Vestact has a team of four portfolio managers, and we aim for a very high level of client service. How do we achieve this?

The most important aspect is to be swift in our communications with clients. We try to reply to queries within minutes of their arrival in our support email box. We even answer questions over the weekend. We are responsive and helpful.

We all manage our own correspondence. We don't have secretaries, assistants, or analysts to get in the way. We just do everything ourselves.

We make extensive use of WhatsApp to stay in touch with our 1 226 active clients. We like those blue ticks, which confirm message delivery. We avoid time-consuming face-to-face meetings, in favour of video calls or voice calls.

We make absolutely sure that current tasks are squared away by nightfall. All share purchases and sales, and cash payments are completed on the day they are due. The members of the team keep tabs on each other to make sure we don't miss anything.

We run a tight ship, which is how the small team here manages R13.2 billion without breaking a sweat. It's a lovely life.

When I opened my usual Excel spreadsheets on Friday, a notification popped up telling me that Microsoft's AI assistant called Copilot has now been integrated into Excel.

The first prompt it gives you is to suggest a formula column on an existing spreadsheet. It analyses all the data and gives you some ideas that could make your calculations more useful. Pretty cool.

You can also add colour to a spreadsheet without having to manually select the columns. You can simply type "Highlight all cells with..".

Copilot will be very useful for doing calculations if you don't know the formulas offhand. You simply type the question, it does the calcs for you and most importantly, those calculations will sit on the spreadsheet already and can be applied to any data you manually add later.

This is a great example of AI tools making tasks easier and more efficient. It also makes the Microsoft Office suite more valuable to users, ensuring customer loyalty and securing Microsoft's future profit margins.

Kodak is famous for building the first digital camera back in 1975, and then going out of business due to the digitisation of the imaging industry. The story goes that management ignored the changing landscape because they were too focused on the good profits generated by film.

I found this article from 2016, written by Willy Shih, a VP of Kodak who ran their digital consumer division in 1997. He says the history books have it wrong. Shih argues that Kodak was aware of the change in the industry, but senior managers didn't say much publicly because they didn't want to speed up the changes, by creating self-fulfilling prophecies. He also says that Kodak didn't know how to capitalise on the shift to digital.

Kodak, at its core, was a chemicals company who were amazing at mass producing very complicated film. Digital cameras required a completely different skill set. What did Kodak know about electronics? Also, there were already many other companies specialising in the newer technology. Looking back, even digital cameras were short-lived due to the introduction of smartphones.

Shih thinks one of their biggest mistakes was thinking that photo printing would continue to be a big business. The assumption was that even digital photos would end up as physical pictures, but Instagram promptly changed that. The article ends off with some theories of what Kodak could have done differently.

Kodak's story is a reminder of how difficult it is to completely change what a company does. When a team is geared to do one thing really well, diverting those systems and personnel to do something different is nearly impossible.

You can read the article here - The real lessons from Kodak's decline.

Chinese AI-lab DeepSeek, founded by hedge fund manager Liang Wenfeng is shaking up the industry by openly sharing how it built its cutting-edge R1 language model on a budget.

Liang, once dismissed as an eccentric billionaire, used his expertise from quant trading to assemble a world-class team and optimise Nvidia chips, despite US export bans.

Launched in 2023, DeepSeek operates like an AI research hub, staffed entirely by top local Chinese talent and funded by Liang's trading firm, High-Flyer. Its transparency and research-first approach have drawn comparisons to early DeepMind - Google's AI project started over a decade ago.

The lab's latest breakthrough - a model trained for a fraction of the cost of US rivals (think ChatGPT) - showcases China's growing talent pool and resourcefulness in AI development.

While DeepSeek is gaining traction, questions remain about its ability to compete as the industry scales up. Rivals like OpenAI and Musk's xAI are investing billions in next-gen computing power, potentially widening the gap. For now, DeepSeek stands as a symbol of Chinese ingenuity in the face of global tech challenges.

Beta testing new IT systems is crucial. Some companies rush implementation with disastrous consequences - Sonos fires CEO and COO.

Apple's earliest investor sold down his one-third stake over 20 years. Holding one stock for decades is tough - The mental torture of long-term investing.

Asian markets are mostly up this morning, fuelled by excitement around AI in China. Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan benchmarks posted gains, while mainland China flattened after an early rally. AI-linked Chinese tech stocks saw a boost, with DeepSeek's progress sparking interest.

In local company news, TFG reported an 8.4% year-on-year rise in third-quarter sales, driven by a 47% jump in online sales, boosted by festive season trading.

US equity futures are in the red pre-market. The Rand is trading at around R18.51 to the US Dollar.

This week the following companies will report earnings: AT&T, SAP, Microsoft, Meta, Tesla, ASML, Apple, Visa, and Mastercard - to name a few.

Enjoy the week.