Today's weather forecast for Cape Town, a high of 27 degrees Celsius, a low of 12 degrees and clear all day, another perfect day of sunshine and blue skies.
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| Clifton |
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| Llandudno |
After a morning at Clifton, an afternoon at Llandudno enjoying Cape Town's finest beaches, I suggest a visit to Hout Bay harbour and a meal at "Fish on the Rocks." Good food, great value and a wonderful view of the mountains surrounding the bay. I have been going to "Fish on the Rocks" for fourteen years and have never been disappointed. We often jump on the motorcycles and ride out for a quick evening meal. Very popular in season but really worth the five or ten minute wait for your food.
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| Hout Bay Small Craft Harbour. |
Those of you who have read the blog before will be aware that I am crazy about Hout Bay, another of our pretty little villages. A walk in and around the harbour is always a rewarding experience. I would be short-changing the readers if I did not mention Dario's Cafe, our favourite coffee stop before or after a ride over Ou Kaapseweg and Chapman's Peak. Dario serves fine coffee and excellent food, very popular with the locals.
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| Dario's Cafe - Victoria Ave. Hout Bay |
Writing a blog is very interesting, I had this perception that successful bloggers sit at one of the "posh" pavement coffee shops in Camps Bay, drinking coffee and enjoying the view and the passers-by whilst "knocking out" today's edition. What I have discovered is that it is not so easy, no, actually it is hard work, it is a little like having one's own little TV or radio station, or one's own little newspaper. First, you have to attempt to write something that readers will find interesting enough to read and hopefully return over and over to read every edition. Then you have to find a way to reach your potential readership, it is not just a case of clicking publish and all on the internet will come flocking to your blog. I have been very lucky, Adsense has been kind enough to flight ads on my blog, I have been amazed at the quality of the advertisements and the ADVERTISERS who have been kind enough to associate themselves with my efforts, thanks to my readers and thanks to my ADVERTISERS.
So my request to you the reader, if you find a post interesting, please share with your friends and if you can, please support the companies that advertise on my pages. Mr.McBride of Silodrome (see link on the right), I admire you, you have a fantastic site, it is always interesting and I do not go a day without visiting your site, I now know how hard you work and you deserve to be very successful.
Motorcycling.
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| R318 between De Doorns and Montagu |
A road that I would like to share with my fellow motorcyclists is the R318, to get there from Cape Town take the N1 towards Paarl, take the alternate route over Du Toit's Kloof Pass, proceed past Worcester and De Doorns and then turn right onto the R318. To my surprise we encountered very few cars on this road and found it very pleasant to ride. We met up with three German couples that had rented BMW R1200GS's for the men and F800GS's for the ladies, after chatting to them for a couple of minutes their back-up vehicle, an Audi station wagon arrived with their bottled water and hotel prepared lunches, they travel in somewhat more luxury than we do. Those of you who find the Karoo pretty will enjoy the scenery particularly the Keisie Valley.
Proceed through to Montagu and if you have time ride Route 62, stop off at the "Karoo Saloon" just before Barrydale for refreshments. We often spend our weekends in Montagu and a place we like to stop at for a rest when riding, a cup of coffee and a bite to eat is "Kelkiewyn" in Villiersdorp. On one of our visits we encountered all the staff in an anxious huddle around the reception desk, on enquiring what was wrong we were told that there was a large snake in the kitchen, they had called the local constabulary to assist, he unfortunately did not find the trespasser and it was nervously back to business. Snake has not found its way onto the menu as yet.
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| Kelkiewyn - Villiersdorp |
A subject close to my heart. I was reading an article published by the European Union stating that Europe requires more entrepreneurs to stimulate the economy and to create much needed new jobs. Britain needs more entrepreneurs and their government is doing what they can to stimulate and encourage new start-ups. South Africa needs many new entrepreneurs and besides the efforts of the national, provincial and local government, educational institutions, banks and radio stations we still seem to be scratching the surface. Every economy needs more entrepreneurs. In my view, all advice, funding and support is some how tied-up in bureaucratic red tape and everything takes forever, which I feel is not very entrepreneurial. How can we make it easier for those out there with a great idea to get up and running? Please support small business and if you have skills and experience please assist these new businesses grow and prosper.
A little strategy.
My thanks to Michael Porter and Philip Kotler, I learnt so much from both your books and your published articles, you assisted me greatly as a Business School student and later as a lecturer, my students were fed a regular diet of both your wisdom.
The purpose of strategy is to gain competitive advantage.
So what is competitive advantage: an advantage over competitors, gained by offering greater customer value, either by having lower prices or providing more benefits that justify higher prices (Kotler). Simply, being better than one's competitors at creating and retaining "Delighted Customers" who would rather do business with your company than with your competitors.
We could complicate this discussion by breaking it down into the resource-based or the industry/organisation view, but that is for another day. Competitive advantage comes from three sources:
Superior Skills
Superior Resources
Superior Position
To the entrepreneurs out there, you are never going to out-muscle your larger competitors with superior resources, but you can insure that you "beat" your competitor's employees in the market place by working more effectively and efficiently than they do, understanding your customer's demands better than they do and focus your efforts on the twenty percent of customers who will give you eighty percent of your business. Rank your customers into A's, B's and C's, look after the A's (your best customers) like gold, convert the B's into A's by gaining a greater share of their purchasing, turn those C's into B's, those C's that do not have the potential to grow into B's should be left for your competitors, they bring more costs than profit in the long run.
Superior position entails how you set up your business in the competitive market and macro environments, it is about understanding the opportunities that you will profit by and the threats that can sink the ship. This is also important but focus your time on companies that have a need that you can satisfy best, get close and stay close to your customers and constantly be aware of new opportunities.
-oOo-
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