'Ndrangheta mafia' made more last year than McDonald's and Deutsche Bank, combined...

Study finds crime network made €53bn (£44bn) from a combination of drug trafficking (€24.2bn), illegal rubbish disposal (€19.6bn), and other activities.

The report is based on analysis of documents from Italy's interior ministry and police, parliament's anti-mafia commission and the national anti-mafia task force. Its activities are believed to involve a workforce of as many as 60,000 people worldwide, the report said.

Extortion and usury last year brought in a substantial €2.9bn, while embezzlement earned the mafia €2.4bn and gambling €1.3bn. Arms sales, prostitution, counterfeiting goods and people-smuggling were less lucrative, bringing in less than €1bn together.

Organisationally, the 'Ndrangheta mafia' has a tight clan structure which has made it famously difficult to penetrate, or to leave?

In terms of business relationships, their negotiation flexibility appears to be limited to offers that tolerate little scope for refusal, and they appear to have very few issues with compliance...

A potential template for NAMs and KAMs everywhere?

Art and the brand - how Mondrian 'made' LEGO into a building block for modernism…

                                                                                                                            pic: Andrew Sullivan
In 1946, Lego creator Ole Kirk Christiansen became the first toymaker in Denmark to buy an injection moulding machine, and began experimenting with cellulose acetate construction blocks.

His son Godtfred Kirk simplified his father’s brick design, perfecting its signature clutch power and switching plastics to the even more durable acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. For his colour palette, he looked to Dutch modernist Piet Mondrian’s Composition series: bright yellow, red, blue, and white. He patented the brick on January 28, 1958, and from that moment only looked forward.…

Given that modernism is based on making ideas new, repeatedly, these unprecedented times provide modernist NAMs with the opportunity to renew their markets and initiatives, over and over again, while others rely on more of the approach that worked in the old days, but is now patently inappropriate…

Likewise, making it new (over and over and over again) is an inextricable part of Lego’s DNA: just six two-by-four-studded pieces can be configured in 915 million ways….

Incidentally, if you are still in doubt about Mondrian and LEGOs’ mutual debt, ask yourself if you will ever again look at a Mondrian, without seeing the LEGO studs…

More here

Saturday Night Top-up?

                                                                                                                                        pic: Brian Moore

How the 2007-08 financial crisis happened - the Minsky explanation

As we are being told, the world is recovering from the global crisis – for a contrary view, ask the consumer in the street, or better still, check their shopping lists – it is perhaps time to agree the causes in order to avoid the consequences of a repeat….

If you think this might affect you personally but not the business, why not check The Grocer’s latest Top 100 grocery brands showing that in 2013, 33 showed negative sales vs. 2012, and 21 brands showed less than 3% growth, before allowing for inflation…..i.e. the Top 100 brands!

In other words, we are ‘deep’ in flatline, where any growth will be at the expense of competitors, by those players that are prepared to confront reality and act while others await a return to normal…

Opportunities await those that understand how we got here, recognise the symptoms as future warnings and get on with optimising our strengths, now.

American economist Hyman Minsky, who died in 1996, grew up during the Great Depression, an event which shaped his views and set him on a crusade to explain how it happened and how a repeat could be prevented, writes Duncan Weldon for the BBC. 

Minsky’s key ideas:

Stability is destabilising: Banks and firms assume that the good times will keep on going and begin to take ever greater risks in pursuit of profit. So the seeds of the next crisis are sown in the good time.

Three stages of Debt, as indicators
- Hedge stage:
Soon after a crisis, banks and borrowers are cautious. Loans are made in modest amounts and the borrower can afford to repay both the initial principal and the interest.
- Speculative stage:
As confidence rises banks begin to make loans in which the borrower can only afford to pay the interest.
- Ponzi stage: 
At this point banks make loans to firms and households that can afford to pay neither the interest nor the principal. Again this is underpinned by a belief that asset prices will rise.

Therefore financial crisis, again and again and again…

Armed with this insight, and using their own judgement coupled with a basic knowledge of retail finance, the business manager NAM can treat the economy as simply part of a ‘predictable’ business context, and get on with the opportunity, leaving doom and gloom for others…

Analysis: Why Minsky Matters is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 20:30 GMT, 24 March 2014.  Or catch up on BBC iPlayer

DIY Cashback: Thieves dig tunnel to steal from Tesco ATM

Last Friday at Tesco Salford, a gang of some ten thieves who had spent two months digging a 50 ft (15m) tunnel to get into an ATM, got away with £80,000. The raiders tunnelled under nearby wasteland and into the shop. They then escaped back through the tunnel.

As always, running the numbers lends perspective and insight...

Apart from being just 25% of what high end footballers earn in a week, working on the basis of an £8,000 haul each (excluding expenses), one realises that, apart from the fact that austerity is now impacting both sides of the fence, the risk-reward ratio in dealing with the grocery trade is obviously becoming less satisfactory.....

Hat-tip to John Ward

The Lidl approach to traffic management?

                                                                                             pic: Brian Moore, Lidl Brighton

Ingredients of Success?

Inspiration               1%
Perspiration           98%
Attention to detail     2%

Morrisons success as price-warrior depends on the battle?

Whilst Dalton Philips price-cutting promise, on top of profit losses relating to writedowns, and negative like-for-like sales, was not sufficient to avoid spooking the stockmarket, the company remains in a strong position…

Thanks to Ken Morrison’s conservative attitude to money, the company is asset-rich and the sale of £1bn from an 80% owned store portfolio will eventually calm the shareholders, and leave a robust retailer in place.

The CEO’s promise to cut prices permanently to a level that would not have to match those of the discounters, but to be just low enough that its fresh food and quality offer would look worthwhile, anticipates one definition of the price war....

However, the issue for suppliers is where the upcoming price-war is headed…

Will the big 3 take a similar stance to Morrisons on going ‘low enough’ to compete – giving Morrisons a fighting chance - or is the agenda to match or even undercut discounter prices, product for product, and arrest their growth…?

In which case, the discounters cannot afford to go lower, and the depth of major retailer pockets will only be limited by stockmarket reaction…, with Morrisons at a distinct disadvantage, currently.

From a supplier perspective, it is vital to stick with current pricing and trade investment strategies - and compliance conditions - and effectively sit this one out…