...expanded into other areas becoming the ‘Walmart’ of e-commerce world. By 2010, Amazon had a higher market cap than Target Corporation, Home Depot, Costco, Barnes and Noble, and Best Buy, only lagging behind that of Walmart among the US brick and mortar retailers. Our study would focus on analyzing how Amazon revolutionized the concept of digital enterprise and succeeded in becoming the numero uno online retail company. Amazon vision was to offer “Earth’s biggest selection” and to be “Earth’s most customer-centric company” and succeed to a greater extent in realizing this vision. Facing fierce competition from a variety of traditional and digitial competitors such as Walmart, Target, Bestbuy, Ebay, Barnes and Noble, Buy.com etc., Amazon was able to grow successful over the years through strategically reinventing and adopting itself. Amazon’s relentless costumer focus, ability to offer shopping convenience, consumer decision-enabling information, a wide selection, discounted pricing, and logistical competencies forms a very interesting case study for understanding present world’s competitive strategies of the firms. The growth of Amazon since its inception in 1995 and its evolution into its present business model help us learn some of the very important strategy lessons in staying competitive in the real world business and hence the motivation to pursue this study. Research Methodology: - What kind of data you think you might need to collect to study the issues that...
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...(February 9th 2015)............................................. 5 III. The leveraged effect of options’ discovery ......................................... 7 IV. Gains securitisation and investment strategy transformation .......... 8 V. Overconfidence influences dramatically investment decisions ........ 9 VI. Consequences of an aggressive finance strategy ........................... 10 1. The negative consequence .......................................................................... 10 2. The positive consequence ........................................................................... 11 VII. Conclusion .......................................................................................... 12 References ................................................................................................... 14 Appendixes .................................................................................................. 15 Appendix 1: Transactions list............................................................................. 15 Appendix 2: Financial product names and ISIN ............................................... 17 Appendix 3: Global evolution of the portfolio................................................... 18...
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..."Maximising added value and reducing total cost across the entire trading process through focusing on speed and certainty of response to the market”. Competitive Edge through Core Competencies Today's business climate has rapidly changed and has become more competitive as ever in nature. Businesses now not only need to operate at a lower cost to compete, it must also develop its own core competencies to distinguish itself from competitors and stand out in the market. In creating the competitive edge, companies need to divert its resources to focus on what they do best and outsource the process and task that is not important to the overall objective of the company. Supply chain management has allowed company to rethink their entire operation and restructure it so that they can focus on its core competencies and outsource processes that are not within the core competencies of the company. Due to the current competitive market, it is the only way for a company to survive. The strategy on applying SCM will not only impact their market positioning but also strategic decision on choosing the right partners, resources and manpower. By focusing on core competencies also will allow the company to create niches and specialization of core areas. As stated in the Blue Ocean Strategy outlined by Chan Kim, in order to create a niche for competitive advantage, companies must look at the big picture of the whole process, and figuring out which process can be reduce, eliminate, raise and create. ...
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...[pic] Group 6 RU Consulting, L.L.C Nick Morgan Laura Pynn Jennie Ramberg Brenna O’ Regan James Morrison Tweeter, etc. is an audio/video company that faced pricing strategy problems in 1993 that made the history books for adverse pricing strategies. Sandy Bloomberg formed the company in 1972 and the company faired well in the 1970’s and 1980’s. It grew to 13 stores when they implemented the Automatic Price Protection pricing strategy. This strategy nearly drove the company into bankruptcy. The company still faces unremitting problems which this paper will address. This is our proposal as RU Consulting, L.L.C. First, we will examine how the company evolved. Second, an analysis of the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and their threats will be considered and an analysis of their corporate strategies will be given. Third, we have included our solutions and recommendations for this company. Last, we would like to give our recommendation to you as the stockholder on what you should do with the stock you are holding. Tweeter started out as a small retailer of high-end audio/video equipment right outside of Boston University. This store was a success and soon expanded into 13 stores through out New England. [1] It began to get a reputation for its excellent service and quality products and sales soared. However, in the late 1980’s, the...
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...Blue Ocean Strategy Lea De La Rosa MKT/421 July 7, 2014 Catherine Lovett Blue Ocean Strategy We live in a very competitive country, let alone world. Companies are always bidding for business and trying to outdo the competition by offering sensible deals or getting celebrities to promote their product to show that they have their “buy in”. We are constantly torn between products and pulled in different directions due to aggressive advertising. In the blue ocean strategy, the competition is scarce and the consumer has only one choice. This makes it easier for the company and the consumer. There was a time when the IPad had no competition in the current market that it is in. Then Samsung decided to build a similar device that was obviously a carbon copy of the product that Apple had built. The Apples IPad never really had any real competition and made quite a killing in profits the first year it was released. The IPad was viewed as the bigger version of the IPhone as the bigger version of the IPhone and millions were intrigued by its simplicity and its IOS capabilities and browsing that would prove to be comparable with a laptop. Having no competition in the initial release of the IPad gave the company an advantage and also lit the fire for other companies to come up with a similar device. Companies know that they will eventually get copycats when they release a product that is not currently on the market. They also know that it is important to pull in loyal...
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...studies in this field of research. This constitutes a useful tool to evaluate the companies’ financial performance. Particularly, the discussion in this paper illustrates how this kind of approach can help in analyzing a companies’ stock price. Additionally, a debate on its potentialities is also provided. Keywords – Fundamental Analysis, Return on Equity, Return on Investment, Price Earnings Ratio, Price to Book Value # foreign competition in a particular sector in order to identify the best company of the sector. ii) Bottom-up approach: in this method, the analyst starts the searching analysis within a specific sector irrespective of its industry/region. The fundamental analysis is carried out with the aim of predicting company’s future performance. It is based on the belief that the market price of an asset tends to move towards its “real value” or its “intrinsic value”. Thus, if the intrinsic value of an asset is higher than its market value, there may be a situation where it is time to buy. Otherwise, investors should sell. In the next section, the theoretical framework of the fundamental analysis is reviewed. The paper ends with a section where the main conclusions are drawn. 1. Introduction This paper focuses on the important issue of fundamental analysis, where a selection of ratios is discussed on a long-term basis. Our study aims to provide a critical analysis of the state of the art of the relevant literature....
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...[pic] Group 6 RU Consulting, L.L.C Nick Morgan Laura Pynn Jennie Ramberg Brenna O’ Regan James Morrison Tweeter, etc. is an audio/video company that faced pricing strategy problems in 1993 that made the history books for adverse pricing strategies. Sandy Bloomberg formed the company in 1972 and the company faired well in the 1970’s and 1980’s. It grew to 13 stores when they implemented the Automatic Price Protection pricing strategy. This strategy nearly drove the company into bankruptcy. The company still faces unremitting problems which this paper will address. This is our proposal as RU Consulting, L.L.C. First, we will examine how the company evolved. Second, an analysis of the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and their threats will be considered and an analysis of their corporate strategies will be given. Third, we have included our solutions and recommendations for this company. Last, we would like to give our recommendation to you as the stockholder on what you should do with the stock you are holding. Tweeter started out as a small retailer of high-end audio/video equipment right outside of Boston University. This store was a success and soon expanded into 13 stores through out New England. [1] It began to get a reputation for its excellent service and quality products and sales soared. However, in the late 1980’s, the...
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...grocery store under one roof. Clearly, a dramatic change was needed. Retailers sought a way to improve margins and compete more effectively. They wanted to reconnect with consumers and satisfy their needs, or face the prospect of an eroding shopper base. Given the endless variety of new products pouring into the marketplace, retailers wanted to ensure that CO PY RI I GH TE 13 D MA The Evolution of Category Management and the New State of the Art TE RI AL 14 In the Beginning—The Purpose of Category Management their shelves were stocked with products that consumers wanted to buy. Mainly, they wanted to stay in business. Birth of the Eight-Step Process Many progressive retailers and manufacturers realized that there was gold in the reams of data available from retail point-of-sale (POS) systems. Was it possible to figure out which products to stock in a certain store? Could analysis of the data tell retailers how to customize the shelf sets in all the stores of a chain according to what shoppers were buying and wanted to buy? Could they attract and retain specific niches of high-value shoppers? The answer was yes. The way to do it was a process called category management that was developed in the early 1990s by The Partnering Group (TPG), a consulting firm. A few of the larger retailers began testing the process. Soon the manufacturers jumped on...
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...Objectives: - 4 components of strategy analysis: firms goals and values, resources and capabilities, structure and management systems and industry environment - Measurement of profitability, Profit most useful measure of firm performance (maximization of profit) - Tools of Financial analysis - Shareholders and stakeholders - Value: - Commerce is creating value - Firm have to know what profit is and how to measure it - Economic profit more reliable measure as accounting profit - Measure of e.p. is EVA, economic value added - Firm must maximize the future net cash flow to maximize its value and mimimize cost of capital - C.f. forecasts are very difficult,estimate future c.f. need make assumption - Important for value maximization is the consistency Real options theory - Two types: growth and flexibility options - Strategic alliances and joint ventures, investment in core products Putting performance analysis into practice - Need to asses current situation - Identify current strategy - Identify sources of unsatisfactory performance - Balanced scorecards -> balancing financial and strategic goals Profits and purpose - Companies that are more focused on making profit are often unsuccessful at achieving their goals - “Profits are important for existence of a company but not the reason for its existence” - Important is to have a dream, to have a joy of creating things - To have a vision for the future and a core ideology (values and principles) are both...
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...Calvin Thompson Dr. Frias Paul Phillips 930-1050 Jason O’Neal Team 4 Land Rover North America Land Rover President and CEO Charles Hughes was facing a daunting business challenge in 1994: How does He make North America the number 1 Land Rover market worldwide? In this case study we will examine how he decided on positioning and marketing The Discovery and Land Rover in North America to create a buzz about its fascinating new vehicle. The history of Land Rover is extensive and very precise, Land Rover was initially started as a bicycling company in 1860, but it wasn't until 1947 that the first concept 4WD utility vehicle was born. Initially competing with Jeep, but it was advertised as a more utilitarian versatile vehicle. It was sold to military customers and even within 5 years of its launch, 80% of Land Rovers were going to third world countries were the vehicles functionality could be greatly appreciated. In 1970 the Range Rover was introduced and sort of set the status quo for what was considered tasteful and sophisticated, a symbol for the affluent population. There was a growing concern as worldwide sales from 1983 to 1985 were plummeting due to what was called the "Japanese Invasion", there SUV's were crumbling and putting a cap on Land Rover sales in their core markets, this combined with the oil crisis, parts supplies being restricted, and repair services not being up to par in foreign markets left Land Rover in a tight spot...
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...What is Netflix’s vision? 3. What is Netflix’s strategy? What type of competitive advantage is it trying to achieve? 4. How do Netflix’s business model and strategy compare to those being employed by key rivals, particularly Blockbuster? 5. How is the online movie rental business changing? What are the underlying forces of change and how are they impacting the industry? 6. What key factors determine success in the online movie rental industry? How important is technology to Netflix’s success? 7. What does an analysis of Netflix’s performance, both financial and strategic metrics, reveal? What is the story of the numbers in case Exhibits 3, 4, 5, and 6? How does its performance compare with that of key rivals—as shown in case Exhibits 7 and 8? 8. What do you see as Netflix’s competitive strengths and weaknesses? Is there a good market opportunity here for Netflix? What external threats does the company need to be concerned about? 9. Do you believe that Netflix has built a sustainable competitive advantage in the online movie rental business? Why or why not? 10. What does Netflix need to do to strengthen its competitive position and business prospects, given the competitive actions of Wal-Mart and Blockbuster? What specific actions should founder and CEO Reed Hastings take? 11. How are Blockbuster and Wal-Mart likely to react to the strategic moves that you have recommended that Netflix make? 12. Would you buy stock in Netflix at this time? Why or why not? ...
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...mission and goals, (2) assess the environment, (3) appraise company capabilities, (4) craft the strategy, (5) implement the strategy, and (6) evaluate and control the strategy. Business Policy is a set of prescribed and discretionary statements, limiting actions of individuals in the firm, as set forth in directives and guides. Mission is the reason for which the firm exists, and what it will do. Basically, it describes the products/services to be supplied, the markets to be served, and the technology applied (if important). Vision Statement answers the question, What do we want to become? Goals express the aspirations of the firm, general ends that cannot be measured. Ex. “In unrelenting pursuit of perfection.” Objectives are specific targets to be accomplished by a specified time. Ex. “Profits will grow at the rate of 5% annually for the next five years.” Long-term objectives (5 years or more) are strategic objectives and define the desired character of the company, at the specified time. Strategy is simply the means or general actions to be taken to achieve long-term objectives. Strategic management is the work of the General Manager. General Manager is a person who is responsible for a profit center, as opposed to a functional manager who is responsible only for a cost or revenue center. Generic Strategy is the name for a group of similar specific strategies. Levels of Strategy 1. Corporate level. What types of businesses should we be in? 2. Business level. How do we compete...
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...and Kotcher, 1995). Thus, Swatch’s innovative evolution had essentially had broaden their consumer base. For Swatch, the recuperation and improvement from their diminished market share due to their high-priced watches and the availability of low-priced brands, can be attributed to these three factors. First, the development of their product from the use of classy materials to plastic cased watches and the subsequent cost reduction that they garnered allowed for lower prices. Thus, enabling them to compete with other brands. The production process having designed to be more efficient than its competitors allowed for the manufacture of cheaper products. The development of the operation however was due mainly to the change in the product design; both increasing the economies of scale of Swatch making it able to increase its target market and thus, boosting its market share. As illustrated by Carter, Melnyk and Handfield (1995) product design is one of the primary locus of competitiveness in today's dynamic marketplace. What Swatch did was introduced a new trend coupled by an inherent company philosophy that welcomes change, and positions the firm to adopt, with flexibility and ease, differing goals and strategies as conditions warrant. And, finally, Swatch had configure itself in order to swiftly develop and launch new products, speedily manufacture these products, and deliver them to a more sophisticated, demanding, and competitive...
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... more competitive, and start growing towards the future in technology, specifically e-commerce, purchasing becomes a strategy. Purchasing became “strategic sourcing.” Strategic sourcing has become a huge responsibility for the supply manager. There are a few activities that strategic sourcing accomplishes for the manager. It allows the manager to strategize the spending habits of the company, it forces the manager to strategically look in to the supply market for any changes, trends, and what other firms are offering, and it provides a method to develop a sourcing strategy that fits the company’s strategy to lower costs and risk, while bringing in a profit. Profit is produced through mastering or at least competently managing the five M’s; machines, manpower, materials, money, and management. Part of that strategy is where and how to source these 5 M’s that will meet the cost strategy of the company. This brings up the most strategic question a firm can ask of a supply manager; to make or buy? To meet the company’s needs that will consequently meet the current demand, should the company in-source or outsource? What should the company outsource? What are the functional areas of supply management that can be outsourced and what are the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing? Strategic Sourcing in Supply Management We are in the information and technology age of business. This requires a business to consider the area of sourcing as a competitive strategy to keep...
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...Putting Strategy Before Structure Introduction: Analysts and managers will argue eternally over what caused most alliances to fail. Some will blame egos and clashing cultures; while others will cite business conflicts and ruthless competition. “Strategic alliances”, the creation of alliances comes to be seen as an end in itself, rather than as means to a broader strategic end. The failure of these deals teaches one clear lesson: it is the strategy behind the deal that matters, not the structure of the deal. All strategy should grow out of an assessment of the firm's external competitive environment, its internal capabilities and its desired goals. Only once these are meshed should executives develop tactics and policies. Alliance Success: Top Ten Factors. 1. Have a clear strategic purpose. Alliances are never an end in themselves, they are tools in service of a business strategy. 2. Find a fitting partner. You need a partner with compatible goals and complementary capabilities. 3. Specialize. Allocate tasks and responsibilities in the alliances in a way that enables each party to do what it does best. 4. Create incentives for cooperation. Working together never happens automatically, particularly when partners were formerly rivals. 5. Minimize conflicts between partners. The scope of the alliance and of partners’ roles should avoid pitting one against the other in the market. 6. Share information. Continual communication develops...
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