World Brief

Bureaucracies in Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia are rated the best among the countries of Asia and Pacific region, according to Hong Kong-based research institute Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC).

In the survey across 13 countries, PERC had asked the businessmen there to rate their country’s bureaucracies on a scale of 0-10 with 0 representing the best.

Record Earning for Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world’s biggest retailer, has crossed US$ 2 billion in earnings for the first time ever, according to reports.

For the three months ending Jan 31, Wal-Mart earned US$ 2.004 billion, up 4.5 percent from US$ 1. 92 billion a year ago, according to the company.

The company revealed that sales jumped 10 percent to US$ 56.56 billion from US$ 51.39 billion the previous year.

In the words of executives of Wal-Mart, the record earnings was achieved under "challenging environment" even as many merchants struggled with a slowing domestic economy and plummeting consumer confidence.

Rover Posts Huge Loss

Rescued from brink of collapse only last year, British car- maker MG Rover has recorded loss amounting to 300 million pounds (US$ 450 m) in eight months from May to December, 2000, the Observer and Sunday Times reported. MG Rover had been purchased by the Phoenix consortium from Germany’s BMW, which was desperate to get rid of its loss-making subsidiary.

According to the Observer, the losses included 200 million pounds on day-to-day car making, and the rest on restructuring program and takeover from BMW.

MG Rover, which produced 2,05,000 vehicles is 2000, expects to produce 1,90,000 cars this year and 2,10,000 in 2002.

Mastercard, Europay to Merge

Privately owned credit and debit card networks, Mastercard and Europay have announced plans to merge. According to the Financial Times of London, the merger will bolster Mastercard’s position against arch-rival Visa.

The newspaper reported that under the proposal, the European banks that control Europay will be offered new shares representing between a quarter and a third of Mastercard.

The merger will create the world’s biggest debit card network while it will remain second biggest behind Visa in credit cards, the Financial Times said.

HSBC to Cut 70 Branches

Banking giant HSBC is set to close up to 70 branches in Hong Kong under a major reorganization program. This was made known by the Hong Kong iMail.

According to the newspaper, the downsizing will take place in phases, with the first in May, and will affect 70 of HSBC’s 220 branches. An HSBC source is reported to have revealed that the bank plans to reduce its total branches to 150 including 50 major branches, 50 personal banking branches and 50 day and night centres. According to the source, the bank will close down small ‘uneconomical’ branches or merge them with bigger ones.

The restructuring is however not expected to affect the current staff level of around 14,000.

Rank System in US Slammed

Reports form the United States have it that a popular technique for evaluating employees is prompting filing of lawsuits charging three big American companies- Microsoft, Ford Motor and Conoco Systems- of discrimination.

The issue of the lawsuits is the ranking of managers, professionals and lower-level employees from best to worst and then using that ranking to determine factors like pay, and even to fire staff at times.

It is reported that a growing number of companies in the US are resorting to the grading system. Also known as forced ranking or the bell curve ranking system, managers, under the system, are forced to identify some staff as low performers and some as high performers. A report cites example of General Electrics where supervisors identify the top 20 percent and bottom 10 percent of their managerial and professional employees every year-and the bottom 10 percent are likely to be fired.

But the grading technique, termed ‘rank and yank’ by employees, has come under sharp criticism because of its vulnerability to biasness. The supervisors are accused by employees of organizations of being prejudiced against the old, black and female workers.

Experts also view that people who belong to a particularly talented unit will suffer if a certain number of them are given poorer grades than they would in another unit.

By Business Age Reporters

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