Economies can improve energy productivity in two ways:
1) They can generate a given level of energy-related benefits with fewer inputs by using energy less intensively (with smaller appliances, for example), using energy in a more technically efficient way (car engines that use less fuel, say), or changing the mix of fuel they use (for instance, by switching from wood-burning stoves to electric ranges powered by coal-generated electricity).
2) They can increase output more rapidly than demand for energy by changing the composition of economic activity. Energy productivity rises, for example, when growth shifts from more to less energy-intensive sectors—from steel, say, to services, or to higher value-added activities within services.
Unfortunately, the gain of 1 percent a year in energy productivity over the past decade has been outstripped by global energy demand, which has risen by 1.6 percent a year. In the near future, that demand is likely to grow even faster—by 2.2 percent a year.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Ford Doesn’t Believe in the “Commodity” Bandwagon
According to John Quelch, Senior Associate Dean at Harvard Business School, Ford has finally woken up to what Toyota knew a long time ago: The power of a single global brand.
Over 20 years ago, Harvard professor Theodore Levitt praised Japanese manufacturers for their focus on "what every consumer in the world is seeking: world-class modernity at affordable prices." Since, then, Toyota, Nissan, and Honda have been selling standard products under a single brand umbrella.
For decades, Ford adapted its manufacturing platforms, features, and model names from one country to another. The results: added manufacturing and supply chain costs that strained consumers' willingness to pay; a balkanized bureaucracy in which regional managers exaggerate the need for local adaptations to defend their turf; and a deteriorating market share, financial performance, and stock price.
Ford was once one of the 10 most valuable brands in the world. They're no longer on that list, but Toyota now is. How did Toyota — and the other nine companies — do it? There are five characteristics that all top global brands have in common:
1. The same positioning worldwide. This provides a combination of functional product quality and innovation with emotional appeal. Think Coca-Cola and Disney.
2. A focus on a single product category. Think Nokia and Intel.
3. The company name is the brand name. All marketing dollars are concentrated on that one brand. Think GE and IBM.
4. Access to the global village. Consuming the brand equals membership in a global club. Think IBM's "solutions for a small planet."
5. Social responsibility. Consumers expect global brands to lead on corporate social responsibility, leveraging their technology to solve the world's problems. Think Nestlé and clean water.
Ford has a proud history. But, Low volume management distractions, including Jaguar, Land Rover, and Volvo will be sold off; they're now meaningless. US-based models like Mercury will be discontinued.
Thus, John Quelch asks - can Ford recover?
My reply is YES. Ford, by all means, can resurrect, provided it aims at doing so, whole heartedly. It's not necessary that if some Japanese companies have been "commoditizing" cars for the world, Ford should also be joining the bandwagon for no good reasons. Ford believes in catering to the differentiated needs and wants of its customers. And, there is nothing wrong in catering to those needs and wants. Ford just has to take care of its manufacturing and supply chain costs, and its bureaucracy. The results: a better market share, a better financial performance, and a highly respectful stock price will automatically fall in place. It's high time Ford should prove to the world what Ford is!
Over 20 years ago, Harvard professor Theodore Levitt praised Japanese manufacturers for their focus on "what every consumer in the world is seeking: world-class modernity at affordable prices." Since, then, Toyota, Nissan, and Honda have been selling standard products under a single brand umbrella.
For decades, Ford adapted its manufacturing platforms, features, and model names from one country to another. The results: added manufacturing and supply chain costs that strained consumers' willingness to pay; a balkanized bureaucracy in which regional managers exaggerate the need for local adaptations to defend their turf; and a deteriorating market share, financial performance, and stock price.
Ford was once one of the 10 most valuable brands in the world. They're no longer on that list, but Toyota now is. How did Toyota — and the other nine companies — do it? There are five characteristics that all top global brands have in common:
1. The same positioning worldwide. This provides a combination of functional product quality and innovation with emotional appeal. Think Coca-Cola and Disney.
2. A focus on a single product category. Think Nokia and Intel.
3. The company name is the brand name. All marketing dollars are concentrated on that one brand. Think GE and IBM.
4. Access to the global village. Consuming the brand equals membership in a global club. Think IBM's "solutions for a small planet."
5. Social responsibility. Consumers expect global brands to lead on corporate social responsibility, leveraging their technology to solve the world's problems. Think Nestlé and clean water.
Ford has a proud history. But, Low volume management distractions, including Jaguar, Land Rover, and Volvo will be sold off; they're now meaningless. US-based models like Mercury will be discontinued.
Thus, John Quelch asks - can Ford recover?
My reply is YES. Ford, by all means, can resurrect, provided it aims at doing so, whole heartedly. It's not necessary that if some Japanese companies have been "commoditizing" cars for the world, Ford should also be joining the bandwagon for no good reasons. Ford believes in catering to the differentiated needs and wants of its customers. And, there is nothing wrong in catering to those needs and wants. Ford just has to take care of its manufacturing and supply chain costs, and its bureaucracy. The results: a better market share, a better financial performance, and a highly respectful stock price will automatically fall in place. It's high time Ford should prove to the world what Ford is!
Monday, May 26, 2008
Mobile Virtual Network Operators
As per the Gulf News, Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) have dramatically changed the telecom landscape in many countries. The MVNO business model has enabled a variety of companies to expand into mobile telecommunications.
By the definition, MVNOs are "virtual" operators, that is, they don't own a mobile network, but, instead, buy capacity from an existing Mobile Network Operator (MNO) on a wholesale basis, then package and sell it under their own brands. The MVNO, typically, becomes the largest single customer of its partner MNO.
Further, by focusing and specializing on serving a particular segment of the market extremely well, MVNOs are actually important strategic partners of MNOs, especially in a maturing market, which requires a multi-segmented market approach, in which different segments are targeted with a customized proposition.
There are currently no MVNOs in the UAE. MVNOs are a natural part of mobile market evolution, and have already been introduced in Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Australia.
Therefore, it's fair to expect that MVNOs will also arrive in the UAE at some point, but this requires a decision from the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of the UAE.
The limited number of ISPs in the UAE no doubt has an impact on the internet penetration, as more competition, typically, drives affordability, as well as ensures that more players are involved in educating the market. However, the UAE government is becoming more and more advanced in its use of the internet.
In my view, culture is likely to play a much bigger role in the growth of e-commerce. In the Middle East, the human contact and interaction, while doing business, is more visible and important than is in the other parts of the world.
Therefore, I believe there's a longer adoption cycle in the Middle East, and in the UAE, specifically, for adopting e-commerce than, for example, it is in Europe.
The UAE should benefit from the presence of expats from countries where e-commerce has achieved a significant mass.
By the definition, MVNOs are "virtual" operators, that is, they don't own a mobile network, but, instead, buy capacity from an existing Mobile Network Operator (MNO) on a wholesale basis, then package and sell it under their own brands. The MVNO, typically, becomes the largest single customer of its partner MNO.
Further, by focusing and specializing on serving a particular segment of the market extremely well, MVNOs are actually important strategic partners of MNOs, especially in a maturing market, which requires a multi-segmented market approach, in which different segments are targeted with a customized proposition.
There are currently no MVNOs in the UAE. MVNOs are a natural part of mobile market evolution, and have already been introduced in Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Australia.
Therefore, it's fair to expect that MVNOs will also arrive in the UAE at some point, but this requires a decision from the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of the UAE.
The limited number of ISPs in the UAE no doubt has an impact on the internet penetration, as more competition, typically, drives affordability, as well as ensures that more players are involved in educating the market. However, the UAE government is becoming more and more advanced in its use of the internet.
In my view, culture is likely to play a much bigger role in the growth of e-commerce. In the Middle East, the human contact and interaction, while doing business, is more visible and important than is in the other parts of the world.
Therefore, I believe there's a longer adoption cycle in the Middle East, and in the UAE, specifically, for adopting e-commerce than, for example, it is in Europe.
The UAE should benefit from the presence of expats from countries where e-commerce has achieved a significant mass.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Reasons For the "Fire" to the Oil
What are the main reasons for the current “fire” to the Oil? I know of the three most important reasons:
1) Nagging concerns about stagnating output in Russia and other producers that are outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
2) Oil prices are driven upwards because of the weakening dollar which prompted investors to use oil as a hedge against the falling currency, creating a vicious cycle.
3) American consumers are actually sitting on a record amount of cash, although that's exactly the problem. They're just holding it, not spending or investing it. The amount of readily available consumer cash jumped as much as 18 percent in the past year to hit a record level of almost $8.5 trillion. This cash balance includes saving deposits, institutional money markets, time deposits of less than $100,000, and retail money market funds.
1) Nagging concerns about stagnating output in Russia and other producers that are outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
2) Oil prices are driven upwards because of the weakening dollar which prompted investors to use oil as a hedge against the falling currency, creating a vicious cycle.
3) American consumers are actually sitting on a record amount of cash, although that's exactly the problem. They're just holding it, not spending or investing it. The amount of readily available consumer cash jumped as much as 18 percent in the past year to hit a record level of almost $8.5 trillion. This cash balance includes saving deposits, institutional money markets, time deposits of less than $100,000, and retail money market funds.
The Common Sense of Marketing
I was reading through the blogs of Seth Godin, and there I encountered some Marketing tips, which he asks to proliferate. I have edited, removed, and added to his list. You can feel free to adapt the list, provided you give courtesy to him.
The Common Sense of Marketing:
1) Anticipated, personal and relevant advertising always does better than unsolicited junk.
2) Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build a brand.
3) Your best customers are worth far more than your average customers.
4) Share of wallet is easier, more profitable and ultimately more effective a measure than share of market. But, share of market should not be overlooked at any cost.
5) Marketing begins even before the product is created.
6) Advertising is just a symptom, a tactic. Marketing is about far more than that.
7) Low price is a great way to sell a commodity. That’s not marketing, though, that’s efficiency.
8) Products that are remarkable get talked about.
9) Marketing is the way your people answer the phone, the typesetting on your bills, and your returns policy.
10) You can’t fool all the people, not even most of the time. And people, who are not fooled, talk about the experience.
11) If you are marketing from a fairly static annual budget, you’re viewing marketing as an expense. Good marketers realize that it is an investment.
12) People don’t buy what they need. They buy what they want.
13) What people want is the extra, the emotional bonus they get when they buy something they love.
14) Business to business marketing is just marketing to consumers who happen to have a corporation to pay for what they buy.
15) Traditional ways of interrupting consumers (TV ads, trade-show booths, junk mails) are losing their cost-effectiveness. At the same time, new ways of spreading ideas (blogs, permission-based RSS information, and consumer fan clubs) are quickly proving how well they work.
16) People all over the world and of every income level, respond to marketing that promises and delivers basic human wants.
17) Good marketers tell a story.
18) People are selfish, lazy, uninformed and impatient. Start with that and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you find.
19) Marketing that works is marketing that people choose to notice.
20) Effective stories match the world’s view of the people you are telling the story to.
21) Choose your customers.
22) A product for everyone rarely reaches much of anyone.
23) Living and breathing an authentic story is the best way to survive in a conversation-rich world.
24) Marketers are responsible for the side-effects their products cause.
25) Reminding the consumer of a story they know of and trust in is a powerful shortcut.
26) Good marketing guys measure.
27) Marketing is not an emergency. It’s a planned, thoughtful exercise that started a long time ago and doesn’t end until you’re done.
28) One disappointed customer is worth ten delighted ones.
29) In the Google world, the best in the world wins more often, and wins more.
30) There are more rich people than ever before, and they demand to be treated differently.
31) Organizations that manage to deal directly with their end-users have an asset for the future.
32) You market when you hire and when you fire. You market when you call a Tech Support and you market every time you send a memo.
33) Blogging makes you a better marketer because it teaches you humility in your writing.
34) Obviously, knowing what to do is very, very different from actually doing it.
35) You should be marketing even after selling.
The Common Sense of Marketing:
1) Anticipated, personal and relevant advertising always does better than unsolicited junk.
2) Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build a brand.
3) Your best customers are worth far more than your average customers.
4) Share of wallet is easier, more profitable and ultimately more effective a measure than share of market. But, share of market should not be overlooked at any cost.
5) Marketing begins even before the product is created.
6) Advertising is just a symptom, a tactic. Marketing is about far more than that.
7) Low price is a great way to sell a commodity. That’s not marketing, though, that’s efficiency.
8) Products that are remarkable get talked about.
9) Marketing is the way your people answer the phone, the typesetting on your bills, and your returns policy.
10) You can’t fool all the people, not even most of the time. And people, who are not fooled, talk about the experience.
11) If you are marketing from a fairly static annual budget, you’re viewing marketing as an expense. Good marketers realize that it is an investment.
12) People don’t buy what they need. They buy what they want.
13) What people want is the extra, the emotional bonus they get when they buy something they love.
14) Business to business marketing is just marketing to consumers who happen to have a corporation to pay for what they buy.
15) Traditional ways of interrupting consumers (TV ads, trade-show booths, junk mails) are losing their cost-effectiveness. At the same time, new ways of spreading ideas (blogs, permission-based RSS information, and consumer fan clubs) are quickly proving how well they work.
16) People all over the world and of every income level, respond to marketing that promises and delivers basic human wants.
17) Good marketers tell a story.
18) People are selfish, lazy, uninformed and impatient. Start with that and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you find.
19) Marketing that works is marketing that people choose to notice.
20) Effective stories match the world’s view of the people you are telling the story to.
21) Choose your customers.
22) A product for everyone rarely reaches much of anyone.
23) Living and breathing an authentic story is the best way to survive in a conversation-rich world.
24) Marketers are responsible for the side-effects their products cause.
25) Reminding the consumer of a story they know of and trust in is a powerful shortcut.
26) Good marketing guys measure.
27) Marketing is not an emergency. It’s a planned, thoughtful exercise that started a long time ago and doesn’t end until you’re done.
28) One disappointed customer is worth ten delighted ones.
29) In the Google world, the best in the world wins more often, and wins more.
30) There are more rich people than ever before, and they demand to be treated differently.
31) Organizations that manage to deal directly with their end-users have an asset for the future.
32) You market when you hire and when you fire. You market when you call a Tech Support and you market every time you send a memo.
33) Blogging makes you a better marketer because it teaches you humility in your writing.
34) Obviously, knowing what to do is very, very different from actually doing it.
35) You should be marketing even after selling.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Management Innovations 2.0
Here is my personal response to the four issues that have been raised by Gary Hamel. In case, if you don't know what issues I am talking about, please refer to my last blog to know the management issues at hand.
According to me, the deep-seated impediments and their corresponding solutions are:
1) Businesses are, to a large extent, hypocritical about the growth of their employees. They are, by and large, focused on only about earning short-term numbers and meeting short-term deadlines, even if it means, at times, at the expense of the long-term growth of their businesses and their employees. In short, people management is poor at most of the organizations across the world. The solution lies in partnering closely with the academics and with educational institutions for the continual growth of the employees - especially for the senior management people, who generally belong to the old school of thought, and are reluctant to get out of their comfort zones in order to “hog” on the new ideas and to embrace even positive radical changes, if need be.
2) Senior management doesn’t show much confidence in its sub-ordinates. It is not much heedful of ideas generated by the sub-ordinates. Most of the times, senior management takes its sub-ordinates for granted, thinking that they are novice who have not much idea about the business.
3) Senior management doesn’t take time out to educate its people about the business in which they are. Until and unless, people fully understand their businesses, they just can’t innovate. They need to be tuned to think the way they should be in order to be innovative and to be productive at their businesses. And, who else can teach the employees better than the senior management itself?
4) Usually, senior management is out of sync with the world’s demands for talents to do businesses. The today’s world needs Specialist Generalists. Things are getting extremely cross-functional. And, it is just not possible to hit the “obscene” amount of growth by being a specialist of just one thing. People need to think cross-functionally to achieve a big deal out-of-the-box. So, to get in sync with the reality, senior management has to realize this big time. And, to breed Specialist Generalists, it has to keep moving its employees across functions and domains. This might involve sending some of the bright prospects to school, once again, or might involve “bringing” school to the organization, or might even involve creating school at the organization itself. Whichever may be the feasible way, but one of them has to be embraced gracefully.
5) Management has to prove to its employees that their innovative ideas, if implemented, will be rewarded proportionally. And, the reward MUST be high enough to make the juice worth the squeeze.
6) Even not-currently-possible-to-implement ideas should not be shrugged off right away. All those ideas need to be maintained properly so that, if in the future the situations change – which will be, undoubtedly - to become more favorable to the business, they can be picked up for cutting the mustard, anytime.
7) Performance appraisal systems need a big time overhauling. The onus of appraisals should not lie only in a few hands, which could become “dirty” in this greedy world, anytime. Organizations have to shield themselves from this type of catastrophe, because loss of great, honest people can never be compensated, and the damage caused by “dirty” hands can never be completely undone – no matter how hard you try, the world will just not let you forget about the damage. So, what I think the solution to this problem is that we need to make appraisal systems completely transparent and cyclic by 360 degrees. When I say transparent, it means all the people in the organization know about the progress made by the other people in the organization, so that when the bounty is distributed, nobody has any grudges, or gets surprises. This transparent system shields innocent, honest performers from “dirty” hands, if there are any in the organization. Moreover, this type of appraisal system fosters positive competitiveness in the employees. And, who doesn’t want recognition and a pat on her back for all her good work?
8) In the coming days, management doesn’t need to typically manage its employees. The employees are already self-motivated and highly ambitious. Management should trust its recruitment process for a change. If it cannot trust its recruitment process, it should revamp the recruitment process to make it bankable. The main focus of management should be on facilitating the work as smoothly as possible, so that the productivity of the entire organization shoots up. Management should always try to keep enough on its employees’ plates, so that everybody is always charged up with some meaningful work. Over all, the role of management is not going to be of a supervisor, but of a facilitator.
9) The whole essence of management can be summarized in a few adjectives. Organizations just need to be heedful of these adjectives: honest, fair, upfront, respectful, loyal, transparent, caring, supporting, egalitarian, ethical, and innovative. Once these adjectives are very well taken care of, the company’s till will always be ringing loud enough to be heard by the whole world.
According to me, the deep-seated impediments and their corresponding solutions are:
1) Businesses are, to a large extent, hypocritical about the growth of their employees. They are, by and large, focused on only about earning short-term numbers and meeting short-term deadlines, even if it means, at times, at the expense of the long-term growth of their businesses and their employees. In short, people management is poor at most of the organizations across the world. The solution lies in partnering closely with the academics and with educational institutions for the continual growth of the employees - especially for the senior management people, who generally belong to the old school of thought, and are reluctant to get out of their comfort zones in order to “hog” on the new ideas and to embrace even positive radical changes, if need be.
2) Senior management doesn’t show much confidence in its sub-ordinates. It is not much heedful of ideas generated by the sub-ordinates. Most of the times, senior management takes its sub-ordinates for granted, thinking that they are novice who have not much idea about the business.
3) Senior management doesn’t take time out to educate its people about the business in which they are. Until and unless, people fully understand their businesses, they just can’t innovate. They need to be tuned to think the way they should be in order to be innovative and to be productive at their businesses. And, who else can teach the employees better than the senior management itself?
4) Usually, senior management is out of sync with the world’s demands for talents to do businesses. The today’s world needs Specialist Generalists. Things are getting extremely cross-functional. And, it is just not possible to hit the “obscene” amount of growth by being a specialist of just one thing. People need to think cross-functionally to achieve a big deal out-of-the-box. So, to get in sync with the reality, senior management has to realize this big time. And, to breed Specialist Generalists, it has to keep moving its employees across functions and domains. This might involve sending some of the bright prospects to school, once again, or might involve “bringing” school to the organization, or might even involve creating school at the organization itself. Whichever may be the feasible way, but one of them has to be embraced gracefully.
5) Management has to prove to its employees that their innovative ideas, if implemented, will be rewarded proportionally. And, the reward MUST be high enough to make the juice worth the squeeze.
6) Even not-currently-possible-to-implement ideas should not be shrugged off right away. All those ideas need to be maintained properly so that, if in the future the situations change – which will be, undoubtedly - to become more favorable to the business, they can be picked up for cutting the mustard, anytime.
7) Performance appraisal systems need a big time overhauling. The onus of appraisals should not lie only in a few hands, which could become “dirty” in this greedy world, anytime. Organizations have to shield themselves from this type of catastrophe, because loss of great, honest people can never be compensated, and the damage caused by “dirty” hands can never be completely undone – no matter how hard you try, the world will just not let you forget about the damage. So, what I think the solution to this problem is that we need to make appraisal systems completely transparent and cyclic by 360 degrees. When I say transparent, it means all the people in the organization know about the progress made by the other people in the organization, so that when the bounty is distributed, nobody has any grudges, or gets surprises. This transparent system shields innocent, honest performers from “dirty” hands, if there are any in the organization. Moreover, this type of appraisal system fosters positive competitiveness in the employees. And, who doesn’t want recognition and a pat on her back for all her good work?
8) In the coming days, management doesn’t need to typically manage its employees. The employees are already self-motivated and highly ambitious. Management should trust its recruitment process for a change. If it cannot trust its recruitment process, it should revamp the recruitment process to make it bankable. The main focus of management should be on facilitating the work as smoothly as possible, so that the productivity of the entire organization shoots up. Management should always try to keep enough on its employees’ plates, so that everybody is always charged up with some meaningful work. Over all, the role of management is not going to be of a supervisor, but of a facilitator.
9) The whole essence of management can be summarized in a few adjectives. Organizations just need to be heedful of these adjectives: honest, fair, upfront, respectful, loyal, transparent, caring, supporting, egalitarian, ethical, and innovative. Once these adjectives are very well taken care of, the company’s till will always be ringing loud enough to be heard by the whole world.
Concerns of Management Innovators
Gary Hamel, who is referred to as the world’s leading expert on business strategy by the Fortune Magazine and is called the world’s reigning strategy guru by The Economist, challenges the world to ponder on the below mentioned four issues that management is facing, or going to face acutely in the near future. If you think, you can answer to any, or all, of his questions; you can reply to him on his blog site. Unlike many scholars, however, he has promised to give you the credit for your own ideas!!! You can definitely count on him for his words!!
1. What are the deep-seated impediments, or “design flaws,” that limit the capacity of organizations to adapt (to change without trauma); to innovate (to mobilize the imagination of everyone, every day); and to engage (to create environments that inspire extraordinary contributions).
2. Given these systemic impediments, and the new demands that will confront organizations in the years ahead, what should be the agenda for 21st century management innovators? That is, what are the “moon shot challenges” that must be addressed if we are to create organizations that are truly fit for the future?
3. Can we imagine, even in outline form, some potential solutions to these challenges, and if so, what sorts of experiments might be useful in helping us to test these ideas in real world settings?
4. More generally, what could be done to help accelerate the evolution of management in the years to come, that is, what is it that limits the pace of management innovation and how might these limits be overcome?
1. What are the deep-seated impediments, or “design flaws,” that limit the capacity of organizations to adapt (to change without trauma); to innovate (to mobilize the imagination of everyone, every day); and to engage (to create environments that inspire extraordinary contributions).
2. Given these systemic impediments, and the new demands that will confront organizations in the years ahead, what should be the agenda for 21st century management innovators? That is, what are the “moon shot challenges” that must be addressed if we are to create organizations that are truly fit for the future?
3. Can we imagine, even in outline form, some potential solutions to these challenges, and if so, what sorts of experiments might be useful in helping us to test these ideas in real world settings?
4. More generally, what could be done to help accelerate the evolution of management in the years to come, that is, what is it that limits the pace of management innovation and how might these limits be overcome?
Oil Fire
There is no magic solution to the problem of rising oil prices. In the 90s, the OPEC received very strong advice from consuming countries to let the market decide prices of oil, so, since then, that's what is going on.
Today, Oil price has surged to US $135.04 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer and most influential member of the OPEC, announced a unilateral 300,000 barrel-a-day output increase, on May 16, 2008, in response to a request from the US President George Bush, citing customer demand.
The OPEC has kept production unchanged at its past three meetings in the months of December, February, and March, saying the market is well-supplied.
A Goldman Sachs’ Analyst said in a May 16, 2008 report that "the possibility of US $150 – US $200 per barrel seems increasingly likely over the next six to twenty four months."
Investment banks should stop publishing Oil price forecasts because the market is reacting, and investors are chasing those "projected" gains. The price of oil is, certainly, out of control!!!
Today, Oil price has surged to US $135.04 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer and most influential member of the OPEC, announced a unilateral 300,000 barrel-a-day output increase, on May 16, 2008, in response to a request from the US President George Bush, citing customer demand.
The OPEC has kept production unchanged at its past three meetings in the months of December, February, and March, saying the market is well-supplied.
A Goldman Sachs’ Analyst said in a May 16, 2008 report that "the possibility of US $150 – US $200 per barrel seems increasingly likely over the next six to twenty four months."
Investment banks should stop publishing Oil price forecasts because the market is reacting, and investors are chasing those "projected" gains. The price of oil is, certainly, out of control!!!
Dell Is Ringing Its Till Loud in the UAE
Dell Inc. will be opening a new hub and distribution centre in Jebel Ali, Dubai, on June 16, 2008, to bring its products faster to the UAE region, with hopes to accelerate its ability to deliver products to the growing market of the UAE.
A new retail outlet will also be coming soon to the Festival City, Dubai. The company will also be investing in a call centre for the region, so consumers can have easy access to direct support from the company. The US-based firm is enjoying a 110 percent annual growth in the UAE, with market share at 15.5 percent at the end of the first quarter. Dell's notebooks have seen an annual growth of 208 percent, with current market share at 14.5 percent.
A new retail outlet will also be coming soon to the Festival City, Dubai. The company will also be investing in a call centre for the region, so consumers can have easy access to direct support from the company. The US-based firm is enjoying a 110 percent annual growth in the UAE, with market share at 15.5 percent at the end of the first quarter. Dell's notebooks have seen an annual growth of 208 percent, with current market share at 14.5 percent.
Latin America Is Catching Up With the World
In the last few years economic stability has started to take hold in Central and Latin America, resulting in unprecedented growth in the region's real estate sector. The robust development of capital markets in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Costa Rica has increased liquidity, a clear indicator of positive, economic progress. A long-awaited period of sustained economic growth is finally occurring in much of Latin America.
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