1.
Petaling Jaya
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Petaling Jaya is a major Malaysian city originally developed as a satellite township for Kuala Lumpur. It is located in the Petaling District of Selangor with an area of approximately 97.2 square kilometres, Petaling Jaya was granted city status on 20 June 2006. Petaling Jaya is surrounded by the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur to the east, Sungai Buloh to the north, the capital of Selangor, Shah Alam to the west and Subang Jaya to the south. The city was developed during British Malaya on a piece of 1,200 acres rubber estate around Old Klang Road to address the overpopulation of the capital Kuala Lumpur in the 1950s, since 1952, PJ witnessed a dramatic growth in terms of population size and geographical importance. The development of Petaling Jaya commenced in 1952 with the construction of 800 houses centred on the known as “Old Town” today. The first two roads built in Petaling Jaya were simply called Jalan 1 or Road 1 and Jalan 2 or Road 2. Road 1 was later named Jalan Templer while Road 2 was named Jalan Othman after Othman Mohamad, until the end of 1953, the town was administered by the Kuala Lumpur district officer. The Petaling Jaya Town Authority headed by N. A. J, kennedy commenced administrating Petaling Jaya in 1954. On 24 August 1959, Encik Abdul Aziz bin Haji Mohd Ali became the first Malayan to head the PJ Authority, administratively and historically, it was considered part of Kuala Lumpur. However, Petaling Jaya ceased to be part of Kuala Lumpur when the became a Federal Territory on 1 February 1974. It then became a township in its own right within the state of Selangor, PJ South, from Section 8 to PJ Old Town, had the first settlements, which were established around 1953. As development progressed, PJ North, on the side of the Federal Highway was developed. The first shopping complex in Petaling Jaya was Jaya Shopping Centre, located in Section 14, on 1 January 1977, the Petaling Jaya Town Authority was upgraded to become Petaling Jaya Municipal Council or Majlis Perbandaran Petaling Jaya. Petaling Jaya progressed rapidly due to the massive rural-urban migration, as more people from rural areas immigrated, Sungai Way and Subang districts along with areas such as Subang Jaya, Seksyen 52 developed in areas under the jurisdiction of the municipality. Petaling Jaya is the hub of Klang Valley as it is located in between Kuala Lumpur and surrounding suburbs. Petaling Jaya is one of the wettest cities in Malaysia and it is warm with an average maximum of 30 degrees Celsius and receives heavy rainfall all year round, roughly more than 3,300 mm of average rainfall annually. The city has no true dry season, but June. Mostly each month average rainfall more than 200 mm. Thunderstorms and extreme rainstorms are common
2.
Malaysia
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Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy located in Southeast Asia. Peninsular Malaysia shares a land and maritime border with Thailand and maritime borders with Singapore, Vietnam, East Malaysia shares land and maritime borders with Brunei and Indonesia and a maritime border with the Philippines and Vietnam. The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government, with a population of over 30 million, Malaysia is the 44th most populous country. The southernmost point of continental Eurasia, Tanjung Piai, is in Malaysia, located in the tropics, Malaysia is one of 17 megadiverse countries on earth, with large numbers of endemic species. Malaysia has its origins in the Malay kingdoms present in the area which, from the 18th century, the first British territories were known as the Straits Settlements, whose establishment was followed by the Malay kingdoms becoming British protectorates. The territories on Peninsular Malaysia were first unified as the Malayan Union in 1946, Malaya was restructured as the Federation of Malaya in 1948, and achieved independence on 31 August 1957. Malaya united with North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore on 16 September 1963 to become Malaysia, less than two years later in 1965, Singapore was expelled from the federation. The country is multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, which plays a role in politics. About half the population is ethnically Malay, with minorities of Malaysian Chinese, Malaysian Indians. The constitution declares Islam the state religion while allowing freedom of religion for non-Muslims, the government system is closely modelled on the Westminster parliamentary system and the legal system is based on common law. The head of state is the king, known as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and he is an elected monarch chosen from the hereditary rulers of the nine Malay states every five years. The head of government is the prime minister, since its independence, Malaysia has had one of the best economic records in Asia, with its GDP growing at an average of 6. 5% per annum for almost 50 years. The economy has traditionally been fuelled by its resources, but is expanding in the sectors of science, tourism, commerce. Today, Malaysia has a newly industrialised market economy, ranked third largest in Southeast Asia, the name Malaysia is a combination of the word Malay and the Latin-Greek suffix -sia/-σία. The word melayu in Malay may derive from the Tamil words malai and ur meaning mountain and city, land, malayadvipa was the word used by ancient Indian traders when referring to the Malay Peninsula. Whether or not it originated from these roots, the word melayu or mlayu may have used in early Malay/Javanese to mean to steadily accelerate or run. This term was applied to describe the current of the river Melayu in Sumatra. The name was adopted by the Melayu Kingdom that existed in the seventh century on Sumatra
3.
Toys "R" Us
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Toys R Us, Inc. is an American toy and juvenile-products retailer founded in 1948 and headquartered in Wayne, New Jersey, in the New York City metropolitan area. The companys brands include Toys R Us, and Babies R Us and it also operates e-commerce sites including ToysRUs. com and BabiesRUs. com. Charles P. Lazarus founded Childrens Supermart in Washington, D. C. during the baby boom era in 1948 as a baby-furniture retailer. Its first location was at 2461 18th St. NW, where the nightclub Madams Organ Blues Bar is located, Lazarus began receiving requests from customers for baby toys. After adding baby toys, he got requests for toys for older children, the focus of the store changed in 1957, and Toys R Us was born in Rockville, Maryland. The original Toys R Us store design from 1969 to 1989 consisted of vertical rainbow stripes and a brown roof with a front entrance and side exit. Since the rise of mass merchants like Walmart, Target and Amazon, however, Toys R Us has lost much of its share of the toy market, to improve the company, the board of directors installed John Eyler. Eyler launched an unsuccessful, expensive plan to remodel and re-launch the chain, blaming market pressures, Toys R Us considered splitting its toy and baby businesses. On July 21,2005, a consortium of Bain Capital Partners LLC, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Vornado Realty Trust invested $1.3 billion to complete a $6.6 billion leveraged buyout of the company. Public stock closed for the last time at $26. 74—pennies from the 68-week high, Toys R Us is now a privately owned entity. However, the company still files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, formerly known as Dr. G. Raffe, the companys mascot Geoffrey the Giraffe made his debut during 1957 in print advertisements for Childrens Bargain Town. During 1969, when Childrens Bargain Town became Toys R Us, Dr. G. Raffe was renamed Geoffrey, kids R Us was a childrens clothing retailer. Their first locations opened in 1983 in Paramus, New Jersey and Brooklyn, Babies R Us operates as a specialty baby products retailer and has grown to approximately 260 locations in the United States. The stores offers an assortment of products for newborns, infants, the company continues to grow internationally, and made its most recent entry into a new market in October 2011 when it opened its first licensed location in Poland. In 2006, Toys R Us purchased remaining shares of Toys R Us, Japan from McDonalds Holdings Co. increasing its ownership from approximately 62% to slightly over 90%. In May 2006, Toys R Us, Inc. acquired toy retailer FAO Schwarz including the flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City, as well as its e-commerce site. Toys R Us closed the FAO Schwarz flagship store in New York on July 15,2015 citing rising rental costs, for the 2009 holiday-shopping season, Toys R Us tried a smaller-store concept to attract customers and 90 Holiday Express stores across the United States and Canada were opened. Most of these 90 stores were opened in shopping-center and mall spaces that had been vacated by store chains closing their doors during the recession and these stores are known as Toys R Us Express
4.
Electric vehicle
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An electric vehicle, also referred to as an electric drive vehicle, uses one or more electric motors or traction motors for propulsion. EVs include road and rail vehicles, surface and underwater vessels, electric aircraft, in the 21st century, EVs saw a resurgence due to technological developments and an increased focus on renewable energy. Government incentives to increase adoptions were introduced, including in the United States, around the same period, early experimental electrical cars were moving on rails, too. American blacksmith and inventor Thomas Davenport built a toy electric locomotive, powered by an electric motor. In 1838, a Scotsman named Robert Davidson built a locomotive that attained a speed of four miles per hour. In England a patent was granted in 1840 for the use of rails as conductors of electric current, between 1832 and 1839, Robert Anderson of Scotland invented the first crude electric carriage, powered by non-rechargeable primary cells. By the 20th century, electric cars and rail transport were commonplace, electrified trains were used for coal transport, as the motors did not use precious oxygen in the mines. Switzerlands lack of fossil resources forced the rapid electrification of their rail network. One of the earliest rechargeable batteries - the nickel-iron battery - was favored by Edison for use in electric cars and they were produced by Baker Electric, Columbia Electric, Detroit Electric, and others, and at one point in history out-sold gasoline-powered vehicles. In fact, in 1900,28 percent of the cars on the road in the USA were electric, EVs were so popular that even President Woodrow Wilson and his secret service agents toured Washington DC in their Milburn Electrics, which covered 60–70 mi per charge. A number of developments contributed to decline of electric cars, as roads were improved outside urban areas electric vehicle range could not compete with the ICE. Finally, the initiation of production of gasoline-powered vehicles by Henry Ford in 1913 reduced significantly the cost of gasoline cars as compared to electric cars. In January 1990, General Motors President introduced its EV concept two-seater and that September, the California Air Resources Board mandated major-automaker sales of EVs, in phases starting in 1998. From 1996 to 1998 GM produced 1117 EV1s,800 of which were available through three-year leases. Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, Nissan and Toyota also produced limited numbers of EVs for California drivers, in 2003, upon the expiration of GMs EV1 leases, GM crushed them. A movie made on the subject in 2005-2006 was titled Who Killed the Electric Car. Ford released a number of their Ford Ecostar delivery vans into the market. Honda, Nissan and Toyota also repossessed and crushed most of their EVs, after public protests, Toyota sold 200 of its RAV EVs to eager buyers, they later sold at over their original forty-thousand-dollar price. This lesson did not go unlearned, BMW of Canada sold off a number of Mini EVs when their Canadian testing ended, the production of the Citroën Berlingo Electrique stopped in September 2005
5.
IMAX
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IMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of cinema projection standards developed in Canada by Graeme Ferguson, Roman Kroitor, Robert Kerr, and William C. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size, since 2002, some feature films have been converted into IMAX format for displaying in IMAX theatres and some have also been partially shot in IMAX. IMAX is the most widely used system for special-venue film presentations, as of June 2016, there were 1,102 IMAX theatres in 69 countries. The desire to increase the impact of film has a long history. In 1929, Fox introduced Fox Grandeur, the first 70 mm film format, in the 1950s, the potential of 35 mm film to provide wider projected images was explored in the processes of CinemaScope and VistaVision, following multi-projector systems such as Cinerama. While impressive, Cinerama was difficult to install, during Expo 67 in Montreal, the National Film Board of Canadas In the Labyrinth and Fergusons Man and the Polar Regions both used multi-projector, multi-screen systems. Each encountered technical difficulties led them to found a company called Multiscreen. As it became clear that a single, large-screen image had more impact than multiple smaller ones and was a viable product direction. An IMAX 3D theatre also is in operation near the former Expo 67 site at the Montreal Science Centre in the Port of Old Montreal, tiger Child, the first IMAX film, was demonstrated at Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan. The first permanent IMAX installation was built at the Cinesphere theatre at Ontario Place in Toronto and it debuted in May 1971, showing the film North of Superior. The installation is still in place, however, Ontario Place is on hiatus for redevelopment, during Expo 74 in Spokane, Washington, an IMAX screen that measured 27 m ×20 m was featured in the US Pavilion. It became the first IMAX Theatre to not be partnered with any brand of movie theaters. About five million visitors viewed the screen, which covered the total visual field when looking directly forward. This created a sensation of motion in most viewers, and motion sickness in some, much to the dismay of the majority of Spokane and the disapproval of the IMAX Corporation itself, it will be demolished to make way for a parking lot. Another IMAX 3D theater was built in Spokane, not too far from where the original was. However, its screen-size is less than half that of the original, due to protests, the IMAX Corporation has been able to remodel the area with the city, and turn the U. S. Pavilion itself into the first permanent outdoor IMAX screen, the first permanent IMAX Dome installation, the Eugene Heikoff and Marilyn Jacobs Heikoff Dome Theatre at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, opened in San Diegos Balboa Park in 1973, the first permanent IMAX 3D theatre was built in Vancouver, British Columbia for Transitions at Expo 86, and was in use until September 30,2009
6.
Old Navy
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Old Navy is an American clothing and accessories retailing company owned by American multinational corporation Gap Inc. It has corporate operations in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco, the largest of the Old Navy stores are its flagship stores, located in New York City, the Mall of America, Seattle, Chicago, and San Francisco. In March 1994, Gap Warehouse was renamed Old Navy Clothing Co. in order to establish an image from its parent. It was named after a bar in Paris, the new stores were about 15,000 square feet, compared less than 10,000 square feet for Gap Warehouse stores. Later that year,42 other Old Navy stores opened, Old Navy had campy television ads featuring Morgan Fairchild and its mascot, Magic the dog. This mascot was changed in 2001 to Adam the Greaser due to his love for the classic Old Navy graphic t-shirts. The Old Navy division grew quickly, in 1997, it became the first retailer to pass $1 billion in its first four years in business, in 2001, Old Navy began its international expansion with the opening of 12 stores in Ontario, Canada. The brand also experimented, opening a shop inside one location in San Francisco in December 1995. This in turn did not work out for the company, and was terminated the following September and this may have been due to Adam wearing the shirts too often. In 2005, Old Navys then-president Dawn Robertson looked to address the competition she saw in Hollister Co. in addition to a new logo, several locations were built or remodeled to reflect the New Old Navy. One such location in St. Petersburg, Florida cost roughly $5 million to develop, also, advertisements began to be created in-house, and substituted the original kitschy and humorous feel for a high fashion and feminine directive. These stores proved to be an investment and Robertson was asked to leave the company. In 2011, Old Navy began a rebranding to emphasize a family-oriented environment. It targets Old Navys target customer and features better lighting, vibrant colors, layouts that make shopping easier, quick-change stations, by July 12, one third of the companys North American locations had adopted the redesign. In 2012, after years of Old Navy losing sales to rival retailer H&M. Larsson instituted a number of changes, including hiring designers away from Coach, Nike, Reebok, by 2015, Old Navys yearly sales had reached $6 billion per year in the United States, almost equaling those of Gaps Gap and Banana Republic divisions combined. Flagship stores also have collection business clothes for women, and maternity sections, previously, Old Navy attempted to launch a bath and body line, called ONbody. Old Navy is known for their signature denim wall of styles that never change, the styles are super skinny, skinny, original, and boot-cut, and are available in four different washes
7.
H&M
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H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB is a Swedish multinational clothing-retail company, known for its fast-fashion clothing for men, women, teenagers and children. H&M and its associated brands operate in 62 countries with over 4,000 stores and, as of 2015 and it is the second largest global clothing retailer, just behind Spain-based Inditex. The company was founded by Erling Persson in 1947, when he opened his first shop in Västerås, the shop, called Hennes, exclusively sold womens clothing. In 1968, Persson acquired the hunting apparel retailer Mauritz Widforss, which led to the inclusion of a collection in the product range. The company was listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 1974, shortly after, in 1976, the first store outside of Scandinavia opened in London. H&M continued to expand in Europe, and began to online in 1998. The two-letter domain was registered in the early 1990s, but data on the first registration is lost, the first US store opened in 2000 on Fifth Avenue, New York. In 2008, the company announced in a release that it would begin selling home furnishings. Initially distributed through the online catalogue, there are now H&M Home stores located internationally. Its worth was estimated at $12–16 billion, H&M operated 2,325 stores at the end of 2011, and 2,629 stores at the end of August 2012. Its 3, 000th store opened in September 2013 in Chengdu, the first H&M store to open outside of Sweden was in Norway in 1964, and the first to open outside of Scandinavia was in the United Kingdom in 1976. H&Ms expansion outside of Europe started with the US in 2000, in November 2004, selected company stores offered an exclusive collection by fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld. In November 2005, the company launched a collection by Stella McCartney and, in November 2006, in March 2007, it launched another collaboration designed by the pop star Madonna. In June 2007 the company worked with game developers Maxis to create a stuff pack for the latters The Sims 2 computer game, in November 2007, the company launched a collection by Italian designer Roberto Cavalli. It was reported that the sold out very quickly. Also in 2007, another design with Kylie Minogue was launched in Shanghai, in the spring of 2008 the Finnish company Marimekko was selected as guest designer and was followed by Japanese Comme des Garçons in the fall. In 2008, H&M used the song Hang On by British singer-songwriter Lettie as background music to its UK website. For spring and summer 2009, the British designer Matthew Williamson created two exclusive ranges for the company – the first being a collection of womens clothes released in selected stores, the second collection saw Williamson branch into menswear for the first time, only in selected stores
8.
Uniqlo
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Uniqlo Co. Ltd. is a Japanese casual wear designer, manufacturer and retailer. The company has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Fast Retailing Co. Ltd. since November 2005, the company operates in Japan and several other countries. Since March 1949, a Yamaguchi-based company, Ogori Shōji existed in Ube, in May 1984, they opened a unisex casual wear store in Fukuro-machi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima under the name Unique Clothing Warehouse. Initially, from the contraction of unique clothing, the brand was going to register under uni-clo. However, in 1988, during administration work between Hong Kong in relation to the brand, staff in charge of registration misread the C as Q, from then, Tadashi Yanai changed the store name to uniqlo across Japan. In September 1991, the name of the company was changed from Ogori Shōji to Fast Retailing, in 1997, Fast Retailing adopted a set of strategies from American retailer The Gap, known as SPA, meaning that they would produce their own clothing and sell it exclusively. They engaged the retail brand consultancy, CIA, Inc, Uniqlo had begun outsourcing their clothing manufacturing to factories in China where labour was cheap, a well-established corporate practice. Japan was in the depths of a recession at the time, and their advertising campaigns, clothing quality and new retail layouts also proved fruitful. In November 1998, they opened their first urban Uniqlo store in Tokyos trendy Harajuku district, in 2001, sales turnover and gross profit reached a new peak, with over 500 retail stores in Japan. When Uniqlo decided to expand overseas, it separated Uniqlo from the parent company, in 2002 their first Chinese Uniqlo outlet was opened in Shanghai along with four overseas outlets in London, England. But sales did not go well in England, and stocks in Japanese warehouses were overflowing, in 2002 and 2003, Uniqlo profits dropped sharply. In 2004, the company began joint ventures with Japanese fashion magazines and they teamed up with new designers, and profits rose, including at London outlets. The acquisition of other companies by Fast Retailing also helped the struggling company get back on its feet. 2005 saw more expansion, with stores opening in the United States, Hong Kong and South Korea. As of year-end 2005, in addition to its overseas holdings, by 2006 sales were $4 billion. By April 2007, the company had set a sales goal of $10 billion and a ranking among the top five global retailers, joining what at the time was Gap, H&M, Inditex. Fast Retailing signed a consulting contract for Uniqlo products with fashion designer Jil Sander in March 2009. In January 2015, a number of rights violations were reported at Uniqlo suppliers in China
9.
Marks & Spencer
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Marks and Spencer plc is a major British multinational retailer headquartered in the City of Westminster, London. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index and it specialises in the selling of clothing, home products and luxury food products. M&S was founded in 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in Leeds, the company also began to sell branded goods like Kelloggs Corn Flakes in November 2008. In recent years its clothing sales have fallen whilst food sales have increased after the axing of St. Michaels naming for their own brand. The company was founded by a partnership between Michael Marks, a Polish Jew from Słonim, and Thomas Spencer, a cashier from the English market town of Skipton in North Yorkshire. On his arrival in England, Marks worked for a company in Leeds, called Barran, in 1884 he met Isaac Jowitt Dewhirst while looking for work. Dewhirst lent Marks £5 which he used to establish his Penny Bazaar on Kirkgate Market, Dewhirst also taught him a little English. Dewhirsts cashier was Tom Spencer, a bookkeeper, whose wife, Agnes. In 1894, when Marks acquired a permanent stall in Leeds covered market, in 1901 Marks moved to the Birkenhead open market where he amalgamated with Spencer. The pair were allocated stall numbers 11 &12 in the aisle in 1903. The company left Birkenhead Market on 24 February 1923 and it also accepted the return of unwanted items, giving a full cash refund if the receipt was shown, no matter how long ago the product was purchased, which was unusual for the time. M&S staff raised £5,000 to pay for a Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft called The Marksman in 1941, by 1950, virtually all goods were sold under the St Michael label. M&S lingerie, womens clothes and girls uniform were branded under the St Margaret label until the whole range of general merchandise became St Michael. Simon Marks, son of Michael Marks, died in 1964, Israel Sieff, the son-in-law of Michael Marks, took over as chairman and in 1968, John Salisse became the company Director. A cautious international expansion began with the introduction of Asian food in 1974, M&S opened stores in continental Europe in 1975 and in Ireland four years later. The company put its emphasis on quality, including a 1957 stocking size measuring system. For most of its history, it also had a reputation for offering fair value for money, when this reputation began to waver, it encountered serious difficulties. Arguably, M&S has historically been an iconic retailer of British Quality Goods, the uncompromising attitude towards customer relations was summarised by the 1953 slogan, The customer is always and completely right
10.
Zara (retailer)
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Zara is a Spanish clothing and accessories retailer based in Arteixo, Galicia. The company was founded in 1975 by Amancio Ortega and Rosalía Mera and it is the main brand of the Inditex group, the worlds largest apparel retailer. The fashion group also owns brands such as Massimo Dutti, Pull and Bear, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho, Zara Home, Amancio Ortega opened the first Zara store in 1975 in downtown A Coruña, Galicia, Spain. It is believed the extra a came from a set of letters that had been made for the company. The first store featured low-priced lookalike products of popular, higher-end clothing fashions, Ortega opened additional stores throughout Spain. During the 1980s, Ortega changed the design, manufacturing, and distribution process to reduce lead times and react to new trends in a quicker way, the improvements included the use of information technologies and using groups of designers instead of individuals. In 1988, the company started its expansion through Porto. In 1989, it entered the United States, and then France in 1990, during the 1990s, Zara expanded to Mexico, Greece, Belgium and Sweden. In September 2010, Zara launched its online boutique, the website began in Spain, the UK, Portugal, Italy, Germany and France. In November that same year, Zara Online extended the service to five countries, Austria, Ireland. Online stores began operating in the United States in 2011, Russia and Canada in 2013, and Mexico, Romania, Zara introduced the use of RFID technology in its stores in 2014. The RFID chips are located in the security tags which are removed from clothing when it is purchased, the chip allows the company to quickly take inventory by detecting radio signals from the RFID tags. When an item is sold, the stockroom is immediately notified so that the item can be replaced, an item that is not on the shelf can easily be found with the RFID tag. In 2015, Zara was ranked 30 on Interbrands list of best global brands, Zara stores have mens clothing and womens clothing, as well as childrens clothing. Zaras products are supplied based on consumer trends and its highly responsive supply chain ships new products to stores twice a week. After products are designed, they take ten to fifteen days to reach the stores, all of the clothing is processed through the distribution center in Spain. New items are inspected, sorted, tagged, and loaded into trucks, in most cases, the clothing is delivered within 48 hours. Zara produces over 450 million items per year, reportedly, Zara needs just one week to develop a new product and get it to stores, compared to the six-month industry average, and launches around 12,000 new designs each year
