Nearly every business can look back at when they first started and look at some good, and bad points, about their “birth” date. We have seen around the world the Blackberry/Research in Motion messenger system grinding to a complete halt. In the same week, one of Blackberries competitors in this field, Apple, launched their own, updated, version of this. Apple may look back in a few years time and find that this was the perfect week for launching/promoting this side of their business. They will have planned this for months and months and the dates probably changed a number of times. Then, completely out of the blue something happens which catapults them right into the media spotlight. Very few of the news stories about Blackberries woes did not mention that Apple were launching their rival service in exactly the same week. Apple gets good, free, publicity anyway, but this is the stuff of the ad departments dreams. We are not saying that all Blackberry users are going to jump ship, but I can guarantee you that more people signed up to Apples IM service than Blackberry.
When Businessinsure started, the idea was evolving around the time of Dot.com bubble growing to it’s largest. Whilst we have been naive and green, as any business is, when growing, we knew that the dot.com bubble would burst. When you saw headline news on the BBC about a new internet company that sold dog food, you sort of knew that this was not going to last. The bubble duly burst in 2000, just as we started to launch our new online business insurance brokerage service.
At the time, there was a complete mistrust of anything Internet related. This was a combination of the existing, traditional broking houses deciding that they didn’t like these young upstarts changing the distribution pattern and the fact that Internet access was not enjoyed by all. There was also a third point in that dial up internet connections were as slow as slow can be.
But, as the internet became more widely available and broadband became more accessible, people realised that to get a shop insurance quote you did not have to go and sit in your local brokers office, you could sit in your own chair, in your own shop and correspond with us.
If you find yourself in that situation right now, please feel free to call us to discuss any of your business insurance requirements.