April 1998 Edition
AMERICAS
Ottawa plans to develop its own free trade agreement in Latin America, whether the U.S. is on board or not. Canada has stated that it would like to see the U.S. at the forefront of an Americas agreement but the U.S. administration has been unable to move ahead with the planned FTAA by 2005 because Congress has refused to give the President special, fast-track negotiating authority. Canada already has an agreement with Chile.
FOR-HIRE TRUCKING
Canada-based long distance for-hire carriers, with annual revenues of $1 million or more, transported 109.5 million tonnes of freight in the first half of 1997. While domestic activities accounted for 74% of the total tonnage and 79% of the total shipments, transborder movements generated 42% of the revenues earned and 46% of the tonne-kilometres performed by these carriers.
CARGO
Projections for passenger and cargo growth in, out of and within the Asia-Pacific region have been scaled back. IATA estimates that the annual average growth in passengers to 2001 will be 4.4%, not 7.7% as previously expected; for cargo the figure is 6.5%, against 9%. That means 30 million fewer passengers in 2001 than the 207 million expected.
PROMOTIONS
A University of Illinois study of 86 grocery stores in Chicago suggests that numerical pitches can get customers buying. "Three bags of chips for $3.00" and "limit of 12 cans of soup per person" significantly raised the amount purchased by consumers. Items such as candy, soup and soda were offered in slightly discounted multiple units and resulted in increased sales of 40 cent.
INFORMATION
A survey by a firm of consultants looked into where companies pick up management trends. The most popular sources of information are business periodicals, followed by books and conversations with colleagues. In terms of reliability, co-workers are the most authoritative, followed by conferences and consultants. The most unreliable sources of management tools were found to be newspapers, which only 5.5 per cent of North American executive respondents found extremely valuable and 13.3 per cent found unreliable and misleading.
ABUSE
Drug and alcohol abuse costs Canadian industry billions of dollars a year according to the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse. Abusers are likely to be in low-status jobs, and to be young and male. They also hold positions with easy access to drugs such as medicine and nursing, jobs in high-stress environments or where the use of drugs and alcohol is part of the culture. It is estimated that the annual cost of alcohol abuse alone is $7.5 billion with $4.1 billion in lost productivity.
CALLS
When the economy is booming, people talk longer on the telephone. On average, business phone calls in 1996 lasted 3.17 minutes, an increase from 3.02 minutes in 1995 and 2.96 minutes in 1994. More than two-thirds of business calls lasted less than five minutes. 40 per cent were shorter than a minute, which was attributed to a lot of voice-mail-message phone tag going on.
FRAUD
Fraudulent use of Visa cards in Canada jumped by 31 per cent in 1997 over the previous year, more than double the rate of increase in fraud among Visa's worldwide members. Financial institutions issuing Visa cards in Canada wrote off about $65 million last year because of fraud. Visa has about 70 per cent of the credit card market in Canada. Experts suggest that it because Canadian criminals are especially adept at reproducing the magnetic stripes that contain card data and grafting them on to fake cards. Some countries, such as Britain, have accelerated the move to cards that store data on a computer chip to reduce fraud.
INNOVATION
According to Entrepreneur magazine, companies are using an array of techniques to get their message across. A U.S furniture company puts a lottery ticket in its mailings, which are stamped "lottery ticket enclosed." The catch is the person has to listen to a follow-up telephone sales pitch before they are told the winning number. More than two-thirds of people listen to the message. And a home-furnishings retailer sends prospective customers a Polaroid of an item they are considering. Since starting the practice, closing rates have increased by 25 per cent.
THE BORDER
Americans made more cross-border car excursions into Canada in January 1998 than they have in almost 17 years. Meanwhile, the number of same-day car trips by Canadians to the United States was at its lowest level in 10 years. The Canadian dollar dropped below US$0.70 in January. Americans made 2.3 million same-day car trips to Canada in January - the highest level since May 1981. The 5.8% jump in January was the seventh consecutive monthly increase and the strongest gain since May 1994 when the casino in Windsor, Ontario opened. More than a year after the casino in Niagara Falls opened, in December 1996, Americans continued to make an increasing number of car excursions (+22%) into Canada via the Rainbow and Whirlpool Bridges.
SMART
For decades, U.S. corn farmers have practiced a simple technique to control rootworms; They rotate their field between soybeans and corn every year. The larvae love corn but don't like beans. Amazingly enough, the beetles have figured this out in several states and are laying their eggs in the soybean fields, so the next season when the corn is planted the larvae are ready and waiting. This is a major behavioral shift and could threaten a crop which is a U.S. agricultural cornerstone.
LOANS
The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) made 6,403 new loans totalling $1.4 billion to small business in 1997, a 25 per cent increase from a year earlier. Ontario companies were the biggest beneficiaries as the value of their outstanding loans rose by 18 per cent. They were followed by Atlantic Canada (16 per cent) and Quebec (14 per cent). B. C. and the Yukon were 3 per cent.
MORE FRAUD
Three international swindlers used an empty British bank in Torquay, Devon, to run a fraud that netted them $12 million. Calling themselves Bank Europe and offering to lend overseas investors billions of pounds in secured loans, they actually had assets of only $350 in a New York bank.
DATA
Tidal waves of data, according to the U.S. National Science Foundation are known as "Knowledge Storms." IBM Corp estimates that only 7 per cent of the information expensively collected in corporate data bases is ever used; the rest just sits there.
TYPICAL
A typical small business, according to a Dun & Bradstreet survey in the U.S. has three employees, generates $150,000 to $200,000 in revenue, operates 1.3 locations and is privately owned. The owner tends to be a white male (53.5 per cent) who works 50.4 hours a week.
AGRICULTURE
The European Union has announced proposals to limit aid to farmers and create freer markets in sectors where efficient Canadian farmers can eventually hope to compete with European producers on equal terms, including grains and feedgrains. The Common Agricultural Policy and regional aid account for four-fifths of an annual European Union budget of $130 billion.
WORKPLACE
American Demographics magazine reports that the No 1 complaint employees have about work is boredom, cited by 29 per cent of respondents. Next was having a bad boss (28 per cent), then machines that regularly break down (22 per cent), unfriendly co-workers (12 per cent) and poor climate control systems (10 per cent).
EMPLOYMENT
More than 222,000 men reported themselves as truck drivers in the 1996 Canadian Census, the largest single job among men. In 1991, truck drivers ranked third on the list of top 10 jobs. Retail salespersons, the most frequent occupation for men in 1991, dropped to second place. Janitors, who were in fifth place in 1991, rose to third in 1996. Five of the 10 most frequent occupations for men in 1996 were jobs in the broad category of trades, transportation and equipment operators: truck drivers, motor vehicle mechanics, material handlers, carpenters and construction trade helpers. The 10 most frequent jobs for men accounted for 20% of all jobs held by men in 1996.
TRANSPORT
The vast majority of Canadians settled in behind the wheel to get to work in 1996. About 8.9 million people, or 73% of the working population, drove to work in their automobile, whether it was a car, truck or van. Another 7%, or almost 900,000 people, traveled as a passenger with someone else doing the driving. Just 10% of the working population, or about 1.2 million people, reported that they used some form of public transit in 1996 to get to work. A further 7% walked to work, while 1% used a bicycle.
LANGUAGE
Linguists predict that half of the approximately 6,000 languages spoken today will be extinct within the next century and at least 100 are down to one native speaker. Deep in Alaska, there are only three households where Kuskokwim is still spoken and just two people in their 70s keep the Klamath language alive in Oregon. In northern Australia, about 10 native speakers know Jingulu. Most often, languages die because of the influence of more common languages, such as English, a process aided by modern communications technology and easy transportation.
ISO
A report in Quality Systems Update states that in 1997, North American companies continued to seek registration to the ISO 9000 series of quality systems standards. 22,000 firms were registered by the end of the year, almost 50 per cent more than in 1996. In the U.S., 16,776 companies had received certificates. The total in Canada was 5,222 and 596 in Mexico.
BARTER
The age-old practice of paying for goods and services with other goods and services rather than cash, is becoming increasingly common. In North America, the International Reciprocal Trade Association and the National Association of Trade Exchanges, suggest that the industry is now worth about $8 billion. Over the past decade, the bartering business has grown about 15 per cent annually. Today, there are some 20 barter exchanges in Canada negotiating trades. Exchanges charge a one-time initiation fee and a commission on the value of each transaction.
WIRELESS
Visitors to the Nagano Olympics were surprised to see hordes of Japanese children with their own wafer-thin mobile phones. And reporters at the recent economic summit in Switzerland were impressed at the number of Europeans with telephones. For all the talk of creating the information society, this is one area the U.S. has lagged the rest of the world. But things are changing. From 13 million five years ago, the number of wireless phones in the U.S. has jumped to 54 million today.
BAIL
An Oregon woman arrested 12 times last year on forgery and theft charges was released last month after posting bond with $2,000 worth of bogus money orders. The County no longer takes money orders for bail.
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