Project Management

Our Project Managers have in-deepth experience in leading Software implementations and integration projects. They apply project management standards (PMP® methodologies) on top of their extensive business knowledge in Treasury and Capital Market areas. Our Project Managers will assist you in all phases of your project:

Project Scope Management (delivery of WBS, Project Charter, feasability study document or Project Initiation Document), Planning (Ball Park Estimates for Cost and Schedule Management), Project Execution (PM deliverables including Quality Analysis, Project Plan, Project Risk Analysis (especially in case of beta release or new functionalities enhanced by the software vendor) Project Staff Recrutement Plan and Communication Plan), Project Risk Management and closeout Analysis.

To deliver your specific requirements throughout the life time of your project, Global Market solutions offers a wide range of skills covering all cutting-edge areas of the implementation:

• Front-to-Back Process flow definition for the Treasury and Capital Market products 
• Auditing of IT and Business procedures - Advise on concrete solutions to be implemented by taking into considerations technical contraints as well as business requirements
• Risk mapping
• Implementation, deployment, QA Process, Change management and End-user Trainings
• Software Decommissioning and Migration Strategies
• Real-Time Interface Design and Development for static, market or transaction/position based data

Giftwrapping Branding

How to Win' Customer Relationships and 'Influence' Digital Performance

If the customer relationship is key, how do we build hundreds, thousands, or millions? In 1936 Dale Carnegie wrote "How to Win Friends and Influence People." Many decades later it stands the test of time as one of the most influential relationship self-help books of its time and today. With a mere 15 million-plus copies sold, I turn to Dale and his immutable principles to help us understand the foundations for building digital relationships.
Here are Dale Carnegie's "six ways to make people like you" principles aligned to the B2B company buying journey.

Agility In Action: How Four Brands Are Using Agile Marketing 2

What the company does: CafePress sells themed gifts and provides custom-design services for people who want to create their own merchandise. Many of the products CafePress sells are related to popular culture and current events.
These include items with licensed designs, such as "Mad Men" mugs. But most designs are customer-generated. Dozens, for example, riff on the "Keep Calm" Internet meme.
Why agile marketing important: CafePress wants to engage consumers in conversation and collaborate with them in real-time as they upload their designs. "When consumers say I need to buy a gift for a friend or a T-shirt to wear to the Star Trek premiere, we want them to come to us first," said Jason Falls, CafePress’ vice president for digital strategy, in an interview with CMO.com. Top search terms on the site early this month included "Class of 2013" and "zombies," while "Hillary 2016" was popular among people looking for political-themed items. "Where we can see there are designs around a given topic, we can put those at the forefront of our Web site" or use social channels to promote them, Falls said.

Agility In Action: How Four Brands Are Using Agile Marketing

Talk about agile marketing often references social media. Indeed, Twitter, Facebook, and other social channels are pushing marketers to react in real time to events and conversations among their customers. But rapid response isn't the only benefit, say CMOs who are delving into the approach.

Agile management methods, they say, provide a framework for making better decisions and improving overall productivity.

Branding Ethics Authentically

The Good Steak presents a fresh idea in the world of overwhelmingly high-end and expensive steak houses. Stationed in Barcelona, Spain, The Good Steak does just what its name implies: delivers a good steak meal at a reasonable price with the proper care taken throughout every phase of the farm-to-plate process. Branded by Carmen Virginia Grisolia, The Good Steak takes a light-hearted approach to sustainable and responsible restaurant ethics. Using a friendly typeface in a warm and peaceful purple hue, The Good Steak’s branding creates the intended vibe and an added halo on top of the brand mark for good measure doesn’t hurt. “Good to the bone” is the primary slogan and the halo theme continues with the menu, a document with a heavenly appearance that places a premium on the kind treatment of cows. What Grisolia has created is a lasting brand that conveys the ethics in a soft and subtle way. Companies all over the world want to use their business practices as a part of their branding– when they can –and The Good Steak does so in a transparent and authentic way.

What's in a name?

Have you ever stopped to consider how much impact the name of your organisation has on its success?

 While a strong and memorable name alone cannot ensure a ticket to greatness, it certainly can help catch attention and interest. Similarly, a weak, poorly defined or unpronounceable name can be a turn-off for potential customers - would you invest your life savings with Shyster & Co, for example?

Poor company names are not just the ones that sound bad, they are the ones that confuse potential customers, box in a company, and limit its growth and opportunities.

In all seriousness, just as you (hopefully) gave a lot of thought into naming your kids if you have any, it really pays to spend some time thinking about the name of your business. After all, if things go well it could be around for many years to come...

Clever Convenience Store Branding

Murray Batten’s design work of stationary and an ad campaign for Chinese convenience store Gulp accomplishes one of the primary goals of branding, especially when doing work that will appear in a foreign country. Batten’s neon purple images along with the bold “Gulp” lettering works because it captures the eye, but Batten’s overall concept fits with Chinese culture nicely. Batten also incorporates other words like “Munch” and “Crunch” to represent the tastiness that is Gulp. With his work, Batten achieves the goal of giving a convenience store an image that is desirable and draws people in.

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A Personal Brand

For certain entrepreneurs, creating a personal brand is pivotal, especially when your job is enhanced by a great personality. Mexican chef Gabriela Romero wanted to do just that and the folks at face listened to her closely and presented her with a great brand that captures her essence. Her logo and stationary centers around purple, gold and white in a classy, yet sensible and almost quirky way and it works because it’s a perfect blend of Romero’s heritage and her talent.

Branding For Cupcake Revolutionaries

If someone creative somewhere were to put together a video game around the concept of a life-saving, crime-fighting cupcake, it might look something like the logo creation by Joshua Wills for cupcakery and cereal servers The Shoppe. Denver’s got a nice night life, but there’s always someone who thinks they can elbow their way into it and get customers excited. Cupcakes are a good way to do that and The Shoppe is giving all of Denver an alternative to whatever else they may be doing. Wills created the typeface by hand and it resembles Nintendo game typography, perfect for the vibe The Shoppe is seeking. The logo cupcake man was also drawn by hand and touched up digitally. Cupcakes are fun and therefore The Shoppe needed a fun, alternative image to make a mark in a competitive industry in Denver. Wills came through with a winning branding job for a determined group of cupcake enthusiasts.

Buy or Build? How Your Customers Decide

You are an experienced sales leader. It is Monday morning and you are on a forecast call. You know a few big deals determine if you make the number. You ask for the update on the Acme deal.  Neither the Sales Manager nor rep speaks. The line goes quiet. You repeat your request. And then you hear:
 “The customer thinks they can do it themselves” 

You mute the line. You swear. And then you realize this is reality. A common hurdle you face is overconfident customers. They think they can solve their problem on their own. The customer asks “Can we do it ourselves?”  The buy vs build guide will help your team. The guide will enable your customer to quantify the choices and answer this question. Four benefits you and your team will receive:

Loyalty, Friends, and Work: Mad Men Philosophies

Loyalty and work in advertising. This is not the standard norm that it once was. Loyalty in this business — in any business, for that matter — is more of an old value that sits on the shelf, used occasionally but most often forgotten. Mad Men’s latest installment in their Emmy-winning series titled “The Collaborators” brings us three major instances of challenged loyalty in business. Let's not even get started on their personal lives. 

Personal Branding Is A Leadership Requirement, Not a Self-Promotion Campaign

Developing your personal brand is essential for the advancement of your career and development as a leader.  Unfortunately, personal branding has become a “commoditized” term that has lost its intention as people have irresponsibly used social media as a platform to build their personal brand and increase their relevancy.   They believe social media can immediately increase their market value for their personal brand rather than recognizing that the process of developing their personal brand is a much bigger responsibility; a never-ending journey that extends well beyond social media.

This is why I always advise those who want to have a social media presence to think carefully about their intentions and objectives before opening an account.  Why?  Because the moment you start – you must not allow yourself to stop.   Challenge yourself to think about what your intentions are and what you are capable of delivering to the communities you are serving – both in and outside of the workplace.

The coming era of ‘on-demand’ marketing

Digital marketing is about to enter more challenging territory. Building on the vast increase in consumer power brought on by the digital age, marketing is headed toward being on demand—not just always “on,” but also always relevant, responsive to the consumer’s desire for marketing that cuts through the noise with pinpoint delivery.

Sales and Marketing: Can't We All Just Get Along?

You know the saying “plays well with others”?  Well, a study by the Corporate Executive Board found that Sales and Marketing don’t.  In fact, they say 87% of the terms Marketing and Sales use when describing each other are negative.  You read that right.  Almost 9 out of 10 times, we talk bad about the other guys.  Pretty amazing when you consider we both play for the same team.

Tradeway invests in the future of our youth

Leading experiential activation agency, Tradeway, has announced the launch of its Tradeway Academy, which will focus on equipping the South African youth with essential life and business skills to increase their employment opportunities in both the formal and informal job sectors.

 Tradeway are specialists at recruiting, training and managing resources for experiential activations, direct consumer engagement and field services. Their main resource pool for retailers, brand ambassadors and demonstrators are matriculants, tertiary students and unemployed youth seeking job experience through part-time work. Through the academy, Tradeway envisions up-skilling this group beyond pure 'job experience' to create better opportunities for employment and advancement in the workplace.

Jumping on the b(r)andwagon - exploit the link between HR and branding

Businesses can achieve better branding power by investing in HR as brand custodians, says the CRF Institute's South Africa manager, Samantha Crous.

 

Social media and other technologies are ensuring that employees are more empowered than ever to share whatever they think of the organisation they work for - but rather than fearing what might come out if their staff were to speak up, business leaders can let this work in their favour.

Employee engagement - a non-negotiable

Bear with me as I state the obvious. Business is about maintaining and growing a healthy bottom line. Satisfied customers are what make that bottom line possible.

The missing piece in this puzzle is the motivated employees. It's only motivated and engaged employees who are able to attract, and more importantly retain those critical customers.

Nurture Your Most Profitable Customers

Profitable growth is more achievable if you focus on identifying your most valuable customers--and keeping them happy.

One of our clients in the security business found itself facing significant headwinds to achieving profitable growth. The company's customer portfolio was eroding due to low customer satisfaction and many of the customers that were still around were unprofitable. The organization needed to focus on its large, recurring customers, and become more systematic about driving value for these customers.

Don't Aim to Be Popular, Be Effective

Managing your employees is not a popularity contest. When you remain focused on real goals so will they.

 As the leader of my online marketing company VerticalResponse, I wear a lot of hats and do many things. The one thing I'm not down with is being in a popularity contest because this isn't high school, it's my business and my No. 1 priority is to serve my customers and my investors. But, this doesn't mean I'm not in service to my team, because I'll be the first one to tell you, I work for them and I'm here to help them be more effective.

Don't Grow Your Business Into Failure

Growth is good, right? For the most part, yes, but too much growth can doom a business. Here's how to avoid that peril.

Whether you are an entrepreneurial CEO or an investor, you are probably focused day-to-day on the basics of growing your business.Growth is about defining and penetrating your core customer base.It's about scaling your operations profitably.It's about making the right investments.

Sometimes, however, growth is also about slowing down.Too much growth, or growth with the wrong customers, can lead to failure just as quickly as a lack of growth.

Why Networking Doesn't Work

Working a room and shaking dozens of hands? Forget it. Re-think your networking to make lasting connections.

I used to dread attending networking events and crowded conferences. I'm a bit of an introvert and it always felt awkward walking up to a stranger and trying make small talk.

It wasn't until I realized that some of my greatest opportunities have come because of a chance connection made at a conference or networking event that I started appreciating that dreaded networking. I realized I needed to think of networking differently to make it work for me.

With the Spring networking season entering full swing, it's a good time to think about how you approach networking, so you can get the most out of your time spent.

hiking the customer decision journey

Like a hike with surprising twists and turns, today’s better business model pivots away from the traditional linear funnel by drawing customers into a circular, multi-dimensional “loyalty loop.”

I was recently hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains near Malibu.

Specialtys Cafe & Bakery Branding

The studio Hatch is widely known across the US if not the world for great design. Their branding work for Specialtys is no exception. Simple, illustrative and strong. There’s just a touch of classic/traditional vibe to it but stays modern. The strong green/brown color palate touts its earthiness and sets the bar for a fresh experience.

What makes a restaurant logo great?

Restaurants tend to jump into logo designs. Some are great. Some are pretty bad. Our suggestion would be to hire us for your logo design, but we understand that that’s not always in the budget. At the very least, here are some points to take into consideration so you too can have a great logo.

1. Distinctive.
The design idea need not be unique in the world, just distinctive enough so you can “own” it in your particular marketplace.

2. Practical.
Can be printed small, in ink or pixels; works in black on white as well as in colors; works in reverse too, white on black. (Faces, human or animal, usually flunk this last test; the eyes turn white.)

3. Graphic.
Communicates purely in visual terms, to the right brain hemisphere; doesn’t depend on verbal, intellectual interpretation. (Example: Tenneco seriously considered and rejected a “10ECO” logo design. Clever, but it’s not a mark, it’s a pun.) If a wordmark, it can be recognized by form alone (you don’t have to “read” Coca-Cola’s logo more than once or twice).

4. Simple in form.
Contains only one graphic idea, one gimmick, one dingbat. Thus if there’s a symbol, the accompanying name is plain and unadorned. And if it is a wordmark, one idea or device makes it special–like IBM’s stripes. (The more unique the name, the simpler the graphics can be.)

5. One message.
In content too, great designs try to express no more than one attribute (such as stature or speed or dynamism) and support a single aspect of positioning.

6. Appropriate.
In the end, of course, the content’s got to be right. An otherwise-great mark fails if the reputation, positioning, and personality expressed are at odds with management intentions.

7. Rendering
The logo should be rendered in Illustrator or another vector program so you can increase and decrease its size without losing resolution.

8. Fully Explored
What’s the logo look like on a white background? A dark background? What about a full color picture? These all need explored and delivered with a logo design. Especially for restaurants.

Vintage, Not Vintage In Atlantic City

It’s not The Shore, but it’s still the Gambling Capital of the East  and also the city that inspired Monopoly. As it turns out, Atlantic City also inspired a nifty branding job by Mucca for a restaurant at one of the city’s non-gaming hotels, The Chelsea. Teplitzky’s isn’t a name property that would win right away, but all that is needed is a little time to marinate on it and discover the history of the name. Teplitzkywas a hotel in the 50′s that stood on the same site as The Chelsea, also home to the new version of Teplitzky. The restaurant is a 50′s- and 60′s-inspired diner and they’ve got the accents to prove it. With 60′s typography as the focal point of the branding, Teplitzky puts forward a branding image that looks like it has stood the test of time, a relic to the old days when room keys were only necessary if the door slipped closed and eggs were served one way: hot and scrambled. Teplitzky maybe takes a slightly more modern approach to their menu, but branding’s intent isn’t always to tell a potential customer about the food at a restaurant. The essence that Mucca gave Teplitzky creates a certain feeling and mood, a highly influential emotional appeal to the consumer. It’s vintage done so well that you forget it’s vintage.

To extend or not to extend…

Extending your brand’s product or service line seems like a no brainer. More products/services means more income, right? Wrong.

 Extending a brand’s offerings leads to many underlying issues just waiting to pop up and destroy your brand. Before making the leap, run through this quick check list to see if an extension is the right move for you.
 Here are three questions to consider when thinking of line extensions: 

Cleverness is only considered cheating to the losers

Good design isn’t about what’s “prettier” or what’s more appealing.  Sometimes design is tactical. Sometimes design is born of strategy rather than execution (graphic designers everywhere just rolled their eyes).

A natural extension of a brand: West Elm Market

While on a trip to NYC I ran across this excellent cafe. What made it great wasn’t so much the coffee or the food, it was the idea overall. The cafe is a brand extension of West Elm, the designer furnishings company and it is located at the foot of their headquarters. The reason this caught my attention was the natural extension of the West Elm brand into a cafe offering. What better way to sell their wares than by having them in use and in context.
And, yes, the coffee was good, too.

Extending A Personal Brand

Violet Oon and her thoughts and ideas on food are well known in Singapore. She’s one of the country’s prominent authorities on food and when she wanted to open a restaurant that carried on the strong brand of her name, she turned to Bravo company.

Hiring a Sales Manager - External or Internal?

"Should we hire an external Sales Manager or promote from within?" 
It depends. Open Sales Management positions are bad for sales organizations.  Having the wrong Sales Manager (SM) is worse. This post helps you decide between hiring an internal or external Sales Manager.

Cafe Evoke’s Calming Branding

this time with the identity, packaging and interior branding for Oklahoma coffee folks Café Evoke: “A Lovely Spot For Drinks, Eats And Conversation. Come Sip With Us.” The Foundry Collective also designed their print and digital presentations. Evoke is a coffee shop, but it’s the passionate extension of a group of coffee caterers that also work under the name Evoke. They wanted everything about the shop to be an extension of the catering brand, but with new tweaks to help the shop build a new, better brand. Using bright, yet moody colors like dark orange, grey and aquamarine(ish), Evoke establishes a vibe that is one part lazy and two parts cheerful. In lazy, I mean like a rainy Sunday on the couch. The interiors are really warm and the color scheme is balanced with white and a weighty dark brown for the base of the primary counter and flooring. The interior encourages a drop by, but not an extended stay like in a restaurant. This is a great example also of what quality employees can do for a brand. The vibe of what The Foundry Collective help build with Café Evoke is embraced by the good people that run the shop.

Branding By The Slice

In Budapest, there’s a pizza joint named Szelet. The full branding was completed by Kiss Miklos and what he accomplished is a straight-forward and clean branding effort that provides a lot of punch with very little unnecessary swings and misses. Miklos started with the name, one he came up with that means “slice” in English. The simplicity of the job comes from the simple approach Szelet takes to what they do. Their specialty is a simple slice, nothing less or more. The logo has traditional pizzeria elements, including the iconic tail underscoring the logo.Read more

Iconic Mexican Branding In Singapore

Good Mexican in Singapore seems a little needle-in-a-haystackish, but Lucha Loco presents a damn fine dish of Mexican street food and they have super clever branding, courtesy of Bravo Company. Lucha Loco sounds a little like lucha libre, doesn’t it? Lucha libre, they of the Mexican professional wrestling and colorful masks fame. Well Lucha Loco takes the similarities and runs with them.  The entire presentation of the restaurant revolves around imagery from Mexican lucha libre and the things they might say to you. The vibe is raw and intentionally so. Bravo Company wanted the place to feel lived in, not ancient, but around long enough to get some wear and tear and be able to tell good stories. They get extra credit for business cards moonlighting as wrestler trading cards.

Shell producing from unlicensed oil blocks — Investigation

Shell Petroleum Development Company, the Nigerian subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, is producing from some of the five shallow water offshore oil blocks more than four years after the leases had expired.

A source at the company, who pleaded anonymity, due to the sensitivity of the issue, said though the oil major held interest in six shallow water offshore leases, five of them had expired since November 30, 2008 and the Federal Government had yet to renew them.

However,Read more

Kenyan shares fall, shilling weakens

Kenya’s main share index fell for a second straight session on Monday, dragged down by a further slide in power distributor Kenya Power’s shares, while the shilling weakened slightly.

Arms smuggling: Nigerian court jails Iranian 17 years

A Federal High Court in Lagos on Monday sentenced an Iranian, Azim Aghajani, and his Nigerian accomplice, Ali Jega, to 17 years imprisonment each for illegal importation of firearms into the country in 2010.

Justice Okechukwu Okeke found the two guilty of four, out of the five counts preferred against them by the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation.

Reps, CBN disagree over N13.4bn house sale proceeds

The Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives and the Central Bank of Nigeria on Monday disagreed on whether or not the bank remitted the N13.4bn it realised from the sale of houses in 2008 to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

The committee, acting on a query raised by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation, had summoned the central bank to account for the money.