...over 8,500 stores in 15 countries, more than 4400 of them are in the United States. Wal-Mart operates their U.S. stores under many names including, Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart Supercenter, Sam’s Club, Neighborhood Market by Wal-Mart, Supermercado de Wal-Mart (in Hispanic neighborhoods) and Wal-Mart Express. Number of stores as of December 31, 2009 The first Wal-Mart was opened in Rogers Arkansas on July 2, 1962 by local business man Sam Walton. Walton had previously worked at J.C. Penny before becoming a franchise owner of a Ben Franklin. During his years at Ben Franklin, Walton discovered that the key to profits was dealing directly with the suppliers and passing the savings on to the customers through volume. Wal-Mart was incorporated as a public company 1970, with 38 stores in five states: Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri and Oklahoma. That same year the first distribution center was opened in Bentonville, Arkansas. Wal-Mart grew rapidly and by 1987 they had 1,198 stores. How did Wal-Mart become so successful? Many say it was because Sam Walton was “Cheap”. Not only did he demand rock bottom prices from suppliers, he required everyone on his staff to fly coach and share hotel rooms on business trips. Cost-cutting became an obsession at Wal-Mart. Walton knew that the key component to keeping costs down was controlling the payroll. He wrote in his 1992 autobiography, Made in America, "No matter how you slice it in the retail business, payroll is one of the most important...
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...MANAGING WORKFORCE DIVERSITY AT IBM: A GLOBAL HR TOPIC THAT HAS ARRIVED J. T. (Ted) Childs Jr. To be successful, global companies must continue to look toward the future, and CEOs, senior line and HR management, and diversity leaders play a key role in that process. Workforce diversity cannot be delegated; it must be a partnership. Although the HR team plays the key staff role, total delegation from the top, without active involvement, is a recipe for failure. IBM considers diversity a business imperative as fundamental as delivering superior technologies in the marketplace. To ensure that talented people can contribute at the highest possible level, the company insists on a workplace that is free of discrimination and harassment and full of opportunity for all people. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Today, workforce diversity is a global workplace and marketplace topic. Any business that intends to be successful must have a borderless view and an unyielding commitment to ensuring that workforce diversity is part of its day-to-day business conduct. Success also must be measured as it pertains to a company’s composition and program content. A company’s management team must ask itself, “Do we look like our customers, at all levels of our business?” “Do our programs reflect an understanding of the demand for talent in a competitive worldwide marketplace?” “Is our business culture one that fosters inclusiveness and tolerance in each country where we do business?” and, most...
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...9-805-130 REV: JULY 8, 2009 LYNDA M. APPLEGATE ROBERT AUSTIN ELIZABETH COLLINS IBM's Decade of Transformation: Turnaround to Growth This is my last annual letter to you. By the time you read this, Sam Palmisano will be our new chief executive officer, the eighth in IBM’s history. He will be responsible for shaping our strategic direction as well as leading our operations. . . . I want to use this occasion to offer my perspective on what lies ahead for our industry. To many observers today, its future is unclear, following perhaps the worst year in its history. A lot of people chalk that up to the recession and the “dot-com bubble.” They seem to believe that when the economies of the world recover, life in the information technology industry will get back to normal. In my view, nothing could be further from the truth. Lou Gerstner, IBM Annual Report, 2001 In 1990, IBM was the second-most-profitable company in the world, with net income of $6 billion on revenues of $69 billion, and it was completing a transformation designed to position it for success in the next decade. For the world leader in an industry that expected to keep growing spectacularly, the future looked promising. But all was not well within IBM, and its senior executives realized it. “In 1990, we were feeling pretty good because things seemed to be getting better,” one executive remarked. “But we weren’t feeling great because we knew there were deep structural problems.” Those structural problems revealed...
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...offices of Horizon Consulting. Today was Friday, which meant she needed to prepare for the weekly status report meeting. Horizon Consulting is a custom software development company that offers fully integrated mobile application services for iPhone ™ , Android ™ , Windows Mobile ® and BlackBerry ® platforms. Horizon was founded by James Thrasher, a former Marketing executive, who quickly saw the potential for digital marketing via smartphones. Horizon enjoyed initial success in sports marketing, but quickly expanded to other industries. A key to their success was the decline in cost for developing smartphone applications which expanded the client base. The decline in cost was primarily due to learning curve and ability to build customized solutions on established platforms. Patti Smith was a late bloomer who went back to college after working in the restaurant business for nine years. She and her former husband had tried unsuc-cessfully to operate a vegetarian restaurant in Golden, Colorado. After her di-vorce, she returned to University of Colorado where she majored in Management Information Systems with a minor in Marketing. While she enjoyed her marketing classes much more than her MIS classes, she felt the IT know- how acquired would give her an advantage in the job market. This turned out to be true as Horizon hired her to be an Account Manager soon after graduation. Patti Smith was hired to replace Stephen Stills who had started the restaurant side of the business at Horizon...
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...9-805-130 REV: JULY 8, 2009 LYNDA M. APPLEGATE ROBERT AUSTIN ELIZABETH COLLINS IBM's Decade of Transformation: Turnaround to Growth This is my last annual letter to you. By the time you read this, Sam Palmisano will be our new chief executive officer, the eighth in IBM’s history. He will be responsible for shaping our strategic direction as well as leading our operations. . . . I want to use this occasion to offer my perspective on what lies ahead for our industry. To many observers today, its future is unclear, following perhaps the worst year in its history. A lot of people chalk that up to the recession and the “dot-com bubble.” They seem to believe that when the economies of the world recover, life in the information technology industry will get back to normal. In my view, nothing could be further from the truth. Lou Gerstner, IBM Annual Report, 2001 In 1990, IBM was the second-most-profitable company in the world, with net income of $6 billion on revenues of $69 billion, and it was completing a transformation designed to position it for success in the next decade. For the world leader in an industry that expected to keep growing spectacularly, the future looked promising. But all was not well within IBM, and its senior executives realized it. “In 1990, we were feeling pretty good because things seemed to be getting better,” one executive remarked. “But we weren’t feeling great because we knew there were deep structural problems.” Those structural problems revealed...
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...Journal of Scientific Research ISSN 1450-223X Issue 50 (2012), pp. 62-75 © EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2012 http://www.eurojournals.com/ajsr.htm Review Study: Business Intelligence Concepts and Approaches Saeed Rouhani Islamic Azad University, Firoozkooh Branch Department of Industrial Engineering, Firoozkooh, Iran E-mail: SRouhani@iust.ac.ir Tel: +98-912-2034980 Sara Asgari MehrAlborz University, Tehran, Iran E-mail: sara.asgary29@gmail.com Seyed Vahid Mirhosseini MehrAlborz University, Tehran, Iran E-mail: vmirhosseini@gmail.com Abstract In today’s challenging business environment, it is a vital for organization to access useful information and knowledge. Business Intelligence (BI) is an umbrella concept for tools, techniques and solutions that helps managers to understand business situation. And BI tools can support informational knowledge needs of organizations. With respect to increasing trend of BI researches in BI concepts and applications, in this paper, recent researches and papers of academic journals in this field is systematically review to classify and prioritize the concepts and approaches of business intelligence. Consequently researches was classified in three, managerial, technical and system enables approaches to BI, and specification of each approach and future research quid was described. Keywords: Business Intelligence; Enterprise Intelligence Approaches Systems; Review Study; Business 1. Introduction Today, in the rapidly changing environment...
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...The Big Idea hbr.org Scott D. Anthony is the managing director of Innosight Asia-Pacific and the author of The Little Black Book of Innovation (Harvard Business Review Press, 2012). The New Corporate Garage Illustration: otto steininger Where today’s most innovative—and world-changing—thinking is taking place by Scott D. Anthony Quick: List the big companies that have launched paradigm-shifting innovations in recent decades. There’s Apple—and, well, Apple. The popular perception is that most corporations are just too big and deliberate to produce game-changing inventions. We look to hungry entrepreneurs—the Gateses, Zuckerbergs, Pages, and Brins—instead. The rise of fast, nimble, and passionate venture-capital-backed entrepreneurs seems to have made slow-paced big-company innovation obsolete, or at least to have consigned it to the world of incremental advances. But Apple’s inventiveness is no anomaly; it indicates a dramatic shift in the world of innovation. The revolution spurred by venture capitalists decades ago has created the conditions in which scale enables big companies to stop shackling innovation and start unleashing it. September 2012 Harvard Business Review 45 The Big Idea The New Corporate Garage Three trends are behind this shift. First, the increasing ease and decreasing cost of innovation mean that start-ups now face the same short-term pressures that have constrained innovation at large companies; as soon as a young company gets a whiff of success...
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...Economics Page 5 Demographics Page 6 Socio-Culture Page 8 Political/ Regulatory Page 11 Technological Page 13 Micro-Environmental Analysis Industrial Page 14 Markets Page 16 Competition Page 18 Supplier Page 19 Resources Page 20 Preferences Page 22 Opportunities and Threats Strengths and Weaknesses Page 23 Opportunities and Threats Page 25 Opportunity Analysis Page 27 Alternative Strategies Formulation Page 28 Ranking Strategies Page 28 References Page 29 INTRODUCTION Wal-Mart is the top retail company in the United States and has grown from a small customer centered store in Arkansas to an International Retail Store. This company was founded in the 1962 by Sam Walton. Walton and wife Helen put up 95 percent of the money for the first Wal-Mart store in Rogers, Arkansas. He traveled abroad to study retail and believed it was the future. His company began a success and the Wal-Mart empire began when it was incorporated October 31, 1969. Wal-Mart stock was first traded over the counter as publicly-held company in 1970. Since Wal-Mart has had eleven 100 percent stock split as of March of 1999. The company has grown to new levels and I hope to introduce and inform throughout this paper. Walmart.com states: Being a business leader requires us to constantly seek new and better ways of working that help us grow our company reliably and responsibly. So we can continue to improve our stakeholders'...
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...To : University of Sunderland From : Kam Kah Sam Date : 10th December 2012 Chosen Organization : TOYOTA 1.0 Introduction Ethics as according to (Riley 2012), are moral guidelines in which governs a person to behave appropriately. Thus, it could be assumed that one whom behaves ethically is also doing what is morally right. From this, it could be understood that business ethics as according to (Riley 2012) is regarded as good business practice. (Collins 1994) on the other hand claims that business ethics is an oxymoron, a contradiction of two concept. What (Collins 1994) mean is that there are not or cannot be ethics in business, or that business in some sense is unethical. In some sense, it is not surprising that some thinks this way as there are countless scandals involving undesirable business activities happening nowadays. Examples of notable scandals as according to (Garrison et al. 2008) includes Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, and Tyco International. As according to (Crane and Matten,2007), unethical business practices such as exploitation of workers, pollution of the environment, bribery, and deception of consumers has been going about business today. Thus as according to (Watson 1994), majority of businesses do require the maintenance of basic ethical standards such as trustworthiness, teamwork, and truthfulness. Without it businesses would not be able to proceed smoothly as consumers no longer trust vendors while employees refused to comply with...
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...Journal of Case Research in Business and Economics Application of Six-Sigma in finance: a case study A. Ansari Seattle University Diane Lockwood Seattle University Emil Thies Zayed University Batoul Modarress Zayed University Jessie Nino Seattle University ABSTRACT In recent years, companies have begun using Six Sigma Methodology to reduce errors, excessive cycle times, inefficient processes, and cost overruns related to financial reporting systems. This paper presents a case study to illustrate the application of Six Sigma Methodology within a finance department. Specifically, the case relates to the Continuing Account Reconciliation Enhancement project undertaken by the finance department of a major U.S. defense contractor. The goal of the project was to streamline and standardize the establishment and maintenance of costing and planning for all business activities within the current financial management process. The Six Sigma implementation resulted in a significant reduction in the average cycle time and cost, per unit of activity, needed to produce the required financial reports. Key Words: Six Sigma, Process Management, Quality Management, Finance Application of Six-Sigma, Page 1 Journal of Case Research in Business and Economics INTRODUCTION In 1987, Motorola developed and organized the Six Sigma process improvement Methodology to achieve “world-class” performance, quality, and total customer satisfaction. Since that time, at least 25% of the Fortune 200, including...
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...Recently more research has focused on the relationship between color and psychological functioning. _____ (Q) Two further experiments establish the link between red and avoidance motivation as indicated by behavioral (i.e., task choice) and psychophysiological (i.e., cortical activation) measures. _____ (R) Four experiments, in fact, demonstrate that the brief perception of red prior to an important test (e.g., an IQ test) impairs performance, and this effect appears to take place outside of participants' conscious awareness. _____ (S) Red impairs performance on achievement tasks, because red is associated with the danger of failure in achievement contexts and evokes avoidance motivation. _____ (T) All of these findings suggest that care must be taken in how red is used in achievement contexts and illustrate how color can act as a subtle environmental cue that has important influences on behavior. _____ (U) Indeed, startling findings occurred in regard to the relationship between red and performance attainment. 2,5,3,1,4 Recently more research has focused on the relationship between color and psychological functioning. _____ (Q) Two further experiments establish the link between red and avoidance motivation as indicated by behavioral (i.e., task choice) and psychophysiological (i.e., cortical activation) measures. _____ (R) Four experiments, in fact, demonstrate that the brief perception of red prior to an important test (e.g., an IQ test)...
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...International Journal of Business and Management December, 2008 An Analysis of Business Challenges Faced by Foreign Multinationals Operating the Chinese Market Jianlian Wu International Management, University of Nottingham Ningbo 315100, China E-Mail: zlixcwj1@nottingham.edu.cn, qqnamei@163.com Abstract China’s rapid economic growth has presented numerous opportunities and challenges for foreign firms there. Many large corporations have established a China centre to coordinate and control their operations in the country. As firms have increased their presence in China, their concerns are increasingly focused on implementing successful management practices and strategies. This article describes the challenges and difficulties that multinational companies faced in Chinese market. It analyses roles played by the human resource function in these China, culture differences, social environment and other factors. Keywords: Challenge, Multinationals, Chinese market 1. Introduction Over the last few decades, the process of globalization has created unprecedented opportunities for global business investment and trade. Many multinational companies are attempting to expand their business international by many entry strategies such as joint venture and subsidiary. While China, with over 1.3 billion population and 9.6 million square kilometers (China Popin, 2008) has become a valuable land for foreign multinational companies. They try to enter the Chinese market by using many...
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...International Journal of Business and Management December, 2008 An Analysis of Business Challenges Faced by Foreign Multinationals Operating the Chinese Market Jianlian Wu International Management, University of Nottingham Ningbo 315100, China E-Mail: zlixcwj1@nottingham.edu.cn, qqnamei@163.com Abstract China’s rapid economic growth has presented numerous opportunities and challenges for foreign firms there. Many large corporations have established a China centre to coordinate and control their operations in the country. As firms have increased their presence in China, their concerns are increasingly focused on implementing successful management practices and strategies. This article describes the challenges and difficulties that multinational companies faced in Chinese market. It analyses roles played by the human resource function in these China, culture differences, social environment and other factors. Keywords: Challenge, Multinationals, Chinese market 1. Introduction Over the last few decades, the process of globalization has created unprecedented opportunities for global business investment and trade. Many multinational companies are attempting to expand their business international by many entry strategies such as joint venture and subsidiary. While China, with over 1.3 billion population and 9.6 million square kilometers (China Popin, 2008) has become a valuable land for foreign multinational companies. They try to enter the Chinese market by using many...
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...A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming SECOND EDITION ® Mark G. Sobell Upper Saddle River, NJ • Boston • Indianapolis • San Francisco New York • Toronto • Montreal • London • Munich • Paris • Madrid Capetown • Sydney • Tokyo • Singapore • Mexico City Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and the publisher was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters or in all capitals. The author and publisher have taken care in the preparation of this book, but make no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of the use of the information or programs contained herein. The publisher offers excellent discounts on this book when ordered in quantity for bulk purchases or special sales, which may include electronic versions and/or custom covers and content particular to your business, training goals, marketing focus, and branding interests. For more information, please contact: U.S. Corporate and Government Sales (800) 382-3419 corpsales@pearsontechgroup.com For sales outside the United States, please contact: International Sales international@pearson.com Visit us on the Web: informit.com/ph Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication...
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...P A R T I Discovering Momentum 1 1 The Power of Momentum Where’s the Impetus? Momentum. Most businesses get it at some point: the impression that everything they undertake succeeds effortlessly, as if they’re being carried along by a tailwind that increases their efficiency and propels them on to exceptional growth.1 Some hold on to it. Most don’t. Slowly, imperceptibly, the tailwind turns around and the momentum disappears, without anyone quite realizing what has happened. The company is still growing, but not as strongly as before, not as efficiently. Everyone’s maxing out, but it seems like there’s molasses in the works. Sound familiar? Sooner or later, it hits you in the face. Imagine you are meeting up with a senior analyst whose opinion counts with some of your company’s biggest investors. You think you’re on safe ground—after all, your company is doing better than the competition. But the analyst is in full gimlet-eyed, illusion-killing mode. “That’s nothing to crow about,” she says. “Yeah, you’ve got reasonable growth, but it’s nothing exceptional. You’re a safe bet, nothing more. Okay, I might tell my mom to buy, but 3 The Momentum Effect then she’s happy with inflation plus one. The way we see it, you’re really grinding it out. We reckon the strain’s getting harder, too. There’s no impetus—no momentum.” Words like that can really take the gloss off a day. The next time you gather your team, you don’t congratulate them on beating their targets—you...
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