The term "business model" is a summary of how a company operates. The term covers the nature of the business, the market that the company intends to serve, the value customers receive, and the company's profitability and sustainability over the long term.

Take, for example, the parent company of the company that produces this newspaper. Bermuda Press (Holdings) makes and sells publications, owns print and office supply companies and has real estate interests (it's publicly owned; no secrets there). It does everything necessary to allow it to produce those publications, sell those office products and services, and look after its commercial tenants. That's the bones of its business model.

This week, in London, I bought a pair of shoes from a shop called Clarks. The company may not know much about spelling, but it makes fine shoes. For decades, its business plan has been to make and sell men's and women's footwear at a reasonable price. Clarks is also strong in children's shoes.

Based on my recent visit, I can report that today's Clarks inventory is full of clown footwear (the kind that readers of Mad Magazine would recognise as having been designed by Don Martin to go "Fla-doop"); Turkish slippers with rolled-up points; running shoes (wildly popular with the never-exercised-in-my-life crowd); sandals (for wearing, in Britain, with socks); and other unlikely and absurd footwear.

Clarks make excellent brogues. Yet when I went to the company's flagship store and asked for a pair, the sales person asked me: "What's brogues?" I'll pause here to let the enormity of that comment sink in. In case you don't know - why would you? - brogues are known as wingtips in the US. They are heavy leather shoes with patterns on the toe and cap. I had a similar experience in a bookshop not long ago, when I asked for a copy of Gulliver's Travels, by Swift. "Who?" the bored sales assistant asked. "Jonathan Swift," I replied. "Never heard of him," the young lady said. "Is he a writer of some sort?" "Brogues," I said to the young chap at Clarks. "The sort of shoes a policeman would wear." "Gotcha," the fellow replied. He returned a couple of moments later from a parley with another assistant. "They're in promotions," he said, which meant they were on sale.

I asked for a pair to fit my dainty feet, in a half size no less. "Not much chance of that," the chap said as he disappeared into the back. Waiting for him to return, I studied the other shoppers. There must have been a clown convention in town, because couples were buying ridiculous footwear as if there were no tomorrow. Clown shoes were not being promoted and cost, I noticed, much more than the sturdy brogues. The fellow returned a few minutes later. Much to my surprise - and much more to his - they had what I wanted, in my size. Better still, sort of, they were marked down by £25 to £40.

"I'll take them," I said.

"I'm not toilet-trained," the assistant replied, or so I thought, but when I queried it, he said he wasn't "till-trained". We waited patiently for a cashier. "You must sell a lot of these," I said, pointing to the brogues. "First pair I've sold, and I've been here two years," the fellow replied. I'm probably the last man left alive not in a Police force or the army who wears actual shoes - you know, leather, laces, shape, shine, all those elements considered so undesirable in modern footwear. Soon enough, Clarks won't make brogues, because outside the City of London, the business zone, people only wear joke shoes, to show how ironic they are.

Clarks has changed its business model to suit changing circumstances. "If people want comic footwear, give them comic footwear" is probably the company's mission statement. General Motors, on the other hand, has proven unable to change with the times, and has gone bankrupt. Its business plan - make giant gas guzzlers, regardless of what customers want - was a poor one.

It's very hard for businesses to gauge what people want. Most modern people want to project cool. For men, that means wearing soft clothing such as T-shirts and jeans, and exercise shoes or slippers. This shows how relaxed and not uptight one is, man, like chillax. For women it means looking like a prostitute. Hey, I'm just saying. If your 14-year-old daughter doesn't want to look like a slut, she's out of touch with the modern style (congratulations). Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of sluts. I just wouldn't want my daughter to be one.

Clarks and General Motors and all the other companies have to navigate through change that is often unforeseeable. Imagine if, in 1957, Mr. Clark had told his cobblers to prepare for a world populated by lounge lizards and tramps. He'd have been out of work faster than you can say "What so greatly attracted me to your daughter is her louche promiscuity".

Successful companies anticipate trends, listen to their customers, and take the lead when such behaviour is called for. If General Motors had had the courage to start making smaller cars, they'd be in fine shape today, instead of being an arm of the US Government.

* * * Reinsurance, a London magazine, ran a round table with some local insurers. Its report began thus: Q. How have the last 12 months been for the Bermudian (re)insurance industry? Greg Richardson: On balance, the BDA reinsurance (sic) has performed well over the last year. Ike was a big event but most companies took it in their strides ..." How awfully unpleasant for them.

* * *

All those who now hate me for belittling their tarty daughters will be pleased to hear that my credit card-related woes continue. My Internet connection was billed to my credit card. When the card was cancelled, I missed the monthly payment to North Rock. Having said ugly things about the company in the past, I must tell you that they didn't cut me off, but let me go on my merry way as a non-paying customer. Thanks, North Rock. (Bank of Butterfield sorted the problem out with their usual efficiency, once I'd discovered that I had a problem.) I ordered a debit card from NatWest, my UK bank since about 1840. "Do you already have a debit card?" the woman asked. "Yes," I replied, "but it's a little old. It has a £10 limit." All business in the bank ground to a halt, and I felt like a man in a classic Punch cartoon, you know, "the fellow who drank his port before the toast to His Majesty".

Everyone was staring at me. "I've been in a coma for 40 years," I said, and that seemed to do the trick. The woman couldn't have been more helpful, and promised to have me sorted out inside a week.

Being a branch of the UK government, NatWest couldn't bank its way out of a paper bag. Despite explicit instructions, the debit card was sent to Bermuda, and will probably be there when I get back - at which time I won't need a debit card, because Butterfield will hand me my new MasterCard.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I must pop out and find myself a slut.