Team Boston - The Sun April, 2001 Volume 4, Issue 3 Page 1

April, 2001
Volume 4, Issue 3

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A Team Boston Newsletter

Round-the-Clock Everything

Inside this issue:

Essay for Business 2.0        2

Industry News and
Related Topics                     3

Industry News and
Related Topics cont.         4

Chrysler "First Fill          4
Program"

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, just 3.5 million people worked the night shift in 1997 (the last year data was available). Not now say others who monitor such things. Circadian Information a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based consulting firm reports that 23 million people will work night, evening or split shifts or regularly rotate between night and day in 2000.

Long Hours, Higher Profits

The convergence of global economy, enabling technology (particularly the Internet) and a dramatic increase in the number of two-income earning families has created not just a 24/7 economy, but a 24/7 culture, an expectation that our professional and personal needs will be met anywhere, any time. And they will.

In fact, the 24/7 culture is creating profit-making opportunities for a wide range of businesses:

Some 61% of new-car dealerships offer either weekend or evening hours, up from a mere 4% in 1997.

Retailers struggling to fend off dot.com interlopers keep their doors open well into the night. Some Wal-Mart stores,

Home Depots and Staples are open all night. One Virginia Staples saw sales rise from a 17% deficit (compared with sales the previous year in the same quarter) to 24% increase in sales over the previous year.

The Fear of Being Gunned

Some analysts explain the shift to a 24/7 culture by pointing to the rise in two-income earning families. With mom and dad both working, little time is left to run errands or take care of personal business. Nights and weekends are the only time available; retailers and service providers are merely responding to customer needs.

Of course, that’s true, but the whole story is more complicated. John Challenger, CEO of the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, explained to The Christian Science Monitor "It starts with the technology available to do work all the time. Then as there is more work to do, business speeds up, the market keeps expanding, and there is more emphasis on output."

Some claim it started with the Internet, which enabled instantaneous global communications. Actually, it started with the telephone. Then came the fax machine, and only recently the Internet. Now every businessperson knows that somewhere in the world someone is doing business and possibly outmaneuvering them.

The Constellation Web Site

Please re-visit the Constellation, Team Boston’s web site at www.teamboston.com. The user name is galaxy (lower case) const.jpg (10483 bytes) and the password is planet (lower case). The Constellation provides up-to-date information, in addition to Team Boston value added programs like the Galaxy Scorecard and Street Fighters