As reported in a recent report, the Indonesian parliament passed a Shariah or Islamic banking bill into law on June 17, 2008 to provide legal base for operating the Shariah banking industry in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country of the world.
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While Fedora may have once meant a type of hat, Magnolia, a type of flower and Alfresco, simply being outside — today any techie worth his salt will tell you that like WordPress or dotCMS, these are well-known Content Management Systems (CMS).

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Driven by the need to improve its management of constituent relationships, a new report predicts that government spending on customer relationship management (CRM) technology solutions in the US, UK, Germany and France will grow from $2.9 billion in 2008 to $4.4 billion in 2013.

In today’s commercially-oriented world, it has become a trend among public sector agencies to treat constituents as customers who expect top levels of service.The operating environment for public sector agencies is characterized by the need to ‘do more with less’. As governments strive to provide more personalized public services, they are looking to CRM solutions, which can help align service delivery with constituent needs and address numerous pain points. Continue reading “Governments take to CRM solutions to enhance constituent relations” »

According to a new report, consumers are showing signs of fatigue towards celebrity marketing. The cult of celebrity has reached a crossroads – over-exposed celebrities have saturated the market and aging populations mean that the growth audience is shrinking. Marketers must therefore pursue new tactics to avoid the pitfalls associated with celebrity-backed campaigns or celebrity-branded consumer packaged goods. Continue reading “Consumers are tiring of the “cult of celebrity”” »

Islamic banking is witnessing a strong continuous growth at a rate of about 35% across the globe, with assets of financial institutions reaching a phenomenal $600 Billion in 2007, as reported by Arab News. Furthermore, the number of operating Islamic banks reached nearly 470 in 2007, a significant increase from the 276 banks operating in 2005.
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Following Croatia’s announcement that it is looking to sell more of its stake in state oil company INA, MOL and OMV have both shown an interest. However, as the companies attempt to try to assert de facto dominance in south-eastern Europe by buying a controlling stake in the Croatian oil major, MOL’s expansion plans may be hampered by OMV’s ongoing efforts to purchase its Hungarian counterpart.

Continue reading “MOL and OMV Continue to Struggle for Regional Pre-eminence as they Vie for Control of Croatia’s INA” »

FedEx is reported to be interested in acquiring TNT, which seems to suggest that it does not want to rely on organic growth to strengthen its position in the global express market. Although combining two of the world’s leading players would put strong pressure on the other two integrators, UPS and DHL, overall, the competitiveness of the industry looks set to remain intact.

FedEx, which reported negative results in the last quarter of its financial year and subsequently issued a pessimistic outlook, is heavily reliant on the slowing US market. As a result, it now appears to be looking for radical ways to improve its position in the global express sector. Despite the weakened US dollar, the effects of a tougher economic environment and rising fuel costs appear to have sparked FedEx’s renewed interest in the acquisition of Dutch mail and express rival TNT. Continue reading “FedEx interest in TNT renewed despite economic situation” »

OMV, Rompetrol and Petrom are to build 10 new service stations on the Sun Motorway in Romania. Although these additional sites alone will see the total number of motorway sites more than double, the vast motorway construction project that is currently underway could see a further 87 stations added between now and 2016.

The Romanian Ministry of Transport has announced that 10 motorway stations will be built along the Sun Motorway (A2), more than doubling the number of motorway service stations from the current eight. OMV, Rompetrol and Petrom are the companies that have won the concessions, which will run for a maximum of 29 years. Upon signing the contract they were obliged to set up temporary service stations within 60 days, after which they will have four months in which to establish permanent structures. Continue reading “Romania to Build 10 New Motorway Service Stations” »

Gazprom Marketing and Trading has taken a major step towards delivering smart metering by acquiring an equity stake in TruRead. The rationale is to raise Gazprom’s presence in the UK gas market and ultimately expand its UK customer portfolio. At a superficial level, this is a win-win situation for its UK customers; however, there are deeper strategic implications if other firms fail to follow. Continue reading “Gazprom Gets Smart” »

A new report, B2B Online Media Report, finds that the English-language website alibaba.com which specialises in business between international buyers trying to contact Chinese sellers retained its top spot in the top 30 Asian online B2B companies.

Continue reading “Alibaba.com Still Number One Asian B2B Website” »