Publications / In the Press / Archive

Adolescent buyers have increasingly different preferences. Older generations have often displayed their status with their choice of cars, but Arthur D. Little experts predicted a change a long time ago: The number of German men between 18 and 29 years, who will buy a car, will drop between 2005 and 2015 by about 35 percent. Instead of buying a car, young people now spend their money on smartphones and laptops. The sense of independence which traditionally accompanied owning a car now seems to be associated with digital equipment.

Airlines from the gulf region are seeing sizeable growth as, on top of professional management and a privileged location, the gulf airlines also profit from various cost advantages. In a recent study Arthur D. Little estimates the cost benefits to be up to 30 percent. Compared to the European Airlines they have lower labour costs and are often exempt from paying business- and value-added taxes. Furthermore, airlines located in the Arabian emirates can buy cheaper kerosene. The article discusses a potential alliance between the German airline Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines.

Arthur D. Little and EE have released a new study into 4G business benefits. The study reveals how the superfast network can help British firms increase innovation, boost productivity and cut costs. Joseph Place from Arthur D. Little is quoted as saying “Businesses are using 4G LTE to bring a more fundamental level of mobility to their organisations. For example, 4G can be used to set up a fully connected office almost anywhere, dramatically increasing agility and responsiveness.”

EE launched the first 4G network at the end of October 2012. This article explains EE’s campaign connected with the launch as well as the benefits of 4G, for example, increased uploading and downloading speeds and coverage of rural areas. Therefore 4G can help increase efficiency and productivity for a lot of businesses. A survey by EE and Arthur D. Little indicated that more than seven out of ten businesses will upgrade to 4G within 12 months.

France Telecom SA (FTE) predicted higher full-year sales than top analysts have estimated. France Telecom CEO, Stephane Richard, explains that business in the Middle East and Africa will make up for drops in Europe. A study by Arthur D. Little is quoted  saying that the prices of phone packages in France have dropped by 8% over the past 5 ½ years and that the decline is expected to continue.

The amount of data processed in companies will double in the coming years. Therefore, using existing process-technology would be ever more time-consuming. The new storage technology “In-Memory” might solve this problem. Instead of saving the data on a hard disk drive, it will be located on the main memory. “It is important for software-firms to offer their software now, because the industry is still in its infancy”, says Dr. Klaus Schmitz, IT-consultant at global management consultancy Arthur D. Little. “We think a new big data-market will emerge that will be divided by the IT-companies”.

The amount of mobile data transmitted has doubled since 2010. Mobile network operators can hardly keep up with this growth concerning their network capacity, especially in metropolitan areas like Frankfurt or Berlin where customers face problems with their mobile connection. “The increasing number of smartphone users within one single cell site forces the mobile network to go down more frequently ”, says Ansgar Schlautmann, TIME-expert at Arthur D. Little. Therefore, the 4G-capacity will be widened. Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom both announced they will invest several hundred million Euros in their networks.

An article announcing Karim Taga, Managing Partner at Arthur D. Little, is a headline speaker at the upcoming Mobile Health Global as part of the Connected World Forum in Dubai in November. Karim is quoted as saying monitoring via technology is one of the best methods to cut costs in the healthcare industry. He also says technology is imperative in order to empower hospitals to deliver first-class service, broadband access and on-site ICT professionals.

Germany must consider an electricity capacity-based market model in order to encourage the development of offshore wind parks and reject the idea of a system based on selling into the spot market according to Michael Kruse, Principal at Arthur D. Little. In the article Michael says offshore wind parks are not really profitable anymore and they still require public subsidies and pricing incentives. He says the wind sector could learn from the nuclear industry by spreading development costs across a number of parties.

An article written by Michael Kruse, Principal at Arthur D. Little, about lessons that can be learnt from the experience of the nuclear sector. He says the biggest challenges for the offshore sectors are the rapid technology advancement of still immature offshore wind technology, the lack of standardisation, inadequate planning and a still-emerging supplier landscape. Michael explains how the nuclear industry had faced the same challenges and how they’ve overcome them. He suggests that the implementation of large capital projects in organisations should be brought closer together and that the offshore sector should become more open.