More legal certainty for cross-border transactions 27. February 2007 by Thomas Jannot New guidelines by the EU Commission are to avoid lawsuits in the context of so-called “Advance Pricing Agreements” (APA). These agreements are made between the fiscal authorities of EU member states. They determine whether and where cross-border business operations are to be taxed. In the opinion of the Commission APAs are a suitable tool in …
New daylight saving time setting in the USA 27. February 2007 by Thomas Jannot This year the start date and finish date of the daylight saving time has changed in the USA. The start is brought forward to March 11th and the end deferred to November 4th in order to save energy. This results in an additional time difference with regard to the European daylight saving time which could …
Knowledge of foreign languages provides more opportunities to SMEs 27. February 2007 by Thomas Jannot Small and medium-sized entities miss out on thousands of business deals within the EU, but also worldwide just because of lacking knowledge of foreign languages. This is the finding of a survey by the National Centre for Languages (CILT) in Great Britain which was conducted on behalf of the EU Commission. According to experts there …
Germany among most innovative countries 25. February 2007 by Thomas Jannot Within Europe and also at the international level Germany is considered to be one of the most innovative countries. This was confirmed by the annual “European Innovation Scoreboard” study the results of which were recently published by the EU Commission. According to this document Germany is in sixth place behind Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark and …
Global economic climate brightening 25. February 2007 by Thomas Jannot The global economy is picking up momentum. According to the Munich-based ifo polling firm the global economic climate improved over the first quarter of 2007 after it had slightly cooled off in the second half of 2006. The improvement relates to the current economic situation as well as to expectations with regard to the six …
Major enterprises lose track of their business data 25. February 2007 by Thomas Jannot Something which is largely unused by small and medium-sized entities seems to be applied rather too intensively by many German major enterprises: business intelligence systems. Half of all major enterprises already work with such universal management information systems. However, many of them lose track of the constantly growing flood of information and analyses generated by …
EU wants to increase work safety 22. February 2007 by Thomas Jannot The loss of income to European employees due to absence from work as a consequence of illness amounts to about 1 billion Euros each year. With 82% of all occupational injuries and 90% of all fatal accidents at work the staff of small and medium-sized entities are particularly affected. For this reason the EU Commission …
Popularity of entertainment software growing 21. February 2007 by Thomas Jannot Electronic games are becoming more and more popular in Germany. According to the Bundesverband Interaktive Unterhaltungssoftware (BIU) the market for entertainment software grew by 7.4% in 2006 and this in spite of the competition posed by the Football World Cup. Total turnover for computer and video games amounted to 1.126 billion Euros in 2006, whereas …
Target bonus payments on the march again 20. February 2007 by Thomas Jannot Even though boni and stock options are still the basis of the salaries of top managers and board members, about two thirds of all companies already cap them. However, the reason is not public criticism of exorbitant bonus packages, but the rivival of bonus payments which are based on specific medium or long term target …
Fifty percent of employees works with computers 20. February 2007 by Thomas Jannot On average fifty percent of Europe´s employees by profession work with computers. With 56% in Germany the frequency of computer work is above EU average and ranks seventh in Europe. These figures were published on Moday by the German Association of Information Management, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM) and are based on data provided by …