Thursday, April 29, 2010

Strategy Chapter 9 (3)

What business is it in?
the value chain and integration helps to answer the question
Value Chain is easy understand concepts. Integration has forward and backward, When a company operates in ares further down the value chain it is said be forwardly integrated toward the consumer. If a business operates in ares closer to the raw materials, then the company is said to be backwardly integrated. Integration also has vertical and horizontal. Company that participate at many levels of the value chain is called vertcially integrated, If its competitior at the same level in the value chaine, it is called horizontal integration,
Strategy is a big picture, thre levels of strategy Funcitonal strategy, Business strategy and corpate strategy.
Functional strategy is those operational methods and value adding activities that management chooses for its business.
Business strategy is those battle plans used ot fight the competition in the industry that a company currently participtes in. They are on a highter level than functional strategies, but there is obviously an overlap between bow a company opertes and how it cometes.
Corporte stategy looks at the whole gamut of business opportunities.

Strategy Chapter 9 (2)

Mission Statement is the thing I really like to know when I reach out a new company. It is actually a company speak about their goals. A mission statement should be a short and concise statement of goals and priorities. Unfortunately they are often long, bland, and tedious documents. When senior executives return from expensive executive programs from one of the top ten shcolls, frequenttly they forma a mission statement task force or hri a consutant for this purpose. The exercise has a lagre element of keeeping up with the Joneses, if a company incorporates a mission staement in its annual report, then all of its competitors go off to cook up theris. The shortest statement I really like is GOT Milk?

Strategy Chapter 9 (1)

Strategy is a long term approach to implementing a firm's business plans to achieve its business objectives.
Business conditons are always changing, so it is a good practice to priodically step back and take a hard look at your business strategy and how you are implementing it. The prime aim of a business stategy is to provide superior value, differentiation, and core competencies for an organization. The paper provides an insight into the mission, goals, and objectives of business strategy. Forming a successful busienss strategy involves creating a first-rate competitive strategy, business must develop a plan that addresses ways to compete in their respecive markets. Seven S model is very useful: Structure, systems, style, staff, skills, strategy and superordiante goals.

Economics Chapter 8 (3)

A country analysis is four steo process that attempts to organize all available economic, social, political, and geographic data for strategy developement.
1. analyze past performance
2. Identify the country's strategy
3.analyze a country's context
4. Make a prediction Based on steps 1, 2 and 3

Economics Chapter 8 (2)

Competitive Market Structure
In addition to elasticity of demand, the competitive environment drives supply, demand and prices. The greater the competition in a given market, the more sensitive the market price is to changes in suply and demand. Four basice market structure:
Pure Monopoly, If there is only one seller with a unique roduct, then the seller is said to have a pure monopoly,
Oligopoly. When ther are only a few suppliers for a product for which there are few substitutes, then what prevails is sna oligopoly. with only a few competitors, prices can be maintained at high levels if the producers choose not to compete on rice. If not, the market plyers can engage in price wars that can push prices down.
Monopolistic Competition. In a market where there are many producers with products that can be differentiates, monopolistic competition can occur.
Pure Competition. In pure competition there are many competitiors selling a similar, substituable product. Marketing does not affect the price producers can get.

Economics Chapter 8 (1)

Two kinds: Micoreconomics or Macroeconomics. Micro deals with the supply and demand equation of individuals, families, companies, or industries. this branch of economics that analyzes the market behavior of individual consumers and firms in an attempt to understan the decision making process of firms and households. It is concerned with the interaction betweeen individual buyers and sellers and the factors that influence the choices made by nuyers and sellers.. in particular, microeconomics focuses on patterns of supply and demand and the dertmination of price an doutput in individual marktets.
Macro concerns itself with the economies of cities, countries, or the world. Mircro is less glamorous than macro but is a little more practival. this branch examines economy wide phenomena such as changes in unemployment, national income, rate of growth, gross domestic products, inflation and price levels.

Operations Chapter 7 (3)

Operations classes takes the concept of standards a bit further and deal with ttheissue of quality, which is vital to america's competitiveness. What is quality, anyway? quality only means that the product or service meets the standards set by either the manufacturer or the onsumer. quality does not necessarily mean a flawless product or service, nor does it mean the most expensive product in its class like a rols royce. Quality products perform as expectedMudane things such as paper clips could be considered of high quality if ther are not rusted and hold paper together well.
There are three important quality gurus whose prescriptions are touted as the cure ofr america's torubled manufacturing.

Operations Chapter 7 (2)

The CRM cycle is customer relationship management, encompasses five functions:
Product developement----research, concept development
Sales---ordering, cross-selling, leads, forecasing, bidding and quoting
Superior Customer Experience-personaliztion, service, queue management
Rentention and win back customers-loyalty programs, outbound efforts
Targeting and Marketing-Promotions, pricing, segmentation, behavior modeling, customer scoring, analytics

Operations Chapter 7 (1)

The six m's capacity
Methods---Have you chose the best method of accomplishing the operational task? are the machine placed in the most efficient factory-floor configuration.
Materials---Are the materials you need available and of good quality? do you have the capability to purchase efficiently, store, and distribute the materials when needed by the production process
Manpower---do you have well trained and productive workers and managers to accomplish your production goals? are your workers sufficiently trained to operate any new technology that you may acquire?
Machinery--do you have the right tools for the job? do your machines meet your needs: capabilites, speed, reliability, technology?
Money--Is the cash to fund production availabel as needed? is the investment in facotries, equipment andinventories justified in light of the entire organizations's priorities, capatbilites, and other opportunities?
Messages-- do you have a system for sharing accurate and timely information among all members of the production team-people and machines?

Finance Chapter 6 (3)

There are three key elements to the process of financial management:
1. Financial planning
Management need to ensure that enough funding is available at the right time to meet the needs of the business. In the short term, funding may be needed to invest in equipment and stocks, pay employees and fund sales made on credit. In the medium and long term, funding may be required for significant additions to the productive capacity of the business or to make acquistions.
2. Financial Control
Financial control is acritically important activity to help the business ensure that the business is meeting its objectives. Finacial control addresses questions such as: are assets being used efficiently? are the businessess assets secure? do management act in the best interest of shareholders and in accordance with business rules?
3 Financial decision making
The key aspects of financial decision making relate to investment, financing and dividends.
investments must be financed in some way-however there are always financing alternatives that can be considered. For example, it is possible to raise fiance from selling new shares, borrowing from banks or taking credit from suppliers

Finance Chapter 6 (2)

Financial Management can be defined as:
The management of the finances of a buisiness/organisation in order to achieve financial objectives
Taking a commerical busienss as the msot common organisational structure, the key objectives of financial mamagement would be to:
*create wealth for the business
*generate cash, and
*provide an adequate returnon investment bearing in mind the risks that the business is taking and the resources invested

Finance Chapter 6 (1)

Whether you intends to be a finance specialist or a management generlist, corporate finance and financial markets are an integral part of the vocabulary of business. The Finance is the foundation in corporate and finacnial markets that support every business funcion, For specialists, the broad of elecives in the finance major, offered by faculty who are themselves continually advancing the frontiers of thought, givies structure and intensity to training and preparing.