Six people have been arrested in Vietnam for running an online betting ring based on a server in the Philippines that had attracted thousands of gamblers, state media reported Monday.
The arrests came as authorities across Southeast Asia were on high alert for a betting spike linked to the ongoing World Cup, and followed a raid in Vietnam on an online football gambling operation last month. A report by Agence France-Presse
The M88 ring “involved thousands of gamblers across the country” who collectively gambled up to $87 million since 2015, Ministry of Public Security spokesman Cong An Nhan Dan said in the report.
“Its website is on a server based in the Philippines, (operates) in different languages and covered all sorts of gambling.”
The report said the operation covered sports, although it did not state if the ring was involved in running World Cup bets.
Police arrested six Vietnamese people during raids in several cities across the country last week, confiscating three cars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, according to the report.
It did not give any further details on the extent of the gambling ring’s operations in the Philippines.
Gambling is illegal in Vietnam apart from the state-run lottery and a few casinos which are only open to foreigners.
Betting or running illegal betting operations carries a maximum jail term of 10 years.
But the law is widely flouted, especially during top-tier sport competitions, when many punters head online or to illegal gambling dens to try their luck.
The government last year announced a pilot program that would allow citizens over the age of 21 with a monthly income of at least $430 to gamble in local casinos. The move has yet to be implemented.
Nguyen Thuy Nga, a floral designer from Liti Florist of Vietnam has been through the elimination round to represent Vietnam in the professional category of the 11th International FDSS Cup Floral Designing Competition.
The event will be held as part of the Singapore Garden Festival at the city’s ‘Gardens by the Bay’ on Saturday July 21. VNS reports.
Nga said she was happy and honoured to surpass many other contestants from different nations in the elimination round to become one of 12 professional finalists to attend the international floral competition.
“After finding out I would represent Vietnam in Singapore, my team and I have worked hard on every process, from setting up the idea, preparing the materials, realising the floral designs and particularly, understanding thoroughly the regulations of the organisation board,” she told dantri.com.vn.
According to her, the regulations of the organization board, covering about four pages, details the permitted themes, dimensions and materials as well as professional requirements.
Liti florist in Hai Ba Trung street,, Hanoi, Vietnam
“Therefore, we have to study the regulations carefully in order to avoid unexpected mistakes,” Nga added.
This year’s competition includes three parts – creating a free-standing display on the theme of ‘Movement and Excitement with Chrysanthemums’, creating a chair-back design on a Tiffany chair and creating a hand-tied bouquet with a selection of materials only made known to the contestants on-site.
“The most exciting one is the third part, which challenges the contestants’ creativity.”
“The competition will be an interesting experience for me and my colleagues. I’m not considering the prizes, but thinking it’s a wonderful opportunity to introduce Việt Nam to international friends. I will learn new techniques for my career, which I have been very passionate about,” said the floral designer with six years of experience in the profession.
The International FDSS Cup Floral Designing Competition, in conjunction with the biannual Singapore Garden Festival, is staged by the Floral Designers Society (Singapore), a non-profit organisation. After the elimination round, this year’s contest has selected 32 contestants, 12 professionals and 20 amateurs, from 10 nations.
A joint-stock company is established through a subscription for shares in the company. Under Vietnamese law, only JSCs are permitted to issue shares to the public and may be listed on stock exchanges.
The charter capital of a JSC is divided into shares, and each shareholder holds shares corresponding to the amount of capital contributed to the company. JSCs may either be 100% foreign-owned or may take the form of a joint venture between both foreign and domestic investors.
Investment Capital Requirements
A JSC must have a minimum of three shareholders, with no maximum. Shareholders are generally free to assign their shares to other persons, except in a few cases where restrictions exist.
A JSC’s charter capital equals the the aggregate value of the issued shares that the founding shareholders and the other shareholders have subscribed and recorded in the charter of the JSC.
Management
A JSC’s governance structure comprises of a General Meeting of shareholders, the board of management, the chairman of the board of management and the general director. A Board of Supervisors is also required where the JSC has more than 11 individual shareholders, or if a corporate shareholder holds more than 50% of the shares of the joint-stock company.
The GSM is the highest decision-making body of a JSC, while the Board of Management manages the day to day operations of the JSC. The BOM is required to have at least 3 members, with a maximum of 11. The number of members of the BOM who must reside permanently in Vietnam is stipulated in the JSC’s charter.
Accounting /auditing requirements
Similar to the LLC, JSCs are also required to prepare and submit audited financial statements to the appropriate authorities within ninety days from the end of the financial year.
Advisory services
GBS – one of the best business law firms in Vietnam with a network South East Asia, Middle East, Japan, HongKong, Malta and Poland – offers simple direct advice to start your operations in Vietnam. They provide the help you need to understand your options, obtain your business license and complete the registration of your own company.
Certify a document as a true copy of the original by getting it signed and dated by a professional person, like a solicitor.
When you apply for something like a bank account or mortgage, you may be asked to provide documents that are certified as true copies of the original.
Copies of documents that can be certified include:
passports
photocard driving licences
bank/building society or credit card statements
letters from a government department
gas, electricity or tax bills
letters from a hospital/doctor
There are different rules for passport applications and photos and for a lasting power of attorney.
Who can certify a document in Vietnam?
Your document must be certified by a professional lawyer or someone well-respected in your community (‘of good standing’). You could ask the following if they offer this service:
minister
lawyer
solicitor
notary
Check with the organisation that needs the certified copy – they may have specific rules for who can certify a document.
How to certify a document in Vietnam?
Take the photocopied document and the original and ask the person to certify the copy by:
writing ‘Certified to be a true copy of the original seen by me’ on the document
signing and dating it
printing their name under the signature
adding their occupation, address and telephone number
The lawyer certifying the document will charge you some fees.
Certifying a translation
If you need to certify a translation of a document that’s not written in English or Vietnamese, ask the translation company to confirm in writing on the translation:
that it’s a ‘true and accurate translation of the original document’
the date of the translation
the full name and contact details of the translator or a representative of the translation company
Samsung smartphones are sending users’ pictures to their contacts without their permission, according to complaints by a number of people posted online.
The issue appears to be affecting Galaxy S9 and Galaxy Note 8 users.
One user on Reddit said that the entire photo library on his phone was sent over text to his girlfriend but there was no record of it on his messaging app. He discovered it had happened via his T-Mobile logs.
Users are reporting that it is an issue with Samsung Messages, the default messaging app on the South Korean company’s devices.
One person on Samsung’s community forum said the messaging app became “very buggy” after an update by T-Mobile for so-called Rich Communication Services (RCS) messaging.
This new standard is a messaging protocol between different carriers to help make sending videos and other media easier. It is aiming to replace traditional SMS messaging.
A Samsung spokesperson told CNBC by email that it is aware of the reports and that the technical teams “are looking into the matter.” Customers “are encouraged to contact their local customer service team directly,” the spokesperson added.
Later, Samsung updated the statement to say that it had investigated the issue and found that there was no software or hardware problem.
“Samsung has reviewed this matter thoroughly these past few days; however, there were no hardware or software issues found to be relevant to this particular case. While there have been no known similar customer reports globally, we will continue to investigate this issue further,” a spokesperson told CNBC by email on Tuesday.
T-Mobile was not immediately available for comment. But the mobile network did issue a statement to other news organizations saying that “it’s not a T-Mobile issue.”
Gruesome murders shook the nation, happened when millions of Vietnamese were celebrating the Lunar New Year.
A Vietnamese teenager was sentenced to death on Monday for the brutal murder of a family of five in Ho Chi Minh City.
Nguyen Huu Tinh, 18, was found guilty for the heartless killing of Mai Xuan Chinh, 46, his wife and their three children aged between 6 and 13 on February 12 this year.
Tinh has also been forced to pay VND200 million ($8,677) to the victims’ next of kin.
According to the indictment, Tinh was an employee at Chinh’s welding shop in Binh Tan District on the city’s outskirts since August 2017. He received a monthly salary of VND4.5 million ($195), plus food and accommodation.
He attended the family’s year-end party on the night of February 12 with his colleagues, but while his co-workers returned home to celebrate the Lunar New Year after the party, Tinh asked to stay behind at the family’s house. That night, he stabbed Chinh’s entire family to death.
He told police officers that he had been treated unfairly while working at Chinh’s shop, that he was frequently scolded by the owner’s wife. He wanted to take revenge and steal their belongings.
The culprit admitted his crime at the hearing.
The murder was discovered three days later, after residents reported to police the smell of decomposing flesh coming from Chinh’s house.
The incident shocked the public as it took place at a time when the nation as a whole was celebrating Tet, the Lunar New Year, the longest and most important holiday in Vietnam.
Tinh was arrested while hiding in Long An Province outside the city on February 16.
Together, they have almost 90 percent of Vietnam’s growing ready-to-drink (RTD) market share.
The RTD market in Vietnam is dominated by just three companies: Tan Hiep Phat, Filipino Universal Robina Corporation (URC), and Suntory PepsiCo, a joint venture of American and Japanese firms.
Founded in 1994, Tan Hiep Phat had identified instant tea as its key business from the very beginning. Two popular products on the market are “Tra xanh Khong do” and “Dr.Thanh.”
The company used to hold more than 55 percent of the total market share in 2012, but this dropped to under 40 percent in just three years after a scandal in late 2015 when a fly was found in one of its tea bottles.
But the popularity of instant tea among Vietnamese consumers has kept Tan Hiep Phat going. Its gross profit last year hit VND1.84 trillion ($80 million), two times that of 2014.
Tan Hiep Phat is still the market leader with 53 percent.
URC, one of the biggest food and beverage producers in the Philippines, has faced many ups and downs on the Vietnamese market, including occupying the first place, before slipping drastically to third, where it stays now.
Soon after entering Vietnam in 2003 and building its fame with the “C2” brand, URC Vietnam secured the second spot on the domestic RTD market, right behind Tan Hiep Phat.
The fly-in-the-drink scandal involving Tan Hiep Phat in 2015 paved the way for URC Vietnam to become the first RTD firm in the country in early 2016.
But then URC Vietnam stumbled, when its tea was found to be contaminated with lead in mid-2016. Its market share shrank from 35-40 percent three years ago to just 15 percent recently. It has lost its second spot to Suntory Pepsico.
Launched in Vietnam in 2013, Suntory PepsiCo Vietnam Beverage Company (SPVB), a fully foreign owned joint venture in Vietnam between U.S. PepsiCo Inc. and Japan’s Suntory Holdings Limited, has used the network that PepsiCo had already established in Vietnam as a lever to thrive.
Suntory PepsiCo landed in Vietnam with its “O Long Tea plus” bottled tea that is said to be extracted from black oolong tea leaves. Oolong tea is very popular in Japan.
The firm has made good use the scandals involving Tan Hiep Phat and URC to expand its business.
By mid-2016, its market share climbed up to 20 percent and by the end of the third quarter this year, it had taken the second position, with URC Vietnam at 15.8 percent.
It is obvious that the Vietnamese have developed a taste for sweetened drinks.
The Health Ministry had said at a meeting last month that from just 6 litres in 2000, per capita consumption of sweetened drinks had soared to 44 in 2016. It had organized the meeting to announce new recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO) on controlling consumption of sugary drinks.
Truong Tuyet Mai, deputy director of the National Institute of Nutrition, said that Vietnamese people are predicted to consume over 5 billion liters of sweetened drinks in 2018, nine times more than that in 2000, and the figure is estimated to reach 11 billion by 2025.
In 2016, sales of sugary drinks in Vietnam reached over four billion liters, according to a survey by British market researcher Euromonitor International, which found that instant tea and soft drinks were the best-selling beverages, accounting for more than 2 billion liters and around 1 billion liters respectively.
The survey also found that the sweetened beverage market has been rising fast in Vietnam, with an annual growth rate of 9.2 percent.
According to Germany’s Statista Market Research Co, the market volume of RTD tea in Vietnam is expected to increase by around 72.5 percent between 2015 and 2020.
It also put the total value of Vietnam’s RTD market at $1.69 billion in 2015 and forecast that the figure will go up to $3.37 billion by 2020.
Market adjustments over the past few weeks have brought many stocks down to attractive price levels compared to the beginning of the year, but investors should remain cautious.
On the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange, the benchmark VN-Index rose 2.01 per cent to close at 917.51 points on Friday.
On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange, the HNX Index increased by 4.47 per cent to end at 100.70 points.
The VN Index and the HNX Index finished the week 4.5 per cent and 5.15 per cent lower than the previous week.
Some 194.1 million stocks worth VNĐ4.3 trillion (US$190 million) were traded on average each session last week.
Ngô Thế Hiển, deputy head of analysis at Sài Gòn – Hà Nội Securities Company (SHS), told tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn that the market had experinced a four-week decline with depleting liquidity, and cash flow had not returned to the market.
Nguyễn Trung Du, senior expert at VNDirect Securities Co (VNDS), said the market had been bearing the burden of the massive net selling by foreign investors in response to the appreciation of the US dollar against other currencies after the US Federal Reserves raised interest rates.
Rising tensions between China and the US, which could lead to a large-scale trade war between the two largest economies, had also had negative impacts on global stock markets, Du said.
The recent drop on the market had sent many stocks to more attractive prices than the start of the year, Hiền said.
However, investors maintain a watch-and-wait approach until the market officially bottoms out and international markets return to normal, Hiển added.
According to Nguyễn Hồng Khanh, head of market analysis at Việt Nam International Securities Joint Stock Company (VIS), the market had fallen by nearly 100 points compared to the beginning of the year, so the value of many stocks was now relatively low.
Listed companies with strong financial capacity and stable business performances would not be significantly affected by the market fluctuations and would receive priority from investors.
For investors, this is an opportunity to buy cheap stocks to make a profit when they recover.
“However, it is uncertain that all stocks will generate profits and investors should be prepared to quickly withdraw capital in case the market shows signs of instability,” Khanh said.
Rồng Việt Securities Company (VDSC) has predicted a bearish trend for the VN-Index for the next few months.
In its investment strategy report for July 2018, VDSC said despite rising external risks caused in part by the US – China trade war, Việt Nam’s economy showed its best performance since 2011 in the first six months of 2018.
According to new GSO data, Việt Nam’s economy grew at an annual pace of 6.8 per cent in the second quarter. In the first half of 2018, GDP growth reached 7.1 per cent, a level not seen since 2011.
However, VDSC said Việt Nam’s stock market still faced more risks from external factors (FED rates hike, trade war, Renminbi depreciation) which could put more pressure on a potential devaluation of the đồng and outflows of “fast money” (from hedge funds).
“Although we believe that the State Bank of Việt Nam’s resources are strong enough to control foreign exchange fluctuations within its target range, we think monetary policy will be tighter in the second half of 2018, implying less liquidity for the stock market and real estate.”
For these reasons, along with oncoming business earnings results, good buying opportunities would be ripe while the market drops a bit more, VDSC said.
“However, an upward trend will not come with all stocks and sectors. Investors will carefully choose companies with good business results and smart money should not be invested across the board,” it added.
ASIAONE | BANGKOK – American tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has proposed a mini-submarine to save the boys trapped inside a flooded Thai cave, floating the idea on social media while linking it to his space exploration business.
After garnering headlines with initial ideas of installing a giant air tube inside the cave complex and using his firm’s penetrating radar to dig holes to reach the boys, Musk’s latest concept is the pod.
“Primary path is basically a tiny, kid-size submarine using the liquid oxygen transfer tube of Falcon rocket as hull,” Musk said in a tweet to his 22 million followers.
“Light enough to be carried by 2 divers, small enough to get through narrow gaps. Extremely robust.”
An accompanying video of people testing the submarine in a swimming pool in Los Angeles that was posted overnight Sunday (July 8) attracted more than 3.1 million views in 10 hours.
Many people offered positive comments, with fans hailing Musk and his engineers for their creativity.
Other people, however, questioned whether Musk’s plan was credible.
“Seriously? No kid or adult will want to be in there for any amount of time. Rethink this. CAT or open MRI machines create unsurmountable anxiety. Go back to the drawing board,” one person wrote to Musk on Twitter.
The mini-submarine is due to arrive in Thailand on Monday, Musk wrote.
Last week, Musk said he was sending teams to Thailand from his private space exploration firm, SpaceX, and engineering firm, Boring Co. which is developing tunneling systems for transport projects.
While offering the mini-submarine as a potential saviour, Musk again used the opportunity to promote space exploration.
“With some mods, this could also work as an escape pod in space,” Musk said on Twitter.
Thai authorities have said they are welcoming all offers of help in the rescue effort for the boys, who became trapped in a complex cave system in mountainous northern Thailand on June 23 when rising waters hemmed them in.
Twelve boys aged from 11 to 16, plus their 25-year-old coach, were caught inside the cave.
Elite divers began a rescue mission on Sunday, successfully escorting four of them out, and were aiming to extract the others swiftly before fresh monsoon rains made escape impossible.
Dtinews – Over 93 per cent of interviewed foreign tourists said they were satisfied with their trip to Vietnam, the Vietnam News Agency quoted the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) as reporting.
The Vietnam Annual Tourism Report 2017, released by VNAT on July 5, said that last year the association distributed 27,000 feedback forms to foreigners at 12 international border gates nationwide, including four airports, four land border gates, and four seaports.
Results showed that 93.46 per cent of respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with their trip to Vietnam. Only 0.63 per cent recorded any dissatisfaction.
Some 92.5 per cent of tourists stayed overnight in Vietnam at tourism accommodation and 7.4 per cent visited the country for just one day. More than 60 per cent arranged their trip themselves.
Each foreign visitor staying at tourism accommodation spent an average of $1,171.3 in Vietnam, with Asian visitors spending $995.7, European visitors $1,295.3, visitors from Oceania $1,791.1, and those from the Americas $1,525.1.
About 60 per cent of respondents were visiting Vietnam for the first time.
At the press conference in Hanoi releasing the report, VNAT said that nearly 7.9 million foreigners visited Vietnam in the first six months of 2018, up 27.2 per cent year-on-year. The country also catered to 42.8 million domestic tourists in the first half.
Tourism activities generated VND312 trillion ($13.5 billion) in revenue between January and June, up 22.5 per cent year-on-year, according to VNAT.
Environmental workers clear dead fish from the shores of Hanoi’s West Lake on Monday morning, July 9. — VNA/VNS Photo
Hanoi authorities have said that sudden rain followed by hot weather was to blame for the 200 kilograms of fish that washed up dead in one of the capital’s lakes last week – Vnexpress reports
Le Van Duc, director of Hanoi’s Construction Department, said at a meeting on November 1 that a shift in the weather was the cause of the mass fish deaths in Linh Dam Lake on October 26.
A Hanoi’s environment worker collects dead fish from Linh Dam Lake on October 27. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Thanh
“It was very hot in the morning and then rained in the afternoon,” Duc said. “The lake is among the less polluted in Hanoi.”
Thousands of fish went belly up along the two-kilometer edge of the lake in Hoang Mai District, creating a foul stench on October 26.
Joggers noticed the problem at around 8 p.m. and dead fish covered the embankment a few hours later. Carp as large as five kilograms could be seen floating in the water.
Workers from Hanoi’s Sewerage and Drainage Company have collected around 200 kilograms of dead fish so far.
“200 kilograms of fish dying in a lake of more than 70 hectares is normal,” Duc said.
His department is still investigating a bigger pollution problem on West Lake, the largest in Hanoi, after 200 tons of dead fish were collected over several days in early October.
The inspection covers all 99 hotels and restaurants and 27 sewage pipes around the lake.
A study by the Institute for Environmental Science and Development recently found that all of Hanoi’s urban lakes and waterways are heavily polluted.
The city hopes to resolve the problem with help from a $726-million sewage treatment plant.
Construction began early this month and is slated for completion in three years. The system is designed to treat 270,000 cubic meters of sewage every day from the Lu, To Lich and Nhue rivers in a bid to bring them back to life.
William E. Crawford arrived in Vietnam in 1985 as one of the first Western photographers to travel inside post-war Hanoi. He began documenting the transformation of the country’s capital city and would spend three decades capturing the city’s rapid modernisation. Through his powerful photographs of specific neighbourhoods and families, he shows the changes of this beautiful city and its people, as they worked hard to forget the years of turmoil and embrace economic liberalisation.
Crawford has recently published his work Hanoi Streets 1985-2015: In the Years of Forgetting and shared about his inspiration to document Hanoi’s evolution – Culture Trip reports
How did you become interested in and ultimately pursue a career in photography?
I am from the South Side of Chicago. I became interested in photography as a young man. My father and grandfather were both enthusiastic amateur photographers. I studied photography both as an undergraduate and graduate student at Yale, and upon receiving my MFA began writing The Keepers of Light, a History and Working Guide to Early Photographic Processes.
In 1985, a personal friend contemplated a run for Congress and had the opportunity to travel to Vietnam with a television crew for a local station. I was invited to come along as the still photographer. I made important friendships with my Vietnamese guides on that trip and was encouraged to return.
What inspired you to document the modernisation of Hanoi over the past three decades?
Modernisation was going on all around me. It was impossible to ignore. Revisiting people and places is part of a long tradition in documentary photography, but no one else was doing this type of work in Vietnam when I began. I continued to assess my material and realised how profound the changes became with each subsequent visit. The early photographs became the only record of a vanishing Hanoi.
What was it like to revisit locations and individuals you photographed regularly over the years?
It was revealing to see the changes. I wasn’t surprised to see families I had photographed remain in the same place. Families were returning to a more traditional culture: how they handled money, their interactions with the Communist Party, what they could and could not do. Religious practices became more evident. Oddly enough, as a foreigner, I felt nostalgic for the charms of the old city.
How were you influenced by Vietnamese culture? Was it difficult to be in Hanoi so soon after the war ended?
I was more aware of how complicated the war had been, especially in the North, than I had been as a college undergraduate in the 1960’s. It was physically difficult to be there at first. Food and lodging were problematic. Rats were in the dining room of the hotel for foreigners. The waitresses were rumoured to be spies for the police. The power grid was often down, and in hot, muggy weather the Russian air conditioners made more noise than cold air. Water had to be boiled for safe consumption. Food was over-salted. There were ants in the rice.
What do you hope readers will take away from Hanoi Streets 1985-2015, In the Years of Forgetting?
The importance of documenting your environment. Today, the Vietnamese are becoming nostalgic for the past. They enjoy the pictures and the people remembered who I was each time I returned. They were eager to see the images from previous trips I brought with me.
Finally, what does the book’s title mean to you?
The Vietnamese were eager to forget the war-torn past.
In his final essay in the book, Crawford writes: “The look in Hanoi, from colonial days until now, is one of freewheeling juxtaposition, the result of placing Eastern and Western styles right next to one another and letting them, in a visual sense, duke it out. It’s the artless combination of styles and references that makes Hanoi so visually entertaining. Restraint is boring.”
His evocative photographs capture the juxtaposition he speaks of as well as the essence of a city struggling to leave the past behind. Hanoi Streets 1985-2015: In the Years of Forgetting is a powerful archive of Hanoi’s evolution.
Sometimes, one Benz just isn’t enough. And Mercedes agrees.
On Tuesday, the German auto giant launched its US-based subscription plan, Mercedes-Benz Collection – a report by Benjamin Zhang on Business Insider.
Mercedes is piloting the subscription plan in Nashville, Tennessee, and Philadelphia.
“We’re always looking to stay ahead of our customers’ needs and wants, as well as to bring new people to the brand,” Dietmar Exler, the CEO of Mercedes-Benz USA, said in a statement. “We know there is a market opportunity for people who would like the ability to move in and out of vehicles, depending on what they need or want at a particular point in time, or who don’t want to own a vehicle right now.”
Mercedes-Benz Collection membership requires a one-time activation fee of $495. There’s also a monthly fee determined by the service’s three tiers: Signature, Reserve, and Premier. However, only two of the three are available in each city.
The Mercedes-AMG CLA 45. Mercedes-AMG
At $1,095 a month (not including tax), Signature is the most affordable tier. It’s available in only Nashville and features compact C-Class sedans, coupes, and convertibles, as well as the GLC 300 SUV and the SLC 300 roadster. The only high-performance model on offer is the Mercedes-AMG CLA 45.
Reserve is the middle tier at $1,595, and it’s available in both cities. It features midsize E-Class sedans, wagons, coupes, and convertibles, as well as the GLE 350 SUV. A quartet of AMG models is on offer: the C 43 sedan, the GLC 43 SUV, the SLC 43 Roadster, and the C 43 Coupe.
The Mercedes-Benz Collection website initially indicated that four-cylinder E300 models will be made available to members in Nashville, while those in Philadelphia paying the same price get more powerful V6 E400s. A company spokeswoman told Business Insider that the vehicles for Philadelphia were erroneously listed on the site. The company clarified that Reserve tier members in both cities will have access to E300 models.
The Mercedes-Benz G550. Mercedes-Benz
Finally, there’s Premier at $2,995 a month. It’s available in only Philadelphia — and it’s where things really start to get interesting, with access to Mercedes’ flagship SL roadster, S-Class sedan, and G-Class SUV. There’s also a host of AMG performance sedans and SUVs.
The service is controlled through the Mercedes-Benz Collection app, where drivers can select their cars and arrange pickups and drop-offs. Mercedes says that all vehicles come cleaned and fully fueled and that insurance and 24/7 roadside assistance are included.
Google is now giving websites the option to remove the need for password logins in the latest desktop version of its web browser, Chrome 67.
Websites that enable the new standard will let you register and sign-in using any biometric information that your phone supports. An iPhone 7 owner, for example, would be able to use their fingerprint to verify that they’re the ones signing in to a site from their desktop. Additional options will include facial recognition (e.g. Face ID), retina scanner, or even a photo.
Chrome users won’t be able to access this feature immediately after it rolls out in the coming days or weeks. Instead, the update means that Google has opened up the necessary code to website developers, so they can integrate the feature into their own sites.
The passwordless option will be the default setting on sites that enable it, but you’ll have the option to turn it off if you prefer typing your credentials in.
By enabling it, websites will not only be relieving you of the task of recalling and typing in passwords, but will also make it more convenient for you to create unique passwords. Using the same password more than once — while easier than remembering multiple — is a known security hazard, and is even becoming increasingly difficult with all of the different password requirements.
Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla had been pushing for the Web Authentication standards that made this update possible for years, with the hopes of increasing security. They committed to using them on their own browsers even before the standards were released in April, and Chrome is the last of the three companies’ products to do so.
Apple has made no such commitment for Safari, but it might be on its way: The browser is labeled as “In development” in Chrome’s status update and a number of Apple staff members are in the correlated working group.
Nguyen Hai Minh, Managing Director @ Wisdom Agency had 8 years working in marketing agency for both global and local large-sized corporations.
Minh said, the work was fun but he realised that its contributed value to my clients’ businesses might not be much because working in agencies Minh was only allocated a small part of their marketing work. Thus, Minh decided to end his career with agencies who served large-sized businesses to pursue his goal of helping the middle-sized local companies compete in the global context.
Nguyen Hai Minh, Managing Director @ Wisdom Agency
“Now in 2018, after 2 years of pursuing that goal, I have to admit that it is not as easy as expected. The differences between large-sized and middle-sized companies are big, especially when it is about the mindset of people and resources for investment. The fact is I am honoured to have my chances to work with companies’ owners and directors as their marketing consultant, the people who are understanding and highly professional. Still, there are several cases in which I had to reluctantly accept the projects and later on canceled them with disappointments for both sides.
I have to admit that I was also a part of the problems because I didn’t take enough amount of time to talk to the clients and really understood what they needed and expected. In many cases, the misunderstanding between two parties at the beginning of the project is the main cause of that project’s failure. Simply put, when a client comes to an agency for strategy consulting, sometimes it is not exactly what they need. Thus, I want to write this article to share my experience in the hope that clients will understand more about agencies’ capabilities and both parties can cooperate better in the future.
Below are some of the most common misconceptions about marketing strategies that I often encountered, but first let’s define what strategy is.
What strategy is
Up until now, experts have not altogether agreed on a single definition of strategy. However, from agency’s point of view, strategy is an arrangement of the limited source to maximize their capability in order to have a better chance of achieving the desired goals. However, sometimes people express the need for strategy like these:
What strategy is not
My business is not running very well. I need a marketing strategy to save it.
No. Strategy is not a miracle that can save every business. In fact, it requires a lot of investment in terms of finance, human resource training and of course time. Strategy is meant to be built and executed for years or at least some quarters to be effective. In some cases, it can be too late to implement a strategy if all resources of the company are nearly depleted.
Case study: One of the biggest coffee exporters came to me asking for a brand strategy to enter consumer market and connect with coffee shop owners. After a short interview, it turned out that their B2B business was in fierce competition; they were only looking for the escape and assumed that entering B2C was the solution. I wished that I could assist them, but having a brand strategy without any operating experience operating in B2C coffee marketing spells a certain failure.
Our strategy is to build brand, push sales, and nurture customers all at the same time.
This typical answer is very common among marketing and communications projects, yet doing everything at the same time is not a strategy; it is only unrealistic ambition. In order to build a good strategy, one must abstain from the temptation of doing everything at the same time and then focus their resources on the most important subjects. In other words, strategy is more about what one should not do, the priority of resources given a small set of specific tasks.
Usually, a marketing strategy that tries to achieve both brand and sales objectives in a short period of time requires a lot of finance to succeed. Similarly, a marketing strategy that targets both the young and the old, both males and females, both the urban and the rural, will not be successful.
Case study: A classical case-study of Pepsi Cola is worth mentioning when they entered the soft drink market which was entirely dominated by Coca-Cola at that time. By focusing their resources on the younger generation, Pepsi Cola successfully convinced them to leave Coca-Cola and adopt a newer brand which was more lively and fashionable. If Pepsi Cola had instead invested all their money into pursuing the all masses population like Coca Cola, they would have failed by the lack of resources (compared to Coca Cola’s of course).
Our strategy is to increase revenue 150% this year
At the first sight, it looks professional. However, it is not even a strategy if one looks deep enough. Setting clear objectives at the beginning of a business growth phase is crucial, but it is not strategy; it is simply measurement. Before setting such targets, an experienced strategist has to look for multiple solutions to meet those targets so that he can balance the resources and know for sure that these targets are achievable. In short, strategy is not just about setting targets and measurements; but it is more about finding coherent resources and methods to assuredly achieve them.
Case study: Clients sometimes have pre-arranged targets as a strategy and hire agencies to take care of the rest. It is not fair because there are many factors that will influence the execution, most of those are related to the business, not marketing factors. In order to solve this, client and agency must be crystal clear at the beginning of the project regarding marketing KPIs which are agency’s responsibility and business KPIs which are client’s responsibility. A good client should only ask for an agency to commit on business KPIs if they have worked together for a long period of time.
We hire you – the agency – to do it. It is your work, not ours.
We don’t want to let everyone in the company know. It should be only among the senior
This problem is about people involvement. Unlike the old day when business strategy was only known among a very selective group of people, today’s strategy requires a consent of all stack-holders of the business, agencies and employees included, to be successful. Before the launch of any marketing strategy, there should be a soft internal launch, in which the CEO will aspire all employees about the promising strategy so that everyone can understand it correctly and execute it right.
Case study: I build the brand strategy with a 5-year roadmap for a furniture company in the Northern area of Vietnam. After the strategy was approved, I had a session with all marketing team to present it and the CEO held a speech to all 2,000 workers so that they would know and follow through. As the matter of fact, there is a lot of executives’ involvement in the strategy in order to succeed.
We had a very good strategy. Why didn’t it work?
Well, strategy is strategy; it is not reality. In fact, strategy requires a lot of attention and day-to-day monitoring to be effective, not mentioning the miscalculation of the context and resources from the beginning also, yet some clients tend to skip the preliminary research and jump right into the solution. Lack of resources, attention, or vision can all be accounted for the doom of good strategy.
When a company really needs a strategy?
When the business has passed the infancy stage is my certain answer. Marketing strategy is rarely needed by start-ups because these business models change really fast. However, when one company has passed the infancy stage and gradually noticed the limit of its growth, it is the right time to find and implement a proper strategy. As an example, a one-storey house does not even need the foundation, but there is no way for a building to reach 20-storey height without a concrete one. The relationship between strategy and growth is very much similar to this illustration.
Case study 1: I canceled a branding project of a delivery start-up after two weeks into the execution because there was no clear answer for the direction the company was heading to, not to mention the founder who kept changing his thoughts all the time.
Case study 2: Another example is for the furniture company that reached the revenue of $20 million per year and got stuck there for years. After the transformation from state-owned company to joint-stock, they began to build their first brand strategy and the result was the 10% growth immediately after the first year.
How to do it properly?
In summary, there are four attributes of a good strategy that I learned from my experience as well as reading a lot of strategy books. I would like to share them here as the food for thoughts and motivations for further research into this abstract but very interesting subject of the 20th century. These four attributes are:
1. Focus
A good strategy first of all has to focus on homogeneity, prioritising the important issues and abandoning the rest. It can be the objective of brand over sales, or a small group of customers over mass audience. Whatever it is, strategy needs to be focal because all companies have limited resources.
2. Differentiation
Whatever one does, do something unique. This statement may be a little hard to achieve, even cliche, but the need to really look into it is crucial. At the end of the process of strategic thinking, at least a company can find some relative differences to leverage on if there is nothing unique being found.
3. Coherence
As mentioned above strategy should be built on facts, not hopes. Therefore, any objective or KPI must have a supportive set of actions. For example, a 15% increase on sales should be supported by a list of new clients and forecast of revenue growth; otherwise, strategy is just a plan that is far from reality.
4. Flexibility
Last but not least, flexibility in implementation, the need for monitoring and regular adjustment are required to keep the strategy relevant to actual context and ascertain a higher chance of success.”
