Today we have tamed the most devious scourges that humanity has ever faced; what threatens us now is what should be the easy stuff — controlling our diet, exercising, drinking in moderation, taking our medicines. Changing such behaviors represents the single biggest opportunity to improve health outcomes while bringing costs under control.
The mild pick-up in growth is continuing in many EM countries, and in the months ahead there should be the occasional positive surprise when it comes to the growth figures. Inflation is still falling almost everywhere, and this trend should continue.
Global economic uncertainty has caused consumers to think twice before they make a purchase. At the same time, customers expect more for their money. If the customer expectations are not met, they talk real time on social networks damaging the brand.
In this opening section of the 2nd edition of the European pay survey, we have again made a comparison between the employer costs and the net income in the various countries, based on the same gross pay. We have discussed the figures concerned in brief below and made a comparison based on 3 different components, i.e. net income, employer costs and the net/costs ratio.
The 'Antal Global Snapshot' is a regular survey of hiring (and firing) trends in some of the world's most important employment markets and in those likely to join this group over the coming decade. Overall hiring is down since our last survey in December, but the good news however, is that it is only down by 1%. And it seems that this level of activity will remain more or less constant over the coming quarter.
In the rush to deliver a programme on time, ‘change management’ can become an afterthought, consisting of a hastily conceived communications plan that fails to excite employees. This problem is all too familiar to many organisations, yet seems to get repeated in each new programme. How can senior management stop this negative cycle of events?
The total office supply in Bucharest slightly surpassed 1.84 million sq m at the end of 2011. The list of most important office buildings delivered in 2011 includes Platinum Business & Convention Center (41,000 sq m), Crystal Tower (16,200 sq m) and Novo Park – building G (13,000 sq m).
How are governments planning for and adopting cloud? What are the challenges of cloud-enablement? More importantly, what are governments doing to ensure they get the most from their cloud investments? These are just some of the questions that KPMG International hopes to answer with this report.
Our forecast identifies three main trends. First, there is an overall resilience among rapid-growth markets (RGMs) that is underpinned by robust consumption. Second is a growing divergence among RGMs, as they are shaped by different economic and political forces. And third, there is an expanding middle class in RGMs that, in the medium term, will provide a source of global growth and trade flows.
At a time when many countries are still deeply affected by the financial crisis and are trying to recover from it, big tax reforms and discussions on the ideal tax mix may not seem a top priority on governments’ agendas. However, this cannot be said for indirect taxes. As we have reported in the past few years, in 2012, taxes on consumption continue to be a focus for many governments.
Over the past several years, we have seen the topic of supplier risk management (SRM) move rapidly up the agenda for many organizations. In part, this has been driven by increased publicity over security breaches by suppliers. Greater regulatory attention to the matter has also been an important related driver.
The case for eHealth has never been more compelling yet its performance globallyhas never been more mixed. Our research, which covers many executives workingacross many different countries, points to successful examples of both theconceptualization and execution of value adding eHealth initiatives.
With uncertainty lingering above global prospects, Romanian companies face the same challenges of maximizing profits amid intensifying competition in their core markets. They are not immune to economic realities and need to focus on cost reduction, operational efficiency and re-allocation of capital, so as to consolidate their core competencies and, if the case, exit the inefficient non-core ones.
Amid the recent global economic uncertainty, the telecommunications sector has performed relatively well. However, in a sector where new over-the-top entrants are competing fiercely for revenues from emerging service areas, the question is: Is now the time to shift from a defensive to offensive posture? For many telecoms executives, the answer today is a resounding “Yes.”