News

Tata Steel, the multinational steel manufacturing company has announced that P Senthil Kumar has been appointed the new Chief of HR and will be based at the Tata Steel headquarters in India.

As talent management becomes a major conversation point within the executive agenda, is now the right time for HR Directors to be in a position to influence board decisions?

The social networking site has unveiled new changes to its service, enabling users to share and stream what music they listen to or TV they watch at the f8 conference in San Francisco. The announcement sees Facebook join forces with media companies such as Hulu and Spotify, adding a fully integrated experience to social networking.

Entertainment group Game has formed a strategic partnership with OnLive the on-demand and ‘cloud’ gaming specialist to provide the latter’s service to UK consumers.

Rakuten Inc. and Play.com have announced that they have entered into a agreement under which Rakuten will acquire UK e-commerce site Play.com for approximately £25 million. The agreement has been approved by the board of directors of Rakuten.

Fashion retailer New Look is set to launch the most extensive click-and-collect service in fashion retail. In an initiative that is expected to transform the way customers shop with the retailer, the click-and-collect will debut in early October in New Look’s 600 stores.

Tesco has spread its mobile phone business further across Europe by launching in Hungary. The move comes via a 50-50 joint venture with Vodafone – its first tie-up with the telecoms giant. In the UK, Tesco’s mobile phone service is provided by O2. Having entered Hungary in 1995, Tesco now has more than 200 stores across the country.

Despite there being no hydrogen-powered cars being available for purchase in the UK, Honda has opened up Britain's first public hydrogen fuel station, in Swindon.

The Scottish Government plans to deliver a Plan B-style spending boost on construction to prevent the economy tumbling into recession. Scottish ministers are scheduled to unveiled their £9bn construction stimulus budget on Wednesday, releasing £750m of new money for building and infrastructure projects.

Plans for a £200m International Trade Centre in Birkenhead have been approved by councillors and is to be the first phase of Peel’s proposed £4.5bn Wirral Waters scheme.

Luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover has confirmed plans for a major new engine plant in the West Midlands. The development, which is expected to take up to two years to build, will be on the i54 business park in Wolverhampton, one of the Government’s new enterprise zones.

The latest figures from construction information specialist Glenigan show sharp rise in utility projects which has helped overall construction project starts rise 6% year-on-year. The figures for the three months to August show surge in renewable energy projects and confirm that the amp5 water investment round is starting to prove fruitful.

Architect Aukett Fitzroy Robinson has reported an upturn in enquiries for new projects both in the UK and Russia in a positive trading update to the City today. The quoted practice said it has enjoyed an increase in enquiries on projects worth £891m due to start construction in 2013 and beyond.

Crossrail has started the search for a contractor to carry out M&E and power line work in the main tunnel sections. The system wide track-work and tunneling M&E fit-out works were due to be let separately, but Crossrail has combined the work into a single contract in the hope of finding savings.

Spanish clothing giant and owner of the Zara label, Inditex has recorded a 14% jump in profits in its half year results as it benefited from expanding into overseas markets and growth in online sales.

It is understood that from next week Tesco is to plan on focussing on permanently low prices and may even shift away from promotions. A tie-up with its Christmas campaign and Clubcard are also thought likely.

JD Sports has reported pre-tax profit up 20.6% to £20.1m in the 26 weeks to July 30 despite being hit by the August riots when £700,000 worth of goods was looted from 16 stores.

British Retail Consortium (BRC) figures reveal that retailers provided more than 40% of all new jobs in the UK among 16 to 21 year-olds over the last 12 months.

Brewing giant SABMiller Plc has confirmed plans to buy Foster's Group for an increased price of A$5.10 a share valuing the Australian beermaker at A$9.9 billion ($10.2 billion) and putting SABMiller at the head of Australia's beer market.

The latest phone sales statistics from IDC (and published by Engadget) show that smart phones are now out-stripping feature phones.

Social networking website Facebook will delay its initial public offering (IPO) until the end of 2012 in order to focus on developing products. Facebook, which is expected to have one of the biggest IPOs in history, plans to go public at the end of 2012, a later public debut than it originally planned.

Makers of BlackBerry, RIM (Research In Motion) plan use a decade-old technology near-field communications (NFC) in a way to turn their smartphones in to wallets.

Swiss bank UBS said a trader had lost it around $2 billion (£1.27 billion) in unauthorised deals. London police have arrested 31-year old Director of Exchange Traded Funds Kweku Adoboli in connection with the case.

Following last week’s strong results, Morrisons has increased its market share over the past three months.

Direct Seafoods (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bidvest Group) has launched a new campaign aimed at increasing consumption of under-utilised species of fish from local fishermen.

Tesco has come under fire by the Advertising Standards Authority for misleading shoppers about the conditions in which pigs used for its Butcher's Choice sausages are reared.

Sheffield’s adoption of solar power has put them top of a table of the most renewable energy production per head since introduction of feed-in tariffs last year.

The world's second-largest computer maker, is "cautiously optimistic that its strong performance in Europe and Asia will continue but remains concerned about U.S. government spending, an executive said.

Negotiations continue in the US between Google Inc and Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. Google raised its bid by 33% to $12.5 billion (£7.9 billion) following two weeks of negotiations between the two companies.

Prosecutors in the US have launched a criminal probe into whether eBay Inc employees took confidential information from classified ad website Craigslist as eBay sought to build a rival service.

Housing giant Barratt Developments has returned to profit following a successful year of decreasing build costs and increasing selling prices. The pre-tax profit was unveiled by the company of £42.7m for the year to June 30 2011 compared to a £33m loss last time as turnover stayed flat at £2bn.

Galliford Try has stated that they have seen the first signs of a private sector recovery in construction work, which helped to offset sharp falls in the public sector.

Francoise Clemes has become the new Chief of HR at Everything Everywhere, the new venture between telecoms giants Orange and T-mobile. Francoise previously worked as Head of Human Resources for France Telecom, the parent group of Orange.

Facebook's revenue rose to $1.6 billion (1 billion pounds) in 2011's first half, a source with knowledge of its financials has confirmed to Reuters. Net income in the first half of 2011 came to almost $500 million, according to the source, who wished to remain anonymous because privately-held Facebook does not disclose its results.

Iceland has announced what it describes as an industry-beating pay award of nearly £15 million to its 22,000 front-line store and home delivery staff, with many employees will receive a basic pay increase of 5%.

Last month’s riots in English cities had little impact on retail sales, which edged down 0.6% like-for-like during August. Total sales advanced 1.5% over the month, the BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor showed, although non-food categories continued to suffer during continued tough trading conditions.

The Office of Fair Trading has referred the planned merger of construction materials giants Tarmac and Lafarge to the Competition Commission. The plan to merge the companies were announced in February this year and the OFT has been examining the deal and taken evidence from 300 customers and competitors, reaching the conclusion that competition concerns arising justifies a reference to the Competition Commission.

The British Chancellor, George Osborne, confirmed the government’s commitment to revamp the planning system to ‘boost’ house building, despite fierce objections from countryside campaigners. This follows a report released today claiming 200,000 new construction jobs could be created by returning house building to pre-war levels.

Berkeley, the London and South East house builder confirmed today that it will double profits by 2013 – two years ahead of schedule. Since setting out its five year growth plan in May last year, trading has been ahead of management expectations.

Waitrose has become the first UK supermarket to stock wine from India. The upmarket grocer is stocking a peppery red, Zampa Syrah, and a crisp white, Ritu Viognier, made from grapes grown in the Maharashtra region of western India.

Tesco supermarket revealed today that it plans to sell its entire business in Japan, eight years after launching in the country after admitting that it “cannot build a sufficiently scalable business”.

St. Modwen and Persimmon Homes have submitted a planning application to Bromsgrove District Council for the first phase of residential development at the former Longbridge site.

Contractors Keepmoat and Wates have become part of a £500m framework to upgrade the housing stock under the Community Energy Saving Programme.

The London Mayor has given his support to the ambitious project and decided not to call in the project meaning building can begin.

Board Succession Plan is an important component of any business’ strategic process, providing a comprehensive and strategic approach to allow for a smooth transition of board level management.

Jonathan Wright steps into the role of Global Talent Director at Unilever this month. Previously he was in charge of the Executive Resourcing & Development at BHP Billiton and Head of Talent at BP.

Ricoh, the Japanese electronics company has launched Europe's first large scale advertising board that is 100% powered by renewable energy. As more consumers look to purchase from companies that are eco-friendly it looks like Ricoh have found the perfect solution by mixing advertising with renewable energy.

BP who reported quarterly profits of £3.2bn in July has said the company could struggle to fill the available skilled roles that have become available through the investment of £3bn in redeveloping two oil fields in the North Sea.

Did you know that only 16% of Directors reported that their board is effective at succession planning? Succession planning is a vital element in every successful HR strategy. Statistics have shown that even successful companies with a focused structure need to ensure the presence of a succession planning programme in the event of unexpected senior level departures.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that discussions have taken place between Apple board members regarding a CEO succession plan following Steve Jobs' departure on medical leave this year.

International Business Machines (IBM) reported second quarter net income up 8% on the same quarter last year, due to the strong performance of its systems and software, raising its prediction for full-year earnings for the second quarter running.

A classically trained chef also runs her own cake-making business has reportedly been lined up to take over from Jamie Oliver in a deal worth £1 million pounds a year.

Further to the announcement by the European Banking Authority (EBA) on Friday that 8 banks within the euro zone had failed the European Union’s stress test (total capital shortfall of €2.5 billion), banks with substantial peripheral euro zone bond holdings, and those that only scraped through the European Union's stress test of 90 lenders, started to feel pressure from investors to ‘beef up’ their capital buffers.

Britain's FTSE 100 index traded lower on this morning, echoing overnight falls in Asia after Moody’s decision to review the United States' Aaa rating. Following the closure of Wall Street on Wednesday, Moody’s disclosed that it might cut the U.S. rating if lawmakers failed to agree to raise the country's debt ceiling.

After over a decade of partnership between the supermarket and celebrity Chef, it was announced that this year’s Christmas advertising campaign would be the last. The decision to discontinue the relationship, which is thought to have netted the chef over £10m, is understood to have been a mutual one.

Following a ruling by Europe's highest court today, internet auction marketplace eBay may be liable for trademark infringements committed by users on its site if it plays an active role in their use. The auction site may also have to actively monitor its customers to ensure their offers for sale are lawful, the court ruled.

Nestlé is to acquire a 60% stake in Chinese confectionery company Hsu Fu Chi International for $1.7bn in a move deeper into the fast-growing markets of China. This will be Nestle's biggest deal in China so far and will take it closer to its target of 45% of sales from emerging markets in about 10 years. Hsu Fu Chi, which makes sugar sweets, cereal-based snacks, cakes and the traditional Chinese snack sachima, is listed in Singapore and employs 16,000 people.

With yesterdays widely reported closure of News of The World (NoTW), the question arises of who will benefit not only from their readership numbers but the vast advertising spend. Between January to May 2011, NoTW’s largest advertiser is was Sky (£2.1m) – which is no surprise as they are part of News International Group.

News International chairman James Murdoch has announced that the last ever edition of the News of the World will be released on Sunday 7th July 2011. The closure of the News of the World comes after claims were made that the newspaper authorised hacking of mobile phones.

Network Rail is set to lose a key figure in July 2011. Royal Mail have announced that they will be bringing in a new Chief Information Officer from Network Rail after the departure of Yvonne Ferguson and Robin Dargue, both who left the company in the past 18 months.

Dr Gary Mortimer is a lecturer with Queensland University of Technology with a background in marketing practice and retail operations. He was previously employed in management and operational roles with several fast moving consumer good retailers.

Sainsbury’s has appointed David Furness as the new managing director to cover the north of England. Mr Furness previously worked as the Operations Director for DIY chain Wickes and comes into his new role with 27 years experience in retail.

Frozen food retailer Iceland, looks set to be locked into a bidding war with both Asda and Morrisons preparing to bid upto £1.5 billion pounds.

Enfinity, a leading renewable energy company based in Belgium have just completed work on a two-mile-long rail tunnel by installing 16,000 solar panels.

Mars Chocolate UK has announced the appointment of their new sales director for grocery, former impulse sales director for Kraft, Jamie Dunning.

During the past decade, the Retail industry has seen some of the most powerful - positive and negative - upheavals in Retailing history. One of the largest revolutions that must be considered is the arrival of accessible internet for the public. This coupled with the constantly updating mobile phone technology has put the ‘spending power’ very much back in the hands of the consumer.