Following on from our story earlier today, we can report that the Google Analytics service is slowly returning to normal. We understand that missing data points for yesterday have been restored for a number of UK sites.  Please do contact us if you are still experiencing issues or if you have managed to establish dialogue with Google and get an idea as to the cause of the outage. You should also continue to follow the Google support forums and if you’ve been directly affected.

Whilst outages like these are few and far between, the whole episode has underlined the importance of business critical information and it’s security.

Unfortunately Google does not proactively contact its analytics customers to inform them of outages and getting any direct communication with Google support has been virtually impossible for us in situations like this. This leaves many businesses in a precarious situation wondering whether important and sensitive data has been lost and only helps to fuel speculation and rumour.

I’m sure many businesses will be reassessing the value of free data services such as Google analytics and whether it is prudent to take the risk of using it, even if it is free.

Give us your thoughts.

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Businesses around the world (including TMN News) have been left in turmoil this morning following an error in Google’s Web Analytics software which tracks and reports on website visitor numbers for hundreds of thousands of. The Free Google Analytics service stopped showing data for many websites in the UK leaving many businesses in the lurch with no access to critical business information. Thousands of disgruntled Google customers have vented spleen on Google’s Twitter page.

As yet the only statement made by Google has been an update left on their Google Analytics Dashboard which reported the issue on Monday:

“We are continuing to investigate this issue. We will provide an update by November 6, 2010 12:00:00 AM UTC detailing when we expect to resolve the problem.”

Google Analytics has quickly become a favourite with many small business website owners as the service is cost free and provides a wealth of information to allow website owners to track their website performance and improve their websites. However, many business owners will be rueing the decision to use the free service instead of opting to use a costed analytics provider. As they say, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Well, not a three course menu anyway.

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New global business intelligence platform delivers information on the latest trends and business opportunities in the defence industry.

Progressive Digital Media has launched a new web-based business intelligence tool Strategic Defence Intelligence. The platform provides a stream of continuously updated customer and competitor intelligence as well as industry forecast reports for the leading markets worldwide, enabling you to instantly understand what is happening within the defence and security industry.

Global military expenditure reached $1,531 billion in 2009. This figure is set to continue to rise in 2010 but with greater scrutiny by governments, making it even more important for industry professionals to keep up to date with how and where money is being spent.

Strategic Defence Intelligence (www.strategicdefenceintelligence.com) features a searchable monitoring platform that tags all content by product category, company, country and business issue which enables you to keep up with your competitors by keeping track of market developments in all aspects of the industry.

“Strategic Defence Intelligence is unique in the way it monitors global defence news and analysis as it happens in a highly structured way. It combines this with informed editorial, helping guide industry professionals through the latest in trade news and technological developments,” says editor Berenice Baker.

Strategic Defence Intelligence supports suppliers and defence agencies in four key ways:

1. Learn from expert analysts and writers providing industry forecasts and global news to the industry, with a four year searchable news archive and reference resource.
2. Keep up to date with the most important tenders, contracts, financial deals, product launches, and company developments researched by our in-house team as well as 3rd party news and sources feeding into the site.
3. Follow every aspect of the defence industry along the entire supply chain – across over sixty categories, including aerospace, land and naval systems, components, emerging technology and support services, allowing professionals to search a wide and diverse range of opportunities.
4. Personalise the information to suit your specific needs through custom tracking, data exports and information sharing.

The website also allows you to create your own custom reports using any content on the site, delivered instantly as your own personalised documents.

“We have made it possible to gain a complete understanding of the market within just minutes,” says Berenice. Industry professionals can pull together all the latest market developments, identify competitors and spot new business leads within all aspects of the defence industry.”

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With all the developmental ups and downs of the London Olympics, it’s hard to even think about bidding for another grand sporting event. But bidding is exactly what England is doing, this time for the 2018 World Cup tournament. Business moguls such as Lord Alan Sugar and Willie Walsh, the chief executive of British Airways, are showing their support and backing the bid.

Analysts predict that hosting the World Cup would boost the British economy by £3.2 billion, a figure that has put weight behind the bid.

In a letter to the Daily Telegraph, the signatories said, “It would be a tremendous boost for the country. An economic impact assessment by PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates a net positive impact of £3.2 billion to the economy in the summer of 2018.”

They continue, “The tournament will create revenue and jobs, helping to transform communities in many cities. It will open up opportunities for young people to learn about teamwork, competitiveness with integrity and other skills needed in business.”

It’s not clear what the public reaction to the bid is at this time or how much the taxpayer will be expected to contribute. Perhaps with backing from such wealthy and powerful businessmen it will be of less importance, who knows? I guess only time will tell.

Candidate files must be presented to Fifa on Friday with a final decision being made by Fifa’s executive committee in December. England is up against bids from Russia as well as joint bids by Spain/Portugal and Holland/Belgium.

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The merger between mobile phone companies T-Mobile and Orange is gathering steam after the plan achieved regulatory approval earlier this year. Tom Alexander, the chief executive of the merged company announced that its new name would be ‘Everything Everywhere’.

“What I wanted was a company name that did not distract or confuse from two very strong brands,” he said. “What I wanted was something that was additive. I love Everything Everywhere because it really does encapsulate the vision and the ambition for the company.”

Everything Everywhere plans to open a further 100 retail outlets and increase it’s Wi-Fi hotspots across Britain. The new shops will not only focus on selling, but helping the customers use their mobile phones. Not a bad idea at all, with phones being able to do so much these days, you almost need an ‘app’ degree to understand them. The merger will give the company the largest share in the network, with 27,000 mobile phone masts countrywide. Hooray I shout, being a T-Mobile customer for as long as I’ve had a phone and the frustration at always being the one loosing signal. It will also allow for progression into landline phones and puts television “firmly back on the agenda”.

The senior management team will consist of thirteen former Orange executives and ten from T-Mobile. These include three former Virgin Mobile executives who joined Tom Alexandra at Orange when he arrived at the company.

I just have one question. Does this now mean that T-Mobile customers will get Orange Wednesdays?

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With the election now decided (as much as it can be at this stage),  it is time for UK politicians to roll up their sleeves and start delivering on those promises that helped get them to Westminster.   To bring smiles to the faces of the UK consumer – our simple suggestion is to listen to the growing discord from customers of the now Government part-owned banks.  Brown might have bailed the banks out but there’s more than a feeling of discontent amongst the millions of customers who hold accounts with RBS, LloydsTSB and HBOS. With the government now having their say in how these banks are run, it might be time to for party members to listen to their constituents and customers and have services improved.  Even better, learn from the banks of choice, Nationwide and First Direct.

As part of iCD Research’s monthly Online Consumer Index survey, a Net Promoter Score (NPS)* is collected across a wide number of brands and industries. Put simply, a positive score is satisfied customers that would advocate or promote your brand – the ones that you’ve delivered to and delighted, rather than damaged your relationship.   For First Direct (6.76) and Nationwide (3.92), the NPS rates as positive – the only positive scores across all the major banks (more promoters than detractors).

So does money buy love? It seems not as HBOS and the Royal Bank of Scotland brands make for unpleasant reading, all with strongly negative NPS scores of -30.76 (RBS), -26.37 (Halifax),  -21.80 (Lloyds TSB), and -19.75 (Bank of Scotland).

Chris Binney from ICD Research commented “Any way you look at it, the news is not great for Government backed banks and they need to start listening to their customer’s needs more than they currently do. With Nationwide in particular positioning themselves away from the big banks, being ‘proud to be different’ is true not just for their strategy but also true of their satisfied customers. As the politicians tried to listen to the voters, it’s time that the banks started listening to their customers – before they lose them”

*Respondents are asked to rate their willingness to recommend their bank to family/friends on a scale of 0-10 where 0 is not at all likely and 10 extremely likely. Responses are split into three groups; Detractors (0-6)- unhappy customers who have potential to damage brand image, Passives (7-8)- unenthusiastic and prone to switching and Promoters (9-10)- Loyal brand enthusiasts. The NPS score is calculated from the percentage of Promoters minus the percentage of Detractors.

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