Reminder RoBloggers2008

For all you Romanian bloggers - please take the annual RoBloggers survey.

Follow the Money

Scenario 1:
Your company produces cars. As in automobiles :)

Question:

Where are your big profits coming from?
(a) Selling the plane cars
(b) Selling the customized cars (read: full option :) )
(c) Selling parts and accessories

Scenario 2:
Your company produces digital cameras. (DSLR)

Question:



Where are your big profits coming from?

(a) Selling cameras

(b) Selling accessories
(c) Selling printers and papers

Facts from the Romanian market:
A big high tech company has a dedicated outlet chain but one can not buy accessories for their cameras (read batteries :) ). They have call the Service division and ask them for a special order.
Well... my camera is not broken, so why should I call the service helpline?
And... their batteries can be bought in other electronics shops across Romania.
My personal question: What's the company's business strategy? Market skimming? :)



PS: If at least one of your answers is (a), please drop me a line so that I can convince you otherwise

View This Data (ep. 3)

Cinemas in Romania
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

(1) Romanians don't go to the cinema. This is often said and written when talking about spare time activities in Romania.
However,
(2) there are less and less cinemas in Romania.

I can't say for sure which of these two facts is the resultant and which is the cause. Cinemas either went bankrupt because people did not go to the movies or... they became banks, fast-foods and / discos because of their location and dubious privatizations.

I guess reality beats the crap out of movie fiction.

iTunes Store Romania?

iTunes Store Romania?
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

Is it coming soon?
I managed to complete all registration steps until "payment" when I keep getting an error. The error text reads something like: " Error, please try again later"

Does anyone know more about the iTunes Store coming to Romania?


Update: Legal terms on apple.com are available for Romania. It appears that only AppStore will be available in Romania. Click for legal terms in Romanian

Update2: Apple appears to be operating the iTunes Store Romania through
iTunes s.à.r.l., in Luxembourg - as it does with other EU countries as well.

EU and My Mustard

Could a guy like me just have breakfast without reading labels? :-)

This Vama Veche mustard is Bulgarian.

I now wonder where the accompanying delicious sausage comes from...

EU messed with my food.

The Dragon

The Dragon
Originally uploaded by brandlyyours

This dragon guards a house in Bucharest (Bvd. Aviatorilor) It's neither from harry potter nor Dracula. But it actually used to be useful by carrying a light torch or a flag.

Thoughts on... Doing Business in Romania

As today's news regarding Mercedes plans to build a new car plant in Hungary and not in Romania shows,
Romania really needs to build its infrastructure if it still wants to be more than a consumption based economy.
By the way, retailers in Romania should soon see important pressures on their margins as road infrastructure will hinder their stock management strategy.

Local Perspectives

Every time I travel by train to Sibiu I tell myself that I have to write something on this blog.

It's just a personal idea, something often mentioned by smarter people. However, every time I'm in Sibiu (or any other location outside Bucharest) I notice differences in people's behaviour.

For example, people in Sibiu have totally different shopping baskets. The combination of fmcg goods is considerably different from the one I'm seeing in Bucharest. Two of the possible reasons identified are:

• distribution. i.e. there are important meat producers simply not present on the supermarket shelves in Sibiu
• buying behaviour. i.e. people in Sibiu seem to behave differently with respect to certain fmcg categories: relying more on taste and promotional package than on brand

Now, simply looking at some shopping baskets is not representative in terms of market research but it sure ads colour to market share and consumer reports. So, as just mentioned, smarter people urged marketers before, and I also recommend that every marketing - and brand manager takes time to visit cities across Romania.

The only 'new' part of this piece of advice is that - now that regional development starts gaining momentum, Romania might be ready for a marketing strategy customized in terms of geographic differences. Simply put: local perspectives could make or brake brands and marketing initiatives.

Mephisto luring under the bed

Saturday evening was a dream-come true. After reading the German original for high-school, I finally saw a live adaptation of Goethe's Faust.

My 3 tags are:

• spooky
• a_must_see
• great_director_great_text_great_mephisto_great_set_design.

Foto: Scott Eastman, source:liternet.ro

PS: Should you not find the time to see it in June, the show has already been sold to this year's Goethe festival in Germany (at the beginning of September)

Thoughts on... Pistachio

Is it possible that pistachio is the rich man's sun flower seeds?

I've noticed that "nouveau riche" consumers are substituting sunflower seeds with pistachio. I guess old habits die hard.

This is great news for pistachio sellers and by no means bad news for sellers of sunflower seeds. As living standards improve, new users of sunflower-snacks will emerge.

The Golden Stag at 40

At 40, "The Golden Stag" international music festival in Brasov, can be considered one of the oldest "deers" in the world.
Initiated in 1968, this festival had some rough years in between, but the Romanian National Television (TVR) decided to organize it again this year.
I found the first few minutes from the 1968 edition on youtube and wonder if organizers will remember to invite Mr. Draghici to this year's edition. Draghici was the first performer to take stage at "The Golden Stag" and still lives in Romania.

PS: In case you're wondering. Deers usually live about 8 years but can also reach 17 years. Wikipedia (Romanian)

"The Golden Stag" - website

Thoughts on... Parking in Bucharest

Even though I have never driven a car within Bucharest, I also suffer from lack of parking space.
This is because as a pedestrian I have to:
(1) slide through tiny little spaces between crammed parking lots
(2) jump over impromptu placeholders such as beer cases transformed into parking place-holders
(3) pay attention to cars riding on side-walks in search for a parking space

However, having said all these, I wonder:
Would solving the parking space problem in Bucharest trigger a spike in petty theft?

Or putting it in another way: There is a number of people making money as "freelance"-parking agents in Bucharest. Should parking spaces abound tomorrow, what would you recommend that all these people do in order to get money?

Romania: iPhone is Orange

France Telecom spokesman Bertrand Deronchaine said Orange will be the exclusive iPhone provider in Belgium and Romania, with co-exclusive or non-exclusive deals in other countries. He declined to offer more details about the arrangement

The first good reason for me to switch back to Orange :)

Link to AP News

Restaurants in Romania: €1.22bn

A little bit of self-promo.

Visionwise Consulting, the company I am currently with, has just presented an overview on the Romanian restaurant market. (occasion: Food Service Industry Forum 2008)

The 3 bullet summary on Romanian restaurants

• Market estimated at €1.22bn in 2007 and set to reach €2bn by 2010
  
• In 2006 only 55% of the 5267 active companies were profitable
  
• Most common consumption occasion is "meeting with friends" (67.1%) and top 2 things appreciated by clients are food - and service quality

Happy eating!

Later Edit: Tim Harford's "Dear Economist..." column tackles the issue of "service" being added to restaurant bills. Well, in Romania restaurants don't add service to bills and the average tip is around 2 Euros.

You Know You're in a Cash Based Economy...

...when you stand in line to use the ATM.
(It happened last night.)

CEC Bank Rebrands

As CEC starts rebranding, today's business press turned greenish.

CEC Bank is 144 years old and still having the guts and strength to start a rebranding process set to last until 2010. (I know that the Romanian state is trying to privatize this bank, so a well-done face lift can only help :) )

Liking or disliking the new logo is a subject for designers and other pundits. What I have noted yesterday, was that the process started in a coherent and well orchestrated way:

• press conference
• new website
• Check out the car design for auto-credit
• I wonder why they did not register cecbank.ro or cec-bank.ro...
  
• new TV ad (expect to see a 20 sec cut very shortly :p )
• CEO's tie was branded