Market Watch

The allure of America draws many international companies to expand there. But success can be … [+] Getty Images Many a U.K. business has found it impossible to resist the allure of the U.S. — often with less than ideal results. Retail group Marks & Spencer’s ill-fated acquisition of the preppy clothing brand Brooks Brothers, which it sold in 2001 for a third of the amount it paid for it 13 years earlier, is one of the clearest examples of how it can go wrong. But there have been many others. No doubt, as the urge to grow fuels expansion plans, there will be still more. But a new book suggests that the U.S. does not have to be a graveyard for companies from the U.K., or indeed anywhere else. In Make It In America , Matthew Lee Sawyer , a strategist and consultant whose business, Rocket Market Development, helps companies identify opportunities and succeed in U.S.markets, sets out a few pointers for avoiding disaster. Among the success stories he recounts are how a Turkish immigrant rose from running a feta cheese company to buying a bankrupt dairy factory and creating Chobani , which within five years became the […]

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BRAZIL – 2021/09/05: In this photo illustration the QuickBooks (Intuit) logo seen displayed on a … [+] SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Here are five things in technology that happened this past week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them? 1 – Intuit QuickBooks Business Network plans to accelerate and automate B2B payments for millions of U.S. businesses. Global financial technology platform Intuit QuickBooks recently expanded the Intuit QuickBooks Business Network to make it available to millions of small and mid-sized businesses throughout the United States. This expansion now makes it one of the biggest B2B networks geared toward automating and accelerating B2B payments and enhancing cash flow. (Source: Business Wire ) Why this is important for your business: With so many businesses already using QuickBooks, why not provide a way to connect them to each other so that transactions can be faster? Kind of a no brainer. In addition to the network’s other benefits the things that will help my clients will be the ability for a business to send an invoice directly to their customer’s or vendor’s QuickBooks account, having QuickBooks instantly create a bill for the customer or vendor using auto-populated information from […]

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Giacomo Bagnara What’s Up? (Jan. 15-21) The U.S. Hits Its Debt Ceiling The United States hit its borrowing cap of $31.4 trillion on Thursday, setting the stage for a bitter fiscal fight in Congress over raising the limit. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said the government would take “ extraordinary measures ,” at least until early June, to keep paying its bills. Democrats and the White House , as well as forecasters and economists, have warned that the nation risks a financial crisis and other dire economic scenarios if lawmakers do not raise the limit before the Treasury Department exhausts its ability to buy more time. But Republicans have said that they will not raise the borrowing limit again unless President Biden agrees to steep cuts in federal spending. “Samcoins” and FTX’s Final Days As the government continues building a case against the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, more details are emerging about the workings of the exchange. Rivals said that Mr. Bankman-Fried often promoted digital currencies, known as “ Samcoins .” Mr. Bankman-Fried was said to use his influence to persuade people to buy large quantities of the coins, inflating their value artificially, to make […]

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Work-life balance is a critical benefit, and offering it can be a powerful recruiting tool and unexpected cost saver Companies that offer generous vacation plans are the ones meeting workers’ needs. Last week Microsoft Corporation joined a growing number of companies around the country by announcing that it was now offering an unlimited paid time off (PTO) plan to its employees. “How, when, and where we do our jobs has dramatically changed,” a company HR executive explained in a memo . “And as we’ve transformed, modernizing our vacation policy to a more flexible model was a natural next step.” This makes sense and not just for Microsoft and other big companies. Unlimited PTO should be considered by every business, big and small. My small business offers it. And I have a number of clients who do the same. Along with health insurance and retirement benefits, companies that offer generous vacation plans are the ones that are meeting today’s workers’ needs. There are many recent studies – like this one from the Society for Human Resource Management – that have shown that flexibility, four-day work weeks, remote working arrangements and generous vacation plans are in high demand. Telling a prospective […]

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Thomas Beeson, door specialist, carries a door to the Building Materials receiving department at Urban Ore in Berkeley. Entering the vast warehouse that is the Urban Ore salvage yard in Berkeley has the uncanny feeling of wading into the subconscious of a well-organized hoarder. Visitors are greeted by orderly rows of secondhand clothes, metal and glass appliances from ages past and well-loved wooden furniture. High above, paper mache flying saucers, dragon’s heads, flags and fading posters festoon the rafters. Keeping the place on its feet is Max Wechsler, Urban Ore’s operations manager whose reddish beard, black ballcap and measured, pensive tone belie an intense commitment to the zero-waste ethos that keeps the store standing as much as its sheet metal walls. The Chronicle’s flagship news podcast. Listen and subscribe on your favorite app. Click the player below for the latest episode. Chase DiFeliciantonio is a reporter at The San Francisco Chronicle on the Transformation team, where he covers tech culture, workplace safety and labor issues in San Francisco, Silicon Valley and beyond. Prior to joining The Chronicle, he covered immigration for the Daily Journal, a legal affairs newspaper, […]

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Artist Jazmin Murphy works on a customer at Southern Cypress Tattoo in Columbia’s Five Points neighborhood on Jan. 20. Mike Fitts/The Post and Courier. COLUMBIA — A tattoo shop owner looking to expand as her business grows ran into an unexpected obstacle: a restriction that the city passed quietly in late 2021. A city ordinance, passed as part of a revision to zoning rules, prevents tattoo shops from being approved to open within 1,000 feet — or about two city blocks — from an existing tattoo parlor. That rule has blocked Stephanie Melora, owner of Southern Cypress Tattoo in Five Points, from adding three new booths across Greene Street from her shop, as that building has an existing tattoo parlor in it, plus her main space and another parlor nearby. Melora made a plea before Columbia City Council on Jan. 17 to win an exception that would allow her to expand in Five Points, where she is on the district’s board. “This is my home,” Melora told the council. “These are my people, and I want to see my business continue to grow in the community I love and serve.” Inks and equipment are at the ready inside Southern […]

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Business people learning about new project getty Every business is built on its human resources. Those humans have experienced unprecedented change since 2020 and, with them, the companies they work for. Many employers are paying more, increasing benefits and adding flexibility to once-rigid scheduling to attract and retain the best talent. Meanwhile, economic uncertainties are causing other companies to rein in costs until they can ride it out. In this tug-of-war, it’s tough to anticipate which approaches can help a business move ahead of its competitors. It’s not sound strategy to achieve growth by grinding employees down to a nub. Instead, companies should focus on building their employees themselves so they, in turn, can grow the business. Adult learning may be the perfect way to achieve this. The shift toward helping employees bloom where they are planted is once again changing business as usual. And companies that make that shift accordingly will benefit. Here are a few reasons why you don’t want to miss out. Adult Learning Lifts Everyone You have probably heard the Doctor Seuss passage: “The more you read, the more things you shall know. The more that you learn, the more places you shall go.” The […]

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As predictably as its cold, dark days, January delivers business closures. This month is no exception, and they are among my least favorite interviews. But the conversations are important. So when I heard Tami Lien was closing Stride Rite after 35 years in Sioux Falls, I knew she deserved to be recognized and that we as a business community needed to know what made her close the doors. “It’s just everything,” she told me in an emotional, candid conversation. “I can’t keep burying myself in debt because I love what I do and can’t walk away.” By “everything,” she really does mean everything. It, of course, was the pandemic, which essentially cut off business overnight. Then, it was the supply chain disruption, forcing her to wait more than 10 months for shoes to arrive. Naturally, she faces the same staffing challenges and overhead increases as anyone. But she also increasingly can’t compete with lower cost e-commerce options and customers who browse her store only to buy online. “Honestly, this is no joke,” she said. “They use us … and take myself or my staff’s time trying all kinds of shoes on, and they’ll come and say they just bought […]

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New York CNN — In January 2021, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spoke in lofty terms about how the first year of the pandemic had sparked a staggering shift toward online services, benefiting his company in the process. “What we have witnessed over the past year is the dawn of a second wave of digital transformation sweeping every company and every industry,” he said. Two years later, the situation appears much more stark. This week, Microsoft said it planned to lay off 10,000 employees as businesses rethink their pandemic-era digital spending and confront broader economic uncertainty. Microsoft’s customers, Nadella said, are now trying “to do more with less.” Microsoft isn’t the only company experiencing such a dramatic reversal. Days later, Google-parent company Alphabet followed suit, saying it plans to cut around 12,000 jobs , amounting to more than 6% of its staff. Over the past three months, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Facebook-parent Meta have announced plans to cut more than 50,000 employees from their collective ranks, a stunning reversal from the early days of the pandemic when the tech giants were growing rapidly to meet surging demand from countless households living, shopping and working online. At the time, many tech […]

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MANCHESTER, N.H. — The New Hampshire legislature is back to work at the State House in Concord, and many are keeping a watchful eye on legislation that could hurt or enhance businesses in New Hampshire. With that in mind, the Business and Industry Association of NH has now made a list of priorities that they hope are addressed in the state’s legislature. On the latest installment of NH Business, host Fred Kocher is joined by Michael Skelton, president and CEO of the Business and Industry Association of NH, to walk through New Hampshire’s business priorities moving forward. Recommended

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