Based on the World Development Report, it is observant that the small firms in developing countries tend to stay small after a period time, usually a decade or two. On the other hand, cooperation and firms in the developed countries such as United States, companies tend to become a lot larger after a period time. Based on research, in America if a firm lasts 35 years, it becomes average 10times more productive and employs 10 times more people. However in countries such as India, if a first last same length of time the production only doubles and employment actually decreases.

Governments of the developing countries have tried many different methods to help improve this situation because only an increase in the number of world-beating companies, such as Google, Tita or Samsung, the country’s economy could be accelerating. However most of method such as cheap loans, grants to pay wages for extra employers, and support female business owners, did not provide a effective solution to the problem at hand, according to The Economist. What doe work though was free management training. Desh had sent 130 of its stuff on a management-training program for 8 month and once they came back, they helped Desh to set up textile exports and modern industry. Today Desh generating $13billion of exports a year. The only obstacles stops this method to put into action is that majority of the head of the small firms do not believe they need management training program for their employees.

Source: The Economist, Oct.6, Looking for a Google

“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows”——Shakespeare

The misery of the Europe auto industry, the falling of the Big three and other carmakers have forced the company to make alliance with their rivals. Daimler is increasingly become third member of the long running partnership between Renault of France and Nissan of Japan. The first cooperation between Daimler and Renault and Nissan start in 2010 and over the two years, the cooperation between the three carmakers becoming increasing intimated. As Mr. Zetche, Daimler’s boss stated, “Over time, we have built up so much trust we are working like hand and gloves.”

The alliances between carmakers are perhaps the most logical way to cut costs. Through cooperation company can combine their production, introducing new range of compact engines, and as well as sharing transmission on models. For example, GM is working with Ford to develop fuel saving gearboxes; Ford is working hybrid vehicles with Toyota; and Toyota cooperates with BMW for diesel engines. Thee all showed the trend of increasing cooperation between carmakers.

However, based on the recent events, partnership between the companies in automobile industry showed more failure than success. In 2005 GM paid Fiat 2billion to break up an unhappy alliances, and Volkswagen has went on a legal case with Suzuki due to their partnership.

Source: The Economist, Business Section, Oct. 6, “All for one, one for all”

CNN news channel is famous for its non-partisan view on world news. It has 45 bureaus around the world-more than its rivals, Fox News and MSNBC combined-and about 4000 employees. Whenever there is a terrorist attack, flood or war, CNN got a lift. However, when the news is about words rather than action CNN struggles. It struggles to attract viewers due to its objectivity. Viewers want news to report in the way that they wanted such as reporting only good news about the party they support, and negatively reporting the rival parties.

This raised a good question on the business ethics of news channels. Does news channel has to be biased over hot debated political issues in order to attract viewers and advertisers? Ideally, news channel should report news to the viewers with unbiased analyze, provide an objective insight into world issues. However it seems that the more biased the view the news channel provides, the more viewers it will attract and more profit margins it will gain. MSNBC has 46% profit margin and Fox has 55%, whereas CNN only has 37% profit margin.

Although CNN is struggling with its unbiased stand, its objectivity also brings benefits for the company. CNN is still heaven for advertises that do not want to associate themselves with a political agenda. It also has most of the young and racially diverse audiences compare to Fox’s, which is 95% white. With the new Boss starting from next year, CNN might commissioning more global reporting than national politics to increase its revenues.

Sources: The Economist September 22nd – 28th, Business Section, “Unbiased and Unloved”