Philippa Kaur

ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE is an unlikely source of hubbub. Bringing up CRM or ERP in conversation has usually been a reliable way to be left alone. But not these days, especially if you are chatting to a tech investor. Mention the acronyms—for customer-relationship management, which automates front-office tasks like dealing with clients, and enterprise resource planning, which does the same for back-office processes such as managing a firm’s finances or supply chains—and you will set pulses racing. More

If college presidents were hoping Donald Trump would tire of lambasting America’s universities, recent tirades against international students have left them freshly agog. In May the administration said it would no longer let Harvard enroll foreigners, apparently as a punishment for upsetting it (a judge has put that order on hold). Of wider impact is the government’s decision to pause scheduling new visa interviews for foreign students, no matter where they aim to study. Beyond the damage this is doing to America’s reputation, and its prowess in research, the tumult has bean-counters across the country’s higher-education system wringing their hands. More

Nothing in Fox’s television schedules last year was quite as exciting—or, at times, as profane—as the drama that played out in a closed probate court in Reno, Nevada. Rupert Murdoch, the now 94-year-old founder and controlling shareholder of Fox Corporation and its sister company, News Corp, was trying to change the terms of a family trust in order to block three of his children from inheriting control of the companies on his death. The high-stakes legal manoeuvre was rejected. An appeal—and thus a new season of morbid entertainment for media watchers—is in the works. More

Talking about how much money you earn is uncomfortable for many people. But there are moments when it is an unavoidable topic of conversation. When you take a new job or learn how much your raise will be for the coming year, you have to talk about salaries. You also have to make a decision about whether to negotiate for more. More

If the European Union was, as Donald Trump claims, formed “to screw the United States”, nobody told its companies. The stock of foreign direct investment in America held by EU businesses reached more than $2trn in 2023, accounting for nearly two-fifths of the country’s total, up from a third a decade before. That is far more than from any other source. European companies employ around 3.5m people in America, more than American ones do in the bloc. Germany’s car-industry association says its members have 140,000 workers across 2,000 factories in America, producing 900,000 vehicles a year. More

A couple of years ago DP World, an Emirati ports group with vast operations in Europe, began work to meet European Union rules on sustainability reporting and due diligence. The company had to amass more than 170 different bits of data. Some, like the size of its workforce and their gender, were easy to gather. Others, like water use, less so. DP World hired consultants, expanded its sustainability team and bought new software. Then the EU decided to revise its rulebook. More

SOUTH KOREANS would rather forget most of the past 12 months. Thousands of doctors and teachers took to the streets to air assorted grievances. Catastrophic summer floods ravaged swathes of the country. The president launched a coup, failed, was impeached and, after some constitutional confusion, removed from office. BTS remained disbanded while its K-pop heartthrobs complete their mandatory military service. More

We are accepting applications for a Marjorie Deane intern to spend six months with us in London writing about business. The position is paid and the start date is flexible. Journalism experience is not required. Please send a CV and an original article of up to 600 words suitable for publication in the Business section to [email protected] by July 31st. More