Most Beautiful Great City Left in the World

©2014 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"Eventually, I think Chicago will be the most beautiful great city left in the world." - Frank Lloyd Wright

Opinions Matter in the Global Marketplace

iStock/Thinkstock

Companies who ignore customer feedback risk their very survival.  As the late Theodore Levitt once said, "One of the surest signs of a bad or declining relationship is the absence of complaints from a customer.  Nobody is ever that satisfied, especially not over an extended period of time.  The customer is either not being candid or not being contacted.  Probably both."  (Source:  Theodore Levitt, "After the Sale is Over ...," Harvard Business Review, September 1983, http://hbr.org/1983/09/after-the-sale-is-over).

Enter Irish company Instant Opinion with its QnA product that offers a private and secure way to capture event interaction in real-time.  And, they've allegedly gone global with contracts secured, for example, with the Canadian government and the NUI Maynooth Innovation Value Institute (IVI) Spring Summit in New York.

What's QnA do?

It's a tool that enables you to capture both positive and negative customer feedback and deal with any issues before they get shared with the world.  Further:

Because the system is real-time, the service provider can respond and react to this feedback immediately, resolving the issue for the customer and ensuring that the customer leaves happy.

Oh how Professor Levitt would love this.

Read more:  Irish Company Instant Opinion's real-time engagement product goes global

Visit:  Instant Opinion

Go With Your Product or Service Wherever You Have To in the World

How high-end, and handmade in USA, shoemaker Allen Edmonds exports all over the world through the FedEx network.  The company was established in 1922.

How to Take a Small Business and Turn It Into a Global Powerhouse Worth Millions

iStock/Thinkstock

We all have dreams but how do you turn a dream into a reality? Take Huddle CEO Alastair Mitchell, who runs a company that went from being a British sensation to a global corporation over the past seven years.

Huddle is a business-grade tool for project management and document collaboration that started out small and now serves the likes of Kia Motors, Procter & Gamble, and arms of the U.S. and U.K. governments.

Back in 2007, Huddle was a bedroom startup with a team of two. (Note:  This is Mitchell's third Internet startup.)  How did it grow to more than 150 employees operating in four different cities and worth millions?

Read the entire article:  Going Global:  How Huddle Handled The Challenge

Gear Up Retailers! Ecommerce Will Become the Platform of Choice in 2014

Ingram Publishing/Thinkstock

In the article below for Pitney Bowes eCommerce Solutions, I write about how commerce is the ticket to a more prosperous future.  Here’s why.

Read the entire article:  Retailers, Gear Up for Explosive Growth in Ecommerce in 2014

Selling Goods Overseas Is Easier But Still Challenging For Small Businesses

iStock/Thinkstock

While selling goods overseas is easier due to the Internet and the vast amount of information available on the subject (including this blog), it's still hard for small businesses to get paid on exports.  This is the #1 challenge for small businesses.  (Here is an article worth reading and re-reading:  An Insider's Guide to Making Payments and Getting Paid on Overseas Transactions).

Read the entire article:  Small Business:  The Cost of Expanding Overseas (WSJ.com)

Note:  Laurel is mentioned in the WSJ article along with new her new book!

The Dignity of Movement of an Iceberg

©2014 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows.  The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water." - Ernest Hemingway

Is China the New Idol for Emerging Economies?

International economist and author of NY Times bestsellers "Winner Take All," "Dead Aid" and "How the West Was Lost," named by @Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world -- Dr. Dambisa Moyo gives powerful talk for TED that:

makes the case that the west can't afford to rest on its laurels and imagine others will blindly follow. Instead, a different model, embodied by China, is increasingly appealing. A call for open-minded political and economic cooperation in the name of transforming the world. 

4 Strategies For a City to Implement On An Export Plan

iStock/Thinkstock

If you live in San Diego, California and desire to export, you're in the right place because San Diego embraces going global.

San Diego is one region to embrace this "metropolitan first" ethos. This week, EDC – along with numerous regional partners – released the “Global San Diego Export Plan” which focuses on growing our metropolitan economy and creating jobs through exports. The release of the export plan is part of San Diego’s continued participation in the Global Cities Initiative, a joint project of the Brookings Institute and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The four strategies San Diego's core team are streamlining to implement its export plan:

•  Leveraging the diversity of regional markets

•  Developing and increasing small- and-medium-sized enterprises’ capacity to export

•  Concentrating on San Diego’s unique infrastructure assets

•  Leveraging the trade potential of the CaliBaja Bi-National Mega Region

Read more ... Global San Diego:  Engaging World Markets

Take a STEP Up to International Trade

DAJ/Thinkstock

As Small Business Trends reports:

The STEP (State Trade and Export Promotion Program) offered by the Small Business Administration aims to offer small businesses in the U.S. a way to reach a global market. And right now, supporters of the program are in position in Washington, D.C., to get the program renewed.

According to the Office of International Trade Resources, here's what the STEP grants will do for a small business owner, provided they utilize the offerings:

• support for small business participation in foreign trade missions and foreign market sales trips;
• subscription to services by the Department of Commerce;
• website translation fees;
• design of international marketing media;
• trade show exhibitions;
• participation in training workshops; and
• other export initiatives determined to be appropriate by the SBA.

Learn more: Supporters Urge Renewal of State Trade and Export Promotion Program

This is definitely a step in the right direction towards helping small businesses expand internationally!

Tiffany & Co. Needs a Global Hand

iStock/Thinkstock

Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide becomes a marketing communications partner to Tiffany & Co. to complement Tiffany's internal marketing capabilities.

Ogilvy & Mather plans to provide brand positioning and advertising support for Tiffany & Co. globally with creative and strategic hubs in New York and Paris. The scope of the assignment will cover print, digital, video and out-of-home.

Bring on the global marketing experience in luxury!

Read:  Tiffany & Co. Selects Ogilvy & Mather for Global Marketing

Someone Who Has the Global Economy in Their Hands

Dorling Kindersley/Thinkstock

Two Australian small business owners have a chance in a lifetime to meet US Federal Reserve Chairman Dr. Janet Yellen.

Treasurer Joe Hockey says:

"(It was) drawing the link between the most powerful central banker in the world - someone who has the global economy in their hands - and someone on the ground making furniture or running a little tourism business."

Learn more: Two small business owners meet Yellen

Note:  We will be guessing forever on who the two small business owners are!