Most Innovative Companies 2013

Nike: The No. 1 Most Innovative Company Of 2013

For a pair of revolutionary new products and a culture of true believers.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

02_Amazon

For speeding up the delivery of change.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

03_Square

For spreading the mobile payments revolution.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

04_Splunk

For bringing big data to the masses.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

05_Fab

For evolving into the destination for design wares

Most Innovative Companies 2013

06_Uber

For being the epitome of the data-driven disruptive startup.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

07_Sproxil

For sticking it to anyone selling fraudulent goods.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

08_Pinterest

For unlocking our image obsession.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

09_Safaricom

For bridging a health care gap with telecom.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

10_Target

For shrinking the big box.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

11_Google

For adding Fiber to our Internet diet

Most Innovative Companies 2013

12_Airbnb

For upgrading itself into a five-star vacation destination.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

13_Apple

For delighting retinas with its Retina Display.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

14_The Coca-Cola Co.

For turning a gigantic BRAND into a nimble marketing collective.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

15_Pig Newton

For Louis C.K. selling funny directly to fans.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

16_Tencent

For pushing the Chinese people to speak up.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

17_Samsung

For elevating imitation to an art form.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

18_Buzzfeed

For reinventing how news (and advertising!) is shared.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

19_Nasty Gal, ModCloth, StyleSeat, Science, Snapette, Birchbox, Ahalife

For giving the fashion and beauty business a digital makeover.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

20_SeeChange Health

For making health–not health care costs–its top priority.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

21_Oxitec

For fighting bugs with bugs, and saving human lives.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

22_Mahindra Reva, Tesla

For catering electric cars to new audiences.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

23_SodaStream

For making DIY carbonation sexy.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

24_OpenGamma

For bringing transparency to finance.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

25_D-Rev

For bringing a design ethic to third-world health care.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

26_Rovio

For making apps the new source for big entertainment franchises.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

27_Ford

For turning a car company into a software leader.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

28_Western Governors University

For showing public schools another way to do business.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

29_Droga5

For giving big brands a startup buzz.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

30_Yelp

For being the local leader.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

31_BitTorrent

For using its power to help artists who get it.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

32_GitHub, Parse

For speeding up the pace of software development.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

33_Nest

For heating up the dream of a smart home.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

34_Proteus Digital Health, Dexcom, GE Healthcare

For turning our bloodstreams into data feeds that can make us healthier.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

35_Oktogo

For bringing online travel booking to a distrustful country.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

36_Corning

For becoming the 800-pound gorilla of the touch-screen business.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

37_NBA

For solving the sports content riddle.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

38_Landwasher

For building the (mostly) all-natural toilet of the future.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

39_Evernote

For making its users smarter.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

40_Coursera

For simultaneously scaring and wooing universities into the future of education.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

41_Activision

For elevating physical and digital play.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

42_Roku

For leading the evolution of the television.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

43_Enalta

For stepping up as Brazil’s big industry falters.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

44_Seegrid, Mazor Robotics, SpaceX, ReconRobotics

For making robots so smart, they can mingle with us at work.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

45_Kiip

For making mobile ads that people want.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

46_PPR

For turning sustainability into science.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

47_AngelList

For being the Match.com for startups.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

48_Microsoft

For revolutionizing home entertainment.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

49_Qcue

For using data to bridge the gap between fans and teams.

Most Innovative Companies 2013

50_Tumblr

For showing that ads and great content can mix in social media.

Citigroup had already paid out $590m last year to settle legal claims

US investment bank Citigroup is to pay $730m (£484m) to settle a class-action suit by bondholders brought over the financial crisis.

The suit alleged Citi misled buyers of its bonds over its exposure to subprime mortgages and other high-risk securities between 2006 and 2008.

Nikhil Nath, Nomura’s former head of M&A for Asia ex-Japan, has also joined Macquarie Group as a general industry banker, Hong Kong-based financial industry sources said.

Morris left Nomura after the bank cut costs at its equities and investment banking business as part of a restructuring that started last year, the sources said. Nath resigned from Nomura earlier this year to take up the Macquarie job.

Both bankers had joined Nomura in 2008 from the collapsed Lehman Brothers. Nath will move to Singapore from Hong Kong to focus on Southeast Asian and Indian clients.

are under pressure to hire more locals and give them opportunities to advance as the government of the wealthy Asian financial centre tries to contain public anger over its policy to attract foreign talent.

Singapore, a small island-nation with few natural resources, has historically been welcoming of foreigners who tended to take up lower-paying jobs that were not popular with locals. But the competition has become intense in the past decade as the city-state grew into a banking and wealth management hub that attracts foreign executives and other specialised workers.

Some lawmakers, facing a backlash over rising costs and the open-door labour policy, have called for requirements that locals be considered for managerial and professional positions before foreign candidates.

Acting Manpower Minister Tan Chuan Jin told parliament last week that he and Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who is also the finance minister, had met senior members of the financial industry urging them to develop a local talent pipeline. Tan said there had been complaints of foreign managers preferring to hire fellow countrymen and his ministry was investigating.

One “fairly prominent company” had its work pass privileges suspended after it advertised for workers of a certain nationality, he said. He did not name the company.Complaints about alleged bias against Singaporeans in workplaces accounted for half those received last year, according to the Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment Practices, an organisation backed by the Manpower Ministry,

Foreign banks in Singapore contacted by Reuters declined comment or did not respond to questions. Citigroup, the largest banking employer in Singapore, said more than 80 percent of its nearly 10,000 staff in the city-state were Singapore citizens or permanent residents.

The financial sector is a particular focus because it accounts for around 12 percent of Singapore’s gross domestic product and employs about 6 percent of the workforce.Executive search firms said the government must ensure that what is good for Singapore’s workers does not hurt its image as an open economy.

Any attempt to regulate hiring could backfire if the rules were confusing or poorly implemented.“When it is not possible to hire locally or a niche skill set is required, the process of hiring a foreign executive should be straightforward and transparent, said Mark Hall, vice president and country manager for Kelly Services Singapore.

Tan stressed that Singapore will not pursue an approach requiring companies to choose a Singaporean regardless of merit.“What we do need is to ensure companies are fair in assessing all potential candidates and to deter and punish any form of discriminatory or biased decision-making on the part of individuals,” he said.

Gerald Giam, a member of parliament from the opposition Workers’ Party, said the influx of skilled foreign workers has led to immigrants replacing locals in senior positions, unlike in previous decades when many Singaporeans rose up the ranks as multinationals moved their operations to the city-state.

“Even the junior professional positions are often staffed by foreigners, when our local graduates should have no problem meeting the job requirements,” he said.About 40 percent of the 5.3 million people in Singapore are now foreign.

In 2000, foreigners made up 25 percent of the population of 4 million.New employment passes for workers in the financial sector rose to 8,700 in 2010 from 3,300 in 2001, Ministry of Manpower figures show.Some foreign-born bank executives have taken up Singapore citizenship, including DBS Group Chief Executive Piyush Gupta and Standard Chartered’s Singapore head Ray Ferguson.

The Federal last week announced it would purchase $40 billion a month in mortgage-backed securities in an effort to spur job creation and lower borrowing costs. The 30-year stood at 3.55 percent a week ago,  Freddie Mac said in a statement.

The real estate market appears to be recovering after more than three years of declines. Sales of existing homes rose to a two-year high in August, the National Association of Realtors said on Wednesday. Single-family housing starts advanced at the best pace since April 2010, the Commerce Department said.

The average 15-year mortgage declined to 2.77 percent from 2.85 percent, a record low, Freddie Mac reported.

Unorganized retail is full of unhealthy trade practices, opportunistic fluctuations in pricing, illegal hoarding, hygiene, packaging, child labor and complete neglect of workers rights.

Last week the Indian government took a bold step in announcing opening up of the sector to FDI, thus enabling global giants like Wal-Mart, Tesco and Carrefour to open their operations in the country while owning upto 51% of such multi brand operations.

Each foreign multi-national will need to invest a minimum of $100 million to get such licenses, will have to invest half of this into back-end infrastructure like cold storages, warehouses, transportation and logistics on an ongoing basis.  In addition, 30% of all products sold in such outlets will need to be sourced locally. What does this all mean?

In practical terms, it’s a well-known fact that India loses 35%-40% of its produce to waste owing to inadequate transportation, storage in refrigerated environments or simply in covered warehouses which are rodent free.  Just the huge scale of this wastage alone is sufficient reason to proceed with FDI.  This is lost productivity – the number of new jobs created to save this waste will alone be in millions.

Now let’s turn to the two biggest beneficiaries.  The producer and the end consumer.  Today, an average Indian farmer spends precious time, energy and resources in their efforts to transport their produce to the market.  Delays owed to poor transportation, often manual, leads to losses of not only the production but also loss of focus from their primary profession – which is, agriculture.

With the investments in back-end infrastructure, it is a reasonable estimate that big retailers will source directly from farmers – from their doorsteps.  Farmers will save on investments required on their infrastructure and more importantly have more time to focus on increasing production and do what they do best – which is farming.

In addition, education and newer technologies will be made available to farmers to ensure their crops and produce are more scientifically grown including ensuring that extra stocks are made available for cold storage and sold in the market place throughout the year – probably with the inclusion of the farmer in terms of pricing at the time of eventual sale.

Now, let’s consider the end consumer.  When sourcing will take place directly from the farmers by the retailers, the produce will be made available to the consumers with sensible margins in a timely manner and perhaps more fresh with adequate safeguards on hygiene and adulteration.

So let’s say if in today’s scenario, a kilo of potato is sold for Rs. 12 per kg, the farmer is gets Rs. 3 per kg, the balance of Rs. 9 per kg gets distributed between a long chain of middle-men.  In an organized scenario, it’s reasonable to deduce that the same 1 kg of potato is sold at Rs. 8 per kg, the farmer will get at least Rs. 6 per kg, which is twice of what he was getting before and the margin for the retailer is Rs. 2 per kg.  The farmer gets double of what he was getting before and the end consumer saves 25%.

To top it all, the entire process will be transparent with proper records of what is produced and consumed.

The government agencies could easily assess, perhaps with online tools what the pricing structures are, how much the farmers are getting and what profit margins the retailer is making.  Proper billings will take place, state taxes will get their dues and people will benefit.

Great!  So if this makes so much sense and if everyone benefits – why has this taken years to implement and why is there so much opposition to this move.  Let’s examine this a bit more.

Who is opposing it?  If we go by the recent ‘organized’ protests we saw on news channels, it is evidently clear the protests are being done by political parties and handful of their workers – often for the cameras.  The general public has stayed far away from the protests including all the farmers.

This leads to the most important question.  Why are political parties opposing it?  This needs a dive into the “Indian business system.”

For long India has struggled with ‘black money’ – or money which is not in the system, is not taxed and usually are the transactions that take place in cash, without any records.  And where is this cash generated from? You guessed it.  In un-organized retail.

From the time a farmer takes his produce to the village trader or to the bigger trader sitting in the local ‘mandi’ to the wholesaler to the trucker and onwards to distribution center and finally to the locala kirana shop.

This entire chain across the country deals in cash or in kind – most of it being unaccounted.  It’s a standard practice for every small business owner to maintain two books.

One book or the ‘bahi-khata’ as it’s called in rural India is the actual record of actual transactions.  These are the real accountants or ‘muniims’ as they are called who manage such books.  The second set of books are the ones which are made for official records by educated accountants – often to compile and report false deflated sales figures.  These are submitted to the government bodies for taxation assessment purposes.  The difference between them, alarmingly – upto 90%.  And this difference is what creates the so called “black money” – or unaccounted cash.

Now, we come to the next obvious question.  So where does this black money go.  From investments made into real estate (where upto 70% is black and 30% is registered sale price), to overseas into Swiss accounts and last but not the least – funding political parties.

The Indian political system requires exorbitant amounts of money to fund the election process – most of it in cash and this cash is almost entirely generated from the ‘middle-men’ level of unorganized retail.

With money comes power – and this power is evident in the so called political organized protests.  After-all, why would they not fight their own survival and protect their interests?  If they don’t, how will they fund the electoral process and win elections.

The current prime minister though part of the same political system is ‘hesitantly’ clean – and is able to take a decision which perhaps many in his own party don’t approve of.  I was hoping perhaps Narendra Modi – a far thinking politician will support these changes.  It now seems he too is chained by the same principles that apply to the rest.

Sir Mervyn King says economic recovery on its way.  He said he was beginning to see a few signs of a recovery, albeit a slow one.

He said a lot depended on resolving the eurozone crisis, which was hanging over the UK like a “black cloud”.

Sir Mervyn said: “I think the next quarter will probably be up. I think we’re beginning to see a few signs now of a slow recovery, but it will be a slow recovery.

“After a banking crisis one can’t expect to get back to normal and I fear it will take a long time.”

The UK economy is currently in a double-dip recession – two-quarters of negative growth followed by a return to expansion and then another fall in activity.

He also spoke about the government’s deficit-cutting plans, which are designed to curb the gap between spending and income by 2015.

He said it would be acceptable if that target was missed, as long as it was a result of slower global economic growth.

The bank admits $14m worth of transactions with Iran were badly handled but he still disputes the much bigger charges of dodgy transactions worth more than £160 billion.

He says there are many things in the claims made by the New York Financial Authority that the bank does not understand or are factually inaccurate, even going so far as to say that the authorities have contradicted information the bank passed on.

And as for the claims that a Standard Chartered executive in London told the “f—— Americans” to back off, and not try to tell those dealing with Iran what to do? The bank this afternoon has said that quote was not accurate.

The bank admitted this afternoon, “this is a very serious and difficult set of issues” they have faced. But they made adamantly clear that they “reject” the main accusations, and the boss ended this afternoon’s conference call by saying there is “nothing wrong” with the culture at Standard Chartered.

Fundamentally he says those at the bank try to do the right thing. How will the American authorities respond?

So what about the most evolving, trending and hip audience in the age groups of 15-25. This age group is the future. This age group comprise of the maximum number of consumers today. And in today’s ever evolving, 100 MB broadband age this age group probably views 20 youtube videos on different topics in less than 30 minutes.

This age group does not have the patience of waiting for the plot to evolve, the pace to keep up with, or sit through ad breaks with the exception of live or sporting events. Millions of videos are being uploaded everyday and the sheer volumes of such content makes it impossible for the young to have any time left for traditional television – more so the traditional half hour or full hour slot on a single topic.

Revenues and viewerships of almost all television networks worldwide has steadily declined. So what can they do to re-attract the young back to the television screens? Perhaps time has come for smaller segments ranging from 4-10 minutes on a range of subjects. Perhaps different channels or time slots for varied programming that is important to the 15-25 age group viewers.

Imagine if Youtube could be a bouquet of channels available through SMART TV’s with live feed on different topics? Most certainly it would wipe off several traditional television networks out of business, forever. On the other hand, if traditional television networks are able to move onto the shorter duration model, maybe, just maybe they will survive.

Is Google TV listening?

The results of Accor’s third annual Business Traveller Research released yesterday indicated that the Lion City’s proximity to the booming economies of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, gave it an edge over its perennial rival.

The online survey, conducted by ORC International on behalf of Accor, culled responses from 2,586 participants in nine countries across the region, who made business trips in the first half of 2012.

This was a different picture from last year when Hong Kong and Singapore tied for first place as the most popular business destination.

Hong Kong, however, proved still more appealing than Singapore to travellers from Mainland China (44 per cent), Thailand (26 per cent) and Australia (16 per cent). The same customers were planning a trip to Hong Kong in the second half of the year.

Hong Kong remains an important gateway for both international and Mainland Chinese business travellers, said Evan Lewis, vice president, communications Accor Asia-Pacific, which signals the continued importance of cross-boundary trade.

As for outbound business travel from Hong Kong, Mainland China (72 per cent), Singapore (39 per cent) and Thailand (32 per cent) are the top destinations. The trend is expected to hold during the second half of the year, with 63 per cent planning to trips to Mainland China, 34 per cent to Singapore and 32 per cent to Thailand.

The research showed the growing trend of higher booking autonomy among business travellers, as a 25 per cent year-on-year increase of online direct booking with the hotel has been recorded, for reasons of convenience, access to special offers and easier management, Lewis reported.

Concerning average spend on accommodation, Singapore travellers are willing to pay the most among the Asia-Pacific, with an average of US$468 to spend per trip. This followed by India (US$399) and Hong Kong (US$387).

Regarding amenities, a comfortable bed proved to be of utmost importance for Hong Kong business travellers, with 66 per cent voting it as the highest priority, followed by free internet (57 per cent) and a good quality bathroom or shower (50 per cent).

In the past, location was the most important factor influencing business travellers’ hotel choice, Lewis commented. But this is changing, free internet access fast catching up, given the importance of connectivity.

The survey also showed that Hong Kong executives were most likely to work after midnight during business trips, with two-thirds working between 2100 and midnight and a further 14 per cent who worked between midnight and 0600. These figures were substantially higher than that of all travellers surveyed across the region.

Though Hong Kong executives are known to be hardworking, they manage to maintain physical well-being while travelling, with 13 per cent of the respondents from Hong Kong, saying they always used the hotel fitness centre, which is the highest percentage in the region. Meanwhile, 31 per cent said they usually or always used the hotel pool, a figure well above the Asia-Pacific average.

Hong Kong business travellers are generally unlikely to share their experiences via social media channel, with 49 per cent of respondents, saying they had never done this, preferring other means such as comment cards or emails to express their feedback.