promising. Easy on eye. Not many advertisements. Colour theme is green.

Their slogan is Where Book Grows Trees. Anyone can buy books and sell them again using this site. Any books will cost £3.75 each. If you sell any books you will receive £3.00 including the posting fees. They keep 0.75p for each sell as running cost and donation. If you have a bulky book to sell you can add extra postage, similarly if you think your books is not worth of £3.00, you can give discount on the book price. Super plain and simple.

On top of that, for every book sold, they donate 5p to the Woodland Trust, the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity to help support Woodland Creation. In August 2008, after four years of launching the website, there are 1m books on the site listed to sell.

After signing up the site, which is relatively easy to do. I started to list my books to sell. Listing books on the site was surprisingly easy. I just needed to enter the ISBN no of the book. It brings the book description, picture, pages, weight etc. I just needed to declare what is the condition of the book.

Done ! Its live on the site and ready to sell!

Since I just started last night, and I have a “I Am New” badge on my account name so I am unable to tell the pros and cons of this site in detail. But I will be keep updating this post once I come across them.

Are The Breaking News’ Are Really Breaking News?

Mamun Ahmed — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:46:32 +0000

Whenever I try to watch any 24/7 news channels, there is always a “Breaking News”. Every single news is breaking news to the news channels. Does anyone else get annoyed watching this “breaking news” with very little significance?

I try to find what is a Breaking News really mean. According to Wikipedia, a breaking news is a -

current event that broadcasters feel warrants the interruption of scheduled programming in order to report its details. Its use is often loosely assigned to the most significant story of the moment or a story that is being covered live. It could be a story that is simply of wide interest to viewers and has little impact otherwise

While I am writing this Sky News Channel showing a trailer as a breaking news , which is-

“Robert Bennett jailed for six months for driving at 122 mph with son on back of his motorbike”

My first concern is who the earth Robert Bennett is? I started feeling guilty for not knowing Robert Bennett. My sixth sense saying he maybe a new singer or some “celebrity” who took part in Big Brother or I am a celebrity Get me Out of Here type programme. So I decided to find out about Robert Bennett.

Google tells me about few Robert Bennetts, one is junior senator from Utah, one is the professor of Geography department in Cambridge University, one is Mayor of Melbourne Australia between 1861 and 1862[see screenshot]. I can’t imagine any of them were driving a motorbike in UK at 122mph with son on back of his motorbike.

Google Result of Robert Bennett

Being failed to find out the real Robert Bennett in Google, I decide to go to Sky news website to find out. The first line of the news is – “A dad who drove his motorbike at 122mph, with his son riding on the back, has been jailed for six months”. So he is a dad. Further reading unveils he is a cleaning supervisor, from Barnstaple, Devon.

Sky News Coverage for Robert Bennett

The Wikipedia definition of breaking news says, “It could be a story that is simply of wide interest to viewers”. I don’t think he is someone for whom viewers would be waiting patiently to know his fate after speeding.

All of the silly “Breaking News” makes me think, are the news channels drying up for news? Is it that difficult to find out news to fill the slots? Isn’t it the time to wake up the news channels and creating a policy to what to broadcast and what not to? If the news channels are so short of news then why not they covering international news? I am pretty sure there are lots of international news out there with better merit.

MamunAhmed.com » Business

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