Home › Archive for Business

Category: Business

By Posted on Posted in 2015, Business, Ethics No Comments

business ethics 960px
In your business life, you will encounter different types of people just exactly as in your everyday life and so many of them will make promises, endless business promises and you will discover that they can barely keep any of these promises starting the next morning.

And some of these people are so unethical in business that they don’t bother themselves calling or emailing saying that they could not keep the promise they made to you and you keep waiting and wondering what you should do next.

Then and suddenly they give you a small light of hope that they did not totally forget about you and you are on their list but they need more time to come back to you and early next week or the week after you will have the answer you are expecting.

As time is passing by, you start asking yourself, should I call , should I email a reminder, do they care for their business, am I valuable for their business? And at one point you get angry and feel the urge of calling this guy and saying whatever you feel about him.

But wait!

Why should you do that? You have other options, if he does not care about his business or clients, why should you? Use your other options, move forward and forgive his inappropriate and indelicate behavior, but don’t forget because one day he might come back asking for your business, then would be the right time to teach him a lesson!

You can also read my previous related post entitled “When In A Moment Of Anger“.

By Posted on Posted in Business, Companies, Workplace No Comments

clever stupid

If you are an employee, it means you have a boss. No matter at which level you are working, it means you have a boss. If you are a newcomer to any business or holding a managerial position, then you have a boss.

And as we would all agree, bosses come in 2 different packages: the clever and the stupid.

If you have a clever boss, then you are in heaven. And most of the times, you would wish you are as clever as your boss is. You admire his personality, his attitude, his character. The way he is managing people around him, taking decisions, playing smart games, giving you the option of having a brain exercise every day, for every case or business situation and the best part is when you learn from him. This learning would be your asset, taking advantage of him or even abusing his cleverness (that is fine for a good cause). Leaving the office every day and taking home with you something new originating from your clever boss and feeling happy because he is challenging you to find solutions, to come up with decisions, the right ones.

This is the ultimate dream of every employee, being respected and appreciated by his boss for the job he is doing, for the effort he is putting in place to make things happen and when you find out that your boss is aligned with you then you will be happy employee.

If you have a stupid boss, then you are in hell. Things will by themselves become hard to achieve. It would be almost impossible to convince such a boss with anything you know or you experienced. And it is quite weird that stupid bosses are most of the time stubborn people (but luckily you might also find a stupid boss who is ready to learn, good luck). These stupid bosses are hard to please, no matter what you do or the result you present, they are always not happy and they want more without taking into consideration the variables involved in the story.

This is the ultimate nightmare of every employee, being stuck with a stupid boss and trying hard everyday to keep his mood the same or doing things he is not convinced in 1st place to do, but just applying the orders he is receiving, without mentioning the tiring mental situation he has to survive with such a boss.

You might be wondering what kind of boss I am dealing with???

Photos Credit: http://www.neatoshop.com/product/Clever-Stupid

By Posted on Posted in Brand Identity, Branding, Brands, Business, Success No Comments

Before Jeffrey Raider and Andy Katz-Mayfield even launched Harry’s, an online service for men’s grooming products, they had their eyes set on a first acquisition. The pair wanted to buy an old German razor factory for $100 million.

That isn’t how most new startups operate, but then again this wasn’t Raider’s first time around. Raider was one of the cofounders behind Warby Parker, the popular e-commerce service for eyeglasses founded in 2010 and currently said to be valued at around $500 million.

In 2011, Raider received a call from Katz-Mayfield, a friend, who complained about his experience buying razors and shaving cream at a store. “Could you do it better?” Katz-Mayfield asked. That conversation sparked the idea for a company that would sell high-quality shaving products for a reasonable price to compete with more established businesses like Gillette and The Art of Shaving and upstarts like Dollar Shave Club. But it turned out to be harder than they thought to find high-quality razors.

Read full story on Mashable

harry's

By Posted on Posted in Business, Dreams, Dubai No Comments

The first in a series of three films exploring trade and business in Dubai today. Business leaders talk about physical infrastructure and its impact on economic geography as well as the intangibles that enable ease of business in the emirate.

The second in a series of three films exploring trade and business in Dubai today. Business leaders talk about Dubai’s position as an international trade hub and a gateway to the wider region and emerging economies such as Africa, Brazil, China and India.

The third in a series of films exploring trade and business in Dubai today. For entrepreneurs, Dubai is a place of fast growth, innovation and a ‘can do’ attitude that can be seen across creative spaces such as Shelter and the Pavilion where opportunities for creativity and collaboration flow.

By Posted on Posted in Business, CEO, Productivity No Comments

Email, we all use it and sometimes we all hate it. Personally, I live my business working days inside my inbox, I gathered all the necessary tools to make my email productivity high and never miss a message and answer within the shortest time frame and always remember to keep it simple and short.

But what really bothers me about email, are the people who receive emails and spend a lifetime to answer, even that you know and you are very sure that they have enough time to answer you, even with few words, just to finish a pending issue that is and was dragging endlessly.

And I do always compare these people not answering to 3 CEOs I know personally who answer their emails faster than that guy who is sitting behind his desk and doing nothing all day long or doing a lot but not in a productive way.

The 1st CEO is running a multinational with more than 10,000 employees.
The 2nd CEO is running a smaller multinational with more than 1,500 employees.
The 3rd CEO is running a startup, going multinational soon with more than 250 employees.

So go imagine how unproductive some people are!

By Posted on Posted in Business, Motivational No Comments

We all have the dream of freedom and its possession and mostly financial freedom. We want to be free in everything we do in our life, in our daily struggle to feel better, have more free time to spend with our families, more money to feel free buying anything we like, freedom to feel safe, freedom to travel to exotic destinations and relax endlessly under the sun while grabbing a cold cocktail full of crushed ice.

Then comes the fear of not being able to do anything related to this personal and financial freedom that we are all seeking. Mainly because of the social pressure surrounding us, because of our daily job and its killing routine, because of the family stability (for the married people) and the bills dropping inside our mailbox at the end of each and every month, because few are those who want to get out of their comfort zone and take risks by leaving their secured jobs and by throwing themselves into new ventures in order to get more freedom.

And after doing so, many will be facing the new reality that being in a new venture on your own also means less freedom at the early stages. You will have to spend more time on your project(s), work on holidays, your close family might end up seeing you even less, your friends will hate you for not spending time with them. You will miss your gym class and eat less or sometimes even eat more junk.

Then whenever someone is ready to take the leap of being on his own, most people fall into the trap of differentiating between being self-employed or owning and running their business and there is a big difference between the 2 things.

Being self-employed does not need you to leave your daily job, if you are a graphic designer you can always manage getting some external projects and deliver them on time, you can also be a consultant and run few market researches during the weekend and write a decent report about the product in questions, or you might be a fashion designer who can draw some nice wedding dresses and email them to the big name designers who hire part timers.

But when you plan to own and run a business based on a dream of yours that needs to be funded, that is something quite more complicated than designing a logo from the comfort of your lazy boy. Consider the anxiety of pitching VCs, the hours you will spend writing and picking the right words for your presentation, the endless questions you will be asked about your idea and always wonder why these strangers should trust you and pour a million bucks into your bank account.

This can and will be the most important sales call of your life, because you need to sell yourself before your idea, then you leave that big conference room expecting an answer and start hitting the “send & receive” button of your outlook zillions of times and grab your smartphone every 2 seconds to check if that lucky email landed in your inbox.

Then the company is formed, the money starts pouring and you start spending it, now you are even more anxious about the results your business will deliver. You try everyday harder to make sure you are on the right track of your business plan, you spend long nights thinking of your next killing strategy just to be ahead of your competition, you keep thinking about people who will copy your idea, you surely want them to fail but they will always be there giving you hard time, but if have the real passion for what your doing, you will surely succeed and enjoy your success.

Definitely, there are many people out there who trust or will trust you, and as Steve Jobs said: “keep looking, don’t settle“, until your dream come true.

And if ever you make it one day to the freedom territory , don’t and never forget how you got there and consider giving back to exactly the same people who are seeking their freedom with the same attitude you had when you were a seeker of freedom yourself.

By Posted on Posted in Business, Financial, Lebanon, News No Comments

TV channels, we have many in Lebanon, but unfortunately, you cannot watch any of them in a continuous mode because of their grids or their “political” views which are divided to the extreme.
Personally I don’t care neither about politics, nor about the colors of the parties these channels are supporting.

Hopefully none of my Lebanese blog readers, will analyze the top tv channels logos and the way they were listed, I have done it randomly.

Unfortunately the grids are mostly focused on 3 major types, political talk shows on the top of the list, then dubbed Turkish/Mexican series and shows with stupid anchors telling stupid jokes and laughing stupidly (ok, i like jokes, but i will not spend 2 hours in front of the tv for this)

What is missing in Lebanon in my opinion is business/financial/marketing/consumerism/brands/technology/you name it/ … focused channels. OK maybe we cannot afford a full channel for these, but what about a weekly 1 or 2 hours show covering such topics?

I must admit that there is one channel doing this, which is MTV Lebanon, but this is happening at the end of their prime time news, monday to friday and only for 5 minutes (more or less), including a few seconds spot for the sponsor. And at some point, you can barely understand what the anchor is saying, because of the speed the words are coming out of their mouth, lack of time and limited air time.

I am also convinced that if any Lebanese channel goes in this direction, this will also bring them lots of money from the brands. I am not a tv experienced person, but surely there are ways to optimize such show(s) and offer a big chunk of business oriented viewers what they deserve.

Some of you might say that we have CNBC-Arabia, but it is a fact that in the media/tv industry, Lebanese prevail by far, with all my respect to everybody and without any discrimination. IMO if any Lebanese tv channel take control of such a show, the difference can be told.

More over, CNBC-Arabia is focused on the Arab world, and you always have the feeling that 80-90% of their news is targeted towards the GCC and the rest is for other Middle Eastern and North African countries.
No matter at what time of the day you switch to CNBC-Arabia, they are talking about GCC.

Until we see a Lebanese dedicated business channel the CNBC/Bloomberg/FoxBusiness style, so dear Lebanese tv channels, start by giving us a weekly interesting show and i assure you that it will be a success and your viewers ratings will be satisfying.

By Posted on Posted in Business, Q&A, Quora No Comments

Is it ethical to share the same idea/concept or business plan with 2 VCs at the same time? And Why not?

Jon Pincus

Yes, in fact this is standard behavior. This is very much in the entrpreneur’s interest: you want to get multiple investors interested to give them incentive to put term sheets on the table — and ideally to compete on valuation or terms. A couple of caveats: you don’t want to shop an idea too broadly; and if you’re going for ‘top-tier’ VCs, it’s potentially counterproductive to be actively engaging with the weaker VCs.

Barry Hurd

Yes, it is ethical to share the same idea/concept with multiple VCs.

As an entrepreneur looking for investment, you are responsible for reaching out to as many relevant and qualified investors to earn that investment.

In many cases VCs will talk shop with other investors and see if they have relationships with other investors in the category. If they don’t have those relationships, the VC will be a hard negotiator as they act under the idea of being the “only player at the table”

You also have to do a little dating. If you are just looking for cash, you are doomed to a bad match. An entrepreneur needs to date multiple VCs and look for budget, good terms, culture, industry experience, and relationship network.

During the due-diligence phase on the entrepreneur side, check out some of the less known companies in the VCs roster. You may get star-struck by some brand name that is at the top of the list, but the unknown start-ups on the VC portfolio are going to tell you what they got, what worked, and what didn’t. This is where you can start disproving the empty promises some VCs are known for.

By Posted on Posted in Business, Companies No Comments

This story happened today in our office in Warsaw and it is about DHL and their documents deliveries, which i thought are more consolidated and combined in order to maximize each car they have on the street.

We have received 1 dox almost an hour ago, then few minutes later another DHL guy appears having another dox for us. For me it looked so weird, having received 2 dox with the same courier company but with 2 different delivery men.

I am not experienced in the express courier industry, but logically for me and from what I read about this industry in books and online, every morning all packages are scanned electronically and should be consolidated in order to cut cost on delivery and operation charges, but seeing this in our office makes me wonder how DHL is operating.

I am sure that DHL is one of the most advanced express courier companies technologically and Germany is not far from Poland (456km of borders), and the Warsaw hub should be a very active one for both countries.

Maybe I missing something in the background, but for me it is just about logic. And in my humble opinion, DHL simply lost some money today by sending 2 cars and 2 employees to the same address.

Tagged with: ,