Boohoo Profits Double

Annual pre-tax profits at online fashion retailer Boohoo have almost doubled to £31m - up from just under £16m last year.  Its sales have jumped by 51% to almost £300m, thanks to new overseas markets.  The Manchester-based firm puts its success down to "combining cutting-edge, aspirational design with an affordable price tag". Its booming sales growth has also been reflected in its share price, which has more than trebled in the past year. On its stock market flotation in 2014, it was valued at £560m. It is now worth about £2bn. The firm has gone from strength to strength in recent years, while its High Street rivals have had to deal with increasing competition from Boohoo and other online retailers. The company now has 5.2 active million customers worldwide, and crucially is able to rely on social media "influencers" and video bloggers - "vloggers" - to spread the word to its 18 to 24-year-old target market.

Boohoo.com

Happy Hiring

You can turn up for your Timpson interview with the world's finest CV or resume, and all the interviewer will do is work out whether you are a Mr Lazy (you don't have a hope), or a Mr Cheerful (you have a very good chance). "We purely interview for personality," says Mr Timpson, who has been leading his family's firm for the past 42 years. "We're not bothered by qualifications or CVs. We just look at the candidate and work out who they are, are they Mr Grumpy, Mr Slow, Mr Happy? "If they tick all the right boxes then we put them in the shop for half the day. That's it, I dreamt that up years ago." In explaining the thinking behind this rather novel approach to recruitment, Mr Timpson, 74, says that while you can train someone to do a job, you cannot train their personality. And if you look at the continuing performance of the business, the Mr Men method appears to work rather well. Timpson, a household name in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, saw sales rise 8% to £130m in the year to September 2015, with pre-tax profits up 65% to £10.3m.

Happy Hiring

Pawternity Leave

Scottish brewer Brewdog announced a rather unusual new employee perk earlier this year - one week's paid leave for all workers who adopt a puppy or rescue dog. Unsurprisingly the announcement - which was released to the media in a press release rather than just told to staff - made headlines around the world. Newspaper reports were quick to praise the scheme that Brewdog has dubbed "pawternity" leave. Also last year New York-based online retailer Boxed was praised when its co-founder and boss Chieh Huang announced that the company would contribute to the cost of employees' weddings.cMr Huang says he was inspired to start the unusual scheme when he saw one of his employees crying at work because he was struggling to cover the cost of his mother's medical bills and save for his forthcoming wedding. What perk would motivate you?

Pawternity Leave

Coca Cola to cut 1,200 Jobs

The US firm Coca-Cola has said it will cut about 1,200 jobs due to falling demand for its fizzy drinks. Its global carbonated drink sales fell 1% in the quarter to 31 March, Coca-Cola said. Coca-Cola and rival PepsiCo's sales have taken a hit as consumers in North America and Europe have increasingly turned away from sugary drinks. The Coca-Cola cuts will begin in the second half of 2017 and continue into 2018, the company said. The firm said it was increasing its cost-cutting target by $800m in annualised savings, and now expects to save $3.8bn by 2019. The majority of the extra cost savings will come from corporate job reductions, incoming chief executive James Quincey said in a conference call. A spokesperson added that savings would also be made through the firm's supply chain, marketing, and changes to its operating model. Coca-Cola added that it expected its full-year adjusted profits to fall by between 1% and 3%, compared with the 1% to 4% decline it had forecast in February. The firm has more than 100,000 employees globally.
Coca Cola Job Cut

April Fools

Brands were out in full force on Saturday trying to see if anyone would fall for some classic April fools pranks. With the amount of fake news out there on the internet these days it is becoming more difficult to tell whether or not it is real or not. The Subway brand is launched its first ever ice cream range… inspired by the nation’s most love Subs called - 'SUBzero' and  Burger King were trying to fool people with their launch of a Whopper Toothpaste. Google were also having fun by turning maps into a game of pacman whilst also trying to fool us with Google Gnome. 

April Fools

Crayola Ditching Dandelion

Crayola is ditching one of the colours in its range. The company announced that it would be removing the gold-tinged dandelion stick from its boxes on Friday, to make way for a new one. It also ties in with National Crayon Day in America. It's only the third time in Crayola's history that it has retired one or more of its colours, and the first time it's taking one out of its box of 24. Other colours consigned to history are maize, raw umber, blizzard blue, mulberry and orange yellow. "Fans" of dandelion, which was introduced in 1990, aren't happy on Twitter. Crayola crayons were first produced in 1903 by Binney & Smith Co.  Based in Easton, Pennsylvania, Crayola is a subsidiary of Hallmark Cards, which has its headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. Do even Crayola crayons have a product life cycle?

Dandelion Ditched

Loyalty at McDonalds

A 94-year-old American is celebrating more than four decades of working at McDonald's restaurants. Loraine Maurer of Evansville, Indiana, works two shifts per week, 44 years after joining the hamburger chain. The great-grandmother first joined in 1973 after her husband retired due to disability. "I told him we were too young to stay at home and so I went for a job," she recalled after enjoying a cake at a special party colleagues threw for her. She never meant to stay as long as she did, Mrs Maurer told ABC News, adding that she never thought of becoming a manager because she prefers to interact with her customers. Even though she contemplates retirement every winter, she says she never plans to leave. Even though she contemplates retirement every winter, she says she never plans to leave.

McLoyalty