Regulatory safety role vital for market access
throughs, mobile ordering and payment, and virtual baristas, to speed up the process and get more money flowing through the chain.
The problem is, this model depends greatly on foot traffic. And with consumers spending increasingly less time at the malls and shopping centres Starbucks locations were built to serve, the company knows it can no longer rely on the “pull” model of intercepting existing foot traffic. Instead, it will have to create more of a “push” model, giving consumers reasons to get off their couch and come in to get a coffee.
Enter Starbucks Reserve and Roastery stores. They are more wine bar than coffee house, replete with tastings, mixologists and educated baristas. They’re a place to take a date, to sit at the bar and experience the tastes and smells, as you’d do at a wine bar or craft brewery.
Indeed, customers at the already opened Roastery outpost in Seattle spend an average of 40 minutes at the restaurant, says the company.
Compare that to the few minutes it takes to swing past a Starbucks on your morning commute and pick up the vanilla latte you pre-ordered on your cellphone. It’s a totally different business model.
It’s no wonder Schultz is stepping down as chief executive to work on this new, higher-end line.
It’s a better fit for Schultz to focus on building this new concept, leaving the day-to-day work of infusing technology into an established fastfood chain to his successor, former Microsoft executive Kevin Johnson.
So far, Starbucks’s immediate plans call for only 20 to 30 Roastery outposts globally. This could limit the damage if the concept flops.
As Schultz explained to an analyst this week: “Let’s say it doesn’t work, then what have we lost?” – Bloom-berg THE South African arm of global safety science company Underwriters Laboratories (UL) aims to assist companies in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) to better their products’ safety standards to be able to gain access to key export markets.
UL Southern Africa set up its operations in the region in 2015, with its offices in Joburg.
The company certifies, validates, tests, verifies and inspects manufactured and industrial products.
Kennedy Nzimande, the managing director of UL Southern Africa, said this week that the company aimed to unlock the safety bottlenecks often associated with products meant for the export market.
“An important focus for us is to facilitate market access into and from markets throughout Africa and around the world. In order to be globally competitive, local industries and products need to meet international safety and quality standards. It’s our mission to enable them to do this,” Nzimande said.
Durban-born Nzimande had the responsibility of establishing UL’s entry into sub-Saharan Africa, and believes the company’s international knowledge will assist local firms to produce safer products.
The company’s parent business operates three divisions. The different divisions are UL Commercial and Industrial, UL Consumer, and UL ventures.
Nzimande said by having a UL safety mark, it enabled products to enter a variety of markets and meet different countries’ regulations.
UL Southern Africa guides companies in meeting compliance issues on the continent via National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS) letter of authority certificates. The company also helps RUSSIA is building a $30-million (about R414-million) complex for acrobatic rock ’n’ roll, a niche sport in which President Vladimir Putin’s daughter is a leading dancer and has a senior role for development, documents show.
The Zhavoronki Acrobatic Rock ’n’ Roll Centre will be built on the western outskirts of Moscow at a cost of 1.9 billion roubles, say state tender documents, and funded by the municipal government.
It will be the only specialised facility in the world for the sport, according to governing body the World Rock ’n’ Roll Confederation (WRRC). The money being invested dwarfs that spent on bigger sports companies access South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) certificates of compliance, and also assists tech companies meet Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) regulatory requirements.
Nzimande said 18 months after first setting up base in South Africa, the company had already accumulated more than 50 customers, ranging from cellphone manufacturers to hi-tech firms and producers of medical devices, among other industries.
He said growth in the use of mobile and internet payment transactions in Africa provided the company with a growing market.
“In transaction security, UL guides companies in the process of conducting safe, accurate and reliable electronic transactions within the mobile payment and transport domains… We are in a position to provide companies operating in this space with a distinct competitive advantage.”
Another area the company sees itself playing a critical role in is the area of renewable energy and medical devices industries.
The South African government this year announced plans to launch the country’s own regulatory agency on medical devices.
Companies producing these devices would need to be in possession of a licence to be able to deal in the industry. President Jacob Zuma signed the requirements into law this year – following several revisions that began in 1998.
Nzimande said UL was well-positioned to assist firms in the industry comply with safety regulations so as to gain licences to operate.
“Our role is to assist regulatory bodies in developing and updating standards of medical devices, like the relationship we have with the US Food and Drugs and Administration to certify medical devices.” in Russia like archery and biathlon.
The complex is being built for the Moscow City Khamovniki state sports and dance school, where Katerina Tikhonova – identified as Putin’s youngest daughter – was trained in acrobatic rock ’n’ roll and for which she competed several times until 2014. Lubov Sobol, a prominent anti-corruption campaigner, said the centre was being built so Tikhonova could run it.
“It seems obvious there is a political story here,” she said, without providing any specific evidence of political influence. “Moscow is just building this place to satisfy the personal ambitions of the president’s daughter.” – Reuters