Tag: US

Over the last few decades, there has been significant progress in the development of international food safety standards. Many companies refer to the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) guidelines in ensuring food safety and quality at the manufacturing plant level. However, many retailers and buyers in the food industry supply chain have slightly differing requirements, depending on their particular circumstances. For example, US retailers must comply with onerous and very specific food safety requirements laid down by the FDA, and they pass these on to their overseas suppliers, making supplying the US market sometimes costly for suppliers.

The impact of ISO 22000

Given worries about food safety and the emerging standards, ISO, the international body responsible for standardization, decided to produce a food safety standard covering the entire food supply chain. The ISO 22000 was launched in 2005 in order to meet this requirement. ISO 22000 has become one of the most recognized global food safety standards. It lists over 60 codes of practice and guideline documents associated with the food sector.
An informal survey on the impact of ISO 22000 on various sectors was conducted in 2008.

Category Number of certificates
Catering 164
Food processor 149
Dairy processor 116
Beverage manufacturer/winery 90
Meat/poultry processor72
Ingredients 66
Packaging 54
Confectionery 51
Fruit and vegetable processor46
Distributors and Handlers45
Feed manufacturer 32
Seafood/fish processor25
Bakery 25

As the table above shows, ISO 22000 has yet to be adopted widely in the retail sector, but a significant number of catering establishments from small restaurants to large hotels, and school cafeterias have found the standard to be a useful tool.

We all know that porn industry has grown rapidly throughout the years through many honest porn site reviews. With the passage of time the viewership for porn has increased considerably. The porn industry is not a new one; it has been in the market for years and owns a huge chunk of the market share.

In the year 2003, there were 1.3 million pornographic websites and about 260 million web pages. The total revenue from the porn industry in the same year was $57.0 billion worldwide. Out of this $12.0 billion was only of the US market. This was more than that of the combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises or the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC. This proves that the porn industry definitely one of the leading money spinners in the world. The counts of adult DVD rentals were around $1 billion in 2005. These stats are only of the US. This shows that United States is a major market for porn. At the same time hotel viewership for adult movies was around 55 percent.

This revenue doubled by 2006, the total revenue in this year was around $97 billion worldwide. Again US accounted for around $13.3 million of the revenue. Unique worldwide users visiting adult web sites monthly had also gone up to 72 million. 25% of total search engine requests are porn-related and 12% of total websites are pornographic. It has been found that 8% of total emails are porn-related. Apart from these, websites like epornreview provides reviews of adult websites started to emerge to give it users access to the best porn sites and helped them to view what they wanted to view. This further enhanced the users to help get access to the best porn sites available. Why the stats have always grown is because it has kept up with the latest trends and had served its users to what they had wanted to see unlike any other sector of the entertainment industry.

As it has been one of the major money spinners in the worldwide economy it has greatly contributed to the growing economy of the world. It has been expanding even further with the passing of time. Though many countries around the world are trying to do away with pornographic industry it is not easy to just abolish it because of its major market share. The porn industry is one of the top 5 industries in the world.

BPO industry has taken the world by storm since it has been recognized as the fastest growing industry worldwide. Considering the global scenario, the crown of the largest BPO player is being held by India. China comes second following next to India. The third spot is being held by Philippines. However, Philippines is placed to be the No. 1 offshore outsourcing service provider in the Asia Pacific region.

Many experts feel that Philippines have the potential to emerge as the global leader in the outsourcing field. The country includes a huge pool of skilled and talented workforce to reach to its ultimate aim. The people of this country are even capable of speaking good English and they are also well versed with other western culture. Therefore, Philippines BPO service providers are confident about the fact that they can improve their performance even further.

Currently, the contact centers and call centers forms to be the key part of Philippines outsourcing industry. The country has been able to outperform Malaysia in this particular field to become the third largest service vendor in the world. In the year 2006, the revenues earned by the Philippine outsourcing industry stood at US$2 billion and within 2 years the outsourcing industry of Philippines attained 62 per cent growth.

Many industry analysts have predicted that the offshore outsourcing service industry of Philippines is expected to earn more then US$11 billion in the coming years. If at all this prediction happens to be true then the employment opportunity would grow up even further.

Seeing this ever growing trend of Philippines BPO industry, the current government has also decided to take various steps to make the country more tempting to overseas investors. This would surely help the country to be on the global outsourcing platform.

Philippines have already secured its place in this field and today it is being considered to be one of the well known outsourcing destinations. The country has adopted strict certification procedures for its offshore outsourcing service vendors prompting every Philippines based outsourcing company to go through this procedure before starting its operation.

Philippine is on its way to become one of the global leaders of offshore outsourcing service industry. Some of the services on offer include logistics, accounting, finance payroll processing, tax and financial reporting and others. The nation has vast number of IT and English speaking professionals who are capable enough of displaying amazing talents. Every year thousand of students are graduated from various fields such as accounting, engineering and human resource management.

The customs and traditions of Philippines are admired by several European and North American countries. The people of this country can adapt themselves very easily to the various other cultures. Therefore, it is absolutely no problem for the Filipinos to offer amazing customer care services for its international clients. In terms of knowledge based jobs and employees, this Asian nation has always been considered to be the best in the business.

There is no doubt that Philippine do have the capability to become a global player in the field of business process outsourcing. They have highly skilled workforce, technical expertise and necessary infrastructure. Even the government is keen to make the country a preferred hotspot for outsourcing. Right now, voice based business processes are holding the major position in the BPO industry of Philippines but sooner or later the country will seek to expand its outsourcing portfolio.

Theres just one thing online interior designer entrepreneurs like me love more than cupcakes and thats being at the vanguard of the evolution of an entire industry.

Every industry has had its challenges when it comes to evolving to better serve its customers online. Many industries struggle with piracy, others with delivery and logistics. My industry, residential interior design, has struggled to evolve its cost-to-serve model toward something that is attractive to more than just the wealthiest one percent of Americans.

When I launched online interior design website HMDhome.com six years ago the first sightings of my online interior designer competition could be found buried on page eight of a Google search in the form of a website selling “design in a box”. “Design in a box” consisted of the client completing a rudimentary online form (inclusive of room dimensions and style questions) and paying $800 via PayPal to an interior designer hundreds of miles away whom theyd never get to speak to, let alone develop a relationship with. Six to eight weeks later a large hat box was to be delivered full of a very carefully curated selection fabric samples, paint chips, furniture plan drawing and a shopping list of furniture, lighting and decorative accessories.

Admirable in its presentation quality the design in a box as a product was extremely beautifully prepared however as a business model it was doomed to fail for three reasons. It was an impersonal transaction in an industry that requires consultative collaboration. It was technically an improperly curated catalog because it represented what the designer had to offer, not what the client ultimately purchased for their interior design project. Finally, for the typical homeowner it was expensive. At this price point the interior designer wasnt expanding the overall interior design client base to a broader market and I suspect they failed to convert a meaningful number of home owners to online interior design in the process.

Today, home owners planning a home renovation or remodeling project can get tremendous value from online interior design services at a fraction of the cost of the original design in a box. Virtual services include ongoing consultation with a designer, specifications for colors, furniture, fixtures and finishes and access to exclusive designer discounts from popular retailers and trade sources.

Let me bore you for just a moment with some important statistics about the highly fragmented residential interior design industry relevant to its potential future online evolution.

A May 2011 report by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics indicated there are 40,950 interior designers in the US inclusive of all disciplines (residential, hospitality, corporate, restaurant and specialty). A minority of these professionals are expected to be localized residential interior designers serving fewer than 1% of US households with a traditional cost to serve model made up of hourly design fees and/or extra-retail product mark-ups.

The most significant barrier between interior designers and millions of potential new customers is the structure of the current interior design cost-to-serve model which is prohibitive for all but the wealthiest Americans.

According to a 2010 household income report from the US Census Bureau 8.4% of households earn in excess of $150K per year. While 90.2% of these were owner occupied as of two years ago, its estimated that 7.8 million households representing a potential prime demographic for online interior designers have never before consulted with an interior designer.

With a lean six sigma black belt on staff at
Homemade Design Corporation (HMD) you can bet we collect and analyze key client data related to our online interior design firm. For example, 89.6% of approximately 954 current HMD clients report having never hired a designer before working with Homemade Design. Among the primary reasons given for not previously having hired an interior designer is the perception that hiring an interior designer will increase overall project costs.

Yes, wealthy homeowners in the Hamptons may enjoy bragging about how much theyve spent as they sip champagne at the polo match. However, for the online interior design industry to evolve toward delighting a greater number of interior design clients we must enable them to brag about how much they have saved.

The steel industry has undergone many changes in the recent years, especially in the US. With the competition for business becoming more competitive, steel producers have had to look for ways to reduce costs while increasing their production. The USA has quickly become one of the world leaders in steel production due to all of the efforts of these companies to remain competitive. It is still forecast that the employment opportunities will continue to decrease yet the production rates are forecast above average making the steel industry a profitable business.

The steel industry produces steel by combining scrap metals, iron, and additional products and melts them down to produce other products. The molten steel is poured into molds, or cast into other forms such as rods, sheets, wires, cold rolled steel or whatever the demand may be. It is a complicated process but with this small description you can see the amount of work that goes into each product.

How do scrap steel prices affect me as a consumer?

To know just how much your scrap is worth you can check the steel price index. As demands for scrap (which is the base product of many production companies) increases the prices go up to encourage vendors to get rid of their stock. Even the average Joe has learned to make a profit off of this industry by offering to clean out garages, take in your junk cars on trade and so on.

Five short years ago used car dealers were able to buy up cars, repair them and turn a profit by offering affordable transportation to you, the consumer. Now we see a downslide in the auto industry because it is more profitable for an auto owner to take their car to the scrap yard and make a higher profit therefore making the price of a used car go up because there are fewer affordable vehicles available to the public.

How does Cold Rolled Steel get priced?

When production is high and the demands are low the cold rolled steel prices go down. When just the opposite happens the prices skyrocket and steel producers once again begin to see profits.

The steel industry is always based on supply and demand so being able to produce more products with less production workers is always an important part to keep the business thriving and competitive.

In conclusion, If the demand for scrap metal goes up, the scrap steel prices will continue to rise. During times of war this has been seen in the past and we are continuing to see it today. If you have an old car sitting in the driveway taking up space you may want to go to the local scrap yard and find out just how much its worth, not only will you be ridding yourself of the eyesore in the driveway, you may just be making a little extra money to spend on other items that you were unable to afford.