Some of the biggest international retailers are going ahead with ambitious expansion plans in China in 2009. Companies like Tesco PLC, Carrefour and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. continue to see the Chinese consumer as a good long-term bet. Walmart http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258172515304267.html Yum http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122896373927096997.html Read more »
The Great US Licensing Rush – Why Now???
It has been some time since our last blog. This has been due to a rush by European and Asia Pacific companies to acquire licenses from US franchisors – who are most of our Clients. The economics are simple. A US$250,000 license from a US franchisor cost 200,000 Euros in the summer of 2006. Today [...] Read more »
The Rule Of Law: An Economic Priority Or Just Nice To Have?
One of the basic tenants of international development has always been an evaluation of the Rule Of Law in a country as a measure of the risk of doing business in a country. Countries with a strong Rule Of Law have been perceived to be inherently less risky for foreign investors. A strong Rule Of [...] Read more »
Avoiding the Common Pitfalls of International Expansion
Bob Nordan, Senior Consultant with the Next Step marketing and strategy consulting group based in Northern California, has written a focused and detailed analysis of why companies should Go Global and why companies often fail when they try to Go Global. Mr. Nordan says, “Many U.S. companies who are facing revenue struggles at home are [...] Read more »
Economic Freedom: The Key To Global Development
Each year the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal publish the 160 country Index Of Economic Freedom rankings. The new rankings are now out. This survey finds that the key to developing country growth is not World Bank infrastructure and education loans but good old entrepreneurship from its citizens. Some emerging countries encourage new [...] Read more »
Predicting Global Business Growth With Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)
With over US$1 Trillion in assets at the end of 2007, ETFs have become a major global investment tool. Tom Lydon, the US-based Global Guru of ETFs, defines them as “a basket of securities that represents a specific sector, region or specific index. ETFs are like a mutual fund, yet trade throughout the day like [...] Read more »
Macro Trends For 2008
According to Dr. Alan Rudi, “Success in business depends upon your ability to understand the “big picture”, referring of course, to the long term macro trends and changes that determine the future business environment.” We often get mired in the everyday micro trends and do not realize the impact on our lives and businesses that [...] Read more »
Robert O. Anderson: How One Man’s Risk Changes Many Lives
You may not have heard of Robert O. Anderson, who died last week at 90 years of age. But if you have lived in the US since the late 1960s your life was changed by a risk this man took in the mid 1960s on a remote stretch of beach on the north coast of [...] Read more »
Redefining Global Strategy: Crossing Borders in a World Where Differences Still Matter
Dr. Pankaj Ghemawat, who teaches at the Harvard Business School, has written a new book on global strategy that uses many case histories and lots of data to make the case for the right way for businesses to Go Global. Despite almost 5,000 books on globalization over the past 5 years (!?!), Dr. Ghemawat says [...] Read more »
The U.S.’s Positive Trade Balence With China
The U.S. Department of Commerce Department calculates that America’s service sector had a $3.7 billion trade surplus with China last year. In 2005 the surplus was $2.4 billion, up from $515 million in 1992. And by one measure, America’s service-trade surplus could reach $15 billion a year by 2015. China is now the ninth largest [...] Read more »
