Picture a hard-driving businessman in New York City, who in rushing to work leaves his wallet on the sidewalk, loaded with cash and credit cards, before entering his office. That’s essentially what many startup entrepreneurs do. Obsessed with building a successful enterprise, they leave their most valuable asset, intellectual property, unprotected and available for the taking. In the early stages of creating an enterprise, a company’s most valuable property is the big idea, invention or innovation that it's built around. Just as you should guard tangible possessions like a wallet, you need to protect that innovation, your intellectual property.
Updated 5 Years ago

Collecting customer feedback is an excellent way for entrepreneurs to determine both the strengths and weaknesses of their product or service. The feedback received should guide future training programs as well as product development strategies. Understanding the appropriate ways to use that feedback is crucial, whether it be positive or negative. When reputable companies receive negative feedback, they often go to great lengths to try to retain their good name and clients’ loyalty by addressing concerns. When companies receive positive feedback, however, they sometimes fail to see the opportunity to capitalize on it and subsequently miss out on an opportunity to leverage that feedback into establishing relationships with new clients. Positive feedback is a powerful asset to any business that shouldn’t be overlooked.
Updated 5 Years ago

Millicom, an international telecommunications company has teamed up with music streaming service Deezer, to launch Tigo Music in five markets in Africa. The company which operates in 13 markets across Latin America and Africa under the Tigo brand, will launch Tigo Music in Ghana, which will be followed by launches in Chad, DR Congo, Rwanda and Tanzania in the coming months.
Updated 5 Years ago

MTN Group disclosed today it plans to lay off about half of its 850 managerial staff in South Africa, its home market. The announcement is well below the number of job cuts predicted by South Africa’s Solidarity union in August. Stiff competition especially at home and abroad has stalled MTN’s growth. The company’s revenue from South Africa fell by 7 percent to R19.2 billion ($1.8 billion) in the first half of this year while margins also declined. Its market share dropped by nearly three percentage points to 31.9 percent. In its largest market of Nigeria, MTN said tougher regulation has contributed to a sluggish subscriber growth.
Updated 5 Years ago

Juhayna is likely to post a better set of numbers in the next financial year (2015), Egypt’s biggest maker of packaged juice and dairy products, said this week. Safwan Thabet, the chairman of Juhayna, made this comment after a surge in the prices of raw materials squashed margins this year. Thabet, speaking in an interview with Reuters at the Middle East Investment Summit, admitted that 2014 had been a tough year for the firm with earnings falling 67 percent at the half-year period.
Updated 5 Years ago

Abu Dhabi-based private charter company Royal Jet has announced that CEO and president Shane O’Hare has left the company. He will be replaced by Captain Patrick Gordon, as chief executive and acting president, a statement said.
Updated 5 Years ago

Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry on Thursday issued a warning to women not to get behind the wheel in defiance of the kingdom’s men-only road rules after a renewed social media campaign to challenge the law by driving in public. The announcement comes ahead of the anniversary on Oct. 26 of a demonstration last year in which dozens of Saudi women said they had taken to the road in protest at the ban on female drivers, leading to some arrests.
Updated 5 Years ago

China's job market proved resilient despite slowing economic growth in the first ninemonths of the year, according to data from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security(MHRSS) on Friday. From January to September, 10.82 million new jobs were created, 160,000 more than a yearago, MHRSS said.
Updated 5 Years ago

The Memorandum of Understanding on Establishing the Asian InfrastructureInvestment Bank (AIIB) specifies that the authorized capital of AIIB is $100 billion and the initialsubscribed capital is expected to be around $50 billion. The paid-in ratio will be 20 percent,according to Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei on Friday. Lou said Prospective Founding Members have agreed that GDP will be the basic parameter indetermining share allocation among member countries. Therefore, China will be the largestshareholder.
Updated 5 Years ago

China's appetite for olive oil increased amidst a shrinking cooking oil market,according to a UK-based market research report sent to Xinhua on Friday. The sales of olive oil during a 52 week ending Aug 8, 2014 were 5.35 percent percent higherthan the previous year, the Kantar Worldpanel's monitoring released.
Updated 5 Years ago