Making Your Product Matter
As consumers take stock of what cuts they have to make have you thought about how your product or service stands out? Do you have the qualities to see through this economic downturn or are you going to be discarded in a heap? Our regular columnist Busba Virochpoka shares her thoughts.
Anyone for French Fries with coffee?
That’s the new thing nowadays – constant innovations in various businesses to stay ahead of the doom and gloom of the economic downturn. To stay alive and in the game.
Take McDonald’s, for example. Despite the worst of times in the restaurant industry (or any other industry for that matter), it is experiencing growth and is enjoying the best of times. Their profits grew 11% to USD 1.2 billion in the third quarter of 2008 - just for the record, McDonald's and Walmart were the only two companies in the Dow Jones industrial average whose share prices rose during 2008.
So much of this success is going to McDonald’s head, perhaps, that they are now attempting to bite into the coffee business and take Starbucks head on. Through line extension of their simple coffees, their McCafé menus offer lattes, cappuccinos and mochas that are creating distinct coffee aromas as well as profitable returns for the Golden Arches.
