Category: Innovation

Will the business model for Real Estate developers change?

On By LS HIn Business Fundamentals, Economy, InnovationLeave a comment
The business model of real estate developers is a “project-based” business model. They constantly need to find land for development and sell what they have built to yield revenue & profit. This revenue model can be “lumpy” and it is difficult to maintain a consistent yield. As such, many real estate developers have property rental, management & maintenance businesses to provide more consistent revenue & cash flows.
Will we ever see a “printer” business model for real estate developers – where printers are sold at low prices and ink usage provides a more consistent stream of revenue & profits? Perhaps some business model innovation may be helpful here to address the ever rising costs of property in every country.

Will business travel ever return to pre-pandemic days?

On By LS HIn Business Fundamentals, Economy, InnovationLeave a comment

Will you spend thousands of dollars if you can achieve the same outcome without having to? When businesses are trying to reduce costs, this may seem like a no-brainer. Of course, meeting face to face makes a great difference. The question is how frequent this needs to be. For as long as video calls can do the job, business travel will certainly see decline. This is confirmed by a survey amongst companies around the world.

Robots operated remotely by people with diabilities

On By LS HIn Business Fundamentals, Career, Economy, Human Resource, InnovationLeave a comment

This is a really good way to provide jobs for the disabled. They may not be able to move around easily, but their robots can. So this cafe in Tokyo has cleverly enabled around 50 physically disabled employees to work 800km away. They control robots who bring the drinks/food to patrons in the cafe and interact with them. In this way, it is not a “robot” that the patrons interact with, but a real person – how smart! Let’s hope more companies will embrace such concepts and provide such jobs for the physically handicapped.

Insurance company adopting new business model

On By LS HIn Business Fundamentals, Economy, InnovationLeave a comment

Innovation can be inspired by new technology, new business models or both. We are beginning to see the insurance sector adopt a subscription-based business model similar to that of Netflix and other companies. And insurance company Income is launching this via an app. This is certainly good for customers. Hopefully, other insurance companies will follow soon…

Omni-channel retailing – the way ahead

On By LS HIn Business Fundamentals, InnovationLeave a comment

Rental & salaries are usually the top two cost items on retailers’ P&L. How can they manage these effectively in the face of the online shopping trend?

Some retailers (like Robinsons) have totally gone online. But is this the best thing to do since there are still customers who prefer to do physical shopping? There are others who have adopted an omni-channel approach – which I think may be the way to go. But it will require careful management of processes so that the experience of the shopper is not compromised.

Take inventory as an example. You need to maintain two separate sets of inventory, yet attempt to optimise it such that either channel can draw on the other. The online customer cannot experience a situation where his order was given to the customer who was at the store physically. Just how ready are retailers to embrace such operations? Check out this article.