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Three Ways to Prepare for a Business Launch
Corrections & Amplifications
For aspiring entrepreneurs, ample preparation is an important element in starting a business that can greatly increase the chances for success in a competitive marketplace. “If I think about 1,000 start-ups, maybe 10 will be around in 10 years,” says Steve Tennant, an Orinda, Calif., consultant, who advises Silicon Valley start-ups. “More than 900 are situations where people have not done nearly enough homework to see if there’s an important customer problem and if they’re actually solving that problem better than everybody else.”
When preparing to start a new venture, you need to determine whether there’s a market for what you want to sell, differentiate yourself from competitors and line up potential customers. Here, three entrepreneurs share the successful strategies they used before starting their businesses.
1: Position yourself as an expert.
Headhunters pledge more women board candidates
Headhunters agree they will put more women on board candidate ‘longlists’.
Nineteen of the top executive search firms have agreed that “longlists” should contain almost a third of female candidates to give companies a better chance of recruiting women to top posts. Companies often complain that there aren’t enough female candidates to choose from when recruiting boardroom positions.
The code of conduct also suggests headhunters will take personal qualities as well as experience into account when selecting female candidates, supporting women during the recruitment process.
The guide comes in response to the Lord Davies’ review of women on boards, which in February urged FTSE 100 companies to double the number of females sitting at the top table or face mandatory quotas.
By 2015, the Davies report, accepted by the Government, wants to see 25pc of all FTSE 100 boards be made up of women, compared to the 12.5pc make-up last year.
Denise Wilson, a member of the report steering group who supported headhunters in drawing up the code told Reuters she was confident that the new guidelines along with “other pieces of the jigsaw” will be enough to get more women in senior positions.
“It’s a package of measures and I’m confident it will be enough,” she said. Read more…
BP oil spill report delayed by US team
Oil-covered brown pelicans found off the Louisiana coast following last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
A team from the US Coast Guard and Bureau of Ocean Management was meant to release its findings next week, but has had to postpone the conclusions. Read more…
European economists implore EU leaders to act on eurozone crisis – letter in full
Economists: For the first time, the very survival of the euro is at stake.
A call to action: EU leaders must act to save the euro and avoid a recession
The eurozone crisis is coming to a head. This column is an open letter to European leaders imploring them to take decisive action this week. Any more delays could mark the end of the Eurozone as we know it.
The debt crisis has reached the core of the Eurozone.
•Italy and Spain are now directly involved in a serious credibility crisis.
•The creditworthiness of more than one-third of the Eurozone is being challenged.
For the first time, the very survival of the euro is at stake.
EU leaders gathering in Brussels on Thursday face a historical responsibility. It is essential that an agreement be reached on a plan that prevents further escalation of the crisis.
Defensives fall on prediction ‘soft patch has ended’
By Ben Harrington
6:33PM BST 22 Jul 2011
UBS downgraded the sector – which typically performs well in turbulent markets as it is considered to be a defensive investment – to “neutral” because the broker sees “some signs that the global soft patch may be nearing an end”.
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Nick Nelson, an equity strategist at UBS, said: “Pharma has been the best-performing major European sector (up 13pc relative) and a big beneficiary of the economic soft patch and sovereign debt crisis. We do not expect macro data or the sovereign debt crisis to deteriorate again as much as they have in the past three months.”
As a result, AstraZeneca took the wooden spoon, falling 38p to £30.54. A bearish note from Evolution Securities also weighed on AstraZeneca, which earlier this week received US approval for its heart drug Brilinta. Dominic
GE Profit Tops Estimates On Growth Abroad
If General Electric’s second-quarter earnings are any indication, investors can put fears of a global industrial slowdown on hold.
General Electric, considered to be a bellwether for the industrial sector because of the breadth of its businesses, reported second-quarter earnings Friday that topped analyst estimates.
And emerging markets — a sector into which GE has plowed investment dollars — paid off big time.
International revenue accounted for $13.4 billion — or almost 60% — of the company’s industrial division revenues, a 23% increase. GE reported that revenue in India, China and Africa all grew at a double-digit percentage pace.
Overall, the Fairfield, Conn.-based industrial conglomerate logged earnings of $3.7 billion, or 34 cents per share, up 17% from a year earlier.
Analysts polled by Thompson Reuters had been expecting GE to report earnings per share of 32 cents.
“With our fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit earnings growth, we continue to execute in a volatile environment,” GE CEO Jeff Immelt said in a statement.
Immelt attributed the growth to strong results from GE Capital, as well as the company’s healthcare, oil and gas, transportation and aviation divisions.
Revenue came in at $35.6 billion, exceeding expectations of $34.7 billion. Read more…