Business in Romania blog: Doing business in Romania and business issues

Monday, January 30, 2006

Julius Meinl to start coffee shop network

The producer of the Julius Meinl coffee brand is preparing to develop a network of coffee shops in a franchise system.

Austrian group Julius Meinl Industrie Holding GMBH, the producer of Julius Meinl coffee brand, last autumn acquired Novo SRL, a company headquartered in Targu Secuiesc, Covasna county.

There are already several Julius Meinl coffee shops in Bucharest, but, according to Dobri, these are not franchises, as they are only using the firm's brand. Julius Meinl Romania also targets an expanded distribution area and higher visibility at the seaside this year.

Posted by Iulia Rasoiu : 1/30/2006 10:25:00 am

Romanian Businesswomen

A BusinessWeek article writes about women in Business, with several references to the Romanian business landscape in this matter.

As it seems, the writer met with Ms. Anca Vlad, the most successful Romanian businesswoman, the one who created and is currently running the Fildas Group.

Posted by Mihai : 1/30/2006 09:59:00 am

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

What to expect in 2006

Daniel Daianu points out some trends to look for in the Romanian economy in 2006. As it seems to me, the article is not writen on a very optimistic mood, but on a more worried one. Might be good, but still I think he should have also pointed out some consideral progress made in the business sector.

Posted by Mihai : 1/24/2006 11:30:00 am

Sunday, January 22, 2006

More Austrians here

Another Austrian investment comes to in Romania, as semiconductor company Infineon Technologies has opened a new development centre in the Romanian capital, Bucharest. Initially the centre will house 60 developers who will concentrate on security controllers for chip cards as well as power semiconductors with analogue and digital functions for use in automotive and industrial applications.

The activities in Bucharest are being managed by Infineon Technologies Romania SRL, which was founded in April 2005 as a subsidiary of Infineon Technologies Austria AG. Chip design, software development, and verification of these products represent the main focal points of the development efforts in Bucharest.

Infineon is also working with the University Politehnica of Bucharest to develop master-level programs, as they are planning for about 60 additional developers to be hired in Bucharest during the course of this year.

Posted by Mihai : 1/22/2006 10:04:00 pm

Saturday, January 21, 2006

BCP still interested in the Romanian Banking Market

Even though they have been defeated in the race for BCR (Romanian Commercial Bank), Banco Comercial Portugues (BCP) may launch a bank from scratch in Romania.

Still, BCP's interest in Romania does not look towards the comming Romania savings bank, CEC. BCP's chairman quoted it as being "out of the question".

In my opinion, one of the reasons for BCP's interest in Romania might be the powerfully emerging real-estate market, as BCP is comming with a very good experience from the Portugese market.

In Romania, there are about 1.5 new houses per 1000 inhabitants, while in Portugal the figure is much higher, about 10.5 new houses/1000 inhabitants. So, comming from such a strong real estate market, I would not be surprised for BCP to offer highly competitive real-estate financing options in Romania.

We'll have to wait and see.

Posted by Mihai : 1/21/2006 09:11:00 am

Sunday, January 15, 2006

The Music Blog

I have recently launched a new personal project which is very dear to my heart - The Music Blog.

It's a blog about music, about what me and some friends like and dislike and why, news about various musical issues and, basically, lot of things that relate to music.

If you are interested, go check it out at www.musicblog.ro. Looking forward for your opinions on it !

P.S. Still working on some design improvements, so the version you will see might not be the final one. Also, please give your suggestions on this matter.

Posted by Mihai : 1/15/2006 10:59:00 pm

Friday, January 13, 2006

Phone prices to decrease

The average price of a mobile phone will lower this year by approximately 9%, according to a study issued by the market research company iSuppli, quoted by Reuters.

The mobile phones will have an average price of 126 dollars comparing with the 142 dollars reported for 2005.

The number of mobile phones that will be produced this year is expected to be 850 million units.

iSuppli estimates that the reduction of prices in this sector will decrease in 2007.

However, due to many new phones containing USB ports to allow direct connections to PCs for music downloading, music services from the wireless service providers are often bypassed.
Further, new phones incorporating Wi-Fi capability are able to link to the Internet and place Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls at little or no cost -- again bypassing voice services offered by the wireless carriers. Some mobile-phone brands even incorporate Skype Technologies S.A.’s popular VoIP software to enable this capability.
As the number of phones with these features increases, this problem will grow in magnitude, iSuppli predicts.

By 2008, USB ports are expected in 73 percent of all new-model mobile phones, up from 30 percent in 2004, while music playback capability -- including MP3 -- is expected in 54 percent of new-model wireless handsets in 2008, up from 20 percent in 2004.

Slots for removable flash-memory cards, which can be used to store and transfer music files are predicted to reach a 43 percent penetration rate of new phones by 2008, up from 16 percent in 2004.
Finally, 14 percent of new-model phones in 2008 are estimated to contain Wi-Fi links, up from less than 1 percent in 2004.

To avoid working against each other, service providers and their mobile-phone suppliers must carefully orchestrate the combination of handset features and services offered to subscribers, iSuppli believes.

Posted by Iulia Rasoiu : 1/13/2006 10:11:00 am

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Google not on top 100?

As Mihai said, Fortune published the top 100 companies to work for in 2006 in the US of A.

I have a big question mark above my head seeing that Google is not there. With their famous 20% "work-for-your-own-projects" time concept? Still, Microsoft, where they throw chairs at those who leave for Google, is on 42nd place.

Posted by Mihai : 1/10/2006 05:21:00 pm

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Spam and Anti Spam

Recently, Blogger introduced a "word verification box" at the end of the posting window for each post you enter on your blogspot blog. This is a typical (and a very annoying, in my opinion) way of fighting against spam.

What I hate about it is that it doesn't attack spammers, but it just puts another wall through they have to go through, while in the same time making our efforts of publishing / sending e-mails / commenting more difficult. And I specially hate it when the letters / numbers in the word verification picture are so hard to understand that you are very prone to making a mistake (some invented the "i cannot understand this, please give me another try with a new picture" box :)) ).

What is nice about it (and thanks to the smart minds and Blogger / Google for this) is that you can remove it, by sending a request in this matter so they can verify that your blog is not a spam one. I just did that, I hope they will answer fast enough. :)

P.S. To disable it, just click on the "? in a yellow circle" icon near "Word verification" on the bottom of your posting window on Blogger.

Posted by Mihai : 1/05/2006 10:34:00 am

Mass SMS bring EUR 5 milion to operators

It has been writen that the mass SMS trend in Romania got even more popular at the end of 2005, when about 81 million SMS-es were sent through the 2 most popular mobile phone operators, Connex-Vodafone and Orange. This brought them earnings of about EUR 5 million.

According to the calculations, each of the Connex-Vodafone subscribers sent about 10 SMS-es.

Now, I am getting sooo fed-up with receiving spam / mass SMS-es on Christmas, New Years Eve and other holidays. The thing which, to me, is most annoying is the lack of personalization in the messages. I know people who sent to half of their contacts list the same standard message. Come on, those people receive so many messages that they can't even keep track of who sent and who didn't.

What's even more interesting is that there are people who really appreciate those messages. As a friend told me these days, "that guy didn't even sent me a Happy New Year message". What, would you have wanted him to send you the same standard message that he will send to 10 other girls?

Again, source of the data is here (only in Romanian for now).

Posted by Mihai : 1/05/2006 10:26:00 am

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Welcome Back, Mihai

Well, it seems the end of 2005 and the start of 2006 brings back among us (we as bloggers) the great almighty Miiiiihaaaaaaai Seceleanu !! :)

A very dear friend, a very good professional and really a nice person to have around in numerous ocassions. Yes, iBlog is back and the new posts are really interesting.

Way to go, Mihai, and I hope this time you're in it for good !

P.S. The blog is in Romanian.

Posted by Mihai : 1/04/2006 04:46:00 pm