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Tag: Management

  • Saigon apartment sales dip to lowest in 18 months

    Saigon apartment sales dip to lowest in 18 months

    The third quarter of 2018 saw apartment liquidity in Saigon fall to the lowest level in six consecutive quarters. According to property services provider Savills Vietnam, only 10,000 apartments were traded in Saigon in the third quarter of this year. The apartment sales were down 30 percent from last quarter and down 13 percent year-on-year.

    Grace C apartments took up 54 percent of total sales.

    Savills forecasts that by 2020, more than 124,000 apartments will be offered in the market, with Districts 2 and 9 in the eastern part of the city accounting for 55 percent of total supply.

    Meanwhile, another recent report compiled by property services provider CBRE Vietnam has reported even lower sales than Savills, at only 6,568 apartments sold in Q3. According to CBRE, sales fell 7 percent from the previous quarter, and was down 16 percent over the same period in 2017.

    Large disparities between real estate reports have existed between these two companies and are attributed to differences in statistical methodology.

    Recently, the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association (HoREA) released a report on the housing market saying that as of October 31, 2018, there has been a continuous downwards momentum in apartment supply from the beginning of the year.

    During this period, total housing supply in the Saigon market fell 39.2 percent. The supply of high-end luxury apartments fell 9.6 percent, and that of midrange apartments by 37.5 percent. But the biggest decrease in supply was in the low-priced apartment segment, which was down 68 percent.

    The association warned that the structure of real estate supply showed a serious disequilibrium in the market, with low priced apartments taking up only 19.3 percent of total supply while luxury apartments take up a third.

    This showed a mismatch between demand and supply, posing a risk to sustainable development and social welfare, it said.

  • Roger Dubuis appointed new CEO

    Roger Dubuis appointed new CEO

    Effective December 1, Nicola Andreatta will be the new Chief Executive Officer of Manufacture Roger Dubuis. Nicola comes with 20 years of experience in the management of luxury and watch industries. In 2013, Nicola was appointed Vice President and General Manager of the Swiss entities of Tiffany & Co.

    Prior to that, Nicola founded N.O.A. Watch Company in Ticino, Switzerland, which he developed during more than 10 years. And before founding his own company as an entrepreneur, Nicola held various roles in Asia in the watch and luxury industries, as Managing Director, COO and CFO, with the companies, AC Services Ltd, Harwood Investments Ltd and Art Concord Ltd, where he has started his career in 1998.

  • Nike appointed two new leaders

    Nike appointed two new leaders

    Nike Inc is bolstering its executive management with its two latest hires. The U.S. sports giant has announced earlier in the month that Carl Grebert, currently the Vice-President, General Manager of the Global Jordan Brand, will become the company’s new Vice-President, General Manager of its Asia Pacific and Latin America (APLA) geography, effective December 1.

    In his prior role at Jordan, Grebert worked for 18 months and drove the basketball brand’s global product engines and marketing, merchandising, and oversaw Jordan category management teams for the brand, pushing the business into a position for the next phase of growth.

    Before Jordan, Grebert headed up the Japan geography team as Vice-President, General Manager of Nike Japan.

    He has also held senior roles in marketing and ran territory business units in Europe.

    Grebert replaces Ann Hebert, who will become the new Vice-President, Global Sales, after working as APLA head for two and a half years.

    Hebert will be responsible for driving Nike’s global sales teams and partnering with Nike Direct “to build a seamless Nike network that will continue to elevate service to consumers around the world,” said Nike in a statement.

    She replaces Mike Best, who has decided to retire after a nearly 30-year career stint at Nike.

    Likewise, Hebert has been at Nike for 23 years and served in various leadership roles.

    Prior to her APLA role, the Nike veteran was VP of the Global Nike Direct Partner business and led the North America sales team as the VP, North America Sales.

    Both new management roles will report to Elliott Hill, Nike’s President of Consumer and Marketplace.

     

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  • Link REIT Buys Beijing Mall for RMB 2.56B

    Link REIT Buys Beijing Mall for RMB 2.56B

    Link REIT has reached a conditional agreement to acquire a RMB2.560 billion (US$368.8 million) shopping centre in Beijing. The property, Beijing Jingtong Roosevelt Plaza, is a seven-storey mall housing 268 retail tenants, with 576 car parks on two additional underground levels. Link said in a stock exchange filing that the property is located in Tongzhou, the eastern gateway to China’s capital, a rapidly developing district about 20km from central Beijing. It is in an established residential area with 30 per cent of the district’s population living within a 3km radius.

    The property has good connectivity, located on Beiyuan South Road, the district’s main artery, is a high-quality community mall with an occupancy rate of 96.2 per cent and a dynamic mix of retailers including food and beverage, fashion/accessories, kids/education and lifestyle, health and beauty, along with a cinema.

    Leases for about 20 per cent of the four year old centre’s tenancies (by space) expire in 2020, providing Link with an opportunity to enhance rental reversion and performance of the property by upgrading the trade mix.

    Link expects the net property income of the mall will increase, in turn bosting the capital value of the property, benefiting unitholders.

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  • Qualtrics Expands XM Solutions Capabilities To Help Organisations Close Experience Gaps Faster

    Qualtrics Expands XM Solutions Capabilities To Help Organisations Close Experience Gaps Faster

    Qualtrics, the leader in experience management, announced the expansion of XM Solutions to help customers close experience gaps and harness the power of the world’s leading Experience Management (XM) Platform™. There are now over 45 expert-built solutions spanning automated projects, guided programmes and full-service research, designed by industry and research experts to accelerate customer experience, employee experience, and market research.

    For years, organisations have struggled to quickly set up experience management and market research programmes, while ensuring programmes were best-in-class. With XM Solutions, Qualtrics’ team of PhDs and industry experts have created solutions to help customers quickly and confidently launch their programmes and drive business outcomes. Solutions include both guided programmes – designed to accelerate customer experience and employee experience programmes with pre-configured surveys, expert-validated methods, and dashboards tailored to your business – as well as automated projects for quick-turn research projects that yield near-immediate results.

    “XM Solutions will improve the speed and accuracy with which organisations can launch their experience management programmes,” said Ryan Smith, co-founder and CEO of Qualtrics. “Our team of experts have designed packaged solutions that leverage the learnings from thousands of customer experience, employee engagement and research programmes running on the Qualtrics platform. This will help any organization–large or small–jumpstart its experience management and research programmes, and make it easy to scale those programmes to fit the organisation’s needs.”

    Leveraging XM Solutions, customers can more quickly and confidently conduct comprehensive customer, employee, product and brand research in a fraction of the time. From pricing, to customer NPS, to brand awareness studies, XM solutions delivers fast results with automated setup, streamlined distribution, and smart analysis for research of all sizes.

    “XM Solutions have made it possible to simultaneously enhance our suite of research capabilities and reduce costs,” said Andrew Mun, Consumer Intelligence Manager at Kia Motors America. “These out-of-the-box solutions have changed the way Kia conducts research and improved our speed to insights. In a highly competitive industry, that means the difference between success and failure.”

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  • Cashmaster Launches QR-Connect in APAC – New Integration Software Solution for Cash Management

    Cashmaster Launches QR-Connect in APAC – New Integration Software Solution for Cash Management

    Cashmaster Asia today announced the Introduction of Cashmaster QR-Connect, a QR code application providing enhanced software functionality for its Cashmaster One range of count-by-weight cash counting devices that offers an innovative, simple solution to integrating with back office or POS systems. When installed, count data is presented as a QR code on the display of the Cashmaster One device that can be scanned by a standard POS scanner or the camera of a mobile/tablet device.

    The count data is instantly transferred to the POS or other system. The QR code avoids the need for USB or ethernet cable connectivity between the POS and the Cashmaster Cash counter – effectively providing wireless transfer of the cash count (including vouchers/coupons in addition to notes and coins) as well as other information for process traceability, such as cashier ID and till ID.

    In a connected world, a deeper level of integration and seamless transfer of data to the POS is a growing requirement for Cashmaster’s clients. Its customers are looking to remove multiple levels of manual processing of data across their businesses in order to: reduce opportunities for errors; speed up the processing of data; give more real-time information that businesses can use to make better, faster decisions; and provide greater accuracy and accountability to their enterprises. Integration can be seen also as a key component in a loss prevention strategy.

    No matter the level of operation, these solutions provide data in a format that can be easily digested by cash management and analytics programs for big, medium or small companies. As competition increases, the rewards of deploying Cashmaster One and Cashmaster QRConnect can show directly in bottom line improvements. Gordon McKie, Group CEO of Cashmaster, commented, “Companies are under intense pressure to maximise income and improve efficiencies, while at the same time motivating staff. It’s a complex dynamic that Cashmaster understands; it has also been a powerful imperative for us in designing the intuitive technology for cash management that helps clients achieve those goals.

    “Solutions can be tailored to customers’ specific needs, from simple off-the-shelf tools requiring minimal customer resources to implement, to working with customers’ IT teams in providing more complex solutions. With a proven quick return on the initial investment to boot.”

    Cashmaster is a global company that specialises in the design and manufacture of count-by-weight cash counting devices using the most advanced touch-screen technology. The company has more than 30 years’ experience in creating innovative and reliable cash handling solutions for a wide range of international clients including supermarkets, convenience stores, retail, banking, fast-food restaurants and coffee shops.

    Website: www.cashmaster.com

    All trade enquiries for Cashmaster One:

    Tel (Hong Kong): +852 9334 8578; E-mail: [email protected]

    Tel (UK): +44 (0) 1383 416 098; [email protected]

     

  • Singtel appoints global cyber security chief

    Singtel appoints global cyber security chief

    Singtel has appointed Arthur Wong (pictured) as its new CEO of global cyber security to help fulfil the operator’s ambition of becoming a global leader in the cyber security market.

    Wong joins Singtel from IT services company DXC Technology, where he served as SVP and general manager of the company’s security business.

    DXC was formed from the $25.6 billion merger of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services (HPE) and Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), which closed in April.

    Wong has also previously with companies such as HP, Symantec and McAfee in various executive roles. Wong is also the founder of five startups, including IT security companies Secure Networks and SecurityFocus.

    “We are very pleased to bring Art on board as we step up efforts to drive growth in our cyber security business,” Singtel CEO Bill Chang said.

    “This newly-created position reflects our commitment to scaling the Group’s cyber business and accelerating our journey to becoming a global leader in the cyber security space. Art’s wealth of industry experience will help us optimise our cyber security assets and sharpen our business unit’s focus.”

    Singtel’s cyber security revenues grew 84% S$473 million ($361.5 million) in the year ended in March last year and are expected to reach around S$550 million this financial year.

    The company employs over 2,000 cyber security professionals across nine advanced security operations centers in APAC, Europe and the Americas, as well as through its Trustwave managed security services business, which the company acquired in 2015.

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  • CapitaLand nabs three mall management contracts in China

    CapitaLand nabs three mall management contracts in China

    These expand the group’s mall footprint by another 115,000 sqm. CapitaLand Limited is accelerating its shopping mall network expansion through the recently-won management contracts with three new partnerships in China.

    According to the group, its subsidiary CapitaLand Mall Asia will be adding more than 115,000 square meters of gross floor area with these deals.

    In Chengdu, CapitaLand has been commissioned by Sichuan Da Yi Real Estate Co. Ltd to manage the retail component of Leshijie, an integrated development in the up-and-coming Pidu district.

    In Foshan, CapitaLand will be managing the retail component of Hehua International Commercial Plaza a landmark integrated development near Foshan’s border with Guangzhou, on behalf of Hehua Shengshi (Foshan) Property Development Co. Ltd.

    In Shanghai, CapitaLand will manage the retail component of Capital Square, an integrated development it is jointly developing with Shanghai Shentong Metro Group, which develops, constructs and operates railway and metro lines in the city.

    “Since embarking on our mall network expansion strategy last August, we have secured six management contracts in Singapore and China to date, growing our portfolio by close to 300,000 square metres within a year,” CapitaLand Mall Asia CEO Jason Leow said.

  • Virgin Media picks Netcracker for revenue management

    Virgin Media picks Netcracker for revenue management

    Virgin Media has expanded its relationship with Netcracker by selecting it as the managed services provider of choice for its Revenue Management solution.

    By using Netcracker’s Managed Services, Virgin Media will be able to scale more flexibly while reducing the cost of operations.

    This multiyear managed services engagement with Netcracker will open new opportunities for Virgin Media to deliver customized services for its business customers and improve scalability in terms of meeting increasingly complex customer demands.

    “Our longstanding relationship with Netcracker is built on trust and its proven ability to deliver and support complex business programs, which drove us to select it for this important initiative,” said Duncan Macdonald, executive director of technology and transformation at Virgin Media.

    “Netcracker has demonstrated and validated its managed services capabilities around the world and we are happy to extend our partnership in order to meet our objectives,” said Macdonald.

    Sylvain Seignour, chief customer officer at Netcracker, service providers are constantly evolving to meet new customer needs, which create complexities that can be mitigated through the use of managed services.

  • Manager in China motivates staff by making them tear up their money

    Manager in China motivates staff by making them tear up their money

    A manager at a retail store in eastern China motivates her underperforming sales staff by forcing them to tear up their own 100-yuan bills.

    A video showing five young salespeople tearing up the notes at the command of their boss at a Gome electrical appliance store in Jinan, Shandong province drew condemnation over the weekend.

    The incident took place on the evening of March 22. The five employees were forced to tear up the cash because they did not meet their daily sales quotas of 100 deals.

    The local police department gave the manager a warning and fined her 1,000 yuan (US$688). The manager said that she had meant to teach her employees not to waste company resources.

    In the video, the manager shouts at the employees and insists that they tear up the cash if they want to keep their jobs, although it also shows staff members warning her that destroying money is illegal.

    The police department said that any deliberate destruction of yuan would result in a police warning and a fine of up to 10,000 yuan.

    The video caused widespread outrage among mainland social media users.

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  • Lotte founder’s 50-year reign comes to an end

    Shin Kyuk-ho, founder and general chairman of the Korean retailer Lotte, has been removed from his company by shareholders, solidifying the succession of his second son, Shin Dong-bin, and coming closer to ending a family feud that started in 2015.

    Lotte is the country’s fifth-largest family controlled conglomerate, with 90 affiliates here and abroad.

    The shareholders voted in favor of denying the 95 year-old patriarch the position of board director of Lotte Shopping on Friday, which he has held since the affiliate was founded in 1970.

    The elder Shin’s term was terminated on March 20.

    Kang Hee-tae, CEO of Lotte Department Store, and Yoon Jong-min, Lotte Group’s human resource director, were newly appointed to the directors’ post at Lotte Shopping. Friday’s decision has completed the full control of the younger son, Dong-bin, who took his current role in 2011.

    “Lotte Group was able to grow with Shin Kyuk-ho’s leadership until now, but it is time for a new era under the new leadership of Shin Dong-bin,” said Lotte Group spokesman.

    Despite taking the role of chairman, Dong-bin was not allowed to make independent business decisions without the final call coming from his father, who held the board director position at most of Lotte’s affiliates.

    The father has been losing his board director position starting with Lotte International in 2015, followed by Lotte Confectionery and Hotel Lotte in March 2016.

    Lotte Confectionery is the founding company and the foundation of Lotte Group, while Hotel Lotte is the de facto holding company.

    Shin Kyuk-ho has been losing his title since he sided with his older son, Shin Dong-joo, who was trying to take full ownership of the group, and fired Dong-bin and six other executives at Lotte’s key operation in Japan.

    The founder still has several director positions, but his tenure is coming to an end and is unlikely to be extended. His role at Lotte Engineering & Construction is poised to be terminated on Sunday, followed by Lotte Aluminum and the Lotte Giants in coming month.

    Unlike his father, Dong-bin on Friday was appointed as the new director of Lotte Chilsung Beverage during the shareholders’ meeting, which industry insiders say is a necessary step to realigning the organization under his new leadership.

    Hwang Kak-gyu, who has worked with Shin Dong-bin for 27 years, was newly appointed as the CEO of Lotte Confectionery, a position that he will share with Dong-bin and Kim Yong-soo. The company said the decision was made to strengthen the company’s overseas business.

    Meanwhile, Dong-bin has been increasing his efforts to appease China, which has been bombarding Lotte’s business there as a retaliation against the Korean retail conglomerate’s decision to offer its golf course for the deployment of the U.S. antimissile defense system known as Thaad.

    In an interview he had with the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Dong-bin said, “We definitely want to continue our business in China.”

    He added that he “loves” China and believe there has been a “misunderstanding.

    “If the government asks a private corporation like ours to give up land, then I don’t think we have the luxury of rejecting the government,” Dong-bin was quoted as saying in the Wall Street Journal.

    Lotte Mart, which runs 99 local branches in China, shut down 90 of them in the past couple weeks, partly forced by the Chinese government, which cited safety concerns, and also because of fierce protests in front of its stores.

    Lotte Shopping on Friday announced it will issue new shares worth 230 billion won and borrow 130 billion won in order to maintain its Chinese Lotte Mart branches.

    “Due to the suspension of Lotte Mart operations in China, there is no revenue generated, which we plan to compensate through capital increase,” Lotte Mart explained. “We need to pay local staff and purchase products.”

    Shares of Lotte Shopping jumped 2.61 percent on Friday, closing at 216,500 won.

     

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  • HCM City start-up launches power management software

    HCM City start-up launches power management software

    The Vietnam High Efficiency Software Corporation (VHES) on Thursday launched its Head End System (HES) software to be used to manage the city’s smart electricity grid.

    The software, which uses Vietnamese-made chips, is intermediate software that VHES developed based on the Integrated Circuit Design Research and Education Center’s research project.

    VHES is the first high-tech start-up developed under the HCM City Integrated Circuit Development Programme.

    Speaking at the launch ceremony, Nguyễn Văn Lý, deputy general director of the HCM City Power Corporation, said the corporation would modernise the city’s grid from now to 2020, including building a smart grid, an automated electrically operating system, and an electrical measurement system with remote data collection.

    Trần Vĩnh Tuyến, deputy chairman of the city’s People’s Committee and head of the steering board of the Integrated Circuit Development Programme, said that smart management would create a safe and stable power supply.

  • Swan Mobile picks Subex for fraud management

    Swan Mobile picks Subex for fraud management

    Swan Mobile, a Slovak telecommunications service provider, has selected Subex to provide its ROC Fraud Management Solution.

    As part of the implementation, Subex’s ROC Fraud Management will cover Voice, SMS and mobile data services for pre-paid and post-paid subscribers of Swan Mobile.

    “Being a progressive organization, we understand the significant impact fraud can have on telecom operators, from both a financial and operational perspective,” said Swan Mobile CTO Patrik Kollaroc.

    “This fact, coupled with the rapid growth we have been seeing, led to us to proactively look for an industry leading fraud management solution and we believe Subex’s Fraud Management solution will enable us to safeguard our business from the implications of fraud effectively,” said Kollaroc.

    Vinod Kumar, COO of Subex, said  the deployment of ROC Fraud Management will help Swan Mobile protect their business revenues and safeguard them against the threat of fraud.

    Subex’s ROC Fraud Management solution promises to ensure a rapid return on investment (ROI) by offering the strongest fraud management capabilities, increasing compliance, reducing risk, and providing economies of scope.

    Subex’s detailed business benefit modelling tools allow customers to determine ROI, build reliable business cases, and explicitly see the value that our solution can bring to their business.

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  • Number of women in management positions increases in Asia

    Number of women in management positions increases in Asia

    The 2017 Hays Asia Salary Guide reveals that 31 percent of management roles in Asia are held by women compared to 29 percent reported in last year’s Guide.

    Recruiting experts Hays has found that the number of women in managerial positions has increased in Asia.

    The 2017 Hays Asia Salary Guide reveals that 31 per cent of management roles in Asia are held by women compared to 29 percent reported in last year’s Guide.

    The Hays Asia Salary Guide now in its tenth year, highlights salary and recruiting trends drawn from more than 3,000 employers across Japan, mainland China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore representing six million employees.

    The countries with the highest percentage of women in managerial positions in the region are mainland China and Malaysia, both at 35 per cent. Whilst mainland China has increased this figure by three percent, Malaysia has decreased by two per cent from last year.

    Hong Kong sits in third place with 33 per cent of management positions filled by women. Hong Kong incidentally, reported the largest increase in the region with a rise of five per cent from last year. Singapore follows with 31 per cent with Japan remaining the poorest performer with only 22 per cent of women in managerial positions. This figure has however, increased by three per cent from last year.

    These findings come as Hays launch their 2017 Gender Diversity Survey also in line with International Women’s Day. The annual survey aims to uncover attitudes and perceptions of gender equality in the workplace.

    “As progress continues to be made on gender diversity, the topic is still a critical issue in Asia. The rich insights our research uncovers, enables us to share the findings and advise employers on what measures can be taken to address the gender balance in their recruitment, retention and progression strategies”, says Christine Wright, managing director of Hays in Asia.

    For Christine who was named in the ‘Global Power 100 – Women in Staffing list’ for the second year running in 2016, gender diversity is a topic she lives and breathes. “As the leading recruiting experts, Hays has a duty to be at the forefront of trends and issues regarding the world of work. In Asia, I’m immensely proud that 51 percent of the Hays workforce across the region is female, 44 per cent of females make up our senior leadership teams and 57 percent of people managers are female.”

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  • Ooyala launches applications for collaborative asset management

    Ooyala launches applications for collaborative asset management

    Ooyala has launched new versions of its MAM (media asset management) application and Reviewer application for its media logistics platform, Ooyala Flex.

    The new solutions make it easier for broadcasters, publishers and media companies to manage, review and approve video assets while automating steps in the workflow and capturing the associated data in the management phase of video production.

    Both applications are highly configurable, taking advantage of the workflow capabilities of Ooyala Flex. With a modular approach, the applications can be used separately or together.

    When deployed together, customers benefit from enhanced collaboration and efficiencies not found in traditional offerings on the market, allowing creative teams to focus only on the tasks that add value and creativity to productions.

    The HTML-5 based MAM application can be tailored to match each customer’s unique production workflow. Non-technical users are able to easily upload and organize video and image assets, search for and update metadata, perform rough-cut edits and review assets with internal teammates.

    The Reviewer application for Ooyala Flex lets individuals that are either inside or outside of the organization securely review, approve and submit time-coded comments on selected content from anywhere in the world, anytime－including real-time collaboration and annotation for images.

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