Search results

Many entrepreneurs are enthralled with their company's technologies, products and potential markets. Invariably these emerging ventures present bedazzling business plans with industry-wise vernacular, detailed market research, and sophisticated financial spreadsheets. They often flaunt their “optimized business models.” Investors, however, typically want to know when and how the sales will start meeting the Plan. “Whereʼs the purchase order?” is the refrain. In this article, our “Practitionerʼs Corner” associate editor Joe Levangie collaborates with a long-time colleague, Deaver Brown, to address how businesses should “make sales happen.” Levangie warns that Brownʼs elitist education (Choate, Harvard College, Harvard Business School) should not be interpreted as a lack of “street smarts”; Brownʼs more entrepreneurially friendly credentials include winning Golden Gloves boxing medals and selling Fuller Brush products door-to-door! To ascertain how the entrepreneur can wrest an order from a prospective customer, read on.

The purpose of this study is to quantify port efficiency assessment indicators to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on Chinese One Belt One Road (OBOR) ports.

This study utilized a grey prediction model GM(1,1) to forecast five relevant indicators for each of the 17 OBOR ports both with and without COVID-19 background conditions. Additionally, the data envelopment analysis (DEA) efficiency assessment approach was used to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on port efficiency.

The results indicate that cargo and container throughput growth rates during the COVID-19 pandemic are reduced by 1.7 and 2.1%, respectively. There was also a noticeable reduction in technological efficiency (TE) as well as pure technological efficiency (PTE), while scale efficiency (SE) remained largely unaffected. Furthermore, the dynamic efficiency MI was mainly negatively impacted by changes in overall efficiency change (EFFCH), where pure efficiency change (PECH) less than one contributed significantly towards overall regression of port efficiencies during this period.

This paper is unique in its use of a combination of the grey prediction model and DEA efficiency assessment to quantify changes in important indicators during pandemic periods. This approach not only provides a quantitative understanding of the impact on port-level efficiency through numerical quantification but also offers readers an intuitive understanding.

The objective of this study is to examine the nature of cryptocurrencies, risks involved in using it due to its volatile nature, advantages, disadvantages and its functions as money.

This is an inductive approach to a descriptive analysis (Qualitative research). In order to come to an adequate conclusion, we reviewed several studies and articles previously published in this field related to our research questions, and then explored the nature of Cryptocurrencies, their advantages and disadvantages, risks associated with cryptocurrency usage and their user-friendliness in Saudi Arabia.

The findings of this study reveal that anonymity and concealment are important aspects of cryptocurrencies. This system does not follow a transparent process that can make it parallel to conventional fiat currency.

Although this study focuses on the issue of trust, it fails to recognize more technological factors hampering its transaction mechanism instead of enhancing it, owing to a lack of facts and knowledge.

Like conventional transaction system users must sign their crypto transactions that others must duly verify easily. Once a promise is made, one will not be able to back out of it until it is protected from revocation by the signer.

In comparison with reviewed literature, this study focuses more on the issue of volatility, which accounts for the fact that cryptocurrency has not been accepted as a permanent tool of monetary policy. Additionally, the study finds that the Saudi public is largely pessimistic toward such currencies.