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Daniel Workman's BlogPosted by Daniel Workman The World Economic Forum recently published results of a survey in which 12,000 corporate executives from around the world graded banks from around the globe. Nations with banks seen as insolvent were assigned a number as low as one. At the upper end, a mark of seven was reserved for countries with a banking system seen as entirely healthy. Below is a list of the world's top 10 banking systems. Point scores from the World Economic Forum survey have been converted to percentage marks for easier comparison.
In contrast, the failure-prone banking system of the United States of America scored 57.1%. While traditionally the German banking industry has enjoyed a strong reputation for thrift and strong financial leadership, Germany's banks received an even lower mark of 55.7%. That grade is similar to those assigned to banking systems in less developed, risky and volatile emerging economies. Strong Canadian Banks Support Trade Ventures Canada's largest bank is Royal Bank, followed by CIBC, Bank of Nova Scotia, TD Bank, Bank of Montreal and National Bank. Given the stability of countries like Canada and Ireland, will these trading partners focus on exporting and importing among each other? Canadians should sleep well knowing that their financial assets are relatively secure. Posted by Daniel Workman In many ways, an international entrepreneur is a global project manager who uses resources from around the world to produce the highest quality products at the lowest possible prices. International entrepreneurs are risk takers. They need to closely analyze political, economic and legal risks in the many countries they do business in. Often entrepreneurs avoid violence-plaqued countries in Africa, nations with high unemployment rates or those with an overly protective or undeveloped domestic legal systems. To be successful risk takers, entrepreneurs must analyze the local markets, rules and regulations, competition, cultural issues, demographics and other pertinent marketing factors. In a nutshell, international entrepreneurs:
Who better than international entrepreneurs to lead the United States of America to a healthier, more robust place in the world economy? Posted by Daniel Workman Time-consuming research tasks can be outsourced to personal procurement service providers in developing countries. A newbie freelance writer can use outsourcing for a wide range of personal assistance tasks, from cold calls for survey questions to accounting data entry to contacting prospective clients for the freelancers skills. Using international outsourcers to edit written material has had mixed results, since professional, publication-ready copy is not always the strongest component in some developing countries education systems. There are cultural differences even within the freelancers own country; also, writing for a bank is different than writing for an engineering firm prospect. So outsourcing some tasks can lead to even more work for the freelancer. There is also the risk of outsourcers stealing ideas and methodologies, then re-selling them for their own profit. Service level agreements can contractually mitigate some of this risk, but enforcement in international arenas can be difficult. Two international outsourcing firms are AskSunday.com and GetFriday.com. Both are based in India, where salaries are lower. Users can also Google keywords that closely fit the specific outsourcing services they need. My best advice for newbie freelance writers? Join Suite101.com. I recently did a management study that shows that a freelancers can make upwards of US$70,000 on Suite101.com in 10 years, although it's easy to quit based on the extremely low initial returns. Find a topic that you're passionate about, then develop a system to produce articles efficiently. By outsourcing mundane tasks at economical pricing, you can focus on producing the most profitable articles that will reach hundreds of thousands of readers around the globe. Posted by Daniel Workman What better way to advertise your beer brands than to sponsor China's breakout sports spectacle, broadcast daily around the world via Internet and high-definition television? Millions of younger Chinese drinkers in the domestic market are developing a brand loyalty to Tsingtao beers. Imagine how many are lifting a Tsingtao beer to celebrate winning Chinese Olympic competitors, from on the trampoline to the diving board. Headquartered in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdoa, Tsingtao is leveraging publicity from its sponsorship of the Beijing Olympics to grow its beer sales. Tsingtao has spent US$386 million on Olympic-centered promotions of its ales. The payoff has been a US$146 million gain in company revenues for the first 6 months of 2008, now at $1.2 billion up 16% from $995 million from the same period in 2007. Long-term sales gains are the main objective of the Olympic advertising. Anheuser-Busch owns 27% of Tsingtao, and in turn is the target of a mammoth takeover from InBev. Tsingtao beer may soon win a gold medal in sales on international trade markets. Posted by Daniel Workman Central to writing successful articles on global trade is an understanding of the audience. After all, the audience decides the success of any published work, whether online or hardcopy. In the case of our international trade articles, it is important to look at both where our online readers are located, who they are and what they are looking for. Where Our Online Audience Is Located Based on overall website traffic statistics for Suite101.com from alexa.com, we can make some general assumptions about viewer locations for our international trade articles.
Given that almost two-thirds of our audience is from the U.S., you can understand why we use American spelling rather than Canadian. We also focus on American exports and imports more than any other country, even though Daniel Workman is proudly Canadian. Our Online Audience Segments We carefully studied the keywords that audience members used to find our most popular online articles. Below is the audience profile that we developed.
What Our Audience Wants Most of our viewers are researching international trade information either from a business or educational perspective. Ironically, our smallest segment Online Shoppers offers the most promise. Webpronews.com reports that in 2007 e-commerce sales over the Internet continued to grow over 70% annually. Today, global online shopping generates over US$100 billion in sales. By 2012, 37% of music sales will be made via the Web while over 50% of consumer electronic purchases will be completed online. Guess which topic areas we will be covering in our upcoming International Trade articles? Posted by Daniel Workman Developing countries led by China and India have 2% driving automobiles, while 14% of Brazilians drive. That compares with 80% in more developed economies like the United States and Canada. Therefore, demand for fossil fuels is expected to increase substantially as the number of drivers in developing nations accelerates. No one expects alternative energy sources like ethynol, solar, electricity or wind to replace oil and gas to fuel vehicles - at least not any time soon. Petrobras de Brasilia has budgeted US$250 million to develop oil properties, many of which are offshore. The problem is that the world economy will need millions of barrels of oil to keep up with accelerating demand. The marginal cost to extract millions of barrels of oil is estimated to be at least $100 per barrel, principally because reserves are located so far below the surface and therefore difficult to pump out. Yes, oil prices are down because as the slowing U.S. economy is pulling down demand for oil and gas in the short-term. But we shouldn't fixate on short-term fluctations in demand. The geophysical fact is total oil reserves around the world are limited. Particularly in emerging industrial powerhouses like China and India, long-term demand for oil will be back in a big way. Oil prices will go back up. The same analysts pointing to the temporary pullback in petroleum demand will lead the chorus screaming for alternative energy including uranium. Posted by Daniel Workman Actually, most search engine users will leave a page if they can't find what they're looking for within a second. Some searchers may stay for up to 10 seconds. But the point is that articles published on the Internet must be highly focused, concise and structured to present essential information where it can be immediately found by the audience. That's why International Trade articles include a heading that strives to answer questions asked by users with a pressing need to know from around the world. Subheading further focus on questions closely related to the article's main point. Where possible, we include lists that enable viewers to quickly scan for the keywords or statistics they need. Online article writing is much different from penning articles for traditional hardcopy forms of journalism. We need to be blunt, not witty. For example, which title do you think more closely reflects what users will enter into a search engine: Brazil's Trade Buddies or Brazil's Trade Partners? Sure "buddies" is cuter and maybe shows more personality. But statistics show that researchers around the world are far more likely to enter "Brazil's Trade Partners" into a search engine simply because it more accurately and intuitively reflects what they are looking for at that moment. Highly focused, keyword-rich articles also facilitates companion Google display ads that more accurately reflect the content of the article. Just as important is the fact that the displayed information is more pertinent to what the audience is looking for. Posted by Daniel Workman Nicole Weston of Slashfood.com reports that, on average, Brits eat 22 pounds of chocolate contrasted with 12 pounds for Americans. Both nations prefer milk chocolate, although dark chocolate is making progress given increased awareness of dark chocolate health benefits. Countries Where Chocolate Is Most Popular Below is a list of top consuming chocolate countries in 2004.
According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the following shows the top chocolate exporting countries in 2004.
Posted by Daniel Workman Worldwide Internet information consultant Comscore Media Metrix revealed that 67.1% of Canadians did their banking online in April 2008, far ahead of the United Kingdom (49.5%) and the United States (44.4%). Comscore president Brent Bernie notes that the world-class Canadian banking system is so developed and competition is so fierce that Canadian banks must meet the needs of consumers online to grow their banking business. In fact, online banking in Canada is a must for even the largest bank's survival over the longer term. Royal Bank Financial's website had 4.6 million visitors in April 2008 (down 2% from April 2007), the most of any Canadian bank. A close second, TD Canada Trust had 4.5 million online customers (up 2%). The study shows an ongoing re-engineering of how Canadians do business. While bricks-and-mortar banking services are still important, the future of Canadian marketing and business transactions clearly lies on the Web. This is even more true of international trade. A click of a mouse button will soon become the most common method to source products and sell merchandise from around the world. Posted by Daniel Workman Several years back, Brick Brewery Company had a chance to own a part of the Beer Store, one of the premier retail channels for selling suds to Ontario drinkers. Brick declined, partially because no dividend payment was part of the deal. Now a small brewer like Brick is having great difficulty getting their products on the shelves of one of Canada's largest chain of beer stores. Instead, the 3 large multinationals that own the Beer Store dominate the ad space and shelf space. Those huge companies are:
Those huge multinationals have multimillion dollar advertising budgets. As a result,, consumers are much more familiar with Labatt's, Molson and even Sappolo brands. Going into the Beer Store, guess which case of beer drinkers will ask for? Looking around and only seeing poster-sized ads for the huge beer brands and only those beers on the shelf, a small independent brewer like Brick has no chance. In international trade, distribution channels are sometimes more important than the product itself. Posted by Daniel Workman Being an online Feature Writer at Suite101.com isn't a quick way to get rich. But it is encouraging to see that Internet marketing is enjoying healthy sales increases as more people around the world get connected to the Web. According to PriceWaterhouseCooper (PwC), Web-based advertising in Canada will soar 21.1% compounded annually to $3.4 billion in 4 years. Toronto Star Business reporter Rita Trichur recently quoted PwC director Jerry Brown as identifying the following 3 fastest-growing drivers for online marketing:
Traditional media advertising like newspaper classifieds are expected to grow at a slower pace of less than 10%. Even then, digital advertising is expected to fuel much of those gains. Still, the older generation age 50 and over will still demand the older forms of media to which they become accustomed. Hopefully, more young and old Web researchers will find their way to our International Trade articles to find immediate answers to the questions for which they want answers. Posted by Daniel Workman Paul Waldie of Toronto's Globe and Mail points out that 80% of Canadian wheat is exported. So far this year wheat prices have increased by 50%, a trend that benefits Canada as one of the world's leading wheat producing countries. Revenues from Canadian agricultural exports continue to hit all-time highs on the way to a record US$11-billion trade surplus this year. At the same time, Canadians have experienced price increases for food imports, but not as high as those experienced in other countries. Statistics Canada reports that Canadians paid an average of just 1.2% more for food during the 12 months ending April 30. That rise is 5 times lower than food price increases in America and 6 times lower than in Europe. The world's most heavily populated country China has experienced a 22% increase in food prices. So while Canadians are paying about 10% more for cereals and breads due to higher grain prices, cereals and breads represent just 12% of total Canadian food purchases. More meats, fruits and vegetables show up on Canadian food bills, and prices for those products have fallen. Why? Because a strong Canadian dollar has reduced imported vegetable costs by 13% and imported fruit prices by 4%. About 40% of vegetables and fruits that Canadians consume are imported. Oil comprises only 5% of food prices, so any energy cost pressures are expected to be moderate. Besides, Canadians are in the enviable position of being able to substitute different foods like potatoes should rice prices multiply. Populations in other countries depend on rice to survive, and therefore suffer the most as Canada's food exports continue to profit. Posted by Daniel Workman Last year, Canadians drank US$18 billion worth of beer, wine and spirits. That amounts to a 4.9% gain over 2006. Canadian beer drinking continues to slow, although sales of imported brands did grow faster than Canadian-made brews last year. Overall, Canadian purchases of beer rose 2% in 2007 - the slowest of any alcoholic beverage category. Imported beers now represent 11.4% of Canadian beer sales, twice the Canadian beer market share 10 years ago. Wine sales to Canadians moved ahead 9.5%. Red wines now account for 61% of Canadian sales. Wine imports dominate 75% of Canadian red wine and 60% of white wine sales, respectively. Statistics Canada also revealed that sales of spirits rose 5.8% in 2007. Up 10%, vodka was the fastest-growing spirit last year. While imported spirits garner less than 30% of the Canadian spirits market, foreign spirit brands are growing their sales faster than Canadian-made products. Whisky, scotch and bourbon remain the most popular hard liquors in Canada. So why do imported alcoholic beverages led Canadian alcohol sales? We should consider the following trends.
Posted by Daniel Workman According to Jim Bronskill of the Canadian Press, a British Columbian firm licensed to import guns for use on movie sets was charged for illegally distributing submachine guns to local criminals. A year later in 2007, police traced two assault rifles used in a January 2007 shootout in British Columbia. A west-coast company with a movie import licence was responsible for bringing those weapons into Canada. Movie production companies can legally buy guns in bulk internationally. They then import those weapons into Canada for use on their movie sets. The loophole in the law is the loosely defined deadline for registering imported guns, vaguely worded as "as soon as practical". The result is that imported guns are never registered. Instead, gun dealers ignore the registration process and keep the weapons. The movie company simply says that they no longer have the guns. Meanwhile, gun dealers sell the firearms to criminals on the black market. How do you catch these international trade criminals when they never have to register the imports that they are accused of selling? Absent proof that they ever handled the products after delivery to the movie producer, the gun dealers simply point the finger at the movie production company or disappear after making their tidy profits. The next time you're staring down the barrel of a legally imported but illegally distributed gun, ask yourself how effective Canada's "as soon as practical" gun registration legal wording is. And I'm not talking about watching an action movie on the big screen. Posted by Daniel Workman North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) established a free trade agreement in which Canada, the United States and Mexico promote economic growth through reduced tariffs, expanded trade and investment. NAFTA has no common external tariffs. Latin American countries (Caribbean, Central and South America) have four preferential trade agreements:
Five South American nations - Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela - established a customs union agreement called the Andean Community. Foreign exchange, financial and tax incentives as well as export subsidies were abolished. Common external tariffs were introduced. Comprised of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) is a customs union that impose common external tariffs of up to 20%. Chile and Bolivia are associate Mercosur members. Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) is an economic union with a common currency. Seventeen member nations include Bahamas, Bermuda and Jamaica. Asia-Pacific includes 23 countries and 56% of the world's population. Newly Industrializing Economies feature strong export-driven economies sometimes called the 4 Tigers of Asia, namely South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) includes Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Burma. The European Union is the most successful economic union, with harmonized national laws and regulations. Central European Free Trade Association (CEFTA) teams Hungary with Poland and Czechoslovakia. These countries cooperate in areas including:
The Middle East has three key regional organizations: Gulf Cooperation Council, Arab Maghreb Union and Arab Cooperation Council. Africa has 53 nations and three regional agreements:
Posted by Daniel Workman The standard definition of marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services. This creates exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals. Global marketing focuses on market opportunities and threats around the world. The scope of activities shifts to markets outside an organization's home country. For an example, see our recent article on Bombardier's international sales. So why would a successful company like Bombardier look to global markets? First, the multinational benefits from access to new markets like fast-growing China, India and Russia. Generally less-expensive resources also become available. But perhaps more important is the inescapable fact that company survival depends on global marketing. Otherwise, competitors that access lower-cost resources in foreign lands will drive a strictly domestic company out of business. The standard tools in global marketing remain the same: product, price, place and promotion. However, e-commerce and the internet are in prime position to communicate multinational products and services via the worldwide web. Posted by Daniel Workman In our first three classes, instructor Anthony Pauk shared insights that he gained as an international deal maker for large multinationals like Montreal-based Bombardier. Rule number one to successful marketing is to take an idea already in existence and make it more successful. Of course, reengineering require critical thinking skills combined with creative insights. Audience Analysis But you also have to understand the audience, particularly its needs and wants. For example, most cultures view aluminium pans as an improvement over heavy cast-iron pans. However, Germans will not buy aluminium cooking utensils because they associate heaviness with durability and functionality. Focus groups are so important early in the product planning cycle. Goal of Marketing Marketing communicates a vision to customers and employees. International marketing messages have a much broader scope to communicate. Most marketing efforts focus on value, which equals benefits divided by price. Price can involve money, but some people don't consider that time and effort applied towards a product also is part of its price. For example, buying a cat also requires the new owner to spend time and effort grooming, feeding and cleaning. Hardest Marketing Challenge Our instructor remarked that the hardest challenge that marketing poses is that marketers have to:
In international trade, that effort becomes even more complicated because of the different cultural norms and values around the world. International Marketing Tips
Posted by Daniel Workman For my latest special events gig, I escorted a team of 16 doctors and surgeons visiting from the Near East and Gulf region. This included medical professionals from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Qatar, Lebanon, Jordan and Bahrain. Our guests stayed at the Toronto Hilton at the southeast corner of Richmond Street and University Avenue. International trade researcher that I am, my journey started with googling cultural behaviours. For example, in the UAE politeness and respect to the elders are generally expected. For me, that's a good thing. I also learned that respect towards the women is mandatory etiquette. Above all, I had to control my usually creative side that might be construed as an insult to Muslim customs or beliefs. In the UAE, you can get fined and sent to jail for swearing. I also learned that our guests from Kuwait frown on impatience, something that I work hard on. Kuwaitis often interrupt their meetings for their religious prayers, while handshaking is the ideal method of greeting in this very religious country. Sure enough, during our Saturday dinner three guests excused themselves to pray on mats in the parking lot outside the restaurant. And the men often shook my hand firmly. I'm not sure that I scored 100% on a test of Arabic manners. When the head doctor asked me how to pronounce the name of our Italian restaurant (Joe Badali's), I phonetically broke it down to sound like "BAD ALLEYS". To which the doctor nudged me and said that he'd like to visit the "bad alleys" later. So it looks like there are some similarities in international cultures. At least for the men. Posted by Daniel Workman Online magazine Suite101 implemented a feature that enables readers to post comments. Since then, page views for our international trade site are up about 9%. In the 18 day period after comments went live, international trade received 59 comments. As the feature writer for this site, I've allowed 27 comments to be posted while deleting 32. Guidelines for Comment Moderation Creating a comment doesn't necessarily guarantee online publication. Management has given us explicit instructions to delete comments that are spam, sales pitches, libelous, multiple postings, or contain abusive language. That code of conduct also requires that Suite101 writers act as professionally and diplomatically as possible when encountering contentious material. Bear in mind that typically Suite101 writers will not respond to your comments. Also, comments must be text-only so links are images are excluded. Examples of Good Comments We received the most positive affirmations for Brazil's Trade Buddies. Comments range from "This article gives some trade information about Brazil - which is what I have been looking for, thanks" to "Very good! I Learned alot from reading this! thank you very much." We also received compliments on how informative our international trade site is. Constructive criticism is also welcome. For example, one reader tactfully pointed out that our article on Eastern European Dental Tourism did not address the quality or durability of dental materials used in low-cost countries. Examples of Bad Comments We will instantly delete any comments that are rude, insensitive or obscene. Can you imagine a newspaper editorial page including swear words or random rantings? We also delete meaningless comments like "wow i dotn no what to say" since these add little to the content or professionalism of our site. UPDATE: We disabled comments on May 14, 2008 due to profanity. Posted by Daniel Workman Page views on Wednesdays in April were tops, about 2% more than online visits on Tuesday. Thursdays and Mondays also averaged well over 3,000 page views daily. Recording the fewest page views for a week day, the time window from Friday to Saturday seems to be when many Web surfers are offline doing other activities such as shopping or entertaining. Below is a summary of page views for each day of the week, based on April 2008 statistics.
The credibility of this data is low since we're only looking at 30 days. Also note that there was an additional Wednesday and an extra Tuesday in April. What we can safely say is that, in April 2008, page views from:
Thus, page visits from Monday to Thursday are about 47% higher than later in the week. So if a month ends on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday - chances are that month will have lower page views than a comparable month that ends on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday - or best of all - Wednesday. Posted by Daniel Workman I never realized the opportunities that international trade offers for technical writers - particularly bilingual technical writers. A consultant in Winnipeg contacted me and asked whether I could proofread some shipping labels with English and French text. I was up for the challenge, particularly when I heard that Chinese manufacturers were waiting for the corrected labels to finish their production runs. When I received the first batch of 76 pages (some labels had front and back text), I realized that I could make the 6 p.m. delivery deadline. Products for the labels included office supplies like glue, pens and erasers. Of course there was some overlap, for example boxes of blue pens in quantities of 12 or 24. My job was to ensure that the French translation was accurate, and that both the English and French wording was clear, consistent and correct. The second batch of about 30 pages was a little more problematic. By 6 p.m. I had sent out the first delivery, but by then my mind had slowed. Fortunately, I was able to negotiate an early morning deadline for the second deliverable. I made the second delivery at 9 p.m. The next morning the client thanked me for meeting the tight deadlines. Key success factors included an ability to work in both Canadian official languages, plus a table in MS Word that summarized discrepancies by label form number. Each row in the table was for a particular form with suggested improvements to the French wording plus any discrepancies that I uncovered (for example: form number on label didn't match form number in file name). Who says there isn't any opportunities in international trade documentation? Posted by Daniel Workman Many of the international trade articles on our top 10 list for April 2008 were published at least a year ago. For example, pieces about the world's richest and poorest countries first appeared in autumn 2006. Articles like the top French and Italian exports and imports were published about 8 months ago. Brazil has shown the greatest increase in readership. Articles ranging from Brazil's trade partners, exports and imports to trade regulations bring in a combined total of about 5,000 page views. Below is the top 10 list of articles with the most page views during April 2008.
With recent shortages in commodities hitting headlines around the world, it should come as no surprise that many global researchers are visiting our articles to learn about oil (4,000 page views), water (1,600), wheat (1,000), rice (1,600), diamonds (700) and sugar (664). Of these articles, rice offers exciting opportunities since over 50% of the world's population depends on rice as a food staple. Our article on Leading Rice Export Countries finished in 30th place despite having been published in mid-month. Countries that provide grains that feed the world are sure to benefit from the increased demand and therefore prices around the globe. Posted by Daniel Workman Suite101 writers often find that blogs and competitive websites copy original articles without first asking permission. Using Google Alerts, many of our authors track keywords embedded into their articles or references to their names as authors. This notifies us when our writing is duplicated on another website. Suite101.com has exclusive electronic rights for one year after an article or blog is published on the website. That work cannot be published elsewhere on the Internet unless you are granted special permission by Suite101. You are welcome to post an introduction followed by up to 50 words from the writing, provided that your text includes a link to the original article or blog on Suite101.com. After the first year of publication, ownership rights shift to me as the sole owner of the online-published work. Just as you would during Suite101's one year ownership period, you must ask me for permission to publish my work on another website. If this is not acceptable, I would ask you to please remove my article or blog from your site. I do appreciate your interest in my work, and I would suggest that if you would like to publish works written by writers outside of your organization that you ask their permission first. Here is the link to my original article, in case you would like to edit your blog post. Posted by Daniel Workman The relatively new German Suite101.de site scores higher than 95% of the hundreds of thousands of websites that HubSpot's Website Grader has previously evaluated, Sure that's less than Vancouver-based Suite101.com's score of 99%. Then again, the English version Suite101 electronic magazine has been online for over 10 years with more than 7 million readers each month. The English version has over 900 writers while the German counterpart has 200 authors. Suite101.com has a Google page rank of 7, one more than Suite101.de's ranking of 6. One reason is that the Vancouver-based Suite101.com has 825,000 indexed pages (mostly articles and blogs) while the younger Suite101.de has only 47,400. Further, Suite101.com has an Alexa online traffic rating of 3,004 which is in the top 0.01% of all websites. Suite101.de has an Alexa score of 147,368 as of April 13, 2008. This is good for the top 0.51% of sites. One area where Suite101.de has a competitive advantage is in inbound links. The German site has 1.6 million inbound links compared with 236,508 for Vancouver's Suite101. That's because the larger Suite101.com site provides many links to its sister German portal. So how does our International Trade site stack up against the German site version (Weltwirtschaft & Welthandel translates as Economy & Trade)? Consider the following comparison.
Posted by Daniel Workman To prepare for our final exam, I had the unique privilege of researching and writing about leadership styles from Germany to Japan as well as human resource management issues including international job assignments. One question asked for a list of 5 differences between Japanese and American leadership styles. In Japan, promotions are very slow and based on seniority. Promotions in the U.S. can happen lightning-fast for the right candidate in the right specialty. Individual American managers make decisions, whereas Japanese see decision-making as a team responsibility. Besides, the Japanese are much more wary of risk than the more entrepreneurial Americans. Japanese leaders want to care for their workers both on and off the job, whereas American managers focus their concern for their employees at work only. Another question posed a scenario in which Microsoft launches an international operation in India, then asked whether we would send Americans to run the Indian operation, hire local Indian talent or outsource the Indian initiative to a sub-contractor like Infosys. My answer was that it is a lot less expensive with fewer cultural barriers to use host-country nationals. Although more secure than a subcontractor, my only concern was whether the Indian operation ran the risk that some Indian employees would take proprietary Microsoft trade secrets to competitors. It's much harder to persecute local Indians than American citizens, because obviously international law is harder to enforce and more expensive in the host country. The last question asked whether international travellers will improve their understanding of other cultures. George Brown College's International Market Culture course helps identify basic underlying values that drive a culture's norms and values, which are behind a lot of the distinct behaviours we see when we travel. Posted by Daniel Workman HubSpot's latest webinar offered practical advice on taking advantage of social media. One metaphor for social marketing is a cocktail party without time or space constraints. Publishing Social Media Sites HubSpot highlighted the following sites as tools to build interest in our blogs and articles.
These sites also provide metrics to measure visitor traffic. The webinar also examined Google blog searches and blog alerts. Networking Social Media Sites The following sites enable us to build a following of friends with whom to share article and blog links.
An intriguing way to promote a flattering blog that someone has written about your site or one of your articles is for you to then post the favourable blog on StumbleUpon.com. For example, a positive review on Technorati.com with a link to your work makes for a strategic post on StumbleUpon. Promotional Social Media Sites Of the promotional sites below, Digg has the most visitors per month with 18 million. Del.icio.us has 2 million while StumbleUpon has 1 million per month.
Another tip is to search these promotional sites with keywords specific to your website to see what other people are bookmarking. Posted by Daniel Workman Our final evening of student presentations started with a Filipina partnered with a French girl dressed in a black jersey labelled G'Day Toronto! With an interesting accent, Claire explained that Australian strongly believe that the way they do business will be successful around the world without modification. Australians are also highly individualistic, placing highest priority on taking care of themselves and their immediate family. The next team was comprised of two Brazilian women who analyzed China. A key feature of the Chinese market culture is a strong focus on long-term success. This in turn makes decision-making very slow and cumbersome in the People's Republic. My Ukrainian partner and I were third to present. Germany is the world's number exporter, and has strong language, cultural and perceptual barriers that may prevent Germany from becoming a true global superpower. For example, Germans are very formal and require that they be addressed by title (like Herr Workman) rather than by first name. Also, Germans have a strict - if unspoken - code of conduct for attending business presentations. No one should enter the meeting room until invited and told where to sit. The oldest and highest rank enter the room first. Among those of equal rank, men go in before women. A Middle Eastern couple made the final presentation on Switzerland. While Switzerland's population of 7.5 million is much smaller than Germany's 82.4 million, Switzerland has a multicultural population including people of German, Italian and French heritage. This fact makes it easier for Swiss management to adapt to cultural demands of multinationals, since they need to adjust to different cultures within their own boundaries. In contrast, 95% of Germans speak German and are conditioned to well-documented and proven German business practices. Posted by Daniel Workman Each culture was presented by a nationality of a completely different origin. A team of Filipinos described the rigid and authoritarian rule in India. Meetings last many hours behind closed doors in India. In group discussions, only the most senior persons may speak even if the rest of the group disagrees. Never shake hands with your left hand, which is considered unclean in India. Two Brazilian classmates discussed Sweden. Swedish businesses take some of the highest risks. Sweden has flat, decentralized organization structures and is more concerned with a cooperative and friendly work atmosphere. Swedish managers allow employee freedoms, and are more conservative to the environment. Two Colombians examined the Ukraine, with its warmer and more emotionally open culture. Then again, the Ukraine is highly authoritarian and bureaucratic. Job vacancies in the Ukraine specify the acceptable age range for applicants. Also, Ukranians are more focused on oral communication. A Mexican couple presented Ireland. Once a poor country, the Celtic Tiger is now host to many multinational corporation operations including those of Dell, Intel and Microsoft. Ireland's culture has a decentralized power structure, high emphasis on taking care of an individual's immediate family, a strong focus on earnings and promotion, as well as a willingness to take on risk. An Indian gentleman and a Chinese lady presented Japan. Like Ukraine, at work the focus is taking care of fellow group members rather than individual competition. Working in Japan is highly stressful due to the emphasis on earnings and promotion. Yet the Japanese are highly adverse to risk. Posted by Daniel Workman Boosted by income from exports and overseas investment, China will surpass the United States as the world's largest economy in 2025. This is according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers report mentioned in John Morrissy's article World's financial order to shift for the Canwest News Service. Similarly, Brazil will move ahead of Japan to become the 4th largest economy by 2050. That same year, India will grow to 90% the size of America's economy while Russia, Mexico and Indonesia will overshadow Germany. Areas of future growth include environmental technologies, energy and utility firms as well as financial services. The report forecasts that the Canadian economy will fall behind:
To keep pace with changes in international trade, Canada needs to leverage its competitive advantages, namely:
Posted by Daniel Workman The past 2 weeks, I've been promoting two new cereal samples for a major American company. We've been stationed around Toronto's Union Station and Eaton Centre, 2 of the busiest hubs in Canada. Our target audience is the younger audience, males and females from 18 to 38. The multinational cereal maker wants to increase sales of its products in Canada by getting prospective customers to sample 2 new flavours, cinnamon and honey roasted. What better way to develop brand name loyalty than to give away free samples? We started early Thursday morning at 7 am to catch early morning commuters. About 16 brand ambassadors handed out samples, walking to the historic St. Lawrence Market after morning foot traffic waned at Toronto Union Station, which serves as a centre for the subway, trains, buses, taxis and other vehicles. It makes sense for an American multinational to contract out the actual sampling of its product in a local market to area residents. Otherwise, the multinational would have to pay for American staff traveling to Toronto and staying in hotels. Besides, local workers have a much stronger knowledge of places with the highest foot traffic. One Canadian company that provides front-line staff for these special events and promotions in Toronto is NASCO Employment Solutions. That's one company that participates in international trade by staying at home in Canada while serving clients from other countries. Posted by Daniel Workman Fresh from Hillary's victories in Ohio and Texas, former US president Bill Clinton gave a masterful lecture on how Republican George Bush's misguided war in Iraq and inattention to the US economy have resulted in a massive US trade deficit. To which countries does America owe the most money? Bill Clinton points to 4 foreign entities:
Which countries does America desperately want to renegotiate international trade deals on more favourable grounds for the US? Hmmm... let's see:
These countries are using America's debt payments to subsidize education and skills training to make themselves even more competitive in international trade. Lenders are not predisposed to give borrowers a competitive edge in negotiations. Should the next US president be a Democrat, he or she will probably have to implement American tariffs as mechanisms to leverage more advantageous trade terms for American business. Keep an eye out for the mention of American tariffs in upcoming speeches from Obama, Hillary and even Bill. Posted by Daniel Workman According to The Nielsen Company global information and media company, South Korea leads the world in shopping online. The list below shows that 99% of South Koreans with Internet access have made online purchases. Top International E-Commerce Countries
The United States finished eighth with 94 percent of Americans have made online purchases. Most Popular Online PurchasesBooks are the most popular purchased items over the Internet (about 40%), followed by clothing (35%), videos and games (24%), airline tickets (24%) and electronic equipment (23%). American Internet users buy more clothing online, followed by books and videos and games. Global E-Commerce Sales Growth The Nielsen Company global surveys show that 627 million had shopped online 2 years ago, and increased by approximately 40 percent to 875 million just 2 years later. Posted by Daniel Workman Let's look at some of the 50 Website variables that we excel in. On-Page Search Engine Optimization Our site keywords and heading summaries are effective. That's a major reason some 70,000 readers find our articles each month. The readability level is college undergraduate. Off-Page Search Engine Optimization Suite101 is almost 12 years old, with over 2 years to domain expiry. That counts towards a higher rating by search engines. Based on a strong set of some 1,200 inbound links, our international trade site has a Google Page Rank of 5 - better than thousands of international business and government sites including The Canadian Immigrant. We've won 2 del.icio.us bookmarks plus 19 votes for 8 articles submitted to digg.com. Traffic Rank: Top 0.05% According to Alexa, an online service that measures traffic for millions of sites on the Internet in a similar way to Nielsen television show ratings, our website:
Posted by Daniel Workman Cultural Conflicts A Mexican salesperson learned the hard way that German business clients demand prompt attendance at meetings often scheduled weeks in advance. Mexicans tend to multi-task and change schedules on the fly. In contrast, the German culture carefully plans, prioritizes and schedules project tasks. To be successful, the Mexican sales representative must adapt his approach to meet the cultural needs of prospective German buyers. Perceptual Barriers An American company designed an advertisement with 3 keyword phrases in flowchart format: soiled clothes, followed by the advertised laundry soap, which was followed by clean clothes. Why was the ad successful in North America but an unmitigated failure in Saudi Arabia? The Arabic culture reads word images from right to left, indicating that the laundry soap would turn clean apparel into dirty clothes. Unintended Language Associations Dr. Pepper was a relatively successful soft drink in North America. In Britain, however, the words Dr. Pepper is associated with prostitution. As a result, sales volume suffered dramatically. An American company introduced toothpaste in a Latin American commercial that would make brushers interesting. Unfortunately, the Latin audience associates the term "interesting" with being pregnant. Non-Verbal Communication And let's not forget about facial expressions and body movements. In Western cultures, direct eye contact shows honesty and respect. Asians see sustained eye contact as staring and disrespectful. In some cultures, students are not allowed to look their instructors in the eyes. North Americans tend to keep a social distance further apart than South Americans who typically stand closer even to new business acquaintances.. Posted by Daniel Workman Canadian exports in December 2007 slipped 3.1% to C$36.7 billion. The stronger Canadian loonie resulted in a slight 0.7% gain in imports to $34.3 billion. According to Statistics Canada, Canada's trade surplus of $2.4 billion in December represents a nine-year low. BMO deputy chief economist Doug Porter commented that Canada's current account deficit including investment income and services may have slipped into the red for the final quarter of 2007. Back in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, government overspending resulted in Canada's current account deficits. Today, the Canadian economy remains strong while U.S. business weakens. Canadian exporters are now focusing on other countries around the world. Over the past 3 years, America's share of Canadian exports has fallen from 85% to 75%. Still, Canadian exports are declining across the board. In December, industrial products declined 6.5%, machinery and equipment sales fell 4.6%. The biggest decrease? Auto exports were down 8.7% to their lowest level in almost a decade. Only Canadian energy exports experienced an increase. Should oil prices fall significantly or oil exports falter, Canada's trade balance will slip into deficit. Posted by Daniel Workman According to David Twiddy of the Associated Press, the U.S. Attorney's office is charging 2 Chinese companies and an American firm with distributing tainted pet food which led to the recall of 60 million cans and pouches of wet pet food at a cost of US$55 million last year. Located in China's Jiangsu Province, Xuzhou Anying Biologic was charged with 13 felony counts each for introducing adulterated food - as well as misbranded food - into interstate commerce. Both the Chinese owner and president are named in the indictment. A Chinese export broker, Suzhou Textiles, was also charged with mislabelling 800 tonnes of tainted wheat gluten that Xuzhou manufactured. Not only did Suzhou mislabel the gluten in an attempt to avoid inspection in China, the Chinese export broker did not declare the contaminated product when it was exported to the U.S. The American company ChemNutra picked up the melamine-laced wheat gluten at a Kansas City port after it was shipped from China. Because ChemNutra distributed the tainted gluten to pet food makers in Canada as well as the U.S. The criminal charges against the Chinese companies are punishable by up to 3 years in prison. If proven, the felony conspiracy charge will result in 5 years in prison. Charges against the American importer ChemNutra carry a lesser but still serious penalty of one year in prison. Posted by Daniel Workman George looked squarely into the camera and identified four compelling reasons that Congress should pass these free trade agreements just like they did for Peru. The first three points were explicit. Panama, Colombia and South Korea represent 100 million potentional clients for U.S. exports. This is good of course for America exporters. More South American and Asian clients also mean more jobs if the U.S. can sell more of its Made in America products to these expanding markets. Thirdly, the U.S. has significantly reduced tariffs for imported goods coming from these countries. Free trade agreements would level the playing field by bringing down adjustment tariffs currently imposed on U.S. exports to Colombia, Panama and South Korea. A more reciprocal arrangement would increase revenues for American businesses. The fourth point had a more implicit message. Bush commented that these free trade agreements would ensure the survival of American ideals including freedom from oppression from dictatorial regimes. In other words, the free trade agreement with Colombia will enable the U.S. to keeps its eyes on unfavourable leaders like in Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Haven't we learned our lesson from Iraq yet? Let's just stick to the international trade agreements. Posted by Daniel Workman In first place, America's Trade Buddies had 6,211 page views (PVs) from October 25, 2007 to January 23, 2008. Second place goes to Brazil's Trade Buddies with 6,040 visits. China's Top Trading Partners was third with 3,085 hits. Germany's Trade Buddies wasn't far behind with 2,450 PVs. Below is a list of other country-specific articles:
Posted by Daniel Workman Our Colombian and Brazilian students commented that there is more social bonding and interaction in South American cultures. On the other hand, Canadians tend to reward individual behaviour more than respect social interraction. My Colombian friend made an interesting observation. In his home country, people continually interrupt each other. Most Canadians and Americans would have difficulty adapting to this. The Brazilian student said that during Carnival, everyone got at least a week off from work.The instructor explained that he had received notice at his workplace that his company isn't eligible for a new Ontario holiday because the company was federally incorporated. The key here is understanding why different cultures behave the way they do. For example, Japanese and Koreans bow to show respect for seniors. In some cultures, students call their teachers "Sir" while others use the instructor's name. Even a handshake can send a different message depending on the culture. A firm handshake is preferred in North America but a soft grip is the way to make an impression. And in some Middle Eastern countries, norms and values don't allow you to shake a lady's hand. Each culture shares implicit assumptions that shape norms and values that result in observable characteristics. While direct eye contact is thought to show respect in Canadian culture, that same behaviour is seen as a menacing stare by others. In the end, my South American colleagues have started to adapt to Canadian culture which may play havoc when they return home. And the instructor? He plans to teach in Brazil next semester just in time for Carnival. Posted by Daniel Workman On the first night of class, we met our instructor at nearby George Brown College. Rommel Shakil comes from Bangladesh and received his MBA from Houston, Texas. His full-time job is supply chain management with Telus Mobility. The instructor challenged us with a Human Resource Management question: Should a company send a North American employee to manage in a foreign environment like Saudi Arabia or instead hire local talent? We were asked to consider family pressures, since spouses might insist on returning home. Rommel contrasted the American culture which recognizes individual performance while Japanese focus more on methodical, one-step-at-a-time group activity. Key course outcomes are to:
I was the only Anglo-Saxon Canadian among an international gamut of students. Three classmates are Brazilian, two come from the Philippines or Mexico. Two Chinese women were joined by a Russian mechanical engineer and students from Iraq and Bahrain. We also have an exchange student from France who wants to sharpen her English skills. One final insight: Indian companies often insist on meeting with a vendor's CEO beforing signing contracts. I must say, this learning experience should enrich our international trade articles with educated insights from around the world. Posted by Daniel Workman Based on the keywords international trade, below is a list of synonyms and corresponding average price per click.
Lots of profitable Google searches are finding their way to our international trade site. Even the term international trade brings in $2.10 per click. You can look forward to another year of intriguing articles on international trade - I know I am. Posted by Daniel Workman Our most popular keyword searches in December 2007 with corresponding page views were: luxembourg (richest country) - 585 page views; richest countries - 582 PVs; richest countries in the world - 352 PVs; richest country - 313 PVs and richest country in the world - 277 PVs. Below is a list of other popular keywords. Again, the number of page views is shown beside each keyword phrase.
Isn't it interesting how more people are interested in finding out about the richest countries rather than the poorest? And more want to read about Staples in India rather than general trade articles. |
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