How to Protect a Company during a Relocation

Company's relocation is sometimes felt as inundating task. However when the goal finally achieved it would give satisfying result. Relocation is caused by several reasons such as: cost cutting, company expansion, warehouse enlargement, etc. but at the end the purpose is to gain more profit.

Here are several factors that needs to be remember during the process of relocation:

-  Provide new address and forwarding address towards any business partners, suppliers or vendors, banking, insurance, governmental affairs, taxation and customers
-  Maintain a consistent phone number that can be reached at business hours as a customer service base
-  If data or inventory are overwhelmingly large, appoint a moving person-in-charge or project manager to be the specific go-to-person when there is questions to be answered. This person must prepare several plan and even several what-if scenarios problem solution during the company's relocation
-  Shred unwanted documents and purge out unneeded supplies, equipments. You can donate some excess inventory as well if company decides to write them off.
-  Provide email address for customers to reach Customer Service Department in any Company's website or social networking sites.
-  Schedule the moving transporter and new place set up in accordance to the moving plan
-  Be aware of potential hazardous or accidental incident that may be happened due to fire, electrical wiring, and so on during the equipment moving

How to Manage

Managing is more than a deep expertise in the specific field but more in the sense of human psychology. Learning to manage is more by doing rather than by reading theoretical books because we are dealing with human beings who have emotion and needs. Managing without the human side of it will feel too cold and abrasive, hurting team members and treating members not more than a widget maker in an assembly line.

How to manage in a simple way:

1.  Understand your team. We must understand the background and the expectation of each individual member within your team you are leading. For example: the family circumstance that may hinder them from working late at night or start too early in the morning, etc.
2.  Get a clear goal on the overall organization and communicate it towards your team
3.  Break the final goal into several stepping stone that is easier to digest and to achieve within a period of time
4.  Understand individual strength and weakness. Acknowledge when specific individual member has particular expertise in a task and assign the right task towards this person
5.  Delegate appropriately and correctly to the right individual who has the tenacity, skills, ambition and knowledge
6.  Reward achievements whether it is overall team success or an individual milestone
7.  Be professional and respect everyone boundary between personal life and working life

How to Interpret Financial Ratio

Interpreting Financial Ratio actually use simple logic just like understanding fractions.
Financial Ratio is usually derived from 2 factors. The first is usually in the top of the fraction called Numerator. The second is usually in the bottom of the fraction called Lower Denominator. A simple way on how to interpret Financial Ratio:


1.  Anytime you see Financial Ratio called "X" O "Y" (meaning "X" over "Y") we will know that X is the numerator and Y is the lower denominator. The lower denominator is the base of the interpretation. Meaning if it is for example Return On Asset (ROA) then we are interpreting ratio of income on the relationship towards the amount of asset. It means we are understanding how big the income generated by the company or the business compared to the size of asset that is invested in the business process or the company. In short, in calculating financial ratio we are deriving the relationship between the numerator and the lower denominator.

2.  Define each of the numerator factor and the lower denominator factor so that you will clearly understand what the factor function and definition.

3.  Understand that the result could be a whole number (with decimal) positive and negative, but it also can be presented in terms of percentage as well.

For example: Let's take Quick Ratio.  Quick Ratio equals to Current Assets divided by Current Liabilities.  Here, the numerator is Current Asset whereas the lower denominator is Current Liability. Quick Ratio shows how fast the short term asset can be to cover or pay back short term liability if needed. In other words this ratio shows the company's liquidity. The bigger the Asset, the more liquid the business can cover its Liability.

How to Help an Unemployed Person

These days when unemployment is so rampant, anybody could be the next one who got the pink slip due to company's cost saving lost to global competition. If we are still holding a job, no matter how much we dislike or like it, we should be very grateful and try our best to keep it.

When we have a neighbor or friend or ex-colleague who got chopped off we could at least do these things:

1.  Sympathize. We should sympathize but not overtly since we must respect other people's feeling or grieving
2.  If this is our close neighbor and the family is very close to us, we can offer to give them some baking or cooking once every so often
3.   Look at our human resource database to check whether there is any appropriate job opening matches his/her qualification, then forward it to him / her
4.  Encourage him / her to keep looking at different job databases and try to get interviews as many as possible
5.  During this upcoming Holiday Season is the perfect time to start hunting for retail job. No matter how small it is, tell him / her that this could be a good starting point
6.  If money is not a problem, encourage him / her to go back to school or try to acquire new skill
7.  If this person is pretty seasoned and has tremendous experiences, encourage him / her to start an entrepreneurial journal. Moreover if this person has other unique skills such as sport coaching, music, craft, flower arrangement, baking, cooking, writing, music, etc. they can start their self-employment journey such as: selling hand made items on etsy.com, opening a children or baby daycare, opening a cupcake bakery, teaching piano or violin, etc.

Uniqlo vs. Gap The Battle of Non-Luxury Fashion Retailing

Retailing battles is getting more and more fierce in US. According to abcnews.com, Uniqlo a Japanese -brand retailer is expanding and building more square-feet stores presence in big metropolitan cities area such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Unlike Gap, the American brand retailer that is currently downsizing its stores presence, Uniqlo is ambitiously keen on capturing the largest audience, the untapped tired-of-branding-consumers.

American retailers have done top notched job in creating standardized visual merchandising and display to grow brand consistency in the past 2 decades. However, the creation of overlapping smaller niche target new things and in around 2006-2007 Forth & Towne was chopped off soon after its launch. Gap was very diligent creating more sub-brands (such as: babyGaps) and more brands online and brick-n-mortar (such as: Banana Republic, Piperlime, Old Navy, Athleta). Still, some could overlap even though there is differences in style and price points within them each.

Unlike Gap, Uniqlo is selling its non-logo non-branded everyday apparel with its mix-n-match flare depending on personality.  Their items are: all kind of shirts and T-shirts, basics such as underwear, socks and even baby onesies, hats, jeans, pants, colorful basic sweaters and sweatshirts. Personally I found it a bit tad boring but with the reachable mass-produced price point it will be an attractive choice. I call it Walmart staples goes department store. We shall roll the dice and I think it will have major traction in bigger metropolitan areas compared to less traffic areas.

Uniqlo has been expanding vastly outside Japan particularly in HongKong and China. Almost in every Jusco Department Stores or medium-to-large Malls I found in HK and China, I will find a Uniqlo store in it. At first, when I saw the checkered shirt with the baseball-inspired cap on the mannequin I thought, okay this more like a cross between American Eagle and Abercrombie & Fitch. Later,  my husband bought a pouch of 3-pairs of socks and he likes them.

Just like watching the battle between Zara vs. Mango, H&M vs Forever 21 and other non-luxury fashion retailing, shows that surviving the retail battle is even more crucial during the upcoming Holiday season starting this Thanksgiving. And the saga continues...

1 USD = 1 RMB ??? Equilibrium possibility

Just another day I was told that my friend has lost her job in East Coast, at the same time I got news that another friend got millions of USD capital for her innovative social media platform induction by venture capitalists in the Golden State (CA). Apparently there is a mixed signals in global economy as investment have shifted and innovation has accelerated.

South-East Asian countries (i.e. Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and so forth) are warning their export based businesses to guard against the declining demand from European and American. Except countries which still relies on exporting raw material abroad, these countries must accelerate their export to other alternatives such as Middle Eastern and Africa. While China and its territories such as Macao and HongKong is handling their own inflation curbing attempt and intentional housing cooling down policy creation.

Several years ago I still remember when I made a purchase 1USD still equals to HKD 7.78 and equals to RMB 8.6 Then Yuan (RMB) kept strengthening to 1 USD = RMB 7.8 that make HK and China stood equally. Then this summer 2011 was an eye opener when I found a Hongkong merchant so happily received Chinese Renminbi as the payment. I was supposed to pay bill in the amount of HKD500 but I was low on HKD cash on my hand at the moment so knowingly I handed him RMB500. Same color, red! Different pictures! He was so happy... he just makes 20% more on his service and merchant because 1 USD now equals to HKD7.7 and equals to RMB 6.3 .... I consider it tips for him...

So the shift is happening but US still holds the most innovation and creating non-tangible service, rights, patents, etc. that can be used and produced worldwide. Considering the current Wall Street protest, protest by the jobless young people in France few months ago, some demonstrations in other parts of the world, I conclude that unemployment and people's well being is the root cause.

It arrives to the coming of equilibrium, European and American countries must lower their wage standard or strong GDP Asian countries must raise their wage standard.

With the wide spread difference of living cost between continents, one must evaluate carefully but it is coming because it is epidemically global. 

For a simple view: 

A regular corporate accountant with 2-5years experience will make annually around:

USD 55,000 in US, or HKD 200,000 in HongKong, or RMB 120,000 in China, or IDR 48,000,000 in Indonesia

Whereas the price of a loaf of bread respectively are:

USD 5.49, HKD12, RMB 10, and IDR 7,000

So in terms of loaf of bread the accountant can afford as follows:

in US 10,018 loaves, in HK 16,667 loaves, in China 12,000 loaves and in Jakarta 6,857 loaves

Certainly the US accountant makes much more in terms of nominal but HK accountant wins in terms of purchasing power and thus, it leads to a lot of companies, even US companies,  moves their manufacturing, their service center, their supporting office (accounting & financial analysis, IT, etc.) to Asian countries where labor costs are low.

Therefore, in order to remain competitive, US will eventually leveling its salary and compensation structure mirroring other countries and when price of all things inflated, the real purchasing power will decrease and help the coming or closing gap of the equilibrium 1 USD = 1 RMB possibility.

Global Citizen Find a Job in Another Country

Global workforce has become more and more competitive. Often salary and cost of living must be considered in confirming a job offer. Living and working Internationally will enhance your life experience as a global citizen. Additional benefits or perks can also sweeten the deal if you and your family are in agreement to experience big change in your working world.

My suggestions on how to start finding a job in another country are:
1. Internal questioning. Start by questioning internal opening within your company. If you are already working in a Multi-National-Company or Global Brands such as: Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, Motorola, Unilever, P&G, Kraft, Pepsico, CocaCola, McDonalds, KFC, etc. , within the company's internal jobs database you will find many global openings worldwide. After you find it, approach the human resources to inquiry about it and how to pursue it

2. Internet research. If you don't work in an MNC company or you totally want to switch field or industry, you must research in the internet heavily every day such as googling jobs database in your targeted country, where your credentials, your language ability and your working visa will be supporting factors. Example:  jobsdb.com, monster.com and more

3.  Language skill. Prepare your language proficiency specifically the one targeted to your country destination. At the very basic, you can apply as a language translator for many international conference or trade fair held in foreign country

4.  Formal documentation and permit. Prepare your working visa requirements, whether or not you need a sponsor in your targeted country

5. Be open mind and ready to get emotional roller-coaster in your job hunting process as well as your adjustment period as an expats. Even if you do not have the language proficiency, the easiest job you can get is as a Native Speaker English Teacher in the targeted country. You just have to dare to take the step, be adventurous and willing to experience new things

6. Adjust family. Ready up your mind and your family members if you have to relocate Internationally by yourself or with your family. Children are particularly needs extensive preparation especially if they are in school-age since you need to do credit transfers and such

7. Be an entrepreneur. Look at the bright side, it could be your chance to start your own business by offering your service in the targeted country. For example: you can be a hiphop teacher, or opening a wine shop for expat communities for the targeted foreign city, opening a club, teaching classes in a fitness club (requires no language proficiency mostly) or opening flower shop and flower demo class

8. Time and Money investment. Last but not least, be ready to invest time and money in the country even before you have the firm job offer since company naturally prefers local candidate rather than having to give you a relocation benefit package.