June 1997 Edition
NEW BUSINESSES
A Statscan study shows that four out of five new businesses in Canada go out of business before they are 10 years old. Those that do survive stress high-quality products, customer focus and solid business fundamentals. New firms provide both promise and disappointment. Job creation is their hallmark. They bring new goods and services to the market, while stimulating existing firms to do the same. Although mere survival beyond a decade is a mark of success, most firms do not survive that long. An even more marked sign of success is growth. A sufficient number of the successful new firms grew large enough to ultimately provide almost as many jobs as the entire group (both those that survived and those that went out of business) did when they first started.
VEHICLES
Performing at a record-setting pace, 155,888 trucks were sold in the first quarter of 1997 - the highest number ever registered in a quarter. In total, Canadians purchased 339,894 vehicles (seasonally adjusted) in the first quarter. This was almost 5% higher than the previous quarter, and the highest first quarter sales result since 1990. The largest contributors to the first quarter advance were the Big Three automakers with sales gains of just under 9%.
ENTREPRENEURS
A recent study by Ohio State University found that entrepreneurs tend to breed entrepreneurs. According to the survey, sons were nearly three times as likely to become self-employed if their fathers owned a company. Thirty-two per cent of those with entrepreneurial fathers started a business, compared with only 12 per cent of sons whose fathers were employees. Similarly, 24 per cent of daughters with entrepreneurial mothers started a company, while 13 per cent whose mothers were not self-employed did so.
MARKETS
Eighty-seven per cent of Canada's top entrepreneurs identified the Asia-Pacific region as a target for their international business activities this year according to Ernst & Young's annual survey of 323 Canadian business owners. The United States is a close second at 84 per cent followed by Western Europe at 49 per cent.
CABLE TELEVISION
A Price Waterhouse study indicates that Canadian cable TV subscribers pay a lot less than their U.S. counterparts in major cities--and get better service. Subscribers in major U.S. cities pay up to 60 per cent more per month and receive less quality family programming. Canadian cable customers have as much, or more choice that cable customers in New York or Los Angeles in every category examined. Subscribers in each Canadian city have access to at least 100 more hours of lifestyle programming per week, with Vancouver receiving 50 per cent more than each U.S. city.
IMAGE
In Japan, the image of a sparkling glacial lake and snow-covered Rocky Mountain peaks beneath a Canadian flag can sell almost any Canadian products, from building products and vitamins to bottled water and travel packages. Research indicates that the image of Canada to the Japanese is one of clean, pure and trusting and that consumers are more confident when they know it's a Canadian product.
IDEAS
* The Chicago-based Product Development and Management Association polled 400 developers at trade shows and found that it took seven ideas to generate a new commercial U.S. product in 1995, down from 11 ideas in 1990. In 1967, it took 58 ideas for one new item. The ratio is shrinking in part, say researchers, because companies do more work on the "fuzzy front-end" of the process, such as identifying final users.
* The Wall Street Journal reports that U.S food companies are starving for new ideas. Launches of new foods fell 20 per cent last year, their sharpest decline in two decades.
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