"In case you haven't seen a sales report these days, February MTD sales are a total disaster, " Jerry Murray, Wal-Mart's vice president of finance and logistics, wrote in a 12 February email to other executives, referring to month-to-date sales.

BBC: Walmart

Of course, the same could be said of big-ticket weapons systems, but those tend to be assembled in a single plant somewhere, whereas joint finance, logistics, networking and other functions are each conducted at numerous sites from Norfolk to San Diego.

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Innovation leader Apple is also an innovator at marketing and sales and is world class in logistics and finance.

FORBES: Commentary

Beyond those areas, Blazer says there is a demand for people who understand finance or supply chain logistics, who can build and supervise complex systems.

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Aside from manufacturing, which makes up most of the workforce, it has finance, legal, IT, order processing, transport and logistics, warehouse and distribution departments which were not affected by the initial announcement.

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Many are using profits from farming to diversify into such businesses as logistics, purchasing fleets of lorries with help from new car-finance firms.

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Preussag hopes to finance the deal, in part, by floating half of its Hapag-Lloyd logistics arm on the stockmarket.

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