What's next for Netflix. sitthiphong/Shutterstock Netflix’s recent move to crack down on password sharing has boosted subscriber numbers by nearly 6 million in the last three months, for a total of 238 million subscribers globally. Netflix announced plans to limit sharing earlier this year after experiencing its first subscriber loss in a decade in 2022. Its recent decision to offer cheaper, ad-supported tiers has also played a role in this increase in account numbers. This will help to buoy the streaming giant amid strikes by actors and writers, layoffs and concerns about the effect of the ri ..read more

Hot gossip. Cara-Foto/Shutterstock Apple’s recent unveiling of the Vision Pro, its first augmented reality and virtual reality (VR) headset, came as a surprise to no one who follows Apple news – rumours had been circulating for years. Apple’s products have a long history of creating waves well ahead of launch due to rumour and speculation. In late 2009, for example, the technology blog MacRumors.com suggested – without fully validated evidence – that Apple was going to call its upcoming tablet computer the “iSlate”. Other rumours about the device – some of which turned out to be correct – disc ..read more

While family owners can sometimes be bad for business, they can also be beneficial in many ways. (Shutterstock) When it comes to turning corporate social responsibility (CSR) into profit, research shows family businesses have the advantage. CSR is a form of self-regulation where businesses make concerted efforts to be socially and ethically accountable to themselves, their stakeholders and the public. In our recent study on S&P 500 firms’ CSR strategies, we found that family businesses get more bang for their buck. While family owners can sometimes be bad for business — the desire for cont ..read more

Congress could learn a thing or two about acting proactively from Elon Musk, seen here with his Dragon space capsule. AP Photo/Jae C. Hong Imagine you’re speeding along on a highway. Suddenly, the traffic ahead of you slows, forcing you to hit the breaks. Eventually you arrive at the source of the bottleneck: a mattress lying in the right lane. One by one, your fellow motorists simply crept around it. No one stopped to move it off the road to relieve the congestion. Why would so many people fail to take action and (easily) fix the problem that slowed traffic to a crawl? People – whether motori ..read more

Apple is taking a calculated risk with the pricing of its new phone. The US$999 iPhone X is a bet on users’ loyalty and wealth and is on the surface consistent with the company’s longstanding strategy of differentiation and exclusivity. The danger lies in how the phone sells in the world’s huge and growing emerging markets; Apple clearly thinks it is a risk worth taking. And it’s not without reason. Apple has always targeted the higher end of the market worldwide rather than just aiming for a larger base of users. In fact, if anything, Apple tends to price phones higher outside the US. The UK ..read more

Illustration by Isobel Joy Te Aho-White Author provided Mai i te ētita: Nā Piripi Walker i whakamāori tēnei tuhinga mō Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. Pāwhiria ki konei hei pānui i tēnei tuhinga ki te reo Pākeha. Ki te hīkoi koe ki roto i tētahi rūma poari, kura pakihi rānei, ka rongo koe i ētahi ingoa, hoki atu, hoki atu, e whakatairangatia ana: Ko Apple tērā, Tesla tērā, ko Google tērā, arā atu, arā atu. Kei hea ngā ingoa nunui, me ngā kōrero whakaharikoa mai i te ao Māori? Kāore i te rahi rawa. He mea pōuri. Arā te tini o ngā kamupene Māori hei akoranga mō tātou i roto i ā tātou mahi whakahaere, wh ..read more

Some businesses have managed to build positive outcomes from the crisis. MicroOne/Shutterstock The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted different responses from company CEOs seeking to ensure their businesses survive. Keeping their employees safe has been the first priority, but beyond that, their task has involved understanding the situation, launching countermeasures, and trying to evolve ways of working to ensure their businesses can continue. We spoke to the chief executives of three major companies in three very different industries. In their responses to the crisis we found that Winston Church ..read more

Kenny1/Shutterstock Over the last five years a revolution on the British high street has seen businesses and their customers wholeheartedly embrace online shopping. Some companies seized the opportunity to branch out into often unfamiliar territory, while others failed to recognise how forcefully and quickly this market trend would blossom. When Marks and Spencer – the iconic socks-to-sausage rolls retailer – finally gets round to trialling food deliveries this autumn, it will find out if that particular lucrative ship has sailed. M&S is playing catch-up with pretty much every one of its d ..read more

Ikea's Hyderabad store has not been as busy as the Swedish giants had hoped. fotosunny / Shutterstock.com Ikea is celebrating its first anniversary of operating in India. Even though the company secured regulatory approval to enter the country in 2013, it took five years of effort and significant investment before the first Ikea megastore opened its doors to Indian consumers in Hyderabad in 2018. The response was overwhelming – 40,000 shoppers turned up on day one, resulting in two-hour long queues just to get inside, while traffic built up outside the store. Ikea has since purchased land parc ..read more

pathdoc/Shutterstock No rational person would ever enter the lottery. The chance of picking the right six numbers and hitting the jackpot in the UK’s Lotto is approximately one in 14m. But even in something based purely on luck, a strategy can be found. If it was mandatory to play the lottery, how would you enhance your prospect of winning a bigger pay out? The answer is to always pick numbers above 31. That is because analysis has shown that the majority of people choose numbers associated with their birthday or a family member’s birthday as their “lucky” numbers. So picking numbers above 31 ..read more