Today, although many Grocery retailers in the Gulf Cooperation Council may offer their own private label products, few are making them part of their overall company strategy— missing out on a significant opportunity. GCC grocery retailers are overlooking the fact that the mere offering of a private label range does not guarantee its success. Instead, private label strategies need to also be effectively defined. 

Not a minute goes by without an innocent Arab online bystander getting shut down at point blank. It’s the computers version of Arab Spring victims. Never mind if you’re minding your own business or if business was on your mind; no matter where your electronic surf takes you, you are somewhere on some criminal’s bad intentions or malware turf. 

The six nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are experiencing a unique demographic period in which one-half to one-third of their population is under 25 years of age. This youth bulge presents GCC governments with an opportunity to propel their nations forward: These young people can bring creativity, energy, and productivity to the GCC national and regional economies.

When back in July, Infor, the leading provider of business software for midmarket companies, announced that RSA Logistics DWC LLC, the first third-party logistics (3PL) company to operate in Dubai Logistics City/Dubai World Central (DWC), has invested in Infor SCM WMS (Warehouse Management Solution) from SPAN, Infor’s leading supply chain partner in the Middle East, it shed renewed light on the importance of such investments in business operations.

The historic downgrade of the US government debt by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) on Friday has shaken the markets worldwide. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 5.5%, according to the Wall Street Journal. The S&P 500 stock index tumbled 6.7%, to 1119.46, with financial and energy stocks falling hardest.

The worldwide expansion of Lebanese industrial successes should greatly benefit the homeland expertise by helping in identifying, growing and promising markets abroad in which local industries can compete in and export to. Bringing Lebanese products in line with international standards and regulations would boost exports and take the Lebanese economy a step closer towards the arena of foreign trade, which would create a healthy dynamic against inflation.

"Today, dynamic Web links are the most powerful tool cybercrime has, and static Web ratings that require update cycles are too slow when the bad guys can harvest users within minutes"

It has only been since the early 1970’s that exchange rates fluctuated in response to market events. Prior to that, the implementation of the Bretton Woods Agreement following World War II pegged most of the “major” currencies to the U.S. dollar which was itself tied to the price of gold. When President Richard Nixon abandoned the gold standard in 1971 so the Federal Reserve could devalue the dollar to fight inflation, the practice of pegging currencies came to an end.

The Malaysian Rating Corporation Berhad (MARC) is of the view that Budget 2011 will serve as a blueprint to put Malaysia on a sustainable growth trajectory in line with the visions and aspirations set forth in the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) and the New Economic Model (NEM) outlined by the government earlier in the year. The ultimate goal is to get Malaysia out of the so-called “middle-income trap” and move the country into a high-income status to enable it to realise the objectives of Vision 2020 within the next 10 years.

Facebook and "Twitter" have reached just about everyone by now, including your business. But in using these sites, called "social networks," for the purposes of marketing our businesses or our books, we should keep in mind that in a way we are twisting the original purpose of those sites to suit our own needs.

In recent years, countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have increasingly turned to independent power projects (IPPs) and independent water and power projects (IWPPs) as alternatives to government-financed power and cogeneration plants. If projections hold true and IPPs account for 34 percent of regional capacity by 2015, with virtually all of that capacity serving base load, then IPPs will account for nearly 60 percent of regional energy production. To support such an increase, changes in the way that IPPs are structured need to be made to preserve the benefits of the IPP model.

Evidence from firms in 47 countries shows that companies with political connections have higher leverage and higher market shares, but they underperform compared to non-connected companies on an accounting basis. Differences between connected and unconnected firms are more pronounced when political links are stronger. Differences also vary depending on the level of corruption and the degree of economic development in individual countries.

Millions of people are affected by card fraud every year and the figures are growing across the globe. Much of the liability currently sits with the financial institutions themselves, ensuring that as the value of card fraud rises, so too does its presence on the list of senior executives’ concerns in the world’s leading banks.

The global financial crunch sheds light on the significance of understanding what has happened in big financial institutions, which collapsed and what we need to do to address defects in the thin-surfaced cosmetic arrangements of corporate governance and accountability. Obviously, the problems were not due to lack of corporate governance in these organisations, but how rather corporate governance framework has been used to mislead different stakeholders including the regulators. If something could be considered a teachable episode, it is the current financial crisis and how poor corporate governance helped to produce the shocking results.

Following the first ever online only live streaming of the England football team’s 1-0 defeat to Ukraine, Blue Coat’s EMEA Marketing VP Nigel Hawthorn, looks into the implications that live online video streaming events could have on an organisation’s network infrastructure ahead of next summer’s World Cup.

We stand today in a very different business landscape than even 10 years ago. New global dynamics have shifted the ground beneath our feet. New technologies and a hugely expanded global workforce – and the rising skills and aspirations of the major countries – are driving a global economy.

In today’s global investment environment, it is easy to feel overwhelmed with the ever-expanding universe of investment choices. Often, investors will follow market trends as an alternative. But trying to achieve financial goals by pouring all of one’s assets into emerging markets today, telecommunications tomorrow, and Japanese small-cap stocks next week is not a guarantee for achieving a sound financial plan.

The light dawned. I was in a meeting with my colleagues reviewing the rapid changes in our training and consulting business and sorting through our priorities for the coming quarter. We had doubled our already substantial business over the past 18 months. While the growth was exciting, it was also exhausting. We were piling on new programs, services and organisational changes.