The Wall Street Journal recently published an article detailing the practice of police forces and private companies using devices to scan auto license plates and creating databases of location information. What makes this story immediately newsworthy is that the cars need not be part of a criminal investigation to be logged in the database. What
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With: Jeffrey Gibson The consensus in the payment industry is that in the next few years payments will shift to a mobile form factor. What the winning form factor and functionality at the point of sale (POS) will be is subject of a pretty widespread debate. For instance, some view QR codes for payments as
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Six-Sigma, TQM, matrix management, business process re-engineering, MBO, 360-degree feedback, One-Minute Manager, CRM, CEM, etc., etc., etc. Are they transformative business initiatives or just fads? I have not come to critique these in any way (though I could), but rather to talk about their similarities. I have sat through the endless seminars, read the books
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A recent Wall Street Journal article “Cellphones Are Eating the Family Budget” (subscription required) discusses how cell phone costs impact consumers’ bottom lines. The proliferation of smartphone and associated data plans are becoming a larger share of the family budget. This got me thinking. It is not only the cell phone, there’s cable/satellite TV and
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When is competition good, and when is it destructive—not creatively destructive, just negative? This kind of question occurs when contemplating the Google/Apple wrangle over the maps app on the new iPhone. You may have heard of the latter (just kidding), if not the comedy over disappearing train stations and submerged municipalities. Whoever is in the
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Consumers feel their personal finances and the national economy are on an upswing, as 64 percent of Americans report believing the economy has stabilized or is getting better compared with 33 percent last year. The same survey reported that 65 percent of consumers expect their own personal finances to rebound in the next year. However,
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The lingering economic situation in the United States has taken its toll on US consumers in several ways–lost jobs, lower wages, shaken confidence and less access to traditional banking products. The last-named is perhaps a lesser known consequence here in the US, but one that is worth further exploring. Last week, the FDIC released the
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