...Economic Integration, according to Investopedia online, is, “an economic arrangement between different regions marked by the reduction or elimination of trade barriers and the coordination of monetary and fiscal policies. The aim of economic integration is to reduce costs for both consumers and producers, as well as to increase trade between the countries taking part in the agreement.” According to Norman Girwan, in his paper entitled, ‘Caricom’s Elusive Quest For Economic Integration,’ the Caribbean needed to integrate for similar reasons. Girwan states that the move toward such integration was driven by the need to mitigate against the constraints of small size on development, as well as there were other non-eceonomic objectives. These included “attaining national independence, sharing the costs of common services, pooling bargaining power in international environment and instituting a common West Indian identity.” Girwan continues by stating emphatically that “economic integration is still a work in progress for the Caribbean peoples; and what has been accomplished so far has not impacted significantly on regional economic development.” He attests that “this could be due to faulty implementation of agreed integration schemes, or to inappropriate design of the schemes themselves, or to inherent limits in the capacity of economic integration per se to drive development in these economies.” In a similar manner, Mehmet Ekizoglu, in his paper Mercosur, It’s History, Institutions...
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...Economic Integration The concept of “Economic Integration” has been growing in significance for the past 50 years and was established by economists who investigated the early attempts of European countries to combine separate economies into larger economic regions.18 More specifically, economic integration—also called “regional integration”—refers to the discriminate reduction or elimination of trade barriers among participating nations. This also implies the establishment of some form of cooperation and coordination among participants, which will depend on the degree of economic integration that ranges from free-trade areas to an economic and monetary union. Integration among countries in a geographical region to reduce, and ultimately remove, tariff and non-tariff barriers to the free flow of goods, services, and factors of production among each other. For examples: EU (European Union), NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) Level of economic integration: The levels of economic integration divided into five different levels and they are shown in figure 1.0. The first one is the Free Trade Area, Custom Union, Economic Union, Monetary Union and then the political union. These five levels are inter- linked with each other; first we have to have the come up with the identification of the free trade area among the participant. Than to ensure the exchange of the goods among the participant a custom union will be required. This custom...
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...------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- European Integration: ------------------------------------------------- An Illegitimate child? http://www.economist.com/node/21555927 BAS 2013 Nicole Ogorzałek Words: 955 ------------------------------------------------- European Integration: an illegitimate child? The European Union is facing hard times ahead. With each new treaty or another political agreement, the discontent with the European Union seems to be growing. While the Eurobarometer shows that the citizens still believe it to be beneficial to be part of the EU, the dissatisfaction is rather directed at EU policy (London School of Economics and Political Science, 2013). Whether it’s the question of enlargements, social policy or country bail-outs, the Europeans seem to be disagreeing more and more with the top of the European politics. However, nowhere is the Eurosceptism as marked as it is in Britain. And it doesn’t seem to lessen. On the contrary, organising protest against new EU-initiatives has never been easier (The Economist, 2012). Of course, looking back at Britain history it’s not hard to understand why words like “United States of Europe” or “the European Superstate” fire up the public indignation (Donnelly, 2012). Those trying to appease the opponents try to point out the benefits Britain’s EU membership brings, like political and economic stability and developments. Furthermore, the...
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...Let Europe arise! Introduction In this short essay I am going to focus on the current state of the EU and its process of integration which is something what reaches to a far history. Because already after the Second World War the thought on the European integration emerged. In 1946, Winston Churchill had his speech about uniting Europe, and even now it is still a current issue. Every day we hear about globalization and integration of states which should ensure economic prosperity and political stability for participating states by mutual cooperation and also many communities regarding this have been established. First of all, I am going to briefly outline Churchill’s speech and Declaration by Schuman. Then I am going to try to reflect the main concepts of those two speeches in today’s situation. I am going to discuss what result were brought by the process of integration. And finally, I am going to take a look at the most important community in Europe, the European Union and its goals which still have to be done. Protagonists Churchill and Schuman “Winston Churchill (…) was one of the first to call for the creation of a ‘United States of Europe’. “ He believed that peace could be guaranteed only by a united Europe and that united Europe would bring happiness, prosperity and glory. According to him, the first step must have been to create a Council of Europe (europa.eu). Schuman’s speech took place in 1950 and its purpose was to create a European Coal and Steel Community...
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...in Costa Rica. You might ask: Why is Starbucks backward integrating? They probably do not think they can operate the supply chain more efficiently through vertical integration. They certainly aren't going to obtain a significant amount of coffee beans through one 600 acre farm. What are they doing? They are learning, experimenting, and innovating. It's a terrific reason to engage in partial/limited backward integration. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz explained, "We are talking about doing innovative things we would not be able to do without this farm." Craig Russell, a Starbucks senior vice president, explained that the company would try to identify ways to address a fungus problem that is affecting coffee farm yields in Central America: "It's a dynamic situation and we will absolutely use this farm for testing different methodologies and ways to use new types of coffee trees we've developed that have become more diseaseand rust-resistant." Finally and most importantly, Starbucks intends to share what they learn about the fungus with other farmers, so that coffee bean production improves overall for the industry. This example demonstrates that a small bit of vertical integration (backward) can be very effective as a means of innovation and experimentation. Many companies simply view vertical integration from the perspective of its immediate effect on the bottom line. Ironically, many of those efforts actually decrease profits much to the chagrin of senior executives...
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...Vertical integration is the expansion within a company to grow its business areas at different points along the same production and sales path. Vertical integration can help companies reduce their costs while improving efficiency and flexibility. Zara, founded in 1975 by Amancia Ortega, is the world’s largest fast fashion flagship chain retailer owned by Inditex Group and is vertically integrated in all aspects of its business. Zara, according to Ferdows et al (2002), has a decentralized communication and decision making process based on an autonomous ordering of clothing and fulfillment method. Zara’s vertically integrated structure of owning everything from the processes of manufacturing and design of its products to the individual stores is due to the fact they produce more of their products in-house, with only forty percent of its activities outsourced. The outsourced activities include the simpler labour intensive quick turnaround activities such as sewing and basic clothing designs while in-house activities are the more complex, complicated and trendy designs for their clothing. Zara’s top management’s opinion on the concept of most products produced in-house is it increases flexibility and speed as the products have a short cycle time. Zara also produces roughly half of its products within their own factories located in different regions around the world. Zara’s governance structure for gaining access to assets is continuous as they leverage their own assets, keeping their...
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...1. Vertical integration is the merging together of two businesses that are at different phases of production. Like a clothing line manufacturer followed by a chain of clothing retail stores that carry that product. Vertical integration can be upstream or downstream and it depends on how close it is to the being delivered to the consumer. Being vertically integrated can negatively affect the levels of inventory if carrying capacity and production levels are not properly aligned, you could end up with too much or possibly even too little inventory. Because, demand can be insufficient and fluctuate due to being vertically aligned. With this case, the marketing portion of the merged entity, could record higher sales to help them out, causing...
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...ECIPE OCCasIOnal PaPEr • no. 2/2010 REGIONAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION IN ASIA: THE TRACK RECORD AND PROSPECTS By Razeen Sally Razeen Sally (razeen.sally@ecipe.org) is Director of ECIPE and on the faculty of the London School of Economics www.ecipe.org info@ecipe.org Rue Belliard 4-6, 1040 Brussels, Belgium Phone +32 (0)2 289 1350 ECIPE OCCASIONAL PAPER ExECuTIvE SuMMARy This is the season for regional-integration initiatives in Asia. There is talk of region-wide FTAs, and there are east-Asian initiatives on financial and monetary cooperation. But grand visions for Asian regional blocs are not achievable. Regional economic integration is most developed in east Asia, but only because of manufacturing supply chains linked to global markets. South Asia is the most malintegrated region in the world. And east and south Asia are much less integrated in finance than they are in trade and FDI – due to highly restrictive national policies governing financial markets. Asia’s existing FTAs are “trade light”. They are largely limited to tariff cuts, but have barely tackled non-tariff regulatory barriers in goods, services and investment, and are bedevilled by complex rules of origin requirements. An APEC FTA initiative has gone nowhere – entirely predictable given such a large, heterogeneous grouping. An east-Asian or a pan-Asian FTA, by discriminating against third countries, would compromise regional production networks linked to global supply chains. Moreover, huge economic...
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...Vertical Integration of Samsung Vertical Integration is a method of management control that is used by many companies. It is the process in which a single company controls or owns the distributors and the suppliers in the production of a product or service. This vertical integration is an important corporate strategy as it creates significant impact for the company in the regions of costs, differentiations, and other strategic issues. Vertical integration if applied right, can help company to reduce costs and improve efficiency by reducing transportation expenses and reducing turnaround time. Vertical integration is divided to backward integration and forward integration. Backward integration is when a company buys its suppliers, or set up its own facilities to manufacture supplies. Usually when a company buys a supplier, it is because of the products that are produced by supplier is performing very well and in great quality therefore create a good feedback from customers. It also reduces transportation costs, improve profit margin and make the company more competitive. Forward integration is where activities are expanded to include control of the direct distribution of its products. A company buys its own retail shops to distribute the products directly. With this way, the company can market its products directly to the hand of costumers rather than having to engage with other retailers. This can help company to achieve higher market share, better access to customers...
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...Impact of Vertical Integration Table of Contents What is Vertical Integration?3 De Beers Summary3 Internal strengths of vertical integration5 External strengths of vertical integration6 Disadvantages of vertical integration7 Quad/Graphics and vertical integration7 Four types of Vertical Integration 7 Ownership and Breadth of De Beers 9 Conclusion 10 References11 What is Vertical Integration? Vertical integration is a powerful corporate strategy that when implemented under the right circumstances can work towards the organizations advantage. Vertical integration describes a firm's control over several or all of the production and or distribution steps involved in the creation of its product or service. This integration takes the assets that was owned by two organizations and combines it into a single business; this creates either a joint ownership, or the sale of one firm’s assets to another business. This strategy is more advantageous then contracting with an outside company since usually it creates lower operating costs and more control over quality of its products or services. Forward and backward integration in an organizations’ value chain is an attempt to strengthen a company’s business model. Although there are different forms of vertical integration, its main approach is either to expand operations backward into an industry that produces inputs for the company, or forward into an industry that distributes the company’s products. According to Harrigan...
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...Because he did not have to pay any middle men, Carnegie could aggressively cost his steel and still make a profit (Online Highways). With his lower prices, Carnegie began to slowly become a monopoly due to being the cheapest option in steel. American Apparel is an example of a modern day company that uses vertical integration. They start by knitting and dying fabrics, and continue all the way to public stores. Due to the lack of middlemen, they are able to cut production costs, and because they are entirely in the United States, they are able to cut shipping costs by not using foreign vendors (American Apparel. This supplies American’s with jobs rather than outsourcing to another country (American Apparel). People like the idea of supporting their country rather than a foreign one, so people tend to buy American-products (Economist), giving American Apparel an advantage over other companies. Vertical integration gives society more competitive prices, meaning the consumer saves money as well as the companies. Vertical integration creates more jobs, leading to more people being paid so more money is spent, helping everyone. The only disadvantage of vertical integration is how competitive the pricing is. If a local business has to compete with a big one that is vertically integrated, the small business will have to charge more due to more expenses in the middlemen (Economist). However, some people would rather buy things from a small merchant than a...
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...Regional Integration for and Against Articles Mark Drury 445 March 9, 2011 Dr. Paul Mahajan Regional Integration for and Against Articles A trade bloc can be defined as a preferential trade agreement between two countries and is designed to significantly reduce trade barriers between the two countries. The integration of countries into trade blocs is commonly referred to as “regionalism” and it does not matter if the trade bloc has a geographical basis or not. They first started in the 1930’s. The main trade blocs of the world are: (1) in Europe, the European Union (EU), the European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA), the European Agreements, and the European Economic Area (EEA); (2) with the United States, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (CUSTA), and the US-Israel Free Trade Agreement; (3) in Latin America, the Common Market of the South Latin American Integration Association (LAIA), and the Caribbean Community and Common Market(CARICOM) (Jones, 2010) Trade blocs are good because they remove trade barriers between countries. They also regulate the price and trade terms of trade between the two countries. Trade blocs also have a positive impact on welfare if they are more trade creating and less trade diverting. “George Orwell predicted that trade blocs would evolve into continent-spanning empires with ever-changing alliances. The eastward expansion of the EU and use of the Euro, southern expansion of NAFTA into the...
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...Vertical Integration vs Outsourcing of Zara Written by Mohd Rahman October 04, 2014 “The original business idea was very simple. Link customer demand to manufacturing, and link manufacturing to distribution. That is the idea we still live by” -- Jose Maria Castellano Rios, Inditex CEO. 1 Introduction to Zara Zara is an icon in the fashion world and largest international fashion designing and manufacturing company. Zara is the flagship chain store of Inditex Group owned by Spanish tycoon Amancio Ortega, Inditex is one of the world's largest fashion retailers with eight brands and over 6,460 stores throughout the world (Ref-1). Headquarter of the group is in Coruña, Spain where the first store of Zara was launched in 1975. This paper will analyse the company and try to link its activities with supply chain strategy of vertical integration and outsourcing. Later will come to a conclusion that Zara is vertically integrated with justification and made recommendation for further improvement. Definition of Vertical Integration In strategic management, the term vertical integration describes a style of management control, when a company expands its business into areas at different points of the same production path. Vertically integrated companies in a supply chain are united through a common owner. Usually each member of the supply chain produces a different product or services, and the production combine to satisfy common need. In the following paragraph I will try to...
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...STUDIES The Effects of Vertical Integration on Oil Company Performance Fernando Barrera-Rey Oxford Institute for Energy Studies WPM 21 October 1995 The contents of this paper are the author's sole responsibility. They do not necessarily represent the views of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies or any of its Members. Copyright 0 1995 Oxford Institute for Energy Studies All rights reserved. No palt of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any fomi or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior pemiission of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. This publication is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise. be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any fonii of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without D similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. ISBN 0 948061 90 1 ABSTRACT When asked to rank industries by their degree of vertical integration, most people would agree that the oil industry should come top of the list. Underlying this belief is the fact that integration and size tend to be closely associated. As the oil industry is so large and oil companies so visible and perceived as so profitable, the common belief is a correlation between vertical integration, size and performance. If a dynamic...
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...types and levels of economic integration and in particular the integration of the US with other markets. Focusing on trade through the NAFTA, the advantages that TPP and T-TIP could offer and the beginning of a fruitful partnership with Africa through the AGOA. Economic integration is an arrangement between different regions marked by a reduction or elimination of trade barriers and coordination of monetary and fiscal policies. There are various economic and political reasons as to why nations would want to pursue economic integration. Removing trade barriers comes with costs and benefits, depending on the degree of integration and the level of cooperation between member regions. Integration is believed to lead to lower prices for consumers and producers, thus causing the volume of trade to increase. However for nations outside integration agreements, barriers to trade can be created, as they may not be able to compete with preferred trading partners. When economies are strong, integration has benefits for all the members and each union can experience certain economic growth. The same holds true of economic downturns, if one member of a trade agreement begins to fall, their economic problems may spread. Growing nations are usually particularly eager to engage in economic integration as trade with foreign nations can contribute to rapid economic growth attracting foreign trade and investments. There are various types of economic integration; preferential trade agreements...
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