April 2012

The Sustainable Operations Summit (Hilton hotel New York, April 17-19th)
The business community, city leadership and entrepreneurs are coming together to find cost effective solutions to address climate change. “Going green” is estimated to be a $100 billion dollar business by the year 2017. You cannot overlook the solid data that confirms the cost savings and efficiency gains of organizations that have embraced sustainability as a core value. The Sustainable Operations Summit is the premier forum for leading organizations to share best practices that benefit both the environment and the bottom line
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March 2012

Luxury on the cheap (The Economist, March 2012)
Chinese and other buyers snap up Italian brands. After a decade of bunga-bunga and a year of financial turmoil, corporate Italy is feeling sick. But a crisis for some is an opportunity for others. The past year has been a great time to buy Italian companies.
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The Geneva Motor Show, Electric cars, Volt’s lows and highs (The Economist, March 2012)
The jury of European motor-magazine pundits who award the annual “Car of the Year” prize have this year
thrown a public-relations lifebelt to a carmaker drowning in negative headlines. Announced as the Geneva motor show opened on March 5th, the prize went to GM’s Volt and its slightly restyled European version, the Ampera, an electric car with a petrol-powered generator on board to back up the battery.
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Apple’s latest IPAd, the third coming (The Economist, March 2012)
APPLE used to be coy about its upcoming products. No longer. The press invitation to today's unveiling of its latest iPad tablet computer depicted a finger pressing a high-resolution touch-screen with the label: "We have something you really have to see. And touch." In the event, perhaps the biggest surprise to come out of the presentation by Apple's boss, Tim Cook, was that the company is calling the device just "iPad" and not, as had been expected "iPad 3".
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February 2012

Audi reports record profit of €5.3bn (Finantial Times, February 2012)
Chinese demand for expensive luxury saloons and bumper sales of sport utility vehicles helped Audi post a record €5.3bn operating profit last year that was equivalent to almost half of its owner Volkswagen’s total operating income. Audi sold more than 1.3m vehicles in 2011, an increase of more than 19 per cent that helped it.
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January 2012

What companies need to know about Brazil’s luxury consumers. How do Brazilians say “Rodeo Drive” (Mckinsey report, January 2012)
About 3 million Brazilians can afford luxury goods. There are 24 billionaires and some 155,000 millionaires—a third of the latter are under 35. São Paulo has more helicopters than any other city in the world. The sale of luxury cars has been growing 45% a year. At the tip of the tip of the pyramid are the High Net Worths—the one-tenth of one percent of households (about 13,700 of them) who make at least 46,500 reals a month ($25,200). Then there are the AAAs and the Aspirationals.
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India's flashy new rich drive luxury car boom (Reuters US edition, January 2012)
From farmers who swapped fields for cash to 20-something CEOs that inherited the family business, hot new money is flooding India's luxury car market as roaring sports car engines announce the country's growing wealth on its roads.
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Telematics is Here to Stay! Take Note of Consumer Demands As the Car Becomes the Ultimate Mobile Device (Telematics Detroit 2012)
Telematics Detroit 2012 is the largest and most influential focussed business focussed conference for the entire telematics ecosystem. With over 1500 executive attendees and over 100 industry pioneer speakers. Five key topics discussed at Telematics Detroit 2011: Telematics Proves Indispensable for the Automotive Industry, Smartphones vs. Embedded Units for Ultimate Content Integration, USDOT Sheds Light on Driver distraction Issues, Electric Vehicles to Make Telematics Truly Relevant and Mutually Beneficial Solutions for Auto OEMs & Insurers.
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December 2011

Pulse of the industry” Medical Technology Rapport 2011 (Dec 2011, Ernest & Young)
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November 2011

To internationalize a SME, a resistance factor during the crise (Nov 2011, Les Echos)
When internationalizing, SMEs create new markets and strength their resistance to crises.
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October 2011

“The inventor of the future” (October 2011, TIMES magazine)
Steve Jobs remade the world as completely as any single human being ever has, but he had no business doing it. He wasn't qualified. He wasn't a computer scientist. He had no training as a hardware engineer or an industrial designer. He had a semester at Reed College and a stint at an ashram in India. Jobs' expertise was less in computers than it was in the humans who used them.
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September 2011

“The age of the consumer-innovator” (September 2011, MIT Sloan management review)
Recent research shows that consumers collectively generate massive amounts of product innovation. These findings are a wake-up call for both companies and consumers — and have significant implications for our understanding of new product development.
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Korea’s luxury market: Demanding consumers, but room to grow (Mckinsey Korea luxury consumers report, Sept 2011)
Every year since 2006, sales of luxury goods in South Korea have risen at least 12%, to an estimated $4.5 billion in 2010. In the first four months of 2011, sales at department stores were up more than 30% compared to 2010. This continues an established trend, as last year’s report on the market showed. Still, insiders are asking whether it can last.
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August 2011

“Capturing the green advantage. What green consumers want and how to deliver it” (August 2011, MIT Sloan management review special report)
Companies and consumers finally understand green as something more than a fad. In this special report, via surveys, interviews, web resources, and a roundtable discussion, MIT Sloan Management Review explores the best ideas for building green products that capture consumers and green practices that sustain businesses. What are the best practices? Which companies are doing them well?
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June 2011

“Seven Personality Traits of Top Salespeople” (June 2011, Harvard Business Review)
If you ask an extremely successful salesperson, "What makes you different from the average sales rep?" you will most likely get a less-than-accurate answer, if any answer at all. Frankly, the person may not even know the real answer because most successful salespeople are simply doing what comes naturally.
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May 2011

“Innovating for growth. IT´s role in the new global economy” (May 2011, E&Y)
Global IT Performance Survey 2011
In recent years, the role of IT has been changing – in some cases radically. Rather than being seen merely as a utility, the function is increasingly expected to come up with innovative business improvements. Post-recession, organizations inhabit a very different global economy and IT has a vital part to play in supporting change and growth.
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April 2011

“Going Green: The future of Luxury” (Spring 2011, theluxurychannel.tv)
It is a challenging time for the luxury industry, with the economic downturn threatening sales, and a growing awareness of real social and environmental challenges, such as climate change, wars over resources and increasing consumer expectations of luxury brands.
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March 2011

“Digital Africa” (Spring 2011, Intelligent Life)
Richard Seymour, a British industrial and technology designer, points to the demographic shift to youth in poor countries. “Understand the young,” he says. “Emergent behaviour starts with them.” It could be that social networking is the emergent behaviour in Africa. Or it could be that everyone is looking in the wrong place and the real innovation is in the hacking that goes on in Africa’s informal sector.
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Understanding China's growing love for luxury (Mckinsey report, March 2011)
Stride through China's gleaming new high-end shopping malls and glitzy boutiques and expect to see shoppers on a mission. China's swelling class of wealthy consumers have the cash, and are willing and able to spend it on what, just until a few years ago, was well beyond their reach. Today, luxury goods are the de rigeur symbols of wealth and social status in China.
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February 2011

“Ranking the most sustainable companies” (February 2011, Forrester Research)
The term "sustainable"--like "green" and "all-natural" before it--conveys an abstract sense of do- gooding that many companies have been happy to adopt. Corporate Knights, a Toronto-based media company, applies hard metrics to the otherwise fuzzy term, and Saturday it released its seventh-annual list of the world's most sustainable companies.
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January 2011

“Forrester top 10 trends for customer service 2011” (January 2011, Forbes)
With 2011 still bright and full of hope for most of us, what are the key trends that customer
service professionals need to pay attention to as you plan for success this year?
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December 2010

The Economist Innovation Awards 2010
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“The Economist Innovation Awards, Apple picked for Consumer Innovation Award 2010”
The Economist recognizes Apple's Steve Jobs for his leadership in the development of usable consumer products. Smart-phone technology was transformed with the release of the iPhone in 2007, when 270,000 were sold in the first 30 hours. To celebrate the impact Apple has had on personal technology, Steve Jobs will receive recognition for consumer products innovation at the upcoming Economist Innovation Awards.
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“The Economist Social and Economic Innovation Innovation Award 2010, Nick Hughes and Susie Lonie”
Since its launch in early 2007, M-PESA (Safaricom) has attracted over 12 million users, or nearly a third of the Kenyan population. M-PESA has changed the way money moves around in Kenya and has made a big difference to many people’s lives, offering them a safe, secure and low-cost way of transferring money, paying bills, receiving wages and running small businesses. By contrast, there are only 750 banking outlets and fewer than five million bank accounts in the entire country. The judges are recognising Nick Hughes and Susie Lonie for their innovative and successful scheme that has great potential to increase financial inclusion and drive economic activity. The reach and influence of their product has been extraordinary, not just within Kenya but also beyond, as operators have been inspired by M-PESA’s success and launched similar services.
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November 2010

“Big Hearted Blue” (The Economist, Oct 28th, 2010)
Corporate Volunteering. IBM reinvents voluntary work. IT WAS like going back to graduate-student days. We all had nicknames and were hanging out together, says Guruduth Banavar, a senior executive at IBM. He recently spent time volunteering in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, as part of a six-person team put together by the IBM Corporate Service Corps, working pro bono with the city government to help develop new strategies in areas ranging from public transport and water supply to food safety and innovation.
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October 2010

“Not just wind” (The Economist, October 16th, 2010)
Enel Green Power comes to market with an unusually broad technological base. EUROPE’S
green power generators have filled the continent’s windy places with turbines.
They have not, however, inspired its stockmarkets.
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September 2010

“Stop comparing yourself with Steven Jobs” (Harvard Business Review Blogs
Dan Pallota, September 17th, 2010)
Comparing yourself with Steve Jobs is not healthy. Never mind that it's probably the pastime of every alpha male and female businessperson on the planet these days.
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August 2010

“How SAP made the business case for sustainability” (MIT Sloan Management Review,
The MIT sustainability interviews, August 12th, 2010)
As SAP’s first-ever chief sustainability officer, Peter Graf was prepared to lay out the business case for sustainability to stakeholders and customers of every kind. But he had to make the case to SAP’s own board of directors first.
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July 2010

“Is there a lot more to come?” (The Economist, July 15th, 2010)
South Africa after the World Cup. The country could get a taste for big sporting events.
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June 2010

“Son of Copenhagen” (The Economist, June 17th, 2010)
Climate talks continue. The new round of negotiations led to only incremental progress.
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May 2010

“Private inequity” (The Economist, May 8th, 2010)
Investors push for more favorable fees and terms, and get them.
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April 2010

“Boston consulting group innovation 2010: a return to prominence and the emergence of a new world order” (7th Annual Report, April 2010)
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“Growing Pains” The rise of Big Solar (The Economist, April 17th)
The price of solar panels is falling fast enough to hurt Western manufacturers, but it is not yet low enough to make the sun a competitive source of electricity.
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March 2010

“Financial Communication, Warren Buffett Style” (Harvard Business Review Blogs
Communication, 4th March 2010)
Based on last year's letter to Berkshire shareholders, here are some of the traits contributing
to effective, engaging financial communications, and examples of how Buffett uses them to great effect.
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“The Big Idea: Funding Eureka” (Harvard Business Review Magazine, Nathan Myhrvold, March 2010)
My company, Intellectual Ventures, is misunderstood. We have been reviled as a patent troll-a renegade outfit that buys up patents and then uses them to hold up innocent companies. What we’re really trying to do is create a capital market for inventions akin to the venture capital market that supports start-ups and the private equity market that revitalizes inefficient companies.
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February 2010

“Sweden beats US to top tech usage rankings” (Reuters, Feb 2010)
Sweden took the number one spot from the United States to top the annual rankings on the usage of telecommunications technologies such as networks, cellphones and computers, a report released on Thursday shows.
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“Blow Away” China and America added most wind capacity in 2009 (The Economist 3rd Feb 2010)
AMERICA strengthened its position as the world leader in wind power in 2009. Having overhauled Germany in 2008, installed wind capacity in the United States grew by 9.9 gigawatts (GW) to reach 35.2GW by the end of last year, according to a new report from the Global Wind Energy Council. But America's reign could be short-lived as China continues its enormous rate of increase. For the fifth year running China nearly doubled its capacity, adding 13GW of installed power and overtaking Spain in the process. Despite the economic downturn, global cumulative capacity grew by 31%, the highest annual increase for seven years.
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“Stockholm wins EU green capital award” (European Commission, Feb 2010)
Traditionally known as 'The Venice of the North', Stockholm has added more fame to its name. Throughout 2010, Sweden's capital will be celebrated as Europe's first Green Capital.
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January 2010

“FED UP” (The Economist, 7th January 2010)
Germany’s support for solar power is becoming even harder to afford
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“The five attributes of enduring family business” (Mckinsey Quarterly Report, January 2010)
The keys to long-term success are professional management and keeping the family committed to and capable of carrying on as the owner.
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December 2009

The Copenhagen Summit "Stopping Climate Change" (The Economist, 3rd Dec 2009)
AT A time when they are not short of pressing problems to deal with, the presence of 100-odd world leaders at the two-week meeting that starts in Copenhagen on December 7th to renew the Kyoto protocol on climate change might seem a little self-indulgent. There will be oceans of planet-saving rhetoric, countless photographs of politicians wearing dark suits and serious faces and, if things go according to plan, an agreement to cut emissions to avert a rise in temperature that might anyway have turned out to be marginal and self-correcting…
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“A long game” China sees opportunities as well as dangers in Climate Change. Special Report on Climate Change and the Carbon Economy (The Economist, 3rd Dec 2009)
UNLIKE America’s leaders, China’s bosses are not much troubled by recalcitrant legislatures. The government has therefore had no difficulty in executing a smart volte face on climate change. Around three years ago its fierce resistance to the notion of any limit on its greenhouse-gas emissions started to soften. It now seems to be making serious efforts to control them.
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November 2009

"Finding opportunity in the downturn" (Mckinsey Quarterly Report)"
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October 2009

"Your Innovations aren't inmortal (Harvard Business Review Blogs Scott Anthony)"
Take a deep breath, and repeat after me: "My business model has a finite life. I'm going to make that life as happy and productive as possible, but I also have to think about what's next. Realizing that tomorrow's business will be fundamentally different from today's business isn't easy. But it is a crucial starting point for companies seeking to create competitive advantage through innovation.
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"CSR Corporate Social Responsibility. CSR and the economic crisis. European policy" (European Commission-Enterprise and Industry)
CSR is more relevant than ever in the context economic crisis. It can help to build (and rebuild) trust in business, which is vital for the health of Europe's social market economy. It can also point the way to new forms of value of creation based on addressing societal challenges, which may represent a way out of the crisis.
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September 2009

"Harald Sundberg starts a Swedish trading house in Switzerland" (Dagens Industri 02-09-2009)
Harald Sundberg starts Adesso International in Switzerland. Adesso International focuses on international
growth for Nordic innovative companies. The goal is to help companies in various industries to sell
their products and to expand outside their local market.
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"Adesso International, a Swedish trading house in south Europe" (Webfinance News 02-09-2009)
The company Adesso International is a new phenomenon that will get Swedish companies to increase
exports and penetrate new markets.
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"Därför är svenskar dåliga på att sälja miljöteknik"
A problem for Swedish companies. 80 percent of the Swedish environmental technology companies are SMEs. For them, it is difficult to reach beyond the borders and make big business alone. There is a need for collaboration.
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"Medical technology is an industry for the future in Sweden"
According to the report that has been produced by consultancy organization McKinsey & Co at the request of KTH and in association with the medical university Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital. Chalmers University of Technology and the Sahlgrenska Academy have also contributed to the report.
http://www.news-medical.net/news/33656.aspx

"More and more small businesses are seeking new business opportunities outside of Sweden?"
Many smaller companies may feel that there is an advantage to not only exist in a market. Rather that you feel a greater need to broaden itself - the risk is increasing and becoming more vulnerable to only exist in Sweden.
In one year, the share of small firms dealing in a foreign country or have foreign production increased by 6 percentage points. Most internationalized are companies with 10-49 employees, where 61 percent do business with the world today. Many of the smaller firms find it difficult compared to larger companies that have better resources.
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