Business How To Article

Business Intelligence on the rise among small businesses

More SMBs (small and medium businesses, or companies with up to 999 employees) in the United States are seriously considering using BI (business intelligence) software tools to help them better understand market drivers for sales and forecasting, and for increasing their profit margins. There are about 6.3 million SMBs in the U.S., with about 98 percent of them being SBs (small businesses, or companies with up to 99 staff).

These findings emerge from a recent survey on US SB & MB IT assessment trends by New York-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc. Companies go through a large volume of consumer data and BI helps make sense to data-mine that information to drive sales and better position marketing and messaging.

About 9 percent of PC-enabled SBs in the U.S. are currently using BI in the form of packaged software compared to 37 percent of MBs. more

Spoiled VAT

For that matter, the biggest users�OK, consumers�of gasoline in this country are the businesses.

If we remove the VAT on fuel, do they really think that those businesses will actually lower the prices, accordingly?

Me, I have my doubts. And history will bear me out. In the past, once the price of something is set, that�s it.

No amount of populist sentiments could bring it down.

* * *

OK, so let us scrap the VAT. As a result, the government�and I mean, not only this cute administration of Gloriaetta, but also even the subsequent administrations�will have a major problem.

The budget deficit will balloon. This will be an unavoidable result.

Somehow the government will try to recover the tax foregone from the scrapping of the VAT. more

IBERIABANK Corporation Announces Pulaski Bank & Trust Company

Daryl G. Byrd, President and Chief Executive Officer of IBERIABANK Corporation and Pulaski Bank and Trust Company stated, "We are excited to continue the expansion of our Arkansas franchise in a very cost effective manner. In a little over a one-year time frame, we have created an exceptional client-focused franchise. Including this acquisition, Pulaski will have approximately $1.6 billion in assets, $1.3 billion in deposits, and $232 million in equity." Byrd continued, "On a combined basis, the purchase price of our three Arkansas acquisitions was approximately $208 million, or 2.26 times book value and a 9.5% deposit premium of the combined franchises."

Prior to this transaction, Pulaski had no banking offices in Northwest Arkansas. However, Pulaski had approximately $75 million in commercial loans and $9 million in deposits to clients in the area and $11 million in residential construction loans to builders. more

Is the Black Market for Recycling Garbage in Peru a Good Thing?

Next she said that the plastic bottles and other items were sometimes sold to businesses that would sometimes refill the bottles and containers with unsanitary water, phony liquids, fake pharmaceutical substances, and other cheap impostors. These fake items are then sold to Peru's poor, or to the general public by stores that choose not to monitor that their suppliers are legitimate.

Sounds bad, right? Well, as I wrote earlier, it's not that simple.

Peru's Recycling Problem and Another Ethical Dilemma

According to one of the more comprehensive and well-written guidebooks about Peru that I own,

nearly 200 million plastic bottles are produced every month in Peru alone, and a good chunk of these are consumed by tourists– who need a few liters of purified water for each day in Peru… There is no plastic recycling in Peru, so everything ends up in landfills or, as is the case with the Urubamba, floating downstream to the Amazon. more

Business how to

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NEW YORK, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Verizon Wireless said on Thursday that some employees had gained unauthorized access and viewed a personal cell phone account held by President-elect Barack Obama that is now inactive. An Obama aide said his voice-mail ...

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Russia is lurching towards a major economic crisis, experts predicted yesterday, following news that the price of oil had slumped to under $50 (£33.72) a barrel. The collapse was likely to have catastrophic consequences including a possible ...

From the Kremlin to Caracas, how oil collapse changes everything - Guardian Unlimited

One reason the United States is in a financial crisis is because people spent too much and saved too little. There’s no time like the present to change that trend, and a group of S.C. financial advisers will do their part Tuesday when the Your ...