Germans bought food worth 122 million Euros over the internet 22. January 2007 by Thomas Jannot Food purchases over the internet are still on the rise. Through this medium about 122 million Euros were spent by Germans last year on beverages and foodstuffs which is a plus of 11% as compared to the year 2005, as was reported by the Federal Association of Information Management, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM). Of …
Business people consider themselves to be the better top managers 22. January 2007 by Thomas Jannot Virtually all topmanagers (93%) with commercial education believe that in general businessmen make better top managers than engineers. At least this is the opinion of participants at the eighth »Manager Panel« staged by LAB Lachner Aden Beyer & Company which is an international personnel management consultancy. However, their top manager colleagues with engineer background are …
Guide on wide-band applications for SMEs available 22. January 2007 by Thomas Jannot In particular in the context of globalization wide-band internet access is becoming increasingly important to small and medium-sized entities. By means of such a kind of fast access to the internet many business processes may be optimized and gaps to international competitors minimized. However, it is recommended to gather information beforehand in order to know …
Textiles business booming 22. January 2007 by Thomas Jannot The textiles business has had a surprisingly good start into the new year according to the association of German textiles retailers. Presumably VAT increase did not have as strong an effect as expected, the reason being numerous sales discounts which were granted at Christmas due to forecasts which were not very promising.
Funds for high-tech start-ups increased 22. January 2007 by Thomas Jannot Three major German high-technology companies support founders of high-tech start-ups. At the end of 2006 DaimlerChrysler, Bosch and Carl Zeiss contributed six million Euros joining a fund for high-tech start-ups which had been set up in August 2005 by the German government, industry and the KfW bank. At the same time the KfW bank increased …
Medium-level management dissatisfied 18. January 2007 by Thomas Jannot A survey among 1400 employees in medium-level management in Europe, North America and Asia seems to prove that the mood at this management level is marked by demotivation and dissatisfation worldwide. The “Middle Manager’s Outlook” survey by Accenture comes to the conclusion that 39% of those questioned are dissatisfied with their professional situation and 23% …
Salaries of managers in SMEs increasing particularly fast 18. January 2007 by Thomas Jannot A study called “Germany Salary Increase Survey 2006 – 2007” conducted by Hewitt Associates has revealed that manager salaries increased by 3.3% in the year 2006 which represents a much bigger rise than that experienced by other groups of employees which on average earned 2.6% more. As was already the case in 2005, the salaries …
Figures and facts on Germany available in English and German 17. January 2007 by Thomas Jannot Everyone wishing to be informed about the economic, social and ecologic situation of Germany as compared with its European neighbours may download a brochure called „ Im Blickpunkt – Deutschland in der Europäischen Union 2006″ from the website of the Federal Statistical Office. On more than 90 pages there is a lot of information collected …
Surveys among own staff strategically more and more important 16. January 2007 by Thomas Jannot About two thirds of companies are regularly conducting surveys among their employees which represents an unprecedented figure. This was the finding of a joint study “Staff surveys – trends of 2007” by the Kienbaum and Hewitt Associates consultancy firms. However, the character of these surveys is increasingly changing: these surveys are always less a mood …
New web site prepares staff of SMEs for work abroad 16. January 2007 by Thomas Jannot Whereas employees in major companies who are sent abroad can generally ask their colleagues for advice, staff working in small and medium-sized entities (SMEs) quite often have to collect all the necessary information on their own. In order to help them in this respect there is a new web site called iXpatriate.de which went online …