This workshop aims to coach corporate executives on how to make use of the international best practices to effectively reduce their strategic & non-strategic expenses with no major investments, illustrated with case studies. including:

- Where are the reduction opportunities in non-strategic expenses?
- How to capture the opportunities & recover the missing chances?
- How to master successful cost reduction factors?
- How to choose cost reduction programs that are suitable to all organizations?
- How to trigger reduction through policy changes?
- How to make use of your existing or even less resources, to reduce your strategic expenses, total cycle 
   time and to improve quality through a PVM approach?
- How to implement successful cost reduction programs?
- Successful case studies

Workshop Details
Date: April 2, 2009 (Thursday)

Time: 9:30am - 5:30pm
Cost: HK$1,750 (Regular), HK$1,500 (Before March 19, 2009)
Medium: Cantonese with English Handout

To register for this workshop, please click here.

 

To learn more on how HMI can help your company to enhance cost effectiveness, please email to info@hmi.hk

 

We are proud to announce that the seminar on 'Compensation Strategy under Financial Turmoil' co-organized with FlexSystem on Feb 19, 2009 was completed with an overwhelming success with an attendance of mor than 80 people.

The seminar, delivered by Mr. Wilson Chu, Partner and Senior Consultant of HMI Consulting Limited, aimed to provide the practical tips on how to set company's compenstation strategies among uncertainties of the current difficult business environmnent.  During the seminar, Wilson shared different ways to maximize employee motivation with limited resources, while Ms. Karen Cheung of FlexSystem Limited shared how a powerful IT tool can help HR managers to perform analysis on different compensation strategies.

 

Economic Overview

According to the data announced by the Census and Statistics Department, the unemployment rate last month rose half a percentage point to 4.6%, the highest level since October 2006. About 14,300 jobs were lost in January, more than offsetting the roughly 11,200 jobs gained in December. The increase in January’s jobless rate was the biggest month-on-month jump since November 2001, when unemployment reached 6% after the dotcom bubble burst. The figures show some 3.53 million people were employed last month, down about 14,300 from over 3.54 million in December. As the size of workforce increased slightly to a record high of more than 3.68 million, the number of people without jobs reached 157,700, up 16,400 from December. The underemployment rate also rose, from 1.9% in December to 2.1% last month, and mainly affected the decoration and maintenance, transport and manufacturing sectors. [Source: SCMP (A2)/ HKEJ (P5)/ HKET (A6), 18 Feb 09]

While the unemployment rate continues to rise, inflation hit 3.1% last month compared with 2.1% in December, although government rates concession last year distorted December’s figure, the Census and Statistics Department said. Without concessions, the year-on-year, increase in consumer prices was 4.5% in January, a slight dip from December’s 4.6%. Food prices rose 11.2% year on year in January, with rice soaring 39.6% compared with the same month last year. [Source: SCMP (A3), The Standard (P3)/ HKEJ (P6)/ HKET (A5), 24 Feb 09]

On the other hand, manufacturers say Hong Kong-owned factories on the mainland have extended workers’ Lunar New Year holiday to early March in the face of declining overseas orders. Federation of Hong Kong Industries vice-chairman Stanley Lau Chin-ho said orders had fallen significantly in recent months and many factories opted to extend the Lunar New Year holiday to cut staff costs. He said factories normally reopened after the Lunar New year on the 15th day of the first lunar month, which this year falls on February 9, but many factories had delayed reopening until early March. He added that a wave of small and medium-sized mainland factories might close in the coming two months. [Source: SCMP (A1) , 31 Jan 09]



Disclaimer: Should there be any different views in the interpretation, please always refer to the original media source as reference. HMI Consulting accepts no liability in respect of the accuracy and truthfulness of the materials included in this newsletter.