China is reportedly thinking about building a bullet train that reaches America

Next stop, Vancouver. Reuters/China Daily

 

China already has the world’s longest high-speed rail network. And the country aims to more than double the amount of high-speed railway by 2015 from the existing 10,000 km (6,000 miles) to 19,000 km—and eventually 25,000km by 2020. Officials want to build everything from an undersea railway tunnel from the Chinese shore to Taiwan—twice the length of the Channel Tunnel between France and Britain—to 1,776 km of high-speed rail through isolated deserts in the west of the country.
In that context, it almost seems feasible that China would be considering a recently discussed project—13,000 km of high-speed railway that crosses from China to Russia and North America that includes a 200-km tunnel under the Bering strait. A railway expert at the Chinese Academy of Engineering told the Beijing Times that officials are having discussions about the project. 

China’s proposed high-speed rail network for 2020 (including current lines.) Wikipedia Commons

A railway from China to the US might bring the two countries closer, at least geographically, but it would be an absurd project. China is already spending an estimated $32 billion on an underwater tunnel that measures just 123 km long. And officials estimate that 1,776 km of railway being built from Lanzhou in the western province of Gansu to Xinjiang will cost about $24 billion, which is cheap compared to China’s previous high-speed rail projects.
If those costs are any comparison, the so-called “China-Russia-Canada-America” line could cost north of $200 billion—$52 billion to construct an undersea tunnel to cross the Bering strait and $172 billion for the rest of the railway across land. That would account for well over half of China’s already massive high-speed rail budget of $300 billion. China may be one of the best examples of countries that love mega-infrastructure projects, but even this may be too much.

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Quartz   Lily Kuo

The Selling Profession-Odunze Reginald C

The Selling Profession

Selling is an important part of marketing, though it is subsumed under marketing, i.e. it is a subset of marketing.

Marketing is very essential in any organization and may be regarded as the life of the organization but more strategic to the concept of marketing is that of selling. Peter Drucker noted that an organization has two major functions, one is innovation, the other is marketing i.e. selling, and this is because most organization is only involved in selling and not marketing.

Allan J Zell, Ambassador of selling “noted that selling is the last part of 4 process of decision making, the others being marketing, buying, and presenting.”  Continuing he said “that one never knows where the information will go after contact with the customer is over. At each passing of information from the first person doing the selling/telling to the last person in the chain is that they all share the same three fears as it relates to the information and to who was offering it.”

Selling is very essential to an organization because it provides the revenue for the organization, i.e. the needed financial base to extend their business, make profit and sustains the economy and that brings to the idea of what I like most about selling and they include the following:

Revenue: in this period of global financial crises, with one or more economies failing, organizations, business and economies failing, selling is very essential to any organization. What therefore sustain the economy of the firm in a micro economy are the revenues that come from sales.

Relationships are developing from selling, which in turn becomes a sort of good will which is an intangible asset in the balance sheets of organizations. People have become politicians, great men in life as result of the relationship they have individuals in the course of selling to this great men, a typical example is the life of Andrew Johnson. Andrew Johnson was the only United States chief of staff who never went to school not even a primary school. He was a tailor by profession and was taught how to write and do arithmetic by his wife. He carved a niche for himself first as a tailor but the success of his tailoring profession was hinged upon an selling and excellent use of customer relations with his politician customers who are in serious desire of his well tailored suits. The relationship between him and his clients became so cordial that they encouraged him to go into politics. They provided him with both moral and financial support. He became Mayor of Glennville, member of the Tennessee house of assembly and later United States house of Representative between 1843-1853, Governor of Tennessee from 1853 to 1857 and United States Senate (1857 -1862) and following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, he served as president from 1865 to 1869.

I am not interested in telling history of vice president Andrew Johnson but I am fascinated to bring this story to highlight on the gains of an excellent relationship. It was an exciting customer relationship between clients that shot this man to limelight, Relationship is essential to business concern and that underscore the position of relationship managers in organizations.

 Profession: Selling is a profession and an important one at that, the idea of selling has inspired men to write and develop the discipline of selling etc

Searching for Evidence-Based Solutions for Youth Employment

Over the next decade, 1 billion people will enter the labor market. Altogether, the global economy will need to create 5 million jobs each month, simply to keep employment rates constant. Global growth and poverty reduction over the next 20 years will be driven by today’s young people, yet many of them face significant difficulties in finding productive employment.
Not only must we try to keep pace with the growing labor force, we must also do much better than we have done over the past 50 years. This requires that we engage more effectively to bring hundreds of millions of people into productive work and out of poverty. More energy and more resources must be devoted to developing and harnessing effective solutions to enable this transformation. This requires a global action that involves coordination from many stakeholders, and also requires solid evidence on how best to improve the job market for young people.
More than 170 academics, business leaders, and government ministers gathered for the Solutions4Work conference on May 7-8 in Istanbul, Turkey to discuss advancements made in youth employment and to plan next steps for maintaining momentum and driving progress on the issue. Convened by the World Bank, the event highlighted achievements of two initiatives that have contributed to recent progress: the Global Partnership for Youth Employment (GPYE) and the Multi-Donor Trust Fund on Labor Markets, Job Creation, and Economic Growth (MDTF). Both initiatives have built a solid foundation of knowledge that promotes evidence-based solutions to youth unemployment, including Measuring Success of Youth Livelihood Interventions and Strengthening Life Skills for Youth.
To expand on this work and address remaining challenges, a group of stakeholders that includes the International Youth Foundation, the World Bank, Youth Business International, Accenture, Plan International, and RAND Corporation is evaluating the need to create a global coalition dedicated to addressing youth employment.
This post is part of a series appearing from the Solutions4Work Conference – held in Istanbul, Turkey.
Source The world Bank Blog