ICBC exec claimed $188K in 2010 expenses
An executive hired by the Insurance Corporation of B.C. to help cut costs received more than $188,000 for expenses claimed in 2010 — in addition to his $315,000 annual salary, CBC News has learned.
Art Kirkner, a U.S citizen, was hired as one of ICBC’s 15 vice-presidents in 2008, with responsibility for ICBC’s claims centres and other field services.
In the process, Kirkner was involved in laying off several managers in an attempt to cut costs.
In 2010, Kirkner’s salary and expenses $188,681 totalled $504,505, the second highest salary in the public corporation after CEO Jon Schubert, who pulled in $504,771, according to an ICBC financial statement.
ICBC declined interview requests about Kirkner, but a spokesman said much of the 2010 expense claim was for temporary accommodation and for relocation to Vancouver, although Kirkner had joined ICBC two years earlier.
Kirkner left ICBC last summer.
ICBC bosses’ bonuses conditional in 2012
ICBC managers will have to hit clear performance targets to earn their bonuses in the coming year, in a strategy the minister responsible says has been suggested to all B.C. Crown corporations.
In the past, managers at the insurance corporation were rewarded, in part, for individual performance.
The corporation paid out $17 million in management incentives in 2010.
But from now on, those bonuses will be linked to the bottom line, said ICBC spokesman Adam Grossman.
“What we’ve done is introduce a financial trigger to our performance pay plan that will be tied to our net income,” said Grossman.
No managers will get any bonuses if ICBC makes less than $35 million, and they won’t get full bonuses unless the corporation hits its target of a $217-million profit.
The minister responsible, Shirley Bond, said that given the economy and the financial plight of many B.C. residents, the government has advised Crown corporations to find efficiencies.
“What we did was challenge the board chairs to look at circumstances and look at how British Columbians and how the government feel about bonuses and about executive compensation,” said Bond.
Bond said the government has been offering advice to ICBC, but directors reached the decision on their own.
23 Died Building Your iWorld: Time to Boycott Apple?
If you add up all the workers who have died to build your iPhone or iPad, the number is shockingly high.
Apple (AAPL), at $416 billion it’s the world’s most valuable tech company, gets you to feel good about paying $600 for an iPad. And despite being priced more than twice as high as Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle, people bought 15.4 million iPads (14% above analysts’ estimates) in the last quarter.
But those popular devices come at a human price — some of the low-paid workers who built them got their skin burned off or jumped to their deaths. Would you be willing to boycott Apple to stop the carnage?
Thursday morning, the New York Times published the results of a lengthy investigation into the manufacturing practices of Apple suppliers, Chengdu, China-based Foxconn and Wintek. Adding up the carnage from a combination of factory explosions and suicides cited in the article, 23 people died to build your iPhone or iPad and 273 were injured.
Of these, the most horrible reported by the Times was Lai Xiaodong — a college educated manager who was planning to marry. Mr. Lai’s face was burned off along with the skin on 90% of his body thanks to a May 2011 explosion at an iPad factory caused by a well-known problem — an abundance of aluminum dust — where he managed a team of workers polishing iPad screens. Mr. Lai took two days to die of his burns.
But the toll of death and injury from building your iWorld includes more people, such as:
19 who committed suicide at the Foxconn factory by “jumping or falling” off of its factory or dormitory buildings between 2008 and 2010;
Four – including Mr. Lai — who died in two factory explosions at Foxconn and another 77 who were injured in them; and
137 Wintek workers injured due to the use of a fast-evaporating chemical used to polish iPad screens; and
59 injured during a December 2011 Foxconn plant explosion in Shanghai.
Does Apple care about this? It absolutely appears to care about the impact it could have on its image among those self-congratulating customers who think so highly of themselves as they run their fingers over the carefully polished screens of their high-priced handheld devices.
To that end, the Times reports that Apple has conducted supplier audits and published the results on its web site. At the same time, Apple pushes its suppliers to manufacture huge volumes with little notice at very low costs and razor-thin profit margins. And every year it requires those suppliers to reduce their prices by 10%, reports the Times.
Needless to say, this is good for Apple’s bottom line. Earlier this week, it reported 73% growth in revenues to $46.3 billion and profit of $13.1 billion for the quarter — more than double the year before’s. And Apple’s market value is now at $416 billion, making it the world’s most valuable technology company.
Since you’re already paying such a high premium for the privilege of owning an Apple product, would you mind paying even more for Apple to take enough pressure off of its suppliers so they could treat their workers more like people? Or would you be willing to go on a buyer’s strike to get Apple to require its suppliers to give workers a safe place to work and reasonable working conditions?
Link from: here
Looking for a VPS
I looking for a great VPS, there are some option: VPS.net, SuperB.net Linode and knownhost. I get some good review from Google, and it seems Superb.net is the most expensive one and even they charge for setup fee, can not believe that, maybe they just want push people to contract or pay yearly. anyway, it has free first 3 month, that sound good. and I plan to buy one. waiting for my review.
NixDot – $4.49 256MB OpenVZ VPS in Phoenix
256MB guaranteed/512MB burstable memory
30GB storage on RAID10
500GB/month data transfer
2x vCPU cores
2x IPv4 addresses
OpenVZ/SolusVM
and signup link is here, also if you paid by pay yearly it will get discounted to $30/year, it is a good deal.
NetFirms：4.95 for new domain
coupon code：PROMO495
only for new register com net org
This one is not the best deal， however, still good to try
Tolei Valve Official Website is live
Tolei Valve Official Website is live now, what company running by my little sister. if you are looking for some information about valve or want to import, you always can contact them ask for it. and here is the link that about how to touch them, even they has US phone number for their customer. that is a very smart idea I think. anyway, I hope you can find what you need.
Nike SWOT
Nike SWOT ANALYSIS
Strengths:
- Nike is the world’s no. 1 shoemaker. It designs and sells shoes for a variety of sports including baseball, golf, cheerleading, volleyball, tennis and football.
- Nike uses a “Make to Stock” customer order which provides a fast service to customers from available stock.
- Nike operates Nike Town shoe and sportswear stores, Nike factory outlets and Nike Women shops. Nike sells its products throughout US and in more than 180 countries.
- Nike has no factories. It does not tie up cash in buildings and manufacturing workers. This makes a very lean organization.
- Nike is strong at research and development, as is evidenced by its evolving and innovative product range. They then manufacture wherever they can produce high quality product at the lowest possible price.
- Nike is a global brand. It is the number one sports brand in the World. Its famous ‘Swoosh’ is instantly recognizable, and Phil Knight (Founder and CEO) even has it tattooed on his ankle.
Weaknesses:
- The income of the business is still heavily dependent upon its share of the footwear market. This may leave it vulnerable if for any reason its market share erodes.
- The retail sector is very price sensitive. However, most of its income is derived from selling into retailers. Retailers tend to offer a very similar experience to the consumer. So margins tend to get squeezed as retailers try to pass some of the low price competition pressure onto Nike.
Opportunities:
- Product development offers Nike many opportunities. The brand is fiercely defended by its owners whom truly believe that Nike is not a fashion brand however consumers that wear Nike product do not always buy it to participate in sport. In youth culture especially, Nike is a fashion brand. This creates its own opportunities, s
- There is also the opportunity to develop products such as sport wear, sunglasses and jewellery. Such high value items do tend to have associated with them, high profit
- The business could also be developed internationally, building upon its strong global brand recognition. There are also global marketing events that can be utilised to support the brand such as the World Cup (soccer) and The Olympics.
Threats:
- Nike is exposed to the international nature of trade. It buys and sells in different currencies and so costs and margins are not stable over long periods of time. Such an exposure could mean that Nike may be manufacturing and/or selling at a loss. This is an issue that faces all global brands.
- The market for sports shoes and garments is very competitive. Competitors are developing alternative brands to take away Nike’s market share.
- Consumers are constantly shopping around for a better deal that conveys a good quality and if one store charges a higher price for the products, the consumer would try to seek a better deal of the same product in the premises that delivers the same value but cheaper of the two,this type of price sensitivity among the consumers is a potential threat to Nike.
- The textile industry unpleasantly upsets the atmosphere, and therefore the organization is constantly struggling to retain its eco-friendly reputation.
- A recession may lead to job shortages in most of Nike’s worldwide branches.
- The organization has experienced many adverse publicity feedbacks due to its widespread advertising.
I just help my friend to finsh his homework. and thx google
I drink your milkshake – Top 5 tips to steal your competitors’ clients
Daniel Plainview was brilliantly acted character played by Daniel Day Lewis and this scene won him the Oscar. It does say something about competition and going after your competitors’ resources. Your competitor’s most valuable resource is their customers. So how do you “Drink Their Milkshake”?. These strategies are really suited to a David and Goliath approach.
Here are 5 really simple steps (some are quite aggressive) to target and win over your competitors customers in a digital age.
1. LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a powerful tool for understanding competitive information. There are a number of different ways to effectively poach your competitors clients.
a. See what their sales force is doing – Watch what the sales reps from your competitors are doing, and see who they are connecting with. It is likely that those people are either their leads or customers. Target those people and begin discussions of your own.
b. Infiltrate their LinkedIn groups – Most of the people who manage LinkedIn groups quite honestly don’t pay attention to who they let in. Some of the people there are likely either users or power users. You have to be discriminating to who you begin to contact, as usually these groups are teeming with consultants and members of that company. It can be a quick way to generate a really quick list.
2. Twitter – It is very simple to go after your competitor’s customers in Twitter. The rule is simple: if they are following your competitor, it is likely they are customers. So the next step is easy – you follow them 500-1000 at a time. You wait a week and see who follows you back. By virtue of them following you back, they have self-identified that they might be interested in trying a different service. At the very least, you see what topics are resonating and can derive new messaging from that.
3. Facebook – Fans and people who actively post on their wall are obvious targets. Depending on the product or service you can begin to run ads for anyone who “likes” your competitor. This is a hyper targeted approach to catch the eye of these potential clients.
4. Event Sign-ups – Many companies are using 3rd party sign-up tools for their events or webinars. Search and scrape any sign-up sheet to see the names of people signing for your competitors events. You can effectively use their own marketing and lack of security to tell you who you should be targeting.
5. Competitors’ websites – Look at the client roster on the websites. Look for case studies, client names etc. Now I will warn you this is a tougher slog due to the fact that people are the most devoted advocates of their brand. That said, if you can steal a few of them it could be a huge coup. Depending on the website, you might want to use a website downloader. Why a website downloader you ask? It is simple – a lot of companies don’t effectively manage their content and information. There can be a lot of hidden information that those companies don’t want you to see. It could be the result of lazy web development or otherwise. Sometimes people leave some very sensitive information within public view.
These are a few of many powerful tools to help “Drink Your Competitors’ Milkshake”. Conversely, make sure you are careful in how you manage your customer data and don’t make it easy for them to target your customers. I will close by saying that none of these strategies work unless you are willing to invest time and hustle. You can’t win over your competitors’ customers just merely by sipping them up with a straw.
It is hard to get your business works
I should say, build your own business is hard, I know when I want to start my business, but it is even harder than I think. I still do not get any order, and it looks like I will fair. Right now, I have no idea what I should do. however, I do get some email from my competitor, that is funny. I just surprise about the people who always looking for new client, and spend a lots time to “google”. anyway, I will keep doing this, and new update coming soon.