...and Wizard of Oz. But the studio fell from grace in the 1950s before being gradually carved up by corporate raiders. In 1996, MGM bought back its independence and restored some of its lost glory. But it remained the smallest of the movie majors, heavily reliant on its back-catalogue and the periodic resurrection of its James Bond franchise. The company went into play in 2004, and was eventually acquired by a consortium of investors. However, this strategy also failed to deliver significant results, and the studio filed for bankruptcy in 2010 as part of a pre-agreed plan to merge with independent production company Spyglass Entertainment. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM) has joined hands with Brand Sense Partners to explore new business ventures focused on MGM's brand. The brand-extension and business-development firm believes in developing and...
Words: 1225 - Pages: 5
...National Bank Limited at a Glance: With a vision to become the bank of choice and to be the most valuable financial brand in Bangladesh, National Bank Limited Ltd. (NBL) began its journey in 1983. NBL is the first private bank in Bangladesh. Over the years NBL has established itself as a leading private commercial bank in the country with undisputed leadership in Corporate Banking and a strong Consumer and SME growth engines. NBL’s ambition is to be the number one financial services provider, creating lasting value for its clientele, shareholder, and employees and above all for the community it operates in. Bangladesh Banking Sector has grown from strength to strength over the past one decade and is fiercely competitive, especially in the Consumer Banking segment. NBL offers a wide range of depository, loan and card products to cater virtually for every customer segment. From Student Banking to Priority Banking to Platinum card NBL has almost all banking products in its repertoire. The product basket is rich in content featuring different types of Savings & Current Accounts, Personal Loans, Debit Cards, Credit Cards, Pre-paid Cards, Corporate Banking, SME Banking, Investment Banking, Treasury & Syndication services. The customers are served through a network of 144 Branches, Several ATMs. NBL has its presence in almost all cities/towns in the country. NBL is known for its product innovation in the market. During the past five years, NBL introduced 12 new-to-Bangladesh...
Words: 3536 - Pages: 15
...Best of HBR DAVID J. COLLIS AND CYNTHIA A. MONTGOMERY Competing on Resources AS RECENTLY AS rate level. In the 1980s, it turned out that corporations were 10 years ago, we thought we knew most of often destroying value by owning the very divisions that had what we needed to know about strategy. Portfolio planning, seemed to fit so nicely in their growth/share matrices. Threatthe experience curve, PIMS, Michael E. Porter’s five forces – ened by smaller, less hierarchical competitors, many corporate tools like these brought rigor and legitimacy to strategy at stalwarts either suffered devastating setbacks (IBM, Digital, both the business unit and the corporate level. Leading comGeneral Motors, and Westinghouse) or underwent dramatic panies, such as General Electric, built large staffs that reflected transformation programs and internal reorganizations (GE growing confidence in the value of strategic planning. Stratand ABB). By the late 1980s, large multibusiegy consulting boutiques expanded rapidly ness corporations were struggling to justify and achieved widespread recognition. How EDITOR’S NOTE: This influential their existence. different the landscape looks today. The 1995 article (originally published Not surprisingly, waves of new approaches armies of planners have all but disappeared, as “Competing on Resources: to strategy were proposed to address these swept away by the turbulence of the past deStrategy in the 1990s”) intromultiple assaults on the premises of strategic...
Words: 7627 - Pages: 31
...Bloodlines of Illuminati by: Fritz Springmeier, 1995 Introduction: I am pleased & honored to present this book to those in the world who love the truth. This is a book for lovers of the Truth. This is a book for those who are already familiar with my past writings. An Illuminati Grand Master once said that the world is a stage and we are all actors. Of course this was not an original thought, but it certainly is a way of describing the Illuminati view of how the world works. The people of the world are an audience to which the Illuminati entertain with propaganda. Just one of the thousands of recent examples of this type of acting done for the public was President Bill Clinton’s 1995 State of the Union address. The speech was designed to push all of the warm fuzzy buttons of his listening audience that he could. All the green lights for acceptance were systematically pushed by the President’s speech with the help of a controlled congressional audience. The truth on the other hand doesn’t always tickle the ear and warm the ego of its listeners. The light of truth in this book will be too bright for some people who will want to return to the safe comfort of their darkness. I am not a conspiracy theorist. I deal with real facts, not theory. Some of the people I write about, I have met. Some of the people I expose are alive and very dangerous. The darkness has never liked the light. Yet, many of the secrets of the Illuminati are locked up tightly simply because secrecy is a way...
Words: 206477 - Pages: 826
...is so related with human psychology and its application. I have chosen concept of Image Building and I have tried to cover the few areas as follows: a) What is Brand? b) What is Branding? c) How to create an image for a Brand? d) Importance of innovation in terms of sustaining a Brand for a long term. TABLE OF CONTENT INTRODUCTION 5 HISTORY OF BRANDING 6 WHAT IS BRAND 7 WHAT IS BRANDING 7-8 WHY BRANDING IS SO IN 9-12 PRIMAL CODE 13-20 FIVE DICIPLINE 21-27 INNOVATION AND RENOVATION 28-30 REFERENCES 31 INTRODUCTION Talking about branding is like talking about leadership. There are coaches and courses which purport to "teach" leadership, but as we all sense - that's why we want so badly to learn it - leadership comes from character and inner qualities. It's an extension of beliefs and values the person holds and then acts out in their life, an integral part of their personality. You can't pick up "character" in a seminar. It comes from years of reading...
Words: 5564 - Pages: 23
...CONNECT FEATURES Interactive Applications Interactive Applications offer a variety of automatically graded exercises that require students to apply key concepts. Whether the assignment includes a click and drag, video case, or decision generator, these applications provide instant feedback and progress tracking for students and detailed results for the instructor. Case Exercises The Connect platform also includes author-developed case exercises for all 12 cases in this edition that require students to work through answers to assignment questions for each case. These exercises have multiple components and can include: calculating assorted financial ratios to assess a company’s financial performance and balance sheet strength, identifying a company’s strategy, doing five-forces and driving-forces analysis, doing a SWOT analysis, and recommending actions to improve company performance. The content of these case exercises is tailored to match the circumstances presented in each case, calling upon students to do whatever strategic thinking and strategic analysis is called for to arrive at a pragmatic, analysis-based action recommendation for improving company performance. eBook Connect Plus includes a media-rich eBook that allows you to share your notes with your students. Your students can insert and review their own notes, highlight the text, search for specific information, and interact with media resources. Using an eBook with Connect Plus gives your...
Words: 219639 - Pages: 879
...CSAC05 1/13/07 9:21 Page 123 5 Analyzing Resources and Capabilities Analysts have tended to define assets too narrowly, identifying only those that can be measured, such as plant and equipment. Yet the intangible assets, such as a particular technology, accumulated consumer information, brand name, reputation, and corporate culture, are invaluable to the firm’s competitive power. In fact, these invisible assets are often the only real source of competitive edge that can be sustained over time. —HIROYUKI ITAMI, MOBILIZING INVISIBLE ASSETS You’ve gotta do what you do well. —LUCINO NOTO, FORMER VICE CHAIRMAN, EXXON MOBIL OUTLINE l Introduction and Objectives l The Role of Resources and l Organizational Capabilities Classifying Capabilities The Architecture of Capability l Appraising Resources and Capabilities Establishing Competitive Advantage Sustaining Competitive Advantage Appropriating the Returns to Competitive Advantage l Putting Resource and Capability Capabilities in Strategy Formulation Basing Strategy on Resources and Capabilities Resources and Capabilities as Sources of Profit l The Resources of the Firm Tangible Resources Intangible Resources Human Resources Analysis to Work: A Practical Guide Step 1 Identify the Key Resources and Capabilities 123 CSAC05 1/13/07 9:21 Page 124 124 PART II THE TOOLS OF STRATEGY ANALYSIS Step 2 Appraising Resources and Capabilities Step 3 Developing Strategy Implications l Developing Resources and Capabilities...
Words: 20499 - Pages: 82
...place at the right time. The news is not as good on the demand side. Retailers continue to have difficulty creating shopping environments that engage consumers’ needs and convert these desires to purchases. One critical concern is with product proliferation and duplication. Manufacturers rely heavily on line extensions to increase volume, and retailers (often mistakenly) believe stocking more products means selling more products. This has led to an explosion in the number of products available in many retail channels. In the 1950’s, a typical U.S. grocery store carried about 5,000 different items; in the 1990’s, the number topped 30,000. Today, a supercenter carries upwards of 100,000 products! This dramatic increase in the number of products and the expanding footprint of retail stores has made it increasingly difficult for consumers to find their way through stores, differentiate between brands, and assess product quality. In a 2001 consumer survey reported by Marketing Week, 75% of consumers agreed, “These days there are so many products and services that it’s often hard to choose which is best for me.” Further, 78% of consumers said, “Companies like to pretend that their brands are really different, but actually there’s rarely any substantial difference between...
Words: 9553 - Pages: 39
...thomas a . meyer How Great companies Get Started in terrible times Innovate! Innovate! How Great Companies Get Started in Terrible Times THOMAS A. MEYER John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Copyright © 2010 by Thomas A. Meyer. All rights reserved. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose...
Words: 58226 - Pages: 233
...Introduction: The Bank of America was formed in 1998 after the merger of California based Bank of America and the Nations Bank of North Carolina. At the end of the 20th century the bank stood as the second largest bank in the American market with close to 4500 branches operating in 21 states. Most of these branches were located in high growth markets of the south and west coast. Globally, it employed 1, 40,000 employees across 190 nations, over $8 billon in revenues, $360 billion in deposits and some $600 billon in assets. However the markets had been consolidating for sometime with the total number of banks in America having reduced to 7000 from an figure of 14000 first recorded in 1985. Intense competition characterized the market and the challenge for national banks was to be able to localize product and service offerings for their customers. Financial services had traditionally been looked upon as commodities by banks and lack of experimentation marked the sector. The sector was however slowly realizing that traditional methods of cost reduction and other control mechanisms could only take growth so far. ‘Organic Growth', a higher wallet share of existing customers was a concept of much relevance in the highly competitive market. For achieving this Bank of America had given more freedom to individual bank managers to undertake more responsibilities. Others like Washington Mutual (WAMU) had introduced new models of customer experience, benchmarking their services...
Words: 15439 - Pages: 62
...ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Firstly, we would like to express our greatest appreciation to Allah for His love and blessings upon us. Secondly, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to Sir Ahmad Suhaimi for his guidance and advice in making sure our research project is completed within the timeframe. We would also like to thank him for all his support and patience in supervising. Our work, which greatly motivated us throughout the completion of the research project . Thank you so much. Lastly, we would also like to thank our parents, as well as our fellow friends , for their constant support and encouragement throughout our studies at KLMUC. The research project would not have been possible done without the care and concern shown. We would also like to dedicate our appreciation to Malaysian Government for PTPTN and MARA financial aid, which has helped us with the funding and support necessary to study. Introduction of Internet and E-commerce History of the Internet began with the development of computers in the 1950s. Point-to-point communication between mainframe computers and terminals was the beginning. Since then, the development of Internet had grown in alignment with the rapid development of computers1. E-commerce emerged during the 1990s when Internet was opened to commercial use and in 2000; E-commerce became a hit in United States and Western European where a great number of businesses represented their products or services in the World Wide Web2, promoting...
Words: 7991 - Pages: 32
...S T R A T E G Y – II S T R A T E G Y – II S T R A T E G Y – II S T R A T E G Y – II S T R A T E G Y – II www.ibscdc.org 1 Transformation Corporate Transformation Korean Air: Chairman/CEO Yang-Ho Cho’s Radical Transformation A series of fatal accidents, coupled with operational inefficiencies snowballed Korean Air into troubled times. Then, at the beginning of the 21st century, its CEO/ Chairman, Yang-Ho Cho undertook various transformation initiatives - for instance, improving service quality and safety standards, technology integration, upgrading pilot training, better business focus; putting in place a professional management team, improving corporate image through sponsorship marketing, etc. He gave a new corporate direction in the form of '10,10,10' goal. However, Korean Air is held up by a slew of challenges. Among which are inefficiencies of - Chaebol system of management, possible clash of its cargo business with its own shipping company, limited focus on the domestic market and growing competition from LCCs. How would Korean Air manage growth as a family-owned conglomerate? The case offers enriching scope for analysing a family business’s turnaround strategies, with all the legacy costs involved. Pedagogical Objectives • To discuss the (operational) dynamics of Korean Chaebols - their influence/ effects on the country’s industrial sector and the economy as a whole • To analyse how family-owned businesses manage the transition phase - from a supplier-driven...
Words: 71150 - Pages: 285
...Preface Let me begin this preface with a confession of a few of my own biases. First, I believe that theory and the models that flow from it should provide the tools to understand, analyze, and solve problems. The test of a model or theory then should not be based on its elegance but on its usefulness in problem solving. Second, there is little in corporate financial theory that is new and revolutionary. The core principles of corporate finance are common sense and have changed little over time. That should not be surprising. Corporate finance is only a few decades old, and people have been running businesses for thousands of years; it would be exceedingly presumptuous of us to believe that they were in the dark until corporate finance theorists came along and told them what to do. To be fair, it is true that corporate financial theory has made advances in taking commonsense principles and providing structure, but these advances have been primarily on the details. The story line in corporate finance has remained remarkably consistent over time. Talking about story lines allows me to set the first theme of this book. This book tells a story, which essentially summarizes the corporate finance view of the world. It classifies all decisions made by any business into three groups—decisions on where to invest the resources or funds that the business has raised, either internally or externally (the investment decision), decisions on where and how to raise funds to finance...
Words: 83043 - Pages: 333
...Case study notes This case has been updated to include the Apple iPad. Principally this is case explores the issue of licensing and how successful firms can become unsuccessful. It is not a case about Apple and why it has become successful. This case study explores the rise of the Apple Corporation. The Apple iPod is one of the most successful new product launches in recent years, transforming the way the public listens to music, with huge ramifications for major record labels. More than 50 million MP3 players are expected to be sold in 2005; over a third more than last year. Mobile phones have long been regarded as the most credible challengers to MP3 players and iPods. The launch of digital download services via mobile phones illustrates the dramatic speed of convergence between the telecom and media industries, which many observers expect to usher in a new era of growth for mobile phones. Users are willing to pay more for additional services and many analysts predict that mobile phone handsets will eventually emerge as the dominant technology of the age, combining personal organisers, digital music players and games consoles in a single device. Indeed, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has predicted that mobile phones will supersede the iPod as the favoured way of listening to digital music. The launch of the Apple ipad in 2010 makes this case even more topical. This should form the basis of supplementary questions at the end of the case: How will the iPhone succeed? What about...
Words: 16512 - Pages: 67
...2013 Annual Report Financial Highlights Diversified Portfolio American Girl Fisher-Price Other Fisher-Price Friends Other Barbie Latin America Asia-Pacific North American (US, Canada & American Girl) $7.1B Fisher-Price Core Entertainment Other Girls $7.1B Europe Wheels 2013 Gross Sales by Brand Source: Mattel 2013 10-K 2013 Gross Sales by Region 2013 Financials At-A-Glance $7,117.8 $2.58 $7,052.6 12 $6,841.1 11 $2.22 $2.18 13 11 12 13 Gross Sales Source: Mattel 2013 10-K Gross Sales History (in millions) Gross Margin Operating Margin Earnings per Share Total Shareholder Return (TSR) (For the Year Ending December 31, 2013) Mattel, Inc. S&P Source: Thomson Reuters 1 Year 34% 32% 3 Year 28% 16% 5 Year 29% 18% 10 Year 13% 7% 2013 Annual Report MATTEL, INC. For nearly seventy years, Mattel has been inspiring imaginations, fueling the innovative spirit and creating the future of play for millions of children around the world. Today, Mattel, Inc. and its family of companies comprise the world’s largest toy company with a strong portfolio of brands and toys that children and their parents have cherished for generations. Our portfolio includes some of the most iconic toys of all time, from Barbie® and Hot Wheels®, to American Girl®, Fisher-Price® and Thomas & Friends®. Parents trust Mattel to deliver hours of fun for their children, and our shareholders trust us to bring long-term value to...
Words: 60668 - Pages: 243
