I've been doing quite well with this....yep, no clothes, shoes or bag purchases since the beginning of January. OK, I did buy a top in Next but it was only £7 and it didn't lead into a mad shopping spiral. I have bought a few books and CDs, but on the whole, I think I deserve a pat on the back. *pat*pat*
However, the last few months abstinence have cleared any queasiness I felt after gorging on Christmas presents and January sales. Shop windows are starting to look interesting again. I must avoid my favourite hunting grounds until the feeling passes.
....resist...resist...resist...
(I seem to go through this every year! Last year I cracked on May 5th Hahahaha...Am I destined to repeat myself?)
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
M&S panties and other exotic goods
The weather has been luver-ly....warm and sunny. I've lived in England for too long : I'm blogging about the weather hahaaha.
So, what have I been up to lately? Relatives have been visiting and I have been busy doing stuff like:
So, what have I been up to lately? Relatives have been visiting and I have been busy doing stuff like:
- frantic pre-visit flat cleaning;
- stocking up on yoghurts, smoked mackerel and other food that Mr K-E and I never usually buy, but that people from Brunei seem to love;
- doing the rounds of Debenhams, Marks and Spencer etc etc. Plus, adding the fun of buying clothes in cheapo places like Primark and supermarkets.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Preparing for a Siege
The news in the UK is full of credit crunches and house price collapses. If I were a nervous type of person, I would be scared but to be frank, I've gone past the point of paying attention to the scare-mongering newspapers.
Let focus on something much more important. For example, my weight. Aaaarrrgggghhhhhh!
I saw some photos of myself lately and boy, I had better get myself down to the gym. I'm eating like a marathon runner but living like a bear in hibernation. If the Japanese ever invade London (as my grandmother used to say), I'll be OK because of all my fat reserves : I don't think that will be happening soon, do you?
Is it just my family, or Chinese people, or people in SE Asia or wherever; we have this "siege mentality" that we have to stock up with lots of food and water, the fridge, freezer and cupboards should be bursting with food, because hey you never know whats going to happen and you'll be thankful that you have those 100 packets of instant noodles.
I don't know what this has to do with my expanding waistline but there must a connection somewhere. Yes, I know; eat less, do more. *sigh*
Let focus on something much more important. For example, my weight. Aaaarrrgggghhhhhh!
I saw some photos of myself lately and boy, I had better get myself down to the gym. I'm eating like a marathon runner but living like a bear in hibernation. If the Japanese ever invade London (as my grandmother used to say), I'll be OK because of all my fat reserves : I don't think that will be happening soon, do you?
Is it just my family, or Chinese people, or people in SE Asia or wherever; we have this "siege mentality" that we have to stock up with lots of food and water, the fridge, freezer and cupboards should be bursting with food, because hey you never know whats going to happen and you'll be thankful that you have those 100 packets of instant noodles.
I don't know what this has to do with my expanding waistline but there must a connection somewhere. Yes, I know; eat less, do more. *sigh*
Monday, April 07, 2008
I'm confused.....
The weather has been completely nuts lately. Warm and sunny - then on Sunday - frickin' snow. Proper snow too, enough for snowmen, which in Central London is generally enough to have a public holiday declared.
*yawn* it's bedtime.
Will blog when I have more energy.
*yawn* it's bedtime.
Will blog when I have more energy.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
A Quick Note
Sorry I haven't written lately - just a quick note to say I've been tied up with other stuff going on in my life. Nothing that exciting, just more work stuff and I will hopefully get back in the swing of things in a week or three. Anyway, I've heard some great news, but it's not my news really so can't share. See you guys later.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Operations (or What I had to think about today)
Sorry - I've just realised this is a very involved post about work! I'll be back to the dodgy photos tomorrow :)
I had an intense day today at our Bristol office with the other members of the Operations Strategy team. Immersion in operation management strategy all day = exhausted brain.
Just to give you some background:
I work for ABC which is a PLC i.e. with public shareholders. The management board of our parent group sets out the growth and profit targets for each operating company. All the employees are aware of this, but most of us just get on with it and leave the management to the Directors. However, last week I was asked to be part of the strategy team. Eeeek.
This year ABC Group has told ABC-UK-CakeShop (my operating company) that as part of the latest 5 year targets, we have to achieve 5% growth every year and 0.5% increase in profit every year.
That's not easy. 5% growth means that if you are a 1000-employee company, you need to hire 50 new staff a year to grow by 5%. You need to provide enough office space, IT support, HR support, training etc for those additional 50 people. Plus, if natural staff turnover is about 10% anyway, you actually need to recruit 150 a year. There are a lot of costs associated with recruitment - because you don't just want to recruit the next guy on the street. It is estimated that the recruitment costs for each new member of staff is equivalent to one year of his or her salary. HR time, management time, agency costs, handover costs, inefficiency while "learning the ropes", colleagues having to "show you the ropes"....adds up to tens of thousands of pounds in lost earnings.
And most important of all, if we hire 50 additional staff, we need to make sure that our sales income can support all of these guys.
Consider that we need to do this every year....
0.5% profit increase per year is even harder to achieve. This means, year on year, we need to become more and more efficient at generating profit. We can't just charge our Clients more money every year without any added value (they would just tell us to **** off). How can you make everyone in your company produce 0.5% more profit this year than last year?
This isn't just increase in profit but increase in percentage profit. For example, 2008, you have 100 staff. If overall costs are £20,000 per staff member; then £2,000,000 is break even. If you earn £2,080,000, that's £80,000 profit - 4%.
Now it's 2009, you have 105 staff which hits the 5% growth target. Break even is £2,100,000. You earn £2,185,000 i.e £85,000 profit. More money than last year, but still only 4% profit so you have actually failed. Vastly oversimplified, I know - but just an illustration.
One obvious way is to outsource our low-end or back-office work to other countries i.e. reduce the direct costs. Everyone knows about Indian call centres, right? We are already doing this i.e. we have ABC-Manila which handles work for the UK and Hong Kong. ABC-India is also up and running, so soon we will be under pressure to send work there too.
The thing is, that's not enough. We will also be competing with companies from countries with lower costs eg India or China. That's already happened with software and telecoms providers. Within the next few years, we predict that the big players from these countries will also try to penetrate the UK market in our industry.
There are other strategy teams looking at different aspects, but I am in the Operations team which is all about delivery. How we can improve our systems and processes company-wide, how we can produce more for less, while still improving quality.
The UK Ops Director is ultimately in charge of this and it is an immense reponsibility. Operations seems to be today's theme. Terminal Five at Heathrow opened today and the baggage system has gone haywire. BA's Director of Operations has been on the news apologising profusely. I bet he's having a bad day.
I had an intense day today at our Bristol office with the other members of the Operations Strategy team. Immersion in operation management strategy all day = exhausted brain.
Just to give you some background:
I work for ABC which is a PLC i.e. with public shareholders. The management board of our parent group sets out the growth and profit targets for each operating company. All the employees are aware of this, but most of us just get on with it and leave the management to the Directors. However, last week I was asked to be part of the strategy team. Eeeek.
This year ABC Group has told ABC-UK-CakeShop (my operating company) that as part of the latest 5 year targets, we have to achieve 5% growth every year and 0.5% increase in profit every year.
That's not easy. 5% growth means that if you are a 1000-employee company, you need to hire 50 new staff a year to grow by 5%. You need to provide enough office space, IT support, HR support, training etc for those additional 50 people. Plus, if natural staff turnover is about 10% anyway, you actually need to recruit 150 a year. There are a lot of costs associated with recruitment - because you don't just want to recruit the next guy on the street. It is estimated that the recruitment costs for each new member of staff is equivalent to one year of his or her salary. HR time, management time, agency costs, handover costs, inefficiency while "learning the ropes", colleagues having to "show you the ropes"....adds up to tens of thousands of pounds in lost earnings.
And most important of all, if we hire 50 additional staff, we need to make sure that our sales income can support all of these guys.
Consider that we need to do this every year....
0.5% profit increase per year is even harder to achieve. This means, year on year, we need to become more and more efficient at generating profit. We can't just charge our Clients more money every year without any added value (they would just tell us to **** off). How can you make everyone in your company produce 0.5% more profit this year than last year?
This isn't just increase in profit but increase in percentage profit. For example, 2008, you have 100 staff. If overall costs are £20,000 per staff member; then £2,000,000 is break even. If you earn £2,080,000, that's £80,000 profit - 4%.
Now it's 2009, you have 105 staff which hits the 5% growth target. Break even is £2,100,000. You earn £2,185,000 i.e £85,000 profit. More money than last year, but still only 4% profit so you have actually failed. Vastly oversimplified, I know - but just an illustration.
One obvious way is to outsource our low-end or back-office work to other countries i.e. reduce the direct costs. Everyone knows about Indian call centres, right? We are already doing this i.e. we have ABC-Manila which handles work for the UK and Hong Kong. ABC-India is also up and running, so soon we will be under pressure to send work there too.
The thing is, that's not enough. We will also be competing with companies from countries with lower costs eg India or China. That's already happened with software and telecoms providers. Within the next few years, we predict that the big players from these countries will also try to penetrate the UK market in our industry.
There are other strategy teams looking at different aspects, but I am in the Operations team which is all about delivery. How we can improve our systems and processes company-wide, how we can produce more for less, while still improving quality.
The UK Ops Director is ultimately in charge of this and it is an immense reponsibility. Operations seems to be today's theme. Terminal Five at Heathrow opened today and the baggage system has gone haywire. BA's Director of Operations has been on the news apologising profusely. I bet he's having a bad day.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Happy Easter
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