Business Guide Land

One of the officials of Yahoo said, the company is likely to announce more job cuts when it would present its third-quarter profits next week. Yahoo! Inc. was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January in the year of 1994 and was incorporated on 1, March, 1995.

It is a Worldwide American public corporation. It headquarters is located in Sunnyvale, California in Silicon Valley, USA. The international network of Yahoo! websites receives 3.4 billion page visitors each day on average. It is the second most visited website over the U.S.A.; additionally, the most visited website around the world. To maintain worldwide service it has roughly 14,300 workers. But some people who familiar with the industry said Saturday, the worldwide Internet portal giant, yahoo, is likely to lay off at least as many workforces as it did in January, 2008, when it sacked 1,000 employees.

On the other hand, top online auction and shopping website eBay announced earlier this month to lay off 10% of its 16,000 employees, while leading search engine giant Google Inc, an American public corporation, apparently has been silently trimming its contractor employees though the authority declined to reveal how many contractors it has let go. It has total employees of approximately 30,000 people such as about 10,000 contractors and 19,604 full-time employees; as of 30, June 2008.

Some economist and industry analysts said that the Internet companies, which usually have large overhead, staff numbers, and high maintenance cost are bracing themselves for a tough economic and financial situation in fears of a worldwide recession so that they do not have to face any financial threat and achieve their highest earnings.

Analyzing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of a business is a well-established tool that is widely used by academics, consultants, and advisors. Although it is a simple concept, business owners often struggle when trying to use it because it is so broad. It is difficult to determine where to start, what questions to ask, and where to focus. The obvious problems get attention while many other important issues get overlooked. SWOT analysis is a great tool, but its effective use requires additional structure.

Strengths and weaknesses relate to internal factors, while opportunities and threats cover external ones. The internal factors can be divided into five categories: management, workforce, sales and marketing, operations, and financial. The external factors are also divided into five categories: threat of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of customers, threat of rivalry from competitors, and threat of substitution.

To approach the analysis in a structured way, prepare a checklist using the categories mentioned above. Identify factors within each category that are important to your business. Under management for example, a major weakness for virtually every small business is relying too heavily on the owner. What would happen to the business if something happened to the owner? In the workforce category a factor could be employee turnover and the availability of new hires. The threat of new entrants might include the possibility of a big box retailer opening near your business. The bargaining power of suppliers and customers categories should consider the possibility of losing a major supplier or customer. Come up with several factors for each category to complete the checklist. It is important that you do not try to rate or solve each issue as you identify them. If you do, you will get bogged down on each factor and never complete the analysis.

Once the checklist is complete, you should rate each factor based on its importance to your business. Use an alphabetical scale from A to E, where A = very important, B = important, C = some importance, D = little importance, and E = not important. Next rate each factor based on proficiency (internal) or vulnerability (external). Use a numerical scale from 1 to 5, where 1 = very proficient or not vulnerable, 2 = proficient or little vulnerability, 3 = average proficiency or some vulnerability, 4 = poor proficiency or vulnerable, and 5 = deficient or very vulnerable.

The factors with the lowest letter and highest number (A5) are the biggest weaknesses or threats. The ones with the lowest letter and lowest number (A1) are the biggest strengths or opportunities.

Using this structured approach makes a SWOT analysis possible and practical for any small business. To make this process worthwhile you must use this information to take action. Work to fix the worst problems first, prepare for the biggest risks, take advantage of the best opportunities, and build your secondary strengths.

Promotion of your products or your own works is one of the best processes for your business. Since a longtime people take the help of advertising for his business. Famous Brand companies spend the highest amount of cost for their promotion.

The way of advertising is changing day by day. There is now a lot of way for the promotion of your company or your work or your product. There is no other easy and cost effective way than stickers for advertising. You can make your own choice able design for stickers. And today here are various companies who print any kind of custom-made stickers. People have lot of think or plan on his mind. So he wants to expose it to other. A personal made design sticker exposes of company’s aim or your own creation to other.

One of the many benefits of digital printing is to even little companies be able to find professional labels in small enough quantities to make it economically feasible. Different digital printing processes allow printing custom prepared stickers affordably in little quantities. Let Lightning Labels help you or your company look professional with high quality custom made stickers and labels. And if you’re in a hurry then you will also get readymade logo or design for your companies.

While the world market fall and many developed country suffering from lack of investment; Iran, the world’s second biggest oil producer, has been looking for foreign investment for development of its oil and gas fields in order to ensure its energy security from big power monopoly and regional conflicts, claiming it has the safest route for oil transport in this area.

Last Sunday, the official IRNA news agency reported, after addressing the opening session on Saturday of an energy conference in Tehran that would conclude on Sunday. Referring to the current turmoil in the Caucasus region (a geopolitical region located between Europe, Asia and the Middle East.), Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, “Iran is ready to cooperate with foreign companies and states to ensure its oil supplies against the (political) turmoil in the Caucasus”, he also said, that Iran insists upon security of oil supplies. Moreover he added that Iran is the safest and most economical route for piping oil and gas in the world. He also said:

Iran can transfer the Caspian Sea oil to the Persian Gulf and free international waters via the shortest and best possible route.

On the hand, Iran’s oil minister Gholam Hossein Nozari informed last Saturday investments worth more than $20 billion are needed for the country’s oil refining industry. The minister voiced Tehran’s readiness to “shake the hands which are able and would like to assist us.” He also added, Iran looks forward to doubling its current refining capacity of 1,750,000 barrels for each day. But do any foreign investors give their hand to develop its oil and gas field? While they always face threat of the UN and the USA economic sanctions for its nuclear program.

HSBC, fourth largest bank in the world in terms of assets, has announced that it is going to cut 1,100 jobs worldwide in its banking operation. With approximately half of the job losses to take place in HSBC headquarters and UK based international banking division and markets operation in Canary Wharf in the UK. Another 100 of the job are losses in Hong Kong, where the large Asian operations are based of this bank. Here the jobs would be cut in both front divisions and back office operations.

In a statement the company said that global pre-tax profits for the segment were 2.7 billion dollars in the early half of the year 2008, drop 35% over the early half of the year 2007 although it is 37% higher than in the next half of the year 2007. Moreover its half-year earnings drop almost 30 percent to £5.2 billion as the bank was forced to write-off $14 billion from bad debts and asset write-downs in the U.S.A.

On the other hand, an HSBC official said the firm had opted to cut its employees, “because of market conditions and the economic environment, and our cautious outlook for 2009.” He also added, “Markets continue to be challenging and difficult but our strategy leaves us well positioned for the next wave of global growth, when it comes.”

After the announcement to the news of job cuts among the 330,000 workforces worldwide, the market responded positively. Hong Kong-traded shares of HSBC increased 0.5 percent against a decreasing overall market.