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How to learn about culture and language. When you live in a foreign culture, you learn how to learn. You learn what vocabulary is important, what language learning techniques work, how to make relationships, what skills are important, what details to pay attention to. These skills will carry over to other languages and other cultures in the future.Read the entire piece here: The Best Defense (be sure to read the wild comments)
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There are 1.9 billion Internet users worldwide. Wouldn’t you like to add them as customers?
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| Photo credit: Laurel Delaney, 12/18/10, Oak Park Avenue, Tinley Park, Illinois, U.S.A. |
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“We’re really wasting time,” says Janet Carmosky, CEO of the China Business Network. Carmosky knows what it’s like to be busy. When not running the China Business Network, a resource geared towards international professionals doing business with China; advising major corporations on their China strategies; or speaking at conferences, she writes about China for publications like the Economist and the Harvard Business Review.Learn more about what she has to say here:
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| Photo credit: Laurel Delaney, lakefront in Rogers Park, Illinois, U.S.A. |
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The only legal requisites to opening an import business are having an importer of record number, which is usually just the business's tax-identification number, and a surety bond to protect the U.S. government if you can't pay your duties, taxes and other fees. Surety bonds are required for all so-called formal entries where the shipment is valued at more than $2,000, but many importers use them on smaller shipments as well. They can be purchased ...Read the entire answer: Opening a Small Import Business
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"More and more of our exports have started going to the faster-growing regions in Asia, Latin America and Canada," said Morgan Stanley economist Ted Wieseman. "It highlights that the emerging markets never really had much of a slowdown at all. They've continued to outperform throughout the crisis."Read the entire article here.
Exports of industrial supplies were particularly strong, rising 8%, driven by chemicals and plastics. Food exports also surged. Among the big gains: Soybean exports jumped to almost $2.4 billion, an all-time high, from $1.8 billion in September.
BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Steward Health Care LLC (Steward) announced an agreement to acquire Essent Healthcare’s Merrimack Valley Hospital (MVH) and Nashoba Valley Medical Center (NVMC). The agreement calls for the assets of MVH and NVMC to be acquired by Steward Health Care to expand its community-based accountable care organization.So, it would appear that Essent is divesting itself from the losing propositions. That leaves, what, three? Is that enough to have a building, a suite of offices, or a closet for a headquarters?
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Foreign CompetitionRead the entire article here.
Especially if you are creating a small business that does manufacturing, you are going to have to deal with foreign competition.
So are you going to be able to compete with the companies in your industry that pay their workers on the other side of the world less than a tenth of what you are paying to your American workers?
On the other side of the world, companies often don’t have to worry about unions, worker’s comp, health benefits, retirement benefits, nightmarish environmental regulations, crushing taxes or miles of paperwork and red tape.
Are you certain that you can compete against that?
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“Often the best sales strategy is not going directly into new markets, but it’s leveraging up your existing customers. We are seeing this in a lot of manufacturing sectors, in a lot of technology companies. We [Canadians] have very, very good products, but often these products have to be packaged or integrated into a bigger service for customers.”Read the entire article here.
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It’s a global economy. We know that. But what does that really mean? It means that even if you decide to start a business tomorrow in your hometown, more likely than not, you’re going to have to turn to other parts of the world to make your business efficient and profitable. For many business owners, that other part of the world will most likely be China.Read: The Top 10 Things You Need to Know About Doing Business in China
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The kiosk, which is located at SME Corp's office in Menara Matrade, also helps them leverage on the toolkit to enhance their business by reducing their operational cost. SMEs can gain access to the relevant information in the toolkit via the Internet and need not go to the kiosk personally to access it.Learn more here.
The SME Toolkit is an online program that enables entrepreneurs and small businesses to learn how to implement sustainable business management practices needed for growth in areas such as finance, accounting, international business, marketing, human resources or legal, at no cost.
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| Photo credit: Laurel Delaney, GlobeTrade.com -- captured in my car near a stop light at Wacker Drive and Michigan Avenue in Chicago. |
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"Entrepreneurs are not born but created by their experience." ~ Patrick Molle, President of EMLYONHis conclusions and recommendations can be found here (requires translation).
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"PC market growth will be impacted by devices that enable better on-the-go content consumption such as media tablets and next-generation smartphones," added research analyst Raphael Vasquez. "These devices will be increasingly embraced as complements if not substitutes for PCs where voice and light data consumption are desired."And according to Laurel Delaney, founder of GlobeTrade:
"The iPad will make it a whole heck of lot easier and more fun to take your business global."Read more here.
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| Photo credit: Laurel Delaney, The Global Small Business Blog |
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“The whole world is going global, and especially in the last three or four years, it has really taken off,” said Janssen. “The revenue growth is in Asia—with some in Europe, but [revenue growth in] the United States is virtually flat. The jobless recovery here is very, very real. The war for talent in the United States [consists of] finding those who have skills to manage a global group—those who have global awareness and understand the complexities in doing global business. It’s only a handful of people right now.”Read the entire article here.
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| Photo credit: Laurel Delaney |
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| Photo credit: Laurel Delaney |
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| Photo credit: Laurel Delaney |
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| Photo credit: Laurel Delaney |
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| Photo credit: Laurel Delaney |
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| Photo credit: Laurel Delaney |
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| Photo credit: Laurel Delaney |
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| Photo credit: Laurel Delaney |
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The U.S. Meat Export Federation thinks that the butt, which has enjoyed a surge in popularity in the U.S. as the raw material for pulled pork sandwiches (as shown), should go international.Read all about it here.
USMEF is looking at a variety of markets for this initiative, including Mexico, the Caribbean, Canada, South Korea and Japan,” said Dan Halstrom, USMEF senior vice president of marketing and communications. “U.S. pork is the protein of choice globally, and we see opportunities to expand market share and compete with other proteins by educating our contacts there about the advantages of the pork butt.”Posted by: The Global Small Business Blog
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In addition, the company is also looking to expand internationally. Already, Netflix is available in Canada. However, the company is considering moving “beyond North America” in the second half of 2011. It’s unknown which countries Netflix has its eyes one, but the company is expected to invest up to $50 million trying to expand to countries other than United States and Canada.Source: Erictric
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Kim Kardashian and sister Kourtney Kardashian are going global with cover spreads in far flung India and South Africa. It’s a far cry from Wilshire Blvd. but the Kardashian brand apparently knows no bounds, even in the Third World.What can we learn from them? That anything is possible when it comes to taking a brand global.
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Making peace and humanitarian operations more effective, efficient and equitable so that they deliver cheaper, faster, smarter missions - resulting in a stronger peace and a larger peace dividend.Learn more here about their fascinating approach to get more money to SMEs worldwide and change the way aid and peacekeeping is delivered.
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| Mr. Inderjit Singh, Member of Parliament (Singapore) |
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| World Entrepreneurship Forum Team (France)! |
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| Mr. Claude Robichaud (L), President, Falpaco Plastic and Rubber Inc. (Canada) and Dave Frood (R), Author, The Thinking Corporation (Australia) |
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| Innovation and the Development of High-Growth Organizations Workshop Team |
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| Prof. Riadh Zghal (microphone), Senator, Tunisian Chamber of Councillors (Tunisia) and Ms. Lisa Fecteau (right front), President, Groupement des chefs d'entreprise du Quebec (Canada) |
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| Mr. Antti Kangaslahti (microphone), Founder, Finntastico.com (Finland) and Mr. Dan Evans (right), Chief Innovation Officer Executive Education Emlyon, Professor in Entrepreneurship (France) |
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| Mr. Liu Chuan-Zhi (L), Chairman of the Board of Directors of Lenovo Group (China), Interpreter (China), Ms. Bhatt (India) and Mr. Steve Strauss (United States) |
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| Ms. Ela R. Bhatt, Founder, Self-Employed Women's Association (India) |
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| Mr. Yves-Henri Robillard, Director, World Entrepreneurship Forum (France) |
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| Mr. Steve Strauss, The Strauss Group, Inc., United States |
