Staff Reporter

Connections at The Carphone Warehouse stores in the South of England are tracking at just 85 per cent of targets as it approaches the busy Christmas shopping period and staff morale has hit rock bottom.
Sales in the region for November are claimed to be tracking at almost 90 per cent of target on new subscriptions around 80 per cent on upgrades and 85 per cent of target on pre-pay. During October it hit targets on new connections in the south and came close on pre-pay. However it missed upgrade targets in October by an even wider margin claimed sources close to Carphone.
Carphone s 134 stores in the South performed at up to 150 per cent of its sales targets in the run up to Christmas last year claimed a source.
The source said: The area manager would like the figure to be 150 per cent ideally. And that s not unrealistic. At the very least they should hit targets at 100 per cent across the board.
The targets are set according to last year s results and they should be achievable but hardly anywhere is hitting targets. Last year we were running at 150 per cent in many stores with only a very few under-performing.
Sources put the shortfall down to staff disillusionment with the new regime headed by MD of retail and former Phones 4U chief Anthony Catterson and with Carphone s TalkTalk broadband service.
Carphone held a two-day training conference with US-style motivational talks for store managers near Gatwick airport last week in order to boost morale and stimulate sales ahead of the Christmas rush.
One source said: The bigger problem is staff morale. A lot of store managers have left as well as the district manager for the South so there are a lot of new faces. Plus broadband sales have put a huge strain on staff because we have had three or four complaints a day in store.
There have been so many problems with it.
Others suggested that Carphone could be missing targets because Catterson has imposed much higher targets with bigger rewards for hitting them in an attempt to galvanise staff.
Catterson knows his stuff he s the consummate sales guy a numbers man an industry source said.
Carphone s district manager for the South and seven store managers two from the Southern region left their roles in July shortly after Catterson joined.
Carphone was unavailable for comment.

Newcastle-based distributor Fone Logistics has appointed a new finance director a move that strengthens the possibility of an IPO bid next year.
A spokesman for the company confirmed that it was looking provisionally at a float in 2007.
The announcement has been made only weeks after Vodafone decided to drop Fone Logistics distribution contract. However Fone Logistics maintains that it is still in talks with Vodafone and any funds raised from an IPO bid will be for general expansion and growth.
Andrew Dean has joined the non-executive board as finance director replacing Michael
Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick stepped up to the role of managing director earlier this quarter following Ian Gillespie s move to Chief Executive.
Dean joins from a PLC company background with time served in corporate finance institutions including Ernst & Young and KPMG. Dean s experience in a listed company environment and his background in flotations and acquisitions will prove useful as Fone Logistics seeks to enter a phase of acquisition and growth leading to a possible market listing next year.
Dean said: Fone Logistics represented an almost unique opportunity to practice the skills gained elsewhere and for me to help shape its future. Our plans are aggressive yet achievable and I look forward to contributing to achieving them.
Julien Parven Fone Logistics Director of Marketing says: This appointment has been made to strengthen our team and bring in specific skill sets and experience that will help us meet our goals for 2007.

Until now Orange has accepted all applications for new dealer codes on the grounds that the risk lies almost entirely with the distributor networks claw back losses from the distributor for faulty payments.
But Orange has overhauled its management information system and billing analysis platform. Orange is checking company names director names and business and VAT numbers against its own do-not-deal register to ensure that dealers that have been struck off do not connect again under different business names.
Chris Hough interim director at Mainline said: Orange is turning down applications for new connector codes which it has never done before. Orange would never have previously vetted new account applications submitted by distributors because any fraud rests with the distributor.
Mainline has so far not had any knock backs for account applications because it has not been recruiting new dealers. The rest of the distribution channel has had new dealer account applications turned down by Orange.
Distributors too are being more vigilant. One distributor source said that its application requests that dealers provide detailed company histories business plans and site photographs.
An Orange spokeswoman said: There is no specific policy of denying dealer code applications.

Parry joins from Unique where he was commercial director. He will be based at MPE s new offices in Crewe and report in to MPE chief Phil Sambrook.
Prior to his most recent role at Unique Parry was head of distribution at Sagem and before that he held roles at T-Mobile Kondor and TMTI.
Carphone managing director of indirect distribution Stuart Henry moved MPE from its bases in Adderbury near Oxford and Wednesbury in the Black Country to Crewe in September.

They say up to two months wages were owed to members of Business Comms staff before the company finally folded.
Angelo Alcorano former Business Comms sales executive said: It s the worst company I have ever worked for. I joined because the pay would be good. However I worked there for two months and didn t get paid once. I couldn t pay my rent for two months.
Paul Ubsdell joined the business as national sales manager. He says: I had complete control of the front end of the business and I was asked to develop the team from 10-26 people and it was completely irresponsible of Business Comms to take on staff when they never had any money to pay them. I had expenses cheques bounce and staff were never paid or paid late on a number of occasions.
Another former staff member of Business Comms said: [Company directors] Kevin [Veitch] and Stuart [London] have no excuses for not paying staff. They were telling me to recruit more staff but they hadn t planned on how they were going to pay them there was intense pressure on the sales team to perform.
Staff were told to contact Wilson Field Recovery who were initially appointed as administrators for the company. However Wilson Field Recovery confirmed that it no longer represented Business Comms.
Former director of Business Comms Kevin Veitch said: We are looking to appoint an administrator at the moment. I am not able to comment on unpaid wages or tax.

Music download service Napster has launched on O2 Ireland.

A spokesperson said: Napster launched in the US earlier this year so this marks its first steps into the European market on mobile. O2 s i-mode users in Ireland will have access to over three million tracks.

The service will be available from February to O2 Ireland s 1.6 million subscribers. Users can purchase and download songs over-the-air to mobile handsets and to PCs. There is no confirmed date for a UK launch.

A Dextra spokesman said: In an effort to allay any undue concerns the company has stressed to staff that the confirmed number of roles under review comprises only two per cent of the whole workforce at the division.

Sony Ericsson is enjoying its biggest ever market share which has grown steadily through 2006 thanks to a strong handset portfolio across both contract and pre-pay and successful branding.
Sony Ericsson was number two in the UK for market share in September and Sony Ericsson hopes its fuller pre-pay range will see it prosper through to Christmas and even take top spot from Nokia.
We re enjoying the battle with the other three top manufacturers at the moment said Sony Ericsson marketing manager Richard Dorman.
We ve done better than we anticipated in the UK. We are pretty confident now our fingers are crossed that we might overtake a certain Finnish manufacturer in the run up to Christmas.
The Sony Ericsson K750i launched last summer is selling well on pre-pay traditionally Sony Ericsson s weak point. Meanwhile it has maintained a steady stream of premium contract devices with Walkman and Cyber-shot branding such as the K800i W850i and W810i.

The businessphone MTT 1570 is designed for people who do business on the move such as household contractors taxi drivers and mobile sales forces.
The handset allows the user to take financial transactions anywhere over the GPRS/GSM network. The handset is simply a Siemens C60 with the kit attached on a backpack that allows the user to perform credit and debit transactions through its integrated PIN Pad and smart card reader.
As we move towards a more card-based society merchants should expect to offer the facility of credit or debit card transactions and it is likely that they could lose sales if they are unable to provide this solution. In addition consumers tend to spend more and are inclined to remain loyal when paying by credit or debit cards said Athol Hampson CEO of thebusinessphone.
Thebusinessphone has signed an international distributor agreement with WAY Systems service provider of mobile POS solutions and is also currently in talks with The Carphone Warehouse as well as other independent retailers.

On November 14 Vodafone announced plans to launch mobile advertising with Internet portal company Yahoo! as its exclusive partner.
Customers will expect to get savings on certain unspecified Vodafone services for the privilege.
In a presentation on the day Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin said: Our customers were willing to accept mobile advertising with a couple of conditions: that it would be on an opt-in basis; and that we share the economic benefits that we get from advertisers. Yahoo! is the world leader in display advertising. You ll see the first adverts going out in the April May June timeframe.
However O2 has distanced itself from this business model with Erskine saying the network has conducted trials but isn t ready to introduce a similar scheme yet implying that the revenue isn t there.
We are running trials in the advertising space he said. We are interested but it s absolutely critical we get the customer experience right. I think if you do nothing but just pump adverts at people well the advertisers aren t stupid. Unless we can get revenue streams on the ads it s just an excuse to give away free minutes.