20101231

Guidelines for Process Reengineering

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The Guidelines for Process Reengineering summarize key ideas about process improvement and reengineering assorted from numerous books and articles...

Guidelines for Effective Process Re-Engineering
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Rethinking global financial systems
A radical rethink of the structure of the global financial markets and greater cooperation of the major regulatory bodies are paramount, said the heads of major financial institutions at the World Knowledge Forum in Seoul.


Speaking at the World Knowledge Forum, Douglas Feagin, head of Goldman Sachs’
financial institutions group for Asia, believes that reforms of the financial services sector
are crucial in restarting economic growth in the US, Europe and the rest of the world.



Douglas Feagin
Douglas Feagin
Pointing to the bubbles in key asset classes, “unclearly unsustainable” leveraging in the financial systems, and poorly understood and managed derivative securities, Feagin says: “We are going to have to have a change across all these areas – the asset price bubbles, deleveraging and reform of the fundamental securities markets – in order to have a basis to restart economic growth.”
Meanwhile, fears of a global recession continue to weigh heavily on financial markets around the world, even as many individual countries – such as Australia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia – have announced new financial and regulatory measures to shore up their financial systems and currencies, and boost confidence...


 

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20101225

The Ethics of Goldman SHARK

Goldman Sachs and Abacus 2007-AC1: A Look Beyond the Numbers
 
Goldman Sachs is the Wall Street mega-firm whose money-making prowess leaves many impressed, envious or suspicious. Now the firm's reputation is on the line, as it fights a fraud suit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over a single deal in 2007, the sale of a complex "synthetic collateralized debt obligation" called Abacus 2007-AC1. The deal lost investors $1 billion but produced $1 billion in profits for Goldman's collaborator, Paulson & Company, a hedge fund betting the housing bubble would collapse. Experts at Wharton and elsewhere analyze the financial, legal and ethical issues raised by a case that has riveted both Wall Street and Main Street. 


http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=2481&specialId=106

Eight Great Innovative Tools

The Envelope, Please: From Eight Great Innovative Tools, Which Ones Are the Winners?
 

Ramping up customer satisfaction, maximizing the effectiveness of human capital and repairing supply chains were just a few of the ambitious aims of the ground-breaking "tools" entered in the Wipro-Knowledge@Wharton Innovation Tournament, whose final round of judging took place on March 23 in Philadelphia. Eight finalists, selected from among 120 entries, presented their concepts to a panel of judges during the event. We present the final eight and announce the three competitors who came out on top. 

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/article.cfm?articleid=4470

 

When is this bubble in China going to burst?

China's Property Bubble: Can It Be Deflated Safely, or Will It Burst?

China is likely in the midst of a real estate bubble, according to faculty from Wharton and the Guanghua School of Management, who spoke during a joint symposium held at Peking University in Beijing on March 10. “Clearly, in China there are cautionary signs,” said Wharton real estate professor Susan M. Wachter, who also spoke about the fragility of the U.S. market and the need for a new regulatory approach. During his talk, Guanghua finance professor Xinzhong Xu noted, “The more difficult question that nobody can answer is: When is this bubble going to burst?” 


http://www.knowledgeatwharton.com.cn/index.cfm?fa=article&articleid=2194&languageid=1

A New Breed: Middle East Women Entrepreneurs

How Women Entrepreneurs Are Driving Business in the Middle East
 

Whether they are princesses, lawyers or executives, women in the Middle East and North Africa are building a strong presence for themselves as entrepreneurs. In countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, among others, they are creating new jobs for women and men in fields ranging from luxury goods to exports. Still, several cultural and legal challenges remain, according to experts from Wharton and elsewhere.



http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/arabic/article.cfm?articleId=2445&language_id=1

Will Unemployment Prolong the Economic Crisis? the Spanish Experience



Spain in 2010: Will Unemployment Prolong the Economic Crisis?
Because it holds the presidency of the European Union for the first half of this year, Spain is at least nominally responsible for leading the trading bloc out of the current financial crisis. However, the economic situation in Spain is now worse than for many of its fellow members, and the outlook for 2010 is bleak. The country has become “the sick man of Europe” after six or seven consecutive quarters of negative growth and galloping unemployment that is practically double the European average. This, along with a high public deficit, will be among its biggest challenges for the New Year.
http://www.wharton.universia.net/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1830&language=english



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IBM Selection - Actionable Insights


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20101220

How deadly are Price wars?

Price wars

Excerpt


Price wars have racked industry after industry in recent years: from personal computers to airlines, from grocery retailing to computer software, from cigarettes to frozen diet dinners, from automobile tires to disposable diapers. All too often, there are no winners—and few healthy survivors. The destruction such battles cause can be so severe and linger so long that the only reliable way to come out ahead is to avoid them altogether.
No company, however well run, is immune from price wars. The threat is real—and universal. No company, however well run, is immune. Even companies with superior overall strategies and exceptional execution can destroy themselves by not managing this make-or-break issue effectively. After all, most price wars start by accident, through some apparently trivial misreading or misjudgment of market conditions. Rare is the price war that is initiated as a deliberate competitive tactic—and rarer still the one that achieves a satisfactory outcome.
Recent price wars raise four topics that we want to explore:


How much should you charge for a new product?

Pricing new products

Companies habitually charge less than they could for new offerings.



pricing new products article, product market value position, Retail & Consumer Goods

How much should you charge for a new product?

Charge too much and it won't sell—a problem that can be fixed relatively easily by reducing the price.

Charging too little is far more dangerous: a company not only forgoes significant revenues and profits but also fixes the product's market value position at a low level.


And as companies have found time and again, once prices hit the market it is difficult, even impossible, to raise them. In our experience, 80 to 90 percent of all poorly chosen prices are too low.

Companies consistently undercharge for products despite spending millions or even billions of dollars to develop or acquire them. It is true that businesses and private consumers alike are demanding more for less; the prices of personal computers, for example, have been pushed downward despite their higher processor speeds and additional memory. Global competition, increased pricing transparency, and lower barriers to entry in many of the most attractive industries have contributed to the trend. But these are not the only problems. Many companies want to make a quick grab for market share or return on investment, and with high prices both objectives can be harder to achieve...

How versatile is your pricing strategy?

Do you have a long-term pricing strategy?

Actively pricing products across their life cycle is vitally important, particularly in innovation-intensive industries. Failing to do so may forego potential profits or even destroy value.



long-term pricing strategy article, new-product prices, Retail & Consumer Goods


According to this article, industries can suffer when companies fail to grasp the importance of pricing products or services across the life cycle, particularly in innovation-intensive sectors such as consumer electronics and consumer durables, IT hardware and software, medical devices, and pharmaceuticals. That’s especially true today. Companies introduce products more regularly, with life cycles often measured in months, not years. There’s external pressure for low prices from customers expecting more for less and internal pressure from the belief that pricing is a make-or-break factor when products launch. And a company may have a number of related products in the marketplace simultaneously, which complicates their life cycle pricing.
Two points are essential to price effectively throughout the life of a product or service....

The commodity crunch in consumer packaged goods

The commodity crunch in consumer packaged goods

Packaged-goods companies have been socked by rising commodity prices. Executives in other industries can learn from their experience.

rising commodity prices in consumer packaged goods article, passing on commodity prices to consumers, Retail & Consumer Goods
For almost 40 years, the US consumer goods sector was among the safest of havens for investors. It rewarded them with annual returns well above the market average—second only to those of the energy sector—and in a bumper period from 1985 to 2002 outperformed the S&P 500 index by almost 20 percent annually. Since then, the sector has barely outpaced the index, despite persistent attempts by companies to find winning strategies. While inadequate cost controls and a failure to deliver significant value from a wave of mergers and acquisitions haven’t helped, one factor is the dominant culprit for the current malaise: the industry’s response to changing commodity prices.
Losing control
From 1985 to 2002, consumer-packaged-goods companies regularly passed on to consumers increases in the price of inputs (including aluminum, cereals, oil, and paper) while holding the line on prices when raw-material costs declined. In this way, these companies maintained profit margins when input costs rose and enjoyed expanding margins when they fell. In fact, we estimate that between 1996 and 2002, the strategy of passing on commodity price increases was responsible for two-thirds of net margin expansion in the sector, or roughly $10 billion in value.
The tables turned in 2002. From that year until 2007, industry players passed on price increases of just 15 percent as cumulative commodity costs grew by 40 percent (exhibit). As a result, we estimate that the failure to pass on commodity price increases was responsible, during that period, for 75 percent of the sector’s margin contraction, which cost about $70 billion.1
A return to the days of passing commodity price increases on to consumers won’t come easily. The structural shifts that dampened the industry’s pricing power remain: consumers are increasingly value conscious, and large discounters still dominate the retail landscape. These retailers, using detailed analysis of data available from their point-of-sales systems and shopper research, today have a sophisticated understanding of the prices they want and of their ability to demand those prices.
The net result is that the industry continues to face downward pressure on prices. Some of the solutions aren’t complicated, but they are extremely difficult to implement and probably hold lessons for companies—in sectors ranging from consumer electronics to industrial chemicals to medical devices—currently facing an unfavorable and volatile environment for raw-material costs and pricing.
Regaining the initiative
Many economists and financial-market forecasters believe that continued price volatility amid a general rise in commodity prices is likely as the world economy recovers, so companies across many sectors may easily destroy value in the years ahead. Suppose that in consumer packaged goods, commodity prices increase by about 20 percent during the next five years, and companies hold prices constant in a quest to maintain market share. In that case, up to 4.5 percentage points of margin could be lost—or about 33 percent of current earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). Avoiding this fate will require iron-willed pricing resolve, which may be richly rewarded if the environment turns slightly more favorable. If commodity prices fall by 5 percent in the next five years but companies hold product prices steady, for example, we estimate that industry margins will increase by around 1 percentage point, and EBITDA will jump by 8 percent, reversing the current trend.
Conceiving, developing, and marketing category-changing products that consumers crave has long been the lifeblood of leading consumer-packaged-goods companies—and, for that matter, a priority for companies in a great many industries. An important question for all is how to capitalize on the opportunity that such innovations present to reset prices upward across relevant product categories, as P&G managed to do when the company introduced its Swiffer cleaning product.2 Capitalizing on innovations isn’t easy. But in an industry like packaged goods, it’s probably critical for companies that aim for a financially sustainable innovation pipeline, for consumers who seek a steady stream of new products that satisfy new needs, and for retailers that hope to benefit from greater demand for new and existing products.

About the Authors
Richard Benson-Armer is a director in McKinsey’s New Jersey office, Peter Czerepak is an associate principal in the Boston office, and Tim Koller is a principal in the New York office.

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Journal of Management Excellence: Creating Value, Part II


Journal of Management Excellence: Creating Value, Part II





Creating value is the most important objective of every organization, but it is also the hardest to define. In part two of this series, Oracle's newsletter takes another look at the many different ways to create value.


Inside:
  • World-Class EPM Drives More Than Twice The Shareholder Return (Tom Willman)
  • Commentary: Creating Value By Doing More With Less (Thomas Oestreich)
  • The First Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Index Reveals Modest (Steve Walker)
  • Achievement of Management Excellence (Steve Walker)
  • Guest Commentary: Closing The Loop (Wayne Eckerson)
  • Uncertainty Management: The Source of All Management Value (Jim Franklin)
  • Managing Stakeholder Value With Analysis Chains (Tony Politano)
  • Building the Business Case For Return on Enterprise Performance Management Investment (Ron Dimon)
  • Industry Insights (Mark Conway)
     

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    Journal of Management Excellence: Creating Value

    Journal of Management Excellence: Creating Value



    Creating value is the most important objective of every organisation, but it is also the hardest to define. Oracle takes a look at the many different ways to create value.


    Inside:
    • Connect Enterprise Performance Management Processes to Drive Business Value (Ivo Bauermann)
    • Commentary: If You Are Ready, Now Is the Time! (John Kopcke)
    • The Need for Profitability Management (VJ Lal)
    • Commentary: The Complete Value of an Enterprise Performance Management System (Thomas Oestreich)
    • Centraal Boekhuis: Creating Value by Delivering Business Intelligence as a Service (Emiel van Bockel)
    • Commentary: The Overinstrumented Enterprise (James Taylor)
    • True Value Index: A Measure for Sustainable Business Success (Frank Buytendijk)
    • Industry Insights (Mark Conway)


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    Are you a good leader? Take this Leadership Test


    Leadership Self Examination

    If you’re looking to benchmark your leadership ability the following self examination by Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth will give you a baseline to build from. While this test is not as detailed as more comprehensive assessments, I have nonetheless found it to be fairly thorough. That said, any self exam is only as good as the honesty of those taking the test. If you check your ego at the door and give a thoughtful, introspective evaluation of your ability, it is likely that you’ll learn something about your leadership abilities or lack thereof. Better yet, for those of you bold enough to place yourself under what might be the harsh scrutiny of others, you can get the benefits of a mini leadeship 360 review by asking your co-workers to rate you as a leader. If you’re game to test your leadership ability read on to take the exam…
    The examination is broken down into 10 sections, each worth 10 points. If you believe you possess a fully developed competency in a section give yourself 10 points. If you possess no competency whatsoever give yourself 0 points. Grade your examination as follows:
    • 90 – 100 points = A
    • 80 – 89 points   = B
    • 70 – 79 points   = C
    • 60 – 69 points   = D
    • 59 & below        = F
    As I mentioned above, use the results of the exam to determine your strengths and weaknesses as a leader. If you find that you lack skill sets and competencies in certain areas seek out mentors and coaches to shore-up your weaknesses, and more importantly, use your professional advisors to assist you in leveraging your strengths. On with the exam….


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    How to use Sales Benchmarking to Drive Performance




     'Making the Number: How to use Sales Benchmarking to Drive Performance'  
    by Greg Alexander, Aaron Bartels and Mike Drapeau - Penguin 2008


     The authors contest that Sales Benchmarking can drive profits and positively impact each business function within the organization.
    The authors provide a five step action plan to guide you through implementing Sales Benchmarking along the lines of two concepts: The concept of 'The Formula for Sales Success' and the 'Sales Management Maturity Model Scale'.
     
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