Global tobacco giant British American Tobacco is realigning its supply chain function to improve operational efficiency. Gay Sutton talks to Bernd Meyer, Global Head of Plan, Logistics and Service about bringing these three erstwhile separate functions together.

Raúl Jacob, CFO of Peruvian operations and company comptroller, highlights the massive expansion programmes the company is undertaking, both in Peru and in Mexico.

After twenty years of market creation in China, profound changes have taken place that affect how international companies need to operate there. The last in our three part series examines how selling has become an important business function.

Walmart today announced a commitment to increase US sourcing of its products by $50 billion over the next ten years.

Speaking at the National Retail Federation's annual BIG Show, Walmart US President and CEO Bill Simon also announced plans to employ more US veterans and to help part-time associates who want to make the transition to full time work.

France Telecom currently has approximately 80 million customers across Africa and it will now commence work to ensure that phones sold by its operators there are pre-installed with the web browser.

The company has said that slow data speeds on African mobile networks have made it difficult up until now to support web-browsing. This new browser is expected to ease the burden on networks by using specially written code that reduces the amount of data that has to be passed back and forth when visiting popular websites.

Ford Motor Company plans to hire 2,200 salaried workers in the US this year, the largest increase in more than a decade, to support the pace of new product introductions.

The planned hiring is in addition to more than 8,100 combined hourly and salaried jobs Ford added in the US in 2012, as the company increased production capacity and expanded engineering, manufacturing and other areas. Approximately 1,000 of these positions were hourly jobs brought back to Ford plants in the US from other locations, including suppliers in Japan and Mexico.

The figures show that Chinese exports, a key driver of expansion, rose by more than 14 percent in December compared to last year, while imports also rose, climbing six percent and indicating stronger domestic demand.

"The export data especially is very good news as it shows that external demand for Chinese products is picking up," said Dariusz Kowalczyk, a senior economist at Credit Agricole-CIB in Hong Kong. "A slowdown in global demand had been one of the biggest concerns for China, and this does help alleviate some of those fears."

Which aspects of your business offer the greatest growth potential? A systematic approach to making this judgement can help leaders feel less like gamblers.

Madagascar is a land of increasing opportunity. Chairman, Zouzar Bouka, explains his vision of a new Madagascar and how VIMA Group is helping make this a reality.