Business Spotlight 2021
An overview of our main stories from the past year
TRENDS
NAMES AND NEWS
THE BIG PICTURE • Cowboys in Texas 1/21 • Tailors in Savile Row, London 2/21 • Royal Ascot, UK 3/21 • A helmet with a filtering system 4/21 • Drones flying vaccines, Canada 5/21 • A wind farm in Wyoming, USA 6/21 • Greenhouses, the Netherlands 7/21 • Sky Pool, London 8/21• Diamonds in South Africa 9/21 • Solar-powered car, The Netherlands 10/21 • Whistleblower Reality Winner under house arrest 11/21 • Deep Dive Dubai, UAE 12/21 THE RIVALS • Susan Wojcicki, CEO of Youtube vs Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook 1/21 • Playstation vs Xbox 2/21 • Toyota vs Tesla 3/21 • DHL vs UPS 4/21 • Deloitte vs KPMG 5/21 • UEFA Euro 2020 vs Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games 6/21 • Android vs IOS 7/21 • Booking Holdings vs Expedia Group 8/21 • Waymo (Alphabet) vs Cruise (GM) 9/21 • Hollywood vs Bollywood 10/21 • Moodle vs Google Classroom 11/21 • Christmas vs Hanukkah 12/21 QUOTE • M. G. Siegler 1/21 • Jacinda Ardern 2/21 • David Cornwell (aka John Le Carré) 3/21 • Ngozi Okonjo-iweala 4/21 • Satya Nadella 5/21 • Prince Philip 6/21 • Mary T. Barra 7/21 • Mona Darby 8/21 • Manfred F. R. Kets De Vries 9/21 • Emily Brontë 10/21 • Estée Lauder 11/21 • Ken Robinson 12/21
GLOBAL BUSINESS
How Fiji protects its fish 1/21 • Anthropology and working hard 2/21 • Britain’s future after Brexit and the pandemic 3/21 • Lockdown in Zimbabwe 4/21 • Irish guitar-maker George Lowden 5/21 • Business travel after Covid-19 6/21 • Corporate sustainability 7/21 • Digital clothing 8/21 • Typewriter repair shop in Goa, India 9/21 • Sea salt farming on Malta 10/21• Car-industry innovation 12/21
WOMEN AT WORK
The election of Kamala Harris 1/21 • An air force wife 2/21 • Restless millennials 3/21 • Domestic workers in South Africa 4/21 • Female entrepreneurs in India 5/21 • A female astronaut 6/21 • A caregiver from Georgia 7/21 • Secret parenthood 8/21 • Female online communities in Italy 9/21 • Help with periods in Argentina 10/21 • The impostor syndrome 11/21 • Digital nomadism 12/21
HEAD-TO-HEAD
Will the UK be better off outside the EU? 1/21 • Should MPS be allowed to have second jobs? 2/21 • Should the United States have universal healthcare? 3/21 • Should firms fire staff for their private social media activity? 4/21 • Should students receive a refund of their tuition fees? 5/21 • Should the right to roam in England be extended? 6/21 • Should the UK introduce an online sales tax? 7/21 • Should museums return artefacts to their country of origin? 8/21 • Should there be a global minimum corporate tax rate? 9/21 • Should workers have a legal right to disconnect? 10/21 • Should you be pas sionate about your work? 11/21 • Should we stop giving Christmas presents? 12/21
TECHNOLOGY/SCIENCE
The key to living a long life 1/21 • Drilling in the Antarctic 4/21 • Fossil-fuel cars vs electric cars 5/21 • Why do hummingbirds hum? 6/21 • Printing houses 7/21
• Turning thoughts into language 8/21
• The fight against breast cancer 9/21
• A toy truck business in Ireland 10/21 • Winemaking and music 12/21
COMMUNICATION
BUSINESS SKILLS
Business meetings 1/21 • Video job interviews 2/21 • Writing polite emails 3/21 • Negotiating a higher salary 4/21 • Being inclusive in the workplace 5/21 • Effective feedback 6/21 • Storytelling in communication 7/21 • Delegating 8/21 • Saying no to your boss 9/21 • Activating your audience 10/21 • Staff appraisals 11/21 • Complaining 12/21
INTERCULTURAL BUSINESS
A Bavarian restaurant in London 1/21 • Food-scanning 2/21 • A green cloud-server firm 3/21 • Doing business in Denmark 4/21 • A satellite firm in Scotland 5/21 • Chinese business partners 6/21 • A tour guide from Peru 7/21 • A German consultant in Singapore 8/21 • An education consultancy in Romania 9/21 • A US woman photographer in Oman 10/21 • A British author in Bavaria 12/21
CULTURE COMMENT
The role of appropriateness 1/21 • Culture, achievement and status 2/21 • Britain’s view of Germany and the Germans 3/21 • An ABC of intercultural competencies 4/21 • Alibaba founder Jack Ma 5/21 • Cultural values and influencing 6/21 • Humour at work 7/21 • Shared knowledge in cultures 8/21 • Mindful communication 9/21 • Getting familiar in different languages 10/21 • The dangers of being too direct or indirect 11/21 • Being aware of stereotypes 12/21
CAREERS
ARTICLES
Planning your career 1/21 • Gladys West, US mathematician 2/21 • How firms attract and keep talent 3/21 • New working habits 4/21 • Combining a ballet career and raising children 5/21 • Controlling in organizations 6/21 • The future of business English training 7/21 • Online coaching 8/21 • Corporate training in the pandemic 9/21• New work-related books 10/21 • An A-to-z guide for your career • Lexicography • Looking for a new job after the pandemic 11/21 • Farming with nature in Scotland 12/21
CAREER COACH
Cooking, love and careers 1/21 • Why others may not see your great results 2/21 • Ways to sell your successes 3/21 • Playing songs that others want to hear 4/21 • A foreign assignment 5/21 • People skills are not everything 6/21 • Showing how good you are 7/21 • Preparing for a promotion 8/21 • Being both kind and ambitious 9/21 • Using a system to achieve your goals 10/21 • Taking risks to get ahead 11/21 • Working hard 12/21
LEADERSHIP
Influencing other people in the workplace 1/21 • Challenging your boss 2/21 • Defining roles at work 3/21 • Boldness in teams 4/21 • New ideas in your team 5/21 • Managing digital transformation 6/21 • Taking care of your team 7/21 • The need to focus and set priorities 8/21 • Dealing with difficult people at work 9/21 • Hybrid teams 10/21 • Moving beyond the VUCA model 11/21 • Intuition 12/21
AND FINALLY…
WHO AM I? • Lewis Hamilton 1/21 • J. K. Rowling 2/21 • Jack Dorsey 3/21 • Malala Yousafzai 4/21 • Oprah Winfrey 5/21 • Frank Gehry 6/21 • Christine Lagarde 7/21 • Gordon Ramsay 8/21 • Vera Wang 9/21 • Sir Richard Branson 10/21 • The photocopier 11/21 • Andrew Lloyd Webber 12/21