...www.hbr.org HBR CASE STUDY How should Gerald Smarten balance the needs of Kaspa and the community? The CEO Can’t Afford to Panic by Eric J. McNulty • Reprint R1003X Purchased by robert duboff (robert.duboff@hawkpartners.com) on January 12, 2012 In an unthinkable crisis, a bank’s chief executive has to make a fast decision. HBR CASE STUDY The CEO Can’t Afford to Panic by Eric J. McNulty COPYRIGHT © 2010 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Gerald Smarten, CEO of Kaspa Financial Services, was presiding over the regular Tuesday morning executive committee meeting in the glass-walled conference room that looked east over Massachusetts Bay. The management team was wrestling with the complexities of acquiring Huadong, a Shanghai-based investment firm. He glanced at his watch: 8:10 already, and they still had three more agenda items to work through. “I just don’t trust their valuation of all of their assets,” said Sarah Hicks, Kaspa’s CFO. “The securities are straightforward, but—” She stopped mid-sentence as the building shook and a low rumble rose up from below. She and her colleagues looked at one another and then, almost as one, rushed to the window. Smoke was billowing out of the subway entrance across from Boston’s historic South Station. Traffic had stopped, and people were pouring into the street. “Oh my God!” exclaimed Ben Lee, the firm’s general counsel. “There’s a fire.” “Or worse,” Smarten said quietly. Just a...
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...it’s true, know all about the “lost decade” after the late 1980s bank crashes – but the late situation is a disaster on a global scale. Great Depression is actually, the outcome of this crisis and is unpredictable. Among other differences, the 1929 stock market crash and subsequent credit crisis led to the Great Depression of the 1930s in part because governments responded with “tight money” policies until too late, an act of suicide which central banks and governments today definitely will not repeat. Quite the contrary, extremely energetic state interventions in Europe and the USA – very much against the recent ideological free-market “run of play” – have halted the fears of a total global banking collapse and the short-term stock market panic. It’s indeed instructive how quickly the entire ideology of “unleashing the free market” and financial deregulation could be thrown aside in order to rescue giant banks that are “too big to fail.” The U.S. Treasury will not only be purchasing (at above-market rates) the “toxic assets” held by these institutions, but pumping hundreds of billions more into them by buying “preferred shares” in them. This means “non-voting shares,” so that the bailout of these collapsing banks still leaves them under private control. There’s the bailout for the corporate and Wall Street incompetents and crooks who helped drive the economic ship into the ground. The obvious question becomes, then, where’s “the rescue package” for working people who are losing...
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...The ABCs of ERP Compiled from reports by Christopher Koch, Derek Slater and E. Baatz (From CIO on December 22,1999) What is ERP? Enterprise resource planning software, or ERP, doesn’t live up to its acronym. Forget about planning it doesn’t do that and forget about resource, a throwaway term. But remember the enterprise part. This is ERP's true ambition. It attempts to integrate all departments and functions across a company onto a single computer system that can serve all those different departments’ particular needs. That is a tall order, building a single software program that serves the needs of people in finance as well as it does the people in human resources and in the warehouse. Each of those departments typically has its own computer system, each optimized for the particular ways that the department does its work. But ERP combines them all together into a single, integrated software program that runs off a single database so that the various departments can more easily share information and communicate with each other. That integrated approach can have a tremendous payback if companies install the software correctly. Take a customer order, for example. Typically, when a customer places an order, that order begins a mostly paper-based journey from in-basket to in-basket around the company, often being keyed and re-keyed into different departments’ computer systems along the way. All that lounging around in in-baskets causes delays and lost orders, and all the keying...
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...able to move in order to be responsible. • Freedom of will (personally): • Social Freedom: ➢ Negative Freedom: The individual is free to make his or her own decisions. The government doesn’t oblige me to do anything. This is a form of liberalism. ➢ Positive Freedom: People want government interference. They want the government to shape them into a society where they can operate freely. Things are done for the benefits of the people who are being interfered with. Positive freedom is basically assuming that you know what’s right. Too much should not be used in sales activities. 2. Knowledge: Are you aware of the fact that something is happening? 3. Being capable of making your own decisions: Sometimes minors can’t be held responsible for their own decisions. The company is responsible for whom? Usually companies were only responsible for making profit. Nowadays, companies have more responsibilities and need to be aware of their stakeholders. Stakeholders are many, and in modern day entrepreneurship are of vital importance. These include social and economic stakeholders. The...
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...SUBPRIME MORTGAGE CRISIS The U.S. subprime mortgage crisis was a set of events and conditions that led to the late-2000s financial crisis, characterized by a rise in subprime mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures, and the resulting decline of securities backed by said mortgages. What is a subprime mortgage? A subprime mortgage is a type of loan granted to individuals with poor credit histories, who, as a result of their deficient credit ratings, would not be able to qualify for conventional mortgages. Because subprime borrowers present a higher risk for lenders, subprime mortgages charge interest rates above the prime lending rate. There are several different kinds of subprime mortgage structures available. The most common is the adjustable rate mortgage (ARM), which initially charges a fixed interest rate, and then converts to a floating rate based on an index, plus a margin. The better known types of ARMs include 3/27 and 2/28 ARMs. What lead to the US subprime mortgage crisis? ARMs are somewhat misleading to subprime borrowers in that the borrowers initially pay a lower interest rate. When their mortgages reset to the higher, variable rate, mortgage payments increase significantly. This is one of the factors that lead to the sharp increase in the number of subprime mortgage foreclosures in August of 2006, and the subprime mortgage meltdown that ensued. Many lenders were more liberal in granting these loans from 2004...
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...OTHER BOOKS BY D. A. BENTON Lions Don’t Need to Roar How to Think Like a CEO The $100,000 Club Secrets of a CEO Coach HOW TO ACT LIKE A 10 Rules for Getting to the Top and Staying There CEO M C G R AW- H I L L SAN FRANCISCO LISBON WA S H I N G T O N , D. C . MADRID AU C K L A N D D. A. BENTON N E W YO R K B O G OT Á MILAN C A R AC A S LONDON NEW DELHI MEXICO CITY SINGAPORE MONTREAL S A N J UA N SYDNEY T O K YO TO RO N TO McGraw-Hill abc Copyright © 2001 by Debra A. Benton. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. 0-07-137459-0 The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: 0-07-135998-2. All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Where such designations appear in this book, they have been printed with initial caps. McGraw-Hill eBooks are available at special quantity discounts to use as premiums and sales promotions, or for use in corporate training programs. For more information, please contact George Hoare, Special Sales...
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...09-093 July 22, 2009 The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 – 2009: The Role of Greed, Fear and Oligarchs Cate Reavis Free enterprise is always the right answer. The problem with it is that it ignores the human element. It does not take into account the complexities of human behavior. 1 —Andrew Lo, Professor of Finance, MIT Sloan School of Management The problem in the financial sector today is not that a given firm might have enough market share to influence prices; it is that one firm or a small set of interconnected firms, by failing, can bring down the economy. 2 —Simon Johnson, Professor of Entrepreneurship, MIT Sloan School of Management, Former Chief Economist, IMF On October 9, 2007 the Dow Jones Industrial Average set a record by closing at 14,047. One year later, the Dow was just above 8,000, after dropping 21% in the first nine days of October 2008. Major stock markets in other countries had plunged alongside the Dow. Credit markets were nearing paralysis. Companies began to lay off workers in droves and were forced to put off capital investments. Individual consumers were being denied loans for mortgages and college tuitions. After the nine day U.S. stock market plunge, the head of the International Monetary Fund had some sobering words: “Intensifying solvency concerns about a number of the largest U.S.-based and European financial institutions have pushed the global financial system to the brink of systemic meltdown.” 3 1 2 3 Interview with the case writer...
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...Plan TAOF (Toys For Less) Marketing Plan ------------------------------------------------- Presented By: Group TAOF ( Md.Tariqul Islam, Ali Husnain Abbasi , Oluwapelumi Olajide, Farah Zaidi and Prabhavathi Batchalakuri) University: Devry University Keller Management School. TAOF (Toys For Less) Marketing Plan ------------------------------------------------- Presented By: Group TAOF ( Md.Tariqul Islam, Ali Husnain Abbasi , Oluwapelumi Olajide, Farah Zaidi and Prabhavathi Batchalakuri) University: Devry University Keller Management School. TABLE OF CONTENT 1.0 Executive Summary 3 2.0 Situation Analysis 4 2.1 Market Summary 5 2.2 SWOT Analysis 6 2.3 Competition 7 2.4 Product (Service) Offering 9 2.5 Keys to success 11 2.6 Critical Issue 12 3.0 Marketing Strategy 13 3.1 Mission Statement 15 3.2 Marketing Objectives 15 3.3 Financial Objectives 16 3.4 Target Markets 20 3.5 Positioning 22 3.6 Strategy 23 3.7 Marketing Mix 26 3.8 Marketing Research 27 4.0 Controls 28 4.1 Implementation 31 4.2 Marketing Organization 32 4.3 Contingency plans 33 5.0 Conclusion 34 References 34 1.0 Executive Summary In New York City, where 58% of the state’s low-income children reside, over half the children live in low-income families. Low-income parents struggle to make ends meet, thus it will be beneficial and also an investment for the parents to buy toys for their children...
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...A good leader is one who is able to engage members and get results. A great leader is one who listens to and empowers members to be innovative in looking beyond the present, to guide the path to strategic positioning, and places a premium on collaborative goal setting. A great leader is humble. They really understand that their job is to focus on the goal and not on themselves. Good leaders often compete for credit with the results in order to gain more influence or authority. "To lead people, walk beside them ... As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate ... When the best leader's work is done the people say, 'We did it ourselves!'" Great leaders don’t operate in a vacuum assuming that they always know best. They know to consider input from everyone impacted by a decision in order to get buy-in from their team, stay grounded and remain objective. Although they retain final say, they’re team will stand behind the decision knowing that they’re input was wholeheartedly weighed and considered. James C. Collins loves to tell the story of Darwin E. Smith, someone most readers have probably never heard of. As Smith was ending two decades at the helm of Kimberly-Clark, maker of Kleenex and other personal-use paper products, he was asked what had driven him, what had he done to make his company so successful over time. "I was just trying to become qualified...
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...“A focus on customer experience and an outside-in perspective are the cornerstones of business success.” BILL MCNABB, chairman and CEO, Vanguard HARLEY MANNING KERRY BODINE FORRESTER RESEARCH THE POWER of PUTTING CUSTOMERS at the CENTER of YOUR BUSINESS OUTSIDE IN THE POWER of PUTTING CUSTOMERS at the CENTER of YOUR BUSINESS HARLEY MANNING KERRY BODINE FORRESTER RESEARCH New Harvest Houghton Mifflin Harcourt BOSTON NEW YORK 2012 Copyright © 2012 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved This edition published by special arrangement with Amazon Publishing Forrester and Technographics are registered trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. FedEx is a registered trademark of Federal Express Corporation. FedEx World Service Center and FedEx Office are registered trademarks of Federal Express Corporation. LEGO is a registered trademark of the LEGO Company. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. ® ® ® ® ® ® For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003. www.hmhbooks.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Manning, Harley. Outside in : the power of putting customers at the center of your business / Harley Manning, Kerry Bodine, Forrester Research. p. cm. “New Harvest Books.” Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-547-91398-8 1. Customer relations...
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...Subprime Mortgage Crisis 1. What is Subprime Mortgage? A type of mortgage that is normally made out to borrowers with lower credit ratings. As a result of the borrower's lowered credit rating, a conventional mortgage is not offered because the lender views the borrower as having a larger-than-average risk of defaulting on the loan. Lending institutions often charge interest on subprime mortgages at a rate that is higher than a conventional mortgage in order to compensate themselves for carrying more risk. There are several different kinds of subprime mortgage structures available. The most common is the adjustable rate mortgage (ARM), which initially charges a fixed interest rate, and then converts to a floating rate based on an index such as LIBOR, plus a margin. The better known types of ARMs include3/27 and2/28 ARMs. ARMs are somewhat misleading to subprime borrowers in that the borrowers initially pay a lower interest rate. When their mortgages reset to the higher, variable rate, mortgage payments increase significantly. This is one of the factors that lead to the sharp increase in the number of subprime mortgage foreclosures in August of 2006, and the subprime mortgage meltdown that ensued. Many lenders were more liberal in granting these loans from 2004 to 2006 as a result of lower interest rates and high capital liquidity. Lenders sought additional profits through these higher risk loans, and they charged interest rates above prime in order to compensate...
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...ARE THE ARTS IMPORTANT IN EDUCATION? 1. Introduction British fashion, publishing, theatre, film and TV, literature, visual arts and music are internationally respected and renowned for their prestige. People from America to Asia dance to our music, read our books, purchase our art and wear our designer’s latest creations, with London being recognised as the world’s most influential city by Forbes in 2014. The creative sector represents 5 percent of the British economy which is valued at around £76.9 billion and provides more than 1.7 million jobs, as reported by Warwick university. These industries have an impact on us as individuals and adds to our rich heritage by contributing to our British culture. Our arts are constantly being shaped by new trends and our consumer choices are influenced by clever marketing and visual branding. The arts also improve the enjoyment of the environments which we live and work and shape the way in which we are perceived by others around the globe, whilst also contributing to how we view the world. However, the Arts have been left to suffer within the UK educational system in order to accommodate the severe budget cuts and restrictions being hauled at schools and colleges. With more time and focus being placed on academic subjects such as science and mathematics, there is an implication that they are more important. Subjects are placed within a hierarchy with the Arts taking the largest hit, as more measureable subjects are favoured so...
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...http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudAmericanHistory.htm History of Fraud in America (Edited for use in MBA 590_ NCSU) Bob Jensen at Trinity University Colonial History Earliest "business" fraud in America centered around phony heath cures. Armstrong and Armstrong (1991) document many of the snake oil ploys that commenced soon after the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. Medical frauds ranging from deceptive medicines to spiritual cures to bloodletting expanded over time to modern day cancer miracle cures and Internet charlatanism. Since early America was largely agricultural, various land schemes accompanied the growing market for deceptive rural living and farming products. As the original 13 colonies were established land was owned by men who had been granted land from the English King. They in turn sold land to individuals and established common areas. Although many of the early dealings were legitimate, it did not take long for land swindles to commence. Swindlers were either buyers or sellers of land. Victims were often new immigrants and Indians who lived on the land before Colonial times. One of the best known frauds was the 1626 purchase of Manhattan Island for trinkets valued at 60 guilders (approximately $24). In this case the Carnarsie Indians from Brooklyn perpetrated the fraud since their land was not even connected to Manhattan Island. But in most cases it was the white men who cheated the Indians and each other. Land swindling grew rampant as America expanded...
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...British Petroleum (BP) Case Study Executive Summary This case study report examined a public relation management problem that British Petroleum (BP) faced since the oil spill accident happened in April, 2010. In addition, this thesis recommended possible solutions and implementation plans for BP to deal with the public crisis. On April 20, the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico led to the largest accidental release of oil into marine waters in history. As a result, a huge loss of money and life was caused and affected serious environmental damage to wild animals and water pollution. BP was accused of their irresponsibility that it took 87 days before the well was closed and sealed. BP’s shares plummeted to the lowest point since 1996. The communities around the Gulf of Mexico blamed BP for their carelessness and appealed for more actions to recover their low income life. BP has already established $20 billion fund to respond the situation in the Gulf of Mexico. However, according to recent research, the amount of the money is not enough to straighten out the crisis. In order to examine the case, we performed PEST and SWOT analysis methods. We focused on evaluating economic and socio-cultural factors that were the major elements had affects on BP’s public image. At the same time, we analyzed and key strengths and opportunities that essential for BP to revitalize its brand image. Our analysis revealed two crucial factors. First, BP’s own...
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...Berkshire’s Corporate Performance vs. the S&P 500 Annual Percentage Change in Per-Share in S&P 500 Book Value of with Dividends Berkshire Included (1) (2) ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ...................................
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