buy custom Wire Tap essay

buy custom Wire Tap essay The Wire Trap Act is a law established to protect people against illegal tapping of the communication by intelligence authorities for prosecution purposes. Initially, Title III, which was contained in the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act that was enacted in 1968 covered the wire and oral communication only (United States Department of Justice, 2010). However, this was revised subsequently in 1986 to title I, which included electronic communications too. These laws have several provisions related to trapping on information from a person without his or her knowledge. The laws prohibit interception, use, disclosure, or even procurement of information by any person in the form of either electronic, wire, or oral from another person without his or her authorization. The laws also provide exceptions for any person who is allowed to intercept information in any of the three means, as defined by the Foreign Intelligence Act of 1978. The laws also prohibit the use of any illegally o btained information in court as evidence. Authorization to tap into any oral, electronic, or wire communication is granted by a judicial legalization whereby a judge could issue a legalization warranty of up to 30 days. Roving wire traps or multipoint wiretaps is a tracing technique used to intercept communications from a targeted individual (Lippman, 2010). The law provides that such individuals behave in a manner suggesting that they are seeking to distract surveillance or are evading interception. These forms of surveillance violate citizens' constitutional rights by allowing security agents to intercept information from individuals without permission. In fact, this sounds more of eavesdropping, which is a crime. Any right that has an attachment to privacy is utterly disregarded by such intelligence acts because they probe someone without his or her knowledge. Real evidence refers to the physical material that is brought to court as evidence of a crime committed. This evidence is displayed in the courtroom, and a case is conducted based on what is seen in the courtroom (Buckles, 2003). On the other hand, demonstrative evidence refers to evidence produced in court, in the form of an object or any other representation such as sound, picture, maps, and drawings among others. Real evidence is better because it is easy to verify any claims behind a prosecution basing on the actual or physical evidence. In other words, facts can be established easily using physical evidence other than demonstrative evidence. Buy custom Wire Tap essay

How to Avoid the Biggest Workplace Distraction

How to Avoid the Biggest Workplace Distraction So many hours in a day, but never enough time to get things done†¦ or so it seems. In reality, the hours that comprise a workday are often plenty of time to complete your tasks. According to CareerBuilder, 4 of the top 5 productivity killers at work are tech-based: email, texting, Internet surfing, and social media. Little moments here and there of checking your phone or browsing on Twitter can add up to hours of wasted time. Your first step? Take one week to carefully log how you spend each and every moment of your day. Then, add up your non-work-related tech time. You might be surprised at how it’s eating away from your work day.Next, aim to cut back. Put your phone on silent or â€Å"Do Not Disturb† mode, only allowing emergency contacts to reach you during work hours. Then, divert yourself from the call of social media. When you find yourself loading up Facebook or Instagram, walk away. Take a super-quick walk around the office to clear your mind and get back o n track. When you sit back down, it’s back to work you go.Of course, most workplaces do come with a barrage of email you are obligated to tackle. Set aside 10 minutes every hour to do nothing but read, sort, and answer email. Unless it’s urgent, don’t answer or read your email until then–focus on completing tasks instead.A combination of poor time management and electronic distraction often suck up your time until you’re left with a pile of uncompleted work. Figure out where your time is going and transform wasted hours into productivity.Your Top 10 Productivity Killers And How To Fix ThemRead More at Fast Company

Ethical issue in Marketing related to Advertising Essay

Ethical issue in Marketing related to Advertising - Essay Example According to the research findings there are numerous advertising media including the traditional television, radio, newspapers, mail and billboards, and the postmodern computer based internet advertisement channels including email, blogs, websites, programs and search engines among others. The increased number of advertising channels and methods of collecting data for advertising have pushed advertising ethics even further, and an advertiser has to be keen not to cross the line between ethical and unethical. In addition, personalised advertising that exploits various approaches to data mining is so effective that the persuasive and exploitative aspects of advertising have become a matter of serious concern to various stakeholders. This has been linked to the ethical aspects of consumer privacy that has resulted in the enactment of policies that provide guidelines on online data collection and use. However, these policies aim at forcing advertisers to do no harm, and advertisers have to decide if they just want to avoid harming consumers, or they would want to do some public good too. The Advertising Standards Authority controls the content of advertisements in the United Kingdom, and the town and county planning system controls the content of outdoor advertisements. However, enforcement of advertising ethics goes beyond these bodies and extends to numerous independent consumer protection groups, and before advertising, a business entity has to predict the response that the advertisement is likely to elicit from these regulators. However, the regulators’ definitions of ethics are too broad, and the advertiser is largely responsible for the contents of advertisements (Hunt and Vitell, 2006: 150). Advertisement ethics is determined by the effects of the advertisement on the human, cultural, social, economic and political consequences of an advertisement on society. The aim of this term paper is to discuss the concept of marketing ethics as it relates to ad vertising. Background Information Common Advertising Media Advertising is the first communication between a firm and its prospective customers; therefore, the firm must do a decent job of it in order to have an impact and increase the likelihood of adverts translating to increased sales. Therefore, an advertisement must be designed create awareness, knowledge, liking, preference and conviction in a potential customer in order for him or her to make a purchase. Advertisers have always exploited the available media to the greatest extent, such that advertising accounts for a big portion of a firm’s expenditure. Traditional advertisements like radio are still in use today, though their use is reducing due to the emergence of more effective technologies that combine both the audio and visual components of advertisements (Kelley et al., 2011). Compared to other senses, visual reception causes the most impact on a person’

Don't Ask Don't Tell Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Don't Ask Don't Tell - Research Paper Example This helps in tackling with its limitations and at the same time enhancing its advantages. Therefore, in the below sections, the various phases through which a public policy passes are looked at, thereby analyzing the involvement of various stakeholders and the effects of the policy on each. This will help establish the effectiveness of this approach in relation to this case. The â€Å"Don’t ask, Don’t tell† (DADT) policy of the US military is studied (Harrop 1). The policy The 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy came into effect in 1993 when President Clinton signed it into legislation. The main clause of the law states that "the presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion which are the essence of military capability." While this constitutes the ‘don't tell’ clause of the act, the ‘don't ask’ clause is not really a clause, rather an indication to commanders in the military that they must not initiate investigation into the sexual orientation of other personnel. However, there is an exception clause to this which states that if the Secretary of Defense deems that such inquiries are required for the implementation of the policy or if the person being investigated is done so as a result of his behavior, then such investigations can continue. Therefore, the policy heavily weighs in favor of cornering people from the LGBT community by restricting their powers of freedom and enquiry. However, the policy as it was introduced was a compromise between the President Clinton's election promise to lift the ban on homosexuals and the position of the military which maintained that homosexuality is incompatible with military service and that personnel who declare themselves to be homosexual must be discharged from military duty (Feder 1). Agenda Building The su bject of homosexuality has long been a subject of contention in the US military. However, there has not been much debate until the latter half of the 20th century. A majority of the cases were dealt using the legislations Articles of War (AW) and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Both the laws did not tolerate homosexuality. In fact, sodomy was criminalized using through the AW. Homosexuality was seen as a psychological problem and hence people with the 'condition' were seen as sick. Expert psychologists and psychiatrists were used to build public opinion. The policy continued through the Second World War until the years of Ronald Regan during whose tenure the defense directive was issued stating that "homosexuality is incompatible with military service" ("History of 'don't ask, don't tell'" 2). However, this signified a change in the rationality of the policy. This was facilitated by a number of cases in federal courts which ruled against the policy implementation. For example, the Watkins v. United States Army case in which Sergeant Perry J. Watkins sued the Army after he had been discharged. Watkins case revealed that he had declared his orientation early on in his career and that he had made no attempt to hide it. Subsequently, after a number of years of court proceedings, the court found that the reasoning behind the provisions of the law was unsatisfactory. These developments forced the Army to

Plastic Q-Tips Essay Example for Free

Plastic Q-Tips Essay Since the swabs of Q-Tips are made up of cotton, one of the environmental impacts of manufacturing them in huge quantities throughout the year is that it makes use of tens if not hundreds of millions of paper or plastic sticks for the rod holding the cotton swab. Apparently, the paper sticks are generally manufactured from trees, thereby posing the threat to the environment in terms of trees being cut down solely for the purpose of turning them into small paper rods. On the other hand, plastic Q-Tips rods disposed by the millions can eventually form into a massive heap of plastic garbage when combined altogether. Since these are made up of non-biodegradable material, there is an urgent need to recycle the plastic Q-Tips rods so that they will not pose more significant threats to the environment. Even though there are hazardous chemicals involved in the manufacture of Q-Tips, they can still pollute the environment especially when they are improperly disposed and recycled. The plastic rods of Q-Tips may be small but when all of the Q-Tips in the world are taken together they can turn into one massive garbage problem. Apparently, the rod of Q-Tips should be made as a renewable resource that can be recycled over and over for a long cycle of production and consumption. The fact that the rod is made of plastic indicates that manufacturers of Q-Tips should take advantage of recycling disposed plastic rods or any used plastic material and making use of them as recycled plastic rods for Q-Tips. Q-Tips are first manufactured in the factories, packaged and delivered to their clients such as supermarkets. The buying public purchases these items from their local stores and later on use them in their homes for different purposes such as for personal hygiene or cleaning the small parts of home appliances. Reference Q-Tips. (2009). Retrieved from http://qtips. com March 8, 2009.

Essay --

1. Introduction As the world gets more global Companies do their best to raise their profits and survive in the competition. Companies may have to grow to survive, and one of the best ways to grow is by merging with another company. However, some merges may disbalance the development of market and disrupt the balance of current market structure. Perfect example is the Daimler and Chrysler merger it is such poweful global corporation that has its activities all around the world. It can use its strong position to influence the decisions of a government. If a government disagrees with the proposals, the corporation can easily move its bussines to another country this will lead to higher unemployment in the country so the government can not allow this and is forced to make a trade-off. Nowdays some corporations have bigger powers than some governments and therefore it is harder to resist the influence of the corporations. Mergers also lead to a decrease in competition in a market, this means higher pr ices and less choises for consumers. The European Union is trying to prevent that companies become too powerfull and that is why firms who seek to raise their profits through merger, must attain European commissions (EC) approval. In this paper I will focus on the Volvo/Scania merger case. Firstly I will explain what is merger, the benefits of firms to conduct merger and the effect of merger to market. Secondly I will briefly describe the two companies which are involved in the Volvo/Scania merger. Finally, I will explain why did the EC blocked this merger. 2. What is merger Merger is a process when at least two companies combine to form one single company. In general, there are three types of mergers, Horizontal Mergers, if both f... ...cks, buses and engines businesses. After selling its car division Volvo had nearly no market share, to become larger again Volvo decided to buy shares of his largest competitor Scania. (Case No COMP/M.1672 –Volvo/Scania) The merge between these two companies would cause a large decrease in competition on the Swedish market for trucks. Volvo wanted to grow to achieve the economies of scale to compete in the global markets, but Volvo was prevented from doing so because the merger would give them too large market share in Nordic market. 6. Conclusion The EC has blocked the proposed merger of Volvo and Scania because of the competition concerns. The main reason was that these two companies, which both make trucks and buses were the two largest competitors in most of their European markets, it would create significant barriers to entry the market by other companies.

Essay on the Internet Essay

There are conflicting views on how people should finish their reading in the more and more productive society. Some people tend to support that a city/town should provide a public library to their citizens, while others have different views that reading could be done on the Internet instead of being finished in a library, which is a waste of money. Both views appear reasonable. On the one hand, some people’s approval of building a library by the city/town is due to the fact that readers can keep themselves away from the noisy environment and daily hassles and are able to relieve stress from work by reading in the library which makes readers peaceful, comfortable and undisturbed. Besides, the library is a boon for poor students who can’t afford to buy text books or other books of their interest. They can borrow these books and read or study them at ease at home. A library is thus a help to the society. On the other hand, advocates of reading online take the cost of running a library into consideration. The newest information online is updated so rapidly from time to time that you can research and receive the news at the same time when it happens. And all these things you need to do is just a click of the mouse which helps you finish reading in a second. In my opinion, although reading online makes us more convenient and receive information more rapidly, a library is a necessary to the society. There has been an increase in the popularity of the internet; one may pause to think the decreasing relevance and importance of a library in today’s world. But one should keep in mind that a person goes to a library not only to search and absorb knowledge from books but also to sit and study there. The ambience and the peaceful and scholarly atmosphere then helps one to concentrate more on one’s study and work.. Thus libraries will never become redundant. They will always be there to indicate the presence of a well-read and educated society.

Immanuel Kant’s Philosophy Essay

If a billionaire were to leave behind all his fortune but makes a dying request to donate $1 million to his favourite football team when the same can be used for a better cause, what would one do? Donating it to charity would seem like the right thing to do, but the answer to it, according to Kant would be quite the opposite. Here, it’s not the consequences that determine the rightness of an action. Rightness is in accordance with morality. According to Immanuel Kant’s views, a supreme moral principle must entail an absolute necessity and should be done out of duty. He believes that, only actions that emanate out of a sense of duty are moral actions and any act performed keeping one’s own self-interest in mind are, regarded as actions that are not born out of morality. For an example, consider a shopkeeper who is at the liberty of pricing his goods. He could over charge the customers and attain increased profits but that would be an act contrary to one’s morals. He could also choose to price his goods inexpensively, in order to increase the sales. However, in this case, he is acting is a way to ultimately benefit himself and not out of morality. Morality ultimately rests not on sense, experience or feelings, but on reason. If the same shopkeeper, sets fair prices merely because it’s the right thing and not for the fear of getting caught, then he is fulfilling his duty to morality. Furthermore, Kant feels morality is something one ought to adhere to, unconditionally, that is, without doing so to gain any reward or merit. For example, if one senses the possibility of a robbery occurring, one must report it to the police out of a sense of duty as he is in a position to do so. Then his action is a moral one. However, if he were to do so, with hopes of making the headlines and getting rewarded, then in this case, he acts out of self-interest and such an action is not considered a moral one. According to the Kantian philosophy, the one thing that’s good in itself, without qualification, is good will. He believes in the existence of an element of certain common sense in the foundation of moral law, which arises out of good will. Morality is valuable in its own right and not based on the fact that it has instrumental value. All other intrinsic goods, moral or intellectual, can serve the vicious will and accord to evil deeds. They are only morally valuable, if accompanied by a good will. Honor can lead to pride. Not even success and happiness is good in themselves. Thus, a good will is good not in virtue of wanting to bring about happiness, but in virtue of wanting to obey the moral law. For Immanuel Kant, motive is the antecedent of all moral worth and not consequences. He argues that one must perform moral duty solely for its own sake i. e. , duty for duty’s sake. Some conform to the moral duty they presume it in their own enlightened self-interest to be moral. Rightness of actions is determined by their accordance with morality. In order to decide order to decide whether an action was moral or not it is not enough for one to simply help the person in need, but their intention behind providing the aid has to be known. Even if one were to provide aid to someone in need out of a sense of compassion, it would not be considered a moral action according to Kant as it was motivated by emotion. For example, a father playing baseball with his son, should do so out of a sense of duty and not because he loves him. For Kant, the only acceptable motive for a moral action was a sense of duty. The reason is that the consequences of an act are often beyond our control and hence cannot be used to gauge the morality of an action . For Kant, an unsuccessful attempted murder is as bad as a successful one because they had identical motives. It didn’t matter to Kant, if an act was act performed improperly or left unfinished. For example, if a fire-fighter in an attempt to save a man from reducing into ashes, accidently gets him killed having performed the act erroneously, such an act would still be considered a moral one by Kant as the fire-fighter was carrying out his duty. Consider another illustration, Two soldiers volunteer to cross enemy lines to contact their allies on the other side. Both start off and do their best to get through the enemy area. One succeeds; the other doesn’t and is captured. But, aren’t they both morally praiseworthy? The success of one in no way detracts from the goodness of the other. Kant considered the duties that instigate moral actions as absolute. For him, moral duties are said to have imperative nature and they were to be followed irrespective of the consequences. And this is termed as ‘Categorical imperatives or duty’ and this can be categorized into two: where in the examples of ‘Hypothetical’ duties included, â€Å"If you want a good job, get good education. † Whereas, ‘Categorical Imperatives’ suggests the intrinsically right thing to do like, â€Å"Tell the truth. † But Kant believed that, for an action to be moral, the motive behind the action and the principle underlying the action (maxim) must be universally applicable. For example, one is expected not to honk near hospitals, one must be kind to old and disabled etc. Categorical or unqualified as they recognize the imperial status of moral obligations, unlike Hypothetical. Any actions done in violation of Kantian theory would be considered immoral. Kant also persuades people not to view others as a means to an end and degrade the value of human life. But to respect them for the person they are. For example, one should be polite to people they meet without anticipating any favour, in return. On the other hand, he feels all that choices should be autonomous as every single person is capable of reason. Our natural inclinations and influences shouldn’t limit our choices. This very briefly summarizes Immanuel Kant’s view on Morality. Kant’s views outline a clear structure of moral judgments but firstly, he fails to provide us with guidelines as to how go about taking rightful moral decisions when faced with tough situations. For example, if one has to lie about a friend’s presence in order to save his life, to choose between speaking the truth and protecting the friend leaves one in a fix as the universal maxims seem to conflict each other. Further, Kant disregards the emotional aspect that is involved in everyday decision making process, by expecting people to alienate feelings like compassion, pity etc. He also seems to completely ignore the consequences of one’s actions, which is quite impractical when looked at, from a practical point of view. Finally, there is no mention of how certain acts are clearly immoral while he strongly advocates the following of universally applicable maxims. As much as his views bear an influence, his principles find very little effectiveness and practical applicability in one’s daily life. Bibliography – BOOKS AND WEBSITES AND MORE – 1) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – plato. stanford. edu 2) Encyclopedia on Philosophy published by Macmillan. 3) Kant’s search for the Supreme Principle of Morality by Samuel J. Kirstein 4) Ethical theory of Immanuel Kant – bellevuecollege. edu.

From Competitive Advantage to Corporate Strategy Essays

From Competitive Advantage to Corporate Strategy Essays From Competitive Advantage to Corporate Strategy Essay From Competitive Advantage to Corporate Strategy Essay From Competitive Advantage to Corporate Strategy By Michael E. Porter Corporate strategy, the overall plan for a diversified company, is both the darling and the stepchild of contemporary management practice- the darling because CEOs have been obsessed with diversification since the early 1960s, the stepchild because almost no consensus exists about what corporate strategy is, much less about how a company should formulate it. A diversified company has two levels of strategy: business unit strategy and corporate strategy. Competitive strategy concerns how to create competitive advantage in each of the businesses in which a company competes. Corporate strategy concerns two different questions: what businesses the corporation should be in and how the corporate office should manage the array of business units. Corporate strategy is what makes the corporate whole add up to more than the sum of its business unit parts. The track record of corporate strategies has been dismal. I studied the diversification records of 33 large, prestigious U. S. companies over the 1950-1986 period and found that most of them had divested many more acquisitions than they had kept. The corporate strategies of most companies have dissipated instead of created shareholder value. The need to rethink corporate strategy could hardly be more urgent. By taking over companies and breaking them up, corporate raiders thrive on failed corporate strategy. Fueled by junk bond financing and growing acceptability, raiders can expose any company to takeover, no matter how large or blue chip. Recognizing past diversification mistakes, some companies have initiated large-scale restructuring programs. Others have done nothing at all. Whatever the response, the strategic questions persist. Those who have restructured must decide what to do next to avoid repeating the past; those ho have done nothing must awake to their vulnerability. To survive, companies must understand what good corporate strategy is. Concepts of Corporate Strategy My study has helped me identify four concepts of corporate strategy that have been put into practice-portfolio management, restructuring, transferring skills, and sharing activities. While the concepts are not always mutually exclusive, each rest s on a different mechanism by which the corporation creates shareholder value and each requires the diversified company to manage and organize itself in a different way. The first two require no connections among business units; the second two depend on them. While all four concepts of strategy have succeeded under the right circumstances, today some make more sense than others. Ignoring any of the concepts is perhaps the quickest road to failure. PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT The concept of corporate strategy most in use is portfolio management, which is based primarily on diversification through acquisition. The corporation acquires sound, attractive companies with competent managers who agree to stay on. : While acquired units do not have to be in the same industries as existing units, the best portfolio managers generally limit their range of businesses in some way, in part to limit the specific expertise needed by top management. The acquired units are autonomous, and the teams that run them are compensated according to unit results. The corporation supplies capital and works with each to infuse it with professional management techniques. At the same time, top management provides objective and dispassionate review of business unit results. Portfolio managers categorize units by potential and regularly transfer resources from units that generate cash to those with high potential and cash needs. In a portfolio strategy, the corporation seeks to create shareholder value in a number of ways. It uses its expertise and analytical resources to spot attractive acquisition candidates that the individual shareholder could not. The company provides capital on favorable terms that reflect corporate wide fund-raising ability. It introduces professional management skills and discipline. Finally, it provides high-quality review and coaching, unencumbered by conventional wisdom or emotional attachments to the business. The logic of the portfolio management concept rests on a number of vital assumptions. If a company’s diversification plan is to meet the attractiveness and cost-of-entry tests, it must find good but undervalued companies. Acquired companies must be truly undervalued because the parent does little for the new unit once it is acquired. To meet the better-off test, the benefits the corporation provides must yield a significant competitive advantage to acquired units. The style of operating through highly autonomous business units must both develop sound business strategies and motivate managers. In most countries, the days when portfolio management was a valid concept of corporate strategy are past. In the face of increasingly well-developed capital markets, attractive companies with good managements show up on everyone’s computer screen and attract top dollar in terms of acquisition premium. Simply contributing capital isn’t contributing much. A sound strategy can easily be funded; small to medium-size companies don’t need a munificent parent. Other benefits have also eroded. Large companies no longer corner the market for professional management skills; in fact, more and more observers believe managers cannot necessarily run anything in the absence of industry-specific knowledge and experience. Another supposed advantage of the portfolio management concept- dispassionate review- rests on similarly shaky ground since the added value of review alone is questionable in a portfolio of sound companies. The benefit of giving business units complete autonomy is also questionable. Increasingly, a company’s business units are interrelated, drawn together by ew technology, broadening distribution channels, and changing regulations. Setting strategies of units independently may well undermine unit performance. The companies in my sample that have succeeded in diversification have recognized the value of interrelationships and understood that a strong sense of corporate identity is as important as slavish adherence to parochia l business unit financial results. But it is the sheer complexity of the management task that has ultimately defeated even the best portfolio managers. As the size of the company grows, portfolio managers need to find more and more deals just to maintain growth. Supervising dozens or even hundreds of disparate units and under chain-letter pressures to add more, management begins to make mistakes. At the same time, the inevitable costs of being part of a diversified company take their toll and unit performance slides while the whole company’s ROI turns downward. Eventually, a new management team is in-stalled that initiates wholesale divestments and pares down the company to its core businesses. The experiences of Gulf Western, Consolidated Foods (now Sara Lee), and ITT are just a few comparatively recent examples. Reflecting these realities, the U. S. apital markets today reward companies that follow the portfolio management model with a â€Å"conglomerate discount†; they value the whole less than the sum of the parts. In developing countries, where large companies are few, capital markets are undeveloped, and professional management is scarce, portfolio management still works. But it is no longer a valid model for corporate s trategy m advanced economies. Nevertheless, the technique is in the limelight today in the United Kingdom, where it is supported so far by a newly energized stock market eager for excitement. But this enthusiasm will wane, as well it should. Portfolio management is no way to conduct corporate strategy. RESTRUCTURING Unlike its passive role as a portfolio manager, when it serves as banker and reviewer, a company that bases its strategy on restructuring becomes an active restructurer of business units. The new businesses are not necessarily related to existing units. All that is necessary is unrealized potential. The restructuring strategy seeks out undeveloped, sick, or threatened organizations or industries on the threshold of significant change. The parent intervenes, frequently changing the unit management team, shifting strategy, or infusing the company with new technology. Then it may make follow-up acquisitions to build . a critical mass and sell off unneeded or unconnected parts and thereby reduce the effective acquisition cost. The result is a strengthened company or a transformed industry. As a coda, the parent sells off the stronger unit once results are clear because the parent is no longer adding value and top management decides that its attention should be directed elsewhere. When well implemented, the restructuring concept is sound, for it passes the three tests of successful diversification. The restructurer meets the cost-of-entry test through the types of company it acquires. It limits acquisition premiums by buying companies with problems and lackluster images or by buying into industries with as yet unforeseen potential. Intervention by the corporation clearly meets the better-off test. Provided that the target industries are structurally attractive, the restructuring model can create enormous shareholder value. Some restructuring companies are Loew’s, BTR, and General Cinema. Ironically, many of today’s restructurers are profiting from yesterday’s portfolio management strategies. To work, the restructuring strategy requires a corporate management team with the insight to spot undervalued companies or positions in industries ripe for transformation. The same insight is necessary to actually turn the units around even though they are in new and unfamiliar businesses. These requirements expose the restructurer to considerable risk and usually limit the time in which the company can succeed at the strategy. The most skillful proponents understand this problem, recognize their mistakes, and move decisively to dispose of them. The best companies realize they are not just acquiring companies but restructuring an industry. Unless they can integrate the acquisitions to create a whole new strategic position, they are just portfolio managers in disguise. Another important difficulty surfaces if so many other companies join the action that they deplete the pool of suitable candidates and bid their prices up. Perhaps the greatest pitfall, however, is that companies find it very hard to dispose of business units once they are restructured and performing well. Human nature fights economic rationale. Size supplants shareholder value as the corporate goal. The company does not sell a unit even though the company no longer adds value to the unit. While the transformed units would be better off in another company that had related businesses, the restructuring company instead retains them. Gradually, it becomes a portfolio manager. The parent company’s ROI declines as the need for reinvestment in the units and normal business risks eventually offset restructuring’s one-shot gain. The perceived need to keep growing intensifies the pace of acquisition; errors result and standards fall. The restructuring company turns into a conglomerate with returns that only equal the average of all industries at best. TRANSFERRING SKILLS The purpose of the first two concepts of corporate strategy is to create value through a company’s relationship with each autonomous unit. The corporation’s role is to be a selector, a banker, and an intervenor. The last two concepts exploit the interrelationships between businesses. In articulating them, however, one comes face-to-face with the often ill-defined concept of synergy. If you believe the text of the countless corporate annual reports, just about anything is related to just about anything else! But imagined synergy is much more common than real synergy. GM’s purchase of Hughes Aircraft simply because cars were going electronic and Hughes was an electronics concern demonstrates the folly of paper synergy. Such corporate relatedness is an ex post facto rationalization of a diversification undertaken for other reasons. Even synergy that is clearly defined often fails to materialize. Instead of cooperating, business units often compete. A company that can define the synergies it is pursuing still faces significant organizational impediments in achieving them. But the need to capture the benefits of relationships between businesses has never been more important. Technological and competitive developments already link many businesses and are creating new possibilities for competitive advantage. In such sectors as financial services, computing, office equipment, entertainment, and health care, interrelationships among previously distinct businesses are perhaps the central concern of strategy. To understand the role of relatedness in corporate strategy, we must give new meaning to this often ill-defined idea. I have identified a good way to start- the value chain. 5 Every business unit is a collection of discrete activities ranging from sales to accounting that allow it to compete. I call them value activities. It is at this level, not in the company as a whole, that the unit achieves competitive advantage. I group these activities in nine categories. Primary activities create the product or service, deliver and market it, and provide after-sale support. The categories of primary activities are inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and service. Support activities provide the input and infrastructure that allow the primary activities to take place. The categories are company infrastructure, human resource management, technology development, and procurement. The value chain defines the two types of interrelationships that may create synergy. The first is a company’s ability to transfer skills or expertise among similar value chains. The second is the ability to share activities. Two business units, for example, can share the same sales force or logistics network The value chain helps expose the last two (and most important) concepts of corporate strategy. The transfer of skills among business units in the diversified company is the basis for one concept. While each business unit has a separate value chain, knowledge about how to perform activities is transferred among the units. For example, a toiletries business unit, expert in the marketing of convenience products, transmits ideas on new positioning concepts, promotional techniques, and packaging possibilities to a newly acquired unit that sells cough syrup. Newly entered industries can benefit from the expertise of existing units and vice versa. These opportunities arise when business units have similar buyers or channels, similar value activities like government relations or procurement, similarities in the broad configuration of the value chain (for example, managing a multisite service organization), or the same strategic concept (for example, low cost). Even though the units operate separately, such similarities allow the sharing of knowledge. Of course, some similarities are common; one can imagine them at some level between almost any pair of businesses. Countless companies have fallen into the trap of diversifying too readily because of similarities; mere similarity is not enough. Transferring skills leads to competitive advantage only if the similarities among businesses meet three conditions: 1. The activities involved in the businesses are similar enough that sharing expertise is meaningful. Broad similarities (marketing intensiveness, for example, or a common core process technology such as bending metal) are not a sufficient basis for diversification. The resulting ability to transfer skills is likely to have little impact on competitive advantage. 2. The transfer of skills involves activities important to competitive advantage. Transferring skills in peripheral activities such as government relations or real estate in consumer goods units may be beneficial but is not a basis for diversification. 3. The skills transferred represent a significant source of competitive advantage for the receiving unit. The expertise or skills to be transferred are both advanced and proprietary enough to be beyond the capabilities of competitors. The transfer of skills is an active process that significantly changes the strategy or operations of the receiving unit. The prospect for change must be specific and identifiable. Almost guaranteeing that no shareholder value will be created, too many companies are satisfied with vague prospects or faint hopes that skills will transfer. The transfer of skills does not happen by accident or by osmosis. The company will have to reassign critical personnel, even on a permanent basis, and the participation and support of high-level management in skills transfer is essential. Many companies have been defeated at skills transfer because they have not provided their business units with any incentives to participate. Transferring skills meets the tests of diversification if the company truly mobilizes proprietary expertise across units. This makes certain the company can offset the acquisition premium or lower the cost of overcoming entry barriers. The industries the company chooses for diversification must pass the attractiveness test. Even a close fit that reflects opportunities to transfer skills may not overcome poor industry structure. Opportunities to transfer skills, however, may help the company transform the structures of newly entered industries and send them in favorable directions. The transfer of skills can be one-time or ongoing. If the company exhausts opportunities to infuse new expertise into a unit after the initial post-acquisition period, the unit should ultimately be sold. The corporation is no longer creating shareholder value. Few companies have grasped this point, however, and many gradually suffer mediocre returns. Yet a company diversified into well-chosen businesses can transfer skills eventually in many directions. If corporate management conceives of its role in this way and creates appropriate organizational mechanisms to facilitate cross-unit interchange, the opportunities to share expertise will be meaningful. By using both acquisitions and internal development, companies can build a transfer-of-skills strategy. The presence of a strong base of skills ometimes creates the possibility for internal entry instead of the acquisition of a going concern. Successful diversifiers that employ the concept of skills transfer may, however, often acquire a company in the target industry as a beachhead and then build on it with their internal expertise. By doing so, they can reduce some of the risks of internal entry and speed up the process. Two companie s that have diversified using the transfer-of-skills concept are 3M and Pepsico. SHARING ACTIVITIES The fourth concept of corporate strategy is based on sharing activities in the value chains among business units. Procter Gamble, for example, employs a common physical distribution system and sales force in both paper towels and disposable diapers. McKesson, a leading distribution company, will handle such diverse lines as pharmaceuticals and liquor through superwarehouses. The ability to share activities is a potent basis for corporate strategy because sharing often enhances competitive advantage by lowering cost or raising differentiation. But not all sharing leads to competitive advantage, and companies can encounter deep organizational resistance to even beneficial sharing possibilities. These hard truths have led many companies to reject synergy prematurely and retreat to the false simplicity of portfolio management. A cost-benefit analysis of prospective sharing opportunities can determine whether synergy is possible. Sharing can lower costs if it achieves economies of scale, boosts the efficiency of utilization, or helps a company move more rapidly down the learning curve. The costs of General Electric’s advertising, sales, and after-sales service activities in major appliances are low because they are spread over a wide range of appliance products. Sharing can also enhance the potential for differentiation. A shared order-processing system, for instance, may allow new features and services that a buyer will value. Sharing can also reduce the cost of differentiation. A shared service network, for example, may make more advanced, remote servicing technology economically feasible. Often, sharing will allow an activity to be wholly reconfigured in ways that can dramatically raise competitive advantage. Sharing must involve activities that are significant to competitive advantage, not just any activity. PG’s distribution system is such an instance in the diaper and paper towel business, where products are bulky and costly to ship. Conversely, diversification based on the opportunities to share only corporate overhead is rarely, if ever, appropriate. Sharing activities inevitably involves costs that the benefits must outweigh. One cost is the greater coordination required to manage a shared activity. More important is the need to compromise the design or performance of an activity so that it can be shared. A salesperson handling the products of two business units, for example, must operate in a way that is usually not what either unit would choose were it independent. And if compromise greatly erodes the unit’s effectiveness, then sharing may reduce rather than enhance competitive advantage. Many companies have only superficially identified their potential for sharing. Companies also merge activities without consideration of whether they are sensitive to economies of scale. When they are not, the coordination costs kill the benefits. Companies compound such errors by not identifying costs of sharing in advance, when steps can be taken to minimize them. Costs of compromise can frequently be mitigated by redesigning the activity for sharing. The shared salesperson, for example, can be provided with a remote computer terminal to boost productivity and provide more customer information. Jamming business units together without such thinking exacerbates the costs of sharing. Despite such pitfalls, opportunities to gain advantage from sharing activities have proliferated because of momentous developments in technology, deregulation, and competition. The infusion of electronics and information systems into many industries creates new opportunities to link businesses. The corporate strategy of sharing can involve both acquisition and internal development. Internal development is often possible because the corporation can bring to bear clear resources in launching a new unit. Start-ups are less difficult to integrate than acquisitions. Companies using the shared-activities concept can also make acquisitions as beachhead landings into a new industry and then integrate the units through sharing with other units. Prime examples of companies that have diversified via using shared activities include PG, Du Pont, and IBM. The fields into which each has diversified are a cluster of tightly related units. Marriott illustrates both successes and failures in sharing activities over time. Following the shared-activities model requires an organizational context in which business unit collaboration is encouraged and reinforced. Highly autonomous business units are inimical to such collaboration. The company must put into place a variety of what I call horizontal mechanisms- a strong sense of corporate identity, a clear corporate mission statement that emphasizes the importance of integrating business unit strategies, an incentive system that rewards more than just business unit results, cross-business-unit task forces, and other methods of integrating. A corporate strategy based on shared activities clearly meets the better-off test because business units gain ongoing tangible advantages from others within the corporation. It also meets the cost-of-entry test by reducing the expense of surmounting the barriers to internal entry. Other bids for acquisitions that do not share opportunities will have lower reservation prices. Even widespread opportunities for sharing activities do not allow a company to suspend the attractiveness test, however. Many diversifiers have made the critical mistake of equating the close fit of a target industry with attractive diversification. Target industries must pass the strict requirement test of having an attractive structure as well as a close fit in opportunities if diversification is to ultimately succeed. Choosing a Corporate Strategy Each concept of corporate strategy allows the diversified company to create shareholder value in a different way. Companies can succeed with any of the concepts if they clearly define the corporation’s role and objectives, have the skills necessary for meeting the concept’s prerequisites, organize themselves to manage diversity in a way that fits the strategy, and find themselves in an appropriate capital market environment. The caveat is that portfolio management is only sensible in limited circumstances. A company’s choice of corporate strategy is partly a legacy of its past. If its business units are in unattractive industries, the company must start from scratch. If the company has few truly proprietary skills or activities it can share in related diversification, then its initial diversification must rely on other concepts. Yet corporate strategy should not be a once-and-for-all choice but a vision that can evolve. A company should choose its long-term preferred concept and then proceed pragmatically toward it from its initial starting point. Both the strategic logic and the experience of the companies I studied over the last decade suggest that a company will create shareholder value through diversification to a greater and greater extent as its strategy moves from portfolio management toward sharing activities. Because they do not rely on superior insight or other questionable assumptions about the company’s capabilities, sharing activities and transferring skills offer the best avenues for value creation. Each concept of corporate strategy is not mutually exclusive of those that come before, a potent advantage of the third and fourth concepts. A company can employ a restructuring strategy at the same time it transfers skills or shares activities. A strategy based on shared activities becomes more powerful if business units can also exchange skills. A company can often pursue the two strategies together and even incorporate some of the principles of restructuring with them. When it chooses industries in which to transfer skills or share activities, the company can also investigate the possibility of transforming the industry structure. When a company bases its strategy on interrelationships, it has a broader basis on which to create shareholder value than if it rests its entire strategy on transforming companies in unfamiliar industries. My study supports the soundness of basing a corporate strategy on the transfer of skills or shared activities. The data on the sample companies’ diversification programs illustrate some important characteristics of successful diversifiers. They have made a disproportionately low percentage of unrelated acquisitions, unrelated being defined as having no clear opportunity to transfer skills or share important activities. Even successful diversifiers such as 3M, IBM, and TRW have terrible records when they have strayed into unrelated acquisitions. Successful acquirers diversify into fields, each of which is related to many others. Procter Gamble and IBM, for example, operate in 18 and 19 interrelated fields, respectively, and so enjoy numerous opportunities to transfer skills and share activities. Companies with the best acquisition records tend to make heavier-than-average use of start-ups and joint ventures. Most companies shy away from modes of entry besides acquisition. My results cast doubt on the conventional wisdom regarding start-ups. While joint ventures are about as risky as acquisitions, start-ups are not. Moreover, successful companies often have very good records with start-up units, as 3M, PG, Johnson Johnson, IBM, and United Technologies illustrate. When a company has the internal strength to start up a unit, it can be safer and less costly to launch a company than to rely solely on an acquisition and then have to deal with the problem of integration. Japanese diversification histories support the soundness of start-up as an entry alternative. My data also illustrate that none of the concepts of corporate strategy works when industry structure is poor or implementation is bad, no matter how related the industries are. Xerox acquired companies in related industries, but the businesses had poor structures and its skills were insufficient to provide enough competitive advantage to offset implementation problems. AN ACTION PROGRAM To translate the principles of corporate strategy into successful diversification, a company must first take an objective look at its existing businesses and the value added by the corporation. Only through such an assessment can an understanding of good corporate strategy grow. That understanding should guide future diversification as well as the development of skills and activities with which to select further new businesses. The following action program provides a concrete approach to conducting such a review. A company can choose a corporate strategy by: 1. Identifying the interrelationships among already existing business units. A company should begin to develop a corporate strategy by identifying all the opportunities it has to share activities or transfer skills in its existing portfolio of business units. The company will not only find ways to enhance the competitive advantage of existing units but also come upon several possible diversification avenues. The lack of meaningful interrelationships in the portfolio is an equally important finding, suggesting the need to justify the value added by the corporation or, alternately, a fundamental restructuring. 2. Selecting the core businesses that will be the foundation of the corporate strategy. Successful diversification starts with an understanding of the core businesses that will serve as the basis for corporate strategy. Core businesses are those that are in an attractive industry, have the potential to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, have important interrelationships with other business units, and provide skills or activities that represent a base from which to diversify. The company must first make certain its core businesses are on sound footing by upgrading management, internationalizing strategy, or improving technology. My study shows that geographic extensions of existing units, whether by acquisition, joint venture, or start-up, had a substantially lower divestment rate than diversification. The company must then patiently dispose of the units that are not core businesses. Selling them will free resources that could be better deployed elsewhere. In some cases disposal implies immediate liquidation, while in others the company should dress up the units and wait for a propitious market or a particularly eager buyer. 3. Creating horizontal organizational mechanisms to facilitate interrelationships among the core businesses and lay the groundwork for future related diversification. Top management can facilitate interrelationships by emphasizing cross-unit collaboration, grouping units organizationally and modifying incentives, and taking steps to build a strong sense of corporate identity. 4. Pursuing diversification opportunities that allow shared activities. This concept of corporate strategy is the most compelling, provided a company’s strategy passes all three tests. A company should inventory activities in existing business units that represent the strongest foundation for sharing, such as strong distribution channels or world-class technical facilities. These will in turn lead to potential new business areas. A company can use acquisitions as a beachhead or employ start-ups to exploit internal capabilities and minimize integrating problems. 5. Pursuing diversification through the transfer of skills if opportunities for sharing activities are limited or exhausted. Companies can pursue this strategy through acquisition, although they may be able to use start-ups if their existing units have important skills they can readily transfer. Such diversification is often riskier because of the tough conditions necessary for it to work. Given the uncertainties, a company should avoid diversifying on the basis of skills transfer alone. Rather it should also be viewed as a stepping-stone to subsequent diversification using shared activities. New industries should be chosen that will lead naturally to other businesses. The goal is to build a cluster of related and mutually reinforcing business units. The strategy’s logic implies that the company should not set the rate of return standards for the initial foray into a new sector too high. 6. Pursuing a strategy of restructuring if this fits the skills of management or no good opportunities exist for forging corporate interrelationships. When a company uncovers under managed companies and can deploy adequate management talent and resources to the acquired units, then it can use a restructuring strategy. The more developed the capital markets and the more active the market for companies, the more restructuring will require a patient search for that special opportunity rather than a headlong race to acquire as many bad apples as possible. Restructuring can be a permanent strategy, as it is with Loew’s, or a way to build a group of businesses that supports a shift to another corporate strategy. 7. Paying dividends so that the shareholders can be the portfolio managers. Paying dividends is better than destroying shareholder value through diversification based on shaky underpinnings. Tax considerations, which some companies cite to avoid dividends, are hardly legitimate reason to diversify if a company cannot demonstrate the capacity to do it profitably.

Outrageously Funny Groucho Marx Quotes

Outrageously Funny Groucho Marx Quotes Groucho Marx and his brothers had an unmatched flair for comedy. However, it was Groucho Marx who became the reigning king of comedy in the 1940s. He was known for double meanings embedded in his one-liners, along with his ever-present cigar, prominent eyebrows, and glasses. Groucho Marx quotes are regarded as evergreen classics, absolutely laugh-out-loud funny, even many decades later. His wit is timeless. Groucho Marx Quotes  on Women As soon as I get through with you, youll have a clear case for divorce and so will my wife. Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy. Why dont you go home to your wife? Better yet, Ill go home to your wife, and outside of the improvement, she wont notice any difference. Behind every successful man is a woman; behind her is his wife. A man is only as old as the woman he feels. A woman is an occasional pleasure but a cigar is always a smoke. Alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse. Why was I with her? She reminds me of you. In fact, she reminds me more of you than you do! Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot. Funny, Ive met a lot of pin-up girls, but Ive never been able to pin one down. Time wounds all heels. On Reading Anybody who doesnt like this book is healthy. From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it. Outside of a dog, a book is mans best friend. Inside of a dog, its too dark to read. On Aging and Death Why should I do anything for posterity? What has posterity ever done for me? Bury me next to a straight man. Getting older is no problem. You just have to live long enough. Put-Downs and Puns All people are born alike- except Republicans and Democrats. Go, and never darken my towels again. One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas, Ill never know. Ive had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasnt it. I sent the club a wire stating, Please accept my resignation. I dont want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and youre probably watching the wrong channel. And I want to thank you for all the enjoyment youve taken out of it. Are you going to believe me or what you see with your own eyes? I never forget a face, but in your case, Ill be glad to make an  exception.

Investment Recommendation and Bond or Note Valuation Speech Presentation

Investment Recommendation and Bond Note Valuation - Speech or Presentation Example All investment alternatives apart from investment 5 have a positive net present value. This means that they are viable options for investment. However investment alternative has more attractive benefits in form of large amount of return for the five years at a minimal risk involved with an expectation of huge savings to be made for fifteen years. The owner of the supplier firm has indicated that he would be willing to sell his business for $500,000. I expect this â€Å"vertical integration† of the company to result in reduced material costs totaling $75,000 annually for the next 15 years. I do not expect these savings to continue after 15 years. The cost of the low-emission (replacement) equipment is $50,000 for each of the company’s two existing production lines, totaling $100,000 if the company installed the equipment in both production lines. While the company must comply with certain EPA regulations limiting release of certain pollutants into the atmosphere, based on relevant emission measurements made by the company, those regulations do not presently require the company to install the new equipment. There do not appear to be additional revenue or cost savings that the new equipment will generate. A land broker has indicated that she expects future economic development in the community where the land is located to lead to substantial appreciation in the land’s value over the next decade. The cost of the land is $200,000. While management does not expect to develop the land for use in the company’s operations, I estimate the value of the land will appreciate by approximately 11.25 percent annually during the next five years to $341,000. The largest bank serving the company’s local business community is currently offering an interest rate of 5.5 percent on three-year CDs. The bank pays interest on its CDs to depositors annually. The company’s investment policy limits deposits in any individual bank to a maximum of