...Staples Transforms Supply Chain Process to Maintain High Performance Client Background When the computer crashes as an entrepreneur is preparing for a crucial client meeting or the printer runs out of ink, business owners—big and small—know that they can count on Staples to head off a crisis, and keep their offices running smoothly. Staples invented the office supply superstore—and it was an entrepreneur who came up with the concept. In 1985, Tom Stemberg, a supermarket chain executive turned entrepreneur, struck upon the idea when his typewriter ribbon broke as he was preparing a business plan and he was unable to find a store that stocked the ribbon. That was when he realized that the business plan he should be pitching was for a supermarket for office supplies. This was in the early days of the personal computer revolution, and ten years before the dot-com boom, but Stemberg correctly foresaw the growth potential for a superstore that catered as much to the demands of a homebased business as Fortune®500 corporations. Two decades later, Staples is the world's largest office products company and number-one in sales and profits in the United States. Staples serves customers and businesses ranging from homebased businesses to Fortune®500 companies in 27 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. The company operates more than 2,000 office superstores and also serves its customers through mail order catalog, e-commerce, and contract businesses...
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...Case Summary Accenture knowledge management is a public company. They started trading at New York Stock Exchange in July 2001. The firm is consolidated 47 country partnerships into one corporation with a headquarters location in Bermuda. Their services include consulting, alliances, technology, venture capital and outsourcing. Initial success and consistent revenue growth of 17% year after year stalled in year 2002 and 2003. Accenture remained profitable during this period by cutting cost of operations. In 2004, the company achieved revenues of $13.67 billion making it top of the standard and poor 100 in terms of return on invested capital (first). The company increased its focus on outsourcing, particularly “business transformation outsourcing” and “business process outsourcing” rather than only outsourcing “IT services”. Also, it emphasized on creating and developing of intellectual and technology assets to apply in work with clients. Currently, the company’s organizational structure consisted in industry groups which made up the five operating groups, eight capability groups. There were substantial budget pressures to reduce costs during economic downturn which resulted in outsourcing services offshore of some of these groups. The groups used out dated portals to connect to one another and find documents, some major groups used their own portals which was becoming a problem. The CEO Don Vonthournout assigned Tom Barfield as management lead for a new Knowledge exchange...
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...Change management project: The HP merger with Compaq Table of content: • HP- presentation • Subject of change- Hp’s merger with Compaq • Promoters of the change and their motivation • Resisting forces • Critical mass • Trigger. Reducing resisting forces. Results • Change process-dynamics of the forces that promote change and the inertial forces • Analysis of the result. Residual stress • Conclusions HP In 1938, two Stanford graduates in electrical engineering, William Hewlett and David Packard, started their own business in a garage behind Packard’s Palo Alto home. One year later, Hewlett and Packard formalized their business into a partnership called Hewlett-Packard. HP was incorporated in 1947 and began offering stock for public trading 10 years later. Annual net revenue for the company grew from $5.5 million in 1951 to $3 billion in 1980. By 1997, annual net revenue exceeded $42 billion and HP had become the world’s second largest computer supplier. HP posted net revenue in 2009 was $115 billion, with approximately $40 billion coming from services. In 2006, the intense competition between HP and IBM tipped in HP's favor, with HP posting revenue of US$91.7 billion, compared to US$91.4 billion for IBM; the gap between the companies widened to $21 billion in 2009. In 2007, HP's revenue was $104 billion,] making HP the first IT company in history to report revenues exceeding $100 billion In 2008 HP...
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...The market for IT industry was huge and expanding at a fast pace. However the market leaders were Accenture and IBM which had a negligent market share and rest was captured by small enterprises. Indian companies also ventured in the industry and due to their competition, IT multinational giants had to increase their base in India. Due to high opportunities, attrition rate was also high in this industry. As a result Indian companies like Wipro, Infosys increased their base level salaries. During this phase, Indian economy was transforming towards an era of information and knowledge. This can be seen from the fact that contribution of services towards the economy’s GDP was higher than 18% in 2001 as against in 1980. No other industry had done better standing against global competition. The annual exports had always been over 50% over a decade. U.S.A. share represents highest with 61% and about a third of Fortune 500 companies outsource their software work to India. To foster development, Indian government has taken a number of steps like liberalization of policies and providing necessary capital and infrastructure to foster growth. Thus Indian environment has been conducive for growth. (Ref: Indian Embassy.org) Competitor analysis- The market for IT industry was fairly competitive with IBM and Accenture as global leaders and rest of the market was pretty diffused. IBM and Accenture had strong brand and a global presence with a large customer base. They also offered panoply of services...
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...Case Write-up Case Write-up Tran, Dung | Vo, Duong “Lucy” | Walden, Giovanna | Wang, Yang | White, Cassi Noel | Kjeseth, Mitchell | Tran, Dung | Vo, Duong “Lucy” | Walden, Giovanna | Wang, Yang | White, Cassi Noel | Kjeseth, Mitchell | Overview Before becoming Accenture, Andersen Consulting was a new branch of Andersen Accounting in 1989. Andersen Consulting faced a difficult task of positioning itself in the information technology marketing while also forging an identity separate from its accounting heritage. The challenge was to retain the positive aspects of the brand equity and break away from the limitations associated with an accounting brand. Originally, Andersen Consulting did not offer innovative solutions, which caused it difficulty in establishing a presence in the technology world. With its expertise in marketing and communications, Andersen Consulting quickly set apart from its competitors like IBM or McKinsey. It used sophisticated marketing strategies and advertising campaign for its name position and image. Eventually, this led Andersen to become the world’s largest management and technology-consulting firm. After a while, Andersen Consulting decided to seek independence as a separate company from Arthur Andersen. It was granted its independence in 2000, but as part of the ruling granting its independence, the license to use the Andersen Consulting name was to expire December 31 2000. After spending $7 billion in building...
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...Finance and Performance Management Mastery and the High Performance Business At Accenture, we have always believed that a direct correlation exists between the sophistication of an organization’s finance and performance management capabilities and its overall performance. 2 Now, we’ve put that theory to the test. In a recent landmark study, Accenture examined the relationship between finance and high performance. The results show a tangible link and strong correlation between a high-performance business and mastery of a new finance competency set. The results also reveal that those companies that created the greatest value have embraced entirely new ways of thinking about finance and performance management. Achieving High Performance Accenture defines high-performance businesses as organizations that consistently outperform their peers over a sustained timeframe (typically 5 to 7 years) and across business cycles, industry disruptions and CEO leadership cycles. These companies deliver consistently upper-quartile total returns to shareholders. They create returns on invested capital significantly in excess of the cost of capital and drive profitable revenue growth faster than their industry peers. In short, they are lean, responsive to changing competitive fundamentals and consistently rank as market leaders. How do they do it? Accenture embarked on a major research program to identify the attributes and practices that distinguish high-performance businesses from...
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...retailers in the United States. Additionally, the company operates businesses in Canada, China and Mexico. Altogether, Best Buy employs more than 140,000 people and earns annual revenues of more than $40 billion. By aligning with Accenture, Best Buy can leverage the provider’s global expertise in building and providing HR services and systems, allowing it to achieve a flexible, scalable delivery model much faster than if it were to build these capabilities in house. In addition to speed to capability, the partnership simplifies the complex challenge of transforming HR, enabling Best Buy’s HR professionals to focus on leading the human-capital component of its transformation. The payroll and bonus administration functions that previously were the province of finance have moved over to the new HR team at Accenture. “Aligning these functions under HR allows for a single point of contact for Best Buy employees, thus improving the overall employee experience,” Walden explains. “It also enables employees in these functions to work more seamlessly and collaboratively with each other— common in other world-class companies.” As part of the outsourcing agreement, approximately 120 employees at Best Buy have now become employees of Accenture HR Services to service Best Buy and potential future clients. This group of employees consists of about 90 former HR corporate and field personnel, of...
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...for vigorous growth to kick in? What will it take to achieve high performance in these uncertain times? Outlook 2004, Number 1 55 And speaking of costs, what role does a capital-intensive function like information technology play in this quest for high performance? Many business leaders are understandably wary of IT investments. Although spending on information technology has increased substantially in the past 10 years, many technology projects have been characterized by sketchy metrics, long cycle times to new products and unpredictable results. No wonder many executives have come to regard IT investments as a necessary evil and information technology as something to be managed and purchased like any other commodity or utility. Accenture holds a broader, decidedly more positive view. We believe that technology investment is vital to driving future productivity and growth—hence, it is critical to achieving high performance. And this investment can, in fact, be managed with discipline and rigor, which leads to increasing...
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...“Turkish Airlines experiences rapid expansion”. This is the title of an article appeared on November 14, 2013 in the Financial Times. In the decade 2003-2013 the company expanded enormously, from 65 to 233 aircrafts, the passenger numbers have more than quadrupled and the number of international destinations grew surprisingly from 76 to 199. (See Exhibit 1) At present, Turkish Airlines appears to be one of the most extensive airline companies with 106 connected countries (the last was added in April 2014). It was also acclaimed as the best European company in the last four years consecutively at the Skytrax World Airline Awards, being the third most profitable carrier after Ryanair and Easyjet. The expansion continues: with the project of the third Istanbul’s international airport and the announcements of new destinations to countries like Mexico, Philippines and South Sudan. (See Exhibit 2) How a small Turkish state-owned company became so huge and successful? What are the main challenges it had to face and how did it tackle them? What are the main actual and future issues for a company that is expanding quickly and widely? We will try to give an answer to these questions in the paper: starting from an essential and short presentation of Turkish Airlines historical evolution, making a synthetic overview of its main strategies and analyzing the past and the future challenges in developing countries such as India. Turkish Airline historical steps towards internationalization...
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... Financial Analysis! Profitability Ratios:! ROCE!-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5! Operating Profit Margin! ---------------------------------------------------------------5! Gross Profit Margin!--------------------------------------------------------------------5! Liquidity Ratios! 6! Current Ratio!----------------------------------------------------------------------------6! Quick Ratio!------------------------------------------------------------------------------6! Financial Stability! Investment Ratios! 7! 7! Financial Leverage ! -------------------------------------------------------------------7! Dividend Payout Ratio!----------------------------------------------------------------8! EPS! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8! Strategic Analysis! Conclusion! 9! 11! Critically NEWS about Super Group!---------------------------------------------11! To Invest or Not to Invest!------------------------------------------------------------11! Bibliography! 12! SUPER GROUP - AHMAD SALEEM 2 ! Introduction! This is a report that intends to examine Super Group LTD (“Super”) from a various financial and strategic measures and will present to the investor an informed conclusion on whether to invest or not to invest in this Company. This report will be divided into three parts, namely: Financial analysis, Strategic analysis and a Conclusion...
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...Starting with the End in Sight: Integrating Finance After a Merger 2 When two companies merge, integrating their Finance functions is a major imperative. Variations in financial standards and procedures can prevent the merged entity’s Finance function from effective daily operations, impacting both internal and external stakeholders. Integration of this key function is also time-sensitive: the entity’s leaders, not to mention investors, demand consolidated financial statements, earnings and projections as soon as possible. Additionally, a majority of the potential gains from a merger cannot be achieved without committed support from Finance. Many companies recognize this challenge and give substantial attention to financial integration soon after announcing the deal. However, this urgency creates its own problems. Under time pressure, finance professionals will feel rushed to combine disparate numbers and harmonize divergent processes. If they do not yet have a clear vision of the new company’s future state, they may implement manual temporary work-arounds, such as preparing manual reconciliations of customer accounts, that require incremental work effort, cost and risk to Finance. By focusing only on interim integration work and not considering the future state in parallel, many companies risk that the manual interim state will one day become the future state. Maintaining disparate and manually integrated systems limits opportunity for future standardization and cost...
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...following subject: Portfolio Project Risk & Stock Market M2 EUROPEAN AND INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE BANKING Submitted by: Instructor: KAKAVAND Samaneh EGRET Paul DOU Yan Academic Year 2012/2013 Introduction: Global Economic & stock market Performance: Mixed signals January 2013 is a great month for stock market. Since January, the stock market goes up, so maybe this stock market bulls will keep running in the whole year, especially, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is increasing dramatically, from 12520 in July 2012 to 14275 today. Source: Google Finance One potential reason for the optimism is a positive sense of global economy in the future; the euro zone is not going to break up, because in September 2012, European Central Bank promised unlimited bond-buying to keep the euro together; China has avoided a hard landing, America avoided falling off the fiscal cliff. Additionally, Federal Reserve agreed to keep interest rates down to help encourage investment and decrease the unemployment rate. Based on the above economic performances, we can argue that the share prices will go up, because the global economy is recovering from recession. Since the bonds yields will keep running low in 2013, investment in equity market is a more reasonable choice. However, market risk and uncertain can never be ignored. The biggest reason for caution is the gap between stock-market optimism and economic reality. The gap is...
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...1 ACCENTURE: REBRANDING AND REPOSITIONING A GLOBAL POWER BRAND1 INTRODUCTION Andersen Consulting was established in 1989 when the consulting practice of the accounting firm Arthur Andersen separated to form an independent business unit. Andersen Consulting faced the extremely difficult task of positioning itself in the Information Technology market space while simultaneously forging a separate identity from its accounting heritage. The business challenge was to retain the positive aspects of the brand equity developed over decades as Arthur Andersen, yet break away from the limitations associated with an accounting brand. What was notable was that before its inception, Andersen Consulting was generating almost $1 billion annually in revenue, yet wasn’t well known in the information technology marketplace. And to those who did know them, they were often thought of accountants, and not up to the task of delivering innovative technology solutions. In order to bridge this gap, Andersen Consulting used extensive market research to create a brand and naming strategy that would establish immediate credibility in the “consulting” arena, while at the same time leveraging all of the positive aspects with the Arthur Andersen brand. Market research also helped form the strategy for successfully launching the new name and positioning. In order to build a new identity, Andersen Consulting set a groundbreaking precedent by using sophisticated marketing strategies coupled with the professional...
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...Competitor analysis: Website & Thought leadership Report by Rashmi Singh (PGDM No: 10098) Work carried out at Tata Consultancy Services, Bangalore, Karnataka Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement of Summer Internship Programme Under the Supervision of Mr. Ashish Shetty, Marketing Lead, Insurance ISU, TCS, Bangalore SDM Institute for Management Development Mysore, Karnataka, India (June 2011) SDM IMD INSTITUTE CERTIFICATE This is to certify that Ms. Rashmi Singh, undergoing PGDM program 2010-12 at this institute has successfully completed the Summer Internship Programme on the project titled ―Competitor Analysis: Website and Thought Leadership‖ at TCS, Bangalore, from April 01, 2011 to May 31, 2011 as a partial requirement for completion of his PGDM curriculum. Prof. Govinda Sharma Internal Faculty Guide SDM IMD, Mysore. Date: 24/06/2011 Place: Mysore Summer Internship Project Page 2 SDM IMD Acknowledgement I take this opportunity to extend my sincere gratitude to our guides at Tata Consultancy Services, Mr. Ashish Shetty and Ms. Varsha Nair who spent a lot of time mentoring and guiding us. The insurance ISU was a completely new arena for us. We stumbled a few times, yet they have been very patient and supportive with us, always encouraging us to give our best. I also thank the Academic relationship manager, TCS, Mr. Chandra Koduru, for helping us with the joining formalities and induction program. I would also like to thank Prof. N. R. Govinda Sharma...
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...[pic] Resume For MR. ROODARDUTH RAMLOCHUN FABE, MBCS CITP Chartered IT Professional (CITP) August, 2012 Date of Birth : 27th of June, 1968 Passport No : 1140014 Marital Status : Married Summary: • 23 years of varied experience in the IT industry • Experience and demonstrated strength as a Technical Business Planner / Senior Business Analyst • Excellent administrative, consulting and communication skills Awards: | |YEAR |AWARD |REMARKS | |1. |2011 |QCF Level 7 POSTGRADUATE Diploma in Business Management (PgDip) |ASSOCIATION OF BUSINESS EXECUTIVES | |2. |2003 |British Computer Society (Honours Degree) in Information Technology |BRITISH COMPUTER SOCIETY – Graduated on | | | |(Certificate PGM, Diploma PGM, Professional Graduate Diploma, |the 4th of October 2003 | | | |Professional Project) | | |3. |2001 |Advanced Diploma in Business Administration |ASSOCIATION OF BUSINESS EXECUTIVES | Further Studies: 1. MBA (TopUp) University of Sunderland (UK) - 2012 - Global Corporate Strategy - International Business Environment - Dissertation Education: | |YEAR ...
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