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[media-credit name=”bristolmotorspeedway.com” align=”alignright” width=”199″][/media-credit]DEARBORN, MI — (Mar. 13, 2012) – Carl Edwards is used to seeing the green flag fly from behind the wheel of his Roush Fenway Ford Fusion or Mustang, but this weekend he’ll get a truly different perspective as he serves as Honorary Starter for Saturday’s Ford EcoBoost 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
As part of its multi-year sponsorship agreement with BMS that runs through 2014, the Region Area Ford Dealers have continually looked for ways to activate and improve the race weekend experience for fans. Ford Fan Friday, where race fans can attend Q&A sessions and get autographs from their favorite drivers, has become a highly-anticipated event. The inclusion of Edwards in this special role continues that philosophy.
“It’s an honor. I’ve sat in the grandstands to watch races at Bristol and I’ve been fortunate to race and win there as well, but this will be something totally different and I’m really excited about it,” said Edwards, who won the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Bristol in 2007. “I think Ford has a revolutionary and smart technology with EcoBoost that delivers both performance and fuel economy, which is something fans care about.”
Edwards, who won the NASCAR Nationwide Series championship in 2007, is tied for third on the all-time NASCAR Nationwide Series win list with 37. He has made 244 career starts as a driver in the series, but this will be his first as a race official.
Ford EcoBoost, which is coming off its first NASCAR victory as a primary sponsor last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr., uses turbo-charging and direct gasoline injection to boost engine output, reduce emissions and improve fuel efficiency by as much as 20 percent.
Ford plans to offer EcoBoost engines in 11 vehicles in 2012, up from seven in 2011, and tripling the capacity of EcoBoost-equipped Ford vehicles. Expanded availability in high-volume nameplates helps make fuel economy more affordable for hundreds of thousands of drivers.
In addition to Edwards’ participation, Ford Group Vice-President of Global Marketing, Sales & Service Jim Farley will serve as the race’s Grand Marshal. Farley has been a driving force behind the use of racing as a marketing tool for Ford EcoBoost.
“Reaching out to the millions of race fans in this country and around the world, will help us spread the message about Ford EcoBoost engines not just being a smart technology from Ford, but a way for consumers to save money at the fuel pump with increased fuel mileage,” said Farley. “Fans appreciate getting good fuel mileage, whether it be getting to the race track to watch an event, or seeing their favorite driver use it to their advantage to win a race.”
There were a record 127,683 EcoBoost-equipped vehicles sold by Ford in 2011.
EcoBoost engines are a key element of the power of choice Ford offers buyers seeking fuel-efficient solutions. From EcoBoost to hybrids and from plug-in hybrids to full electric vehicles, this year Ford will offer nine vehicles reaching an anticipated 40 mpg or more.
“Carl Edwards is the perfect choice for us to be the Honorary Starter because he embodies the balance of exciting performance and environmental awareness,” said Jamie Allison, director, Ford Racing. “In addition to owning a vehicle with an Ford EcoBoost engine, Carl has taken part in projects like the Fusion Hybrid 1,000-Mile Challenge that showcases our company philosophy of producing safe, fuel-efficient, and fun-to-drive vehicles.”
By 2013, Ford plans to offer an EcoBoost engine in up to 90 percent of its North American nameplates, supporting global sales of 1.5 million EcoBoost-powered vehicles per year.
About Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 166,000 employees and about 70 plants worldwide, the company’s automotive brands include Ford and Lincoln. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford and its products worldwide, please visit http://corporate.ford.com.


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The core objective of a business is to earn profit and in eagerness to do this, they follow varied market instruments like mergers, acquisitions, and amalgamations. Profits depend on the base expansion of customers and capital. This expansion can also be achieved through market monopolisation. But, the democratization of the market and competition around have created a healthy business environment leaving limited scope for monopolisation. So, companies in a race to establish their monopoly are trying to expand through acquisition and this market domination zeal is costing them a lot.
Byju’s reported Rs 4,588 crore loss
The Companies Act 2013 requires every company to conduct an audit of its financial accounts and submit it to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) within one years of ending the financial year. In addition to one year, the filing should not be delayed for more than seven months.
But, after 18 months of delays, BYJU’s company has finally submitted its mandated financial statements and annual returns for the financial year 2020-21. In its statement, BYJU’s stated that it had earned Rs 2,428 crore in revenues and incurred a loss of Rs 4,588 crore in financial years 2020-21. The loss is reportedly 15 times higher than 2019-20. As in 2019-20, the education technology company had incurred a loss of Rs 300 crore.
Product of the digital revolution
BYJU’s, the multinational educational technology company, was founded in 2011 by Byju Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath. The current valuation of the company is USD 22 billion and has over 115 million registered students. Making entry in the age of digitalization, BYJU’s growth trajectory was mostly inclined toward the online education model. Coinciding with India’s own digital revolution, the company made a global presence in a very short period of time.
The technique of teaching students with 10-20 minutes of digital animation videos made significant improvement in the learning experience of pupils. The company is now focusing on developing BYJU’s Future School, which will, according to the company, ‘inspire kids all over the world to fall in love with learning.’
This success in a very short span of time had provided the company with a huge funding base and the valuation of the company was estimated to be around $22 billion. A huge inflow of money has also provided the company with manoeuvring capacity for acquisitions.
Buyouts & buoyancy
Early market success and huge money inflow helped the company to acquire many budding start-ups, and in the spree of buyouts, dozens of them were acquired.
The major buyouts of the company are:-
|Acquired companies & their domain||Buyout Year|
|● Vidyartha, a data-driven platform offering customized learning guidance.||January 2017|
|● TutorVista and Edurite from UK-based Pearson.||July 2017|
|● Math learning platform Math Adventures.||July 2018|
|● US-based educational gaming company Osmo for $120 mn.||January 2019|
|● WhiteHat Jr, which teaches coding to children, for $300 mn.||August 2020|
|● Virtual simulations startup LabInApp.||September 2020|
|● Doubt clearing platform Scholr.||February 2021|
|● Tutoring firm HashLearn.||May 2021|
|● Aakash Education Services for $1 bn.||April 2021|
|● US-based digital reading platform Epic for $500 million.||July 2021|
|● Great Learning, professional and higher education player for $600 mn.||July 2021|
|● Whodat computer vision startup working on augmented reality products||August 2021|
|● Gradeup, one of India’s largest online exam preparation platforms in September 2021.||September 2021|
|● US-based Tynker, a leading K-12 creative coding platform in September 2021||September 2021|
|● Austria-headquartered GeoGebra that provides collaborative mathematics learning tools in December 2021||December 2021|
If we analyse the above-mentioned list, then it can be said that the frequency of buyouts increased immensely after the Pandemic. Also, the loss of Rs 4,588 crore shown by the company are of the same year in which they acquired these budding start-ups.
The complete lockdown and online education program would have provided the company’s strategists with the idea that the education market might completely shift to virtual mode. This forecast was announced by many other Indian companies. But the lifting of lockdown restrictions & ease of the pandemic wave brought businesses back to normal in offline mode.
So, the investment dried up in buyouts and the shift of business to offline mode limited the sources of revenue. The expectation of business to shift the whole education system into virtual mode had a break. The previous huge buyouts started to pose financial constraints to the company. The delay in filing the financial statement, subsequent buyout, and other unfavorable reports were suggesting the big loss and that’s what has been reported now by the company.
Earlier this year, considering the low business output, Byju’s and its subsidiaries were in spree of employee layoff. Reports suggest that BYJU’s subsidiaries Toppr & WhiteHat Jr. have laid off at least 600 jobs combined. It was also reported that 800 full-time employees of WhiteHat Jr resigned in May this year. The layoff was reported to be attributed to the payment delay of AESL acquisitions.
The extensions of payment dates and layoff of employees suggest that the mass expansion strategy of the company seems to be failing. In an effort to establish its monopoly, the company expanded its business and incurred a huge burden of payment. Now, facing a winter of funding inflows, the company seems to be in huge trouble.
Also Read: BYJU’s is (almost) bankrupt
Fraud with Poor Indians
There is a very thin line between greed and ambition. With positive desire and determination, ambition can take you to the heights of business success with sky being the limit. But the greed to dominate the market can drown you in the trenches. That’s what seems to have happened with BYJU’s, an Indian multinational educational technology company.
In the greed to become the biggest EduTech company in the world, BYJU’s company acquired dozens of companies during covid and post-covid times. Now, struggling with financial and business loss. The situation has become so critical that BYJU’s is now struggling to fulfil its payment promises. In an effort to increase sales it is fooling poor Indians.
Reports suggest that BYJU’s company management has resorted to fraud in an effort to sell its online educational products. First, they target the lower and middle-class parents who would do anything to make the lives of their children better. The salesmen of the company lure parents with a dreamy future for their children and makes them ready for the loan process. Poor and illiterate parents unaware of the EMIs and interest process agree to take loans. As they realize the recurring cost of the purchase, the damage has already been done. They block the parent’s number and move on to the next target. This online Ponzi scheme has destroyed many poor families. In love with their children, they get entangled in a costly BYJU’s course and find themselves in deep debt.
These BYJUs stories are just really really sad ☹https://t.co/A2IqT3rq6m pic.twitter.com/yftQm1qEwR
— Anmol (@anmolm_) August 29, 2022
Liquidity Crisis in BYJU’s
Once the flag-bearer of Indian start-ups, how did BYJU’s company reached such a glaring situation? Before the pandemic, the company was steadily moving towards the success of new heights. But, greed to monopolize the EduTech market of the world ended up as a disaster. In a zeal to dominate although they acquired the company but, now they do not have money for payment of these costly buyouts.
As investments in start-ups are decreasing, companies are finding it very difficult to manage their initial extravagant spending. Similarly, the initial spending of BYJU’s had already dried up their revenues, the low subscriber base further aggravated the financial conditions. In an effort to gain market share they resorted to unethical selling practices and started to loot poor people. They are yet to declare bankruptcy but they are already morally bankrupt.
Recently, Gaurav Munjal, cofounder of Unacademy, indicated the same. He said that the company needs to focus on profitability as the funding winter is here. BYJU’s company, which was sustaining & expanding its businesses with a huge spring of funding, is now facing the winter. The shift of business to offline mode has now started to reflect in the company’s strength. Byju Raveendran, founder and CEO of BYJU’s, claims that in financial 2021-22 they have reached Rs 10,000 crore in gross revenues. But the subsequent unethical and greedy business attitude has been reflected in their annual financial statement of 2020-21. If he does not leave this attitude, BYJUs will lead towards a slow and torturous death.
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A new study has suggested that vitamin D supplements may lower the risk of serious cardiovascular events such as heart attacks in older adults.
Cardiovascular disease is one of the main causes of death globally.
While the functions of vitamin D include the protection of bones and muscles, research into its effects on heart and circulatory health has been less conclusive.
In the study, published in the peer-reviewed journal The BMJ on June 28, experts at the QIMR Berghofer medical research institute in Queensland suggest that taking vitamin D in your 60s could reduce the chances of a heart attack.
The trial — said to be the largest of its kind — involved 21,315 Australians, aged between 60-84.
About half of the group took 60,000 IUs of vitamin D each month in supplement form, while the other half received a placebo orally for up to five years.
Researchers examined data on cardiovascular events, including heart attacks, strokes, and coronary revascularisation.
During the trial — which was monitored between 2014 and 2020 — 1,336 people experienced a major cardiovascular event; with 6.6 per cent in the placebo group and 6 per cent in the vitamin D group.
The researchers discovered that the rate of major cardiovascular events was 9 per cent lower in the vitamin D group compared with the placebo group — equivalent to 5.8 fewer events per 1,000 participants.
The rate of heart attack was 19% lower in the vitamin D group while there was no difference in stroke risk between the two groups.
Overall, the researchers calculate that 172 people would need to take monthly vitamin D supplements to prevent one major cardiovascular event.
The experts suggest the figure could improve if it was applied to other populations, such as people who are vitamin D deficient.
They also suggest more trials are needed to “evaluate the role of vitamin D supplementation, particularly in people taking drugs for prevention or treatment of cardiovascular disease”.
“These findings indicate that vitamin D supplementation might reduce the incidence of major cardiovascular events,” the authors wrote.
“The effect was stronger in people who were taking medications to treat cardiovascular conditions such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol.
“People who are not vitamin D deficient should be aware that the evidence that more vitamin D is beneficial for heart health benefits is suggestive but not conclusive.
“These findings could prompt further evaluation of the role of vitamin D supplementation, particularly in people taking drugs for prevention or treatment of cardiovascular disease.”
Vitamin D is a type of vitamin that the human body gets from both diets and produces when exposed to sunlight.
It helps regulate the amount of calcium and phosphate in the body, which are nutrients needed to keep bones, teeth, and muscles healthy.


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Myanmar’s honey is good enough to enter the international market, but there are myriad challenges in penetrating the market, industry insiders say.
When Myanmar faced sanctions, Myanmar only exported honey to neighbouring countries in the ASEAN market, but now it is trying to export honey to the EU.
However, to get a foothold in those markets there are many difficulties that must be overcome. Specifically, China exports a large amount of low-quality and adulterated honey claiming that it comes from Myanmar, said U Aung Khaing Soe, the secretary of the Myanmar Apiculture Association.
“On the international market, China has been accused of selling counterfeit honey, and blending other substances into it. Therefore, trust in Myanmar’s honey market has been tarnished,” he told Myanmar Business Today.
Every country prohibits the import of wholesale quantities of Chinese honey, but Chinese honey still keeps coming to Myanmar illegally, he added.
“We need to prevent this as soon as possible. The government should inspect and monitor honey supplies, and monitor Myanmar’s name on Chinese honey. The Myanmar Apiculture Association should also be proactive to help Myanmar’s market,” U Phyo Aung, chairman of the association, told Myanmar Business Today.
“For the last three years, honey from China has been imported into the country, so the authorities have warned consumers. That is our biggest problem in finding international honey markets. Also, in Myanmar, there is a lack of investment and technology, which is another barrier.”
Exports of Myanmar honey are increasing, however. It is still not a profitable national export on a large scale.
For farmers, getting a loan to start an apiculture business is still in the discussion stage right now. They face the problem of acquiring farmland because of rising land prices.
“The government does not provide farmland in Myanmar for small honey businesses. Some locals produce it on a small scale. The price of farmland is increasing, so we cannot make large honey operations,” U Phyo Aung said.
In Myanmar, honey is produced in several regions and states, but Sagaing region produces the most of it. Myanmar exports honey to Thailand, Japan and the US, and the market potential is increasing.
“To produce quality honey, the beehives are placed on plum trees. This honey is superior because the bees feed on plum flowers. If we can sell purified honey, we have long term potential.” said U Aung Khaing Soe.
Myanmar annually exports 4,500 tonnes of honey. Honey business leaders are hoping for an increase in exports by 20 percent by next year. For one hive, investors can get K60,000 to K100,000 per year.
For the export wholesale market, one tonne of honey can go for as much as $2,000. The return on investments is attractive, so the association is aiming to expand honey businesses around Myanmar.
Source: Myanmar Business Today


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The hamsters were running around inside their plastic cage, squirting through transparent tubes and tackling a treadmill. Pretty typical.
But these furry critters are special. They don't "poop, die or stink," in the words of their maker, Clayton-based Cepia LLC.
Cepia aims to make a huge splash this holiday season with Zhu Zhu Pets, a line of electronic hamsters. The toys are gathering buzz as the possible breakout of the season.
In the hyper-competitive world of toy retailing, will the hamsters burrow into kids' wish lists and parents' budgets?
They're off to a good start, grabbing a spot on the Toys 'R' Us holiday hot toy list last month.
"They almost seem to have come out of nowhere," said Robin Sayetta, vice president of licensing at Highlights for Children, a kids' magazine.
"The fact that it made that list is pretty amazing," she said, pointing out that a number of the most popular toy lines, such as Star Wars merchandise, were backed by huge franchises.
In the fickle world of toy retailing, Cepia hopes the technology embedded inside the fuzzy toys will help set them apart.
Little bumps on the cage floor touch the hamsters' underbellies as they scurry along, telling the hamsters which "room" they are in. The faux pets can make teeth-brushing sounds in the bathroom and sleeping noises in the bedroom.
They squeak when petted on the nose - one of more than 40 sound effects. The hamsters have "explore" and "nurturing" modes, depending on whether their owners want them to be feisty or snuggly.
The idea for Zhu Zhu Pets was first conceived in May 2008, and the prototype was delivered about a year ago. For Cepia and its 15 local employees, it's been a whirlwind since. The company expects to ship between 4 million and 5 million hamsters by the end of the year. The toy went on sale in late August.
The toys' target market is girls ages 4 to 11 and boys ages 4 to 7.
"It's something that both parents and kids respond to, and that's key," said Sayetta. "You can give your child the experience of having a pet without the mess. This idea of a win-win for parents and kids is an important factor."
Joe McGowan, Cepia's director of product development and a two-decade veteran of the toy-making industry, said he has never seen "anything like this."
"As soon as we saw the first work in prototype, it was a slam dunk," he said. "This could be a really big deal for us."
Zhu Zhu Pets are manufactured in China. Asked about the health scares associated with toys shipped from China, McGowan said the company's toys are extensively tested.
The phrase "Zhu Zhu" conveys emotion in China. And on a more prosaic level, it's easier to get trademark protection for an unusual name like "Zhu Zhu," McGowan said.
The furry toys might help Cepia - a private company that does not release financial data - reclaim the magic of years gone by. Russell Hornsby, the company's CEO, was a founder of Trendmasters Inc., a defunct St. Louis-based toy company.
Trendmasters made Rumble Robots and Powerpuff Girls toys and had as many as 250 employees and sales of $150 million at various points. But that was before several rounds of layoffs, a money-losing holiday season and a swift liquidation in 2002.
A core group of staffers from Trendmasters founded Cepia that same year. But they couldn't make toys initially due to a noncompete agreement with the firm that purchased the Trendmasters product lines, McGowan said.
So the company started developing lawn and garden products. When the noncompete agreements expired, Cepia jumped back into the toy game and started churning out mechanical lizards and glow-in-the-dark teddy bears.
'THE NAG FACTOR'
Is the company betting the farm on Zhu Zhu Pets?
"Not at all," said McGowan. "We're already thinking about what's next, what's going to replace (Zhu Zhu Pets) and come alongside it. To be a successful toy company, you want to be in as many aisles as possible."
Now the company is focused on stoking the buzz surrounding Zhu Zhu Pets. Commercials are running on cable networks such as the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. It boosts "the nag factor," said Natalie Hornsby, director of marketing strategies and brand development. "It's like, 'Mommy, I want it, I want it, I want it!'"
And this year, the company is pursuing a new tactic - working with "mommy bloggers." Cepia has sent Zhu Zhu Pets to a number of bloggers for "hamster parties."
"It's better than using national ad campaigns," said McGowan. "Those mommies rule the world."
The toys will be available in Wal-Mart, Target and Toys 'R' Us as well as in smaller stores.
Generating buzz is critical in the holiday toy-shopping season.
"There's always something that's going to be hot, and that is the big focus for kids around the holiday," said Edward Jones retail analyst Matt Arnold. "It has to be a buzz where kids are convinced they just have to have it."
So far, so good. Occasionally, the toys don't even make it onto store shelves because customers snatch them off the stocking carts, said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien.
"We're very excited," she said. "All the stores have a ton on order. It's a really hot item.."
Still, the retail environment is tough these days. Shoppers are nervous about their finances. Store owners are cutting back on the number of items they carry as they seek to conserve cash.
U.S. sales of toys were actually up 1.6 percent in the first eight months of the year, to $10.5 billion, according to the NPD Group. But "it's getting more and more competitive," said Sayetta. "Shelf space has been at a premium at retail for many years. The current economic climate has made that worse."
Even so, Cepia is confident that it has a winner on its hands. "A lot of toys come and go really fast," said McGowan. "We don't see that happening with this."


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SPRINGDALE, Ark. — Tyson Ventures, the venture capital arm of Tyson Foods, has announced its first ever pitch event for sustainability entrepreneurs and startups. Tyson “Demo Day” will be held virtually on July 11, 2022, and selected participants will be invited to demonstrate how their solutions could help create a more sustainable food system.
The goal of the day is to identify and ultimately invest in breakthrough, sustainable technologies that can help Tyson Foods reach its sustainability goals.
At Tyson Demo Day, the selected companies will virtually pitch their solutions to a group of Tyson Foods executives. Following Demo Day, selected startups will have the opportunity to engage with Tyson Foods’ senior leadership and partner with the company on breakthrough ideas to help advance sustainability across the company.
“Our ambition is to be the most sustainable and transparent food company in the world — and we believe long-term sustainability will be tied to innovation. We want to play our part and help foster those innovations we think will have the greatest impact to our food system,” said John R. Tyson, president of Tyson Ventures, executive vice president, and chief sustainability officer of Tyson Foods. “We are absolutely committed to work toward a more sustainable food future and partner with future visionaries in this space.”
Startups can apply to participate in Tyson Demo Day by visiting the event website: https://www.tysonfoods.com/tyson-demo-day.
Tyson Foods experts will evaluate the entries and select the companies to present their solutions virtually on July 11, 2022. Applicants will be evaluated based on alignment with Tyson Ventures’ investment strategy, the solutions they present, and the potential those solutions have to help Tyson Foods meet its sustainability goals. Solutions that align with those goals include, but are not limited to, greenhouse gas emission reduction, reducing food waste, animal welfare, regenerative agriculture, packaging, soil health, and water management.
The deadline to apply is May 15, 2022.
Since its inception in 2016, Tyson Ventures has invested more than $100 million in startups and other companies focused on emerging proteins, new technologies for food and worker safety and sustainable food production.
Follow the Tyson Ventures LinkedIn account to stay up to date on Tyson Demo Day (https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/tysonventures).


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When it comes to keeping things quiet about products they are announcing in the future, Apple tend to do a great job. They have on occasion slipped up some times though.
Both the Apple iPhone 5 and the 4S were seen in Vietnam just months before they were released. Tinthe showed what they said were prototypes of the devices and these were the real phones when they were revealed.
It seems that we are seeing the same thing with the Apple iPhone 5S and the 6, as SidhTech have shown pictures of what are said to be the Apple iPhone 5S and the iPhone 6. the pictures come from Vietnam and show the Apple iPhone 5 beside what is said to be the iPhone 6 and iPhone 5S.
You can see that the home button is missing and the iPhone 6 comes with a display that is noticeably larger. It has been said that Apple will reveal both of the devices this year.
SidhTech said that the lack of the home button does fall into place with rumours that are going around of Apple including a track-pad into the handset.
Update: Apparently before everyone gets excited SidhTech was just talking the mickey out of everyone and the picture was nothing than an April Fools prank, which is a pity as the devices do look good.


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A mobile app developer and digital consultancy set up by the former managing director of The Sun and News of the World has been rescued out of administration.
Restructuring specialists at business advisory firm Quantuma have helped to save 42 jobs at London-based Chelsea Apps Factory after selling the business in a pre-pack transaction.
The rescue came after Andrew Hosking and Simon Bonney were appointed as administrators on 12 July 2018.
Before launching Chelsea Apps Factory, Mike Anderson was the man behind the launch of the Metro newspaper in 1999 and enjoyed a 20-year career in print publishing before leaving his high-profile job as managing director of The Sun and News of the World in September 2009.
Anderson launched Chelsea Apps Factory with just three employees in 2010 before reportedly growing the business to a 70-strong team by 2015.
The eight-year-old company has worked with household names including professional services firm KPMG, Transport for London, Waitrose and Ladbrokes.
The joint administrators did not elaborate on what led to their appointment, but stressed that tech is “a highly competitive industry” and that businesses rich in intellectual property can be subject to “complex financial headwinds”.
Chelsea Apps Factory was sold for undisclosed sum to CA Factory Limited, a newly established business which counts Anderson as a director, according to Companies House records.
In its most recently available financial accounts, Chelsea Apps Factory generated revenues of £6.6 million in the 12 months to 28 February 2017 and posted a pre-tax loss of £1.42 million.
Along with Anderson, the firm’s senior management team also includes chief financial officer Robert Rinaldo, chief information officer Peter Myers and chief operating officer Edel McGrath, who previously worked at KPMG for 28 years.
In his LinkedIn profile, Anderson describes Chelsea Apps Factory as the UK’s largest privately-held app consultancy and development company, sharing the same birthday as the iPad.
“8 years ago we had no idea what the future held for Apps Factories, we have learnt fast how to succeed,” his profile reads.
Today we are the largest privately held enterprise mobility company in the UK and our offer is clearly defined as mobilising businesses and running innovation labs.
“Our consultant and development business is well on track to achieve our run rate of £10m + per annum and last year we came in ….the 16th fastest growing tech company in the UK.”
Mike Anderson has been contacted for comment.


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MPR Bill Marked-Up in House
July 29, 2005
July 29, 2005 -- On Wednesday, the House Committee on Agriculture approved H.R. 3408, the bill to re-authorize the Livestock Mandatory Price Reporting (MPR) Act of 1999.
The legislation contains the authorization for the continuation of MPR for sheep and lamb meat. The House approved the five-year extension on the re-authorization period of the bill as requested by a coalition.
The 1999 Act requires packers to report, among other things, livestock purchase prices to the U.S. Department of Agriculture?s Agriculture Marketing Service. A transparent, accurate and timely market price-reporting system is necessary for producers and processors to be able to make informed business decisions.
?The American Sheep Industry Association (ASI) is a member of the livestock and meat industries coalition that strongly supports the approval of this legislation by the U.S. House of Representatives to re-authorize MPR. The statute will expire on Sept. 30, 2005, if not extended,? commented Paul Frischknecht, president of ASI.
Staff contact: Peter Orwick, ext. 33


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While growing up in upstate New York and studying accounting at St. Bonaventure University, Chris A. McWilton became an admirer of the region’s most iconic corporation, Rochester-based Eastman Kodak. “Western New York is known for two things: Eastman Kodak and a lot of snow,” McWilton, president of U.S. markets at MasterCard Worldwide, noted during a recent Wharton Leadership Lecture. “It was long a company that was near and dear to my heart, but, unfortunately, it never did adapt to change.”
Kodak executives’ resistance to changing times has resulted in the firm’s recent bankruptcy filing. Technology and consumer tastes change quickly, McWilton said, and Kodak is an example of how important it is for leaders to recognize that. “Eastman Kodak was minting money — it had incredible margins and a great brand. It was an icon. It was what you looked for when you thought of the word, ‘successful,'” McWilton stated. “But then Fuji ran over them by processing film more cheaply. And then digital technology took off. No one saw change coming. And that long run of euphoria ended abruptly.”
The same fate could have befallen MasterCard, which is headquartered in Purchase, N.Y. The two companies were in a similar situation, with technology and evolving consumer habits encroaching on their business models, noted McWilton, who joined MasterCard in 2003 as chief financial officer after spending 21 years at accounting firm KPMG. But he said the response to change by the executive leadership at the financial services company created a far different end result.
For the first 40 years of its existence, MasterCard was mostly at the beck and call of its member banks, McWilton noted. “There is a misconception with the general population that MasterCard issues credit cards, sets the rates, makes the charges and so forth.” In reality, McWilton noted, MasterCard is more or less a technology company. “We were formed to allow banks to have a common platform [from which] they could run the cards.”
The company does not extend credit, or decide who gets it and who does not, he said. “We just run the technology that allows a credit card swiped in China to get its information to a bank in Des Moines and back to China in a millisecond so no one has to physically move the money the next day.”
According to McWilton, until 2006, MasterCard was an association owned by its member banks. “We entertained them and wined and dined them and sponsored sporting events they came to,” McWilton stated. At the first annual meeting he attended as CFO, it hit him that “leadership” was almost unnecessary in such a situation. “I got up there and said we had a great year and made all this money,” he said. The nature of the business did not attract “superstars,” McWilton added. “You never worried about profits, just if the members of the association were happy. That is the way it worked for 40 years.”
But the first few years of the 21st century brought a new level of scrutiny to the banking world. MasterCard began facing increased oversight. Lawsuits were coming daily, it seemed, and the firm became a lightning rod for anti-trust suits. “Every board meeting, instead of being about innovation or just business strategy itself, became merely a report from the general counsel on how the lawsuits were going that month,” McWilton noted.
So executives made the decision to cease being an association owned by financial institutions and to make the switch to being a publicly traded company. The firm had its initial public offering in May 2006, starting at $39 a share. Its market cap has effectively increased tenfold since that time — from $5 billion to $50 billion — despite a general malaise in the financial world. “But when we went from virtually a sleepy not-for-profit to being a Wall Street darling, it almost was a bucket of cold water for leadership,” McWilton said.
More change was on the horizon. Technology brought other forms of electronic transactions into the mainstream, some of which challenged MasterCard’s lead in the area of efficiency. The 2008 financial meltdown brought more regulation to the industry. MasterCard has been most affected by provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that cap certain fees related to debit card transactions.
In 2009 McWilton moved into his current position as head of U.S. markets, the largest part of MasterCard’s business. It was an unusual choice, he said, to promote an employee who was essentially a lifetime accountant to a job that emphasized people and strategy skills, rather than being adept at moving numbers around on a spreadsheet. “There is a perception that running a business requires some kind of ‘natural’ skills,” McWilton noted. “But I found you could learn analysis, decision making, humanity and leadership … just by being aware of what you need to run that business. If you have rational thinking, you can lead. A finance person can do marketing. A marketer can do product development. All can lead.”
When a company is undergoing big changes, one of the most important jobs of a senior executive is to make sure employees are on board, McWilton said. The workers at any firm can often be broken down into three groups. One-third of employees will enthusiastically embrace change. “‘This can be an opportunity for me. Let’s go,’ this group will say,” McWilton noted. Then there are the third that are OK with change, but fall into more of a ‘wait and see’ category. A good leader can get those people to come around through strong reasoning and guidance, McWilton added.
“The last third want change to die and go away,” he said. “They will be the obstacles of change, and a good leader has to make a quick decision about those folks — which is basically find something else for them to do and some place other than the organization to do it in.”
McWilton considers himself lucky that he was one accountant who had the ability to stand up in front of a group and give an effective speech. “Leadership comes from the heart, from your passion. If you need to hide behind PowerPoint, then you don’t know how to speak to employees, to talk about issues with conviction, to give a persuasive argument,” he said, suggesting that aspiring leaders should take advantage of every opportunity to speak in public.
As the changes in regulation and technology kept coming for MasterCard, McWilton had to move quickly and publicly. “You can’t just hold a town hall meeting and the leader says, ‘We are changing’ and just have it happen,” he noted. He offered the analogy of converting a hotel room from smoking to non-smoking, pointing out that the hotel staff cannot simply empty the ashtrays and get the smoker out of the room. “The smoke is in the fabric and in the bedspread. You have to change the carpeting, open the windows and get rid of the old curtains. You have to get the old ways of doing things out. That is effective leadership.”
To that end, he added, leadership is not about being loved, but about being respected. “At MasterCard, sometimes we have promoted managers who think they have to be instantly loved by everyone around them, not only those who work for them, but those above,” he said. But then the executive might have to reprimand someone, or criticize them. The object is not, on the other hand, to ruffle feathers, but just to be fair. “Unfortunately, leadership means having to make tough decisions. But if you are fair, you will always be respected.”
That means, too, that good leaders do not sit on the fence when decisions must be made. Leadership, McWilton noted, is not about appointing a committee to study something indefinitely, deferring decisions for six months and waiting for new ideas to magically come along. “I tell my managers not to wait for me to be in my office,” he said. “The point is that I hired them because they were smart. Nine out of 10 decisions they can make on their own, and know I would approve them. There is that tenth one that you need to consult me on, but otherwise, move on. Make a decision and make things happen.”
Being able to trust that managers will make the right decisions on their own comes down to assembling a strong team of employees, McWilton said, adding that a good leader acknowledges that he or she does not know everything, and takes advantage of experts in technology, finance or sales who know more than he or she does about their respective fields. “You have to have the courage to hire people who will challenge your thinking,” he stated. “You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room, just the person who has assembled the smartest team. Yes, the ultimate decision will have to come from you, but you often have to check your ego, and rely on your best employees’ knowledge so that you can make that decision.”
The new culture at MasterCard encourages “thoughtful risk-taking,” he said. In its old form, leadership at the firm was nervous and unable to risk upsetting the proverbial apple cart. According to McWilton, the perception was that margins were good, so why take a risk? Now, with the advent of technology like microchip-embedded cards, international rules regarding transactions and new federal rules surrounding payment cards, there has to be a level of creative risk-taking, otherwise the changes will suck up those margins in a heartbeat, McWilton noted.
He is bullish on the future of MasterCard, and the entire credit card business. The Social Security Administration, he said, has moved toward prepaid cards as a means for payments. The Indian government intends to issue credit card-like national identity cards, which will navigate citizens through payments, security checks and other daily functions. More than 60% of all ordinary transactions in the United States today are done by credit or debit cards, he noted, more than twice the amount just a decade ago. “We are getting rid of swaths of paper, and being more efficient doing so” — something that even his employees have a hard time comprehending.
“So change is here and more is coming,” he stated, noting that microchip embedded cards are the norm in Europe but still facing resistance in the U.S., where people are reluctant to give up the ubiquitous magnetic swipe strip due to the cost of changing the related machinery. The change will happen eventually, though, McWilton predicted, and MasterCard will be ready. “The biggest risk is not to change,” he said.


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The problem of “chip shortage” of global car companies is getting worse and worse, affecting many car companies in Europe and the United States. On the 8th local time, General Motors said again that in North America, many of its factories were included in the shutdown list.
GM said that due to the continuous shortage of semiconductor chips, the company will suspend or extend the shutdown period of several factories in North America. Three of these factories in Tennessee, Michigan and Mexico will be temporarily closed for one to two weeks.
The shutdown period of factories in Kansas, USA and Ontario, Canada, will be extended to May 10, both of which closed in February. GM previously said that the shutdown would reduce the company’s operating profit by up to $2 billion this year, or about 13 billion yuan.
Affected by the expansion of the shutdown, GM’s share price fell by more than 3% on the 8th and fell 1.22% at $60.09 per share at the end of the day.
Also on the 8th, White House Press Secretary Pusaki said that the director of the White House National Economic Committee and the White House National Security Adviser will lead meetings with executives of several companies next week to discuss the long-standing shortage of car chips.
According to reports, the global automobile industry has been plagued by insufficient chip supply since the end of last year. Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Ford and General Motors have announced plans to stop or reduce production.
Essen Huamai, a market research institute in the United Kingdom, once predicted that in the first quarter of this year, 1 million cars worldwide would be delayed due to “lack of core”. Global auto industry sales will be reduced by $60 billion in the whole year.


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HARRISONS ADMINISTRATORS have arranged pre-pack sale of publishing company Scala.
Tony Murphy (pictured) and Paul Boyle, both from Harrisons Business Recovery, were appointed joint-administrators to Scala Publishers which has offices in London and New York.
The company was sold to Channon Education, saving all eight employees from redundancy.
Scala was established 40 years ago and worked closely with the National Gallery and other museums and art gallerys to produce “reasonably” priced guide books and exhibition catalogues. However, the last few years have seen sales fall due to tough economic conditions.
Murphy said: “I am delighted with the sale of Scala Publishers through the administration process and pleased to advise that key personnel and management at the company will remain unchanged, ensuring a smooth transition.
“Channon Education has committed significant funds towards the future development of the company. This is good news for Scala Publishers as there are plans afoot to expand and build upon its already solid foundations within the museum, gallery and heritage site market.”
The application of robotics in finance functions is moving faster than predicted. Although, companies are cautious in how they are applying artificial intelligence to ensure results first, many are stepping up their investigations
EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager has defended the decision to order technology giant Apple to pay €13bn (£11bn) in back taxes to the Irish government
Carillion has announced the appointment of a new finance director as it reported a rise in first half profits and sales led by strong growth in its support services business
The UK inflation rate hit its highest level in almost two years in July, suggesting that the sharp fall in sterling following the UK referendum to leave the European Union is forcing prices up


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The modern goods/order delivery method aided by autonomous robots is taking different dimensions through the making of diverse delivering robotic vehicles. A lot of such inventions have been shown and more are still coming.
The whole idea is to have a safe and quick delivery of orders to the customers. You might not have heard about the latest electric autonomous delivering vehicle made by Magna technology to deliver parcels, pizzas, and other lightweight items.
The robotic vehicles have been under testing and were recently deployed by a pizza-making venture to deliver pizzas safely to their customers. By design, the vehicle has three tires two at the front and one at the back. The mini-size electric vehicle can attain a speed of 20 mph to make a quick delivery to customers.
This feature will help to reduce last-mile delivery costs and carbon emissions in urban areas. In addition, the electric robotic vehicle is equipped with AI cameras, radar, and LIDAR to enhance its functionalities. According to the report, the robot was launched on a pilot basis in the Detriot area in March 2022.
The next special robotic delivery autonomous vehicles have similar functionalities with varying designs and sizes. Some of them are the ones shown here. The mini-size Uber delivering robot is one of them, the starship model of the autonomous delivering vehicle is another one and lots more.


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introduced last month Xiaomi 13 series showcased without the Ultra model, which focuses specifically on subjects such as photography. As is known, last year Xiaomi 12S Ultra special to china It has attracted the reaction of users for many reasons such as. However, this situation will change drastically with the Xiaomi 13 Ultra, which is expected to be introduced in the coming months, and the device will also be sold globally. Finally, there has been a critical development regarding the smartphone. The model appeared in the IMEI database.
Xiaomi 13 Ultra in IMEI database
Xiaomi 13 Ultra, which has not been on the agenda for a long time, appeared in the IMEI database with model numbers 2304FPN6DG and 2304FPN6DC. As it is known, the emergence of a device on such platforms is an indication that the promotional event is coming soon. Allegedly, the upcoming flagship phone will be presented to users in April, although there is no official statement yet.
Known for leaks in the industry TechGoingphone, recently by being delayed He said that the allegations made about it do not reflect the truth and that the phone will be presented to users in April at the latest. Apart from that, the leak also includes details about the price tag of the model. Accordingly, the device will have the same starting price tag as its predecessor, the 12S Ultra: 887 dollars.
The technical features of the device’s predecessor, 12S Ultra, are as follows:
Xiaomi 12S Ultra technical specifications
- Processor: Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
- Screen: 6.73 inches, QHD+, 120 Hz, 522 ppi, 1,500 nits, AMOLED LTPO 2.0
- RAM: 8GB/ 12GB
- Storage: 256GB/ 512GB
- Camera: 50 Megapixel main (with OIS)+48 Megapixel wide+48 Megapixel periscope camera (with OIS)
- video recording: 4K 60fps / 8K
- Battery: 4.860mAh
- Fast charging: 67W fast wired (50% in 15 minutes), 50W wireless (40% in 15 minutes), and 10W reverse wireless with Quick Charge 4+ support
So what do you think about this subject? Don’t forget to share your views with us in the comments section!


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It was just a month ago that we posited the question of whether or not Turntable.fm’s best days were over as the site continued to see its traffic fall and then become stagnant at a much lower level than when it launched last summer. But now, we’re pretty damn sure that we spoke too soon.
Billboard reports that Turntable.fm founder Billy Chasen and co-founder Seth Goldstein announced at SXSW today that their company has officially gone legit: They have inked a licensing deal with all four of the major labels. Yeah, this is pretty huge and should only mean much bigger things for Turntable.fm moving forward.
Here’s what Goldstein told Billboard.biz:
“This feels like an all-time record speed launch – when we launched we really didn’t come at this from the music industry, it was all new to us,” Goldstein [said]. “Our model is unique – we’re not a radio service, not an on-demand service. We have interesting aspects that really require some out-of-the-box thinking. We felt that from the get-go the labels were absolutely different from what I’d been led to believe. They gave us a lot of time and attention. Compared to their user base, we’re a tiny service in the broad scheme of things.”


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Tecno has launched a smartphone, the Camon 18i in Nigeria today. This latest offering from Tecno, adds to the pre-existing Camon 18 lineup which includes the Camon 18 and the Camon 18P. The new smartphone comes with a 6.6-inch HD+ display. The device is powered by an octa-core Helio G85 chipset. There’s a triple rear camera module comprising a 48MP primary shooter. Let’s take a look at the detailed specifications and pricing of the Tecno Camon 18i ahead.
Tecno Camon 18i Pricing And Availability
The newly arrived Tecno Camon 18i price in Nigeria has been set at NGN 84,500 (~ Rs. 15,400) for the only variant with 4GB RAM and 128GBs of internal storage. The phone is reported to be available in three colour variants namely Deep Sea, Frost Silver, and Tranquil Green.
However, the company has not yet confirmed if the phone would be available in other global markets, such as India.
Tecno Camon 18i Specifications
The new Tecno Camon 18-series smartphone comes with a 6.6-inch HD+ IPS LCD with a 720 x 1640 resolution. The device has a 20.5:9 aspect ratio and a 90Hz refresh rate. It has a punch hole at the top of the display for the front camera.
Under the hood, the device is powered by the MediaTek Helio G85 chipset paired with 4GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage. In terms of the optics department, the device features a triple-camera setup. The rear-facing triple-camera module comprises a 48-megapixel primary camera, a secondary QVGA sensor and a third AI shooter. There’s a 16-megapixel selfie camera sensor at the front paired with an f/2.0 lens for selfies and video calls.
On the software side of things, the Camon 18i runs Android 11 out of the box with HiOS 7.6 on top. A 5,000mAh battery powers the device that supports 18W fast charging. Connectivity options on the phone include a micro-USB port for charging and data transfer, dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, a microSD card slot, and a 3.5mm audio jack.


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ICCAIR- IRNA – Iranian Cultural attaché to Afghanistan said on Tuesday that Iran’s common border with Afghanistan is now open and exchange of goods are still underway between two countries.
Mohammad Mahdi Javanmard Ghasab said after a short stop which happened due to the outbreak of coronavirus, exports to Afghanistan is now in normal condition.
He noted that during a visit made by Iranian Ambassador to Afghanistan Bahador Aminian and Head of Dogharoon Special Economic Zone Mahdi Akhlaghipour and some other official to Herat, the latest situation on exports was discussed.
He noted that Iranian officials reviewed facilitating trade between Iran and Afghanistan.
They also discussed creating trade center in Dogharoon, solving problems in zero border points, changing the application of halls and solving problem of trucks slow movements.
Javanmard Ghasab wished for normalizing of trade visa and flights.
Earlier, Head of the Customs Office of Southern Khorasan Province Mohammad-Ali Khashi said on Sunday that routine export of goods to Afghanistan via Mahirud Border Post is underway.
He said that the teams examine all the people who enter Iran to see whether or not they are infected by coronavirus.
He added that the Afghan government has also done the same and examines people who enter the country.
Meanwhile, Deputy Head of Afghanistan Central Statistical Organization Hasibollah Movahed said that Iran is the biggest trade partner for Afghanistan, adding that Afghanistan has had the most imports from Iran during the current Iranian year (to be finished on March 20).
Speaking in a press conference, Hasibollah Movahed said Afghanistan imported $8.3b this year which had 8% fall compared to the corresponding period last year.
Iran with $1.2b exports is regarded as the biggest trade partner for Afghanistan, he added.


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Microsoft’s $69 billion offer to get Activision Blizzard, a person of the world’s greatest online video game publishers, faces antitrust investigations by regulators in as numerous as 16 nations. The program large, led by Satya Nadella, is working to get acceptance from US and European regulators to compete for his January settlement to get the video activity large. However, Sony, possibly the major title in the gaming earth, has contested, boasting that if Microsoft scoops up Activision Blizzard, it will reduce access to the strike Phone of Responsibility franchise.
The $69 billion offer will make Microsoft the world’s third-greatest recreation publisher by earnings. The transfer could support Microsoft obtain total handle around Activision Blizzard’s match library, and could support the Xbox maker purchase Sony’s PlayStation when publishing video games on its lucrative Recreation Go subscription service. will be in a position to take gain of
This is a sneak peek at the most up-to-date developments in Microsoft’s ongoing endeavor to acquire Activision Blizzard.
Sony Promises Activision Merger Will ‘Playstation Develop into Nintendo’
In a 22-web site response to the UK’s Levels of competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Sony said Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard aims to make PlayStation far more like Nintendo by using absent Contact of Obligation. Even though Microsoft promises that Nintendo would have succeeded with no Connect with of Obligation, Sony statements that Redmond needs “PlayStation to be like Nintendo”, which is a immediate competitor to Xbox. will weaken the placement of
FTC possible to sue to block merger of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard
The Federal Trade Fee (FTC), an unbiased agency of the U.S. federal governing administration that prevents unfair or misleading buying and selling procedures, could file an antitrust lawsuit to block Microsoft’s proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The FTC has nonetheless to make a official announcement, but Politico’s report states that “no lawsuits demanding the deal are guaranteed.” The FTC argues that if Microsoft can purchase one particular of the largest third-bash recreation publishers, Activision Blizzard, it will give the corporation an unfair gain in the sector. Earlier this month, the European Union “launched a complete-fledged investigation” into the proposed offer.
Microsoft provided Sony a 10-yr deal to continue to keep Contact of Duty
Phone of Obligation is at the heart of a company feud in between Xbox and PlayStation above Microsoft’s $69 billion offer to receive Activision Blizzard.according to new york times Microsoft has reportedly explained to Sony it would give a 10-year deal to retain Call of Responsibility on PlayStation. Before, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan discovered that Microsoft had only prompt giving 3 far more decades of Simply call of Duty on the PlayStation platform. . Xbox chief of workers Phil Spencer has continuously insisted that Xbox will not separate the Contact of Responsibility franchise from PlayStation. Phone of Duty is consistently 1 of the most preferred FPS franchises, with lots of supporter pursuing and billions of pounds in income.
Sony has more ‘exclusive’ online games than Xbox
In an endeavor to convince the UK’s Competitiveness and Marketplaces Authority (CMA), which is probing Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Redmond claimed Sony’s 1st-celebration video games are of “much better high-quality”. rice industry. Console exclusivity is crucial to the console’s results in the lengthy run, so this dialogue carries excess weight. Sony will make extra dollars from its proprietary consoles than Microsoft does, but that business design worked effectively and produced the PlayStation what it is now. Xbox avid gamers can accessibility exceptional written content from Microsoft via the Recreation Go membership service without paying out whole price for the recreation.
“In addition to being the dominant console provider, Sony is also a sturdy activity publisher,” Microsoft wrote in its response to the CMA. “Sony is about the same dimension as Activision and just about double the dimension of Microsoft’s activity publishing company.” Yes, pretty much 5 situations more than the Xbox,” he added.


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Pierre Cardin, the esteemed French fashion designer, died on Tuesday at 98.
Earlier in the day, his family confirmed his death to the Agence France-Presse. “It is a day of great sadness for all our family. Pierre Cardin is no more,” they said in a statement to AFP. “We are all proud of his tenacious ambition and the daring he has shown throughout his life,” the statement further read.
The designer, who was a son of Italian immigrants, died in the morning at the American Hospital of Paris in Neuilly, in the west of Paris, according to AFP. “Italian by birth, Pierre Cardin never forgot his origins while bringing unconditional love to France,” said the statement.
Known as a visionary, his avant-garde fashion was appreciated through the years. From fashion to accessories, jewelry, fragrances, furniture, and even restaurants, Cardin had signed his brand name on a wide array of things. “It’s all the same to me whether I am doing sleeves for dresses or table legs,” a quote by him reads on the official website.
Born on July 7, 1922, in Venice, Italy, he was most notable for making designer clothes. “Each of his collections is an evidence of a fierce appetite for experimentation,” the official website says about Cardin.
After a stint with Christian Dior, he founded his fashion house in 1950 and introduced the famous bubble dress in 1954. He is also considered the first designer to sell clothing collections in departmental stores in the late 1950s. His 1964 “Space Age” collection remains a fashion history landmark to date.
From showing his strong presence in Japan to closing deals with Soviet Union and China, he was also the first designer to hold a fashion show in Red Square in Moscow in 1991, which drew a crowd of around 200,000.
After moving to Paris, he designed the sets and costumes for the film Beauty and the Beast with director Jean Cocteau in 1947. “We are all proud of his tenacious ambition and the daring he has shown throughout his life,” his family said.


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We have some good news for you if you play on Steam as 11 new currencies are about to land on the PC gaming platform. Steam has been changing things quite a bit the past few months, and this is the latest step in making the platform even more convenient for everyone. There will be support for the new currencies on November 13, which will allow more people from all over the world to enjoy Steam. If you have a Steam account, read on to learn more about which new currencies you will see on Steam.
Steam Adds 11 New Currencies To Lineup
There are 11 new currencies coming to Steam on November 13. This is going to be very beneficial for people outside of the United States. When it comes to Steam, it is important to get even more currencies on the platform to encourage those outside of America to join the popular gaming platform.
Previously, a lot of people had to purchase the games with USD, which did make things difficult in the Steam Store. It appears Valve is trying to make Steam more of an international gaming platform by adding these 11 new currencies. We have the details on those 11 new currencies and we are excited to share those details with you.
As far as the new currencies go, there is the Argentinian Peso, Polish Zloty, Uruguayan Peso, and Vietnamese Dong. Also added to Steam is the Costa Rican Colon, Kazakhstani Tenge, Kuwaiti Dinar, and the Qatari Rial. The Ukrainian Hryvnia, Israeli New Shekel, and the South Asian USD are also included in the list. This is going to really help Valve make Steam a place to go for games no matter where you live in the world. No longer will people need to use the USD to purchase their games off of Steam, since now more currencies are going to be supported.
11 New Currencies Come to Steam As Valve Increases Outreach
The 11 new currencies coming to Steam is coming at a time when Valve is trying to increase outreach to the gaming community. Steam has been the top PC gaming platform for a long time now, but Valve knows it has to step it up to ensure it stays that way. Some things Valve has done include making the recommendation system on Steam better and also trying to do away with review bombing. Steam Direct also replaced Steam Greenlight in an effort to make better games come to the PC gaming platform. Steam also just came out with digital gift cards, and we talked about that new development about a week ago.
The only issue that could arise from the new currencies on Steam is that every once in a while, there might be issues with the pricing. Sometimes, the pricing can change drastically when you convert from USD to another currency. Even with a couple of issues that could happen, it appears that this is something those that game from all over the world will come to enjoy.
This is more of an improvement on the quality of the Steam platform than anything else. It will not really do a lot to change Steam as a whole, but it will make the process of purchasing games from Steam a lot better for those outside of the United States of America. These 11 new currencies will be coming to Steam on Monday, November 13. If you are excited about the new currencies coming to Steam, let us know in the comments.


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Outdoor Advertising: Charting a Fake Campaign’s Viral Boost
The Outdoor Advertising Association of America recently sponsored a test campaign asking people to vote for the next president to be added to Mt. Rushmore to measure the ability of outdoor advertising to drive social and mobile activity.
Who should be the next face etched into Mt. Rushmore?
That was the question posed in a fictitious advertising campaign sponsored by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America to test the value of out-of-home (OOH) advertisements in driving social and mobile activity.
The RushmoreVote campaign placed 164 ads on billboards and bus shelters in Cincinnati, San Antonio, Phoenix, and Sacramento, California, and asked consumers to go online to vote for the president they thought should be the face added to Mt. Rushmore. They were given the choice of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, or no one—Mt. Rushmore should remain the same.
The four-week campaign, which ran in March 2013, generated 17,681 online user sessions, 15,679 of which were unique. Two-thirds of online voters came from outside the four metro areas where the ads were posted, and 75 percent said they saw the ad on a billboard or bus shelter.
“This relatively small OOH campaign drove online traffic from across the country,” OAAA President and CEO Nancy Fletcher said in a statement. “Even those who learned about the campaign online were aware it originated on OOH ads, painting a clear picture of the medium’s role in today’s evolving interactive landscape.”
In case you’re wondering, a majority of voters—69 percent—said no one should be added to Mt. Rushmore, while 11 percent voted to add George W. Bush and 20 percent voted to add Barack Obama.
Why a fake campaign around Mt. Rushmore? Stephen Freitas, chief marketing officer at OAAA, said the association wanted something attention grabbing that also wouldn’t cause confusion around a product due to its fictitious nature, and coming off the presidential election last fall, Mt. Rushmore seemed relevant.
OAAA also decided to keep its name out of the campaign, Freitas said. “We just wanted these mysterious messages going up to sort of attract people’s attention and see how they respond.”
Ultimately, “we wanted to test and prove that out-of-home advertising can be a central, integral part of a social advertising program,” he added.
(via the RushmoreVote Facebook page)


text: The new Eclipse is selling at a faster pace than Mitsubishi expected, which is a rare welcome surprise for the beleaguered Japanese automaker. Currently the Eclipse is on track to sell 40,000 units this year, more than double last year's sales. The company's Normal, IL plant is finishing improvements that will allow it to accommodate the coupe's demand. Mitsubishi meanwhile is going around crediting nearly everyone but itself for the Eclipse's sales success. Wards Auto is reporting that the company recognizes the Big 3 for boosting industry sales as a whole, which it sees as a contributing factor to the Eclipse's swift sales. Mitsubishi even credits the Ford Mustang for reigniting interest in the coupe segment, despite the fact that these two vehicles don't share much beyond the same number of doors. Come on Mitsu, this is no time to be modest. You obviously did something right in developing the new Eclipse that makes it attractive to new car buyers. In our opinion the Eclipse benefited most from good timing, entering the market amid a flurry of new car purchases. Plus the company has six new models waiting in the wings to carry it forward into a more prosperous future.


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Nearly three weeks ago, India “launched its biggest-ever fiscal reform with the government promising a stronger, less corrupt economy, while businesses are nervous about the new tax,” according to The Economic Times news story, India Launches National Tax Amid Business Doubts. The goods and services tax (GST) replaces more than a dozen levies and aims to create a single market.
“Businesses are nervous about the imposition of GST, which sets out four different rates of between five and 28% instead of the one originally envisioned,” the news report states. “Textile traders and other sectors went on strike ahead of the launch and many businesses say they are unclear about what to charge.”
According to a Financial Times article, Indian Businesses Split Over Benefits of Modi’s Tax Reform,“Unrest over GST has been strongest in the country’s textiles industry, with strikes and protests among small traders, many of which will be subject to tax for the first time.”
Another Economic Times piece, Shadow Economy Struggles Under Weight of India’s New Tax Regime, notes that “many labor-intensive sectors—from leather to textiles—fear newly high rates will have a lasting impact on industries that provide billions in export earnings, raising the chance that India's trade balance could widen in the next few months.
Credit professionals who are doing business in India are experiencing some of the fallout as companies adjust to the tax. C. Edward Frermann, CCE, ICCE, recently raised his concerns on FCIB’s members only Discussion Board. He had been told his company’s customers in India were freezing payments until they figured out the new system.
Respondents to his query assured him that a slowdown in payments were more than likely temporary. One individual shared that payments were “delayed as companies work through their implementations and incorporate new business processes.” The member went on to explain that her company experienced a slowdown in sales as customers completed their GST migration, including changes associated with invoices. Most of the company’s customers were already registered and the expectation was for collection efforts to resume as normal.
Chris Kuehl, Ph.D.
The Fed, European Central Bank (ECB), Bank of England, Bank of Japan and many others have indeed promulgated policy over the last few years that could be accurately described as manipulative.
Using the bond market to stimulate the economy was highly unorthodox at the beginning of the recession, but it became routine as the downturn progressed. There have been critics from the start, and the jury is out on whether these rounds of quantitative easing accomplished much.
The Fed went through three rounds. Many people assert that it was only the first round that accomplished much because it was focused on taking the mortgage-backed securities off the hands of the banks so they would start lending again.
To be honest, the Fed chairs (Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen) as well as the heads of the ECB and others (Mario Draghi and Mark Carney, among others) were not big fans of these moves, but they were essentially forced to try radical steps because Congress and the other global legislatures utterly failed to do their jobs.
Congress’ criticism of Yellen and the Fed is more than a little disingenuous. The role of the legislature in a recession has traditionally been to stimulate with some combination of tax cuts and spending. The central banks play a smaller role with lower interest rates, but their primary role remains controlling inflation.
The central banks were forced to try new things to stimulate as their “partners” were nowhere to be seen. The majority of the central banks are now more than eager to get out of this game and leave the stimulating to the lawmakers—assuming they are ready to pick up the challenge and push that kind of budget plan.
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Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Europe need to accept longer payment times from other, often larger, businesses, according to a new European Payment Report from Intrum Justitia.
“The report reveals a staggering increase in 2017,” Intrum Justitia noted. More than six out of 10, or 61%, of businesses complained about being asked to accept longer payment terms than they feel comfortable with, up from just over four out of 10 last year.
The problem creates a cycle where businesses that receive late payments in turn must pay their sub-contractors late. Four out of 10, or 40%, of the businesses admitted that they pay late.
As a result, businesses in Europe are demanding tougher payment regulations. Nearly 40% of the companies said they would welcome new legislation, while 30% stated that they would prefer new voluntary-based codes of conduct to establish a culture of prompt payment.
Overall, however, companies were more positive about “being able to conduct their business without risking cushy flows, liquidity and growth as a consequence of their customers’ inability or willingness to pay on time,” the report states.
“While I am pleased to note the businesses of Europe have a somewhat brighter outlook for the future in general, it is alarming that the payment culture is going in the wrong direction,” said Mikael Ericson, CEO and president of Intrum Justitia. “The economic environment is being severely affected by some businesses pushing contractual terms for sub-suppliers towards 90 days or longer and deliberately paying later than agreed.”
The report is based on a survey taken by 10,468 companies in 29 European countries between Feb. 1 and March 29.
While this report looks at payment behavior in Europe, FCIB is currently conducting a survey that looks at several Middle Eastern and North African countries: Algeria, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Credit professionals who participate in the July Credit & Collections Survey, which just takes a few minutes to complete, will receive the complete results, including a view of payment trends over the past few years.
Sep. 11 – Norway, Norwegian Parliament
Sep. 23 – New Zealand, New Zealand House of Representatives
Sep. 24 – Germany, German Federal Diet
Oct. 10 – Liberia, President
Oct. 10 – Liberia, Liberian House of Representatives
U.S. makes lowering the trade deficit a top priority in NAFTA talks. The United States on July 17 launched the first salvo in the renegotiation of the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), saying its top priority for the talks was shrinking the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said he would seek to reduce the trade imbalance by improving access for U.S. goods exported to Canada and Mexico under the three-nation pact. (Fortune)
Venezuela opposition congress to name parallel Supreme Court judges. Venezuela's opposition-led Congress said on July 21 it will appoint 13 alternative judges to the country's Supreme Court, whose current pro-government members have been a bedrock of support for leftist President Nicolas Maduro. While widely seen as symbolic, the move raises the specter of the development of a parallel state. (Reuters)
EU and Britain to present post-Brexit plan on WTO membership. The European Union and Britain plan to put forward a joint proposal for reform of the terms of their World Trade Organization (WTO) membership in September or October, an EU source said on July 17, as London negotiates to leave the EU. (EurActiv)
Outlook for LatAm economies worsens ahead of election season. Economic growth in Latin America will be slower than previously thought this year across nearly every major regional economy as political uncertainty simmers ahead of a series of scheduled elections. Economists at leading banks and research firms cut 2017 growth estimates for six of the seven largest economies in the region against a backdrop of slowing inflation there and elsewhere in the world. (HSN)
Fitch: South Africa's economic plan unlikely to boost growth. South Africa's economic strategy released over a week ago is unlikely to boost growth and many of the measures have previously been announced, ratings agency Fitch said on July 19. Africa's most-developed economy entered recession for the first time in a decade in March, while a bitter leadership contest in the ruling party and government corruption scandals have further dented investor confidence. (Reuters)
Iran skips opportunity to upset nuclear deal over U.S. sanctions. Iran decided on July 21 for the second time since January not to upset its nuclear pact with six world powers despite public statements by Tehran accusing the United States of violating the deal. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on July 19 new U.S. economic sanctions imposed against Iran contravened the nuclear accord reached with world powers in 2015 and he pledged Tehran would "resist" them while respecting the deal itself. (Reuters)
Greece shows signs of recovery. Despite a continued fragile economy, Greece is in line for a GDP rebound this year, driven by investment demand, higher private consumption and increasing exports. According to a new country report by Atradius, exports of agricultural goods as well as petroleum, pharmaceuticals and aluminum products are expected to increase on the back of higher external demand and improved international competitiveness compared to some European peers. (Global Trade Review)
Reading the tea leaves at U.S.-China economic talks. The United States and China entered this week’s U.S.-China Comprehensive Economic Dialogue with wildly diverging agendas and goals. The U.S. wanted to achieve some concrete progress on reducing the U.S. trade deficit with China, while China sought to emerge from the talks with a framework for further talks and some sort of common working agenda. Neither side achieved its goals and ended the meeting after canceling a planned joint press event. (Global Trade Magazine)
Why is the international community not intervening in Venezuela? Venezuela’s political and economic debacle has significantly intensified over the past 12 months. Yet external intervention in Venezuela is not on the table and the international community favors an internal solution, regardless of how difficult it may be. (Global Risk Insights)
Macron puts his stamp on French foreign policy. French President Emmanuel Macron is striking a new, pragmatic and self-confident tone in the country's foreign policy, for which he's received a lot of kudos. The recent reception for U.S. President Donald Trump in France is a perfect illustration of this new approach. (Interpreter)
Week in Review Editorial Team:
Diana Mota, Associate Editor and David Anderson, Member Relations


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Those Trying to Get Back on Their Financial Feet See a Little Room for Hope
Published: Friday, June 28, 2013 at 10:08 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, June 28, 2013 at 10:08 p.m.
For Rizwan Peera, the feeling hit when he spotted "Sold" stickers slapped on "For Sale" signs in his Norcross, Ga., neighborhood.
Lisa Tilt noticed that she was hearing fewer "yeah, but" conversations among other small business owners, conversations laced with statements like, "Yeah, we're getting by, but you never know these days."
Maya Miller noticed that the kids' party business her husband created while he struggled to find a good job was fully booked every weekend.
Call them "exhale moments" — the point at which a person finally feels a loosening of that knot of dread that has gripped people's gut since the onset of the economic downturn.
The past several months have generated enough good (if not great) economic news to change many people's perception, economic experts say. Those people have turned a psychological corner, recognizing that while there is a long climb ahead — and periodic jolts in the stock market — they no longer feel as though they're being swallowed by a giant sinkhole.
"We're off the floor," said Mercer University economist Roger Tutterow.
Or, to adopt Miller's personal economic indicator: "I can now get my toenails done."
The collective psychological shift could have major economic consequences, as people's spending habits often are driven by their view of the economy, said James MacKillop, associate director of the University of Georgia's Owens Institute for Behavioral Research.
"Certainly a lot of economic activity is predicated on optimism or pessimism," he said. "You don't throw yourself into a 30-year mortgage if you feel that things are unstable or that the future is perilous."
For today, though, the change in perception has yet to translate into a major change in behavior, said Dorsey Farr, a partner in the Atlanta investment management firm French Wolf & Farr. Even though consumer confidence has grown, consumer spending continues to "muddle along," he said.
"People feel a little bit better, but it is not showing up in a real significant change in personal spending," Farr said.
That's likely because much of the pain caused by the recession is still very much with us. Millions of people are still beset by long-term unemployment, depressed housing values and the residual effects of foreclosures, bankruptcies and government spending cuts.
Marsha Belflower has heard the good-news stories, but she's hardly optimistic.
During the pre-recession boom years, she abandoned her career in social work and eventually opened her own spa. As the economy worsened, business drained away. Two years ago she started looking for another job, but the search so far has been fruitless. Worse, she had to shut down her spa last month.
"I'm kind of a lost lamb," said Belflower, 39, of McDonough, Ga. "I am taking an emotional sabbatical."
She can't even go back to her former career, because many good social work jobs now require a master's degree that she doesn't have.
"I do not have the sense that the economy is improving," she said. "My house is not worth more. It still takes $50 to fill up my two-door Honda. I lost my job and my business. No, I don't see it."
Numerous economic indicators, however, show the economy is moving in the right direction, though in fits and starts.
As a result, consumer confidence reached its highest level in five years this month, according to the Conference Board. But don't get too jazzed: The nation's other major gauge of consumer confidence, Thompson Reuters and the University of Michigan, recorded an unexpected dip in consumer confidence this month.
The push-and-pull pace of this recovery has created a kind of hybrid optimism, said Emily Sanders, managing director of United Capital Financial Advisers of Norcross.
People see improvement, she said, but can't shake the lessons of the recession. They see that the local mall is no longer a ghost town, they see houses being built again, but they're not ready to splurge on major purchases.
"You don't hear anybody talking about 'staycations' anymore," said Sanders, referring to the term used for stay-at-home vacations. "People are not staying home, but they may not be taking as expensive a vacation as before."
The Miller family of Lithonia, Ga., is a good example of people riding a stronger tide but hardly sailing along.
A National Guardsman who served two tours in Kuwait and Iraq, Steven Miller returned to Lithonia six years ago to find his job as a nonprofit's chapter director was gone. For a couple of years he bounced from job to job, never earning more than $10 an hour, before deciding to return to college to study social work in 2010. That left his family living off his financial aid and the salary of his wife, Maya, who is also a social worker.
Steve had always loved throwing parties for his kids' birthdays, producing extravaganzas replete with lights, bubbles, balloons and himself as the DJ. So he started advertising his services two years ago.
After a slow start, the gigs started pouring in in January. Now he often performs multiple shows each weekend, earning up to $220 a show. That's adding up to about $1,300 extra a month.
"The party business has been our cushion," Maya said. "We don't have to worry about gas and groceries."
The couple would like to buy a new home for themselves and their three kids, but they know getting a loan could be tough with only one income. Moreover, Maya's unemployed brother has moved his family in with the Millers.
That has strained the household's finances and pushed the Millers' three kids into one bedroom.
People make all kinds of decisions based on the economy, experts say: whether to get married, have kids, get divorced. Entrepreneurs gauge the economy when deciding whether to start or expand a business.
Peera, having seen the real estate market in his neighborhood improve, decided it was time to launch his own marketing business.
"I thought maybe I could make more opportunities for myself, instead of waiting for other people to create opportunities for me," said the 24-year-old, who is now living in Tucker, Ga.
Some economists suspect that the exhale moment is less about a surge in confidence than about people simply adjusting to a new normal. Farr, the investment manager, is one.
"The experience of dramatic declines in asset prices, home values and negative economic reports is far enough in the past; it's faded from people's memory banks," he said. "They've become accustomed to these conditions."
But Tutterow, the Mercer economist, believes hope is alive and well — enough, perhaps, to revitalize consumer spending and even revive the region's aspirations.
"Collectively, the community's confidence is coming back," he said.
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Today Google has announced that it plans on partnering up with Visa and Mastercard to make payments on the mobile web easier. Starting in "early 2017", Android Pay will integrate with Visa Checkout and Mastercard's Masterpass service. Once that becomes possible, you'll be able to link up your Android Pay account to your Visa Checkout or Masterpass account.
Then when you visit a website that supports Checkout or Masterpass you'll complete transactions using Android Pay, without needing to enter any additional details. You authenticate using your fingerprint, so no more entering usernames and passwords. Website owners won't need to change anything, this integration will automagically just start working - and the payment buttons will be auto-updated to show Android Pay too.
Google says hundreds of thousands of websites use Visa Checkout and Masterpass, so this will be a pretty big expansion for Android Pay's reach.


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FROM BUSINESS INSIDER: The pandemic may have ended the auto industry’s age-old battle for market share
2022 showed the industry that profits can remain high even if sales volumes are low. After decades of competing for market share, major automakers like GM and Ford are getting used to a more level playing field, commanding only 16.3% and 13.3% of the market respectively.
FROM MARKET WATCH: Car inventory is growing, sales are down—dealers may soon need to offer discounts
New-vehicle supply is up over 60% year-over-year, with Buick and Stellantis brands holding the highest levels of inventory. If car prices remain close to the $50k mark and the average sales pace stays low, the need for traditional inventory discounts could be on the horizon.
FROM CNBC: Carmakers upgrade lineups to meet high-end demand, scale back on less expensive cars
If rising prices weren’t enough, today’s car shoppers are keen to spring for add-ons and upgrades. Safety, technology, and design upgrades can increase the price of a vehicle by nearly 40%. The fact that consumers are paying these prices only incentivizes automakers to continue expanding their offerings.
FROM NADA: The auto industry event of the year is next week
Heading to NADA next weekend in Dallas? Attend live speaking sessions, explore over 500 exhibitors on the expo floor, and stop by the biggest networking events of the year.
Enjoyed this roundup? Subscribe to LotLinx News for weekly automotive industry-updates direct to your inbox.
Want more top headlines? Catch up on past editions of LotLinx News.


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CHENNAI: SpiceJet has banned Samsung Galaxy Note 7 mobile phones onboard its flights starting today.
The announcement follows a recent Directorate General of Civil Aviation advisory to all airlines in the wake of reports of the device catching fire.
In a statement, the airline said, “Passengers are not permitted to carry the Galaxy Note 7 onboard, in hand baggage, check-in baggage or even as cargo on any of the SpiceJet flights.”
AirAsia recently banned the phone from all its domestic and international flights after the US Department of Transport’s ban on the device.
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Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- "Capitol Gains" takes a look at the federal government's crackdown on American companies bribing their way to big business overseas. Peter Cook talks to Bloomberg Government analyst Sandy Reback about his new study documenting the increased enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
17:40 - Martin Shkreli, whose purchase last week of a majority stake in KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc. generated pain for anyone betting against the stock, had more news for short sellers Friday: he’ll stop making his shares available to borrow. Bloomberg's Tracy Alloway reports on "Bloomberg Markets." (Source: Bloomberg)
Does the ECB Have to Act So Aggressively?
Sales Check With Hudson's Bay CEO Jerry Storch
Black Friday Retail Sales: The Winners & the Losers
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Shanghai, China (May 02, 2019) – ProPak China is China’s leading processing, packaging, endline printing, logistics packaging, and packaging materials and products exhibition where several renowned domestic and international companies exhibit the most recent and advanced innovative solutions for the processing and packaging of various manufactured products like, food, beverages, dairy, pharmaceuticals, industrial items, and other related products. With the growing improvement of packaging technology in China, the 25th International Processing & Packaging Exhibition, ProPak China 2019 is scheduled to be held in Hall 5.1, 6.1, and 7.1 of National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai from 19th June (Wednesday) to 21st June (Friday), 2019.
Following 24 years of intricately nurturing and worldwide tours, ProPak China has turned into an extremely influential brand exhibition in the processing and packaging industry both nationally as well as internationally. The event provides an ideal platform for leading Chinese and international companies to display their latest equipment and technologies in food and liquid processing, packaging machinery, materials, and containers, weighing and measuring tools, quality-testing tools, industrial robots, and warehousing and logistic technologies. Spread across 140k+ m2 floor space, the 2019 edition of ProPak China will have over 1800 renowned domestic and international exhibitors and more than 100k visitors from all around the world.
Complementing ProPak China 2019 are four co-located shows, namely, Healthplex Expo 2019, Foodpack China, Starch Expo 2019, and Agri-tech China. Leading Chinese companies like, Acepack, Kuka, Eiahe Systems, Youngsun, Yamato, Zip-Pak, Siasun, and various other organizations are strategic partners of this event. All detailed information about the 25th International Processing & Packaging Exhibition is listed on https://www.en-sjgle.com/zt/ppkcexpo/.
About ProPak China 2019:
The 25th International Processing & Packaging Exhibition, ProPak China 2019 will be held at National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai from 19th June to 21st June. More than 1800 domestic and international companies working in the field of processing technology, packaging technology, endline printing technology, logistics packaging technology, and packaging materials and products will be exhibiting their latest equipment and technology.


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Kellton Tech acquires US-headquartered PlanetPro, which provides Salesforce.com, analytics, and custom programme services to enterprise clients. Read More
This year, Forbes Asia’s ‘Best Under a Billion’ considered 18,000 candidates from the Asia-Pacific region, of whom the top 200 with consistent top-end and bottom-line growth were finally selected.
The CEO Magazine in its May 2017 Special Edition named Kellton Tech as one of the best digital transformation services company to work for.
Kellton Tech ranked 193rd at Deloitte Technology Fast 500 APAC 2016 based on the average revenue growth in this year
Kellton Tech won under the category ‘Digital Innovations in Service Provider Industry’, at The Digitizing India Awards, a Cisco initiative in collaboration with CNBC-TV18.
Kellton Tech Solutions Limited today acquired US-based Prosoft Group, a leading enterprise solutions & business integration provider today, enhancing WSMAC, IoT capabilities.
Kellton Tech acquired US based VIVOS Professional Services, LLC. New Jersey, USA which was founded in 1999 and has now grown into a multifaceted organization.
Kellton Tech Solutions Ltd. has been recently named one of the top 20 companies across the globe according to CIO Review research on the ’20 Most Promising Travel & Hospitality Solution Provider's for 2014.
Kellton Tech announced the acquisition of 100% stake in SupremeSoft Global Inc., a US based IT consulting company. This acquisition will help the company expand into the IT services' industry.
Nielsen, has chosen Kellton Tech as their technology partners for SAP ECC 6.0 Roll-outs and their upgrades in 25 MENAP and Sub-Saharan countries of Africa.
With this acquisition, Kellton Tech is poised for overall growth in company operations and shall benefit the stakeholders, in particular the company's shareholders, since Dbydx has a significant presence in outsourced software development and is a name to reckon with its core competencies.


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Denver, CO, July 24, 2008 --(PR.com
)-- Survey results published today from Pembroke Consulting show a surprising number of companies, many of which are technology providers, are still using manual processes to collect, analyze and report on sales data. The survey explored the data management practices of more than 100 technology, manufacturing and pharmaceutical companies. Though these companies sell 80 percent (median) of their products through indirect channels, more than half haven’t fully automated their channel data management capabilities. As a result, these companies are experiencing significant problems with poor data quality and struggling to effectively forecast and plan.
The channel data automation study, commissioned by InfoNow, asked managerial and executive-level individuals about their most common data management problems. “Receiving incomplete data from (their) indirect channel” and “basing future sales plans on ‘best guess’ estimates” were among the top complaints. On average, these companies have more than 165 distributor and reseller channel partners. One respondent explained that their company received more than 20,000 lines of information on channel partners’ point-of-sale data each month and had to review it – line by line – to determine sales credit.
The study also found that, among companies who manually process data:
72 percent frequently or very frequently discover discrepancies between internal sales data and the data collected from indirect channel partners
72 percent said sales data is frequently or very frequently not ready quickly enough to be used for sales planning
78 percent frequently or very frequently makes sales plans based on “best guess estimates” rather than actual sales data
"Executives in many industries report significant challenges in their company’s ability to gather and use channel data effectively," said Adam J. Fein, Ph.D., president of Pembroke Consulting and the study's author. "However, companies with higher levels of automation experience fewer problems getting accurate data and using these data for real-time sales planning."
“Companies regularly grapple with business problems that impede innovation, decrease productivity or prohibit full revenue potential. We commissioned this study because exploring and understanding those business problems is the first step in tackling the cause of the issues and finding a resolution,” said Mark Geene, chief executive officer at InfoNow. “We were surprised at the level of frustration expressed by companies that are manually processing data. It’s not only time-consuming and error-prone, but it also impedes effective management of channel operations.
“Just as customer relationship management changed the landscape for companies that sell direct, channel data management will revolutionize how companies manage sales through partners,” Geene concluded.
Of the 124 companies Pembroke Consulting queried, 44 percent are in the technology industry; 40 percent are in industrial and building products manufacturing; and 17 percent are in pharmaceutical and healthcare products. Nearly a quarter of these companies have annual revenues more than $5 billion; 24 percent have annual revenues between $1 and $4.9 billion; 38 percent have yearly revenues between $100 and $999 million; and the remaining 16 percent have revenues below $100 million. The majority of the companies, 67 percent, are publicly traded.
To view the complete survey, visit: www.infonow.com/cdmstudy.
Channel Data Management: Gaining Insight into the Channel
Channel data management (CDM) is the process of collecting and transforming point-of-sale transaction and inventory information from the distribution network of companies that sell products or services through distribution or reseller channels. The process starts with collecting the individual sales and inventory transactions from the channel, followed by cleansing and standardization, then identifying the business entities included in those transactions.
Beyond capturing and cleansing data, CDM enables manufacturers to analyze data and make more strategic business decisions. CDM helps companies understand, for example, how much is being sold through the channel and to whom, while also tracking channel inventory levels. Functional areas that require sales channel information include channel sales and marketing, finance, and business operations.
About InfoNow Corporation
InfoNow is pioneer in software-as-a-service channel data management solutions, and a technology leader for companies that sell through direct and indirect channels, such as resellers and distributors. Based in Denver, Colorado, InfoNow offers a comprehensive suite of applications that enable companies to leverage existing point-of-sale and inventory data to more effectively and efficiently manage their sales channel. For more information, visit www.infonow.com.


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Valery Lyakh, the director of the department for counteracting illegal activities of the Central Bank, noted that most of the pyramids functioned as Internet projects and LLCs - they accounted for 143 cases. The rest acted as credit consumer cooperatives, consumer cooperatives and other organizations. The Central Bank also reported on 210 companies, illegally offering services in the “Forex” market.
In total, the regulator discovered more than 2500 illegal organizations over the past year. Most of these organizations came from “black creditors”. The representative of the Central Bank also emphasized that the services of illegal companies are mainly used by people aged 30-55.