The Kitchen Gangster
Real Business cover story July 2007
It’s hard to meet Vance Miller with an open mind. For starters, his nickname is the Kitchen Gangster. He’s a body builder with biceps that could effortlessly snap the neck of a pen-pushing journo. And his reputation!
The Daily Mail calls him “the most complained about independent
trader in Britain”, and he’s been investigated by Watchdog and Rogue Traders
more times than anyone else.
His rap sheet is disturbingly long and varied. He’s been repeatedly imprisoned, including a two-year stretch for kidnapping; been shot; been tried for gold smuggling; and in November last year his house was raided by 130 police offices in the biggest Trading Standards raid of all time. And he’s been banned from being a director until 2014.
But is he really a wrong ’un? After all, he’s built a £100m business selling kitchens to some of the biggest retailers in the world. He’s long protested he’s the victim of a smear campaign, and there is no shortage of customers who defend him. A Channel 4 documentary, Brits Get Rich in China, which aired in May, followed Miller on the buying trail, revealing just how diligent he is in hunting bargains.
Real Business arranged to meet Miller to find out the truth. Amusingly, a week before the interview Miller hits the headlines again. He’s on the run from the police, wanted for kidnapping.
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50 to Watch in Mobile
Real Business February 2007
What can you do with your mobile phone? Talk, text and maybe even take a photo?
But did you know that you can pay a train fare, watch TV and share your home-made
videos with other mobile users? Because your phone’s location can be pinpointed
and integrated with maps and directories, you can instantly find the nearest
Michelin-starred restaurant. Your phone will tell you which bus to catch to
get there. It will even tell you when the next one will arrive. And if you
want to hop in the car you can see live CCTV footage of local roads.
We’ve compiled the Real Business/ O2 ‘50 to Watch in Mobile’ to give you
a tantalising glimpse of what you’ll be doing with your phone in the very
near future.
We hope you’ll be blown away by the possibilities.
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Britain's Digital Elite
Real Business cover story November 2007
The secret to great execution is technology. Knowing what you sell, service
with a smile and no-quibble money-back guarantees are no substitute for slick
backend operations. To demonstrate this point Real Business and Microsoft®
present Britain’s Digital Elite. We’ve scoured the land looking for firms
who are superb at using technology to deliver their product. We spent months
looking for companies who were destroying their competition – not because
of what they do, but the way that they do it.
Four judges – including two entrepreneurs who made their names using technology
to shake up industries – sifted through the deluge of entries. In all ten
categories we found the same pattern: by investing in technology, small, aggressive
firms could dominate larger rivals. Speed of service is raised. Costs lowered.
In some cases, the software was being used so imaginatively the very sector
the firm operated in was being altered.
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30 at Home
Real Business cover story July 2008
Do you really need an office? The instinctive response is
“yes”. This feature is intended to provoke you into rethinking
your answer. Or, at the very least, changing it to “not sure”.
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