Which brands are most deserving of your emotional attachment, respect and continued patronage? We set out to determine exactly that, surveying more than 5,000 Entrepreneur readers to learn the companies that elicit their greatest loyalty and trust. Here are the results.
    1. Sephora
2. In-N-Out Burger
3. Publix
4. Patrón
5. Trader Joe's
6. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company
7. Panera Bread
8. Virgin America
9. Southwest Airlines
10. Apple Store
11. Whole Foods Market
12. Wynn Las Vegas
13. Bellagio
14. Nordstrom
15. Target

Where have all the workers gone?

There was a push-pull in the immediate reaction to the April employment numbers. Do you focus on the drop in the unemployment rate to 6.3 percent, from 6.7 percent in March, which would ostensibly be positive news, or do you instead cast your eye on the fall in the labor force participation rate, which dropped to 62.8 percent from 63.3 percent?

The answer is that you can't look at one without the other. And, taken together, they continue to paint a frightening picture for the psychology of our labor markets.

First, let's acknowledge some good news. The U.S. economy added 288,000 jobs in April, which was hig

Entrepreneurship is a holistic lifestyle of better health, better ideas and a better lifestyle that you’re working toward. To make those improvements means updating your habits and to change your habits takes commitment and some tricks. One trick that has been helping make change for many is the idea of a swap. From addictions to smoking cessation to weight loss, the idea is that you don’t go cold turkey but you swap out the habit you have for one that’s better.

To be an improved version of yourself, here are some simple daily swaps you can make:

Mind: Swap radio for podcasts or audio books. You’re in the car or at the gym listening to wo

Image credit: stevestonpizza.com How much do you usually spend for a pizza?  Fifteen dollars? This Canadian pizzeria wants you to shell out more than that – a lot more.

Steveston Pizza charges as whopping $450 for its "C6" Pizza, topped with lobster and black Alaskan cod, with a side of Russian caviar. The pizzeria is known for its creative combinations, offering other pizzas with caramelized duck confit, pomme frites and Icelandic scampi.

The pizza seems like a promising pie to topple the Guinness World Record's current most expensive pizza – a thin-crust creation topped with shavings from a rare Italian truffle, sold for 100 po

Robert Iger, Marissa Mayer, Leslie Moonves -- all are distinguished leaders with multimillion-dollar salaries to boot. But documents recently filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reveal that one of the highest-paid chief executives in the nation leads a little-known company that has never even turned a profit.

That CEO, Charif Souki, heads up Cheniere Energy, a Houston-based company aiming to be the first to capitalize on the fracking boom by liquefying and exporting shale gases, reports Al Jazeera.

At the helm of this effort, Souki took home $142 million in 2013 -- dwarfing the executive pay grades of far larger energy companies, including Exx

London, April 28 (IANS) Move over electric cars. Plan a family trip on a private electricity-powered jets instead!

France-based aircraft maker Airbus is ready to foray into making passenger jets powered by hybrid electric engines.

The planned plane can take off and land using electric power, and carry about 70-90 people.

"The full-fledged plane can hit the tarmac between 15 and 20 years," Jean Botti, Airbus Group chief technology officer, was quoted as saying in media reports.

A 9.5-metre prototype that Airbus is touting as the precursor to hybrid passenger aircraft recently made a demonstration above Merignac airport in F

Seoul, South Korea: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd`s smartphone shipments rose 28 percent to 89 million units in the first quarter, but the world`s top handset maker lost market share to Chinese and other rivals, research firm Strategy Analytics said on Tuesday.

Samsung`s smartphone market share fell to 31.2 percent from 32.4 percent a year ago, followed by Apple Inc which dropped to 15.3 percent from 17.5 percent, Strategy Analytics said.

China`s Huawei Technologies had 4.7 percent market share, unchanged from the previous year, while Lenovo Group Ltd boosted its share to 4.7 percent from 3.9 percent. (Zee News)

  Mumbai, India: Wal-Mart Stores Inc paid about USD 234 million in debt related to the purchase of a stake in its Indian joint venture with Bharti Enterprises, which the US retailer ended in October last year, according to its 2014 annual report.

Wal-Mart, the world`s largest retailer, had earlier paid USD 100 million to take over its Indian partner`s 50 percent stake in Bharti Wal-Mart Pvt Ltd, which runs 20 wholesale stores under the Best Price Modern Wholesale brand.

The transaction resulted in a net loss of about USD 151 million, according to the company`s consolidated statement of income.


(Reuters)

Shanghai, China: Microsoft founder Bill Gates on Monday took to the pages of the People`s Daily, the mouthpiece newspaper of China`s ruling Communist Party, to encourage people in China to do more for the poor.

"China has many successful entrepreneurs and business people. I hope that more people of insight will put their talents to work to improve the lives of poor people in China and around the world, and seek solutions for them," Gates wrote in an editorial.

"Investing for the poor requires participation from the entire community."

Philanthropy in China has yet to take off, as some wealthy Chinese fear generous donations coul

Washington, USA: Alibaba is reportedly planning to give away more shares in its IPO, which is likely to be the largest initial public offering ever.

According to Mashable while no final deal has been made, new shares could push the amount of the offering beyond the Agricultural Bank of China's record USD 22.1 billion in Shanghai and Hong Kong in 2010.

It remains unclear as to when Alibaba's founder Jack Ma plans to sell stock in the IPO.

Meanwhile, Ma and a group of early founders are keen to keep some control of the company regardless of their stake by retaining the power to appoint a majority to the company's board, the report adds.

  New York, United States: General Motors (GM) has named a union leader to its board of directors, a first for the US automaker and a rarity in American business.

GM, which is paying a heavy price for the delayed recall of vehicles linked to 13 deaths, just published its worst quarterly results since emerging from bankruptcy just over three years ago.

In a statement yesterday, it had said it was nominating United Auto Workers Vice President Joe Ashton to its 12-member board of directors.

Ashton, who will represent GM's employee pension fund (VEBA), was expected to resign from his union position in June.

If his nomination

London, U.K.: An NRI-founded hotels company plans to set up 100 eco-friendly hotels in India in the next eight years, its founder and Chief Executive said Saturday night.

Noting that the Eco Hotels UK Plc has developed the world's first carbon neutral hotel brand, The Eco and Ecolodge, Suchit Punnose, the CEO of Red Ribbon Asset Management said: "The first market we are targeting is the growth market of India which has one of the largest demands for hotel rooms in the market."

"It is the intention of the company to develop an inventory of 10,000 rooms by 2022 which will amount to 100 hotels with 100-room average," he said.

Washington, U.S.: Mumbai-born IIT Madras alum Vic Gundotra, the mastermind behind Google's social network Google+, has abruptly resigned putting a question mark on the future of his creation.

Making the announcement via a posting on his own Google+ page Thursday, Gundotra, 45, said he was proud of his eight year tenure with the online search giant, but felt that now was the time to look ahead. However, he didn't say much about his future plans.

"I am excited about what's next. But this isn't the day to talk about that. This is a day to celebrate the past 8 years," wrote Gundotra, who was Senior Vice President, Social for Google in a pos

Vienna, Austria: The basket of 12 crude oils of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) stood at $105.19 a barrel Tuesday, against $105.34 Monday, according to the OPEC Secretariat.

The new OPEC reference basket comprises Saharan Blend (Algeria), Girassol (Angola), Oriente (Ecuador), Iran Heavy (Iran), Basra Light (Iraq), Kuwait Export (Kuwait), Es Sider (Libya), Bonny Light (Nigeria), Qatar Marine (Qatar), Arab Light (Saudi Arabia), Murban (United Arab Emirates) and Merey (Venezuela). A barrel is equal to 159 litres.(IANS/WAM)

New York, U.S.:  A US federal court has permanently barred Ramesh Sarva, an Indian-American certified public accountant in New York, from promoting and selling an alleged illegal nationwide tax scheme.

Judge Josephine L. Staton of the US District Court for the Central District of California, entered the permanent injunction order, to which Sarva of Little Neck, New York, consented, Westmorelandtimes.com reported citing the Justice Department.

According to the complaint, Sarva has been promoting illegal life insurance welfare benefit plans.

These allegedly illegally permitted his customers to both claim substantial tax deductions for their pla

Mumbai, India : Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) on Wednesday said it has raised $550 million as loan from Japanese banks for part-funding expansion of its petrochemical plant and new gasification unit.

"In continuation of the fund raising programme initiated in 2012-13, RIL has tied up Export Credit Agency (ECA) facility of up to USD 550 million co-financed by JBIC (Japan Bank for International Cooperation) and a group of other Japanese banks," the company said in a statement.

"This is RIL’s eighth ECA facility for the largest capital expenditure programme it has undertaken. This is the first time that JBIC is extending credi

Geneva,Switzerland: World Economic Forum (WEF) in its latest report released on Wednesday said little progress has been witnessed in bridging the digital gap across countries and regions.

Based on Networked Readiness Index, the Global Information Technology Report 2014 assessed the capacity of a record 148 countries and regions to leverage information and communications technologies (ICT) for their growths and well-beings, Xinhua reported.

The annual report showed a dominance of developed economies in the top rankings.

Finland topped the ranking, followed by Singapore, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland, and all the top six places kep

Thiruvananthapuram,India:  A 15-day property show is being held in the US at which 30 builders from India will showcase their latest projects.

A real estate business group based in the US told IANS over phone that the eighth annual edition of the India Property Show would be held in Edison, New Jersey, Houston, Sunnyvale and Seattle from May 31 to June 15.

Riya Sunny of the Revista Global group, said: "Builders are coming in from across India. We help them sell their properties in the US and the Middle East by organising property shows. Unlike earlier years, we expect to get a few builders from Kerala." (IANS)

New Delhi, India:  Reliance Jio Infocomm and ATC India Tower Corporation on Monday inked an agreement under which the former would use tower infrastructure of the latter to launch its telecom services across the country.

ATC has 11,000 towers in India.

"We at Reliance Jio, want to provide innovative and empowering products, services and content to every Indian. To this end, we are committed to creating a cutting edge network for high speed 4G. Our relationship with ATC will accelerate the rollout of these services across India," Sanjay Mashruwala, managing director, Reliance Jio, said.

Reliance Jio is a subsidiary of Reliance Indust

New Delhi/Dhaka,: Two-wheeler major Hero MotoCorp on Monday said it had forayed into Bangladesh through a joint venture (JV) partnership with the Nitol Niloy Group.

"In addition to being our first overseas JV, this is also where our first manufacturing plant outside of India will come up," said Pawan Munjal, managing director and chief executive, Hero MotoCorp in a statement.

"Once operational by the second quarter of Financial Year 2015-16, the plant will have an annual capacity of 150,000 units. We are aiming to have around 20 percent of market share here in the first year of our operation."

The two-wheeler major will hold ma