The world around us

The Hyderabad International airport will now have retail concessions managed by Shoppers’ Stop and Nuance. The two companies won the retail concession at the GMR operated Hyderabad airport. There will be a 7-year contract for 28,450 sq ft of space and the stores will start its operations in March 2008. Revenues are expected to be around $240 million. According to T. Srinagesh, CEO of GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (GHIAL), of the 6 stores three will be in the domestic terminal and three will be located at the international terminal.

Even though society today is so people focused, most people are still lonely and are wanting to meet the "right" person for them. But who really is the "right" person? It’s a question one can almost spend a lifetime trying to figure out. I think it is really important to be adaptable and adjusting in today’s world, as no one really has the paitence or the time to stay put and to work things out. Everyone is rushing from somewhere and rushing to somewhere and somehow a lifetime can pass in this rushing.

It’s no wonder that dating sites have become so popular, as that is one place where everyone is committed to meeting new people, to developing friendship, and maybe something deeper. Just say Hi is one such dating site that gives people the opportunity to meet and give a chance to creating a deeper friendship. The site is absolutely free, in contrast to most other dating sites, and is committed to building a reliable and qualitative reputation of being the best dating site in the country. They even have a forum where you can chat with others, get some feedback and make some friends. Sign up is easy, barely taking 60 seconds and you’re all set to making new friendships.

Rewe, the third largest food and grocery retailer of Europe is reportedly checking the market in India for scope of its entry. The German based retailer has 11,000 outlets in 14 countries and is said to be worth 42 billion Euro. Rewe has a variety of retail formats, such as supermarket, discount stores and cash-and-carry. Some of the senior executives from the company will be coming to India in April end and are likey to meet some of the important policymakers in the Indian government. Billa, Merkur and Standa are its supermarket stores; Penny Market and XXL its discount format stores and transGourmet and Selgros its wholesale format stores.

Want to learn the secrets of MySpace’s success? Well, get in line, so does everyone else. Salesforce.com has started an endeavor to understand the concepts behind the social networking site’s phenomenal success so that it can apply the same principles to small businesses. It will be launching it’s new portal AppSpace, which is part of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. This new software will provide a company’s internal staff as well as its external partners a secure platform to collaborate on.

The CRM vendor set up AppExchange in January 2006 as a place to showcase its own and third-party applications and is working to commercialize the site fully as a complete online software marketplace by the end of this year.

When traveling on business it is essential to have a reliable car service and once you find a good one, to establish a working relationship with them, so they can take care of your transportation needs each time you travel. I prefer to use the same company as then I don’t need to establish the routine each time, since I usually travel to the same offices each time I travel. ECS is a nationwide car service and in several countries abroad to business travelers who value good service and contintuity. Their chicago car service is for example one of the most popular car services in the city and is fast growing in other cities such as New York.

Well, it was a dissapointing finish for Jeev Milkha Singh at The Masters this weekend. It was his first appearance at the tournament and although he started off relatively well, each day his score fell a little and then a lot after that double bogey yesterday. Interestingly, he was paired with Vijay Singh, who is of Indian descent but a Fiji National. Jeev is from my home town, Chandigarh and I have seen him play a number of times, at national level tournaments as well as regular rounds of golf on his home course.

We live in a global world today, but it seems that a lot of companies are still focused only on their local market. It seems that a lot of people haven’t heard of Thomas Friedman’s amazing book The World is Flat that was published a couple of years back. It no longer matters where you are, just as long as you have the right communication tools and what is required to do the job. I am currently searching for advertising or marketing or branding company to tie up with for my current project. The company needs to be located in the UK or Singapore, but finding this information has been quite a herculean task.

While other such search engines exist that provide company information, a lot of them have only a limited number of profiles to offer as part of their free package. A new company that hopes to change this system is masterseek which has profiles of 45 million companies in 75 countries and provide details for free. Using Masterseek’s services, you can search within a specific country if you’d like or from a range of countries. For a company that is interested in increasing its base to the global level, being listed on such a site would be a great addition.