Organisations have faced big changes over the ¢¢ past decades brought about by trends like globalisation, technological innovation, restructuring and outsourcing. As a result, compared to their counterparts a couple of decades ago, organisations are now flatter, more flexible, more efficient, more customer oriented, more focused on short-term performance, and more distanced from their em…
Honest Tea, a bottled iced tea company, has completed a strong summer of sales in the mid-Atlantic region and is now raising capital to fund the brand’s expansion across the United States as well as overseas. Since the all-natural tea first hit the mid-Atlantic market in June of 1998, Honest Tea has developed a loyal following of customers who have made the product the best-selling tea in…
In the heavy-truck industry, many buyers operate large fleets and are highly motivated to drive down truck prices. Trucks are built to regulated standards and offer similar features, so price competition is stiff; unions exercise considerable supplier power; and buyers can use substitutes such as cargo delivery by rail. To create and sustain long-term profitability within this industry…
In a world where no advantages seem to be sustainable for long, prowess in forming and managing strategic alliances has become one of the most-important sources of competitive advantage that firms can develop. Strategic alliances have changed the U.S. industrial landscape as dramatically as the telegraph and railroads did in their respective eras of innovation. Use of strategic alliances has pr…
Doing marketing planning, which is captured in the marketing plan, is an essential organizational activity, considering the hostile and complex competitive business environment. Our ability and skills to perform profitable sales are affected by hundreds of internal and external factors that interact in a difficult way to evaluate. A marketing manager must understand and build an image upon …
Growing Farms: Successful Whole Farm Management is a workshop series that enhances the success of new farmers by helping participants think through biological, physical, financial, and family aspects of farm business. The workshops include classroom and field sessions, and topics follow a natural sequence, from planning through production to long-term management. As participants progress throug…
The international business literature has already acknowledged a number of positive outcomes for companies actively engaged in strategic alliances, such as higher return on equity, better return on investment, and higher success rates, compared with integration through mergers and acquisitions, or companies in the Fortune 500 list that avoid building inter-corporate relationships (Booz-Alle…
This research project has applied, tested and further developed a set of new models for the analysis of value creation and competitive advantage in the context of the global petroleum industry. The basic idea behind the project was that Porter’s value chain model (1985) for the analysis of firm-level competitive advantage was basically only applicable to manufacturing. Building on Thomps…
This book is a descriptive and critical bibliography of works on the philosophy of individualism. I have applied the term "individualism" in a broad sense. The bibliography includes books which explain the processes and advantages of free trade, free enterprise and free markets; which recognize the evils of excessive state power; and which champion the cause of individual freedom of worship, …
One way to learn about business is to read the textbooks, learn the definitions, discuss case studies, and pass the exam. In Foundation: A Hands-on Introduction to Business Fundamentals we take a less theoretical and more hands-on approach. We’re going to learn business by managing a business. The approach makes sense for two reasons. First, business itself is practical. If there were a sing…
Nebraska has weathered the recession much stronger than other states and, as Governor Heineman explained in his 2010 State of the State Address, “…we have seized the opportunity to make Nebraska more competitive.” In that spirit of gaining competitive advantage and building economic momentum going forward, the Nebraska Department of Economic Development (DED), in collaboration with the…
The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) organized its second Annual Ministerial Review (AMR) and first Development Cooperation Forum (DCF) during the High-level Segment in 2008. The two new functions of ECOSOC mandated by the 2005 World Summit are intended to advance the implementation of the United Nations Development Agenda (UNDA), including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the…
Even as attention is increasingly paid to “going green” and to the role business can play to help solve sustainability problems, the flip side of the business-and-sustainability relationship has gone underexamined. Forget how management can affect sustainability. How will sustainability change management? The difference between the questions isn’t as subtle as it might sound. The …
Building a new business is hard work. The US Small Business Administration reports that 50% of new businesses disappear by their fifth year of operation. New businesses fail for a variety of reasons from lack of access to capital to poor management to insufficient linkages to markets. Yet there is one step, which should be the first step, that helps to address many of these issues and that is t…
Woody Allen, comedian, screenwriter, and director, once said: “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” If this was ever true, it certainly isn’t anymore. Success today requires a good bit more than good attendance. Yet, multiple studies in different countries and across industries show that employees who are passionate about their jobs and the organizations in which they work are in th…
In today's business environment, and under the influence of globalization and advances in the field of information technology, organizations are facing increasing demands for information processing. In order to respond to the demands of the current business context, modern organization are finding the solution in creating adequate capacity and infrastructure to support the establishment of harm…
Business models are a key business architecture perspective. nnovation is becoming business model-centric, Business models are a unifying concept for business innovation, strategy, and business architecture. Customer experience design and integrated business model design work together synergistically. Future: Increased role of business architecture in strategic and business planning
The paper provides a broad and multifaceted review of the received literature on business models in which we examine the business model concept through multiple disciplinary and subject-matter lenses.
The effective use of information technology is now an accepted organisational imperative - for all businesses, across all sectors - and the primary motivation; improved communications and commercial effectiveness. The swift pace of change in these technologies has consigned many established best practice approaches to the past. Today's IT decision makers and business managers face uncertain…
Traditionally considered an exercise in corporate discipline, today’s business plans are at the heart of obtaining financing, forming alliances and recruiting executives. No longer read exclusively by insiders and traditional lenders, business plans must do more than demonstrate a sufficient level of competence. Today’s plans have to withstand stiff competition in attracting funding, ke…
Advances in technology and communication, combined with the explosive growth in data and information, have given rise to a more empowered global consumer. Recent economic and political events highlight the need for insurers to understand how consumers view the world and the most important attributes for their purchasing decisions. Our discussions with global insurance executives, non-exec…
After more than a decade Michael Porter’s book Competitive Advantage of Nations stays ahead of the other books, in particular as alternative framework from the comparative advantage idea inspired by Adam Smith. This small book is merely an alternative proposition, a postscript perhaps, to Porter’s book, with basic idea that one cannot rely merely on industrial processes alone to keep …
The article marries Michael Porter’s industrial cluster theory of traded and local clusters to Richard Florida’s occupational approach of creative and routine workers to gain a better understanding of the process of economic development. By combining these two approaches, four major industrial-occupational categories are identified. The shares of U.S. Employment in each – creative-in-…
Through good economic times and bad, marketing remains the pivotal function in any business. Determining and satisfying the needs of customers through products that have value and accessibility and whose features are clearly communicated is the general purpose of any business. It is also a fundamental definition of marketing. This text introduces students to the marketing strategies and too…
Given the current economic challenges facing many countries across the globe, the notion of engendering greater entrepreneurial activity has become a prominent goal for many national governments. The relevance of entrepreneurship to economic development has been highlighted by many researchers (e.g. Davidsson et al, 2006) and it is now well-recognised that education and training opportunities p…
The UPS Code of Business Conduct (“Code”) sets forth standards of conduct for all of UPS. Throughout the Code, “UPS” is used to refer to the enterprise as a whole, to each person within it, and to any person or entity who represents UPS or any part of the UPS organization, including suppliers, consultants, and third-party representatives. Adherence to the Code is required of all em…
Many theories and ideas have shaped the development of cities (hall 1998, Mumford 1961, howard 1946), yet no one can claim that the ideal design, economic size, or development pattern exists for any single city. The characteristics of cities are shaped by complex sets of historical, geographic, economic, social, physical, governance, technological, and chance factors. The economies of citi…