...Paramount Communications Inc.-1993 Strategy 1) Why is Paramount a takeover target? Paramount is among the six “Mayors”, has a series of entertainment programs—almost every aspect (e.g. film & TV Production, film library, film distribution, film exhibition, cable network television stations and theme parks) However, since it failed to takeover Time Inc. Paramount cannot manage its assets efficiently, and net income declined in 1993 compared with 1990. Besides, Paramount CEO, Davis had a reputation of toughness and of clashing with Diller. In all, Paramount’s performance can be improved and the its management should be changed. Why is Viacom interested? Benefits: Create one of the world’s largest entertainment conglomerates * Create synergies among the assets—complementary and both well-known business * Lead to development of new businesses--Bring together creative talent, intellectual property, managerial resources and trademarks * Cost reductions—combination of similar businesses and economies of scale * Enhance distribution capabilities—cross-promotion and utilization of brand names, utilization of distribution capabilities * Pursue international business strategies—share knowledge of international markets and enhance international presence. Why is QVC interested? * Diller once ran Paramount Pictures * Diller may change the way Paramount did business--increase cash flows and lower average costs. Or even he would start a new television...
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...video game design studio released Guitar Hero, which subsequently became the fastest video game in history to top $1 billion in North American sales. The game concept focuses around a plastic guitar-shaped controller. Players press colored buttons along the guitar neck to match a series of dots that scroll down the TV in time with music from a famous rock tune, such as the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated” and Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water.” Players score points based on their accuracy. In November 2007, Harmonix released Rock Band, adding drums, vocals, and bass guitar options to the game. Rock Band has sold over 3.5 million units with a $169 price tag (most video games retail at $50 to $60). In 2006, Harmonix’s founders sold the company to Viacom for $175 million, maintaining their operational autonomy while providing them greater budgets for product development and licensing music for their games. Harmonix’s success, however, did not come overnight. The company was originally founded by Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy in 1995, focused around some demo software they had created in grad school and a company vision of providing a way for people without much musical training or talent to experience the joy of playing and creating music. The founders believed that if people had the opportunity to create their own music, they would jump at the chance. Their software, which they eventually dubbed The Axe, provided basic music composition tutorials and allowed participants to use a joystick...
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...video game design studio released Guitar Hero, which subsequently became the fastest video game in history to top $1 billion in North American sales. The game concept focuses around a plastic guitar-shaped controller. Players press colored buttons along the guitar neck to match a series of dots that scroll down the TV in time with music from a famous rock tune, such as the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated” and Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water.” Players score points based on their accuracy. In November 2007, Harmonix released Rock Band, adding drums, vocals, and bass guitar options to the game. Rock Band has sold over 3.5 million units with a $169 price tag (most video games retail at $50 to $60). In 2006, Harmonix’s founders sold the company to Viacom for $175 million, maintaining their operational autonomy while providing them greater budgets for product development and licensing music for their games. Harmonix’s success, however, did not come overnight. The company was originally founded by Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy in 1995, focused around some demo software they had created in grad school and a company vision of providing a way for people without much musical training or talent to experience the joy of playing and creating music. The founders believed that if people had the opportunity to create their own music, they would jump at the chance. Their software, which they eventually dubbed The Axe, provided basic music composition tutorials and allowed participants to use a joystick...
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...evaluate Viacom’s objective to serve an ever-growing population of kids, tweens, teens and adults who want their favorite media and entertainment, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. STRENGTHS Viacom acts as a global entertainment company that has interests in numerous media industries. The company has been able to remain competitive within its numerous industries because it expands off of a successful television show or movie for instance. A successful television show has the potential to be created into a movie, or could generate a soundtrack, books, amusement park rides, or other merchandise. Having a variety of resources and outlets internally help create and promote Viacom’s productions. Viacom has also responded to the technological advancements in the entertainment industry and has acquired many digital assets. Viacom also has a tendency to advertise for their networks on other company owned networks. Viacom strategically gains company awareness by perpetually advertising its brands internally. Viacom aims to achieve its strategy by having dominant individual brands within its media network segment. Viacom owns MTV Networks, BET, CMT, VH1, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and many other large reputable networks. Each of these networks aims to target a specific audience or demographic. Viacom has strategically sought to access different audiences so it doesn’t cannibalize its own...
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...STRENGTH Brand equity MTV was rapidly expanding through broadcasting to Western Europe, Japan, Australia, large portions of Latin America, and eventually to countries in Asia. Boundi, CEO of Viacom, promoted the MTV networks as global brands. By negotiate exclusive contracts that gave mTV the first crack at playing most major record companies’ music videos. Besides MTV has went from being a purely music video channel to channel which interspersed with innovative programming such as Beavis and Butterhead, and Road Stories. These innovative programming have increased the loyalty of its teenagers viewer. Lower Cost Viacom run in a cost-conscious manner. Redstone requires its own programming should be made in low cost by using home-grown talent instead of using Hollywood studios and other branded television networks because of cost soared in demanded for their services. Hence, it saves Viacom a millions of dollar per year. Acquisition of Blockbuster, which is the biggest customer of Hollywood movies, give Viacom greater bargaining of purchasing power with programming suppliers to reduce programming cost. Strong portfolio of cable networks Viacom operates its business under prominent brands including MTV Networks, BET Networks, Paramount Pictures. MTV Networks includes MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, Comedy Central and Country Music Television (CMT). In addition, the network also own digital assets like Neopets, Xfire, Atom, Harmonix and Quizilla to offer interactive...
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...Empirical Research Question Assignment While attending a video workshop at YouTube’s office in Manhattan, I learned that the video site is actually the second largest search engine on the Internet, with the first being its mother company, Google. Wide-eyed and eager, I had signed up to learn the secrets to increasing the amount of views and subscribers on my beauty and fashion channel. There, I discovered a roomful of other hopeful YouTubers, many of whom called themselves “beauty gurus.” A “beauty guru” is a person, male or female, that has a passion for an aspect of beauty, whether it is makeup, hair, nails, fashion, or skincare. They create informational blog posts or YouTube videos, sharing their personal experiences and knowledge with a largely female audience. Ever since my exposure to so many passionate creators, I have been fascinated with their content and its affect on their target viewers. In my study, I aim to examine how watching YouTube beauty gurus affect adolescent females’ self-image and self-esteem. To narrow the study to a specific age range, female viewers from the ages of thirteen to twenty-one will be studied. I plan to collect survey answers, personal interviews, and observations from YouTube comments. In addition to YouTube viewers, I also want to interview beauty gurus to better understand their motives and content. YouTube turns ten years old in February, 2015, but the amount of research done on the impact of social media networks, like YouTube, on...
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...Situation: Taran Swan, an M.B.A from Harvard Business School was visionary executive of Nickelodeon channel. In 1995, she salvaged the launch operation in Germany from its initial failure and while doing so she learned some of the important lesson related to the complexity of the international operation. Earlier, as the Director of Business Development of Nickelodeon international, Swan wanted to explore the opportunity in the Latin American market. But due to volatile economy of the Latin American region, she had to shelve this plan. After returning from Germany, Swan started focusing on Latin American market once again and felt that the time was appropriate to enter the Latin American market before the market gets saturated. She developed the business plan to for Nickelodeon expansion into Latin American market and got conditional approval from the senior leadership. As the Nickelodeon leadership was not fully convinced on the success in the Latin American market, she was only allowed to launch the new expansion in Miami by sharing the resources MTV Latin America, a sister company of Nickelodeon. Swan started work in full swing. She was a highly data driven person and she was excellent in delegating work. She had a full trust over her team and let them work with autonomy. She was also a believer of team based decision making. In September 1996 Nickelodeon achieved the minimum distribution target and with that Swan got full management approval. She start hiring and...
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...Best Workplace’s 2013 Christine Garcia MGT415: Group Behavior in Organizations Prof: Sam Palazzolo November 25th 2013 Best Workplace’s 2013 As college students, we typically all have one common goal. This goal is usually to obtain our degree so that we can be able to find decent jobs in our field of choice, or it is to obtain a degree so that we can move up the ladder in our current positions. Either way, we choose our field of study based on subjects that we believe we will enjoy having a profession in or subjects that we feel we are good at. However, all of this means absolutely nothing if we are not satisfied with the environment in which we work. In this assignment I will be discussing three companies from FORTUNE Magazine’s annual ranking of America’s “100 Best Companies to Work For”. I will be describing the work environment of these companies and identifying elements that promote motivation and cohesion among employees in these workplaces. Additionally, I will be relating my observations to materials found in our textbook. The first company that I will be discussing is Dreamworks Animation. According to the about section on their website, “DreamWorks Animation creates high-quality entertainment, including CG animated feature films, television specials and series and live entertainment properties, meant for audiences around the world. The Company has world-class creative talent, a strong and experienced management team and advanced filmmaking technology and techniques”...
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...Network 18 Network18 Media & Investments Limited (BSE: 532798, NSE: Network18) is an Indian mass media company with interests in television, print, internet, film, mobile content and allied businesses. Network 18 FinCap is the holding company for several media entities in India such as Television Eighteen India Ltd (TV18), IBN 18 Broadcast Ltd, Web 18, Studio 18, Shop 18, Infomedia 18, and Viacom 18. History The company was incorporated as a private limited company on 16 February 1996. In 2006, it was converted to a public limited company. The name of the company was changed from SGA Finance & Management Services Private Limited to Network 18 Fincap Private Limited with effect from April 12, 2006. Network 18 got listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange on 2 February 2007.The shares of the company of face value of Rs 5 each opened at Rs 312.10 at the NSE and at Rs 300 at the BSE. Since the company was created as part of the re-structuring of TV18 to comply with foreign ownership laws for news channels in India, it did not have to list through a public issue. Companies * TV18 is a listed company which runs business news channels CNBC-TV18 in English and CNBC Awaaz in Hindi and owns most of Web 18. In 2006 it acquired CRISIL Market Wire which was renamed Newswire 18. * Network 18 holds 57% in IBN 18 Broadcast Ltd, headed by Rajdeep Sardesai, which runs general news channels CNN-IBN in English, IBN-7 in Hindi and IBN-Lokmat in Marathi in JV...
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...entertainment conglomerate in terms of revenue. As well as the world’s largest media conglomerate * Among its subsidiaries are; HBO, CNN, Warner Bros., AOL, New Line Cinema, Cartoon Network. * While box office sales have been rising for Time Warner, DVD sales have been declining which affects certain growth prospects and revenues. * Recent News –Announced on Thursday April 5, 2012, Time Warner Cable will bring streaming television to Android devices running the most recent version of Google's mobile operating system. Viacom Inc. – Media Conglomerate * Founded in 1971, major operations in cinema and cable television. Owned in majority by National Amusements Inc. * As of mid-2010, it is the world’s fourth largest media conglomerate * Among its subsidiaries are; Showtime, Simon & Schuster, MTV, BET, Paramount Pictures * In 2007, Viacom filed a US$1 billion legal claim against Google and YouTube alleging massive copyright infringement. Viacom lost the case. Six Flags – Amusement park operator * Founded in 1961, is the world’s largest amusement park corporation * Fifth most popular amusement park base on attendance * Owns and operates 14 properties throughout North America, including theme parks, thrill parks, water parks and family entertainment * Recent news – March 1, 2012 Six Flags announced Lowe’s as their official home improvement retailer Fox Entertainment Group Inc * Founded in 1990s, operations in film and television * Named...
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...DreamWorks 1. Difference in the numbers of the company your buying According to their income statements in 2009, DreamWorks revenue over the years has remained constant and around about $700 million a year while NVIDIA is about $3.4 million a year and the gross profit is $291 million and $1.2 million respectively. DreamWorks since 2006 has been pretty consistent in the profit and revenue they made over the years as well as NVIDIA since 2007. According to the balance sheet, DreamWorks has no debt compared to the $24 million NVIDIA has. DreamWorks assets are $1.3 million a year and NVIDIA’s is about $3.5 million while the liabilities are $242 million and $920 million respectively in 2009. 2. Why are these differences here? If you compare DreamWorks and NVIDIA you would think that it would not be a great purchase but to me it would be. NVIDIA has been in the red the last few years because of the new 3D Vision technology. It is not cheap to develop considering it is such a new type of technology so they don’t have the ability to have a positive cash flow. They have been trying to perfect it and be the best that it can be. I feel that once it becomes better known within the next 6 months to a year that NVIDIA will start to profit once again. Especially once DreamWorks begins to promote the software and technology, NVIDIA will begin to flourish. Even though NVIDIA had higher revenue over the years compared to DreamWorks, they needed to make more money to compensate...
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...44 CLASH OF GENERATIONS- ECONOMY OF FUTURE Clash of Generations- Economy of Future Titans vs Olympians Mythology, History and Folklores have innumerable tales about the revolutionary clashes in ideologies, tumultuous transitioning of control, usurping power, tectonic economic shifts and a period of unrest and clamor during the cusp. The wax of Digital Native and wane of Generation X/ Baby Boomers heralds for another “Clash of Titans”. The Titans are finding a desperate way out of the byzantine financial models, spiraling debts, vagaries of stock markets and socio- economic crisis so that the posterity gets a better world to dwell in. And, at the same time there is an uneasy stir amongst the Olympians about the world that will be soon bequeathed to them. A view into the Crystal ball The future looks bleak if not dark for the future generation. Some of the jittery statistics are: 1) The average debt on every individual/ Country will go down to further abysmal levels because of financial imbalance (OECD Economic outlook 2012, pp.191) 2) Energy prices will soar up because of the drying oil pool and ever increasing demand from developing nations. (Barkindo. M 2006) 3) Housing Prices will double by 2025 because of urbanization and inflation ( CEBR 2005) 4) Economic model for Government and welfare structures might crumble due to a dwindling beneficiary/contributor ratio (DeVoe. J.E. et al 2005) Definitely these numbers don’t augur well for the Marshall’s “Demand –Supply”...
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...Cable and Satellite Television Aren’t Worth Their Cost From the introduction of the television set until the 1980s, free, antenna-based television dominated American households. But beginning in that decade, a fierce trend toward paid, premium television erupted. By the 2000s, more than 80% of all households subscribed to either cable or satellite television (“Television”). But as the demand for such services soared, so did the cost. In 2007, my cable bill averaged $70; less than three years later, it had swelled to $100. And beyond introductory teaser rates, the competition didn’t yield any significant savings. But my search did yield that there’s too many free and low-cost services that provide an alternate to cable and satellite television, thus rendering the cost outrageous. The Internet provides a wealth of complimentary entertainment. Most major networks, including many premium channels, offer their programming available online within a timely fashion after its original broadcast. Several television and movie producers make available a large library of content online; the most famous is probably Sony, which does so through Crackle. Websites such as Hulu and Youtube offer further collections of content available online. Additionally, there’s a wealth of websites providing independent and original programming. The transition to digital television has opened a wealth of new channels available as sub channels. Thus, the amount of antenna-based programming can...
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...When a firm creates, formulates, and implements a strategy that adds value and competitive advantage that is a strategic business plan. A strategic business plan is the layout or outline that specifies how a firm is going to reach their plans or goals over a certain period of time. The plan can be very specific or very broad. It can focus on one part of the business, as well as a whole focusing on all functions within a company. This plan is important to an organization’s long-term success because it gives the company a direction or purpose in which to set goals and carry them out. A strategic business plan assists a company in providing products and services in a more efficient and effective manner. Without a strategic business plan a firm will have a difficult time maximizing the potential of its resources. New opportunities and key resources for growth or improvement will be limited or perhaps even missed. A strategic plan is important to both small and large businesses. I believe that for any company, no matter the size, it is equally important to have a strategic business plan in place. This will assist in understanding customer needs and be able to adapt to constant changes and new trends taking place within the company. With a successful strategic plan, a company has a great opportunity for becoming very successful. Innovation plays a key role in developing a company that has potential for growth and success. Innovation provides the company with ways to maintain a competitive...
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...OUTLINE a. Module learning outcomes b. Themes and topics c. Learning supports 3. MODULE DELIVERY SCHEDULE a. Session arrangements b. Student engagement c. Office hours arrangements 4. ASSESSMENT DETAILS a. Assignments b. Module assessment components i. Pre module assignment ii. Group project iii. Examination 5. GRADING a. University grading policy b. Grade descriptors for assessment components 6. CONCLUDING COMMENTS APPENDICES 5 6 10 12 16 19 21 3 Welcome message Welcome to this unit on Business Policy. Dr Yousef Eiadat will be joining me in teaching this course. In this unit we aim to build skills in Strategic planning – the analysis behind strategic decisions, the crafting of strategies and the implementation of them to ensure organisational success. Strategy involves managing the interface between an organization and its external environment. To this end, the first three topics develop skills in strategic analysis, leading to consideration of the positioning of an organisation in its strategic environment. These cover internal and external analysis, and the options in setting strategic...
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