Given the right background and a sound strategy, some businesses can take off like a rocket, as Alan Swaby discovers.

How would you take a start-up business from zero to a turnover of R2 billion in just five years? Well, the way that Johan Fouché did it was by creating an independent fuel wholesaling business, under the auspices of South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment programme (BEE).

South Africa’s clothing retail sector has faced a challenge as customers find themselves with lower disposable incomes. Lily Moreira, managing director at John Craig, tells Andrew Pelis how tough times have sparked new ideas.

Tough times call for tough measures, or so the saying goes. But for one South African business, the current economic retail slump has led to rather more creative measures as it has cut its cloth accordingly.

Italian energy company Eni has signed a $17 billion (£11 billion) deal with Venezuela to develop crude oil fields and build a refinery.

Working with the state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), Eni will develop a major oil field in the eastern Orinoco river basin.

QinetiQ North America has been awarded the engineering services contract for NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The new cost plus award fee contract begins on March 1, 2011. It has a five-year base period with three, one-year options. The maximum potential value of the contract is approximately $1.959 billion.

Under the contract QinetiQ North America and its partners will:

US food manufacturer HJ Heinz has reported higher-than-expected quarterly profits thanks to sales growth in emerging markets and strong global demand for ketchup.

Net income for the three months to 27 October was up 9 percent from a year ago, at $251 million (£157 million).

Total revenues fell 1.2 percent to $2.61 billion, as the strong dollar depressed the value of foreign sales, but leaving aside the dollar factor, Heinz claimed overall “organic sales growth” of 0.9 percent.

Rolls-Royce has won an order worth $1.8 billion from Air China to supply and service engines to power 20 new aircraft.

The contract, , is for engines for ten Airbus A350 XWBs and ten A330s, and includes a TotalCare long-term service agreement.

Rolls-Royce will supply Trent XWB engines for the A350s and Trent 700 engines for the A330s.

The Chinese market is fast growing with a clear need for additional aircraft capacity. Rolls-Royce is well established in China, where it now enjoys a 56 per cent share for large civil aero engines.

General Motors returned to Wall Street in grand style yesterday with the largest IPO in US history, raising $23 billion to start paying back its $50 billion government loan.

Almost half of the US Treasury’s share holding went up for sale at $33 a share for preferential buyers ($35 for others), but still leaves the government some way short of recouping its total investment.

SABMiller, the world’s second biggest brewer by volume, has reported a 13 per cent rise in interim profits.

The London-based brewer’s results were boosted by this summer’s World Cup and sales growth in emerging markets.

The group’s portfolio of brands includes international beers such as Pilsner Urquell, Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Miller Genuine Draft and Grolsch, as well as brands such as Aguila, Castle, Miller Lite, Snow and Tyskie. SAB is also one of the world’s largest bottlers of Coca-Cola products.

In a board room or a trading room, businesspeople across the country must have one common asset: good negotiating skills. Whether hammering out a deal with another company or merely trying to get a new client, knowing how to negotiate is quintessential to success.

According to master negotiator Roger Dawson, author of Secrets of Power Negotiating, anyone can become a good negotiator, as long as they follow a few simple techniques:

TACTIC ONE: Never say yes to their first offer