Text Boyd Farrow
Image Getty Images
Our round-up of what’s happening in the business world across Europe
How to spend it… living on expenses
Recent revelations that Sir John Bourn, Britain’s prudence-preaching auditor-general enjoyed a whole bunch of €200-ahead dinners at the Ritz, Savoy and Dorchester on his expense account delighted the local media and invoked nervous laughter around many a European boardroom.
The Financial Times was suspiciously quick to enter the big expense account meal debate by engaging Linda Zagat, co-founder of the New York-based Zagat Guides. “For business lunches,” intoned Zagat, “it’s not about the most spectacular food.
The key criterion is somewhere you can hear one another but not be overheard as your lunch may involve confidential discussions.” Ah, that would explain why gentlemen like well-upholstered clubs where Brandy is likely to be your hostess as well as your nightcap. Robin Jay, the author of The Art of the Business Lunch, unsurprisingly, also recommends choosing a restaurant that has a businesslike approach: “You need a place where the staff don’t interrupt you… somewhere that takes reservations and is convenient for both parties.
Moreover, they should take credit cards in order to avoid awkward questions over the bill”. Funnily enough, though, no media commentator, or indeed business leader, seems prepared to commit to what is actually a reasonable price to pay for a business meal. This is surely a crumb of comfort for Sir John.
Short cuts
Surfing in Moscow
It’s marginally cheaper to buy a Fabergé egg than check your emails in some Moscow hotels. There are plenty of internet cafés, though, but build some extra time into your schedule – downloading files and watching those video streams takes a bit longer than at many European business centres. Here are five reliable, centrally sited Moscow internet cafés:
Image.ru
16 Novoslobodskaya ul, tel. +7 495 737 3700, www.cafe.image.ru Metro: Mendeleyevskaya
Time Online
(open 24 hours) Okhotny Ryad Trade Complex (lower level), 1 Manezhnaya Ploshchad, tel. +7 495 223 9687, www.timeonline.ru Metro: Okhotny Ryad
Internet Cafe
15 Tshayanova ul, tel. +7 495 250 6169/973 4456, www.cafe.rsuh.ru Metro: Novoslobodskaya
Internet Club
12 Kuznetsky Most, tel. +7 495 924 2140/292 5670, www.iclub.nsu.ru Metro: Kuznetsky Most
Cafemax
25 ul Pyatnitskaya, Stroene 1, tel. +7 495 787 6858, www.cafemax.ru Metro: Novokuznetskaya
DRAWING BOARD
A hotel lacking atmosphere
A Barcelona-based firm called the Galactic Suite Project has unveiled plans for a hotel that will orbit the planet. The spacecraft will feature three guest rooms that measure 6.7m by 3.95m apiece. “The modular design is based on the natural growth of a grapevine,” explains Xavier Claramunt, director of the Project. The hotel will be launched from the Project’s training facility and tourist resort in the Caribbean – which will also be the departure point for guests – and will orbit the Earth at an altitude of approximately 400km. Galactic Suite employs a team of aerospace professionals, architects and industrial engineers from Spain and the US. The venture has yet to secure funding, admits Claramunt, but the €3m tickets for travel in 2012 will nevertheless go on sale in 2008.
BUZZING ABOUT…
McDesign
The design world is currently tying itself in knots over its ethical credentials. The reason? McDonald’s has put the famous Egg and Swan chairs, designed by the Danish architect Arne Jacobsen, into a handful of its central London restaurants. If this new look is deemed successful, it will be rolled out across Europe.
Rather than applauding the fact that the burger chain is helping make good design available to the masses, some design snobs are wailing that the furniture is simply being relegated to the role of corporate marketing tool, alongside Ronald McDonald and Happy Meals. Furniture designer Jasper Morrison has described the move as “visual pollution” and “corporate marketing at its ugliest”. Other designers are grumbling that McDonald’s describes the redesign programme as “re-imaging” – in other words, they see it as a purely cynical exercise to look classier.
Some commentators, however, point out that Jacobsen actually designed both the Egg and Swan chairs in 1958 as functional furniture for the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen. This was decades before Fritz Hansen, the Danish manufacturer of Jacobsen’s furniture, became hard-pressed to meet the aspirations of gold-card-carrying loft dwellers. The real issue for these supposed design aficionados is whether they can look at their pricey chairs in the same light now that they’re in McDonald’s.
Not really… Swedish
Many devotees of the popular REN cosmetics line believe the product is a scrubbed-up Scandinavian classic, but in fact it’s a six-year-old London venture launched by former brand consultants Antony Buck and Robert Calcraft. Ren is merely the Swedish word for clean.
Fed up with corporate life, the pair spent nine months searching for their own product brand. REN came about when Buck’s pregnant wife developed skin problems and found few allergy-proof products to choose from. The company has left out any ingredients with a history of skin irritation – including parabens, synthetic fragrances and phthalates – from its products. Fuelled by placement in upscale stores and hotels and a website, REN’s sales are rising by 35% each year.
The company now employs 25 people in West London and is as defiantly green as Buck himself (he was one of the first people to buy an electric G-Wiz car four years ago). REN packaging is made from recycled materials, the office uses renewable energy and at least 2.5% of profits go to employee-chosen charities. REN has just opened its first in-store concession, at West London’s Whole Foods Market superstore, and is considering opening a chain of stores throughout Europe.
UPGRADE YOUR TRIP
Mini-spa challenges minibar
Westin Hotels & Resorts has introduced an “in-room spa programme” that promises “to bring the personalised luxury and comfort of a full-service spa to the privacy of the hotel room”. The experience includes a “luxurious yet portable spa bed” and a basket “filled with sensory items to be enjoyed before, during and after the massage, a CD containing customised relaxation music, a healthful [sic] treat such as dark chocolate and a letter explaining what to expect from the treatment along with tips for ultimate relaxation and enjoyment”. Guests are encouraged to choose a room scent for the treatment.
Sue Brush, senior vice president of Westin says: “This programme is ideal for business travellers, who often have a small window of time for relaxation and pampering.” And it could work out much cheaper than emptying the minibar and calling an escort agency,
WHY ARE WE HERE?
Fifty metres in the air
Brussels-based PR agency Hakuna Matata and event company Benji Fun have been so successful with their Dinner in the Sky – which enables businesses to host marketing and corporate events on a crane-supported structure 50m up in the air – that the venture is extending its reach far beyond Belgium. Businesses that have elected to dangle their executives and products mid-air include Coca-Cola, Kerrygold, San Pellegrino and Le Vins du Val de Loire. For one Dutch event, Bavaria Beer created a wooden beach bar complete with hammocks and palm trees.
The Belgian company, which has held events in Holland, Portugal and the UK, recently added Slovakia, Germany and South Africa to the list of daredevil participants. Hakuna Matata’s chief David Ghysels says he is in talks with potential clients in Dubai, New Zealand, Australia and Hong Kong. He is keen to take the concept to the US, but says insurance demands there are “unrealistic”. Dinner in the Sky does provide insurance, but only for weather cancellation.
GROWING GAINS
H&M raises game
The fashion industry is muscling in on online communities such as The Sims 2 and Second Life as a cost-effective way of extending its brand and discovering new design talent. One of the first fashion brands to enter the virtual world is Sweden’s H&M. In The Sims 2, the world’s most popular PC game, avatars (a person’s virtual identity) can dress in the same H&M lines available in real stores. Even scarier, members can build their own virtual H&M shops.
The company is also running a virtual catwalk competition, providing 60 digital clothing designs for gamers to turn into their own creations. Game members from all over the globe are competing in six categories: Party Time, Skate Park, Street Wear, Night Out, Let’s Go to the Beach and Red Carpet. H&M is to produce one of the winning six outfits and sell it in its shops.
In Second Life, which has eight million-plus members, fashion is a big business. Brands that have sold virtual items include Reebok, Aveda, American Apparel and Adidas, while companies like Lacoste and L’Oréal have dabbled in the virtual world by getting their products in Second Life. The site has its own successful virtual glossy magazine called Second Style and it surely won’t be long before all the big fashion names are jostling to spend real money for ads on its pages.
TRAFFIC REPORT
The great escape
Its economy may be booming, but many Germans are keen to leave their country. Approximately 20% of those recently surveyed by the Allensbach Demoscopy Institute say they would seriously consider moving abroad, with 54% of these saying they simply prefer other countries, particularly in southern and western Europe. The numbers are higher among participants under the age of 30: about one third fancy packing their bags, with job opportunities being the most common reason. While the older generation dreams of a new life in Italy (13%) and Spain (11%), younger Germans have their eyes on English-speaking countries – 27% wanted to go to Australia, 15% to Canada and 14% to the US.
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