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"Customers now have access to multiple channels, empowering them with knowledge and allowing them to exercise unprecedented levels of choice about how and with whom they do business. "
Vittorio Colao, Chief Executive, Vodafone Group.
"On the one hand, it seems like everything is changing. On the other hand, one very important dynamic has not changed: the consumer is boss."
AG Lafley, Chairman of the Board, The Procter & Gamble Company
"Consumers will increasingly look for brands with a social purpose… Brands and businesses that fail to integrate consumer needs with societal wellbeing will struggle to grow in the future."
Paul Polman, Chief Executive, Unilever
"The next 50 years will see new forms of marketing, tailored in greater ways to our lifestyles. But it’s the product that really forms the future of marketing – as it has done in decades past."
Sir Richard Branson, President, Virgin Atlantic

The Big Yellow 

Nick Vetch

Ahead of our Question Time debate on entrepreneurialism Elen Lewis talks to Nick Vetch, founder and chairman of The Big Yellow Storage Company

What should all good marketers learn from entrepreneurs like you?
Probably that they should be entrepreneurs as well.

What’s the best decision you’ve ever made?
To launch my first business in 1989 and going on our own.

What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve ever learnt?
That’s really easy. Almost everyone can do almost everything better than I can.

Which leader do you admire the most?
This is terribly politically incorrect but Jimmy Goldsmith. He coloured the world a little.

What’s your golden rule?
It’s a luxury but no personal debt.

Who has been your biggest influence?
My housemaster at school. I was terribly naughty and disruptive and he was very patient and managed to steer me towards non-disaster.

What’s your most hated business expression?
Synergy

What’s your smartest business idea?
Copying someone else’s idea

Your worst habit?
Distracting my colleagues

Your favourite word?
Holidays

What do you have in storage?
Furniture and pictures that my wife won’t allow in the house.

Who are your dream dinner party guests?
It might be explosive. Elizabeth I, Churchill, Genghis Khan, JFK and Mandela.

What keeps you awake at night?
My children

What books do you have on your bedside table?
Anna Karenina by Tolstoy

If you could edit your past what would you change?
I’d keep it just as it has been, good and bad.

 

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