How not to lose ground or how the developed world can dodge the sword of Damocles – Part II
Second Part – Way Out
“We have to define that word which good economists always try to avoid: capitalism is that form of private property economy in which innovations are carried out by means of borrowed money” Joseph Schumpeter
As in the previous article the difficulties have been addressed, and we have created hopefully a sense of urgency. We would now like to characterize a possible solution scheme to eventually end the era of Ponzi finance in order to prevail over the economic downward spiral of the developed future world. Various stakeholders will have to prove their willingness to make sacrifices. The day of reckoning will have to be faced, because the underlying issues cannot be ignored any longer.
How not to lose ground or how the developed world can dodge the sword of Damocles – Part I
First Part – The Difficulties
“Economic progress, in capital society, means turmoil”
Joseph A. Schumpeter
With genuine sorrow we observe the economic downward spiral of increasingly more European Union States and other developed economies. This article explores the causes and characteristics of the developed world’s grown structural difficulties and proposes steps that every economy must have to take in order to resolve it. Rather than to give recommendations how to alleviate symptoms of the world’s economic slowdown this article aims to define the vital steps towards a sustainable solution, point out the painful dilemmas, which will be faced by the developed world, and constitutes a sense of urgency to rapid action.
The real cost of having a smartphone
An interesting infographic from AccountingDegree.com depicting the true cost of smartphones and our incredible attachment to these electronic devices.
LEGO’s Approach to Customer-orientation
Everyone knows or has heard of the colorful bricks that can be combined to form all sorts of shapes, figures and creative constructions. The LEGO toy brick have been and still is a cornerstone in children’s education and play, and has been acclaimed “Toy of the Century” by Fortune Magazine in this millennium.
The LEGO Group which is a private held company based in Billund, Denmark, is still owned by the Kirk Kristiansen family, who established LEGO in 1932. Today LEGO has approx. 10.000 employees who provide toys and other teaching materials in more than 130 countries (LEGO website). The name LEGO comes from combining the two first letters in LEG GODT, in English “Play Well”, and also happens to mean “I put together” in Latin.
The LEGO group is a very innovative company, with a keen focus on following the pace of the market and developing tomorrow’s products. The rage of products has expanded to suit a greater variety of ages. Products such as Duplo, Lego, Lego Techno and LEGO MINDSTORMS, as well as LEGO’s recently developed online environments, where people can create avatars, interact, share information and get inspired. Platforms and forums for social medias increases as well, digital play experiences as well as a new concept called LEGO Design byME, allowing consumers to put together virtual Lego models on their computers with the option of buying them.
This article gives you a short insight into how LEGO focus on and interact with consumers to develop future product and services in line with consumer needs, preferences and interests. LEGO is an interesting example because LEGO.com currently ranks as the No. 1 family and children website, underlining there success in creating an online environment for their target groups.
Emerging Market Multinationals – A multi-polar footprint
Emerging-market multinationals (EMMs), which are companies operating in several countries, have during the last decades, attracted substantial attention from western multinationals for their increasing scale on international level. In 2008 the Emerging economies had 70 multinationals in the Fortune Global 500, an increase of 50 from 1998, and an increase of 9 since 2007; clearly demonstrating the pace of the Emerging multinationals. This development has been possible through a high number of mergers and acquisitions, as well as a focus on Capital (Foreign Direct Investments), Talent (workforce), Resources (commodities etc.), new consumers and Innovation.
SAP Provides CRM but Don’t They Need it?
“And everyone at SAP knows that if customers love you everything else takes care of itself,” Co-Ceo Bill McDermott told reporters in a first public appearance with his counterpart Jim Hagemann Snabe at a news conference at the CeBit trade fair.
In addition to SAP CRM (Customer Relationship Management), their products offerings consist of SAP ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), SCM (Supply Chain Management), and many others. Particularly, SAP’s CRM system helps companies by giving them a single view of each customer where they can arrange their information ahead of sales, marketing, and services to their network. SAP believes that in our competitive business world, companies who have a competitive advantage are the companies which are customer oriented and giving their full focus on their customer’s satisfaction. “Delivering an outstanding customer experience is key to setting yourself apart from the pack.” Also according to SAP, “Companies seek to retain their best customers and maximize the effectiveness of every customer interaction – whether it’s sales, service, or marketing.”
Is BP an ethical company?
Using Ethical Theories, To What extent Does BP plc Act Ethically To All Of Its Stakeholders? And To What Extent Is Its Corporate Social Responsibility Image Consistent With Its Practises?
BP plc is one of the largest Oil and Alternative Energy companies in the world. It has set confident and meaningful targets with regard to reducing its CO2 emissions and development of alternative sources of energy such as solar power. However, in recent years BP’s environmental image has been tarnished. However, whether BP has acted unethically is certainly ambiguous, indeed, to define ‘ethics’ is itself problematical. Thus, to look at BP’s business practises from contrasting theoretical stand points allows for juxtaposing arguments over the ethics of its business practices. Within the normative ethical theories, the traditional theories of Consequentialist ‘Utilitarianism’ and the Non-Consequetialist ‘Ethics of Duties’ are exemplary theories to demonstrate the contrasting nature of business ethics and to identify whether BP acts as a an ethical MNC or a ethically vacant imposter.
Blizzard Entertainment – The Wisest Storm
Worth USD $65bn, and growing faster than the movie industry, the video game segment has one of the biggest impacts on today’s popular culture (Janson, 2011). In this article, we will have a look on Blizzard Entertainment, one of the innovative publishers that released games which played major roles for the notoriety of this business as well as defining its future path. We will assess how the company makes the correct strategic decision by creating a sustainable growth and relationship with their customers. We will mostly discuss its World of Warcraft (referred as WoW later on) game as it makes 1/3rd of Activison Blizzard’s total revenues (Miller, 2012).
Amer Sports Tapping into both B2B and B2C
Amer Sports, a leading company in the sport equipment market, is a financial group which chose to specialise in the sport industry and today, consists of many different strong sport brands. The group is facing two challenges when dealing with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy; by dealing with professional customers and also with end users, it must play on two different fields. I worked for a year as an intern in Amer Sport’s French subsidiary as the Retail and Trade Marketing Manager Assistant on the Salomon brand, and I must say that I have never heard the term “Customer Relationship Management” during my whole internship.
Doing Business in Indonesia
Indonesia, as Southeast Asia’s largest economy, has positioned itself as one of the vital area for international trade since 7th century. In the course of the last global financial crisis, Indonesia had not only survived, but also outperformed other ASEAN countries including: Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand with an estimated growth of 6.4% in 2011. IMF ranked Indonesia as the 16th for GDP nominal and 15th for purchasing power parity, amounted to US$845,680 M and US$1,124,649 B respectively. Furthermore, Fitch upgraded sovereign credit rating of Indonesia to investment grade and estimated a 6% growth in 2013 conservatively. On top of the stable economic growth, Indonesia’s economy relies heavily on its domestic market, which is comprised of some 240 million people. Additionally, Indonesia is gifted with vast and diverse natural resources. Read the rest of this entry
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