Ups and downs in business !
It was a varied bill of fare on the Bottom Line this evening.
Scott Barron of Fashion Retailer Pamela Scott spoke of the difficulties faced by his group of 24 shops as they went through the process of Examinership. Good news though as 300 jobs have been saved and good news in particular for Carlow where the Pamela Scott Store in the Fairgreen Centre is staying open. Scott was critical of what he described as Government failure to follow through on its pledge to end “upward only” rent reviews. Scott said that the process of examinership is difficult and expensive but his company is looking forward to the future with optimism despite on-going difficult market conditions.
Meanwhile despite the optimism that the introduction of the new “13 1” number plates, CSO figures released today that year on year April new car sales were down by 13.6 per cent while sales of imported private cars jumped by almost 40%. We spoke about these issues with John O’ Brien of Audi Kilkenny.
While long established industries such as retail and motore are undoubtedly under pressure there is one business sector which seems to be enjoying eye wateringly good growth – phones and mobile communications. This week the TSSG Company – who operate a high tech research centre in Kilkenny are hosting a Future Internet Assembly at DCU this week. We spoke to Kevin Doone, Chief Operations Officer at TSSG.
Now while their sector has certainly had more downs than ups in the last number of years, architects are still taking time to look after those down on their luck in our society. We spoke to Robert Cummins of Cummins & Voortman Architects about the Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland’s Open Door campaign in aid of Simon where participating architects are donating an hour long consultation to Simon. Ring a participating architect book a consultation and the money goes to Simon.
And Tom Molloy from the Irish Independent joined us for a review of the stories making the news. The sage of Omaha Warren Buffett is renowned for his simple analysis which is usually right. We talked to Tom about Buffett’s prognostication that people and companies holding cash are about to feel the effects of looming rampant inflation. You have been warned!
Finally technology is a hugely important factor in business and Microsoft have had a share of complaints about the user friendliness of their Windows 8 operating system since its launch. Well Microsoft have announced some changes and we discussed them with Ken McGuire who enlightened us all and then slipped into the presenters chair to present the Arts Show. Never let it be said that the radio lot aren’t versatile ….
Regards
John
