By Devin Reese on 23-07-2011
Recently, the view has not been impressive.
With the economy still struggling to regain momentum after the financial crisis of 2007-09 and 14 million Americans out of work, the planners at GM and a host of corporations across America are in no rush to make big new investments to ramp up output and hiring.
The world’s second-biggest automaker has not reopened its idled plants or built new ones as Americans rein in spending.
Like many U.S. manufacturers, it is squeezing more from existing factories and using time-honored efficiency boosts such as adding to overtime and eliminating plant bottlenecks.
“Our manufacturing folks have been tremendous at squeaking out extra units through improving line rates, adding on extra shifts,” GM’s U.S. sales chief Don Johnson said.
The caution among many top U.S. corporations echoes that of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other policymakers, who are scaling back their expectations of economic growth.
Reflecting the downturn, heavy machinery maker Caterpillar Inc on Friday announced results that fell short of expectations. Much of the higher demand it expects in the rest of 2011 is likely to come from outside the United States.
The largest U.S.
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By Devin Reese on 23-07-2011
The Gillard Government has promised its Clean Energy Future program will support Australian jobs by assisting businesses to survive and prosper in a low carbon economy.
According to Innovation Minister Senator Kim Carr, the Clean Energy Future program builds upon the work advisory committees have undertaken over the past three years.
“The low carbon economy is a chance to rejuvenate Australian manufacturing and generate new Australian jobs. I
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By Devin Reese on 23-07-2011
With orders received from other non-English speaking countries and a desire to expand, many companies are faced with a choice of how far to go with the localisation of their site.
New research helps brands make that decision, from a full localisation of site and all campaigns, to a partial localisation of just the keywords and ads.
As a multilingual search agency a question we’re often asked: should we translate our website or landing page if we want to sell overseas?
I’ve always thought the answer should be yes (for non-English speaking countries that is), since I wouldn’t consider buying from a German or French website unless I wanted something that I couldn’t buy from an English language website.
Why go to the bother of running the site through Google Translate to get a part-translation if there are alternatives in English? Neverthe
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By Admin on 22-07-2011
Tagged Under : Etfs
The chief executive of BlackRock , owner of the world’s largest exchange traded fund manager iShares, says the business will have a difficult time turning a profit on actively managed ETFs until they gain more traction.
The category represents a small portion of the industry’s growth “despite all of the noise, despite all of the articles about active ETFs,” BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said during the investment manager’s earnings call this week.
Although he said BlackRock will be building active ETFs, out of the $50 billion in net new business in ETFs as an industry, only $800 million was in active ETFs.
Still, it is early in the game for active ETFs, and many financial advisors wait for a three-year track record. Some actively managed ETFs have had success gathering assets.
“It is going to be very hard to make much money in active ETFs until you start seeing greater growth rates,” Fink said, according to a transcript of the BlackRock conference call. “I do believe the predominance of ETFs will always be in the index space.”
Also, regulators and investors are beginning to differentiate more between ETFs and exchange traded notes , he said. ETNs are debt ins
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By Devin Reese on 21-07-2011
The popularity of QR Codes is on the increase, but still a lot of people dont quite understand what they are. Hopefully this will help.
First of all, you might ask what the name actually stands for. QR stands for Quick Response, which relates to the speed at which high quantities of data can be read by a scanner. QR Codes are generally square and contain simple black and white blotch patterns (like the image under the heading). Having said that, variations in colours and styles can be incorporated in order to represent your brand more effectively.
QR Codes can be displayed almost anywhere. Over time, you will see them pop up all over the place, from TV shows to print advertising to billboards. There is very little restriction as to where they can be placed, so much so that they have even been displayed on clothing.
So why are companies using QR Codes? QR Codes can be used to reveal more information about a product, service or event. Generally they are used to direct customers or users to a specific URL, video, coupon, event page or email address. So if one of your key priorities is to drive more traffic to your site or a specific page, QR Codes can provide the perfect solution.
QR Codes enable companies to engage with existing and potential customers through the mobile device, anytime, anywhere.
To make use of QR Codes is simple.
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