U.S. Makes History and Its Like Music to Our Ears

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Yesterday, January 20, 2021, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris made history:  Biden became the oldest USA president – 46th – in American history, while Harris will be the first Black woman and the first Asian American to hold the office of vice president.

Musicians from all genres greeted the Biden-Harris administration, with performances from Jennifer Lopez, Earth, Wind & Fire, John Legend and more. 

Read more because many of the greatest global musicians are now back in the fold.

Define Your New Overseas Market in Detail

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According to certified trainer in entrepreneurship Yaneek Page, the biggest mistake entrepreneurs tend to make with global expansion is to broadly define their goal as exporting to a new market. You have to be very specific about which market you want to enter and why.  Particularly the 'why'!

Read more tips about expanding to a new market.

Global Small Businesses Must Determine Whether Amazon is a Hero or Villain

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There are plusses and minuses to selling on Amazon.  Here's a minus.

The e-commerce giant may depend on its merchants in the aggregate, but individually they don’t have much power. Sellers say Amazon effectively punishes them if they’re found offering their items for lower prices on rival sites such as Walmart, dropping them lower in search rankings for instance.

Many feel Amazon also pushes them to pay for Fulfillment by Amazon and advertising. Even larger companies such as Tumi, a luxury bag maker, and PopSockets, which produces cellphone grips, have described Amazon as trying to control what they sell as well as how and where they sell it.

That said though, in a recent report (pdf), Amazon indicated over the course of 2019 and 2020 it invested more than $30 billion in logistics, tools, services, and employees to help small and medium-sized businesses. It also provides assistance such as technical support, loans, and credits for its cloud-computing platform, Amazon Web Services.

Read the entire article on big changes are afoot for global small businesses, especially when it comes to Amazon.

Today in Global Small Business: Honoring MLK

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

• Martin Luther King (MLK) – At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize (1964). When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.
• MLK – The facts.
• Quote of the week: “The time is always right to do what is right." – Martin Luther King
• MLK – The speech.
• MLK – The little-known incident in 1956.
• MLK – A quarter million people and a dream.
• MLK – His family, including his strong and courageous mother.

Let Fear Not Rule

©2021 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood." – Marie Curie

Global Power Booster: I'm Still Standing (Video)

Optimizing for Global Business Resiliency

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The past year has been full of change. But threaded underneath the tumult of the pandemic, many are seeing another kind of transformation in how companies must evolve supply chain management.

Read more to discover three (3) pressure points – investor, customer and consumer – for people are who interested in building a resilient global supply chain.

Complications: Trade Deficits, Currency Manipulation and the Strong Dollar

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Trade deficits, currency manipulation and the strong dollar are complicated economic forces that directly affect the future of American manufacturing. 

Here's a look at how they affect manufacturing and why we must do something around these issues, regardless of the politics. 

Startup in Shanghai Poised to Solve Cross-border Payment Problems and Boost International Trade

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XTransfer, based in Shanghai, China, aims to solve cross-border payment problems for over 100,000 of China’s smaller importers and exporters playing important roles in the national economy in spite of challenges posed by the pandemic and trade disputes.

XTransfer was founded in 2017 by several Alibaba employees and works with banks to set up a globally unified B2B (business to business) financial network and intelligent risk management system. 

Learn more here.

Today in Global Small Business: If T-Shirts Cost Another Nickel, So Be It

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

• Listen to Laurel Delaney's Global Trade Trends Report 2021 – recording available now.
• The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) announced that 53 technology startups will join global technology leaders in representing Japan at CES 2021, which will take place virtually from Jan. 11-14, 2021. 
• Quote of the week: “We want strong communities in the United States.  And if that means that T-shirts cost another nickel, then T-shirts will cost another nickel." – US Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer (12/17/20)
• How global small businesses can overcome barriers to manufacturing Industry 4.0 adoption.
• An order issued on 1/9/21 empowers Beijing to tell companies to ignore U.S. restrictions and allows them to sue other businesses if they comply.  Biden has his work count out for him.
• Trump's legacy, the shame.

Do Small Things With Great Love

©2021 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"Do small things with great love." – Anonymous

Unlock Trade Finance

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Now, with survival on the line for many companies due to the global pandemic, the urgency to close the trade finance gap has grown.

While a slew of FinTechs have stepped onto the market in recent years in an effort to facilitate funding, the vast majority of trade finance is provided by a handful the world's largest financial institutions. It's a complex ecosystem, however, in which financial institutions must coordinate with insurers, institutional investors, and each other to not only originate trade finance, but mitigate risk and distribute assets.

Read more on how to optimize data to unlock trade finance.