BLOG: My Trip to London pt. 3 - The Silicon Roundabout

At 2 PM I am walking through a narrow neglected street, just to be sure I held my laptop-bag a bit tighter to my body. In the Shoreditch borough, Bonhill street number 5. I am looking through the window, yes, this is The Campus, the domain of many startups in London. I had registered upfront via www.campuslondon.com and received a community-ID. After typing it in at the reception desk I receive my card and can go downstairs through narrow staircases and have access to the basement of the building. It is buzzing here with youngsters. 

They have one thing in common: they all are sitting behind a MacBook Air and have a bottle of water. Some typing, most with headphones on, some calling (with their iPhones), others having discussions. Most guys wear beards, hoodies and jeans, a phew are dressed up a bit sharper. And the women seem to have asian blood in their veins mostly and make up for at least 40% of the people here. In the middle of the basement there’s a small café/counter for coffee or a croissant that you can pay for with Pounds or Bitcoins. In the background New Orders’ Blue Monday is playing. In a corner there’s a desk with testing devices, ranging from smartphones to several tablet sizes and laptops. Apparently apps can be tested here for cross device functionality.

The Campus was founded by ‘Google for entrepreneurs' and positions itself as ‘An Engine for Collaborative Innovation’. Working here is free when you are part of the community (by registering), WiFi is free and fast, and the café offers cheap drinks. 

The Campus is one of the many coworker spaces in this neighborhood. This Eastern part of London is, besides the Silicon Roundabout (referring of course to Silicon Valley) also known as ‘Tech City’. Starting with about 15 media and high-tech companies in 2008, this area now offers the homebase to a couple of hundred tech-based startups. Next to Google, some bigger established companies invested in this area: BT provides super fast broadband, Cisco is establishing an innovation centre, Intel has established a research lab and Amazon has opened a Digital Media Development Centre. 

Most startups here are focussing on the FinTech (Financial Technology) and EdTech (Educational Technology) sectors. And I found this a facinating contrast. The large shiny luxurious skyscrapers of HSBC, Morgan Chase and Credit Suisse in Canary Wharf on the one hand. And the cheap shabby basement with startups in East London on the other hand. The business models of the first are crumbling, while currency clouds, crowdsourcing, mobile banking and digital wallets are disrupting the financial markets.

To complete my journey in this inspiring borough, I drank a beer in hipster co-working place The Book Club. One of the slogans I saw here on the wall: “We are living in a transformational era for financial services. Our children will look back at these past decades and laugh at how we banked”. 

BLOG: My Trip to London pt. 2 - Stansted Airport without Humans

It was 9.40 AM when the plane touched the runway at Standsted Airport and taxied to the gate. After disembarking the plane, signing guided me to a driver-less mini-train. Passengers cued up before the doors, watching the countdown on screens to when the train would arrive and stop exactly at the designated door openings. The doors slid open and the train moved, while a sweet but cold digital woman’s voice told us the safety procedures and asking to keep our passports ready. 

Via escalators I arrived at the e-Passport gates located at the immigration checkpoint in the arrival hall. The gate number lit up of the available gate and I stepped forward. On screen I got instructions to put my passport on the scanner, while a camera, hidden behind a mirror, moved up to meet my length and clearly scan if I was really Radi Jaarsma. After a couple of seconds a green light flashed and the UK border opened itself for me in the form of sliding doors opening automatically. Meanwhile screens showed me at which bagage belt I could collect my overpriced extra hand luggage and after that I used my credit card and a touch screen to get my Standsted-Express ticket for a travel by train to London. I withdrew some pound notes from the ATM, grabbed a coffee from the coffee machine and the last thing I saw from Standsted Airport, where the automated gates on the train platform that opened in response to my ticket. 

Apart from my fellow travelers, there was no human interaction involved in this whole process from stepping out of the plane to stepping out of the train in London. It left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the white steel and spacious environment of Stansted Airport struck me as a cold mechanical atmosphere. On the other hand: my trip went very.. very smoothly. To be honest, the first human interaction that I had during that trip was in the train, when ordering a coffee (I need a lot of coffee in the morning). The guy was foreign and could not speak English very well, nor understand it. As an extra, he did not have change and when finally I overhauled him to use his credit-card terminal, it looked like it was the first time he saw that machine. After finding out that he was only allowed to use the credit card terminal for a minimum amount of 5 Pounds, I decided to treat two passengers in front of me for a coffee in order to get to that amount. 

This is what ManpowerGroup calls the Human Age. And almost as a paradox, a lot of tasks humans did the last decades are replaced by technology and robotics. All studies show that especially jobs that consist of some form of repetitive and routine tasks, are automated at a very rapid pace. Gartner calls this the ‘De-Routinization of Work’. And that is exactly what happened at Stansted. No more train drivers, ground services, immigration officers, ticket office agents and cafeteria staff.

The best contribution that people can bring to work, are not routinized processes that can be automated, but in the added values that are distinctively unique for us human beings: creativity, leadership, innovating, empathy, relationships, discovering. To put it more simply: the unique talents of people will flourish best in non-routine work. Helping workers to make that change is part of the ManpowerGroup ‘Dignitiy of Work’ statement.

BLOG: My Trip to London pt. 1 - easyJet and Ancillary Revenues

At exactly 9.35 AM on Day 1 of my trip to London, the easyJet airplane was taxiing down the Schiphol Amsterdam Airport runway. I am on my way to London for a few days off, followed by three days of Northern European meetings with ManpowerGroup colleagues on Social Media and Digital Strategy. 

Why I am flying easyJet? It was the cheapest fare. I typed my destination in on www.skyscanner.nl and the white/orange carrier topped the list. And that is exactly the competitive playing field most airlines are in today: be on the first page of any air tickets list or you are gone. Flying from A to B is such a homogenous product, that price is almost the only differentiator for most people. And yes, of course I prefer a comfortable seat and leg room. A hot coffee included and a short movie would also be nice. But if it increases the ticket price? No, it’s just not worth it then. Both on private trip as well as business trips. 

It reminded me of a Finnair presentation I attended recently. Finnair did not make it to the first page of many ticket selling websites. Main reason was their ‘all inclusive’ pricing. Travelers were allowed an extra piece of hand luggage, could pick a seat and have a newspaper on board. Competitors like easyJet, Ryanair and Norwegian stripped all this, offer a low price, land on the first page and get more sales. Do these low-cost carriers offer less? Well, not necessarily, they just offer a basic price to get from A to B. And additional services come at a premium. Airliners call this ‘Ancillary Revenue’. The ticket price is the basis and makes the sale. Ancillary services are the real money makers. Once a tourist trip has started, people are more willing to draw their wallet. And the best thing for a company? High margins and hardly any competition in this stage of the sales-cycle. The customer is already ‘hooked in’ and the moment of ticket purchase forgotten.

In the top 60 of airline ancillary revenues, easyJet takes ninth place, with ancillaries taking

account of 19,2% of the airlines’ total revenue.

So how does that compare to the staffing industry, where our biggest brand - Manpower - is in? Traditionally we tend to charge our customers one price for all staffing services: a markup on the hourly wage of our flex workers. The staffing product is quite homogenous as well price plays an important role in decision making. Our industry is adopting the Airlines model. Start with a basic pricing and offer additional services at a premium. 

And while the plane was descending for London Stansted, I thought of how I coped with easyJet's business model. Well… With my plans to do some running in the morning, my hand luggage was completely stuffed. So I had to take my laptop bag with charger, iPad, etc. as a second piece. EasyJet charged me € 30 extra for it. That is 20% of the ticket price. And I paid it without a problem, happy that I was able to take two bags on board now. Together with a coffee during the flight of € 3, I contributed € 33 to easyJets ancillary sales.