International Business and Technology Blog

Italy has been on my watch list for many, many years. I never: i) lose a chance to go there for both business (and leisure) and ii) did not understand (nor do most of my Italian friends) how someone like Berlusconi (apart from the fact that his fortune estimated at >$9Bn, owns much of it in Italy’s media and communication assets) became their Prime Minister (3 times since 1994) for >9 years.

European economic ills are back in the financial headlines, as GDP numbers disappoint. I was enjoying not being gloomy, a little bit upbeat, reporting on steady economic upticks. This was supposed to be the turnaround year. How quickly that can change. We now know that the Eurozone economies (18 of them) collectively failed to grow in Q2.2014. You might like to know who and why.

Both the EU and the USA are very online-oriented economies, with 375 million European and 254 million American internet users, and an ecommerce spend of $379Bn and $225.5Bn respectively (2012). If you’re selling your products via distributors and think that you can avoid being involved in the online world then you are mistaken; you’re making your brand less competitive and missing out on business. Moreover, these trends are not going to slow down; expected 2014-2015 ecommerce growth rates are at 18% for the EU and 13% for the USA. Learn why and how you should use online presence and marketing to support your distributors!

Petoskey Plastics has been the innovator in manufacturing high-performance blown plastic film and bags, supplying automotive, recycling, retail, packaging and construction industries. Slip-N-Grip is a US based division dedicated to the automotive aftermarket industry, designing and manufacturing seat covers that have been frequently used by many European OEMs, such as Jaguar, Volvo, Saab, Nissan and Chrysler over the last 15 years.

You might enjoy watching videos online, but have you considered creating one for your own business?

According to Forbes, 59% of senior executives prefer watching a video to reading a text. 65% of these executives then click through to visit the seller’s website, and nearly half report to have contacted the seller after watching the video. Videobrewery has similar findings – about half of people who viewed an online marketing video made a purchase afterwards.

Bad timing. Last year the revelations of US National Security Agency surveillance in Germany and of Germans (including Merkel, various ministers and on down) recalibrated German-US relations. For Germans this was a blast from the East German/Soviet past, which the USA did not understand. This month the head of the US intelligence services in Germany has been asked to leave after yet more revelations, payments for information. German leadership is now reacting and TTIP is in the –ve wash over.

In May 2004, Poland joined the EU along with 9 other eastern European countries. It was the single largest EU enlargement in terms of people and countries. The EU then had 25 members (now 28). Poland now has a GDP of $516 Bn (>20% than in 2008), and income levels have doubled for the 38 million citizens who have enjoyed average annual GDP growth >4%, since 2004. It has been a good recession. All this has ensured that Poland is now firmly one of the “Big EU 6”, in with Germany, UK, France, Italy and Spain.

The aim of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry is to promote (smart, sustainable and inclusive) growth-friendly framework for European enterprises, the Europe 2020 agenda. Of particular interest to us is the platform to: “encourage the growth of SMEs”. The EU SME dedicated portal notes that: 99% of all European businesses are, in fact, SMEs (<250 employees, €50M sales and <€43M balance sheet).

Overall an interestingly +ve picture of the EU economic growth. But as they say the devil is in the detail, so we are here to help you know your EU markets and sectors. The story remains coherent with eastern and northern European economic growth well established and continuing, but the southern countries such as Greece, Italy, France and Spain (to be watched as the next turn-around case study) remain stubbornly at zero or worse.

News review 06.2014: The Junes of 1914 and 2014 saw very differing concerns in Europe. I look at what was about to unfold 100 years ago and compare to the three accession agreements reached with Ukraine, Georgia and Moldavia - grateful that we have moved on. Then I focus on benchmark numbers demonstrating that Europe, the world’s #1 economic union, is back! Albeit with draggy patches, notably France, which is my country of focus this month.