Globalization Is Working Better

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Globalization has rallied and is even working better but a new report also acknowledges that threats to globalization are real, with today’s “turbulent environment” of geopolitical tensions and other crises not being beneficial to business and policy-making. 

Taking a Family Business to a New Level

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Two siblings took their decades-old family farm business and pulled off a digital transformation.

The story of Perfect Plants Nursery shows how even a decades-old, family-owned business in a historically wholesale niche can pull off a digital transformation and scale quickly. 

Discover how they became a fast-growth e-commerce success story. 

Supply Chain Costs to Normalize in 2023

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Last year, footwear brand Skechers's margins were clipped by high supply chain costs, despite its attempt to raise prices. 

This year Skechers expects supply chain costs to normalize as shipping prices come down, developments that will ease margin pressure and propel the brand to its goal of $10 billion in annual sales by 2026, the company’s CFO John Vandemore said at the UBS Consumer and Retail Conference on Wednesday.

“You saw 40-foot-high cube container rates go from an average of about $3,000 to $25,000. So for an average pair of shoes that took the landed embedded freight cost from something between 25 and 50 cents to $2 and $2.50,” he [Vandemore] said. “Last year quite frankly wasn’t my proudest year from a gross margin perspective, but I do believe you know a lot of those exogenous factors are beginning to abate which should lead to improvement later on.”

Read more here.

Make Your Image Tell the Truth About You Worldwide (TEDxReno)

Today in Global Small Business: Remote Work Is Here to Stay

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Take your global remote workforce from policy to practice.
• What's the magic number for working in-office weekly?
• The global talent pool is open for business.
• Quote of the week: "People are more productive working at home than people would have expected. Some people thought that everything was just going to fall apart, and it hasn’t." – Mark Zuckerberg 
• Oh really.  The king of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, says engineers who joined Meta in-person perform better than those who joined remotely.  Check out his above quote. 
• What are the global workplace trends in 2023?

Keep Breathing

©2023 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"I've got to keep breathing. It'll be my worst business mistake if I don't." – Steve Martin

Happy St. Patrick's Day From Chicago!

True Global Leadership: The Gail Adinamis wegg® Award for Exemplary Global Leadership®

©2023 Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global®.  All rights reserved.

True global leaders are defined not only by their worldly knowledge and connections, nor by the global opportunities they seize, but by how they contribute to the improvement and growth of others.

Find out who the wegg® winner (awardee) is when wegg announces on Wednesday, March 22, 2023 at 10 AM CT.  The celebration – The Gail Adinamis wegg® Award for Exemplary Global Leadership® – is free of charge and we welcome your participation.  Register here.  

Globalization Is a Fact

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"Globalization is a fact, not a policy," says Condoleezza Rice.

With growing concerns that globalization is in retreat amid rising geopolitical tensions, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told an audience of policymakers, business leaders, and academics at the 2023 SIEPR Economic Summit that there’s no turning back on the interdependence of world economies.

Globalization is facing headwinds Rice said. The strongest, she said, are coming from China where government leaders have failed to meet international expectations of liberalizing the country’s economy.

Read on for her remarks.

Go Broad, Go Deep, and Go Global

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As countries around the world move forward with strategies to become “crypto hubs,” over the next eight weeks Coinbase is set to accelerate operationalizing its “Go Broad, Go Deep” international strategy in globally recognized markets across six continents.

We state it as:  Go Broad, Go Deep, and Go Global 

Today in Global Small Business: Keep the Bicycle Moving Because Trade Is Still Contributing to Recovery and Growth

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• No doubt it’s a tough time for global trade, battered by supply chain issues and geopolitical concerns. But there’s a useful metaphor to help navigate our way through these challenges: Keep the bicycle moving.
• Expand into foreign markets and increase e-commerce sales.
• Is English the true language of startups?
• Quote of the week: "You have chosen the wrong path if it's not fun. And you are probably not taking enough risk if it's not hard and rocky sometimes" – Marc Russell Benioff
• The importance of cross-cultural communication in global business.
• Discover why creativity is a big driver to global business success.

Seeing What Is Invisible to Others

©2023 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others." – Jonathan Swift