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In an article published by the Verlagswelt Magazine Mr. Ralf Kaske, who is a lawyer, cautions against the widely accepted opinion that managing directors of small and medium-sized entities (SMEs) were only liable to a limited extent. Nowadays even in cases of slight negligence of their duty of diligence by managing directors claims for compensation could be enforced, given that directors of German GmbHs were subject to special liability regulations. According to Mr. Kaske there is the danger that, if a company has financial problems, their leaders could be “made the pawn sacrifice”. Even small irregularities in the company may therefore lead to the private ruin of managing directors. +++

In the year 2005 more than 90 percent of patent applications in Europe came from companies and inventors, who submitted less than five inventions for protection by patent. This, according to the European Patent Office (EPA), is a sign of the European patent being very important to small and medium-sized entities (SMEs), as is reported by the Handelsblatt magazine in its online edition. +++

According to the pressetext news service 95 percent of online marketing experts consider marketing by email to be the most effective tool to reach customers. This was confirmed by the »Online trends 2006« survey carried out by the German marketing-Börse service directory. Another finding was that no other medium represents as cost-effective a method of cultivating customer relations as emailing. This aspect is particularly important to small and medium-sized entities (SMEs). Nowadays almost all companies dispose of a newsletter service and are actively expanding their mailing lists. About 95 percent of all mail-order businesses use this tool too. According to the survey five percent of the total turnover of such companies are the consequence of a mouse klick in a newsletter. +++

Biweekly the English commercial register in London publishes a black list of companies which were deleted or are to be stroken off the commercial register within three months due to violations of English laws. One quarter of these companies are German limiteds (Ltd.). +++

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is to sponsor the application of micro system technology in small and medium-sized entities with 30 million Euros. To this end “application centres for micro system technology” are to be erected in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Bremen, North Rhine-Westphalia and Thuringia. The Federal research minister, Mrs. Annette Schavan talkes about an important leap of innovation for small and medium-sized entities (SMEs). »Using this new micro system technology our SMEs will become even more competitive and generate new jobs.« In her opinion, especially innovative SMEs could immensely benefit from such applications. The centres sponsored by the BMBF will be operable in summer and supported for a period of five years. +++

TNS Infratest and the Institute for Information Economics (IIE) on the 15th of June presented in Berlin their report “Monitoring information economy” for 2006. The experts consider the topic “IT security” to be the outstanding engine of growth for the economic sector of information and communication technology in 2006. Security hardware, software and services will be the potential for growth in the fields of “IT in companies” as well as “security in the Internet”. Internet telephony, Media Convergence and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID ⇒ Wikipedia) also provide above average possibilities for growth. Companies have a look at the future which is as optimistic as it was in 2001/2002 for the last time. +++

Can the British “limited company” (Ltd) be considered as kind of “improved German private limited company” (GmbH) or are certain risks involved played down by counseling agencies and carelessly overlooked by entrepreneurs? Does the Ltd really provide the ground for illegal machinations which is a point reiterated by critics and which causes many banks and administrative authorities to be very cautious? +++

For its study “Trends and perspectives for the counseling of small and medium-sized entities (SMEs) the Berlin based German institute for SMEs (DIKMU) questioned about 2000 economic advisers in Germany on the most important issues for the future and current trends in the counseling of SMEs. The main finding: increased competition, decreasing professional fees and increasing internationalization in the counseling industry. +++

The Kienbaum executive consultancy has presented their »Executives and experts working in information technology branches« salary study for the year 2006 which examined 190 companies. According to the findings of the study, executive staff on average earn 101.000 Euros annually, whereas a specialist´s salary amounts to 57.000 Euros. On average executive salaries have risen by 2.4 percent whereas those for specialists have grown by 3.2 percent. The salaries of 32 percent of this group of people were raised already in January. +++

In spite of growing demand only one quarter of German online traders intend to expand their service portfolio. This is the finding of a joint study by Novomind and the FAZ institute. +++