Karan Chadda

Global digital marketing and communications leader

Gone East

This week, dominated by debt crises and stock market falls, has seen some significant changes that demonstrate the world isn’t moving east, it’s already there.

Earlier this week HSBC reported its half year results. Although better than expected, the big news was plans to reduce headcount at the bank by 30,000 by 2013. Most of these jobs will be lost in developed markets like the US and Europe. However, HSBC’s Asian business will see headcount growth of between 3,000 and 5,000 per year.

Kraft announced that it will split into a US groceries business and a global snacks business. Kraft’s purchase of Cadbury gave it a presence in high-growth emerging markets. Once the integration of Cadbury is complete, Kraft will split its business in two: a low-growth US groceries business and a high-growth global snacks brand.

BMW recorded stunning profits and growing margins thanks mainly to Chinese buyers’ demand for luxury German saloons. Mercedes and Audi recorded similar, although not as impressive growth thanks to Chinese consumers too.

Different companies in different sectors are all benefiting from, and changing their businesses to cater for emerging markets.

(sub)urban fox

I’ve added a photo of a pretty tame and friendly fox to the randomly rotating header. He was hanging around by my kitchen and stood there long enough for me to dash off to grab the camera and take a fair few snaps. This is the best one, photoshopped to get the strong contrast and saturation of colour. I think it’s quite striking.(sub)urban fox

Why Scrapbook?

Like a lot of people, I’m a bit eclectic in my interests and they often blur between professional and personal, so scrapbook seemed to fit the bill. There’ll be bits about politics and big issues like the economy, but also updates about my sub-standard squash game or my latest culinary success (I tend not admit to food failures as readily as sporting ones).

Keep an eye on the header photos. At the moment, I’ve only loaded up three images but will add more as I take more snaps that can somehow be squeezed into 1000×288 pixels without making them look horrible.