Happy 2023 from the Global Small Business Blog!

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"Wishing you a new year filled with joy, possibilities, good health, prosperity and a global mindset!" – Laurel J. Delaney

Franchise Brands Wrap Up 2022 More Global Than Ever

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International businesses have learned to adapt and continue to expand into new countries despite nearly 3 years of a business world forever changed by Covid.

This month our international deals roundup reports on expansion from Costa Rica to Eastern Europe, the U.S., Uruguay, Dubai, Canada, Mexico, and more. 

From Arby's to Domino's to Wendy's, find out who's doing what, where.

Map Your Supply Chains!

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Products can contain numerous parts sourced from across the world and are subject to complex supply chains.  This recognition cannot cause the United States to compromise its fundamental commitment to upholding human rights and U.S. law.

“Serious violations such as forced labor could result in termination of the contract with the supplier if mitigation measures fail,” the company said. “That is why we review and actively use our existing processes and seek new solutions to prevent forced labor in our supply chain," says Volkswagen AG.

Learn more here.

Women Business Owners Have Drastically Changed the World of Business

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Women entrepreneurs have numerous opportunities to kickstart their businesses in different regions all across the globe–one of them being in Canada.

The North American country is ripe with advantages for aspiring businesswomen, such as its stable economy, low corporate taxes, equality and multiculturalism, and its access to the United States and Latin American countries.

And if you are a female entrepreneur in Canada, here are some ways to grow your business.  If you are a female entrepreneur in USA, here are some ways to grow your business outside of USA.

Post Christmas: The Sales Will Follow

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With the current economic climate and biting inflation, shoppers worldwide desperately seek the slashed prices and mass discounts offered in the infamous after-holiday and January sales.

Given the exponential growth of internet traffic within the e-commerce space, retailers should expect sales to skyrocket during the busy sales season.

Sounds like a good time to prioritize customer experience capabilities.

Today in Global Small Business: Turning Uncertainty Into Opportunity in 2023

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Is your organization ready to turn uncertainty into opportunity? Here's how you prepare.
• Are we in a prolonged sideways trend?
• Quote of the week:  "Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, 'It will be happier.'" – Alfred Lord Tennyson
• The big opportunity behind global small businesses.
• The World Bank tells it like it is – 2022 in review.
• The White House looks back on 2022.

Honor Christmas In Your Heart

©2022 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." – Charles Dickens

An Electronic Bill of Lading (eBL) Would Save $6.5 Billion in Direct Costs and Enable $40 billion in Global Trade

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Trade finance can be a huge booster to global trade—to make it accessible by ensuring that importers receive their goods and exporters receive their payments. But the core ecosystem—exporters, importers and banks—is complicated with multiple parties involved in a single transaction.

But according to a CEO of a global trade finance network, there are three factors at play that he thinks will reshape the future of trade finance. 

1.  There are still huge opportunities to digitize trade finance.
2.  Integration between financial institutions and fintechs will be key to future growth.

For example, one area is digitizing documentation and the bill of lading (BL). According to McKinsey, an electronic bill of lading (eBL) would save $6.5 billion in direct costs and enable $40 billion in global trade.

3.  The next wave of innovation in trade finance is in digital assets.

Read more here.

'Tis the Season To Global Travel

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AAA estimates 112.7 million Americans will journey 50 miles or more away from home from December 23 to January 2. That’s an increase of 3.6 million people over last year and closing in on pre-pandemic numbers. 2022 is expected to be the third busiest year for holiday travel since AAA began tracking in 2000.

For purposes of a forecast, the year-end holiday travel period is defined as the 11-day period from Friday, December 23 to Monday, January 2. This period is the same length as the 2021/2022 year-end travel period.

Safe travels.

Global Rock Star Dolly Parton

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Look out world!  Now that Dolly Parton has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, she wants to prove she is worthy of the award.  Somehow thinks she isn't.  Well in 2023, proof will be in her output.

Parton's upcoming album, Rock Star, will include covers of famous tracks from the genre's most beloved acts, including Lynyrd Skynyrd, Prince, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.

Go get'm Dolly!  Can't wait.

The One and Only Johnny Mathis For the World to Enjoy – Merry Christmas (Music Video)

Today in Global Small Business: Why Study Global Business?

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Why study global business?  Five benefits to consider.
• Why developing a global strategy is important.
• Quote of the week:  "We must ensure that the global market is embedded in broadly shared values and practices that reflect global social needs, and that all the world's people share the benefits of globalization." – Kofi Annan
• An excerpt from Euromonitor’s Q4 economic forecast 2022.
• How Alibaba, Amazon, and Mercado Libre compare in the global marketplace.
• While a significant downturn is forecast for 2023, the labor market remains strong and consumer spend elevated — suggesting that any recession hitting the U.S. will be mild.

Enjoy Every Idle Hour

©2022 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"Winter, a lingering season, is a time to gather golden moments, embark upon a sentimental journey, and enjoy every idle hour.” – John Boswell

McDonald's Global Menu Restaurant in Chicago

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A former New Yorker's take on the McDonald's Global Menu Restaurant in Chicago, covering where it is located (e.g., positioned right near its Hamburger University), when it was opened, what it offers, and what her favorite selections are.

Calling All Female Founders Based in Africa

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Are you a female founder or co-founder of a business based in Africa? Do you want your business to reach the next stage? Do you aspire to grow your business reach? Do you aspire to achieve substantial growth? 

If so, the Female Founder Program is the right place for you! You've got until today, December 15th to apply.  Go for it!

The program aims to help you to develop your entrepreneurial mindset, acquire adequate skills, understand the market, grow your reach, and pitch your business to investors.

In addition, the program is designed to holistically support African female founders in their entrepreneurial journey, using the lean and agile methodology as a driver, focusing on running experiments to facilitate growth, and allowing a safe space to fail and to learn along 3 months.

Birdwatch Becomes Community Notes and Goes Global

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Twitter's Community Notes, which was previously known as Birdwatch, is the social media giant’s crowdsourced fact-checking system and now visible around the world. 

The feature allows users to add context to tweets and takes an open source approach toward debunking misinformation. Moderators who are part of the program can add notes to tweets to add context and users can then vote if they determine the context to be helpful. Prior to this global expansion, Community Notes were only visible to users in the U.S. Twitter plans to add moderators from other regions soon.

If Elon Musk is correct, he says it "is a gamechanger for improving accuracy on Twitter."  We'll see.

Do the Benefits of Globalization Outweigh the Geopolitical Problems It Has Helped Create?

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Economic Counselor and the Director of Research of the IMF Pierre Olivier Gourinchas’ warning from the IMF’s World Economic Outlook in October 2022 underlined the significant slowdown in the global economy – and the reliance on global trade to function.

It raised questions about whether the many benefits of globalization outweigh the geopolitical problems it has helped create.

Read on to learn more.

Today in Global Small Business: The Big Opportunity Behind Global Small Businesses

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• The big opportunity behind global small businesses.
• Reducing our waste’s impact on the planet requires new technology and materials — and, more importantly, a complete rethink of how we incentivize the production and use of resources.  It requires we upend how global business works.
• Quote of the week:  "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
• YES, YOU CAN!  Go global according to Canadian trade experts.
• Chinese startups have challenges going global.
• Big cities drive half of global economic growth.

A Gift of Love

©2022 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"Some Christmas tree ornaments do more than glitter and glow, they represent a gift of love given a long time ago." – Tom Baker

Putting You in the Mood for the Holidays (Music video)

Global Small Businesses Are Essential to American Supply Chains

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Global small businesses are essential to American supply chains, but they lag in productivity and technology adoption. If government and industry can help these smaller supply chain firms upgrade their technology, it would make supply chains significantly more resilient by enabling data-sharing and collaboration. 

Read more about how global small businesses play a big role in supply-chain resilience.

Slowing Global Demand and a Strong Dollar Pushed U.S.A. Goods Exports to a Seven-Month Low

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Slowing global demand and a strong dollar pushed goods exports to a seven-month low, suggesting that trade could be a drag on economic growth this quarter (fourth quarter 2022) if the trend persists.

The recent report from the Commerce Department, which followed on the heels of recent upbeat news on the economy ranging from consumer spending, the labor market to the services industry, did not change perceptions that the economy had got off to a solid start in the fourth quarter.

Read more about how the U.S. trade deficit has widened.

What's Holding Businesses Back on Sustainability? (wegginar® 12/7/22)

©2022 Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global®.  All rights reserved.

Devry Boughner Vorwerk is a well-known global C-suite food executive and corporate officer, having served as Chief Communications Officer and Global Head of Corporate Affairs at Cargill and as Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Grubhub. 

More importantly, she is also a sustainability global entrepreneur, founding DevryBV Sustainable Strategies, her own strategy and advisory company; serving on the Advisory Board of Culinary Sciences, Inc.; and co-founding PermanentFarming, a company focused on closing the energy gaps in the animal protein supply chain.

She has also served in roles at the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Office of the US Trade Representative, the World Bank Group and as a member of APCO Worldwide’s International Advisory Council.

Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global will be hosting Devry in their upcoming wegginar, "Enhance Revenue By Growing a Sustainable Global Business," on Wednesday, December 7th at 11AM Central Time.

Devry will help you adopt sustainable business practices and understand the "why" behind it.

To learn more and to register, visit here. 

Today in Global Small Business: Scaling Up For Global

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Scaling up for global.
• When and how to scale up your startup internationally.
• Quote of the week:  "Scaling is multidimensional.  Different methods address different things." –  Fred Ehrsam
• Scale and innovation keeps Amazon Web Services humming.
• How to scale sustainably into a global brand.
• Choose the right partner when going global and getting ready to scale.

Sun Shines In the Hearts of the People

©2022 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"We may have bad weather in Ireland, but the sun shines in the hearts of the people and that keeps us all warm." – Marianne Williamson

Photo taken in Ireland  – November, 2022.

Embrace the New Way to Work Globally

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Technology has enabled collaboration across borders and time zones, and workers and companies alike are embracing remote work like never before. 

In fact, according to Gartner, by the end of 2022, 31% of all workers worldwide will be fully remote or hybrid. The U.S. is leading the way, with remote employees accounting for 53% of the U.S. workforce.

Read on to learn more about the new set of challenges for leaders.

Rolling Stone's List of the 100 Greatest TV Theme Songs of All Time

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The Rolling Stone (RS) says theme songs are a crucial part of the TV-watching experience. The best ones put you in the right mindset to watch each episode of your favorite, and can be just as entertaining in their own right as any great joke, monologue, or action sequence. 

That said, RS decided to pick the 100 best theme songs of all time — technically 101, since there are two as inextricably linked as peanut butter and jelly — and attempted to rank them in order of greatness.

Discover some all-time greats – from Seventies sitcoms with expository jams to modern prestige classics with experimental scores, from 'Sanford and Son' to 'Succession,' from 'Match Game' to 'Game of Thrones.' 

Letting the world know what moves and grooves Americans when it comes to TV-watching.