Writer's Block / Block Note

Word Cloud status update

2012-01-09T22:18:00.000-08:00

Word clouds are not new, but the
feature to analyse a blogger site is ... (provided by Html5 WC)

Productive Style

Inside Job - Ratings are Just Opinions

2011-12-17T01:40:00.001-08:00

Only recently seen this documentary. but watching it one wonders, "Why are these rating agencies still that powerfull." They are now rating European countries, where they have no credibility at all.

Open Europe

2011-09-16T02:43:00.000-07:00

Timing is not seldom a succesfactor. And now when the European project - and most of all the EURO as it's main symbol - is jeopardized by all kinds of problems, new solutions are being offered. Change is like that, when the crisis is at it's top, the more easier is it to have solucions accepted. People are tired of insecurity.

One of the initiatives to improve the European project I just heard about is this one:
Open Europe. Their vision is serious and innovative: What would a reformed EU look like? (1) A flexible UnionThe EU needs to become a two-way street. It must become possible to return powers to the member states, as well as transferring them ... (Source: http://www.openeurope.org.uk/about-us/our-vision.aspx)

A further look shows that the board is fully British, with Lords and former business executives. That on itself is good; they are often leaders whom people might follow.

But the site and project has little credibility. Figure the name of the site: openeurope.org.UK

Normal standardized websites have either extentions like .org, or .com , but not in the UK. They are unique and have to add the .uk extention. In that way there will never be a standard but only exceptions. And that is one of the biggest problem of coping with unions, partnerships, etc. Open Europe will fail.

In what way is Spain different than the other PIIGS?

2011-05-29T09:05:00.000-07:00

This question has more than one answer, but this focus is on only one item.

When talking about Spain as one of those PIIGS, there is one thing people often forget. Spain is different. Before you agree, you may wonder in which way that would be. I think the difference is in the language: the Spanish language is an asset that is easily overlooked and is what makes Spain different from the others.
Different from Portugal, where the language is only used in Brazil and Portugal.
Italian, is a mere world dialect, as only a relatively small number of people talk the language. The same with Greece; once a language that was spoken by the intellectuals in Europe, now the language is spoken only in the region. Ireland, could be compared with Spain in this respect, but the Irish language is only spoken by 1,6 million people, whereas the second language in Ireland is indeed a world language but not proprietary to the country.

Why is language an (economic) issue? In the United States, it appears that nearly 37% of the inhabitants speak the Latin language. This means that the Spanish language is being spoken by more and more people.

The economic importance of this fact does not require a lot of explaining. Culture can not been seen separate from economic development and a relative higher stake of the world economic development is achieved by a declining amount of (global) languages.

Something to think about. Economics is about numbers, but also about culture. And culture is about language...

Business Legacy from Egypt in Europe

2011-02-14T07:06:00.000-08:00

Egypt is in the news and this may remind us at least one company with historic ties to that country: GDF Suez.

Suez was a French multinational corporation, operating in the fields of waste management, energy supply through the manipulation of electricity and natural gas, and water treatment/purification. It was a result of the business merger between the Compagnie financière de Suez, the french corporation that built the Suez Canal, and Lyonnaise des Eaux, a leading French water company. In 2001, the water and waste assets of Suez were developed into a separate company, Suez Environment. In July 2008, Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux became GDF Suez, after a corporate merger with the french utilities corporation Gaz de France. The company Suez does not exist as such anymore, but it continues its operations through its two main corporate ramifications: Suez Environmental and GDF Suez. To this day, it is reported as the world's second largest utilities company in the world, as it employs over 260,000 workers worlwide, and in 2007 reported revenues of over $130 billion USD... (sourceWatch)

Messi (by Lucas Caioli)

2011-01-30T23:02:00.000-08:00

This is a way you could write a biography and perhaps not a bad idea when your protagonist is still in his twenties as is the case of the biography of Messi by Lucas Caioli. He wrote the book as a series of interviews and the reader should add them up. When reading we listen to some family members, Cinthia Arellano, Mariano Bereznicki, Fernando Solanas (Adidas marketing), Santiago Segurola, Jorge Valdano, Frank Rijkaard, to name a few.
A bigger problem with this book is not the form (the series of interviews, others telling about Messi), not the content as such, but the scope of the

book: I think it would be better to include the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The biographer should have waited one more year. But I assume that sponsors wanted to see the book published just before the games.
As I twittered, it starts with an interview of his mother who is visiting her son in Barcelona and prepares his favorite dish. Mother and her two sons live in Argentina and father Jorge lives with his son Leo in Barcelona.
Soon the reader is informed where Messi is born. I thought, “hé this is a coincidence,” as I was traveling in Buenos Aires at the time in 1987. Argentina is on the brink of a civil war, writes Cailoli which is seriously overstated. The army officer Aldo Rico resisted a new law but the movement was later recognized as the latest signs of a changing time. Celia goes to the Garibaldi hospital on the 23rd of June en Messi is born the following morning.
Caioli explains Messi’s growth problems and expensive treatment to sovel this soon after he is recognized as a unique talent. He grows up in his home town (Rosario) and starts to play at the local club Newell. Messi dedicates his life only to football and has no real other interest; he likes the sport and continues to do so. On the field, the shy boy transforms into a confident man.
A large section of the work is dedicated to his move to Barcelona and that he therefore takes another way than the standard which is passing through the Buenos Aires clubs, Boca or River. This explains later on the friction and difficulties with the Argentinean national team.
Soon Caioli tosses the comparison of Messi with Maradona and this topic returns in nearly any interview.
I was especially interested to hear what Rijkaard had to say about Messi and Caioli reveals Rijkaard’s advice to Messi: “Finish your action, either shoot or pass as you will loose the ball...”

There is a lot about culture, but all inherent. Messi’s Argentinean background is not so much explained and the differences with the European Barcelona either, although the reader can conclude that in Barcelona’s games Messi learns the real meaning of team play. Messi ‘s strong will distinguishes him from his two brothers and the same strong will makes him prefer the Olympic games with the Argentinean national team above the Champions league with Barcelona. Pep Guardiola finally understands that he must let Messi go, because that will only motivate him later on. But such a decision is twisted with all kinds of contractual negotiations in which Messi’s and his father are more in the position being played than playing themselves.

The big question unanswered is the one throughout the book, about Maradona, Messi’s big example and rival from the side of the legend. The best example is Messi’s goal against Getafe which seems the same as the one from Maradona. But Maradona himself is quite straightforward about the comparison: Messi has not won a world cup. That is to me the main issue and just that part -– the world Cup 2010 -- is left out. Those who have followed the world cup and Maradona as coach and Messi as star player may have felt some tension. But only history will tell what exactly happened there. And perhaps the next biography of Messi wil explain it.

Slang and (bad) language

2011-01-30T12:22:00.000-08:00

"From catch farts to flaybottomists: celebrating a golden age of invective," (THE WEEK, 8th of january) reports a story of British slang which is .. "alive and well, but it's no match for the wit, vigour and invention of the 18th century, says Roland White in the sunday Times." The week writes about Tony Thorne, author of the Dictionary of Contemporary Slang and who is working on a biography of Francis Grose.

The article starts with the following observation: "in the age of the internet and instant communication we rather pride ourselves on the witty and imaginative way that we create new words. We speak in a rather smug, knowing way of affluenza and low-hanging fruit. For no useful reason we refer to mobile phones as blab slabs and use them to diss our frenemies among the twitterati.. Yet our slang turns out to be flat and colorless compared with the vigour and invention of the 18th century, when the only technology available was a quill pen and the pox."
In a new reprint the "golden age of invective is celebrated in Lobcocks and Fartleberries," extracts of celebrated slang of that time and first published in 1785.
England was teeming with drunks, rogues, beggars, tricksters and good-for-nothings... and one man was quite at home in this shadowy world: Captain Francis Grose, former army officer, connoisseur of antiques, caricaturist, journalist... "and above all a character."

"Grose," writes The Week, "not only lived up to his name, but also revelled in it.. he toured the underworld and made a list of 2,000 words of which 250 can be found in the previous mentioned dictionary L & F."

"Historians can tell a lot about the age from its slang," f.i. "how important the military side of life was in the 18th century says Thorne." ... "Many of the words and phrases uncovered by Grose are still familiar today... nincompoop, beetle-browed, old biddy, whipper-snapper, ..., hatchet-faced, bamboozle"... (Frank Zappa) and ...

Slang is pretty much universal, writes The Week, "no country is too conservative to use it" and some borrow it (Japan - from England and Slovenia, from Serbia and Germany). Professionals also use slang. Doctors have their slang, journalists and academics says David Crystal and English language guru. "Being part of a gang means you don't want other gangs using your vocabulary.. Crystal says that its unclear where slang comes from, but likely it "happens underground and out of sight.".. It begins as a secret code and then catches on in wider society...

Culture reveals itself in language and slang is a special language that makes the members of the group able to identify easier with this group. The stronger this language the stronger the internal cohesion and with it the stronger it fights against foreign influences and other groups: engineers use their language and don't want to mix it with slang from the sales agents as they represent an other "planet."
A speculation.
I would argue that language also shows the groups' cultural level. Scientists will use a more elaborate language than the low-skilled worker. But the above study also shows that new technology not necesarily elevates the cultural level, for instance on creativity; when only the quill pen and the pox were available, the language seemed more creative than current times with Mobile phones, Internet and social media. Does more technology means that people get less creative or wouldn't there be any such a co-relation?

---
More or less at the same time in Spain, newspaper El Pais... (ninth of january 2011): The language of trash (translated with Google/translate).
The insult is installed in Spanish conversation and turned into a spectacle - The degradation of the deal is the result of a vocabulary increasingly reckless with other (Juan Cruz)

QUOTES:
- "Socialization of Stupidity
- For the filmmaker José Luis Cuerda "words have become cheaper"
- "Evil is often spoken evil thought," says the philosopher Lledó
- A Cuban academic was stunned to see a television talk show
- The insult is already an institution covered by some media ...
In the last scene of the movie The Butterfly's Tongue, based on the story of the same name by Manuel Rivas, a boy struggling with his parents and other neighbors in pursuit of increasingly blunt insults against the teacher, a Republican who in the film plays Fernando Fernan-Gomez.

The boy did not come looking for insults, the teacher who insulted and stoned now taught her to read. Then came the war and the population became the national side and chased the teacher in red.

Then the neighborhood was screaming red, goat, while the rebels they loaded in the vans terrible. Then the boy found in its report two words that shouted with all his might,

- Tilonorrinco! Espiditrompa!

He had not learned insults ... Tilonorrinco really is a weirdo who lives in Australia and espiditrompa is the language of the butterflies ... Master's words.

The insults have their origin in the contempt or hatred, as the philosopher says Emilio Lledó, are aimed at "the disqualification of the other, the nullification of others." It's a slap, a ninguneo. And blackmail.

Insult is severe, but society is getting used. Perhaps because the words weigh less, or, as José Luis Cuerda, director of that film, "because the words have become cheaper." The ingrained habit of insult so that the insults are televised, in reality shows and other talk shows, women and men, sometimes with studies such as journalism, are disqualified each other shouting insults that issue. Son, disqualification, "attempts" as Lledó reiterates, "to annul the other, blackmail, therefore."

If that were teaching, "and the media is teaching" that would be what society is learning this: that the insult is free. Juan Marse, Cervantes Prize, says that what is heard on these programs "is said to create tension", the moderators, who are there to wield that power, "seem to receive orders to do otherwise," the more it raises the volume of the discrepancy seems to register more audience ...

"If there is no controversy," Marse said, "no show." And is what it is: the insult is the spectacle. José Luis Cuerda acknowledges that what politicians say to each other, in Parliament or at rallies, I tell other powerful (bankers, for example), "there will be war." Imagine, considered the director, the chairman of Santander gets on a soapbox for the president of BBVA afearle how you manage your bank ... "I imagine that ends his speech: 'Go away, Mr. Gonzalez!'. Well, at those levels are."

So the media, especially media, are weaving the yarn in which society has become entangled insult and taco, "language society garbage," says Emilio Lledó. The conversation is interrupted, someone gives a slap on the table and yells "Come to the point!". "The more yelling gets the turn, and screaming that we get down! Is appreciated because it is more direct and sincere, the less developed is the language, the more appreciation seems to have what he says." Who indicates that those who shout "get to the point!" is another philosopher, now education minister, Ángel Gabilondo. "It's the world upside down: he who speaks well, well, no website, the most neglected, shouting insults have a receipt or further considered, as one who takes care of his speech was suspected of lack of commitment ..." .

Lledó says that "evil spoken evil is often thought of him who thinks evil", but is now much talked bad predicament in life and in the media. Alex Grijelmo, president of Efe, who has written The Book of Style of this newspaper, and also a book entitled The style of the journalist, believes that impunity insult has enlarged its presence in society. "And there is no justifiable insult. It is not justifiable insulting a public office, since his salary is not the fact that I can be insulted. And you can not insult anyone, in principle. In the media might justify certain descriptive expressions, spoilers, for example, or dull, and reproduction of such insults in public can be justified only by the relevance of the person who has uttered, the context in which it was said, and only makes sense if enclosed in quotation marks ... "

The insult is a companion to the bad word, it may be, in itself, insulting ... Grijelmo see the taco or insult in the audiovisual media in the print media. To block this in the media, or untimely in public speeches, or even in private conversations, is a comparison: "The tacos are like clothes. You can not go in his pajamas to a wedding and get into bed with a suit ... in a particular field of work and are useful anchors. A doctor can release a highly effective block in casual conversation, but very bad sit listening to the same block in a congress of surgery ...".

We are witnessing a degeneration of the deal, says Mars, and we are seeing a degradation of public discourse, he adds Grijelmo. And, therefore, is ignoring the meaning of words. "Now," says Grijelmo, "it says censorship, torture, Nazism, in circumstances where it is not correct to say that someone has censored, or that someone has been tortured or that particular attitude is characteristic of Nazism. They say those words and those not weigh the claim. " Degradation of such calls is what language Lledó trash, based on the insult.

Humberto López Morales, the Cuban-born academic has just published the book The journey of Spanish around the world (Isabel de Polanco Prize Essay) got checked a day at home watching a program on Spanish television in the which included an interview with a writer. He heard the speaker astounded the author asked him about the word 'shit' that was dedicated to her colleague. Undeterred, the questioned lingered over the word that he had been thrown and the conversation turned to shit. "In America that would have been impossible, and impossible. In Spain," says Lopez Morales, who at the book explores the social evolution of Spanish in the world, "has been degraded everyday conversation, and broadcast media are the origin and the amplifier in this situation ...". A few days ago was in a smart bar hearing about smart girls Madrid. "What they said, he is a bastard, the other is scrotumtightening, is unthinkable in America, and that means words which were taboos have been the subject of a destabuización, as we say in sociolinguistics ...".

"Traditionally proscribed words of conversation, especially conversation in the media, are at the center of the table, and also appear in writing, without comillitas or anything," says Lopez Morales. "People read your articles very relevant in the Spanish daily newspaper, you will see that cross all boundaries, speaking of politicians, for example. The insult, the words that compose it, seems to have come to stay, resulting in a downturn in quality of public discourse and, therefore, private discourse. "

The insult is cowardice that seeks to leave the other helpless. So says José Luis Cuerda. "An insult is always results intractable. You insult someone. How can you respond? The conversation is a matter of cause and effect. If you say to another 'bastard', what hope will happen next? Ever I tried, when I have called the son of a bitch, do this consideration: It is impossible that you record. But of course you can not always react well ...". Rope wondered how you can stand in the political arena, the schizophrenia of those who insult by trade and then have to live. "Those politicians who are up to the lectern, rant, and then down and ask the opponent to have turned green how will the child with the flu ...".

The insult and is an institution covered by the TV, mostly. Now plug the device, looking for some dials, and if you have placed before the screen you want to bronze. Mars believes that "if there is no debate show", Alicia Gómez Montano, director Weekly Report, Spanish TV, he agreed, she looks in awe how some colleagues (and other intruders) extend or excite the insults, including themselves or among their guests. That reverses the rules of the trade "as we were taught, we should be respectful of ethics, we had to be based on the dialectic and rhetoric, we had to take care of the language, had to respect everyone, to the anonymous and actors ... Instead, we see these sms defective communication, these short and effective messages have the effect of paralyzing the insulted. "

The audience, prompted by the chain of garbage (so to speak, as defined by Emilio Lledó), "tend to repeat what they hear. And there's the mess armed." Montano asks that we look at what some chains of DTT do with Leire Pajin, whose statements slow down to be more evident these Lips of a mayor who spoke ...".

Mars believes that some moderators of programs in which each other struggling to speak above are indications that the shouting is greater. "Many magicians of the information," Montano says, "They know what they are worth shouting or insults, and know they have the time assessed. Shouting and swearing to make that time more profitable."

Nuria Espert, actress, contemplates the scene with "a growing concern. The conversation has deteriorated to an alarming extent, is a vulgarization fatal road ... As if speaking well beyond presumptuous." Now you are not worth the boundaries of private life, not those imposed by the privacy of politicians, "have gone down so many stairs ... Politicians, to be closer, they have lightened their luggage verbal, must believe that it is not profitable speak well, and be aware, as some journalists, that the rudeness and poverty of thought about them to the electorate. What must think the electorate. "

In the language of the butterflies the child who yells the teacher finally throws a stone, the maximum insult. Sometimes the stones are less impressive than words, even the word tilonorrinco if this is said to insult the other.

Organizational Principles

2011-01-07T11:05:00.000-08:00

Principles, we all use them (sometimes without knowing it) Whether in our personal lives or in our professional environment, our action take place as a result of a inherent set of principles. You could even define a principle of how we conform ourselves to the principles we previous have set. Some stick to them a great deal, others change whatever seems to be more convenient. In the book - 'the greatest salesman in the world' Og Mandino elaborates a set of principles that made him a successful salesman. What happens within a group of people working together? Can you still define a common ground where they share the same principles?

Principles within companies and organizations
Companies and groups, teams departments or domains within companies have there own principles too. They are however less visible and the group might be less aware of the principles they share. Never the less, how implicit they are, the principles can be determined. By making the principles explicit, the driving power behind the organization becomes more clear and with that, the power to improve management of the organization.

An example
The Pareto-principle or the 80-20-principle is an example of a principle the company can use. The Pareto-principle is about patterns in our society. Pareto found - amongst other things - that in Italy, 80% of the land was owned by 20% of the people.
We have used this principles in a slightly different way within organizations. They spend 80% of time in the last 20% of the problems. However, what have been the previous 80%? How often do you hear within you organization - "Yes, we are nearly there just finishing up..."

Sometimes, the 80%-point is just not reached! Applying the 80-20-principle can help setting up an model that explains 80% off you business, leaving you to solve the last 20%. This does cost most of the time, but having a model reduces the last 20%. Not many companies apply a model for getting agreement about 80% and they will experience that 'the last 20%' is much more than 80% of the work.

Other examples
There are many other examples of organizational principles:
Organizational principles to solve problems
Organizational principles to coordinate activities
Organizational principles to manage performance
Organizational principles to increase productivity
Organizational principles to manage clients
...etc.

You are able to derive those principles that fit with the profile of your organization.

Benefits of discovering these principles or business rules are:

You are able to align different your team efforts into the same direction
Manage change with less effort
Preventing latent organizational conflicts

Perhaps the main benefit of the focus on organizational principles is that they affect your business at the moment. The influence of your rules and principles is felt NOW and you do not have to wait until the results of plans which take sometimes weeks or month to become visible. If you agree on the way to organize activities you are already half way towards your goal.

Organizational principles reveal whether your organization makes the right choices.

In the book Timeless Business Architecture you find twenty-two (22) organizational principles that are used implicitly in your organization. Insight in these principles give you a comparative advantage over other managers and an increased knowledge.

Pink

2010-12-26T07:16:00.000-08:00

Read the full story of the Sapeurs in Congo...

Where German and Spanish Cultures meet

2010-11-28T08:47:00.000-08:00

With all the confusion and problems these days between the cultural differences in Europe, there is one area where the differences are non-existing. And that is unique if you think of it: Both Spain and Germany (but also France if I'm not mistaken) use dubbing.

This is something where the cultures of both countries meet, besides the large number of differences...

Netbook Project in Southern Spain

2010-03-08T06:22:00.000-08:00

Technology is the number one driver of cultural change. Besides technology, it’s the business of a company that defines the most fundamental element of a company’s culture.
These days both technology and business change a lot. And so does culture.

A project in the south of Spain offers a perfect example – business case perhaps - of how culture is slightly changing. There are many interesting sides on this project which I will try to explain.

The project first of all is about bringing computers to schools, or more precisely not getting the computer exactly to the school but to the pupils. The name of the project is Escuela TIC 2.0 and stands for ICT on Schools 2.0. Bringing ICT to school in the next phase (2.0). The government of Andalusia has bought netbooks from HP and installed their own proprietary version of Linux – Guadalinex – on the computer, making it easier to organize (and cost effective), which I will explain later on.

The cultural side of this project.
Andalusia has been traditionally one of the lesser developed regions in Spain because the necessary infrastructural investments that were not always granted by a decentralized Spanish government system where some regions got more political attention than others.
This – one could say – has expedited the urgency for change, more as citizens from northern countries moved to this southern Spanish region for permanent residence. The increase of population urged the infrastructural level to increase too. This is one of the point there the Andalucian government is dealing with, but infrastructure is logically lagging economic development.

In school and education this is not different. The level of education is (traditionally) lower in the South than in the north of Spain and Madrid. So far this was not easy to change, but as technological innovation spread over the world, so came the opportunities for more profound changes. Technology as we have seen is changing the global scene with social media as one of the drivers.

The financial and economic crisis offered another opportunity for help in this sense as governments decided to raise expenditures to boost the economy. And the South with in need for educational (infrastructural) help.

The Guadalinex project started a few years ago to foster Andalucian local governments and universities with lower costs of ICT exploitation. Linux is free, but the support is not so they developed a competence centre to develop the required software. Now 5 or 6 years later this software development has reached a stage where it can be easily deployed because it has proved itself.

The Netbook.
An example of the software is obviously the operating system – Guadalinex – that includes a browser (Firefox) and doesn’t require a virus-scan software, which is one of the advantages of the software, which wouldn’t have been possible with Microsoft because this would have raised the investment and the exploitation costs of the project.
Another example is that the software is pupil-friendly and has inhibited al kinds of adult-options.

The project has changed the live in the South as pupil proudly carry their green bags that protect the netbook and that promote the project. Life has changed a little after this project. And that is how the culture is changing slowly here.

Obviously this is only a small step that will not raise the educational level at once, but it will help.

Iberia, Lufthansa Going Low-cost?

2009-11-23T01:04:00.000-08:00

Lufthansa announced a few days ago that they would start to compete with the low cost airlines. This weekend Iberia - after the recent merger with BA - relfected on the same kind of strategy: to add a low cost alternative within the combination to compete with the low-cost companies.

Vicky Christina Barcelona & the Catalan Identity

2009-11-06T08:53:00.000-08:00

I have been wondering for long about the Catalan identity and the more I see that they try to promote their identity, their international image (Maruja Torres) and their independence from the Spanish identity... the more they seem to fail.

The best example is Vicky, Christina Barcelona. There is indeed not a word Catalan spoken in the film; Bardem and Penelope talk SPANISH. I think that Woody Allen did it on purpose, he knows about the Catalan issue and he probably thought "To me they are just like normal Spanish people."

The harder the Catalan try in Barcelona to convince people to talk Catalan, the harder it will be to take them serious. So far, people in other areas of Spain are still eager to study in Barcelona, but there will come a day when they no longer want to invest in a foreign language which is of no use other than in the northern region of Spain.

From a distance - an international viewpoint - the Catalan identity doesn't exist.

First Female Beefeater

2009-11-03T05:48:00.001-08:00

Alright, she was the first, but this happened two years ago. Currently there is another issue at stake ...

The Hours Soundtrack

2009-11-02T08:03:00.000-08:00

If you wonder why I don't write so much these days... Well. I'm listening.

On the DVD (the Hours) Philip Glass explained the idea about this soundtrack. "Music is what drives the emotions behind movies. Pictures don't really express emotion..." (I'll check the right words he used...) Well, if you haven't experienced this, have a look at - and listen to - The Hours.

French court fines Scientologists, allows operations

2009-10-27T04:43:00.000-07:00

French court fines Scientologists, allows operations
A Paris court on Tuesday fined the French branch of the Church of Scientology a total of 600,000 euros ($902,200) after finding it guilty of fraud but allowed the group to continue operating in France.
When the hearing opened, there were expectations that the court could order the group to be banned in France but due to a mixup over a law that passed in parliament just before the start of the trial in May, that option was ruled out.
Under the law it is no longer possible to punish a fraudulent organization with dissolution.
The court handed down suspended prison sentences ranging from 10 months to two years and fines of 5,000 euros to 30,000 euros to four leaders of the group in France.
The case was brought by two former members who said they were cajoled into spending 21,000 euros and 49,500 euros on personality tests, vitamin cures, sauna sessions and "purification packs."
Scientology, which is officially considered a sect in France, denies fraud and is expected to appeal. (Reporting by Thierry Leveque; Writing by Sophie Taylor)

The sect is powerfull enough to appeal, so this will be continued. It started five months ago:
http://writersblocknote.blogspot.com/2009/05/scientology-in-france-possible-fraud.html

Hopefully the trial will wakeup those fragile minds who visit these people.

Productivity Profiles - Blogger Versus Journalist

2009-10-20T12:48:00.000-07:00

The Rise of blogging has not really changed journalism yet, but will keep on influencing journalism. The autonomy of the journalist is at stake and cooperation with the blogosphere will be a new requirement.
One difference between the two is that the journalist is an official profession, whereas the blogger is much more of an amateur. The journalist – whether freelance or employee of a publishing company – is part of a professional network of different signatures and social ideologies. The blogger is more of an individualist and less dependent. The free and democratic information market is a fertile soil where independent and new information is powerfull and can easily change the hierarchies, by a newcomer. This is actually happening with the newspapers, where free tabloids and free information on the internet is changing the newspaper market. And so is blogging.
The blogger is like the old cowboy in a settlers culture. The traditional post that is carried with the "diligence" is overtaken by the man on the single horse who is going faster. This is mainly due to the fact that there are no rules yet in this new marketplace and in such a situation a newcomer can take much of the new space.
There is a threat to the blogger however and that is credibility. On a business level companies should already protect themselves from hostile comments about products and services that are left on the internet without anyone can check these. There are no quality checks for the blogger, whereas there are many for the professional journalist.
And that is where the main productivity differences become visible. The journalist is - on average - mainly a producer in function of a publisher that sells news. The blogger – also in general – is a producer and salesman at the same time, because of the more individual characteristic of the blogger. And this dual role of the blogger is the main difference compared with the journalist where both productivity elements are more separated.

(Previously published at ezinearticles in 2007)

Carrefour leaves Russia

2009-10-16T01:10:00.000-07:00

PARIS (Dow Jones)--French retail giant Carrefour SA (CA.FR, CRERY) Thursday said it is exiting Russia shortly after having entered the market, as it posted a 2.9% drop in third-quarter sales.
Carrefour's change in strategy on Russia, only a month after it opened its second hypermarket in the country, comes on the heels of a series of news reports that the company is under pressure from key shareholders, U.S. private equity firm Colony Capital and French investor Bernard Arnault, to quickly sell off assets in emerging markets. The company last week moved to dispel the report and issued a denial.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091015-713759.html

Russia as one of the BRIC countries. Interesting.

Accor splitup?

2009-08-27T02:16:00.000-07:00

Accor published its figures today which were below expectations. To compensate this, it announced that it would consider a splitup of the company: into hotels and prepaid services units.

After presentation of 2007 results there was no such mentioning of a splitup; on the contrairy. A sign that times are changing?

Company Profiles - Accor

2009-08-27T02:09:00.000-07:00

Accor is a company in the hospitality business, a French chain of hotels. The company profile offered in this article, and the next where more details are shown, discusses some main characteristics of this company.
The hospitality sector is dedicated to offering hospitality to users; hotels are the main component in this business but not the only element.
In this profile you will find more about:
- a current issue of the company and some investors that have certain ideas to change the company.
- the business units are shown and one unit is explained in detail - currently under attack of investors
- some main characteristics about the management of the various brands
- some sustainability issues this company is dealing with, but which is common in the sector, for example how to control the water usage.
- the corporate government structure
To start with the last the corporate government structure is similar to the best-practice; the chairman is a non-executive director whose main responsibility is bridging the gap between shareholders and management.
"Accor chairman Serge Weinberg told shareholders the group has no plans to break up its activities and 'has the means' to develop both its hotel and services businesses in the medium term." (1)
This current issue shows the main structure of the company and its business and how investors think about it. Investors, hedge funds and other market parties are more and more involved in strategic decisions of companies. In many cases indirectly.
Why should so many companies be split-up just to offer more shareholders value? What would be the synergy of the business services with the hotel business?
"Analysts have seen the shareholder pact announced earlier this month by investment companies Eurazeo and Colony Capital as creating pressure for Accor to carry out value-creation moves, including potential further property sales and the sale of its services division." (1)
Under their five-year pact, Eurazeo and Colony have taken a combined 17.52 percent stake in Accor's capital and plan to raise this holding to 30 percent. The investors said in their press release this month that they 'do not intend to take control' of Accor.
"Chief executive Gilles Pelisson said the 'real challenge' for the group was its valuation, arguing that it needs to explain to the market how to analyze its hybrid model of operating hotel and services activities." (1)
The performance of Accor shares outperformed the CAC-40 both in the year to date and in the 2005 to 2008 period (1).

...

In the organizational area, the company is changing its ownership and lease model; the percentage completely owned or fixed by leases has been lowered to 45 from 65 percent before 2007 (1).
The services business is about vouchers. This represents only less than 10% of the overall business (11% according to the 2007 Annual report), but offers an interesting synergy with the hotel business. Vouchers can be used and issued for transportation, restaurants, personal care and can be seen as campaign management tools "He said the company's traditional restaurant and food vouchers continued to see double-digit growth, while at the same time new products have raised their share of the division's sales from 15 percent in 2003 to 36 percent in 2007." (1)
"We strengthened our positions in Services by fully leveraging our growth drivers ... the recent acquisition of Kadéos positions us as the leader in France's gift card and voucher market." The other side is that by separating the voucher business it could made into a standardized business that serves much more hotel chains and could grow more than under the umbrella of Accor.
Some main characteristics are: 170,000 employees in 2006 (150,000 since 2007) of which nearly 90% is under fixed contracts. The annual report doesn't mention the part-time distribution. Which will give insight in the amount of flexibility of the organization and towards employees too. The Gender balance is: 51% are women and 90% of the managers were promoted from within the organization. (Annual report 2006).
About Social responsibility: "We're combating sexual tourism involving children." There is no information on how this is done. It is a big challenge to match this responsibility with the main business driver of the hospitality business which is: discretion (tact).
Than ISO certifications are important and most of all the sustainability issues. Examples of innovations in those areas are: "An efficient laundry system. The Sofitel Athens Airport has installed a detergent-free laundry system that reduces the consumption of water by 40% and energy by 70%. A normal load uses 12 liters of water per kilogram of laundry." (annual report 2006).
Other examples include light-saving bulbs. Another interesting fact is the water consumption. The economy hotels have an average water consumption of 245 liters per room. The most expensive hotels use 836 liter per room. The overall water Reduction is still only 1.3% in 2006, compared to 2005 (478 versus 472 liter per room).
The most luxurious hotels (Sofitel) are organized under management contracts, the other hotels are organized by both (variable) leases and franchising.
The 2007 annual report shows "A STORY ABOUT PEOPLE: Success is never experienced in the present or through cool-headed analysis. It comes from within you."
The 2007 report also shows how the services concept works: Accor Services designs the solution and markets this to the customers. These (430,000 companies) distribute the service (the vouchers) to beneficiaries (30 million users). They use the service of the service providers (1,000,000 affiliates) and refund the requested service to Accor. The other fact is that this is a very "high margins and very little capital investments."
Seems like a proper value-investment approach. Why would a hedge fund want to change this?
Summarizing some main characteristics:

best practice corporate government structure (Chairman and CEO)
two main business units (hotels - 90%) and business services.
sustainability issues
150,000 employees (51% women and about 90% fixed contracts)
organization of hotels: ownership and lease still 45%

(1) - In: Accor says no plans to split up group; warns against 'creeping takeover' UPDATE, http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/05/13/afx5003330.html

(previously published on ezinearticles.com on May 15th 2008)

Quotes from … The Quiet American (Graham Green)

2009-08-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

On Productivity.
- My fellow journalists called themselves correspondents; I preferred the title of reporter.

Others…
- Fowler found a book entitled the physiologic of matrimony… “perhaps he was studying sex, as he had done about The Far East, by reading a book… and the key word was matrimony. Pyle believed in a life of commitment”
- …he kept silent for a moment to have his answer settle in my mind, not in his; he interviewed in an educated way.
- one of the advantages of this war was that a European face lead to a passport in the battle field: a European could be suspect of being an enemy agent.
- that 'it was absurd to subject her to this passion for truth, an Occidental passion, like that for alcohol.
- So it always is: when you escape to a desert the silence shouts in your ear
- find me a kid that is not complicated, Pyle. When we are young we are a jungle of complications. We simplify as we get older.
- … we have to choose sides. If we want to continue be humans.
I was a man with a mission, journalism can’t seriously be considered as a mission, but it could recognize missions in others.

On culture… (one of the many references)
I don’t like the British… all of you talk like queers. They think themselves superior.

(translation from the copy “El Americano Tranquilo” Fernando Galvan)

Quotes from … Our man in Havana (Graham Green)

2009-08-19T02:53:00.002-07:00

- Childhood was the germ of all mistrust.

- people praised the catholic schools for teaching courtesy (interesting for Spanish Culture where courtesy is so important and part of the daily interactions)

- A postcard is a symptom of loneliness

- The Spanish, the French, the Portuguese built cities where they settled, but the English just allowed cities to grow. The poorest street in Havana had dignity compared with this shanty-life of Kingston

- Catholics are more torturable tan Protestants, just as they are more criminal

- All true love is a “coup de foudre”

Quotes from … The confusions of young Törless (Robert Musil)

2009-08-19T02:53:00.001-07:00

- For the first passion of the adolescent boy is not love of one, but hatred for all.

Quotes from Brideshead revisited (Evelyn Waugh)

2009-08-19T02:51:00.000-07:00

- … Venice is precisely the city in Italy where never anyone goes to church (not precise / accurate translation)

- To understand all is to forgive all.

Tourism - Changes in Malaga

2009-08-05T12:39:00.000-07:00

When visiting El Corte Ingles in Mijas, I realized that it is true what you read in the newspapers in the south of Spain about tourism: an amount of English (residents) seem to return back to the UK. One of the arguments is the weakening British Pound.

But sometimes this kind of news needs to be confirmed. And this seems to be the case in the shops: in El Corte Ingles, the foreign books department has been reduced significantly, only a few english books are left on the shelves. A real indication that things are changes... El Corte is now more Español.

Change and the Travel Metaphor

2009-07-31T04:30:00.000-07:00

Change is like traveling

Most of us like to travel, some maybe more than others. We search for either new and distant places or for that specific area that we are familiar with. It can be a private holiday to an island with white sand and a blue-green colored see. Or a professional journey to some metropolis. Or even a visit to some friends we haven't seen in ages.

The path, journey
We can encounter jet lags, fatigue during a long drive and other inconveniences on the way, but the journey of a change trajectory is even more complicated as much is its type of destination.
The way is in many cases an adventure and we do not always like outcomes that are uncertain.

Activities
The activities we undertake when being on holiday will vary from very active, sporting to some other end of relaxation in reading. We either visit museums or monument or other places of interest or just the beach and the swimming pool. each one of us has its own interest. It is even possible to travel not going away, just by reading a book.

When being engaged in a change project, the activities differ in another way, although the common
ground is that they are not recreational.

The goal
There is no common goal in traveling, other then recreation in the case of a vacation or business in
the case of a professional journey.

The goal of a change is getting to a new unknown destination, because the goal is still somewhere in
the future. The goal has to do with some kind of a vision and a vision could be defined in this way as traveling to the future. A vision can never be correct. The idea behind a vision is that you travel to new areas and set your (corporate) mind into that direction.

We, ourselves; the people
When we travel we can insure ourselves. We like to go to exotic places, but only with the knowledge that there is someone to help us in the case something happens. With a change there is no insurance possible what so ever. We have to cope with the situation as it is and make the best out of it if we don't
like to travel to unknown territories.

... and what we take with us

What do you travel with? Very light packed or loaded? One thing that you can not leave at home is
yourself; who you are and the way you do things. The question is do we change when we travel? We think that it depends on how you're open to new impressions. The more you are, the more you will learn to experience, as like to try a new dish in a restaurant. because at the end of the road, you
are what you have done - you can read back your own biography.

Returning home - back to the base

Also with traveling, there is a moment when it ends, where we go back, because of the time that has run up and just because we have achieved our goal.

... and what we bring back

Some presents, new clothes, new books because we want to know more about where we have been or about other places to visit. And again... ourselves.

(Previously published on astorwhite.com)

Change and Style

2009-07-31T04:26:00.000-07:00

There is a close relation between style and culture

Culture is what binds a group of people, normally referring to a country of more specific to a region. This group of people have developed a mechanism of how to confront to their external world (everything that is outside the group) and another set of principles have been established within the group that kept the group coherent.

In (an organizational) style these two aspects are also valid. An organization is an entity within a specific context and that organization needs to confront the external world on a day to day bases. There for it takes decisions, normally in a way that identifies the group (organization).

The internal coherence within an organization is kept by people how work for the organization because of a some ground. This can be because they belong to a specific profession (like the doctors in a hospital, or the journalists in a newspaper company) or because of a specific theme that motivates the employees over the organization (taking care for people - in the case of hospitals, or work for an ideal, in the case of amnesty international)

Style is more than culture

Style is more in the sense that style can refer to many other aspects.
First of all, People have their own style and still 'belong' to various cultures (national, professional, etc). The style differences we focus on within people are differences
in the way they:

take
information (mainly through their senses OR more focusing on patterns
and relationships)
make decisions
(with objective standards OR more on subjective criteria)
structure
their daily lives (organized, goal oriented and orderly OR more
flexible)
get energized
(from being with people OR more spending time alone)

The building a company is located in also has it's own style and still can differ significantly from the style of the organization (in which case there is a mismatch between the two).

A specific time period also has it's own style. In that case we talk about a trend. There are many trends that 'surrounds' us according to their length. At the time of the new economy, the trend was to show the possibilities in the new (new business, new technologies, etc). After the
collapse, the trend has returned to back-to-the-basics and reality.

Analysis of these styles and the focus and goals of the organization, helps finding matches,
strength and weaknesses and support a change process.

More about Organizational Style

Change and Resistance

2009-07-31T04:24:00.000-07:00

Resistance has to do with the will of a certain goal or target, the 'speed' to reach that goal and the mobilization of people (human resources) to achieve that goal. In order to receive a goal with a group of people, every individual needs to be informed about the goal.

Resistance is a by-product of the activities that will make things happen. Thus there is always resistance and that is healthy because without resistance we would easily overlook important issues.

Example of reasons for opposition:

The transformation is not in the interest of the department or employee or doesn't seem to make sense
Unclearness about goals
Unsatisfied with the approach; it can be done in a better way
Emotional aspect of not taken seriously
Emotional aspect of fear not being able to cope with the new demands
Not being ready for a change because of personal reasons

How to manage the resistance at acceptable levels? This depends on the scope of the resistance. Individual cases are to be handled differently than resistance within domains or departments.

The individual approach:

Make the issue explicit. What is the resistance about. The informational aspect. The IQ part of the personal change and the resistance that it raises.
Compassion. Put yourself in the place of the other. Recognize the emotional aspect. Try to determine the underlying (EQ) issues.
Avoid the opposition. If emotional aspect have a strong impact (just after a announcement, for example) it can be wise to wait and not to confront the resistance.

Resistance at domain and department levels are more to be handled differently. For example in the case of a merger of two departments, the best approach is to have a strong commitment from the management board.

Change and influences from the environment

2009-07-31T04:15:00.000-07:00

Changes do not come by themselves, they are instigated by changes in the
environment. The structural changes come from giving response to (the
breaking of) trends, others can have an origin in reaction to incidental
opportunities.

Trends, some examples

There are many trends with difference in scope and duration; related to consumers, to markets and to
societies. A few examples of these last are.

Globalization.
Feminizing.
Women get more important positions. Next to the more masculine and
competitive elements, more caring aspects get more and more attention.
Flexibility. A more and more complex and changing world demands flexible
and short term solutions. Also fluctuations in demand calls for
flexibility in human resources.
Technology is everywhere and dominating our environment. Making things
smaller (nanotechnology)
Individualizing. Where before mass production and consumption, is more and more pushed away by customization and personalization.
Long life expectations. People get older
and continue to consume but without contributing to the labor force and
generation of income. Proportion of elder / younger people is growing.
Mobility. People travel more.

These trends have their influence on companies. It is not possible to predict the future with trends by trying to extrapolate them, because trend-breaks can occur any unpredictable moment (for example the breaking of the 'new-economy' trend. However, especially the longer tendencies (society) help to identify
movements than for a significant period will influence the market and companies.

A right interpretation of a trend is necessary before a company can profit from it.

Trends have always their impact on some principles - either in favor or in opposition. Globalization, for example has a force in favor of

standardizing.

Opportunities (and risks)

Next to the structural changes that have their influences, there are many unstructured incidences that have their effect.

Change and the role of conflicts

2009-07-31T04:13:00.000-07:00

Why are conflicts so important?

First of all conflicts are a source of information, but in many cases the information about the conflict is not expressed or made explicit. If this is not done, then there is a big change that
the conflicts will be concentrated about persons, or group of persons. In that case it’s no longer important what the ideas behind the conflicts are. You will see a forming of groups within the organization.

When making the conflict explicit, the first gain is that everybody can join the discussions about the conflict. And with more people joining, the commitment to the work (and change) will grow. New ideas to solving the conflict might surge.

Conflict is always about oppositions, rivalry and competition. When someone -- a manager -- proposes the idea of more teamwork, the rivalry could be for example the loss of ‘autonomy’. In this example the new working method of teamwork might conflict with the autonomy that
was previously the idea how things were to be done.

This means that the information behind the autonomy of work shows some important aspects that might be lost when going for teamwork.
Having this out in the open and explicit, the next step in solving the conflict can already be taken.

How to respond to conflicts?

There are four ways to respond to conflicts:

Fight or confront them
Flight, escape or run (from them)
Wait and observe them
Agree with them

The first two are the more psychological reactions. Fighting in the sense of an conflict between people, might be done by bargaining. By bringing the confrontation positively, the result can be mutual agreement with both parties more informed. Most times however, the confrontation
starts to early where either side hasn’t enough information. The problem can arise that the conflict will be inflated, without addressing the essential topics.

Escape from the conflict can be a good marketing tool. It will give new insight and new possibilities, but the danger might be that the new possibilities are out of the original scope. In that case the conflict hasn’t been solved.

Wait for the right moment (opportunity) and the right information could
also be a tactic. In most cases time heals many things and also in the case of conflicts, they are solved easily without to much energy (can also be combined with the escape).

Agree with a conflict, should be wise in too many cases, but if you might have been wrong it’s always better to give in, rather than digging to much in the same hole that doesn’t seem to end nowhere.

Business conflicts or conflicts within organizations

In organizations, conflicts do refer to measures, policies and principles. These conflicts have to do with communication - directives, that have discrepancies between current situations and new lines of strategy.

Observe for example both these policies; we organize:

central
decentral (or local)

By starting a centralization policy, there will be situations where centralization is not the best solution. In some areas decentralization is more effective. In that case the centralization policy
conflicts with decentralization.

For your organization it is important to be clear about your policies, especially when dealing with change. For example; many companies favor teamwork, but the targets are still
individually set. A policy that is not clear will not be credible and giving space for conflicts. Show the choices that you take as a manager and make sure these are aligned with the organization, for instance:

individual approach versus teamwork

These are just two examples of principles or rules for which you have to choose one side. There will always be a pitfall once you have selected one direction. But that is also the case if you opt for the other side. More important is that your organization makes clear choices.
Communicate the policy and stick to the rules...

Below are shown two situations from different companies. The picture on the left represents a situation where a company makes clear choices. The company on the right does not.

It is possible to solve conflicts. It is even better to prevent them... But then, if you couldn't prevent a conflict. Use the same technique to solve it; Communicate the differences. Communication is what you need to solve (business) conflicts.

Models in Managing complexity

2009-07-31T03:55:00.000-07:00

The world around us - ever more complex

Do you experience the complexity of your live, either personal or business?

How do we cope with this, with the network of relations we have with the various people around us, how do we take decisions in our day to day business? How do we keep the overview, the big picture of what is going on? Specialization seems to be one answer to confront the complexity, but how about the communication between all the specialist?

Each day new decisions must be taken, in response to growing sequence of change.

How can you still manage this, without losing the overview?

The 80/20-rule and the overview provided by models

A model can give you insight in complex problems. We have set our focus on the
style and productivity of individuals and businesses;

Personal Style - for understanding the difference in preferences people have
Company types - Insight in the role of the various companies in the economy
Organizational Style - Insight in the approach organizations have in solving complex problems and
taking decisions
Personal productivity

An example - Company types and style; the complexity within a hospital

A hospital is a very complex organization and therefore a good example. There is the basic division between the specialist (surgeon) and the management part of the organization.

The simple figure (have a look at: business architecture of hospitals) shows, two main entities within the organization; the specialists (medical team) which
provide the production function (production in the sense of 'human maintenance'). These specialists are sometimes organized in own civil partnerships within the entity of the hospital.

And there is the care-part; they focus on the facilitation of the cure- aspects. Both functions can not cope by themselves.

The intermediary part of the organization is also present (think about the intermediation with the external suppliers) but this is not further elaborated in this example.

With this overview becomes clear - using the model - where are both the strong and weak points from both parts of the organization. And what are the interdependencies between them; because neither type can
survive alone.

Differences in Style within the organization

In former times, the medical team was also in change of managing the hospital. Today there is a separation between those two functions; managing the organization and curing patients.

Why did this happen?

A medical specialist in a hospital will have a different opinion - because of his or
her background - about operational activities in the organization. For them
- exaggerating - each incident is a special case and standardizing is
probably not their highest priority. A manager on the other hand, will favor
standardizing because of obtaining a level of efficiency.

Providing this insight in the difference in style between the various parts of the organization helps making priorities and helps giving a common ground of understanding. From this discussion about standardization (only one example of an applied principle) a rule might come-up, describing the usage of the principle and some special cases, which there will always be.

The model takes care of integrating the interest by getting out the pro's and con's of the various situations. These situations are common ground (but different) in each organization.

Using these models offers you a broad basic agreement (the 80% part), in which you can focus on the real important exceptions and details (20% part).

The steering power behind the models; the usage of principles

Thus not only the model on itself but the principles behind it - which are communicated in a polarization way (showing but extremes), can expedite the decision-process in an organization.

Change and (Architectural) Constructions

2009-07-31T03:37:00.000-07:00

An organizational change has always to do with the alteration of an existing construction, because of some trigger. The construction has been built with some principles in mind. With the modification of a goal, new principles might appear. The trigger that instigates the organization to change could either be internal or external based.

The significance of ‘constructions’

Change is the modification of something that is constant or that is lasting. To show the importance of the idea of lasting / constancy, we make a site step to architecture.

What has been built once could not easily be altered

In architecture the buildings, houses, cities, etc are constructed. This means that in order to modify them the construction needs to be, or either torn down or altered in another way.
Significant energy is needed to change. In organizations, you could say that there are present – similar to the architectural environment – constructions; things that last and are not easy to modify, for example:

An organization. Everybody involved
in reorganizations know that they take quite a lot of energy to handle them
and not without a reason. People have day to day activities, “rituals” that
give stability to them and to their (working) neighborhood. Changing the
organization is having people to undergo the change. And changing people is…

An system. No organization today is
working without systems. You cannot think without them. But systems are
managed by people. Introducing a new system is interfering with all the
individuals working with the system

Infrastructure. The basic
functionality on which things operate. People use either phones, but now
employees start to use e-mail, mobile phone’s digital assistance and many more
will be introduced and change our life’s and way of working.

There are more examples of constructions found in organizations (enterprises, companies,
etc) but for understanding the idea they are less important:

juridical structure of an company
the (formal and informal) network (partnerships, etc)
of an company
etc
Thus in our concept of change, you talk about a modification of any significant construction of a company of one of its elements (objects)

And of .... ‘principles’ (behind the constructions)

All that is built, how did it all get there? Buildings that where built in the renaissance, gothic buildings, art nouveau, modernism. All these building have a certain style in common, a style that makes them distinctive from buildings from an other period. Each style period had it's own principles. Gothic buildings where ornamented in extreme details.

The difference with buildings, cities and organizations is that the last have constructions
that could (more) easily be changed. A change within an organization does not
need the construction of a new building. A change within an organization could
(partly) achieved by addressing used principles and change them. When doing so a
change will be achieved after applying these new disciplines, for example, the
principle of:

focus on core
business

This principles
is used much these days after a previous time period where the opposite was the
trend: new business development. With introducing - focus on core business - the
company will have to ''dispose'' activities and outsource them. By implementing
an outsourcing solution, the company will change (to a new form).

The trigger to a transition

The trigger to a transition
comes from either the company itself of can have its origin in
the environment
of the organization. The internal instigation to change has to do with the cycle
the organization is in;

Startup

Expansion, rapid growth

Stabilization

Decline

1. During startup, many companies
will divert in many activities

2. In growth, one activity needs
most of the focus

3. When the growth slows down, new
goals should be set

4. In decline, some activities will be 'sold', others will be initiated.

The transition from either of these situations will lead to change. A company that started with a core group of people initiating a formula, might just not be the same core group who will make sure of the acceleration. New styles, principles, culture drives each new period.

To serve a (new) specific goal

Some examples of the goal of a change:

Goal of change is to focus on more turnover, sales
orientation
Cost reduction
More flexibility to environmental changes

Support of the growth (in market share)
Supporting new products or services
Supporting infrastructural (base) qualities, like higher availability
Supporting multiple language, currency, location, country etc

Switch to either more product or service orientation

Serving different or new channels (Internet, Mobile)

More focus on either wholesale or retail (B2B,
B2C)
More networking, more different suppliers
Towards more focus, specialization

Previously published on AstorWhite.com

Change - The role of action

2009-07-31T03:27:00.000-07:00

Not only during the disturbing periods of change, but also in day-to-day management situations: action is always essential. A dynamic company could be characterized by the way action and analysis is combined in an efficient way. Too much action maybe counter-effective. This could be the case for instance if these actions contributed from the various parts of the organization do not add-up. People are all working hard but al together they are not optimal productive.

No change without action but neither without thoughtful preparations.

in most cases strategic planning’s will be prepared by staff departments.
These are dedicated to thinking about future scenarios. And some moment in time, these ideas about future changes will be in front of the operation. There is a moment where you have to take the steps.
But when we come up with a new idea we do not take action immediately. But when we are (very) thirsty we move right away. The desire behind thirst is a feeling. Where is the desire when it comes to turn into a new road?

This will be a period with a lot of uncertainty. You have to let go of current activities and rituals and you are to focus on something new, that is not clearly defined yet. This will lead to insecurity. The organization all together is less confident in what the next steps will have to be. But also on an individual level, employees are concerned with doubts about the near future and the way to get there.

These emotions will slow the organization down. This is not a problem,
because the mix between thinking and planning on one side and questioning
these (individual) plans on the other will strengthen the transition.

There would be a problem when emotions dominate this process and where these
may not only slow down the organization but would rather stop it. Everybody
is talking like there has been a crash on the stock exchange, and there is
no point in continuing investment because, “this decline will proceed.” The
market is paralyzed.

If you have reached that stadium, than it is already too late, because it will take much more energy in getting the process in gear again.

Preventing this would require a continuous balance between thinking and doing, between thoughts and action. And this balance is leveraged by (managing) emotions. Although there is no indicator for signaling this fire-zone, any manager will (have to) know from experience when this occurs. The manager should intervene in the process. And at the other end, in the
situation where you do not hear a sound where all seems okay, you should equally wonder and check whether your team is still doing the right thing.

The best examples of change come from our own personal and professional lives. We have developed a certain ambition and it takes the requires action to get to a higher level in the organization. In another case when we are uncomfortable with our home, we try to acquire a new, maybe better one.

Yet when we are unhappy for some time we might not get to act immediately. We start wondering what is going on and this analysis might give us some new insight what to do to comfort us.

Both the Intellectual Quotient (IQ) and the Emotional Quotient (EQ) part of change are needed. Not
necessarily in a predefined order or sequence, but you'll need them both.

When dealing with smaller modifications or transformations both needs to be addressed.

The picture comes from the book 'the information paradox', by John Torpe. The textual comment is our own elaboration.

---

Previously published on astorwhite.com

Change Topics Index

2009-07-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

These are some links to small articles on change that have been published before (on astorwhite.com):

The role of Action
The role of constructions
Complexity and models
Conflicts
Environment
Investment
Principles
Resistance
Style
The Travel metaphor

Company Profiles - VDM

2009-07-17T00:35:00.000-07:00

VDM is more than other companies involved with change. In 2006, in the annual report of 2005, the ambition was communicated to continue with the specialists. At the end of 2007, the specialists' activities have been divested and sold to Lehman Brothers.
VDM is a company that is affected by the rapid changes in trading on the stock-exchanges. Innovations that led to a higher stake of information systems on the exchange, has changed the scene for traders like VDM.
A stock-exchange like the NASDAQ is only a platform; there is no physical space like on the NYSE which uses a trading floor. A few years ago, quotes on the NYSE were published in fractions (12 3/9). This changed to the normal decimal system.
The market on the exchange was organized by the so-called specialists, by companies like Bear Wagner and VDM: "Each company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has its specialist who is responsible for the trading of the company stock. The specialist is typically a market professional who manages the two-way auction market trading in the specific securities assigned to him. (1)."
A specialist plays various roles: as an auctioneer who makes sure orders are executed, as an agent to manage limit orders, as a catalyst by providing liquidity, as a communicator by offering insight information, and as principal by trading on proprietary basis to increase the liquidity in the stock if necessary.
Some of these roles are no longer required as trading becomes more and more automated. Only the principal role - the market maker - remains, but that is not enough to stay profitable, for the smaller specialists like VDM.
The acquisition of Curvalue changes the strategy of VDM and is a response to the changes in the market. Curvalue is re-branded as OnlineTrader and consists of a trading system that can be used to extent the service VDM is offering to their current (B2B) clients to new clients in the retail market. OnlineTrader is a system similar to that banks also use internally, but VDM may use the system as a new channel for a new client group.
The match seems very promising: VDM is specialized in trading and knowledge, Curvalue has developed its own system which can benefit from the knowledge of VDM and VDM benefits from the system.
The former CEO (and founder) of Curvalue has become the new CEO of VDM, Richard E. den Drijver; this also shows that the new strategy is focused around the new company (and system) that got acquired. Culture-wise, this new shift requires quite a change.
One of the risks in this new approach is that VDM has always been in a business-to-business market with a limited number of clients. The retail market is quite different; with many clients who are very demanding and who require a different kind of attention. For the new business, a banking license is required. And banking is quite different than brokerage.
The roll-out of the retail platform would start in 2008. Investors in the company have increased their expectations because the stock no longer trades on its lowest levels. The first quarter earnings were a first signal. To evaluate the new strategy there is more time needed.
(1) - http://www.Ibscdc.org

--
Previously published on ezinearticles.com (10th of June 2008)

Style in literature, architecture, ...

2009-07-16T05:57:00.000-07:00

The Style concept in literature and in architecture

The concept of Style is - besides the arena of fashion - most common in architecture. There, each period has it's own architectural style in which it's describes the typical of a
period.

Style - is also in literature - and in writing in general - an essential aspect; it can
be described as the voice of the author; no matter how diverse each new book of the writer, the
constant factor in his or her work is the style.

Determine
the STYLE of your organization by using the
online assessments.

Organizational Style - the style of a company

The way in which - similar - companies differ in taking decisions, can be seen
as a difference in Style. This is however not directly visible, but
something which is shown beneath the surface.
The principles can be seen
as the internal voice of a company. These principles are however not visible.
Organizational Style and corporate or business principles do have everything
to do with each other. Where principles describe the inner part of a
company, there is style the visible outcome. So the organizational Style is
the tangible part of the internal mechanisms, the working principles.

The visible elements of a Company Style

Companies, corporations and institutions manifest themselves in a variety of
ways, like:

The
buildings they are located in
- A building offers a
  company a certain identity.

Their
environment and environmental relations - external organization
- The environment of a
  building defines in a great deal the style. A building that is located
  in the Silicon Valley inherits characteristics of other organizations
  operating in that area. A common aspects in this example is innovation.
- In the same way the (economic
  and social) surroundings of a company influences the style; with
  examples like Greenpeace, the red cross and the governmental
  organizations (which all share some official culture), etc.

Systems
and equipment (used within a company)
- This is about more or
  less innovative systems and or equipment.
- The relative relation
  between system and equipment on one hand versus the human capital on the
  other.

The
organizational form and structure
- De organizational
  structure
  is also the visible part of the human capital in a company.
  This is about, hierarchy, division structures product of client
  orientation, etc.
- The juridical form.
- De age distribution. One
  of the most hear-off ways to influence the style of an organization is
  to hire more younger employees.
- De man/woman-distribution.
  Especially in the management, this distribution is important - in order
  to be credible. Man have another way of approaching and that influences
  the organizational style.
- The culture of an
  organization is not discussed here because it is not manifest but
  inherent

The infrastructure (the
access to the company)
- What is the most
  essential gate to the company? The offices, the telephone lines,
  external representatives. All essential aspect influencing the organizational
  style.
- Internet belongs partly
  to infrastructure but can also be categorized under the virtual building
  of the company - see further along the text.

Communication
- In this category there
  are the house style, all written communication
  (news communiqués, advertisements, bulletins, etc) and other
  communicational offerings.
- The (internal and external) communication is related with the corporate values.
- Organizational rituals communicate also the style of the company

The website
- the virtual building / environment
- The website is probably
  the most visible utterance of all the visible style elements of a
  company. With internet the client can peek into the kitchen of a
  company. All other expressions of style are shown on the website of a
  company (the surrounding- the communication - the infrastructure - de
  organizational form - the systems and equipment and the application of
  technology - the relations with the environment.
- The environment or scope
  of the website. What links and resources are there, what is the focus
  and where (market) can it be found.

The essential
about (the why of) an organizational Style... Act now!

Why this extended list? The essentials are in the coherence.
Behind al these aspects and expressional forms of organizational style are
the steering principles. For example, the decision to invest in an extended
internet infrastructure means a choice against another element in the
company (face to face interaction). The
analysis of organizational style of a company means an analysis of all these
elements in search for the fundamental principles. Exploring these
principles facilitates the future decision process and expedites changes.

And ... Style is visible, you can't hide from it

---

Previously published on Astor White.

Don't blame it on us

2009-07-06T11:23:00.001-07:00

(Billboard down the road in Mijas)

Newspaper issue #1 - Just in Time

2009-06-26T11:59:00.000-07:00

Today (26th of June) I read two newspapers; the local / provincial newspaper (www.diariosur.es) and a national newspaper (www.elpais.es)

Guess what; the first reported on the Death of Michael Jackson, the second had the news not included in the edition...

Thriller

2009-06-25T23:38:00.000-07:00

Phrases from The Honorary Consul (Graham Greene)

2009-06-25T02:36:00.000-07:00

Plarr: The Spanish language was Roman by origin. And the Romans were simple people. Machismo - the sense of masculine pride was the Spanish equivalent of virtus. It had little to do with English courage or a stiff upper lip.

Fortnum: I was married once. It didn't work out. She was an intellectual if you understand what I mean. She didn't
understand human nature.

Gruber: Germans he once said...always inspire confidence as chemist, opticians and photographic specialists. More people have heard of Zeiss and Bayer than of Goebbels and Goering.

The colonel: "I have to think of all the possiblities doctor. Even a crime of passion is possible."
- Passion? the doctor smiled. I'm an Englishman.
"Yes, it is unlikely - I know that.

The doctor: "I'm not a criminal Leon." He added deliberatly, "accept for an abortion or two," to see if the priestly eyes would flinch little.

They make no sense," the ex-priest said..."Sell and give to the poor" - I had to read that out... (this same phrase can be found in "The power and the glory")

We have and expression in English - a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush... (later) ... You know the old saying: "an Englishman is always two wiskies below par."

Near the end..:

"I'm not so sure of evolution," Doctor Plarr said, "not since we managed to produce Hitler and Stalin in one generation."

The Power and the Glory (Graham Greene)

2009-06-25T02:33:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting novel about the role of faith and religion in life that is represented by two main heroes in the story. The priest and the lieutenant, or the hunted and the hunter, because the lieutenant is hunting the priest as the catholic faith and practice is forbidden at the time in Mexico. A fact the novel has been based on.
There are many interesting views on this novel and one of them is what someone called “half-things.” The lieutenant and the priest are the only ones who are whole the other characters are "half-caste" (like the mestizo who plays the third most important role in the novel), half-priest or half-husband, etc. Although the extremities are often dangerous -- particularly in the case of the lieutenant's actions -- Greene seems to suggest that it is better to live life with intensity and passionate commitment than it is to live in an indifferent or complacent fashion.(1)

The novel offers much more food-for-thought, but I have summarized a few statements from the characters in the novel that gives an idea of the content. (As I have read the novel in Spanish, the statements are not precise).
- The argument of danger applies only to those who live a safe life.
- Believing in God makes one a coward (In Spanish the phrase was: creer en Dios acorbarda).
- Even cowards have a sense of duty.
- Hatred is nothing more than a failure of the imagination.
- Hope is an instinct that only human reason can kill. - Sweat cleans as well as water does… cleanness “appears to be” the sister of holiness, not pureness.
(1) - http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/powerglory/themes.html

Previously published on ezinearticles.com

About the Obama's Foreign Policy

2009-06-24T00:49:00.000-07:00

Some evaluated the Obama administration after the performance of the first 100 days in office. That is sort of a Napoleon benchmark.
But what real challenges has the administration had in those months, other than of course the financial crisis?
Now a new issue requires attention. Iran.

In the newspaper (El Pais), I read (Sunday 21st of June) an interesting statement: ... He (Obama) finds himself in a situation which could decide for ever whether his foreign policy is balanced and pacifying or simply weak and surrendering...

Memoirs of Hadrian

2009-06-21T11:10:00.001-07:00

This is only a short review of the book. I must say I didn’t find it a book worthwhile reading, which is personal, as most people attribute it as a classic of the 20th century. The idea – Yourcenar helps the readers in this stating Hadrian intrigued her not only for what he was as an emperor but also the fact of the time he was living in: there we no more Gods and Christ wasn’t there yet. Man was on its own (my simple translation).

Some interesting phrases I found in the novel (beware of the translation which is not accurate):
(we elaborating on careers.. the salesman is the best geographer, etc..) Bankers are amongst the best judges of people.
… it was the big mistake of Claudius and Nero to let slaves counseling roles for the lord.
… Architecture is more than the four orders of Vitrubius.
… Eating too much is a vice of the Romans (I was sober against voluptuousness).
.. Did I try to demonstrate to the Greek that they were not always the brightest and to the Jews that they were not always to most pure?

Molière - El Avaro (The Miser)

2009-06-13T04:34:00.000-07:00

The local town theatre offered a classic from Molière, the miser. The first time after years in Spain that I visit a play, and than in a small town, “but” it was an enjoyable performance.
Before watching the play I read the story and found out that a few changes where made; there were six actors of which two had a double role; Fleche (Flecha) was also Valere (Valerio) and Elise (Elisa) was also Fronsine (Fronsina). This means that a few characters where left out which made the play easier to understand (may have been a motive).

The choreography was very simple showing one scene as the living room of the owner (Harpagon) and the play was adapted to the modern times. The opening scene was performed by Anselmo who was just leaving from Mariana who then meets Cleante (Cleantes) who immediately falls in love with her. The next (scene) Elisa meets her lover; this is the scene the original play starts with. The choice of this opening scene -- with Anselmo -- made sense as Anselmo is the one who has the key (clue) of the play at the end. This fact is therefore emphasized in the beginning.

The roles the actors played were quite straightforward; Cleantes was the outgoing son and Elisa was the more reserved daughter (But brother, I can be less prudent than you). Some roles were funnier than others (The cook and driver “Flecha” for example which doesn’t mean the actors’ performance was better. He did show a more likeable character.
The main actor is obviously the father Harpagon who is not a likeable character, yet his acting was impressive. He was the more experienced actor who played with the audience once in a while. (I’m really dead you know, he said in a moment to the audience). This showed that the audience (about the half of the seats was left empty) was a regular visitor of the playing company.

But as said, only my first experience in this local theatre. A theatre which is also very simple except for its entrance which is a real beauty, with the statue of a woman in position to dive into a pool. An interesting choreography. Both the theatre and the play were enough invitation to come back. Which I will.

Triplete Teatro - El Avaro de Moliere

After the play the actor of Cleantes was brought to the first-aid by some acquaintance of him as he felt during the play. That was functional and thus part of the scene, but his injury was for real... Apparently.

Real Madrid again with Florentino

2009-06-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

What is that with all those that come back? And why do clubs, nations vote for leaders to return. This is like an old mechanism. In Peru Alan Garcia returns as President. Is that a sign of health or of a lack of alternatives? And for Real Madrid..?

Florentino is the one known for his Galacticos policy... Will it work or does Real Madrid need a real change? Kaka who costs 125 million euros over the next five year will earn 45 for the club in one year. That is the expectation.

I don't know, but I'm not an expert on the subject. Only interested in the productivity behind style, and in my view (a strong) style is often not enough. Productivity requires more.

What's wrong with Wiki & Pedia?

2009-06-10T12:49:00.000-07:00

Reading the news today (El Pais - Should we trust wikipedia) I learnt about the doubt people have against this project and most of all from one of the enemies “Sam Vaknin” who published an article in American Chronicle “under the title:” the six sins of Wikipedia (Opaqueness, Anarchical, 3.more quantity than quality motivated content, Against authority (the real experts are rejected or attacked, where is the erudition), its not a real encyclopedia as such although marketed as one, it is a source of copyright violations.

Perhaps “all” true.

Than the comparison with the real encyclopedias (Britannica and Larousse). Also Microsoft Encarta was mentioned and that it was stopped by Microsoft.
That reminded me of the discussion often heart in the beginning of the Microsoft era; MS was in most cases not better than the alternatives (Unix, Mac) but the commercial formula was strong and the market was in favor of Microsoft.

Well that it again happening now with (collaborative) applications like wikipedia; it’s not better than the authorities – Britannica – but it is what the market wants.

And much of the critique will be tackled in the future. All new innovations start with these kinds of issues. Its part of the game. I agree that there a lot to improve – like the other day the story about scientology – but this will happen in due time I think.

Corporate Values - The fit between business and organization (2)

2009-06-03T06:57:00.000-07:00

There are more than forty different corporate values. Those are listed below. Now the question is; how do you select five out of these and make sure that they fit your business as well as your organization? The way to do that is now fully described in this book.

Do You Value Learning?
Learning is a corporate value that makes sense. That doesn’t mean it can be used for each and every company. One examples of learning in a values statement is: “We are committed to developing the skills and capabilities of all our staff. We value knowledge, ideas and skills. We learn from experience.” The most important issue why learning is required is to manage change. This can either be on a individual level or company wide. That is why learning is very suited as a value. It address both the employee as the organization that is to serve a business. It is one of those values that acts like a communicating vessel: if people learn the organization will change. And one may expect in the right direction, because part of learning is receiving and giving feedback about possible errors. http://ezinearticles.com/?Do-You-Value-Learning?&id=1798701

Empowerment
Empowerment is a concept that was invented by consultants. The idea was that once they would leave, the professionals in the organization would be able to apply what they had learned; they were empowered to do the job. In previous situations consultants left and took the knowledge with them. The example of the external consultant who is contracted to support an organization is also useful in the area of change management; “if someone else does it, I can’t be responsible.” This is the first side of empowerment: make sure people can be responsible. An example in which the value of empowerment is used is the following: “we will empower employees by … promoting personal responsibility and accountability along with creative thinking, innovation and informed risk-taking in all our activities.” Or. “We empower our people to maximize their potential and contribution.” “We encourage, develop and support our people to take initiative and being accountable for everything they do.” http://ezinearticles.com/?Empowerment-As-a-Corporate-Value&id=2058218

Fairness
Designing a set of corporate values requires at least knowledge of the business of a company and of the culture of the organization. It is then the task to align both by an appropriate set of values. By doing this you will notice that certain values fit one company whereas they are unsuitable for another. Fairness on the other hand is quite generic, it fits nearly any type of company. It is also a value that shows the main challenge in using values: you need a social control, some judge or referee that will stand-up when someone is violating a value. In this case the discussion is about what is fair and reasonable? And how much time and effort does it require to tell whether it is still fair or that it is no longer. http://ezinearticles.com/?Corporate-Values---Fairness&id=1023201

Employee Job Satisfaction. A Luxury Problem?

Not long ago I heard about a company who got rid of their Employee Job Satisfaction (EJS) surveys. Boldly stated they found that job satisfaction was a semi-objective figure that didn’t quite fit anymore: employees seemed bored to fill in the list, it was not clear what to do with the exceptions (the 20 percent of employees who were less satisfied whereas most other 80% were) and there was no relation to the success of the business. This is inherent to job satisfaction where factors that contribute to a higher satisfaction have little to do with the business. An example is “flexible work hours,” this requires more effort to manage (arranging backups) but increases the satisfaction of the worker involved. http://ezinearticles.com/?Employee-Job-Satisfaction---A-Luxury-Problem?&id=2062502

Managing Diversity
When (Live) searching the internet for “diversity and corporate values” the first page shows six technology (related) companies: IBM, Abbacus Technology, Dell, Google, HP and AT&T. Another company on the first page is the BBC; they state in their mission: to be the most creative company in the world. Creativity could be the goal of diversity. For all those companies creativity is important and diversity may help to manage corporate creativity. It is probably the best way to come up with new solutions and innovations; just make sure that the teams are diverse. What would be the reason to include diversity rather than creativity or innovation?

What Exactly Do You Mean By We Value Teamwork?
“We value teamwork,” who doesn’t one might ask? In order to add teamwork to the list of corporate values, one must know what exactly is meant with it. Often with values there is a certain focus. A few examples show how these differences of the same concept of teamwork are valued each in a unique way: · We embrace diversity and collaborate without functional boundaries (the problem here is the exchange between professionals who have a functional background) · Recognition that cooperation between us and our partners will be essential in revolutionizing the energy industry. (focus on partners and competences) ... http://writersblocknote.blogspot.com/2009/04/managing-diversity.html

Collaboration
“We build relationships within our organization, between the departments and domains, between agencies and between individuals (to meet client needs).” Another example: “We act with integrity, loyalty, trust, and mutual respect. We work as a team beyond organizational and geographic boundaries to achieve superior results.” (1) When do you use this value? For example as in the case above when integration is an issue. Product and services are often part of a whole and a single solution needs to fit into a wider context. http://ezinearticles.com/?Corporate-Values---Collaboration&id=1766194

Corporate Wide Passion
Recently I read about a consultant who was invited by a client hoping to find their passion. At first I found that astonishing, but then I thought, Yes, that’s not that odd. We often don’t realize where our passion lies after we talk about it with someone. Whether this is a left of right brain exercise is not really relevant.The question here is: does it make sense to use passion as a corporate value? Why bring it up. And also … when? One way to state the importance of passion is this: We relentlessly pursue our beliefs and goals, and energize others along the way. Committing to see a project through from beginning to end. "Making things happen". Having the enthusiasm and energy to "spark" others to perform. Microsoft uses: “your potential our passion.” This is a very strong statement, but is it credible? A good question when addressing this value is this: can you be more specific; what is the passion focused on? http://ezinearticles.com/?Corporate-Wide-Passion&id=2062493

Evidence Based
This value is predominantly used in healthcare environments where a physician or medical specialist uses a practice that is based on evidence. This means that the specialist doesn’t adapt new measures, techniques or methods until there is prove that it works. Evidence Based is used to organize work practices around a standard that also helps to exchange experience; if each specialist would “operate” in his own way management and control would be made impossible. Evidence based is also useful to control innovation, as new techniques and products offered by suppliers (pharmaceuticals) offer new business potential, but also risks. http://ezinearticles.com/?Corporate-Values---Evidence-Based&id=2115095

Do You Value Performance?
Performance is often used as a corporate value and is concentrated on flow, on action and results. It is used to make sure that "the troops" are moving. There is often a need for dynamics in large organizations where the feeling with what is going on (the business) is missing. Too much time is spend on meetings, analysis, reports, but these do not lead to more revenue. One problem many large corporations are dealing with is that the increasing amount of overhead is not justified by the market performance of the organization. http://ezinearticles.com/?Do-You-Value-Performance?&id=1783229

Knowledge is Valuable, Just That
Desperate Housewives recap: Knowing is Half the Battle... (1) What kind of company or organization would value knowledge most? Knowledge is similar to “expertise,” but expertise is associated to the expert, someone who knows very much about a certain – specific – topic. Some formulations of the importance of knowledge are: - Our business depends on the skills and knowledge of our staff and we are committed to developing the skills and capabilities of all our employees. - The value of Know-Ηow: Investing in knowledge, Enlarging the reserve of knowledge, Taking initiatives to acquire knowledge. - Global expertise - local knowledge - We firmly believe that, in any undertaking, it is necessary to be knowledgeable. http://writersblocknote.blogspot.com/2009/03/knowledge-is-valuable-just-that.html

Become the best / Excellence
This is a value that is not often seen in the market: “We go for the extra mile to ensure that we deliver excellent service in all that we do.” Global Perspective Learning from the best in the world, we aim to become the best in the world. (toyota-industries.se/Corporate-values/Pages/Five-values.aspx) This value sounds like a mission. Alternatives: - excellence - eminence - first-rated The problem of these values is that they are focused on the organization, rather on people. How would a recruitment officer check a curriculum of a trainee on excellence? Is that someone who works for the Blue chips? http://ezinearticles.com/?Corporate-Values---Become-the-Best&id=1783236

Speed, agility & acceleration
All fine but these are not corporate values. Values are personal or can be translated to individual employees. What do you communicate to an employee you are going to hire: “no matter what you do, but do it fast!” That is a secure way to fail. “Speed is a driving force in our company. It enables us to create new products and technologies as well as processes. Being agile and adaptive.” Some (more) examples: - “We act with speed and agility.” - “Speed and agility. We are resourceful and adaptable, and we achieve results faster than our competitors.” (HP) http://writersblocknote.blogspot.com/2009/04/corporate-values-speed-agility.html

Creativity
How important is creativity as a corporate value, when should it be used and how can you use this information in your career? Creativity: “we encourage initiatives where solutions, approaches can be different than the current ones.” A disadvantage of using creativity as a corporate value is that one could ask: why was it necessary to add this as a value? Wasn’t it valued before the implementation of the values? Was the company not creative enough? Creativity is therefore one of the risky value like “customer oriented” or “innovation”. http://ezinearticles.com/?Creativity-As-a-Corporate-Value&id=1791443

Profitability
Not long ago the CEO of Citi announced by the famous e-mail that the group was profitable again. It was one of the factors in the turning-point in the falling financial market. “CITIBANK Singapore, the locally incorporated consumer arm of the American banking behemoth, reported record profits of $703.6 million… The bank said its diversified business model managed to maintain a 'stable and steady' growth in its operations in Singapore, although its parent unit was hit hard by the global financial turmoil.” (straitstimes) There is no doubt that Citigroup valued profitability. But what inherent corporate value of Citigroup made that it nearly collapsed? Profitability at any cost? http://writersblocknote.blogspot.com/2009/04/corporate-values-profitability.html

Results
Results as a corporate value can serve to align efforts and outcomes: “We create value and deliver quality outcomes. Aligning efforts to outcomes.” This is one of the general and overall issues all companies are dealing with; how do we make sure that effort results in … more products sold, a higher customer satisfaction or higher financial outcome? Results is a reasonable value for nearly any company that is to adjust its organizational process to business performance. For instance, if results are valued you may expect conflicts in an organizational area like Research if: … it leads to nowhere. Research must be focused to operational activities. Too much freedom in research may shape an organizational culture towards amateurism. “nobody cares.” http://writersblocknote.blogspot.com/2009/04/corporate-values-results.html

Fun / have fun
We stimulate in an environment for people to have fun. This value could also fit under service and support in which a good climate supports the whole organization. "We stimulate in an environment for people to have fun," that is one way of phrasing fun as a corporate value. Fun is a very focused corporate value that can be used for certain companies, but obviously not for all and this is not only true for Fun but also for values like "Passion." When to use Fun as a value? For example in a place where people work very independently and where the climate of the workplace is important to foster achievements. http://ezinearticles.com/?Have-Fun!&id=1791550

Innovation
Innovation as a corporate value; I would not use it… “Innovation is a driving force in our company. It enables us to create new products and technologies as well as processes.” The above statement is more of a wish what the company would like the achieve than a statement about value what it likes to be. http://ezinearticles.com/?Corporate-Values---Innovation&id=1779901

Expertise

Expertise can be described as: “We build our strength on functional knowledge and being recognized as the authority in what we do.” A similar value is "Knowledge": “Our business depends on the skills and knowledge of our staff and we are committed to developing the skills and capabilities of all our people.” An interesting example is this one: “Global expertise – local knowledge” (1) this is very suitable for a research company. This statement is very interesting for more reasons, but most of all because it directly supports this and another value on the side (client driven). It communicates first of all the learned lessons that global expertise (what you sell) can’t go without local knowledge (what you buy), because of cultural differences that operate on a local level. It this knowledge is directly communicated to the visitor (potential clients) of the site which makes it very exemplary. An excellent example where values are credible and make sense! http://ezinearticles.com/?Corporate-Values---Expertise&id=1779893

Accountability
To understand the corporate value “Accountability” imagine the role of the accountant in the organization. First a definition; a clear definition of accountability is available at wikipedia: "Accountability is defined as "A is accountable to B when A is obliged to inform B about A’s (past or future) actions and decisions, to justify them, and to suffer punishment in the case of eventual misconduct" http://ezinearticles.com/?Corporate-Values---Accountability&id=1127017

Positive work environment
Recently a marketing campaign in St Petersburg in Russia promoted the “smile.” Due to the crisis people felt more insecure and the campaign was focused on the attitude and atmosphere. An incentive to improve the climate. And a way for people to bond where they all share the same problems. A smile can make a difference. http://ezinearticles.com/?Corporate-Reminder---A-Positive-Work-Environment&id=2220050

Conviviality
Corporate values have a purpose and therefore each value has a certain focus to serve that purpose. Some values are focused on the client (friendliness), others are more product oriented (we value knowledge) and others are focused on resources (integrity, ethics, professionalism). Conviviality is a value that is focused on the overall climate. It has not a specific goal as many other values have, but it indirectly serves the organization. According to Merriam Webster, conviviality is: “relating to, occupied with, or fond of feasting, drinking, and good company: a convivial host, a convivial gathering.” Synonyms (from thesaurus): gaiety, sociability, entertainment, merrymaking, merriment http://ezinearticles.com/?Corporate-Values---Conviviality&id=1999434

Security / safety

These are not real corporate values, but can be understood as “protected values.” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_Values) There is often no question about safety and security although the level of provided (corporate) safety is open to discussion. Companies that operate in in-secure environments will deal more with safety than companies where safety is not an issue. Oil companies and the recent example of transport by ship which may be attacked by pirates are examples where safety is at stake. http://writersblocknote.blogspot.com/2009/04/corporate-values-security-safety_14.html

Honesty

If you have this value in your corporate statement, this is what you should consider: get it out. First of all because it is a cliché. It has no real value because people will rate it low on credibility. Not only costumers will do this, but also employees will accept the value and than will not realize what it really means. The second reason is that you cannot manage this value. It will cost you too much work to do so. It requires some kind of investigator culture where people are judged on what they say, whereas what you really want is to rate people on what they do. http://ezinearticles.com/?Corporate-Values---Honesty&id=733882

Trust
Trust, not only companies are based on them, but every other transaction in the world is. Would you trust the following: We build trust by acting ethically, transparently and consistently. Trust goes hand-in-hand with credibility. If people (banks’ clients) notice contradictory actions they will sense suspicion. The whole financial system is based on trust. Banks not only now but since their foundation trust on clients not withdrawing their money all at the same time. Community service Community Service: Our firm strives to make a difference in the community by volunteering our time and by donating 2% of our annual revenue to qualified charities and organizations. http://writersblocknote.blogspot.com/2009/04/corporate-reminder-trust.html

Organization above oneself
This value is not often used. But occurs, for example in the following statement: Organization above oneself: creating an environment where everyone feels free to speak up. Showing care and mutual respect for others' views. Sharing responsibilities and rewards. Some see it “the organization above oneself” as part of independence; what someone values for their selves may conflict with what would be best for the organization and this may not interfere the decision taking process: http://writersblocknote.blogspot.com/2009/04/organization-above-oneself.html

Lean
Lean is a value that is not often used, and there is a reason for it: it is very particular. It is one of those values where you should wonder: what would clients think of this? Why do you value leanness? What does it mean for us? Is the product mean, focused on the "economical" market... Lean is the opposite of fat. And fat (Companies) can be useful to cope with a recession. http://ezinearticles.com/?Corporate-Values---Lean-(but-Not-Mean)&id=1795842

Corporate Values - The fit between business and organization (1)

2009-06-03T05:34:00.000-07:00

I have written about more than forty different corporate values. Those are listed below. Now the question is; how do you select five out of these and make sure that they fit your business as well as your organization? The way to do that is now fully described in this book.

Leadership
Some values are more focused on the internal organization, on organizing on what is important from the company’s identity… other values are more concerned about what happens outside, on the business and world that is changing. Leadership is an example of the latter.
An example of this value is the following: “Leadership vocation in all the markets where we operate, with the best teams and always focused on customers and results. (from a financial service provider)
http://ezinearticles.com/?Leadership-As-a-Corporate-Value&id=1852798

Enterprising
“Enterprising” as a value is similar to “entrepreneurship” which is tricky because it is vague; what do we really mean by it?
However enterprising is valuable for clients when additional value can be added to existing products and services already available in the market. The entrepreneur finds new ways, new products, new services…
But what is really meant with…”Enterprise Spirit?” Promote a cohesive and collaborative enterprise spirit with employees and customers (Albancat)
http://writersblocknote.blogspot.com/2009/04/corporate-values-enterprising.html

Courageous
Courageous is not a very common value. It can be best compared with a value like “passion” which is also focused on emotions.
If organizations want to use this value the first thing they should ask is: why? There are many situations where courage is needed, for example: - Communicating bad news. - Showing an alternative opinion knowing there won’t be support for it. - Communicating a bad practice when noticing it.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Courageous---More-Than-a-Simple-Value&id=1795904

Respect
Corporate values can help organizations and management of these in the task of organizing. The first step in doing so is finding those values that matter. This is not a simple task because there are many different organizations and there are even more values to “choose” from.
Some values are focused on behavior. On the behavior of people in the organization and the corporate value defines like an arbiter what behavior is acceptable and what is not. Imagine that if this works out how power full it will be. If you have a large group of people (and corporations fit such a criteria) than a simple guideline will support the management approach.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Corporate-Values-in-The-Spotlight---Respect&id=592502

Brand Equity as a Corporate Value
Both brand and equity are two complex terms and concepts, so you might wonder whether they cause a problem in the corporate value statement. But there are valuable reasons to include this value in the corporate values statement.
First of all what would be a definition of brand equity? Equity is to be seen as an asset, like companies state in their annual report: employees are our most valuable asset. But employee equity wouldn’t make sense.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Brand-Equity-As-a-Corporate-Value&id=1862957

Customer Satisfaction / Customer Focused
Corporate values, they are still used. Why should a company not use them? The only reason not to use them would be if they are meaningless and (therefore) not “alive.” Values should when used be part of the day-to-day business, they should be used throughout the organization, if not they are useless.
Examples of corporate values that are often chosen will help to explain that it is not that easy to make values really valuable.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Corporate-Values---Customer-Satisfaction-and-Customer-Focused&id=1779872

Friendliness
Values are a useful way to communicate a desired way of organizing, but they are also a source of conflict. Let’s take this one, the first value expressed by a servicing company:
Being friendly (more general stated as: friendliness)
This is a wide area but a site (1) has detailed the social interaction of friendliness in sub categories:
· through a desire for a long-term close relationship with a character.
· through socially acceptable forms of physical contact.
· by taking the initiative in requesting a character to share in a pleasant social activity (inviting).
· through extending assistance to a character or offering to do so (helping, protecting).
· by offering a gift or loaning a possession to a character.
· or ... expressions of friendliness that may be conveyed through either verbal or gestured means. ... sympathizing with or praising someone (verbal).
· or ... Friendliness is felt toward a character but it is not expressed overtly (covert).
http://ezinearticles.com/?Focus-On-Corporate-Values---Friendliness&id=663674

Independence as a Corporate Value
Independence is a value that gives direction in the world of networking. But rather than autonomy, independence is focused on an own identity and role that is not isolated from the rest. This is the problem with autonomy: it may lead to isolation.
An example of a corporate value statement focused on Independence could look like this: "We reach independent judgments about all that we do, but also maximize our influence and leverage additional resources through strategic partnerships."
http://ezinearticles.com/?Independence-As-a-Corporate-Value&id=1779885

Do You Value Integrity?
This is the cliché of the corporate values, but sometimes it is just what organizations need. Integrity is also the value that is most used. And that is logical because the value is quite universal. Nearly every company could use it.
An example of such a statement could look like this: “We are fair and honest in all our interactions.” Fairness however is not part of integrity, but has another purpose.
An other good example on “Integrity” is shown on the site of the iblgroup (1): - acknowledging mistakes and not looking for scapegoats - behaving in a consistent manner towards bosses, colleagues and subordinates - respecting commitments and being true to one's word
Here too, respect is not exactly the same as integrity, but is more focused on judgment of others, whereas integrity is focused on one’s own actions.

... (more on) integrity: http://writersblocknote.blogspot.com/2009/05/on-integrity.html

Social Responsibility
Corporate Values reflect a company’s culture. The values make that the culture is to be communicated which is a difficult task.
To understand a suitable value statement for a company, one should understand what culture is and whether the statement really represents the culture of the company. Simply said: culture is what a group of people have in common, for example facing similar questions and problems because they operate in a similar business. This is the internal element of culture, the other one is external oriented: in what environment does this group of people operate and how does this affect them. How do they interact with the environment? http://ezinearticles.com/?Social-Responsibility-and-The-Corporate-Values-Statement&id=1871566 Statement&id=1871566

Business Ethics versus Staff Morale
This article is designed around two keywords: - business ethics, abbreviated as BE and - staff morale, abbreviated as SM.
http://writersblocknote.blogspot.com/2009/04/corporate-values-staff-morale-versus.html

Stakeholders' Interest
A normal company operates in a business environment of suppliers of which it receives valuable resources and customers to whom it sells added value in form of products and services. Modern business however has become more and more complex and the concept of “community” entered the business scene; an organization is more than a static entity that offers products and services to consumers.
A hospital for instance is part of a local community for which it offers job opportunities. And in the same way a company’s head-office services a community; a potential move of the head-office to a more knowledge-intensive area may influence the local community. Oil companies are dealing with action-groups that stand-up to protect the environment and decisions to enter a new business area may count on resistance from these stakeholders.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Corporate-Values---Stakeholders-Interest&id=2111157

Do you Value Professionalism?
“We seek to apply the best possible skills, knowledge and experience to all our services to clients,” is one way of describing professionalism. The basics are indeed about: skills, knowledge and experience.
Some other examples on professionalism:
… which means us to be eager and able of doing things properly and better… we should treat our business with concern and sense of responsibility … we should try to be the best in the business we are doing. Whether clients will respect or demand professionalism is not always true. But it is often important in a service-oriented business. Like that of consultants that have knowledge and experience … they are said to be professionals.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Do-You-Value-Professionalism?&id=1798808

People Matter
This value is often combined with the clause: Quality.
For example.
We know that our people are the most valuable asset and make the difference. At every level of our organization we want our people to become "best-in-class". Therefore, to constantly increase the quality, we are committed to invest in training and development of our people. Every person and every idea counts.
http://writersblocknote.blogspot.com/2009/04/corporate-values-people-matter.html

Open Communication
This is a value that is focused on the organizational process and a reason to select this value into the corporate values statement is that the organizational process is more important that the result. This may apply for those companies where the result is not a clear cut product but rather a somehow intangible, not transparent service. Think of governmental organizations, universities, etc.
Some examples of the “Open Communication” statement are: - Ongoing communication among all levels of the organization - … we strive to foster a corporate culture that stimulates free and open communications. - meaning: clear guidelines, understanding, demonstrating integrity, friendly, open two way communication, approachable, encouraging feedback… - teamwork and open communication - All … are encouraged to openly share their opinions and views - clarity, dialogue and active listening - … true transparency leading to clarity. - recognizing the diversity … working in our company … open and free exchange of views and ideas is valued.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Corporate-Values---Open-Communication&id=2120118

... Next

Paul Cliteur - Moral Esperanto

2009-06-02T04:15:00.000-07:00

In Today's Newspaper (El Pais) Paul Cliteur claims that the best way to deal with religion is (popularly said) to manage by laicism: the clear separation of state and religion. That is the only guarantee that all religions get the attention they deserve (without one dominating the other). And it is the best way to depart (from Laicism) to a moral Esperanto.

A moral Esperanto is a moral language that everybody should speak and understand in a multicultural world.

The article doesn't focus on how this is achieved.

The metaphor of Esperanto in Moral is tempting. There must be some kind of a basis that everyone speaks and understands when moral is involved. “This is not done…” a moral code. But how to get there?

Culture is language. The engineering language is different than the sales language which shows variation with the religious language.

But will moral Esperanto solve this one:
“Abortion is a greater offense than violating kids by Catholics,” as claimed by the Church?

It will take years to develop a (moral) language to solve these... There must be an easier way I think.

Is Asia a Subcontractor of the West?

2009-06-02T01:28:00.001-07:00

Someone just visiting the CNBC news show - Cambridge Professor whose name I can't recall.. Will ... said something about the recovery process.

We - the west - cannot depend too much on China and Asia as these markets are "subcontractors." Interesting concept. India is the outsource market of the western world, but also more than that (Tata Motors)... But an interesting thought: Asia as a subcontractor, showing the productivity distribution in a global world.

And the Chinese Rembini is not a convertible currency, so China will not have a leading role... as long as that remains as it is.

Weak brothers (Citi, GM) have to leave DJ Index

2009-06-02T01:26:00.000-07:00

Citigroup and GM have to leave the Dow Jones Index. We all understand; the index has to go up and than the weak brothers will have to leave, logically.

Temporarily Out-of-Office

2009-06-01T01:03:00.001-07:00

One of the most striking differences between the blogger and professional journalist is that the latter is organized in a team. If he gets ill, there is always a backup for him to cover a news story.

Availability is basically the first fundament of a formal organization. The organization is able to offer a service – during office hours – even when someone is temporarily out-of-office.

The blogger who is not organized will have to cope with this business continuity issue.

The journalist will never have to communicate – I’m temporarily out-of-office.

I will be…

Philips & the Saeco Acquisition

2009-05-29T01:50:00.000-07:00

Philips is a company that is changing its product catalog over the last years by putting more emphasis on the design-part of product (and production). Before this design focused phase, the company outsourced much of its production to become more efficient. Now the emphasis is set on the added value of design. This trend is consolidated in the Consumer Lifestyle sector that was setup in 2007 (according to its annual report) in which the mere focus on a product is transformed to client experiences.

The successful Senseo – a dual sourcing project with coffee producer Sara Lee could be seen as an example of this new approach. Somewhere shifting from a normal product towards the usage where client experience is more important.

Only recently, the Senseo started to become successful in a country like Spain which was not the initial target market. The Spanish citizens traditionally are more accustomed to drink coffee in bars as a social event.

However the recent recession in Spain changed these habits of people where they now consume coffee at home, like in the northern countries.

A next step in this phase however is the higher client experience in the coffee drinking ritual. There are stages of perfection in this, and Senseo is focused on the lower side of the market: where the coffee machine and its price is more important than the overall experience.

Other produces however have made this step targeting the upper market segment.

This is where Saeco comes in. The recent acquisition of the Italian coffee machine maker – Saeco - is a further step in the right decision.
When thinking about design, who doesn’t think about Italians… and their eye for beauty and design.

With this acquisition, Philips shows that its strategy is serious, and the implementation continues.

(Also) From Nestle to Unilever

2009-05-27T05:29:00.000-07:00

Pier Luigi Sigismondi is the new manager for the Supply Chain-division of Unilever. Like the new CEO, Sigismondi is also from rival Nestle.
Who else will join the new CEO's team?

3 Billion Euros: The Value of a New CEO

2009-05-27T05:26:00.000-07:00

It happened today. Unilever announced that they have found a new CEO, in anticipation to the foreseen retirement of the current CEO at the end of this year.
In a financial market that was in decline, Unilever was one of the few stocks that climbed 1,23 euros more than 6%. When we multiply this with the number of outstanding shares of the company, we get the value of (about) 3 billion euros.
3 billion of euros is the value of this message. A simple anatomy could look like this.
- The value of a new CEO (60%). People think that a new manager on the steering wheel of a company is able to do what a predecessor could not achieve. - A possible change of direction (40%). The new CEO comes from another company. In this case the expected change is more profound than if the CEO would come from within the company. It will constitute a change of directions, culture perhaps. Added to this could be the fact that the new CEO comes from the competition, Nestle.
The 40 - 60 percent figures are random.
Those who complain about the excessive revenues of CEO’s (the 60 million euros of the CEO of Porsche is often taken as a benchmark) should think twice. Apparently the market values a CEO like this. 3 billion euros is not something to ignore.
Of course it is all speculation, the value is based on expectations (like that of a possible split-up of the company) and with any announced changes, these still needs to be delivered yet. However a new CEO is valued to what he can do. And one of these things is not even attributable to his arrival but has been valued at forehand: setting new expectations. How he will do it and whether he will deliver doesn’t count that much.

That was under different market circonstances... previously published on ezinearticles on September 4th 2008, just before the decline.
http://ezinearticles.com/?3-Billion-Euros---The-Value-of-a-New-CEO&id=1468541

Champions league final: Manchester United (0) - Barcelona (2)

2009-05-27T04:19:00.000-07:00

Before the match.
Tonight is the final of the champions league. In the preparation, yesterday Ronaldo responded to a journalist: "I'm not worried about Messi... (and) I think we are better."

There is no point in thinking or believing to be better. It just a matter of winning a game.

Tonight we'll see.

Afterwards.

After 45 minutes Barcelona (1) - Manchester United (0):

Exactly nine minutes MU was able to dominate the beginning of the game. But the counter attack and goal was not calculated. They (MU) had a hard time to enter the game. But 1-0 is not the final score, I think...

After 90 minutes. What can you say. They deserved to win. "Who was better" changed into who played superior: Barcelona.

... Just Thinking: Real Madrid, will they still be interested in Ronaldo after watching this game? I wonder.

Philips - Annual Report 2008

2009-05-26T01:34:00.000-07:00

In order to appreciate the 2008 report it is wise to start with the 2007 annual report, which reported about important changes in the organization. (In both cases the focus is on the textual version and not on the financial data.)

I - Some highlights in annual report of 2007:

- 56% of sales from products introduced in the last three years.
- Business week innovation ranking: from No.67 to position 38 in 2007
- March 2007 500 million-th shaver was produced
- Philips was one of the ten fastest growing brands in overall global brand value.
- mentioning of acquisition in healthcare: Respironics ()
- mentioning of acquisition in lightning: Genlyte ()
- divested: mobile phone operation, set-top box activity and ownership in MedQuist* (and Optical Storage).
- Sales in Emerging market is about 30% of group sales (60% of the employees work in mature markets, 40% in emerging markets)
- 5 billion share buy-back program
- Green innovations, Green products (f.e. Ecovision iv) expected growth in Green sales to rise to 30% (of group revenue) over the next five years.

* - a (60%) stake in Medquist was acquired in 2000, at the time (of the “new economy) seen as strategic, but the company got into problems. It took seven years to divest this acquisition. In 2004 the company wrote-off 580 million of the acquisition. Which shows how important the acquisition and divestment process is in implementing the strategy.

Performance against targets.
Average sales growth (5- 6 %) achieve above 7.5% EBITA.
Continue reploy capital trough: value-creating acquisitions (small fill-ins as well as larger platforms), share buyback and dividends.
Drive a culture of superior customers experience by delivering on brand promise and implementing the Net Promotor Score (NPS - a single key metric of customer experience) in the company. Currently 50% of key business have industry leading scores. Target: increase this to 70% by 2010.
Be exciting place to work, bring employee engagement to high performance benchmark level within 2 to 3 years.
Vision 2010: creating a simpler, stronger and better company (in three market sectors: healthcare, lightning and consumer lifestyle).
2007 was the year of organizational change into the three sectors;
a. Healthcare: Medical Systems and Home Healthcare solutions are grouped under this new sector.
b. Lightning: Remained the same. But strategically shifts towards applications (services) instead of products, supported by a growing demand for energy-efficient solutions.
c. Consumer lifestyle: Combines Consumer Electronics (CE) and Domestic appliances and Personal Care (DAP) to boost consumer lifestyle proposition as a whole.

Overall change since 2001: From inward-looking towards market and consumer-oriented. No longer volatile and cyclical…

The change into the new sector approach was needed to achieve a higher growth rate. In the 2007 report, the CE division (now consumer lifestyle) had the lower growth rate (3.1%)

Mission: to improve the quality of people’s lives trough timely introduction of meaningful innovations.

The report mentions seven Strategic Drivers (people, brand, innovation, leadership and engagement, growing business, sustainability and best-of-class attitude)

Management agenda 2008:
- integrate and leverage acquisitions
- decisive steps in unsatisfactory EBITA margins at Connected Displays
- Improve productivity as a driver for margin expansion
- Resource investments in emerging markets
- Increase innovation focus
- Continue to drive a culture of superior customer experience.
- Bring employee engagement to high-performance benchmark

Other changes:
The marketing focus on “insight-driven” innovations… critical success-factor (CSF) is “to understand user needs and translate these insights into compelling solutions.”

Enabler of other businesses. For example night races. Philips solutions enable other companies, like that of the Izmir Hippodrome to allow night racing, extending in that way the use of the facilities and increase the profitability.

Supply (Chain) management
During 2007 (since the start of this change in 2003) Philips changed their supply management. The number of active suppliers was reduced by 30,000 to 20,000 suppliers.
(80/20-rule: 80% of BOM spending is concentrated on 255 suppliers. Furthermore to minimize risk the company applies a dual sourcing strategy with suppliers on one side and strategic partnerships for strategic sourcing.

Change in Leadership model. Somehow explicitly mentioned, is the change in leadership… “we have required everyone to look beyond the boundaries of their own activity.”
Cultural change: emphasizing a culture to encourage people to take calculated risk. “Failure is part of learning”
And… from big single initiatives towards several (smaller) initiatives.

Supervisor board discussions (amongst others):
- integration of CE and DAP in consumer lifestyle.
- Investigation into possible anticompetitive activities in CRT industry.

II – Annual report 2008

“Because health and well-being matters to people… Their needs drive our actions.”

Presentation of the figures over 2008, the shown highlights:
- 773 million euros free cash flow
- 12% comparable sales growth in Healthcare in Emerging markets
- 0,70 euros dividend

However the sector that performed worse was: Consumer Lifestyle In mature markets:
Comparable sales growth: group (-2.7) Emerging markets (3.8) and mature markets (-5.5)
Comparable sales growth in sectors: Healthcare (5.6), Consumer lifestyle (-8.5) and Lightning (2.6).

(New) Facts (the most positive are highlighted):
- more than 50% of revenues is generated from business in global leadership positions (was less than 40% in 2007)
- 31% of revenue comes from Emerging markets
- gain in brand value: 8% during 2008.
Continued divestments in TMSC and LG-Displays

One striking difference between the 2008 Annual report and the previous report 2007 is that 2008 is more focused on the company. There is a part on the history of the company (founded in 1891 by Anton and Gerard Philips) and there is a section or corporate values:
- delight customers
- deliver great results
- develop people
- depend on each other (one Philips) or restated: the organization above oneself.

Changes in the board of management (Our leadership):
- Theo van Deursen (1946) left (retired). The board constitutes now six members instead of seven in 2007.
Changes in the Group Management Committee:
- Daniel Hartert (1958) and Barbara Kux (1954) resigned
Interesting about this change is that they both were the only member on this board since 2003. The others and remaining group are only member since 2006 and 2007. Kux’s responsibility was Supply management and Philips focus area to reduce the number of suppliers.
Changes in the Supervisory board:
- W. de Kleuver (1936) and L. Schweitzer (1942) left the board, no new members.
Vagueness in the supervisory board (statement): “The SB visited Lightning and Healthcare to further familiarize itself with the business and the respective management teams. Also, the yearly Corporate Research Exhibition was visited, at which the lastest technology projects and inventions of the company are presented.”
“Familiarize with the business… was visited…” This is not what a board member should do: wine and dine. Instead it should actively demand and search for improvements in the organizations and business implementation of the strategy. Familiarize is not an activity for a supervisor. The less familiar the better. Engagement is for employees. Supervisors should remain on a distance!

Not longer mentioned in the report: Innovation ranking.
The Business Week ranking now shows only the 50 most innovative companies of which Philips is not part. The only Dutch company mentioned is ING.

One of the #1 Business issues to solve remains the TV business. Consumer Electronics (CE) and DAP is now aligned under “Consumer Lifestyle” but that doesn’t mean that the top issues are solved. The 2008 management Agenda promised: “decisive steps in unsatisfactory EBITA margins at Connected Displays.”
In this context, the 2008 report mentions the “further divestment of LG-displays.” More change is to expect in this area...

- - -

The recent acquisition of the Italian coffee machine manufacturer Saeco in which it continues its move into design oriented products. In that area are many different levels to acknowledge. Saeco is in the so-called "higher-end segment" of the coffee machine market.

VW and Porsche Resumed merger talks

2009-05-25T08:25:00.000-07:00

Why?
VW lend Porsche 700 million euros in March of this year. Porsche is near financial problems due to this stake in VW. The original target was 75%, but they had to stop at 50%.

There seems to be only one option: continue merger talks as the sale of 50% stake will do VW no good. Looks like a catch-22.

Scientology in France & Possible Fraud

2009-05-25T01:40:00.000-07:00

PARIS - Seven prominent members of the Church of Scientology and the group's two main branches in France go on trial accused of fraud. (to June 17) (Source: REUTERS)

Mental pressure is said to be the used mechanism to convince people to donate to the Church of Scientology (CoS).

According to the news someone who was offered a free personality test (by scientology), was forced to donate a large sum of money.

Does CoS profit from Mental weakness?
To answer that one should find out why people believe. And why do they no longer believe in a traditional religion and switch to a sect? Are those who believe mental weaker or stronger than those who do not? And does the CoS make advantage of those who are indeed easier to convince against what they really feel? Weak of mind?
I "believe" they do. But we have to wait for the trail in France before judging this organization and the method they use.

- - -

A Cultural View on Scientology
“In architecture, everything is interesting.” In the same kind of reasoning, every type of company or institution is interesting when observing business architecture. In some cases, like this one, some mayor characteristics can be derived not from the company (the Church of Scientology) itself, but from its clients or in this case followers.
When thinking about scientology, the first thing that comes to my mind is: it is made in the US. Scientology is a product that is linked to the nature of its environment. As I see it, is a combination of the American Dream (you can achieve what you want if you fight for it...) a relative young culture compared with European countries and most of all with a competitive mindset (I can do what you do, and even better). This last refers to the church: the basic diversity in religions was not enough for some so they invent a better one: Scientology or Dianetics.
In that quest they are not really creative and they have Europe as their main competitor: “Dianetics is derived from the Greek “dia” (through)… and “nous” (mind)…” The old Greek civilization has been the benchmark to give it a monumental tough like in real architecture. This was invented by Ron Hubbard.
Its marketing approach is also pure US-minded based on the principle of endorsement. Try to get a V.I.P. on board and he or she will lead the growth strategy. We all know who the VIP of Scientology is… Striking enough I understand that most other VIP’s are film stars too – which again seems logical.
When reading about scientology I found that a new candidate for a VIP is David Beckham. I think though, that he will never join Scientology, even though or despite the fact that Tom Cruise is his friend. And, again for cultural reasons. Film stars are a perfect match for a religious based institute (I also read that scientology is a legal company based on a profit structure) like that of scientology.
Film stars are first of all and in general endowed with normal intelligence, which makes that skeptism is a common enemy for them. Besides this, they have a special talent which makes them unique in the world, famous and which gives many of them an ego problem: “what is it that makes me that special?” Film stars are also lonely which could be one of the reasons that they divorce more than average. Their life is arranged often more by others than by themselves, although some have chosen to manage their own course.
A Football star however comes from a different world. If you ask people who is the best player ever, only a few names pop up. Ask this about film stars and each has its own preference. A football hero is always someone in a team.
A Team player is therefore less detached from the real world as a film star is. In a film there is only one star and the antagonist, in a team there are always more stars; a keeper when it is penalty time or the attacker scoring the winning goal.
So in my opinion, Film stars define best what public and niche market of scientology, soccer players do not, not at all. Ron hubbard was a science fiction writer, I have not seen whether his books were filmed… But he probably would have had liked it.

Previously published on Ezinearticles.com

Business Architecture of Hospitals - Overview

2009-05-22T02:39:00.000-07:00

This is an overview of previous published articles on Business Architecture of Hospitals.

Business Architecture of Hospitals (1)
Before entering the business architecture of Hospitals, this article recapitulates some basics about business architecture, previously published.
Business architecture is concerned with the way a business (as offered by a company) is build-up. The idea is that in order to foster a business, an organization is to use resources.This can be organized for operational activities which have a behavioral or dynamic characteristic, but there are also resources that will be used to build and rebuild structures. Like, the structure of organizations which change often, or information systems (2) to support a business process, and there are management systems -- like a balanced score card -- that have to be setup first before they can be used (3).
There are so many ways in which this can be done that, especially for more complex businesses -- like that of a hospital -- an overview is indispensable to make sure that the different parts support the same kind of goals and that the whole is more than the sum of the individual parts (4). Other differences are that some architectures are more open than others.
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Business Architecture of Hospitals (1)

Business Architecture of Hospitals (2)
Business Architecture starts with ... the building, but be careful, not to "interfere" with the real (physical) architecture. The type of building defines quite a lot of the organization in sense of logistics. Here too architects have copied from what they have seen before in other sectors. The pavilion model for example is also used to structure prisons, where each pavilion could accommodate different kind of prisoners, and respond in this way to different organizational requirements.
Some hospitals have merged but kept their individual building structures. The architecture should then combine different requirements like efficiency and effect. A common solution in this case is to build a new hospital on a new location, though this is not always needed.
Typically for hospitals is their location, whereas for most businesses the location has become less important because of the internet. But the hospital business is centered on people and accessibility is a key requirement.
…
Business Architecture of Hospitals (2)

Business Architecture of Hospitals (3)
Hospitals are complex organizations and that is mainly because of the complexity of the business. This article elaborates on this topic by focusing on a single element of the hospital business: the dialysis treatment. Dialysis is needed for end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients. These patients can only be cured by kidney transplantation or they otherwise need a frequent dialysis that emulates the function of the kidney. Estimations of the ESRD patients fluctuate. The company Rockwellmed that offers dialysis services made a taxation of about 2 million ESRD patients.
The business is concentrated around the required treatment (and previous diagnosis) of these patients. This obviously requires first of all active participation of the patient. Different kinds of treatment (hemio or peritoneal dialysis) require more or less involvement of the patient. This requires information or brochures about the treatment and formal acceptance of the patient. Then, this business (process) must be organized, and that involves at least the following actions and resources:
· a medical / nursery assistance
· space to accommodate the treatment
· medical equipment
· medicine
· information systems to update the treatment with the patient dossier and general clinical databases.
There are a large number of issues that requires a management decision for this specific client group. To name a few issues, just think of the following:
· Should we execute these treatments in-house or are more specialized centers a better solution for both the client and the hospital?
· From what kind of supplier do we buy the dialysis equipment or the medicine)?
· How is the information updated when the treatment is outsourced?
…
Business Architecture of Hospitals - Part 3

Business Architecture of Hospitals (4)
…Also important is the relation of these patient groups with other patient groups.
This has both an operational as a strategic impact. ESRD patients are a group of patients that have a chronic disease. These require a different kind of attention than other patient-groups. To organize a hospital efficiently, the management must know what types of businesses have to be “channeled by“ the organization. Besides patients with a chronic disease, there are patients that require urgent treatment, a traumatic-oriented service or other that have a rare disease which treatment can be planned together with the other operations.
A hospital, like any other company, must make organizational choices that are linked to a certain business. In case of a hospital the choice could be to concentrate on specific cures or diseases (like cardio-vascular, oncology, etc) for which it offers the natural choice in the area. Thus, In the area of ESRD, the choice to outsource this treatments to specific centres will be linked to the strategic orientation of the hospital (this orientation is limited by governmental policies that require a basic proposition for all types of patients…)
The strategic element requires market analysis. The growth rate was mentioned previously, but what about the number of patients? Previously mentioned company estimated approximately two million ESRD patients world-wide, others estimate 920,000 dialysis patients worldwide growing by around 7%-9% per year. Yet an other publication indicates a that the “growth rate is five times the world population growth (1.3%) and continues to grow beyond all early expectations, showing no sign of reaching a steady state within the next two decades.” (1). This growth rate must be related to other treatments so that a long-term plan can be made.
There are some main suppliers in this market that provide dialysis equipment:
· Frenesius Medical Care (Germany)
· Gambro (Sweden)
· Baxter (US)
· B.Braun (Germany)
…
Business Architecture of Hospitals - Part 4

Business Architecture of Hospitals (5)
For the hospital it is important to be cost efficient, the suppliers wants to achieve growth in profits. The hospital must strive for independent solutions and investigations in this area. New innovations will change the scenario.
When Fresenius -- purchased a rival dialysis provider -- it had to sell outpatient kidney dialysis clinics otherwise it would violate federal antitrust laws. "Competition lowers costs and increases choices for consumers," ... "It's especially important that consumers have choices when it comes to life-saving medical treatments... The rising cost of health care services is a significant concern (1)
The providers of dialysis clinics and services are not exactly the same as the providers of the dialysis equipment. Frenesius and Gambro offer both (the product and the service) but B.Braun and Baxter do not. Besides Frenesius and Gambro four other centers (Independent, Davita and Dialysis Clinic Inc, offer 80% of the Dialysis centers in the US. The data is from 2006, source: (2) www.globaldialysis.com/usproviders.asp.
Besides the organizational solutions: Buy (new equipment) or sourcing by a service center) it is also possible to purchase "reconditioned equipment from various brands (FMC, Baxter, etc."
Flexibility is often a business requirement that also in this area influences the form of the organization (buy or source from third parties, etc). One reason to be flexible is the constant innovation in the medical world. One producer may offer the best solution today, but in the near future a new provider may offer a more efficient solution. Also in the dialysis environment there are constant innovations.
"Gambro enters the emerging field of regenerative medicine, using adult stem cells for restoring the functionality of damaged kidneys. As a first step, Gambro will invest ... during a three-year period for research purposes." (Annual report Gambro 2005). Other providers talk about the possibility of (external) artificial kidneys that would make the dialysis process easier...
Hospitals themselves will have to actively follow the market developments if they are not themselves already involved in research, Academic hospitals normally will be.
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Business Architecture of Hospitals - Part 5

Da vinci inside
"Da Vinci Inside," is a simple metaphor to explain the importance of business architecture...
We all know the the slogan "Intel Inside." The little sticker on new PC's and notebooks has a high promotional value. A simple sticker like that is a guarantee for quality. The buyer of a PC is now able to buy a notebook of an unfamiliar brand but still be confident that the quality is good enough. "Intel inside" equals: "quality".
However it is only part of the truth. You do not need a career in information technology to understand that the computer chip is only a part of the whole computer configuration. Yes it is very important and a high-speed processor will determine much of the processing capacity of the PC, but it is not all. The hard disk is important too. The access time to write to a disk may slow-down the capacity of a PC.
Da Vinci ® is a trademark of Intuitive Surgery. The company is a pioneer and leader in robot supported surgery. A "simple" configuration of the Da Vinci Robot may cost over a million dollars and is for many hospitals an large investment.
…
Da Vinci Inside

Business Architecture of Hospitals (6)
“.. da Vinci® Surgical System is literally changing the future of surgery, and it is doing it today by significantly improving the value of surgery for the patient in terms of improved surgical efficacy and reduced surgical trauma, minimizing the disruption to their lives …” Status the annual report (1) of the company that produces the “da Vinci” surgery Robot.
The change is first of all better for the patient. According to the same source, the value of surgery is described as a “simple equation.” Patient Value = Efficacy of the Procedure / Invasiveness
“…our goal to “take surgery beyond the limits of the human hand.” (1)
Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) or laparoscopic surgery is already a field of surgery that is gaining from the traditional surgery. Most famous and earliest examples are for the meniscus where by means of a small endoscopic camera (and small instruments) a surgical operation is performed. These “tradicional“ minimally invasive surgeries change the surgical method of the surgeon. But this change is minor to the change of the Robot-assisted surgery method of da Vinci.
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Business Architecture of Hospitals - Part 6

Business architecture of Hospitals (7)
The scene of surgery will change however. Medical specialists that operate with the robot will need constant practice. This is the same for normal surgery. If operations are not continuously performed the surgeon will loose agility and risks will increase. The change from normal surgery to robot-assisted surgery therefor of a high impact because of this: it does not only mean a new equipment, but the organization and organizational procedures and protocols will change. In addition to the reduced continuity of the business: surgeons with different backgrounds (robot or traditional experience) become incompatible which means an increased specialization of the surgery profession.
For the organization as a whole the investment for the da Vinci robot will have to be analyzed in context of the complete business. The da Vinci Robot is highly innovative and will increase the image of the hospital ("Da Vinci Inside") but a reasonable question is: how innovative is the hospital in other areas? Is the hospital leading in offering surgical operations, for example specialized in prostate operations and is it able to continuously keep up with these innovations and be able to support the maintenance costs involved? The improved client satisfaction after using the robot does not directly justify the purchase of the robot for it is able to serve a limited number of operations. New operations (treatments) will be available in the near future but not without additional investments.
For most surgeons the purchase will increase their motivation. The da Vinci robot is a symbol of innovation (status) and medical specialist are sensitive to such tools. But what will the purchase mean for the other specialists in the hospital who have a limited budget assigned and are not able to select the most innovative equipment?
This -- and much, much more -- is all part of the complete picture. A normal cost benefit analysis is not sufficient to determine whether a hospital should invest or not.
…
Business Architecture of Hospitals - Part 7

Business Architecture of Hospitals - Part 8
One of the main topics in current hospital management is about risk management and specifically risks dedicated to infections.The main point in managing this risk is that all employees have a stake in managing this risk. Secondly, systems or tools can help to reduce the risk, but a system can not eliminate the risk nor held responsible for the risk.
“Essential facts: 1. Infections contracted in hospitals are the fourth largest killer in America. Every year in this country, two million patients' contract infections in hospitals and an estimated 103,000 die as a result, as many deaths as from AIDS, breast cancer, and auto accidents combined. “ (1)
The uniqueness of the hospital as a company unlike many others is of course the production process where patients are subject to a service often the operation) offered by a large number of medical professionals and cared by even more nursery professionals. It is this intervention process where the infection becomes a danger.
Another unique feature of hospitals is that it is open to the public. There is no one at the door who prevents people with flu to enter the area.
“The Major Problem: Poor Hygiene… … physicians and other caregivers (“often”) break the most fundamental rule of hygiene by failing to clean their hands before treating patients……Cleaning hands is essential, but it's only the first step….(“they”) put on gloves, and then reach up and pull open the privacy curtain to see the next patient. That curtain is seldom changed, and it is frequently full of bacteria. The result? Caregivers' gloves are soiled again…
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Business Architecture Of Hospitals - Part 8

Business Architecture of Hospitals - Part 9Hospitals are organization with the highest information density. This means that information is highly wrapped-up in the business process, or what is about the same: the business is organized by computers or information systems.
This is the example.
In a traditional hospital the patient will be cured and consecutively be cared for a while before he gets fired. To do this a doctor or medical specialist will have to visit the patient, check whether all is ok and authorize him to leave.
…
Business Architecture of Hospitals - Part 9

Business Architecture of Hospitals - Part 10
Infrastructure is an organizational component that is often taken into account at the tail of projects. Infrastructural solutions require planning and offer the basic support for the rest of the organization.
In hospitals the main infrastructure is physical oriented. The route patients and visitors have to take (part of the logistical process) are long and depend on their treatment. Now, as the organization changes, the physical locations of surgery units, laboratories, care-units and consulting areas change frequently, the paths visitors have to select will also change. This is much like a supermarket where sometimes the fresh fruit products are at the end of the market, and sometimes the organization changes these to the entrance of the market.
In a hospital a change of locations of where the various specialists “operate” has to be signaled to clients. This is to avoid visitors asking: "where do I find the department of ..." One way of doing this is my setting up navigation which displays where the specialists rooms are to be found. If these change however, all the signs need to be changed too and this requires a lot of work. It is also possible to change the medical name plates to numbers. Now when there are changes in locations only the main navigation “menus“ must be updated which is a minor job.
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Business Architecture of Hospitals - Part 10

Business architecture of hospitals - Part 11
This part is the core of any business architecture...
It is the part of the architecture that deals with the constructions that are used in the human resources domain. On the other hand this is about the characteristics of the human side of the organization.
For example:
-
· what is the overall distribution of resources categories (medical specialists, nursing specialists, security employees, management and administration.
· How is the gender distribution in the various domains of the organization, including management positions.
· How does the organization deal with flexibility requirement on the human resource level?
· What kinds of systems are used in this area: performance management, quality management, risk management, competence management, etc. The types of systems and methodology used reveal the style and cultural values of the organization. And these should match with other parts of the organization.
Here too, coherence is key; if performance management is used it must match the construction used in the financial domain. Employees may gain a bonus based on targets and these financial incentives should be coherent with the performance indicators…
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Business Architecture of Hospitals - Part 11

Business architecture of Hospitals - Part 12
Organizational policies in the healthcare sector are a difficult area to manage. The reason is that these policies have a generic character but should serve a specific application.
Policies are the translation of the hospital strategy but are detailed for a certain domain. So there are pure medical policies, ICT, human resources, infrastructural policies. Policies are derived from corporate values. One of such a value could be that the hospital operates on an evidence based way. This is often for the smaller hospitals that have limited space for research and development and follow the trends in the market. Academic or university hospitals can combine such a principle with a more innovative directive to pioneer in certain areas for which the hospital has specialized.
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Business Architecture of Hospitals - Part 12

Business Architecture of Hospitals - Part 13 - The Mock-Up
When you have walked around the hospital and have made an inventory of all the main organizational elements it is time to build the organizational mock-up.
The mock-up is like the mock-up the architect has constructed when designing the hospital. But this mock-up is visualized differently. In my book the business architecture of hospitals (in the original title: “de bedrijfsarchitectuur van het ziekenhuis”) I have visualized this by a fish (1). The fish is made-up of three main elements: the head, the body and his tail. These parts are further divided into more specific components. Most important is that the fish is a fish when you sketch it. So basically the head, the body and the tail needs to fit together.
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Business Architecture of Hospitals - Part 13 - The Mock-Up

Business architecture of Hospitals - Part 14
The mock-up for business architecture plays a complete different role as the traditional and real mock-up for the architect. The architect of a hospital will talk and communicate with all the stakeholders and as a result of this process combined with his creativity will result in a mock-up.
The mock-up that is used for business architecture is a result of a similar process of interviews and communication about the organization. This model however serves a complete different objective. Where the architect designs a new hospital, the business architecture is all about evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization. In order to do this the mock-up will be reengineered from the input of the various managers, employees and stakeholders.
…
Business Architecture of Hospitals - Part 14

Business Architecture of Hospitals - Part 15
Once the organizational mock-up is designed -- this is some how a re-engineering of the organization -- the next step is to increase the performance of the organization. Business architecture -- as said before -- is about checking the performance of an organization. The example used is the F1 car and its driver. When didn’t he win the championship? Was it the car or the driver or a combination? And what should be changed. The driver, the motor, more training, ….?
The organization mock-up is about increasing productivity. But how?
A hospital is more than any other company continuously engaged with changes in the environment. New methods, new products on the market, new stakeholders, etc. One way to manage this would be the traditional cost-benefit analysis. Each and every thing that pops by from the market or ideas from the internal organization could be analyzed and a cost-benefit-analysis can be used to evaluate its value.
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Business Architecture of Hospitals - Part 15

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On HEALTHCARE & ASP

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Health Care & ASP Part 1 – Introduction
Hospitals belong to the category of organizations with the highest information density. This means that the business that is organized in a hospital is very independent on information. For instance: a patient gets ill suddenly, possible cause maybe a heart-attack. Someone calls an ambulance which arrives and than the hospitalization process starts. The life of the patient depends on questions like: what is the exact cause, what is the best location to go to inside the hospital and who do we trigger (call) first to cure the patient? This whole process is dependent on: the information on the patients’ health (record), hospital protocols defining who is doing what under certain circumstances and the available resources. In a matter of minutes a series of what-if questions follow and the patient is routed to the right location and the right specialists...
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http://ezinearticles.com/?Health-Care-and-ASP-Part-1---Introduction&id=2084937

Healthcare ASP Part 2 - The IBA Healthgroup
One of the fears of hospital management is that they partner a Application Service Provider and that this partner becomes insolvent. The IBA Healthgroup recently bought a ASP which made them a strong global player. The other side of this fear is that a good software package will always be bought by someone, as in the (same) case of iSoft.
Because the IBA Healthgroup is probably best know for its main label - iSoft. On the website this label is shown directly on the home page and on the "solutions" page.
IBA Health launched in Australia in 1982... developing, delivering and supporting fully integrated solutions across all health sectors.

They employe over 450 health and technology professionals ... "that continue to connect providers, payers, patients and communities around the globe" (including a research and development centre of excellence in India).

Their mission is ... "to promote clinical safety and information sharing by delivering solutions that provide real value for patients, health providers & funders - globally."
Their solutions are used throughout Australia, China, India, Middle East , New Zealand, South Africa and South East Asia and used by both (about 500) public and private hospitals... by over 3,000 Primary Care providers, over 300 Aged and Community Care facilities.
Their systems are designed and built for: 1. Hospitals & Clinics (to manage clinical, administrative and financial processes ... and to manage a patients' progress from beginning to end) 2. Primary Care (an integrated clinical and practice management system for General, Specialists & Allied Health professionals) 3. Aged & Community Care (... allowing facilities to manage residents, clients and the business) 4. Payments & Transactions (... transmitting both financial and clinical data to General, Specialist and Allied Health professionals, Medicare Australia and Private Health Funds)
…
http://ezinearticles.com/?Healthcare-ASP-Part-2---The-IBA-Healthgroup&id=2085874

Healthcare ASP Part 3 - An ASP Example. Isoft
The strategy of Isoft is to offer Application Services (ASP) for Health Care organizations. Lorenzo is their product name, an application dedicated to the health care sector and which uses a service oriented architecture. This means that each hospital or health care provider can tailor and tap the services just according to their needs.
The Electronic Health Record (EHR) is one of the most important modules of the system giving instant access to patient centric summary information. The other healtcare management domains are: Enterprise Wide Health Care, Clinical Care, Medication Management, Clinical Specialties, Patient Management, Primary Care, Disease Management, Aged Care, Community Care, Facility Administration, Electronic Health Claims.
A client case in Germany gives some more insight in the Lorenzo system; "University Hospital Aachen revolutionises hospital management (a project started in 2003 and Isoft was chosen as service provider in 2005):"
With empty public coffers, falling revenues and increased competition, German hospitals are facing a massive shake-up. The hospitals' board has developed a new operating structure representing a fundamental reorganisation of all medical and business procedures.
…
http://ezinearticles.com/?Healthcare-ASP-Part-3---An-ASP-Example---Isoft&id=2085921

Burnout School Teacher – What’s the Remedy?

2009-05-22T01:02:00.000-07:00

There is this difference between the US and Europe as vacation is concerned; in Europe workers enjoy a higher amount of vacation. But does this also mean that there are fewer cases of burnout?

“Alan Grayson to introduce Paid Vacation Act” Rep. Alan Grayson was standing in the middle of Disney World when it hit him: What Americans really need is a week of paid vacation.
…
The idea: More vacation will stimulate the economy through fewer sick days, better productivity and happier employees. (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22794.html)

I met this schoolteacher on few occasions and recently there was another incident. She summoned parents to join for a meeting because the class was in serious problems. Too many kids didn’t mind doing homework, others structurally neglected rules and didn’t pay attention to what ever the teacher told them. Kids behaved rude and deserved to be punished.
One of the measures was to skip the end-of-year party. The kids were to blame for it.

It was obvious; the school teacher was facing a serious burnout. And she was only a few years before retirement.

The parents of the “problem” children didn’t show up. Respect is (to be) taught at home, and that is where the problem starts these days.
Earlier at the start of the year she said: we don’t educate children, we only teach them. She was already tired when starting the new year.

Now was and is it all her fault? Are the kids to blame? Or the current culture of negligence, where many parents don’t see to care (especially in an environment of economic “decay” and in this region of Spain where the average level of education is very low)

The truth about her burnout however is more to do with change. “I have always done it like that, and I will continue to do so.” That was what she also said. The old hierarchical school teacher that “knows” what kids need. So her method was to demand a complete silence in the class and full dedication. But the more she emphasized this, the more the kids undermined her authority.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle? But does it?

A burnout like this is most likely due to not (wanting) to understand that times have changed. Combined with the fact not being eager to adapt to it. She would have seen and acknowledged the change, but couldn’t adapt to it.

It is often like that. People are not stubborn per se, but often don’t know HOW TO…? And than the problems start.

Remedy? More vacation won’t help in this and many other cases. Many school teachers are dependent on their professional vocation and know that their service is poorly valued. It’s a real art to make something out of it. However, worthwhile when considering a possible burnout.

Google Not in News Business

2009-05-21T05:38:00.000-07:00

What is the core business architecture of Google:
- A broker of information (search company) or more of a
- Advertising company
or a combination?
And what is the role of content; Is it an owner of content or distributer of content? Or Both?

Google dropped idea of buying newspaper: CEO
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Google considered buying a newspaper but dropped the idea, the head of the Internet search giant said in an interview with the Financial Times.
Google chairman and chief executive officer Eric Schmidt said the California company had also considered using its charitable arm, Google.org, to support news businesses seeking non-profit status but was now unlikely to do so.
He told the FT that Google had looked at buying a newspaper but concluded that potential acquisition targets were too expensive or carried excessive liabilities.
The Mountain View, California-based search and advertising company, he said, was "trying to avoid crossing the line" between technology and content.
...
US newspapers have been grappling with a steep drop in print advertising revenue, steadily declining circulation and the migration of readers to free news online.
The FT said Schmidt would not comment on reports this month that Google had been approached about buying a 20 percent stake in the New York Times Co. owned by hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners.
...Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is among the media groups which have announced plans recently to begin charging readers on the Internet.

Currently Google is in NEW - Google News, started as many initiatives as a Beta.. Now the question is: what's next?

After years of growth (and a changing context for instance in the news business), Google might change... which makes it an interesting case to follow...

Irun's Hero - Juan Pablo Urtizberea

2009-05-21T01:33:00.000-07:00

Juan Pablo Urtizberea is the man who tried to save a woman from being killed by her (ex) partner. He couldn't prevent it and he got stabbed with a knife.

But what he did and tried to achieve was an act of heroism. To act where many others would only watch or look-away.

Leaders often inspire others to do the same. This is why leadership is valued in companies...

http://www.europapress.es/nacional/noticia-juan-pablo-urtizberea-volveria-ayudar-victima-violencia-genero-20090511091151.html

Partners & Suppliers in the Oil & Gas Services Sector

2009-05-21T01:23:00.000-07:00

There are 16 companies in this (sub) sector, most of them of Norwegian origin, two from the Netherlands and three from Britain, two from France and one from Italy. These companies have been selected from a sector overview of Goldman Sachs, focused on European companies as part of portfolio of a single analyst. Operating in this sector requires specific knowledge, as noticed by the many abbreviations that are used in the annual reports and on the websites:
...

1. Acergy (Norway) Acergy’s Vision: to be the acknowledged leader in seabed-to-surface engineering and construction. It’s core competences are: 1. EPIC delivery. These can be further divided into: Deepwater operations (subsea infrastructure, umbilical, riser and flowline systems). And IMR … to keep oil and gas fields worldwide producing at optimum capacity. 2. Conventional Field Development. Conventional construction skills and capabilities that help our clients solve complex hydrocarbon extraction and field development problems, together with pipeline installation tie-ins. 3. Trunkline expertise. “We operate the worlds largest and most successful semi-submersible pipelay barge, the Acergy Piper.” Special attention is set - On the homepage – to HSE: health, safety and environmental protection. This topics is detailed by graphs about the safety awareness and the (declining) number of accidents over the years…

2. Aker Solutions (Norway) Aker Solutions is informing clearly about the sectors it operates in: oil & Gas, Refining and chemicals, mining & metals, nuclear, power generation and additional services. These latter encompasses both onshore and offshore field services. Aftermarket is one of the most strategically important and exciting growth areas for Aker Solutions. Encompassing products and services related to the maintenance, modification and development of our installed base … has enormous potential in terms of improving our revenue streams and margins.

3. Emgs - (Norway) EMGS is an acronym for – Electromagnetic (EM) geoservices (GS). Leader in technology “clearpay” for EM. EMGS offers a different service for the oil downstream sector. “Unlike seismic surveys, which use acoustic energy to locate promising geological structures, seabed logging can directly reveal the presence of commercial hydrocarbon reserves. Seabed logging can identify reservoirs before seismic surveys are conducted … And seabed logging has the potential to find hydrocarbons in traps that cannot be detected using seismic methods and would be overlooked by conventional workflows.

4. Expro International Group (GB) Oil companies choose Expro for well flow management. They need services and products to measure, improve, control and process flow from oil and gas wells. “Today,” Expro offers services and products through our five marketing areas of: Well Testing & Commissioning, Production Systems, Wireline Intervention, Drilling Choke Systems, Connectors & Measurements.

5. Fugro (Netherlands) Fugro collects and interprets data related to the earth's surface and the soils and rocks beneath and provides advice, for purposes related to the oil and gas industry, the mining industry and the construction industry. Fugro operates around the world at sea, on land and from the air, using professional, highly-specialised staff and advanced technologies and systems. Services they offer are: GEOTECHNICAL (Investigation & advice on physical & chemical characteristics of the soil and construction materials). SURVEY SERVICES (like Airborne photogrammetry, lidar, and radar mapping; topographic, hydrographic and geological surveying..). GEOSCIENCE SERVICES (Gathering, processing and interpreting geophysical data, quantitative and qualitative estimates of oil, gas, mineral and water resources …)

6. CGGVeritas (France) CGGVeritas is the world’s leading international pure-play geophysical company delivering a wide range of technologies, services and equipment … mainly throughout the global oil and gas industry. Divisions are: Geophysical Equipment and Geophysical Services. These… offer an advanced suite of seabed seismic services… also owns a recent vintage, well positioned library of multi-client land and marine seismic data. CGGVeritas is a recognized leader in data processing & imaging services, made available via a worldwide network of 28 open seismic data processing centers and 15 client-dedicated centers. Also … “offers the world-famous Hampson-Russell software that … makes sophisticated technology easily accessible by the working geophysicist and has an installed base of more than 1400 licences at over 500 petroleum and service companies worldwide.” The company has a total workforce of approximately 7,000 staff operating worldwide.

7. Petrofac (GB) Through its three divisions - Engineering & Construction, Operations Services and Energy Developments - Petrofac: designs and builds oil & gas facilities; operates or manages facilities and trains personnel; and, where synergies are identified, co-invests to provide additional alignment.

8. Petroleum Geo Services (Norway) Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) is a leading worldwide geophysical company. PGS provides an extensive range of seismic services and products for the petroleum industry including data acquisition, processing, reservoir analysis and interpretation. The company also possesses the world’s most extensive multi-client data library. Formed in 1991, the company today operates 12 marine streamer vessels including 6 vessels of the unique Ramform class. The company also operates between 7 and 10 Onshore crews and has 15 data processing centers. Since the start of the company PGS has pioneered the development of multi-streamer marine seismic acquisition, producing increasingly efficient, high-quality 3D seismic data for the industry. The company has also introduced HD3D in all environments and developed in-house expertise in geology, geophysics, and reservoir analysis. PGS also provides onshore seismic services where the company has a reputation for using the latest equipment in challenging environments and has an enviable program of sustainable development. The data processing capabilities of PGS have grown substantially from originally processing PGS data to a major player in a high technology industry. With its headquarters in Oslo, the company has offices in 22 different countries. (*) (*) – Information gathered from the companies websites… Partners & Suppliers in the Oil & Gas Services Sector - Part 2

9. Prosafe ASA (Norway) Prosafe operates globally and has about 340 employees. The company is headquartered in Larnaca, Cyprus and is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange with ticker code PRS. Operating profit reached USD 222.2 million in 2007. Prosafe comprises a parent company and the business division Offshore Support Services, the world's leading owner and operator of semi-sumbersible accommodation/service rigs. Prosafe has more than three decades of operational experience from the world’s largest oil and gas provinces. With an excellent uptime record, a solid financial performance and the ability to offer innovative in house technology and cost-efficient solutions, the company has positioned itself as a provider of high quality services. Prosafe owns and operates 12 accommodation rigs (flotels).

10. Reservoir Exploration Technology (Norway) Reservoir Exploration Technology ASA (RXT) is a marine geophysical company specialising in multi component seismic sea-floor acquisition. Until May 2006 RXT has been operating one crew in the Gulf of Mexico, a dual vessel operation comprising a shooting vessel and a cable/buoy handler. Their GOM operations started in June 2004 and have demonstrated the superior imaging capabilities of the VSO sensors and cables. RXT is planning a change according to the info on their site: “What we are going to do; Innovative business models to drive the marine multi-component business: In producing fields, For obstructed area long-offset applications, For time lapse 3D, Develop a "tool box" of acquisition methods (For deep water, For shallow water, For transition zone), Focus completely on what we do best: Marine acquisition. Vision-statement: “to become the leading supplier of multi-component sea-floor acquisition.”

11. SBM Offshore (Netherlands) SBM Offshore N.V. is a pioneer in the offshore oil and gas industry. Worldwide, we have over 4,000 employees representing 40 nationalities, and are present in 15 countries. Our activities include the engineering, supply, and offshore installation of most types of offshore terminals or related equipment. In addition, SBM Offshore owns and operates its own fleet of Floating (Production) Storage and Offloading units. SBM Offshore has a track record of developing innovative, cost-effective solutions for the ever-changing needs of its Clients. Each company of the group contributes its technical expertise, making SBM Offshore a market leader. … became a pioneer in Single Point Mooring (SPM) systems, dynamically positioned drilling vessels, jack-up drilling rigs, and heavy offshore cranes. SBM Offshore's present activities include the engineering, supply, and offshore installation of SPM systems for offshore loading and unloading of vessels or the permanent mooring of offshore oil production and/or storage vessels, as well as the turnkey supply of complete floating facilities for the production, storage, and export of crude oil and gas. The latter comprise (FPSOs), (FSOs), (TLPs), (FPUs) and (MOPUs).

12. Sevan Marine (Norway) Business Model Sevan Marine ASA is listed on Oslo Børs (ticker SEVAN) and is specializing in building, owning and operating floating units for offshore applications. The Company has developed a cylinder shaped floater, suitable in all offshore environments. Presently Sevan Marine has four floating production, storage and offloading units (FPSOs) and three drilling units contracted to clients. The Company is also developing other application types for its cylindrical Sevan hull, including floating LNG production and power plants with CO2 capture. The Company's business strategy is based on a Build-Own-Operate model, which gives Sevan control over the value creation chain.

13. Saipem (Italy) “The Group is now the largest, most powerful, most international and best balanced turnkey contractor in the oil and gas industry.” The organization has been rationalised into three global business units: Onshore, Offshore and Drilling. It enjoys a superior competitive position for the provision of EPIC/EPC services to the oil industry both onshore and offshore; with a particular focus on the toughest and most technologically challenging projects - activities in remote areas, deepwater, gas, difficult oil. Along with its strong European content, the major part of its human resource base comes from developing countries. Saipem employs over 30,000 people comprising more than 100 nationalities… it employs large numbers of people from the most cost effective developing countries … and has sizeable service bases in India, Croatia, Romania and Indonesia. Saipem has a distinctive Health & Safety Environment Management System and its Quality Management System has been granted ISO 9001:2000 certification by 's lidos lids ">Lloyd's Register Certification.

14. Subsea 7 (Norway) Subsea 7 is one of the world's leading engineering and construction companies offering all the expertise and assets that make Subsea Umbilical, Riser and Flowline (SURF) field development and operation possible. With a multi-national workforce in excess of 5,000 personnel, the company's offshore operations are supported out of the North Sea, Africa, Brazil, Gulf of Mexico and Asia Pacific. Subsea 7's experienced and skilled project managers and experienced engineers offer all the disciplines that make subsea oil & gas development and operation possible, including complete EPIC services, and life of field IRM services. These services are supported by a modern fleet of pipelay, construction, diving and ROV support vessels. Global Operations include logistical and spool bases which are supported by dedicated in-house survey and positioning resources together with technology development, including robotic intervention services. “Our deep-rooted health, safety, environmental and quality culture is inherent in all we have achieved to date and remains the pivotal foundations of performance.”

15. Technip (France) Engineering, technologies and construction services for Oil and Gas, Petrochemical and other industries. “Backed by 50 years of experience and thanks to the expertise and know-how of its teams, Technip is a key contributor to the development of technologies and sustainable solutions for the exploitation of the world’s energy resources.” 2007 key figures: 23,000 employees in 46 countries, Industrial assets on five continents, A fleet of 19 vessels by 2010, Operating income from recurring activities: €247 million, Revenues: close to € 7.9 billion. Fields: subsea, offshore and onshore.

16. TGS Nopec (Norway) TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Company (TGS) is a principal resource for global non-exclusive geoscientific data products and services in the oil and gas industry. Countries worldwide have entrusted TGS to assist with licensing rounds and the preparation of regional data programs. This global presence, which includes offshore surveys conducted in more than two dozen nations, is made possible by a diverse staff on three continents. Success in this competitive marketplace reflects a proud reputation for benchmark quality and personalized service. 1. Geophysical products & services. TGS specializes in the design, acquisition and processing of 2D and 3D multi-client seismic surveys worldwide. 2. Geological Data products & services. An industry-leading digital well log collection, well data management & services, multi-client interpretive products and subsurface consulting are also available from TGS. 3. Imaging Services. TGS delivers advanced high performance imaging and software solutions to support its geoscience data programs.

17. John Wood Group (GB Scotland) Wood Group is an international energy services company with $4.4bn sales, employing approximately 25,000 people worldwide and operating in 46 countries. Wood Group is an international energy services company with more than $4.4bn sales, employing approximately 25,000 people worldwide and operating in 46 countries. The Group has three businesses - Engineering & Production Facilities, Well Support and Gas Turbine Services - providing a range of engineering, production support, maintenance management and industrial gas turbine overhaul and repair services to the oil & gas, and power generation industries worldwide. Wood Group is among the global market leaders in: deepwater engineering, offshore pipelines, artificial lift using electric submersible pumps, enhancement of oil & gas production in mature fields, the repair and overhaul of industrial gas turbines. Wood group focuses on three areas: 1.Engineering and production facilities. Greenfield, infield engeineering, production enhancement and maintenance. 2. Well support and 3. Gas Turbine services. (*) (*)

– Information gathered from the companies websites

(Previously published on Ezinearticles.com)

Company Profiles / Business Architecture - Company Overview

2009-05-21T00:41:00.000-07:00

This is an overview of short business profiles of different companies that have been published on Ezinearticles.com.

Abengoa
Abengoa is a company that has changed over the last years. The annual report of 2001 opens with “Abengoa, your partner in technical resources and solutions.” The current Website shows: Abengoa, innovative solutions for sustainability.”
The business is organized in six different business units of which three are directly recognizably focused on sustainability (like Solar, bioenergy, environmental - for example waste management), the others (information technology, industrial engineering and the Foundation) have more a general dedication focused on sustainability.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Company-Profiles---Abengoa&id=1172996

Sanofi-Aventis
This company is a complex of individual companies that have been merged together. First of all, Aventis was formed in 1999 by the merger of Rhône-Poulenc and the German company Hoechst AG. The merged company was based in Strasbourg, France. (1). In 2004 this new company merged with Sanofi that itself had completed a merger with Synthelabo. Since 2004 the company name is Sanofi-Aventis.
Back in 1999, Sanofi was the second largest pharmaceutical in France and number seven in Europe according to the 1999 annual report. Now the combined company is the number one in both France and Europe.
Company Profiles - Sanofi-Aventis

Sol Melia
It all started with a dream: “In 1956 At only 21 years of age, a young and entrepreneurial Gabriel Escarrer Juliá begins to lease and operate his first hotel: the Altair Hotel located in the residential area of Son Armadams (Palma de Mallorca, Spain), the first 60 rooms of the future Sol Meliá.” (2006 Annual report)
The same report “opens” with a picture in which a couple is walking on the beach away from the camera and where at the same time a professional is talking on a mobile phone his face turn towards the same camera. This summarizes that the hotel business is not only dedicated to leisure but also to business. This makes that the organization of the hotels is differentiated too. Hotels require more sophisticated facilities in for example internet connections, for the business users.
Company Profiles - Sol Melia

Accor
Accor is a company in the hospitality business, a French chain of hotels. The company profile offered in this article, and the next where more details are shown, discusses some main characteristics of this company.
The hospitality sector is dedicated to offering hospitality to users; hotels are the main component in this business but not the only element...
http://writersblocknote.blogspot.com/2009/08/company-profiles-accor.html

Solvay
The Pope Worked for this Company, I found that interesting fact on wikipedia (1) and when checking, it proved to be right, although he was not the Pope back than but just Karol Wojtyla
People who work for Solvay will certainly know the complete story as it is part of the history and culture of the company.
Solvay is divided into three segments: Pharmaceuticals that make up about 27% of the revenue, chemicals (32%) and plastics (41%).Nearly thirty thousand employees work for this company in about 50 countries in all continents of the world. Nearly 50% of the sales comes from outside Europe. Part of the strategy is to develop more business in the BRIC-countries.
Company Profiles - Solvay

NH Hoteles
NH Hoteles differentiates itself from other hotels in their focus on business travelers. Hotels make up 93% of their business and real estate five percent.The company is trying to escape the dependency of its business on Spain and it diversifying quickly in other countries which it does by takeovers and autonomous growth. In the Netherlands it acquired Krasnapolsky in 2000 by which it nearly doubled its volume. Currently is has 343 hotels and more than 50,000 rooms available in 22 countries in three continents: Europe, America and Afrika.
In 2003 Amancio Ortega – the founder of Inditex (Zara) – had a stake of 10% in the company. The free-float of shares in the market was than about 65%. This is less what it is now. Currently Investment Group Heperia (also in hospitality business) owns 25% of the shares. Caja Madrid another ten percent. Ortega’s share doesn’t occur anymore in the 2007 annual report on shareholders.
Company Profiles - NH Hoteles

Infineon
In 2000, the first reporting year, Infineon’s annual report was written in a euphoric style: The company was “beating its sector,” and reported a EPS of 1,83 against 10 cents for the previous year. The euphoria can be explained even more when we take into account more earnings data (the 10 cents in 1999 where preceded by -1,29, -0,16 and 0,19 in 1996). The revenue growth “outstripped the semiconductors sector. Volker Jung was chairman of the supervisory board, Ulrich Schumacher chairman of the management board.Although financial analysts still “saw the company as a traditional memory chip-maker, it was moving into a communication chips.”
Company Profiles - Infineon

Avis
Warren Avis -– who died last year at an age of 92 -- was the founder of Avis Rent. “A decorated bomber pilot with the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II, Avis formed his car rental company in 1946 at airports in Miami and Ypsilanti, Michigan, with an investment of $85,000 (£42,500). He started with two employees and fewer than 200 cars. Avis said he got the idea for the business when he was a pilot and could not find ground transportation once he arrived at airports.” (1)
Avis was the world’s largest car rental system, until the company got taken over by Hertz in a “ferocious” competition. That was in 1954. “The company now is called Avis Rent A Car System LLC and is part of Parsippany, New Jersey-based Avis Budget Group, Inc.” (1)
Company Profiles - Avis

DSV
DSV - A history of M & A. The core of this company profile is centered on mergers and acquisitions. DSV acquired -– some say it was to be a merger amongst equals –- the Dutch Frans Maas group.
Mergers and acquisitions are activities that take place in a business environment, but the mechanisms can be translated to the organization; organizational department too are continuously merging.
Mergers are an answer to a changing business environment. As in this example. “the transport sector is subject to a continuous consolidation process driven by globalization and the consequent increase in cross-border trade…” This paragraph is from the risk section of the DSV annual report 2007 (1). DSV is an acronym meaning: the joint haulers.
About Frans Maas. In an interview in 2001 (3) Henk Benjamins -- by that time chairman of the Frans Maas group -- elaborated about the differences between transport and logistics. “There is a lot more behind the vehicles that one sees on the road... behind unfolds a logistical thinking and coordination what is the core of their business. The chairman said this in a context of a changing Image of the company.
Although Frans Maas is of Dutch origin the company can only survive as a trans-European player. Another misconception is that Frans Maas is a transporting company. “Frans Maas is an expedition and logistical servicing company, which is something completely different:
Company Profiles - DSV

ASML
This story is about change and growth. A company that came out-of-the-blue and is now number one in the field of wafer steppers. This is the so-called back-end part of the semiconductor-device fabrication. This phase is dominated by a lithographical process in which the circuit is projected on the silicon slices. In the adjacent phase -– the front-end -– the transistors and other components are being placed on the chip. ASML produces the back-end machines.
It all started in 1984 as a “spin-out” of Philips and ASM International. In 1990 ASMI divested the operation into a separate company because of the money-losing lithographic business at that time.
Company Profiles - ASML

VanderLande
Although at first sight the business of this company may seem diverse, the products it offers all support only one process: distribution.
“Vanderlande Industries is dedicated to improving its customers’ business processes and competitive position by providing Automated Material Handling Systems. Our systems enable fast, reliable, labour-saving goods handling in distribution centres, express parcel sortation facilities and the manufacturing industry, as well as baggage handling at airports.” (1)
Company Profiles - VanderLande

Cirsa
Cirsa is completely focused on gaming (machines). This company was founded in Barcelona in 1978 by Manuel Lao Hernández. Today, according to the website, the company employs more than 12000 people, owns 200 subsidiaries and is present in more than 70 countries.The son of the founder -- Manuel Lao Gorina is still dedicated to the company as vice-president.
The current business is divided in four divisions: Slots, Casinos, Bingos and the production of game-machines. The first one (slots)make up about 47% of the sales and contribute 45% to the earnings (“ebitda”), the second largest division is dedicated to bingo, which attributes 23% of the sales and 12% to the earnings. Casinos however show the highest growth-rate it is also the most profitable.Another division of more recent origin is dedicated to interactive and online games. The casino business of Cirsa started with a takeover of the emblematic casino in Marbella in 1985.
Company Profiles - Cirsa

Daimler AG
Daimler AG is a vehicle manufacturer. But there is quite a story about this company and its (brand) name.
The current business unit of Daimler AG consists of four divisions: Mercedes Benz cars, Daimler Trucks, Daimler Services and the last division is producing vans and buses.Curiously, the Daimler brand dedicated to automobiles has never been included in the company. That brand led a separate life part of a first British company, later part of Ford and recently the Daimler car-brand got transferred to Tata motor in India.
Company Profiles - Daimler AG

Bayer
A Constant Change. Portfolio management is a constant item on the management agendas of large companies like Bayer. In a changing business environment they need to rethink their strategic portfolio constantly:
The Bayer Group plans to sell the diagnostics division of Bayer HealthCare to Siemens EUR 4.2 billion. The divestment was approved today by the Bayer Supervisory Board. “This decision is fully in line with our strategy for systematically aligning our health care business. We are concentrating on pharmaceuticals for both humans and animals, and products that can be promoted directly to patients,” says Werner Wenning, Bayer AG management board chairman. (1)
Even large companies have a focus, although the focus may be segmented. The focus of Bayer is set on six different business areas:
• Healthcare
• Cropscience
• Material science
• Business Services
• Technology services
• Currenta (Previously “Bayer Industry services”)
Business architecture-wise, this last division is not only part of Bayer (60%) but also of Lanxess (40%). Lanxess itself was a spin-off of Bayer that acquired a stock-exchange listing in 2005. Share-holders of Bayer received one share of Lanxess for every ten shares.
Company Profiles - Bayer

Mapfre
Mapfre is a Insurance company. Due to its history it has a complex structure, which is changing over time and will change more in the (near) future.
The main characteristic of the structure is that it has been a mutual and the holding still is. In 2006 MAPFRE initiated a process of breaking down the mutual-character of the company's structure and in which it transformed into a corporation. (Wiki on Mapfre) This is still the current structure for which the corporation (holding) acts as the main stakeholder (57%) and serves as a financial vehicle to support the business units.
Company Profiles - Mapfre

Euronext
Some company’s complexity is hidden behind a simple façade. What would be more simple to provide a platform where people can trade stocks? This is like central market where buyers and sellers meet. The arbiter establishes prices by means of an order-book. There is not much more to it…
But in fact there is. Euronext and other Stock-Exchanges are like the road on which we drive to our work. The main difference is that in the stock-market road, there is no short-cut or other connection: if the Stock-market road is blocked, than there is no traffic.
Company Profiles - Euronext

VDM – Van Der Moolen
VDM is more than other companies involved with change. In 2006, in the annual report of 2005, the ambition was communicated to continue with the specialists. At the end of 2007, the specialists’ activities have been divested and sold to Lehman Brothers.
VDM is a company that is affected by the rapid changes in trading on the stock-exchanges. Innovations that led to a higher stake of information systems on the exchange, has changed the scene for traders like VDM.
A stock-exchange like the NASDAQ is only a platform; there is no physical space like on the NYSE which uses a trading floor. A few years ago, quotes on the NYSE were published in fractions (12 3/9). This changed to the normal decimal system. The market on the exchange was organized by the so-called specialists, by companies like Bear Wagner and VDM: “Each company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has its specialist who is responsible for the trading of the company stock. The specialist is typically a market professional who manages the two-way auction market trading in the specific securities assigned to him. (Ibscdc.org).”
Company Profiles - VDM

BME
In June 2008, there is not yet an annual report of the last fiscal year (2007) on the site available. Whether this is functional is not clear. Form the 2006 report we gain some insight in this company.
BME stands for “Bolsas y Mercados Españoles,” or in English: The Spanish Exchanges and Markets, or the Spanish Stock Exchange. The meaning behind this name is that in Spain the stock markets were not centralized units. Instead, up to nine different markets offered trading possibilities. Under the mandate of the current president -- Antonio Zoido -- these markets were concentrated to only four (regional) exchanges. IN 2002 the BME became the new holding for this overall structure. In 2007 the BME itself got listed on the exchange.
Company Profiles - BME

Deutsche Boerse
The Deutsche Boerse (DB) is a company that owns stock exchanges in Germany and which manages many other exchanges in the world. The company is listed on the German DAX since 2001.
As for the Spanish Stock Exchange, the year 2006 was the most successful ever for the DB. It was also the year where the intended fusion with euronext –- to build a European Exchange -- failed.
The price chart that is included in the 2006 annual report shows the evolution of the stock price of DB on which is shown that mostly during the last two years (2005 and 2006) the stock gained enormous momentum, from 120% gains since 2001, to 250% at the end of 2005 and 350% gains at the end of 2006.
Company Profiles - Deutsche Boerse

Gamesa
In an interview with El Pais, the president of Gamesa – Guillermo Ulacia – elaborated on the change of the company over the recent years. Ulacia came to Gamesa in the year 2005 with the objective to refocus it towards the alternative industry mainly. Before that, the company was also focused on other industries like aeronautics being a producer of frames for airplanes.
The new orientation is focused on the production of (super) generators or wind turbines - and the servicing of these parks. This is a much more profitable industry, but the single focus makes the company also more vulnerable. Whether the servicing of wind parks will remain a core activity “depends on whether Gamesa will be able to compete in this industry”. For the moment they do not have a track record to base the success on.
Company Profiles - Gamesa

Engel & Völkers
Engel & Völkers is a real estate agency that is focused on a niche market of the well-to-do. The company was founded in 1977 by Christian Völkers, todays CEO. The world wide expansion started in 1989 with the opening of an office on Mallorca in Spain. Only 30 years later it opened it 300th office world wide.
Company Profiles - Engel & Volkers

TomTom (1)
TomTom is a relative young company that showed spectacular growth in the previous years in sales of navigation tools. TomTom is market leader in navigation software closely followed by Garmin. In that area however there are continuous changes. One of them is focused in this article; the digital maps which form the basic of the navigation software.
The company recently acquired the second largest digital map provider in the world: Teleatlas. Teleatlas is owner of a large geographical database than it continuously updated and enhanced with “points of interest.”
“We believe that the navigation industry is at the dawn of a new era. In the future, we are confident that end user community input and feedback about maps and POIs, including updates and corrections, will prove to be instrumental in maintaining the quality and integrity of the map at the highest level possible.” Alain De Taeye, ex CEO and co-founder of Teleatlas, now member of the board of TomTom.
Company Profiles - TomTom

Santander
Morgan Stanley, Barclays, UBS and HBOS leave, Santander enters. We are talking about the Dow Jones Global Titans 50 index. The index lists the 50 largest companies of developed countries according to their market value. Due to the recent financial crisis, the first mentioned banks had to leave this index. Santander recently got listed. Telefonica another Spanish company was already on the list.
It is only after, or still during the financial crisis which is still ongoing that the real characteristic of a company becomes clear. Santander stocks lost less than 20% of their value this year which is a small decline compared to Halifax of Scotland, UBS or recently Fortis which shares lost only today about 20%. Santander recently announced that this year’s profits will exceed 10 billion euros.
Company Profiles - Santander

SBM Offshore
In 2007 the last “tranche” of not core activities was divested: airport infrastructure. Since then, SBM Offshore is purely focused on offshore services in the energy market.SBM stands for Single Buoy Moorings. A so-called “single point mooring principle” is used to moor crude oil and gas carriers in open seas.
The current president of the company -– Didier Keller – was previously the manager of the SBM business unit when the company was still called IHC Caland. This is in line with other companies that have refocused their business model, where the new president comes from the leading business unit.
IHC Caland was listed on the stock exchange since 1965 and its main activity was focused on dredger building. In this activity the company has build a history of more than 300 years. The turning point came in 2005 where the dredging activity was divested.Before that, in 2001 SBM IMODCO Inc. was acquired and SBM became a core business unit. D. Keller was CEO of that group which was also formed by Gusto Engineering and MSC – Marine structure Consultants. IHC Caland consisted of two divisions by that time, the dredger and shipbuilding division was the other division.
Company Profiles - SBM Offshore

Barclays Move
ABN AMRO preferred Barclays as the bank by which it would be acquired in 2007. The market determined that another party would acquire ABN AMRO in the end. It was the Consortium formed by Santander, RBS and Fortis that overbid Barclays offer.
One could ask whether a first bid is always the final move or just a strategic step in a more profound game. The first bid is never enough as a final bid and although investing in a bid brings significant costs, it may be just a maneuver to mislead the market.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Barclays-Move&id=1297147

Adidas
In the 2007 Annual report, Herbert Hainer the CEO of Adidas discusses some of the issues of the previous year (2007). One of the issues is about the integration of Reebok. Two years ago, Adidas surprised investors with their bid for Reebok. “most (investors) agree that the deal will help to compete against Nike,” was one of the headlines by that time, as well as: “Warren Buffet will continue investing in Nike.”
Hainer responds to some of the concerns, like that of the flat sales of Reebok in 2007. …major management changes at the Reebok brand, like that to improve the US distribution; even stopping supply to the brand’s largest customer where excess inventories had led to a significant decline in profitability… But the real test is still in front of us – making the Reebok brand more relevant to consumers. The brand needs simple messages that stick, and that’s why its 2008 products and marketing strategies focus on two important concepts – fit and choice. Reebok is striving to be the brand that “fits me”.
Reebok has sharpened its 2008 product offering by including 893 new fit initiatives throughout its collections ... According to the report, sales will grow in nearly all other markets – especially Russia and China – where the brand took over distribution for the first time in 2007.
Company Profiles - Adidas

Partners & Suppliers in the Oil & Gas Services Sector - Part 1
There are 16 companies in this (sub) sector, most of them of Norwegian origin, two from the Netherlands and three from Britain, two from France and one from Italy. These companies have been selected from a sector overview of Goldman Sachs, focused on European companies as part of portfolio of a single analyst.
Operating in this sector requires specific knowledge, as noticed by the many abbreviations that are used in the annual reports and on the websites:
• EPIC - engineering, procurement, installation and construction
• IMR - Inspection, Maintenance and Repair
• FPSO - Floating Production Storage and Offloading (systems)
• FSO - Floating Storage and Offloading
• TLP - Tension Leg Platforms
• FPU - Floating Production Units
• MOPU - Mobile Offshore Production Units
• HD3D - high-density 3D (seismic)

full article:
http://writersblocknote.blogspot.com/2009/05/partners-suppliers-in-oil-gas-services.html

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On Change.
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Profile of a Company Change - ACOMO
Previously the company name was Amsterdam Rubber. Good business names (1) are those where the name supports the meaning of the business. Amsterdam Rubber was a good name. The business however was dedicated to a market that was -- unlike today -- not very popular. Today commodities like rubber are "hot."
Another good business name is this one: “Tuenti.” To appreciate it you have to imagine yourself in Spain or in a Spanish speaking country. Tuenti is a community / network focused on students. “Tuenti” is pronounced as twenty in English. But it has also “Tu” and “Ti” in the name: matching again the focus on younger people. The name says it all.
The new name of Amsterdam Rubber is Amsterdam Commodities or ACOMO. The Acronym has “commodities” in it. This new name is shorter and therefore easier to handle. It is also more international. And, the "A" of Amsterdam is still present although less prominent.
A change of the name is normally not enough. This company has made a transformation, that is visible on the outside. The business changed from a single focus on Rubber to more in general the trade of commodities and in particular spice-trades. But also the culture must have changed.
A Change of the outside normally reflects a deeper change of the inside.
An indication of the change of the culture shows the following story. They often say that culture spreads itself by stories and anecdotes. And I found such a story about this company in an published interview with the CEO - Stephane Holvoet...
...
ACOMO

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Others:
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Telefonica
Telefonica is thought to be one of the most stable companies that is represented in the Spanish stock exchange IBEX 30. The idea is that in these times with increased uncertainty, the stable cash flow offers the investors a steady outlook. The risk is therefore perceived to be low...
Company Profiles - Telefonica

Unilever
Unilever is a corporation that has historically concentrated on two product lines derived from oil and fat like butter and soap. Now these main elements are still visible in the product categories Foods & personal care.
Company Profiles - Unilever

UBS
The complexity of markets is managed by simple rules. Nobody – this becomes clear these days – understands the impact of the financial network where one or two chains are being destroyed. Only simple rules will manage the complexity.
Company Profiles - UBS

A + B - N (AMRO) Bank (2)
The investment market is like the dating market; the ugly little duck can turn into a desirable prince(s) after someone has given it some attention. And what happens next, all of a sudden the former duck gets surrounded by a chain of new admirers. They all want her. Or him. (1)
(1) - ezinearticles.com/?A-+-B---N-(AMRO)-Bank&id=540821

The Rabobank
In one of their adverts during the Olympic games two women hockey-players wearing a Rabo outfit, were being addressed by two Australian blokes, “don’t you girls need a decent sponsor,” said one of the guys to impress the girls. “we are sponsored by a bank which is number one in Australia, in …” In the end the boys take their loss and are off to impress someone else …
Post Crisis Banking Architecture – Cultural Changes
When people think of and talk about changes that are required in the financial system, they bring in a lot of structural elements; the most visible is the risk management system.
Company Profiles - The Rabobank

Business Architecture – Will Audit-Only Make it?
Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the SEC led a commission to examine the state of auditing and the accountants firms.One of the main topics in this investigation is the feasibility of the Audit-Only accountant firm.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Business-Architecture---Will-Audit-Only-Make-It?&id=1779865

Ithmaar Bank
Ithmaar bank is interesting from a business architectural viewpoint because it represents Islamic finance.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Company-Profiles---Ithmaar-Bank&id=1779886

EDF
To date, the French state is by far the largest shareholder of: Electricite du France. Only a small percentage (about 13%) is free for public trade. The so-called: free-float.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Company-Profiles---EDF&id=1783205

Porsche and it's Relation with VW
Last Year the Stock of the company Porsche climbed from around 1300 euros to about a maximum of 1800 euro's. My first impression not supported by any knowledge was that the stock price reflected the architecture - most of all reduced to a single most element of the architecture: it's style - of the company. Many other companies would have split the stock so that the liquidity of the shares would improve, but - so I thought - this must be against the style of a company of such an image. The high price matches the uniqueness of the label Porsche and the elevated prices of its cars.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Business-Architecture---Porsche-and-its-Relation-with-VW&id=1035583

Business Architecture - Siemens Vs Philips
If Philips was not Dutch but founded in Germany would it than have been called Siemens?
Philips has changed radically over the last decades. From a dedicated supplier of consumer electronics, the company is now focused on healthcare. Although not only on healthcare, consumer electronic still is a prominent division. But this division is cyclical and therefore problematic. By selling its television-branch in the US it searches for a more profound change. Lightning is another division that is traditionally uniquely Philips.
Siemens has never had its own lightning division but acquired one, by the time a growing competitor of Philips: Osram.
The three musketeers of Philips (healthcare, lightning and consumer products or positioned as: “lifestyle”) resemble slightly that of Siemens:

· Healthcare, Energy and Industry.
But a more closer look will show the real differences.
Philips’ main profile (2007 annual report): - 128,000 employees - 27 billion euros sales revenue - presence in 60 countries - net income: around 4 billion euros (357 million euros Q3 2008).
Siemens’ main Profile (2007 annual report): - 400,000 employees - 72 billion euros sales revenue - presence in 190 countries - net income: around 4 billion euros.
This is obviously not enough to financially value both companies, but only to give an impression.
For the architectural characteristics there is much more information needed and available. But for a first acquaintance the type of markets is important. Philips is much more focused on retail and consumer markets, where Siemens has a much more industrial and wholesale or infrastructural focus. Both offer healthcare solutions, but siemens’ clients are the hospitals, Philips is focused on getting hospital solutions to the patients home.
Than the history of either company; who was the founder. Siemens founder was Werner von Siemens who (co) founded a telegraph company 161 years ago in 1847. Werners’ personal characteristics are still mentioned in the annual reports as an example: innovation, international focus and a keen sense of responsibility.
The Philips founder, was Anthony Philips who co-founded the Philips Electronics company in 1891 with the light-bulb as the first product.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Business-Architecture---Siemens-Vs-Philips&id=1798786

What Went Wrong With Wedgwood?
Was it management, the organization or just the business?
“For centuries Waterford Crystal has captured light over and over again. In the hands of artists consumed by their craft, light has embraced, danced and cascaded through beautifully cut crystal,” explains the annual report of (April) 2008.
http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Went-Wrong-With-Wedgwood?&id=1851786

Back to the Future – Citigroup
Understanding the future of the financial industry is understanding what is going on now. And where we are coming from.
In 1998 one of the largest mergers in the financial history took place between Citibank and Travelers group. From a distance that merger looked quite simple between a bank and an insurance company, but both companies were much more complex already at that time.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Back-to-the-Future---Citigroup&id=1884491

Change in the Automotive Industry - Chrysler and Fiat
Change and learning often come in pairs, although not always at the same time; learning from previous experiences may lead to change...
http://EzineArticles.com/?Change-in-the-Automotive-Industry---Chrysler-and-Fiat&id=1923586

The New Architecture of Microsoft
Microsoft is going to introduce shops, similar to those of Apple. Nobody really knows or understands how this new store-concept is going to be implemented and how it will evolve in the near future, but the first step is taken and speculations follow. This is one of them:
Veolia
Veolia is a company founded at the dawn of the industrial era and the start of urban development and focused on water, waste, energy management and transport. As urban development changes continuously, the question for the future is how 8 billion of people on the planet and “half of them in urban environments” will impact: water, waste energy and transport. http://ezinearticles.com/?The-New-Architecture-of-Microsoft&id=1999795

Grifols
Grifols is a producer of biotechnological products and services for the healthcare sector.
The website starts with strong statement: "What matters most: People." More difficult it is to evaluate the site and the annual report on this statement.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Company-Profiles---Grifols&id=2012680

Company Profile – MAN
MAN is a company with a history of more than 250 years. It started with the construction of an iron mill in 1758 and grow into the engine business after 1897 when Rudolf Diesel built the world's first functioning Diesel engine in the Maschinenfabrik Augsburg these merged in 1898 with the Maschinenbau Nürnberg to become M.A.N. Current Headquarters are in Munchen.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Company-Profile---MAN&id=2012775

Fresenius Medical Care
Fresenius Medical care is a producer of dialysis equipment and offering services in this field of (chronic) kidney failure. The best known of these kidney supportive functions is hemodialysis which became routine in the 1960s.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Company-Profiles---Fresenius-Medical-Care&id=2031620

TomTom (2)
These days it is hard to figure out how companies are really doing. Last years profits (if any) and current 2009 outlook (negative) gives something to go by. But it isn’t much. So an interview with the CEO may help. And indeed, as we are looking for confidence, some extra information can make the difference.

Rhoen Klinikum
According to their own -- Rhoen Klinikum (RK) -- investors’ information, the healthcare market is crisis- and weatherproof: Medically necessary treatments are not exposed to the economic cycle but to a decisive extent depend on the demographic structure of the population. But it is also common knowledge that sick leave is proportional to economic prosperity; employees are afraid to loose their job during a crisis. Wouldn’t this also count to a certain extent for the hospital market?
http://ezinearticles.com/?Company-Profiles---Rhoen-Klinikum&id=2040503

What is Going On: Microsoft Versus TomTom on Infringement
As there is only very little news available on this topic, how is one to interpret this information. This is my first impression.
Microsoft said on Wednesday that it is steering Netherlands-based vehicle navigation systems firm TomTom to court (and with the International Trade Commission) for infringing on the software giant's patented technology. The information is released by Horacio Gutierrez, deputy general counsel of intellectual property and licensing at Microsoft. (source Google news).
http://ezinearticles.com/?What-is-Going-On---Microsoft-Versus-TomTom&id=2040603

Citi Solutions
There is hardly any information on this company, internet is nearly blank on the firm, with a single exception: Has anybody got any experience of a financial services firm called Citi-solutions. They are part of the ubiquitous Citigroup somehow? Many thanks(1)
http://ezinearticles.com/?Company-Profiles---Citi-Solutions&id=2040632

CEC / Leaders in Education
Career Education Corporation (CEC) was founded in 1994 and according to their own statement, has become one of the world's leading providers of quality post-secondary educational services. Gary E. McCullough is currently the President and Chief Executive Officer of CEC. Colleges, schools and universities form a “CEC family” and offer high quality education to approximately 90,000 students across the world in a variety of career-oriented disciplines and label by different brands.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Company-Profiles---CEC---Leaders-in-Education&id=2053957

Cardinal Health
Cardinal Health is now an “$87 billion” global healthcare products and services company dedicated to making healthcare “safer and more productive.” But it all started in 1971 – with Cardinal Foods -- when founder Robert Walter opened a small distribution center in Ohio. Eight years later the distribution branched into pharmaceuticals when the company purchased a drug distributor and became known as Cardinal Distribution (2). This first acquisition soon became a pattern; the growth of this company is practically achieved by over more than 50 acquisitions over the last decades. Their business is now divided into four main areas:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Company-Profiles---Cardinal-Health&id=2062475

Tamil leader dead end of resistance?

2009-05-18T07:11:00.000-07:00

Sri Lanka says it has crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels' 25-year war, killed their leader… chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, and ending his three-decade quest for an independent homeland for minority Tamils. State television broke into its regular programming to announce Prabhakaran's death, and the government information department sent a text message to cell phones across the country confirming he was killed along with top deputies, Soosai and Pottu Amman. The announcement sparked mass...
http://abcnews.go.com/International/comments?type=story&id=7611209

And of resistance... But the Tamils are a minority?

So they captured a leader and the resistance ends there. More news will follow probably.

Conflicts – Like that of a good plot (Cold Case)

2009-05-17T13:34:00.001-07:00

Why are conflicts often not solved?
Often, not always, this is because people and stakeholders in the conflict do not know what is going on. In the sense of who wants what and why. What are peoples’ motivations and drives.

The other day I watched cold-case and witnessed a very nice plot showing a conflict –- a lot is basically a conflict that must and will be solved during the story – that got solved brilliantly.

John, the “boss” had left after 35 years in office and Lily was in charge of the case. The victim was a serial rapist. So what was the drive to dig into this case? The other officers where not really motivated to continue the good work. “Why investigate a (cold) case of the murder of a rapist,” the team members wondered. But lily continued, being a professional people have their own drive to offer quality.

In organizations this lack of drive is a recurring topic on the management agenda. Why call prospects as nobody will buy anyway?

So Lily continues her quest not so much to nail the murderer but to find the truth. She does however convinces the team to cooperate despite their lack of motivation for the case.

On the other side, the first contours of the perpetrator get visible. There are more and more indications that the murder of the rapist is performed by the brother of one of the victims. This brother, a kid by the time is now a grown-up man who turned into a lawyer. He defends his sister who is under suspicion.

This side of the plot and of the conflict is that the lawyer is now facing a dilemma: his professional drive to be a good lawyer in pursuing justice and therefore urged to tell the truth. On the other side the his personal drive to safe his career.

The conflict (plot) is solved by Lily who is rephrasing the scene of the murder in a way that the rapist is not murdered but killed in “self-defence.” Lily and all others now know the truth and the young lawyer’s professional careeer is saved.
A great story, a great plot.

In order to find or to solve a plot as well as a conflict, one should understand what the situtaiton is about and what the stakes are.
How are people motivated, what is their drive and where does this conflict? You can only solve a conflict if these variables are clear and known. Often conflicts are not solved because the basic information of drives and motivation of people is not retrieved. Conflicts remain in an unsolved and emotional state and gets solved by a third party or power convincing to get-on with it. But the conflicts remains underneath the surface.

Barclays Sells Asset Management Business (a new trend in banking?)

2009-05-15T02:34:00.000-07:00

Barclays Said to Discuss BGI Sale With BNY Mellon, By Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam and Zachary R. Mider:
May 15 (Bloomberg) -- Barclays Plc, the U.K.’s third- biggest bank, is in talks to sell its asset management unit to potential buyers, including BlackRock Inc. and Bank of New York Mellon Corp., according to people with knowledge of the matter.

What is happening is this a trend, where banks sell their Asset Management Business? Others who contemplate this / have done it already is for instance: Santander

June 16th, Commerzbank:
FRANKFURT, June 15 (Reuters) - Commerzbank has sold Dutch asset manager Dresdner VPV NV to the unit's management to meet European Union demands for approving state aid to Germany's second-biggest lender.

Company Profiles - The Latest Impressions on Santander and BBVA (4) - Change in Asset Management

2009-05-15T02:30:00.000-07:00

... The story continues. The differences between Santander and BBVA in light of the current market events...

The law, "When things can go wrong they will," currently applies to Santander. Only a few months ago this bank was valued as one of the more secure in the world. Now this image is somehow under pressure as new events occur.

The latest one is the relation between Santander and the Fraud of Bernard Madoff. Santander is affected through one of its investment funds Optimel. More than 2 billion euros are exposed to this fraud case. 320 million of it is attributed to clients in Spain.
And BBVA... is not affected? No, but differently: BBVA financed investors who invested in the funds of Madoff. The Exposure of BBVA adds up to "only" 330 million dollars, but the bank's current earnings are directly affected whereas this is not the case for Santander.
Also in favor of Santander is the way they reported their exposure - right after the news was transmitted in the newspapers, whereas BBVA needed three days more to communicate their exposure...

In this light, the difference between the two banks in the area of asset management is interesting.

In its strategic refocusing Santander is going to sell its asset management business which it will "lease back" this means that it will not manage its own funds but take the role of a fund broker in which it offers funds to clients and buys the participation from professional fund-suppliers. In the above case, the Optimal fund was offered by HSBC.

Being an intermediary in investment funds may seem less risky than autonomously manage investment funds. Yet is requires a different business model. And the fund broker must know exactly all the essentials about third party funds and all about clients preferences. It is a matter of balancing client's needs in terms of risk-and-reward and selecting the best suppliers to offer a wide range of suitable products. Again in perspective of these events, the newspaper released that the Optimal brochure explicitly mentioned that the brokerage and custody was in the same organization, which could lead to malversation ... (this fits in the overall understanding of this fraud case that: many knew that something dirty was going on, but nobody acted... in quest for a higher return without "too much risk").

BBVA has a different asset management strategy; it will autonomously continue its asset management business. This is a less flexible solution, but possible with a better control of the funds and the match with client preferences.

Previsously Published on Ezinearticles.com:

1. Company-Profiles---The-Latest-Impressions-on-Santander-and-BBVA

2. Company-Profiles---The-Latest-Impressions-on-Santander-and-BBVA-(2)

3. Company-Profiles---The-Latest-Impressions-on-Santander-and-BBVA---Part-3

Intel - Impact of antitrust fine on Corporate culture

2009-05-15T02:14:00.000-07:00

European Union hits Intel with record $1.45 billion antitrust fine. By Steve Johnson:
On its face, the record $1.45 billion fine European regulators imposed on Intel on Wednesday would appear to be a crushing blow to the Santa Clara chip maker and a major victory for its chief competitor, Advanced Micro Devices.
But the consequences — for both Intel and consumers — of the European Commission's finding that Intel engaged in illegal rebates and other tactics to limit computer chip sales by Sunnyvale-based AMD are far from clear.
Despite claims by AMD and some others that the fine will ultimately benefit consumers, other industry experts speculated that it might cause Intel to increase its chip prices, resulting in a rise in the price of personal computers and other devices that use Intel chips. And some analysts pooh-poohed the idea that the ruling would significantly change Intel's market dominance over AMD.
"I think the impact from this ruling is rather minimal," said FBR Capital Markets analyst Craig Berger. "Generally, by the time these matters work their way through the courts, the companies and the technologies already have moved on and it's moot."
In a news conference following the ruling, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said his company had done nothing wrong and vowed to appeal the fine to the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg.
"Intel strongly disagrees with this decision," Otellini said. "I don't see evidence of consumer harm or competitor harm."
...
"Over the past 10 years, the average price of Intel's PC microprocessors has dropped by 60 percent," he said. "When the only one complaining about the competitive situation is AMD, it raises serious concerns about the efficacy of this action."

We will have to wait to see how this claim develops. But if it were true. what would it mean for the corporate culture?

Intel Values are:

- Customer Orientation
- Discipline
- Quality
- Risk Taking
- Great Place to Work
- Results Orientation

Risk Taking is the one that is interesting here. Did it take too much risk in achieving it sales targets? How would employee react when hearing about this if it is all true. Would it be beneficial for the corporate culture? And how would it change?

Vietnam photographer Van Es dies

2009-05-15T02:10:00.000-07:00

Dutch photographer Hugh Van Es, who captured some of the most enduring images of the Vietnam War, has died in hospital in Hong Kong at the age of 67.
Mr Van Es' most famous picture showed US citizens queuing on a rooftop to board a US helicopter during the evacuation of Saigon in 1975.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8051263.stm

The death of the photographer put us back into history. About the productivity of the photographer: just being there where the action is.

Chrome (on Windows Vista) - Second Impression

2009-05-12T13:00:00.001-07:00

Mr. G. phoned me, he said: "that article about Chrome that you wrote, you must me kidding... And what about the velocity of Chrome. Isn't it much faster than Explorer?"

You are right I said, I'll look at it again. But afterwards I remembered that Chrome continuously crashed on Vista... That's why I cannot use it.

(Message in the picture: Chrome dejo de funcionar (Spanish: meaning Chrome stopped functioning)

- - -

Google Chrome – A first impression

My first impression of Google’s Chrome? I’m glad that you ask.

Well it is only an impression that I have. I haven’t seen it all. But the first impression is quite “impressive” and fits the Google approach: the homepage of the browser gives an automatically generated overview of your most active browsing history. So if you always have four websites open in four different tabs, Chrome gives you these at start-up. Whether IE or Firefox can do this too, I don’t know but it’s a new feature I haven’t seen before and is making the life of a browser easier. Don’t we start our day with a standard review of a few sites? I do.

Another impression is that Chrome is less commercial than Microsoft’s IE. Less commercial in the sense that it gives some more features that support the browsing process which MS IE doesn’t offer. These include the programming support tools.

But it doesn’t go that far as Firefox does, which offers a wide range of features for the programmer. When developing a web, I would prefer to use Firefox for its Firebug. So this would make Chrome less technical, and therefore I would say in between Microsoft and Mozilla. Javascript errors that show up in Microsoft IE do not appear in Chrome nor do they in Firefox.

And then finally ... does Chrome work with Windows Vista? The compatibility between Google and Microsoft would be too good to be true. Of course it doesn’t work. At least at my computer it doesn't: my browsing continuously get interrupted by error-messages that tell me "Chrome stopped functioning." I didn’t try it at other computers; it’s only a first impression.

So now what do I do? I continue to use IE for normal web surfing and use Firefox for the more technical “bits” and pieces of work that comes across.

Published on Ezinearticles.com

Santander Follows the leader

2009-05-12T05:34:00.000-07:00

After the first step of "de facto leader" Mapfre, Santander seems to follow the dividend policy. It will offer shareholders the opportunity to reinvest the dividend into stock... Me-too?

MADRID (Dow Jones)--Spain's Banco Santander SA (STD) on Monday announced a shift in dividend policy by saying it will give shareholders the option of getting one of the bank's interim dividends in newly issued shares instead of cash.
The bank, which in recent months has been touting its rich cash dividend in newspaper ads and on billboards, said the so-called "scrip dividend" option will be applied to the payment planned for November.
Santander is planning four payments on its 2009 earnings, and the three others will still be paid in cash, Chief Financial Officer Jose Antonio Alvarez told reporters.
The November payment in 2008 was roughly EUR800 million, or EUR0.14 a share, and the company is targeting a similar payment this year.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090511-711858.html

Related topic on Mapfre:
http://writersblocknote.blogspot.com/2009/03/client-relationship-management-in.html

Spanish Culture - Wait for me in Heaven (Maruja Torres)

2009-05-12T02:01:00.001-07:00

Sometimes you read a book because you think; “he this author I’ve heard of” and you find a book of her and decide to read it.

In my case the title of the book “Wait for me in heaven” (original title in Spain: Esperadme en el cielo) reminded me of another book I’m also reading from Christopher Moore – A Dirty job. It’s not the title but also about Death. Instead, Wait in heaven seems more about "looking to it from the other side... "could we help those who live now not making the same mistakes." wonders the protagonist at some moment in time, in heaven.

I started reading the book without any intention to search for cultural references or any, but than all of a sudden on page 41 I find the following phrase:

- “Shut-up Wendy, You are not a catalan tourist in a bazaar in Istanbul.”

From that moment on, my professional bias interferes with me the normal reader and I cannot other than think about this phrase. What is it doing there?

A first analysis. I try to picture this, as if the scene was real:

- Hello, where are you from
“I’m from Catalonia”
- Great, where is that?
“well do you know Barcelona?”
- Yes of course. But Barcelona.. isn’t that a city? I thought Barcelona was part of Spain. (somehow confused)
“Not exactly. Barcelona is part of Catalonia which lies in Spain but has an own government and so…”
- Al right…

Of course I don’t meet many tourist from Barcelona, but I know the average knowledge of the global citizens and their geographical – and more their political – map is limited to the “normal countries.”

Anyhow. The protagonist of the story – wait for me in heaven is catalan. Then… catalan was written in lower-case. Normally this would be in capitals, like Spanish speaking. Was the form to put catalan in lower-case a demonstration of (misplaced) humility, expressed by the superior Catalans?

I don’t know. What I do know is that I was confused and decided to stop reading.

Company Profiles - D’Ieteren (an Update)

2009-05-12T01:33:00.000-07:00

D’Ieteren is a company I’ve been following for a while due to its unique business concept and the changes it has gone through over the … Years (the company was founded in 1805) and still kept its family structure. The CEO is called Roland D’Ieteren who is about 67 and to retire from the business in 2010. Only one more family relative is on the board: Nicolas D’Ieteren as a managing partner.
Interesting about this company is that the three business units are companies of their own in which the group has a stake, grouped by:
Automobile distribution (D’Ieteren Auto)
Car Rental (Avis, Budget)
Vehicle glass (Belron)

In the 2008 annual report I’ve focused on only a small part that highlights these three business units. The difference with last year is minor.

1. Automobile distribution: a market share that diminished slightly from 19.97% to 19.8%. Another difference mentioned in the same paragraph (our strength) is about the formulation of one its strength as “IT, logistics and marketing know-how.”
In the 2008 formulation this is changed to:
- “IT, logistics and marketing experience.” A subtle change, but indicating an important shift: from know-how what I would call product and expertise orientation (we know better than the competition) towards a marketing experience more focused on the client.

2. Car Rentals.
The change here is minor: the network increased from 3800 location to 3900 location but the number of countries it operates in are diminished by ten (from 110 to 100). Conclusion: focus on efficiency?

3. Vehicle glass.
Also an increase to 1800 (was 1600) branches and 7900 mobile vans (was 7100) in the same amount of countries (28).

- - -
Previous article May 8th 2008 on Ezinearticles.com: Business Architecture and Investments – D’Ieteren

There are some real beautiful business examples out there. This is one of them. A valuable example of unique business architecture.
This company is focused on three activities:
- Automobile distribution
- Car Rentals
- Vehicle Glass

Automobile distributors are not often listed on the stock exchange. There is a clear division in the automotive industry between producers of vehicles and distributors of these. There are rules to distribution where one distributor is not able to distribute freely different brands of cars.
In this case the company distributes (in Belgium) the following brands: Volkswagen, Audi, Seat, Skoda, Bentley, Lamborghini, Bugatti and Porsche. Reside this distribution this business unit f the company is also focused on the distribution and import of parts. Additionally they intermediate in the second hand market through networks (My Way).

Any company has a certain business and each business requires often a unique way to organize. Together these two make up the business architecture of the company.
There are many best-practices in organizing certain businesses. Best known is that of “focus.” This is a competence-oriented rule that states that you can not excel in everything. There are other rules that have a more organizational drive: “Scale” is one of them, “Synergy” is another. The main drive for organizations is to become efficient. In this case, synergy is accomplished by not only distributing vehicles but also by distribution of parts and second hand cars. In the first case the distribution of parts can offer scale and efficiency-advantages. The second case is offering a more vertical synergy; a dealer network is focused around clients and the same clients-base can be addressed for the second hand market.

More interesting even are the other business units. Car rentals for example. Car rentals need maintenance and parts, but rental offices need a constant flow of new models. It is very hard to rent a car that is “two or three years old.” This again offers organizational efficiencies, but it also makes the business less sensitive for economic cycles. In line with this, the third business unit – vehicle glass – supports both the previous businesses (sales and rentals) as it supports the organizational efficiency: production and distribution and even maintenance of glass for whatever vehicle.

Most unique of this company is its history. The company exists for more than two hundred years (1).
Then there is only a small step from business architecture to investment. I was triggered by a high financial (earnings) forecast of this company and a previous development of the stock-price. Business architecture-wise this company is unique, not in the last place because the investment structure is unique too; the company not completely owns the car rental, for this is listed separately on the London stock-exchange. This makes it a bit of a puzzle investment wise.

What remains a fact is that this company is a real pearl as a case for business architecture. And that is where this article is all about.
(1) - http://www.dieteren.com/splash/en-en/legroupe/histoire.aspx

Investment Management = Change Management?

2009-05-11T07:38:00.001-07:00

Simple formulas are often wrong or do not grasp the whole issue. Of course, but sometimes a simple formula shows a very important relation.
For example in the world of investments and trading on the stock-exchange. It is all about managing change; the change is that where one trend is followed-up by another one. And it is your task to manage all that.

A first requirement is to understand what is going on. In business a manager, a team a specialist is to know what is going on in the market and adjust the business approach on it. If there is a turn in the market, the company should either cut costs and or increase its sales resources. But the first thing is to understand that something has changed; why don’t customers buy as easy as before and how to formulate the product on this change?

In the stock market this is more or less the same, as the change-cycles are much more frequent. Until the beginning of March we had the bear market motivated by fear, now there seems to be a euphoric phase where bad news no longer drives the stock prices. Somewhere in between the trend has changed and if the investor didn’t acknowledge that change he will loose – that is according and depending on his trading or investment approach.

The formula in either case is simple:
- acknowledge the change (trend)
- act (accordingly)!

Of course the whole formula is much more complex. It is not only about signaling a change of trend, but also understanding the fundamentals of it. If the trend is only based on fear, the trader should act on it, but also be prepared about the strength – credibility – of the change. How fundamental is it?

Another example: Twitter.
This is something new. The early adapters get in directly, the more skeptical and conservative “investor” professional, … will wait to see how fundamental the change is.
Remember Second life? I don’t hear anyone about it. Whereas it was a real trend where people and especially companies invested heavily… many just before the trend ended…

If you want to manage a change (in either investment or in business):
- keep track of the trends
- check how it fits with your strategy
- change – your investments, resources according to the new situation and on the assumption that the new trend will continue for some time.

In business the trends are less visible and less easy to anticipate or react on. But the idea to change is more or less the same as in other areas: join the new trend if you think it will continue and if it fits your approach; so you will benefit from it.

And there is the phenomenon of the boiling frog (metaphor) where some changes come so slowly that you do not notice that the water (ground) gets hotter and hotter...

One important difference between investments and business management is the organization of the portfolio. An investment can be sold in minutes; an organizational change requires much more effort and energy and … will take time to be effective

Does the Telemarketing Agent Hang up on You?

2009-05-11T07:09:00.000-07:00

Well some do, apparently. I have this guy from YA.COM who has been phoning me, I asked him to call a week later - then the next day they call again. A week later, he calls me again, and now I have this new story, but it is all true; I explain that we are in the middle of some changes, and ...

I JUST COULDN'T Finish my story; the man hang up on me....

Can you believe that?

Price of Sunbeds up as usual

2009-05-09T02:34:00.000-07:00

The price of sunbeds increase periodically. The government fixes the prices. Now the price is 9 euros for a sunbed (two and a parasol) for a day. A steady 50 cents price increase per year.

The following article was written in May 2007:
Some changes that appear to be very complex are driven by very common principles. Take for example the shift to quality tourism in Spain, how does this process gain momentum?

First of all the shift to quality tourism is a response on another trend that changes the scene. First of all there is a move to residential tourism and there is (the longer existing) influence of the budget-flights to popular destinations, like Malaga in the south of Spain. Both trends are interrelated because residential tourism brings in more families and relations that do not reserve a hotel or apartment (but stay in the house of the foreign resident – how will spend its holiday outside the country for a while). Both shifts require an answer from the professional tourist industry.
And the answer is: a price increase. The price increase will automatically shift the sector to a higher quality level.

To understand how this works, just have a look at the price of a sun bed. This year you pay eight (8) Euros for two beds and a parasol. Last year you would pay 7,50 the year before 7,00 and 6,50 the year before that one. In percentage, the increase lowers each year, but as an absolute amount the price shifts are significant.
Now where does the quality shift comes from?

The shift in quality comes as a simple result of the previous increase in price. Just see how; first the sun beds were placed near the street site of the beach, near the boulevard. The space between the sun beds was relatively scarce. The space in front of the sun beds and nearer to the sea was reserved for the normal tourists with their own chairs, parasols or towels. The price-increase however asked for a reaction; paying the same (by the knowledgeable tourist) was just not acceptable. So the sun beds were moved closer to the sea and with ample space in between (leaving no more space for the other tourists using their simple towel -- and at the same time speculating that these tourists spend less).

This shift solves two problems. Based on the assumption that the sun-bed tourist will spend more: not only on sun beds but also on food and drinks, the price increase attracts more of the "right" tourists. This move is a clear sign what direction the sector is taking and what kind of tourist is welcome and which is not.
A simple mechanism. Not only used in the tourist sector but sometimes applied by banks who try to focus on clients with a higher share of wallet. There is a risk in this strategy and that is that it could affect the image of the company or in this case the image of a tourists sector. Besides this, the assumption of the share of wallet for either tourist could be wrong...

Previously published on ezinearticles.com:

Differences Between Products And Services

2009-05-09T02:20:00.000-07:00

1. The original article.

What are some of the main differences between products and services? And when are these relevant?

Tangibility versus Intangibility
Products are tangible. You can buy pork as a tangible product. You buy it, you ship it and sell it. In the same way as you buy stamps, cigarettes and cars. Financial service companies however, make it possible to exchange pork bellies Futures, on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). A future is (not the most simple example of) a service with which you can hedge your risk. In this last case, most of the people trading on the CME will never see or smell the pork bellies.

The ownership between products and services is different. A stock could be called a financial product that you own. You can place a stock order which might result in a transaction later on. You bank services a depot fee for saving you a lot of work. You cannot own a service.
Where the product is much more standardized, the service is tailor-made. Companies differentiate in offering products and services, but the variations between similar products of different producers are less prominent than the variations between services.

You can count products in the same way as you can count your money (or have your service you this information). A service is not countable, but is “leveled;” better than the best service is not possible. There is a limit in what a service can offer.

A product is produced by a manufacturing process. A service is offered by the utility element of companies; you subscribe to a service in the same way that you subscribe to your gas and electricity supplier.

And this brings us to the essential of these differences; changing from one (product approach) to the other (service offering) is very complex, because of the last mentioned differences. Not only the process is different but the style change you need to support this change… Good Luck.

Differences Between Products And Services

2. May 17th 2009.
Although this is a simple article, in business management and also organizational management, the focus on either a product or service approach is one of the most important factors in managing change. So many changes are only related to one of these. Most often and still these days, an organization was focused on producing products and is now (additionally) offering a service. And that requires a different organizational and management approach.

Think for example about the definition of the targets and performance indicators. How would you evaluate the performance of a service employee and how that of someone in the production process?

The End of Free News?

2009-05-08T02:54:00.000-07:00

Rupert Murdoch expects to start charging for access to ... newspaper websites within a year as he strives to fix a "malfunctioning" business model.
Encouraged by booming online subscription revenues at the Wall Street Journal, the billionaire media mogul last night said that papers were going through an "epochal" debate over whether to charge. "That it is possible to charge for content on the web is obvious from the Wall Street Journal's experience," he said.

Is this the end of the free-Internet?

How will this affect Google News are what will be the alternative, short-cut and ... what have we?

Honesty highly rewarded in Argentina

2009-05-07T13:06:00.000-07:00

This is the story of an Argentinean cab driver (From La Plata) who found a bag with 132,000 dollars (or Argentinean pesos) in the back of his car, after a couple had left. They forgot to take it with them. He checked the address and handed over the money.

Strange?

Well in a country like Argentina it is, the country has a history of "engaño."

On the internet citizens gathered 50,000 pesos to rewards the cab driver:

http://www.clarin.com/diario/2009/05/07/sociedad/s-01912876.htm

Meningitis Epidemic (in Africa)

2009-05-07T07:28:00.000-07:00

More than 1,900 people affected by meningitis have died since January in the “meningitis belt” of sub-Saharan Africa, which stretches from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east. In Nigeria, Niger, and Chad alone, more than 56,000 cases of meningitis have been recorded in the areas where Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical teams, working alongside Ministry of Health staff, are treating sick patents. They are also vaccinating more than seven million people, making this the largest vaccination MSF has ever carried out.

Makes me think about Bill Gates' flies; what if this comes near us? We would probably give it much more attention...

On Integrity

2009-05-07T06:40:00.000-07:00

Integrity is often mentioned and used as a corporate value but as much as it is used, it is not always evident what the concept of integrity exactly contains.
Here some more considerations on the subject of Integrity.

A while ago the 2009 Pritzker Price for architecture has been assigned to Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. The jury stated (according to the International Herald Tribune) that:

“he has conceived his method of practice almost as carefully as each of his projects…. He develops buildings of great integrity – untouched by fad or fashion.”

Another detail IHT mentioned was that Zumthor only accepts projects “if he feels deep affinity towards it.”

So what can we learn from all this?
How to retain one’s integrity in a world like this where you are stressed to go with the flow and be unique – or authentic - at the same time?
What do we sacrifice from our authenticity to cope with a demanding world?

Think about it.

Telefonica - New Client (Retention) Offer

2009-05-07T06:26:00.000-07:00

Telefonica must have a hard time with all the new competition in the market for ADSL in Spain. Not a day goes by in which I’m not called by YA.COM, Jazztel, Orange or any other service provider to offer a more cheaper service, which wasn't hard to sell. But I'm one of those having enough of changes, after one experience and many others stories from neighbors and so.

The new offer is now: 25% discount on ADSL until the end of the year. Than 1 euro extra for 6 Mbytes of bandwidth. How many clients must have changed from operator to come with this discount? First they didn't think it necessary. But times change. What will happen from 2010 onwards… who knows. But a loss of more clients is not acceptable. So it seems.

On Respect - For the Referee

2009-05-07T06:02:00.001-07:00

Alright, a player – read employee in the office – doesn’t show respect for the authority is happened in last night’s game in the champion’s semi-final.
What to think of this? Respect is something you must earn as a referee (professional) or is respect something to show whatever someone does. To you.
In last night’s game the referee is now investigated why he was selected as being inexperienced for such an important game…

Productivity Profiles - The Prostitute

2009-05-07T02:57:00.000-07:00

Wife or whore? The choice is that simple according to economists Lena Edlund and Evelyn Korn.
But, “Poor” prostitute, I think, “she” has chosen a job that offers a solution to an existing problem -- the over-demand for sex -- but her career is one of the most undervalued of all. There are male-prostitutes, but they represent a margin of the overall prostitution market. (Isn’t it?).

The two well-respected economists created a minor stir in academic circles a few years back when they published "A Theory of Prostitution" …. The paper was remarkable … also because it considered wives and whores as economic "goods" that can be substituted for each other. Men buy, women sell. Economists have been equating money and marriage ever since Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker published his seminal paper "A Theory of Marriage"

Is it only about sex? No, the prostitute offers a service for all kinds of emotional needs that are not taken care of. So the prostitute could well stand as the model for the client-oriented service.
Becker allowed elements like romantic love and companionship, to be entered into courtship's profit and loss statement. And children, in particular, were important. …Both the man and the woman are required to produce their own children and perhaps to raise them," he wrote... Becker used market analysis to tackle the questions of whom, when and why we marry. His conclusions? Mate selection is a market, and marriages occur only if they are profitable for both parties involved.

Such work includes creativity – even if you are not the most beautiful, you have to attract the clients’ attention. Understanding clients is where sales people can still learn from – the happy hooker: From uptight Afrikaners to flying Dutchmen, from New York high-fliers to the earthy charmers of Puerto Rico--Xaviera got a taste of them all, first as a freewheeling freelance, and later as the most beautiful, famous, and merry madam of Manhattan. "The Happy Hooker" is the book that launched the high priestess of hookerdom on an unsuspecting world. And although this frank sexual shocker raised eyebrows on first publication, Xaviera didn't tell all! (http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Hooker-Xaviera-Hollander/dp/1568492472)
This is the gravity’s center of the profile: client orientation. “Having seen them all, a prostitute should know as no other who to trigger a sale.

But back to whores: Edlund and Korn admit that ... Wives, in truth, are superior to whores in the economist's sense of being a good whose consumption increases as income rises--like fine wine… As with Becker, a key differentiator in Edlund and Korn's model is reproductive sex. Wives can offer it, whores can not… Edlund and Korn were merely building an admittedly grossly simplified model of human behavior in an attempt to answer a nagging question: Why do hookers make so much money? Prostitution is, seemingly, a low-skill but high-pay profession…
The production part probably needs no elaboration, although it might result in an interesting prose… Instead, the end of the study:

Notwithstanding Jerry Hall's quip when she was married to Mick Jagger, about being "a maid in the living room and a whore in the bedroom," one normally cannot be both a wife and a whore. "Combine this with the fact that marriage can be an important source of income for women, and it follows that prostitution must pay better than other jobs to compensate for the opportunity cost of forgone-marriage market earnings," Edlund and Korn conclude. .

... In other words, yes, supermodels do prefer aging billionaires. And Gary Becker proved it mathematically decades before The Donald married Melania... ("italic" source: www.forbes.com/2006/02/11/economics-prostitution-marriage_cx_mn_money06_0214prostitution.html)

Champions League: Barca (1) - Chelsea (1)

2009-05-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Barca won in the home league from Real Madrid by 6 to 2. It wasn't after all Madrid that could have done better, it was Barca being superior.
In the recent duel against Chelsea, Barca scored in minute 92. Was it luck? Probably not. You could wonder why Chelsea didn't score more than one after having a mayority of one player when Barca got red - by mistake. Was the "handball" where Dogma was so eager about (what a disgrace btw - where is the respect for the Referee?) also a mistake? More likely it was not.
Chelsea knew that a score of 1-1 wouldn't be enough and shouldn't have sensed a victory with only 1-0.

Now the final against Manchester...

Some Basics About Greenhouse Business Architecture

2009-05-06T10:15:00.000-07:00

According to Wikipedia: “the idea of growing plants in environmentally controlled areas has existed since Roman times. The Roman emperor Tiberius ate a cucumber-like vegetable daily. The Roman gardeners used artificial methods (similar to the greenhouse system) of growing to have it available for his table every day of the year… Charles Lucien Bonaparte, a French botanist, is often credited with building the first practical modern greenhouse in Leiden, Holland to grow medicinal tropical plants.”
. . .
According to the Dutch company Snelder – “The first horticultural greenhouses in the Netherlands were built around 1850, and were used to grow grapes… Worldwide, the Netherlands have a dominant position in horticulture. The far-reaching specialization of greenhouse constructors and suppliers has everything to do with the fact that the Netherlands have more greenhouses than any other country. The Netherlands have more than 24,710 acres of greenhouses… The glass greenhouse is essentially a Dutch export article. Eighty percent of the glass greenhouses outside Europe come from the Netherlands!”

The Dutch climate, unfavorable for growing crops beyond a single season, was very likely what drove this innovation. There it is: culture develops in fighting nature. In trying to be smarter than nature.

In Spain I tried to find out when the first greenhouses “Invernaderos” arrived. They did in Almeria, where people now talk of a sea of plastic, as the main difference between the Spanish variant from the Dutch one is exactly the use of plastic instead of Glass.
Glass was too expensive and not really necessary in Spain, whereas the heavy rainfall in the Netherlands – and the culture to build – made for glass the only option.
Some sources say that the greenhouses in Almeria (the Andalusean region where the plastic greenhouses started) were built in the fifties as experiments, but massive exploitation started only in the mid seventies.

Greenhouses are one of the perfect examples of business architecture where new business development is solved by the architecture of a new sort of organization; only by means of the greenhouses – which were used before for other purposes in a more private atmosphere - the products (fruit and vegetables) could be grown irrespectively of the natural climate.
Basically the new business development is more of the same but by extending the production possibilities.

Now we think these greenhouses are normal, but at the time it was quite an invention.

An alternative to the greenhouse would be to organize the production in a global company, where each production is managed in the best area in the season. Why one may wonder is the investment in greenhouses and the electricity required for heating a better way than building a plant in a country with a better climate and reserve the greenhouse-space in the other country (with the inappropriate climate) for other ways of production.

That is also business architecture. What do you produce and how do you organize it in the most efficient and effective way.

But there is more. Business architecture doesn’t stop there. In Spain the plastic greenhouses foster a new challenge that of (environmental) waste management as tons of plastic is to be disposed off each year. And there seems to be more issues in the reflection of the sun of there plastic structures. The net effect on the climate is open to debate. The business architecture element in this issue is the fact that one business (company, greenhouse) impact on the (economic and physical) environment is different than a large and compounded area of greenhouses.

Ford Plant Transformation - From Truck to Car

2009-05-06T04:14:00.000-07:00

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Ford Motor Co. said it's spending $550 million to transform a Michigan truck plant into one that builds small cars. Production for the North American market of the new global Ford Focus begins next year followed by production in 2011 of a battery-electric Focus, the company said. The $550 million investment in Michigan Assembly includes more than $430 million in manufacturing investment at the site, as well as $120 million for launch and engineering costs. The state of Michigan, Wayne County and the city of Wayne contributed more than $160 million in tax credits and grants.

That's what I call a change!

On the 2003 Prediction of the current Swine Flu

2009-05-05T05:59:00.000-07:00

THERE SHOULD be no excuses. This is not a "black swan" flapping its wings. Indeed, the central paradox of this swine flu panic is that while totally unexpected, it was accurately predicted.
Six years ago, Science dedicated a major story (reported by the admirable Bernice Wuethrich) to evidence that "after years of stability, the North American swine flu virus has jumped onto an evolutionary fast track."
...
ANYONE WHO has ever driven through Tar Heel, N.C., or Milford, Utah--where Smithfield Foods subsidiaries each annually produce more than 1 million pigs as well as hundreds of lagoons full of toxic shit--will intuitively understand how profoundly agribusiness has meddled with the laws of nature.

... writes the socialist worker.

These days organizations like that and the WHO are the center of attention. as if they are finally being taken seriously.

Spain last to recover in EU?

2009-05-05T05:54:00.000-07:00

According to a study performed by the EU, Spain is the last country to recover from the financial and economic crisis. It will take all about 10 trimesters until the second half of 2010.

Another estimate is that the unemployment rate will grow to 20%.

(I’m afraid they will be right)

Mark Zuckerberg's Profile on Facebook

2009-05-05T05:46:00.000-07:00

Aaron Sorkin is going to produce a new film about Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg. In what it appears, his profile is not all that clean. The article's title shows some indication: Sex, theft and Money, those are the ingredients of the life of the young billionaire. But before I and others should believe all that is rumored - about his relation with his colleagues at Harvard, we will have to look for some confirmation.

First impression: where smoke is is fire. Some of it must be true. He's probably not an angel.

Real Madrid (2) - Barca (6)

2009-05-05T04:50:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Real Madrid played against Barcelona. They lost 2 against 6.

The proof of the change is in the eating. Schuster had left in the beginning of this year in order to improve the performance of the team. But did it help? And when do you know whether a measure like that has effect?

In my view to problem of Real Madrid is called Raul. He is the legacy that will keep Real from changing...

Real Madrid, Schuster and (No) Change
Real Madrid is one of the few clubs in the world with the highest budgets. But will it be enough to survive? Or will soccer be the next area, after finance that will face problems? It is possible. Money or finance is not always enough to achieve the right results.
Replacing a coach won't always be enough to change the course of events...
That is my problem with Real Madrid: the image of a club that can buy it all, but is not performing as such.
The question is whether a club can always be number one. I actually agree with Schuster, when he explained to the press that Barcelona is playing very well, this is the year of Barcelona and RM can only to their best. Was he too much of a pessimist? Was he too foolish to address the press like that in Spain? Was he playing with them, and With Barcelona who they will meet in “the Derby” this coming weekend? If you tell the press and the world that you are confident that you will win, how will that affect the rest of the stakeholders?
Real Madrid won the title in Spain last year. Today Schuster got fired. Very likely because of the way how he addresses the press. There was no change in this handling the press for the year-and-a-half. Why bother about it now?
I must think about a BMW. It stands still in front of a red light. The engine is off. Will it be fast enough when the light switches to green? Is the German approach compatible with the Spanish culture?
I think it doesn’t matter replacing Schuster for the trainer of Seville Juande Ramos. It will – I reckon – not help the club. The unbalanced number of Dutch Players is another issue. It seems to me that RM is copying Barcelona who has done that before. Think also about how many players of the club are injured. Only time will solve this deadlock. Time will be needed to change. Replacing a trainer won’t do it. I fear.
(Previously published on Ezinesarticle.com)

Patxi Lopez - First Guiri as Lehendakari

2009-05-05T04:37:00.000-07:00

Sometimes things do change. Then the question is: how sustainable is it all.

In the Basque country there is a new Lehendakari (President), but the interesting fact is that he is not from the original Basque Nationalist party (PNV or any other) but from the PSOE, the "normal" socialist party in Spain, but than for the Basque country.
What he managed was to form an alliance with the PP the other Spanish political party in order to form a mayority. (Why is more cooperation between PP and PSOE not possible in the other parts of Spain?)

Now the question is: will this last? Or will he be murdered by ETA? Or will the opposition make his political life impossible.

Who knows. So far there is a change in the Basque country.

Due to be inaugurated on May the 7th. Good-luck!

. . .
(A guiri - a term Spanish citizens use to describe a unadapted foreigner in Spain)
. . .

The problem with PNV - stated by Spains leading newspaper: PNV Failed to offer security and safety to Non-Nationalist Basques...

Another Myth about Van Gogh's Ear?

2009-05-05T04:23:00.000-07:00

In these heroic times a rivaling theory can change the perception of the past. This case is about the Myth of van Gogh who cut his own ear off.
But now someone claims his friend Gauguin was responsible for it in an argument ...

In Van Gogh's Ear: Paul Gauguin and the Pact of Silence, Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans claim it was the sword attack, not Van Gogh's madness, that led him to commit suicide two years later....As the pair approached a bordello, their row intensified, and Gauguin cut off Van Gogh's left earlobe with his sword – either in anger or self-defence. (source Telegraph)

I've just read his letters to Theo. Maybe time to reread it all.

Or, perhaps not. It's only a new study. Part of the time to rival existing ideas.

Intel Stake in ASMI

2009-05-04T23:05:00.000-07:00

Intel (INTC) announced this afternoon that its Intel Capital arm has taken a 4% stake in semiconductor equipment provider ASM International (ASMI). The company acquired the stake in open market transactions. The company said the stake is part of Intel Capital’s strategy “to foster innovation that aligns with Intel’s manufacturing technology roadmap.” Last week, Tokyo Electron took a 4.9% stake in the company...

ASMI is under pressure lately to come with changes. Apparently this move by Intel may speed up change.