Category: corporate social responsibility

Top 10 reasons for outsourcing digital work

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Here’s startup blogs top 10 reasons for outsourcing digital work offshore. Which we do for some work at rentoid with great success. I’m hoping the naysayers, will see by the end of this post as to why it is ethical as well.

  1. It’s an efficient resource allocation
  2. It increases the wealth of the service provider (the person overseas)
  3. It increases the wealth of the offshore country
  4. it facilitates cross cultural interchange and understanding
  5. Makes it possible for ‘non techies’ to start a ‘tech based’ business
  6. Can be the difference which makes a startup idea financially viable
  7. It stimulates greater innovation in the tech sector by creating a greater intellectual resource pool
  8. It invents ‘time’ so people can bootstrap a business while continuing other employment
  9. The outsourced work is not dangerous – we are not sending kids down a mine or employing child labour.
  10. Add your reason in the comments!

Get out there and outsource, make conections, make stuff happen and make new global friends to boot!

Big Companies, Big Lies

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

You need more industry experiencesilhouette

You need to have experience managing a team

It’s out of my control

We care, we’re listening

We have a sustainable perspective

Our interests are aligned

People are our most important asset

Open plan is for open communication

We have a long term strategy

We serve our shareholders first

We put our customers first

We put our employees first

We have a lot of first places… ?

We make stuff up so we can justify the money we extract from something we don’t own.

Make your startup the antithesis of this – mean what you say.

No comment required

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Ok – so this is slightly off topic, but I’ll try and tie it in. Check out the photo I took below at a family shopping mall in Australia.

You’ll notice a couple of things:

Firstly ‘no licence is required’. Good news right?

Secondly it’s branded as the “John Rambo” knife. I’m sure there’s no licensing there either!

The thing that had me flumoxed is that people choose to make money by selling anything just to make a dollar. It still seems people will do whatever it takes to sell stuff, as opposed to selling or creating something which just might have a positive impact on our environment and the people around us.

Sure we need knives for some stuff – I just wonder if we really need knives designed for gutting wild bores advertised in a shop window of a family mall, 200 miles away from the nearest wild animal?

Start ups out there – Sell something cool.

Brand Manners

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Brands are the personification of things and services. In fact they are the amalgamation of a group of people, which creates an organizational culture and eventually, a set of brand values. Values which in real terms are like those of a person.

In the spirit of the reasoning above here’s an interesting question:

Does your brand have good manners?

That’s actually what we’ve been getting at during this Business 2.0 Post Industrial Complex Devolution. We’ve been getting back to basics. The basics of acceptable behaviour. Moving away from the school yard bully – (read here – large inconsiderate conglomerate) – to something which deserves our attention.

In case we happened to forget – here’s a ready reckoner of ‘Good Manners’

–          Listen to others
–          Have patience
–          Wait your turn to talk
–          Never interrupt
–          Ask for permission
–          Always say ‘please’ and ‘thankyou’
–          Be honest, truthful and pure
–          Be punctual
–          Be tidy
–          Never be rude to anyone – older, younger, richer, poorer
–          Keep out of bad company
–          Be kind to those around you
–          Don’t be selfish, but share your good things
–          Don’t cheat
–          Be polite at all times

Here’s the ironic thing…. some of these sentiments and ideals came directly from the Children’s National Guild of Courtesy – a Good Manners chart which was distributed to elementary / primary schools in UK and Australia from 1898 until approx 1950.

You can download the PDF here: goodmanners

And yet it’s akin to the language we are now hearing from business re-inventionists. In real terms, we’ve just realized that often with success comes bad manners and attitude. Then after the bad manners and attitude comes the inevitable decline. This is why the new world brands are winning – they simply have good manners.

Startups – if we personify our brands, then let’s ensure they have ‘Brand Manners’.

Silicon Beach with yours truley

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Silicon Beach Australia [siliconbeachaustralia.org] was formed with no plan, just a question:

“How can we bring the Australian technology community together?”

“Silicon Valley has a supporting ecosystem that makes Internet innovation thrive, so what can Australia do? How can our big island with the best beaches in the world, harness the passionate, intelligent individuals who care to do more?”

It’s a very cool initiative and hopefully something which will harness the intellectual capital our country is renounced for. Instead of losing it to countries who appreciate and embrace innovation.

One thing is for sure – it all starts with conversations. I was fortunate enough to be invited into the conversation yesterday for their 3rd Podcast to discuss a bit about rentoid, and all things entrepreneurship…

I was fairly candid with things like my corporate exit, business philosophy, the financial crisis and just the way I like to go about things. You can check it out by clicking here.

‘Oh, by the way’…pricing & fuel surcharges

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

The latest trick of many airlines is to segregate elements of their product cost

 

–        Introducing the “Fuel Surcharge”

 

Apparently this provides pricing transparency. Thanks Mr Airline, but we know the price of oil is rising. 

 

 

Isn’t fuel a fundamental input cost for airlines? (30%)

Do they think we care what their input costs are?

Do they realize that we’d rather the total price – no tricks?

Do they know it reduces ‘trust’ in their brand and industry?

 

And just to show my total disdain for fragmented and aggregated pricing here’s a few questions I’d like to propose to the airline Industry:

 

Does Nike have a shoe lace surcharge?

Does Ford charge extra for the steering wheel?

Does Coke have an aluminum can surcharge?

Does Nokia charge extra for the buttons on the cell phone?

 

Fuel is not an ‘optional extra’. So work it out, include it and charge us a price. That’s what business is…. Businesses are meant to be working this stuff out to reduce the complexity in our lives. That’s what business does.

 

No wonder airlines have the highest business failure rate of any industry, and the worst profitability of any Industry in history. (which by the way is a net negative over the past 100 years)

 

Start up blog says: Consumers hate ‘Oh, by the way’ charges. Avoid them at all costs.