Krystal, a southern fast-food icon with a successful eighty-year history, recently announced that it has been sold to Argonne Capital Group LLC, a private investment firm headquartered in Atlanta.

With more than 6,000 employees and a total of 360 locations across the South, Krystal is a recognized player in the region’s fast food franchising market. Known for its small burgers and big taste, Krystal consistently outperforms the marketplace in quick-service sandwich traffic. The chain has experienced a period of significant growth in recent years, opening 10 new company-owned locations in 2011 with continued expansion planned for 2012.

“Finding the right owner, one that will continue to uphold the qualities of the Krystal brand that have made it a Southern icon, has been an important part of this transition,” says Krystal president and CEO Fred Exum.

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Just as Cadbury workers were getting used to their new bosses at Kraft Foods, the new parent group has changed its name to Mondelz International.

Kraft which completed a controversial takeover of the Bournville chocolate maker two years ago said Mondelz is a newly coined word that evokes the idea of delicious world.

The US company had previously announced it planned to divide into two companies before the end of 2012 a snacks business and a high-margin North American grocery business the latter of which will still be known as Kraft Foods.

Chairman and chief executive Irene Rosenfeld said: For the new global snacks company, we wanted to find a new name that could serve as an umbrella for our iconic brands, reinforce the truly global nature of this business and build on our higher purpose to make today delicious.

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It is vital that businesses of all types, sizes and purposes devote attention to strategies to increase profitability and to do this, the potential and possibilities created by modern business phone systems technology should be embraced.

It is increasingly common for staff to spend at least some of their time working offsite. Customers and clients need to be visited and often new business is generated through meetings outside the office. Previously, business owners and managers have been concerned that productivity will suffer unless staff are working in the office with access to the organisations systems and documents.

Here we consider three factors that are known to influence business productivity.

Business mobile phones (and internal phone systems) have completely revolutionised the ways that work can be performed and the potential for staff to be equally as productive whether they are working in or out of the office.

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CAR dealership Lookers beat last year’s record profits with a strong performance, despite an overall decline in the new car market.The brand, which trades from 11 Merseyside and Cheshire dealerships, grew revenues in the year to December 31 from £1.8bn to £1.9bn and saw pre-tax profits edge up from £31.1m to £31.4m.Net debt was reduced from £56.6m to £30.5m, lowering gearing to 20%.And new bank facilities provide the group with “substantial headroom” through to 2016.The motor division, which comprises 111 dealerships covering 31 marques from 70 sites, increased its share of the UK new car retail market to 4.1% and new car sales volumes rose by 1.1% overall – despite a 4.4% fall in the UK new car market – including a 25% increase in fleet volumes.Used car sales grew by 2.5% against a flat UK market.Its parts division achieved strong growth in turnover and gross profit.Chief executive Peter Jones said today: “We have had three successive years of increased profits, which have been delivered in difficult market circumstances.“These results give us confidence that we can continue to grow the business in 2012, despite short term market conditions remaining challenging.“As economic conditions improve over the medium term, the business is well placed to take advantage from future growth in the new and used car markets and increased demand for aftersales and parts.”Chairman Phil White added: “The new financial year has started well, with the group continuing to make further progress. We are, therefore, confid

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The Oriana, originally named by Her Majesty The Queen in 1995, returns to the waters recently after a month away from the sea being refurbished to become an adult only haven with a quintessentially British feel. The ship has a teak promenade perfect for watching the world go by and includes a theatre, cinema, nightclub and casino to keep you entertained all night long. Full Post…

An inevitable truth that every businessman faces when trying to find a successful marketing strategy for small business is that starting a business is a hard work. If you try to find ways to get your business, without doing anything, well, you should forget about your pipe dream. Your first step is using a business plan template.

A business plan template acts as a guide to help get your thoughts and ideas organized as you move forward with the promotion of products and services of your company. Full Post…

Do you ever wonder what happened to objective journalism? I have a thought about that.

Until the web changed everything, we got our news from a very few sources: There was a newspaper or two in every city. There were three major networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS, offering television and radio news. There were a few independent channels in each market, both on radio and television. And there were the national magazines, Time, Life, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report.

What we called journalistic ethics back then were also good business.

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Mobile technology has transformed the SMB workplace. But for many small and medium-sized businesses, the use of mobile devices has a hidden cost: Security.

In a SMB beta study conducted by Mobilisafe, a Seattle-based mobile security company, it was revealed that while most SMBs’ mobile agendas are driven by user-owned, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policies, the majority of IT managers severely underestimate the number and types of mobile devices that are connecting to their servers and networks.

Key findings from the study include:

• More than four out five employees use smartphones and tablet devices in some capacity
• Devices are introduced into SMBs and connect to company networks at a rate of one new device model per every 6.6 workers
• More than half (56%) of iOS devices have not been updated with the latest versions of firmware

But one of the most alarming findings from the study was that 39% of the authenticated devices at play in SMBs have been inactive for longer than 30 days, indicating that a high number of devices may have been lost or sold while containing employee credentials, sensitive business data or proprietary apps.

“We know that SMB IT departments are severely resource constrained, and do not have the time to get ahead of the issues introduced by an increasing diversity of devices brought to work by employees.

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