Weekend Digest: From Bimbos To Bert & Ernie

For our weekend business readers:

WHAT A BIMBO!
The world’s largest bakery, Bimbo, has used a steadfast formula for success says Harvard Business Review:

The company founded in 1945 by a Spanish immigrant to Mexico, uses execution excellence to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances and customer preferences.

Bimbo’s executives understand that in a low-margin business like theirs, execution is crucial.  Profits depend heavily on getting the right amount of highly perishable products to stores at the right moment and at a reasonable cost.

Bimbo emerged in the U.S. in 1996 and by 2012 it had acquired the bakery divisions of Sarah Lee and Western Foods.

With 100 plants in three continents, read the full Harvard Business Review post to learn more about Bimbo’s approach to productivity by “adapting to consumer trends and local preferences” and how its focus on execution “allows it to move more quickly in to booming markets of the developing world.”

WHAT PERSONALITY TRAITS ARE PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYERS LOOKING FOR?
You’ve done all your home work and you are ready for that interview, but is there something you lack that can turn off a prospective employer.  Forbes thinks so and in a revealing story it explains what it might be.

New research shows that the vast majority of employers (88%) are looking for a “cultural fit” over skills in their next hire as more and more companies focus on attrition rates.

With that in mind Forbes “drilled down into data from 1,200 of the world’s leading employers to find precisely the personalities big business is looking for.”

Click on this link to discover what all that data said were the “Top Five Personality Traits” companies want.

INVESTING IN INDEPENDENT FILMS
It can make good investment sense says the Wall Street Journal, especially since firms that help investors pool money are devising new ways to invest in film that can reduce the risk.

Major studios are making fewer movies, most of them blockbuster productions. But markets like Russia, Brazil and China are “growing at huge rates” and want “Hollywood-quality movies,” says Ben Browning, CEO of Wayfare Entertainment Ventures, a film production and financing company that is backed by private capital. That creates an opportunity for independent films financed by high-net-worth investors to fill the void, he says.

The Journal points out the classic example of “Paranormal Activity” that was made for $15,000 in 2009 and earned $190 million world-wide.

Go inside the Journal article to learn the various techniques investors can use from more risky to safe in hopes of hitting it big on an independent film, as well as exotic type investments like “finishing funds.”

WEALTH AND POVERTY ON SESAME STREET
Sesame Street, PBS and Big Bird were the ripe targets of Mitt Romney, who singled the show out for budget cuts in this week’s debate. NPR’s Marketplace views wealth and poverty through the eyes of the popular kids show characters.

Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Count Von Count and other Sesame street characters assets are exposed as Marketplace takes a look at how “they fall on the economic continuum.”  As in life, some do better than others.  For example how could Bert and Ernie be so independently wealthy?

Click here to find out all the inside information, plus what “election issues” this zany bunch has on their minds.

BEFORE YOU DIE, WHAT IMPORTANT THINGS SHOULD YOU SAY?
Not a lot actually, but you should make it count says Forbes.  Forbes has put together a list of “40 Things You Should Say Before You Die” complete with simple diagrams to give the phrases better meaning.

Here’s an example from the list:  (#12) “I earned this,” and the diagram gives a smart little chart to go along with the phrase.

You might think “I love you” is #1, but it’s not.  Find out what is and read all 40 by clicking here.