Seeking Treatment within Criminal Justice System Research Paper

Seeking Treatment within Criminal Justice System - Research Paper Example There are many treatment methods that the criminal justice systems have implemented and still continue to incorporate in their systems. There have been debates on whether the criminal justice systems should use the multi-dimensional kind of treatment where there is a combination of different methods of treatment, or uni-dimensional treatment where only one method is used at a time. This paper discusses the different kinds of treatment in the criminal justice systems. Keywords: Criminal Justice System, Treatment, Multi-Dimensional, Uni-Dimensional, Co-Morbidity Introduction The criminal justice system is a set of agencies and processes that have been established by governments to control crime and impose punishments to those who violate the law. Criminal justice is a complex subject to deal with. Most nations have several systems of justice; for example, in the United States, there are different systems of criminal justice. The criminal justice system is therefore a system that ensure s that the laws of different countries are enforced (Goldsmith & Israel, 2000). Drug courts have been created in some nations, such as the United States America. This is in response to the realization that there is need for increased capacity in local jails, due to the high number of criminals arrested for reasons related to drug abuse. ... The criminal justice systems in many countries have most of the time received a lot of criticism, because most of the people do not have trust in them. This is because most of them fail to treat offenders, which is in fact the main reason behind the establishment of such systems. There are different methods that can be used to treat substance abusers, mentally ill criminals and other conditions in people who enter into the systems. This paper discusses multi-dimensional and uni-dimensional treatments that are effective in treating criminals within the criminal justice system. Differences between multi dimensional and uni-dimensional treatments with substance abusers Multidimensional Family Therapy treatment is commonly used to treat substance abuse in adolescents and related behavioral and mental health problems (Liddle, Rodriguez, Dakof, Kanzki &Marvel, n.d.). The method seeks to reduce symptoms and at the same time, enhance developmental functioning by changing some domains of the behavior. This kind of treatment has received the highest rating in treating adolescent drug abusers, especially the juveniles because not use a single specified method making it very effective. This treatment is based on a combination of the theoretical and clinical traditions of psychopathology and developmental psychology, family therapy, and an ecological perspective. According to Liddle, Rodriguez, Dakof, Kanzki and Marvel, â€Å"multidimensional treatment uses research derived knowledge about risk and protective factors for adolescent drug related problems as the basis for assessment an intervention† (p. 128). Multidimensional Family Therapy holds the argument that drug abuse among teenagers is

Public Policy Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Public Policy - Coursework Example Understanding public policy involves a series of individual values towards the realization of a greater goal. Therefore, unlike Science, public policy is an Art. It is, therefore, prudent for policymakers to adopt measures that put the interests of the entire society at heart. â€Å"The basic element of understanding public policy for a better society is communication† (McConnell, 2010 p.89). Policy maker ought to adopt a legal approach towards communicating with the members of the society in an attempt to enhance understanding of public policy. If policymakers created channels for communication, the policies implemented would be favorable to all and ensure that all the relevant factors considered. Policymakers ought to evaluate the effectiveness of policies implemented in terms of their effectiveness towards improving the society (McConnell, 2010). They should install internal control measures to ensure that the policies implemented achieve the objectives. In addition, policies are similar to projects; every project has a lifespan. The internal controls may include evaluations, audits, and reviews. A policy may not achieve its purpose if it is implemented then ignored. Just as an automobile requires servicing, public policies are reviewed to assess whether they achieve the intended purpose. Policymakers are entrusted with public resources, and ought to uphold the code of ethical conduct. They can perfect their craft for the betterment of society if they perform their roles in a manner that upholds and respects moral values and public office respectively (McConnell,

Impact of Internationalization on Company Performance

Impact of Internationalization on Company Performance Increased deregulation, cross-border activities of non-financial companies and improved information communications technology led to an increased consolidation of financial institutions across borders. Commercial banking sector in particular, have witnessed tremendous amount of cross-border bank merger and acquisitions (MAs) deals throughout the recent years. While globalization has accelerated cross-border merger activities around the world, another global force recently has been creating a counterweight to cross-border deals. Concerns over nationalism, feelings of national security and protectionism have delayed several cross-border banking deals. Basically, MAs of these institutions results in Consolidation, Internationalization or Conglomeration. In this context, Consolidation: It is a result of more concentrated banking systems, smaller number of larger firms. Ex: Consolidation of Bank of New York and hMellon in 2007 in USA. Internationalization: It is evidenced by increasing number of banking and other financial institutions that operate across national borders. Ex: Citi Bank, HSBC etc., operating worldwide. Conglomeration: Larger number of financial groups whose activities combine those of bank and non-bank financial firms. Ex: State Bank of India combining other State Banks for various activities in its umbrella in India. Objective and Scope of the Project The objective of this project is to understand the concept of internationalization and observe strategic patterns undertaken by various banks and evaluate the way it affected the performance of the organization. In this process, we consider exploring the following areas with a case study of a Canadian or US bank along with our study. Introduction to Internationalization After a relatively quiet period in 2001/2002, international mergers and acquisitions have picked up again. Since the 2003 mergers between Bank of America and FleetBoston, and JP Morgan Chases acquisition of Bank One, speculations were fueled about comparable cross-border deals in the European banking market. JP Morgan Chase announced its purchase of London based Cazenove in October 2004, while Spanish Banco Santander bought British mortgage bank Abbey National for 12.5 billion euro in august 2004, the largest cross border acquisition since HSBC bought French CCF in 2001. On the other hand, restructuring also took place. Credit Suisse announced in December 2004 that it would absorb First Boston, its global investment bank, into the parent organization to revive profits. After barely four years, ING sold the largest part of its German bank BHF to Sal Oppenheim while expanding its Internet banking activities. These examples reflect the increased internationalized nature of banking competitions in three respects (Llewellyn, 1999). Customers that have global financing opportunities are able to arbitrage between domestic, foreign banks and capital markets. Banks are not restricted to business in their own country. Regulatory entry barriers have lowered, making it easier for banks to locate in other countries. In other words, many of the largest banks in the world have been struggling toward a new organizational model where terms as home market seem to become a by-product in a broader strategic vision. Swiss bank UBS, the fifth largest bank in the world measured by assets in 2000, has more than 80% of its assets outside Switzerland. Netherlands based bank ABN Amro owns a retail branch network in Brazil, 9,500 km from Amsterdam which constituted 15% of total profits in 2000. In 2003 the 30 largest banks held more than USD 7,586bn, or 39% of their assets, outside their home country. Successes in international banking are few, failures have been common. One of the more spectacular failures was the acquisition of American Crocker Bank by British Midland Bank in 1981, costing the bank USD 1bn over the next five years and forcing its strategy to retreat on the British retail banking market. Midland was acquired by Hong Kong based bank HSBC in 1992, a bank who subsequently showed that internationalization can be a profitable activity. Degree of Internationalization (DOI): The extent to which a Bank exists and operates in the international markets away from its home market can be measured by a metric called ‘Degree of Internationalization (DOI). Generally, it is measured in terms of the share of assets, revenues, profits, or employment that locates abroad. Literature Review The hypothesized positive relationship between performance and DOI goes back at least to Vernon (1971); many studies have followed. It is generally hypothesized that internationalization is good for firms and leads to better performance, for several reasons (Contractor, Kundu, and Hsu 2003; Dunning 1977, 1981). Going international implies that firms can spread fixed costs, such as operating overhead and research and development (RD) expenditures, through a greater scale and scope (Markusen 1984; Kobrin 1991). Internationalization allows firms to learn about domestic markets from their international market experience, thus improving performance (Kobrin 1991). Operating in foreign jurisdictions allows firms to access factors at lower cost (Helpmann 1984; Porter 1990; Jung 1991). This is particularly true for instances of FDI and other modes of direct involvement in foreign markets. Internationalization allows firms to cross-subsidize their domestic operations and provides greater opportunities for price discrimination and tax and price arbitrage. Although theory implies a positive relationship, the empirical evidence of the effects of DOI on performance is mixed (Hsu and Boggs 2003). For example, Sullivan (1994) lists 17 studies that test the relationship between DOI and financial performance, six of which find a positive relationship and five negative. The remaining six find no relationship. This reflects the consensus in the literature that the empirical results are highly dependent on the sample, the measures of DOI, and the measures of performance used. In addition to testing this link, the literature has moved in two distinct directions. First, to address a measurement issue, Sullivan (1994) attempts to more reliably measure the DOI of a firm by developing a novel index measure of internationalization that captures three of its attributes: Structural, Performance, and Attitudinal. As Ramaswamy, Kroeck, and Renforth (1996) show, there are several limitations to the empirical and theoretical underpinnings of Sullivans work as the DOI is measured in uni-dimensional method. There is also a growing literature focus on the shape of the relationship between DOI and performance. Contractor, Kundu, and Hsu (2003) list 15 studies that find the relationship between performance and DOI is linear: seven of the studies find a positive relationship, four a negative relationship and four no relationship. Two studies listed find a U-shaped relationship, and eight find an inverted U-shaped relationship. Contractor, Kundu, and Hsu (2003) and Lu and Beamish (2004) provide theoretical models for curvilinear relationships between DOI and performance. By analyzing data for 125 multinationals, Kim, Hwang, and Burgers (1993) document the importance of global market diversification in the joint management of risk and return. The measures of global diversification capture the number of foreign markets being operated in, as well as the pattern of a firms industries across those countries. A small literature investigates the performance of Canadian banks. DSouza and Lai (2004) estimate the effects of scope, scale, and concentration on Canadas six largest banks. They find that banks with greater concentration in their business lines are less efficient. Interestingly, for some model specifications, the effect of size on performance (as measured by return on equity) is negative. Using a different methodology, Allen and Liu (2005) estimate cost functions for Canadian banks and find that larger banks are more efficient. Neither study considers the impact of DOI on performance. Walid Hejazi and Eric Santor tried to address this DOI Performance realtionship by verifying the direction. i.e., weather DOI is driving superior performance or it is otherwise around. They also brought the risk factor of the country (in which the bank is venturing) into the equation and found that there is a weak but significant positive relationship between DOI Performance. Measuring the Degree of Internalization There are different approaches to measure a banks degree of internationalization, and estimating the degree of internationalization of a firm or bank is to some extent vague and a random process. An initial approach could be to construct a single item indicator or one-dimensional measurement as indicated above in the literature review; Sullivan (1994) reviewed 17 studies which all applied a single item indicator to measure the degree of internationalization, i.e. the ratio of foreign sales to total sales as degree of internationalization. However as indicated by many researchers and as identified in the literature review above from the work of Ramaswamy, Kroeck, and Renforth in 1996, the use of a single item indicator increases the potential error of measurement, because a single parameter is always more prone to external shocks which may or may not indicate the performance. An alternate approach is to combine several indicators into one index. Depending on the choice of indicators, this might provide a better approximation of the degree of internationalization, but the choice of indicators may be restricted on data availability rather than theoretical induction (Sullivan, 1994). We will follow the method that is most cited and adopted by the researchers in UN conference of Trade and Development. This method applies three single item indicators, which are combined in a composite index to analyze the degree of internationalization of a bank, the Transnationality Index (TNI). The TNI is one of the most cited indicators for internationalization (cf. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 1998, van Tulder, van den Berghe, Muller, 2001). The index is expressed as a percentage and calculated as an weighted average of Foreign assets to total assets ratio, Foreign gross income to total gross income ratio and Foreign employment to total employment ratio[1]. The percentage term of the TNI is that the degree of internationalization is presented in one scale, which by definition moves between 0 and 100. Also an internationalization index that incorporates income, staff and assets captures a richer picture of the banks foreign activities than that which would be captured by income, staff and assets separately (cf. Sullivan, 1994). Another attractive characteristic is that the TNI dampens the effect of finance companies or off shore funding constructions if a ratio were only based on foreign assets relative to total assets. A substantial amount of assets can obviously be expected to be located in tax havens or countries with lenient fiscal regimes. Such reported assets would be accompanied by low number of employees. Combining both employees and assets in the TNI would then create a more balanced view. The same argument also applies to investment banking activities that are concentrated in financial centers outside the home country; these ac tivities tend to generate a relatively high degree of income with fewer employees. Demonstration of Measuring DOI through TNI method There is also a flip side for this TNI. It cant take into account the recent technological changes, geographic boundaries, and we cant guarantee every bit of data to be same and uniform in all countries. Technological change: A disadvantage of the TNI might be that the construction of such an index cannot take account of the effects of technological change. Changes in technology can for example raise productivity and increase the assets or income per employee; if these changes are distributed evenly over the total bank organization then its effect on the TNI is probably limited. If the ratio of foreign assets per foreign employee increases in the same amount as the ratio of domestic assets per domestic employee, then technological change has no effect on the TNI. From the mid 1990s however technological advances have had other geographic distribution effects. For example, the development of â€Å"Internet† banks like ING Direct implies that the share of foreign assets and foreign income increases while staff and operations working for the Internet bank basically remain at home. This might potentially depress the true extent of internationalization measured by the TNI. Geographical boundaries: For Banks like Fortis, Belgian/Dutch corporate structure creates a problem to determine what region is home or foreign. This is solved in the database by denoting Benelux as home. Similarly, HSBC is the only bank that is not disclosing information for the home country, instead it is reporting Europe as ‘home region. Data availability: Not all banks have consistently reported detailed information on foreign assets, staff, income or profitability. Banks like SBC, UBS or Deutsche Bank did not report this information although they progressed significantly with their internationalization activities. A general remark is usually found in the financial report stating something like â€Å"due to the integrated nature of our activities worldwide a geographical breakdown does not provide additional information†; the information provided by British and American banks in the 1980s proves otherwise. Data collection from other sources provided valuable information. For example, foreign banks in the United States have to report their balance sheets to the Federal Reserve. Internationalization Patterns Internationalization for banks has progressed at different paces, with different purposes. Here we try to identify these internationalization patterns. As several motives are grounded in history, we start with a brief historic overview of internationalization, after that we shall discuss about various activities that the banks pursued as a part of Internationalization. Historic Overview Internationalization of banks is not a new phenomenon. In 1913 there were approximately 2,600 branches of foreign banks worldwide. The dominating factor at that time was colonization, over 80% of those branches belonged to British banks. The share of foreign banks accounted for one third of banking assets in Latin America and over one half in countries like South Africa, Turkey or China (Goldsmith, 1969). The financial empire of J.P. Morgan started out as a partnership financing American civil war loans from England (Chernow, 1990). International banking has in some respects not changed that much. Over time, innovations in financial instruments, telecommunication, information technology, organization innovation and the growing sophistication of customers have meant a dramatic transformation in the conduct of banking business and client relationships in international banking. The sheer size of international involvement of the present day internationalized banks has increased dramatically (cf. De Nicolà ³, Bartholomew, Zaman, Zephirin, 2004). Foreign assets of the thirty largest banks as a percentage of total assets have changed from 35% in 1980 to over 38% in 2003. However, the absolute size of foreign assets of the thirty largest banks has raised eleven fold from USD 650bn in 1990 to USD 7,571bn in 2000. The increasing importance of foreign activities has affected profitability and stability of internationalizing banks in their home country; it can also have serious effects positive as well as negative on the host economies. The intensity with which banks have pursued internationalization strategies also encouraged us to have a study on them. The dissolution of the British Empire meant that British banks represented the old internationalization of banking. American banks on the other hand have been on the rise since the Second World War. American financial aid, exports of American firms and the export of American ideology such as freeing of competition or creation of uniform markets were feeding ground for internationalization activities of American banks. From the 1960s onwards income in Western economies rose and banks developed more financial products to cater households and businesses as increasing scale of firms raised transaction volumes in corporate finance. American banks formed an apparent threat, seeking out the more profitable activities in investment banking in Europe, being equipped with better staff, more financial resources and more experience. The creation of off shore markets to circumvent (American) regulation and the political potential of seizure of capital belonging to communist states induced the first series of international activities, later propelled by the inflation of capital markets when oil producing countries forced serious wealth transfers. European banks either tried to work together in consortium banks to participate in these activities (Roberts Arnander, 2001) which in the beginning was a cost saving and knowledge rewarding construction or set up foreign activities themselves. Redistribution of the surpluses of oil producing countries found their way to emerging markets, with American banks leading the way. The growing volume of loans masked growing economic imbalances, brought to light from 1981 onwards when Latin American countries defaulted in their loans. Internationalization of banks became a worldwide event (United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations, 1991). Institutions like the IMF aided governments with restructuring loans, dealing with severed banks and capital markets in distress. Governments of the lender banks, especially the United States, faced potential crisis at home when the losses in emerging markets were transferred by the large banks to their home country. A consequence of this restructuring period was that in the 1980s capital strength and adequate supervision of internationally operating banks were major issues for bank regulators. A major coordination initiative took place in the Basle Accord of 1988, creating more transparency and uniformity among regulatory policies for internationally active banks. Among others, the Basle Accord became one of the drivers for the Japanese banks to retreat from the international arena. Japanese banks increased international activities sharply from the early 1980s fuelled by strong domestic economic growth, a fast pace of deregulation and large flows of foreign direct investment by Japanese industrial firms. The Japanese stock market decline from 1989 showed that (international) banking strategies had not been based on sound banking practices, affecting bank capital and loan quality at the same time (Canals, 1997). Japanese banks found ways to stave off restructuring of their bad loans for almost a decade, contributing substantially to the prolongation of economic recession, and steadily relinquishing their importance in international banking. A general trend fuelling international activities was the ongoing process of disintermediation from mid-1960: large firms found it more profitable to arrange loans directly with institutional investors, thereby bypassing the role of banks as financial intermediaries. Additionally, stricter monetary policies introduced from the late 1970s onwards eventually led to a steady decrease of interest rates consequently lowering income from the core business of banks. These trends forced banks to reconsider their strategic business portfolios. Non-interest income, especially the high margins of fees and commissions in investment banking, became a promising route. The liberalization of British securities markets in 1984 was followed by an unprecedented wave of acquisitions by host banks. By the end of the 1990s British owned investment banks or securities houses in London were few in number; London as an important financial center had become a manifest of internationalization activities of ban ks. Internationalization of banks was also a response to further regional integration and deregulation (cf. Group of Ten, 2001, January). In Europe especially, banks were aware that the competition for larger clients extended over the geographic borders, but the competition for retail clients remained a domestic issue. By the mid-1980s, European integration created momentum in Europe, redefining markets for banking activities on a multinational scale. Mergers and acquisitions became an important strategic tool for banks. They generally took place in two phases: domestic consolidation and then, international expansion; the creation of higher domestic concentration in order to more effectively compete internationally. Opportunity was provided by the capital markets (lower interest rates and higher stock market prices) and the regulators, privatizing banks or not opposing the takeovers. The close of the decade shows the financial might of just a handful of banks: the top 25 banks in 1980 ha d total assets of USD 1,858bn, equal to 30% of GDP. In 2000 this had risen to 64% of GDP, a combined total of USD 12,781bn. Of this amount, 41% are assets outside the home country. In fact, foreign banks practically control the banking sectors in many Eastern European countries; for some observers the â€Å"Single global banking space is almost a reality† (Mullineux Murinde, 2003). The foreign owned assets of the largest banks exhibit uneven geographic patterns, â€Å"Regions and/or countries of the developed world currently represent the most interconnected cluster of national banking systems† (De Nicolà ³, Bartholomew, Zaman, Zephirin, 2004). Internationalization pattern of Banks Starting in the 1970s, bank internationalization originally consisted of setting up banking activities in financial centers and economic centers. Part of this was related to incentives such as â€Å"follow-the-client† or aimed at increasing overall profitability. Additionally, restructuring and expansion in the domestic markets might have been cumbersome for some and impossible for other banks, further stimulating internationalization. Regulatory idiosyncrasies in the home market might be one explanation for this, but also the existence of a home bias ‘inertia: restructuring the domestic retail networks in the early 1980s might have been more difficult with vested interests in the home country such as labor unions. In particular, banks in smaller countries had to expand abroad for fear of anti-trust regulation at home. For most banks during the 1980s, international expansion supported their domestic strategies and was relatively small compared to the home country. So banks did not have to attract additional capital. When banks initiated larger acquisitions in the late 1980s and 1990s, external capital became more important as a source of financing. (Domestic and foreign) shareholders not only provided additional capital to expand. They also followed management more closely, and pressed for changes when expected results were not delivered. An increasing shareholder role and foreign profitability that was below expectations, led bank managers to change objectives in the mid 1990s: profitability should be internally generated, the domestic base strengthened and foreign activities divested if they did not contribute satisfactorily to total profitability. Banks can offer in principle five product categories: credit, securities, asset management, financial services and insurance. Also, five client types can be distinguished that banks can target: Governmental clients (nation states, supra national institutions), Corporate clients, Institutional clients (other banks, asset managers and insurers), Retail clients and Private clients. The case studies show that banks which entered new market activities actively serviced and targeted a wide range of clients and products. Two specific patterns have been identified: Ø Capital market activities, and Ø Foreign retail banking Capital Market Activities For capital market activities banks offer credit, securities, asset management, and financial advice to governmental, institutional and corporate clients. The majority of the banks had set up such operations by 1980: they participated in the Euromarkets, issued bonds to finance their own activities, and took advantage of the financial deregulation in the financial centers. Expanding capital market activities was spurred in the mid-1980s with the financial liberalization in the United Kingdom, and in the mid-1990s with the prospect of restructuring in the European Union. For several banks, the decision to participate in the capital markets heavily influenced their overall strategy. Paribas and J.P. Morgan decreased their commercial banking activities and transformed themselves into investment banks. Both banks however did not have the scale by the end of the 1990s to remain a major market participant in investment banking and sustain the increasing IT investments: J.P. Morgan was subsequently acquired by Chase Manhattan in 2000 and Paribas by BNP in 1998. Most of the acquisitions of UBS, SBC, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank in the 1990s were capital market related, steadily increasing their reliance on fee income instead of net interest income. The composition of the fee income changed: more lucrative (but volatile) fee income from financial advice and securities re-distributions on mergers and acquisitions was combined with more stable income from asset management activities. Period 1970s 1980s 1990s Reason Growth Eurocurrency markets (London, Paris, Zurich) Financial liberalization of American stock market Financial liberalization European capital markets (London, Paris, Amsterdam) Financial liberalization of Japanese capital markets Catch up new entrants to profit from current bull market, consolidation existing players Example Chase, Citicorp Deutsche Bank, ABN Amro, Societe Generale Credit suisse, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Table 2: Development of Capital Market Activities Retail Banking International retail banking has been the domain of a selected number of banks. Chase and Citicorp set out to expand a retail network in Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom in the 1950s and 1960s. European banks in the 1970s and 1980s on the other hand did not expand in retail banking in Europe, but expanded in the United States, especially in California where British and Japanese banks bought retail banks helped by lenient regulation. For most Californian banks, their sale was either instigated by regulation (banks that cannot be bought by domestic competitors due to an increase in market share or banks that need outside capital) or poor performance. By the early 1990s a large number of banks exited from the United States market: they found it difficult to transform these banking operations into profitable ones, and their exit was speeded by the deregulation of interstate banking (cf. Tschoegl, 1987). The general expectation was that this would raise the minimum scale of operations to compete effectively, requiring large amounts of additional investments. Banks that remained were for example HSBC and ABN Amro. Eight foreign banks, including all of the British banks, held retail networks in the United States in the early 1980s; by the late 1980s five had opted out. For European banks, the growth of foreign commercial bank networks took place from the mid-1980s. A limited number of banks (HSBC, ABN and Citicorp) have maintained these foreign networks throughout the period. From the 1990s, the following banks pursued retail banking strategies: Ø Santander in Argentina, Mexico, Chile Ø BBVA in Argentina, Chile, Mexico Ø ABN Amro in Brazil and the United States Ø ING in Belgium Ø HSBC in Mexico, Brazil, the United States/Canada and Hong Kong Ø Citibank in Germany Two groups of banks did not enter foreign retail banking, or only to a limited extent: Swiss banks and Japanese banks. Swiss banks had retail banking activities in their domestic market, but not outside Switzerland. Switzerland was a major financial center and as an economy ran a capital surplus; an explanation might be that setting up foreign capital market activities was a more logical foreign extension of activities then setting up or acquiring foreign retail banks. Japanese banks also entered foreign retail banking to a limited extent. Their activities were mainly concentrated in California, where the banks initially had some links with Japanese immigrants. More important, lenient regulators allowed takeover of Californian banks by foreign competitors. The existence of an opportunity set the ability to buy compared to other more regulated banking markets has probably been the main incentive. Organizational form Banks which decided to enter new markets or to strengthen their market position have had a wide range of options available to them as to how they could proceed in implementing their foreign banking activities. Looking back at activities, there has been a strong rise in the number of each of the approaches used. Three specific developments in organizational form have been identified: Branch Networks Alliances and Joint Ventures Internet Banks Branch Network In general, the objective to build a branch network has been to assist foreign clients, finance activities more cheaply or to evade home country regulation. Activities in financial centers were set up, usually starting with London, New York and Singapore or Hong Kong. This was then expanded to second tier financial centers and economic centers in Europe, the United States, Asia and Latin America. Period 1970s 1980s 1990s Incentive Break down consortium Trade relates service existing clients Increase in trade and exports Liberalization of Capital markets Open up markets (Spain) Growth in Asian Capital Markets Opening of Eastern European markets Increase volume of securities market Example Citicorp, Bank of America, Lloyds, Barclays, ABN Amro, NMB, WestLB Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank Table 3: Development of Branch Networks Alliances and Consortium banks Consortium banks were mainly a feature of the late 1960s and 1970s. With these joint ventures, banks tried to create a platform to service foreign clients and undertake corporate finance activities, while sharing the costs of building such an activity independently. In the beginning of the 1980s, there were a number of banks who relied on the consortium banks to provide an alternative for a foreign branch network. These were Amro and Midland. Subsequently, a number of banks built their foreign networks by buying out the other shareholders in the consortium banks. During these alliances banks probably also acquired detailed information of the partner banks. This could be concluded from the observation that ING unsuccessfully acquired former InterAlpha partners from the mid-1990s for its expansion in Europe. From the 1990s, alliances between banks either had to develop specific skills neither bank could achieve alone, or serve as a defensive move in wake of expected restructuring in the European banking market. This usually was accompanied by share exchanges. Alliances to acquire or share specific skills Alliances to ensure future market position Ø Royal Bank of Scotland Santandar (1990) Ø BNP Dresdner (1988-2000) Ø Socià ©tà © Gà ©nà ©rale — BSCH (2000) Ø BBVA UniCredi

Herbal Weight Loss Products Essay -- Diet Health Nutrition Papers

Herbal Weight Loss Products An analysis of two particularly controversial products Herbal remedies, along with vitamins and various other types of dietary supplements, have long been popular with the customers of health food stores. But now they are part of a boom in alternative remedies and are widely available in supermarkets and pharmacies. In recent months, there has been an incredible surge in the sheer volume of scientific studies that have discussed the effectiveness of such herbal products. Medical scientists consider such findings promising but preliminary; additional research must definitely be explored. However, herbal supplement manufacturers are using such studies to boost the credibility of traditional herbal remedies. There are currently no government regulations to specify the purity, dosage or effectiveness of these products. Many consumers are opting to try them, assuming that the "natural" products with a long history of use will undoubtedly be safe. As herbal remedies continue to gain in popularity, reports by consumers of serious complications are also increasing. In one statistical report it was stated that 500 incidents were reported to the Food and Drug Administration last year alone. Leading the list of dangerous and ineffective ingredients are ephedra (or Ma Huang) and Chromium. Ephedra alone has accounted for more than half of the complaints in the past three years and has been associated with more than three dozen deaths. Thus the validity and the efficacy of these claims will need to be addressed. What are the claims of "Natural" Healing? It is obvious that our bodies are remarkable machines. However, the claim is that natural remedies aid the body's immune system toward tot... ...ances M. "Chromium Picolinate--Still Hot on the Market". Healthy Weight Journal. Jul;8(4), 1994. Dolby, Victoria. "Tip the Scales in Your Favor with Metabolic Weight Loss Nutrients". Better Nutrition. Oct; 58(10), 1996, Okie, Susan. "Looking for Mr. GoodPill; Americans Have Fallen in Love With Herbal Supplements--But Do They Work? Are They Safe?" The Washington Post, Nov. 25, 1997. Reading, S.A. "Chromium Picolinate". Journal of Florida Medical Association. Jan;83(1): 29-31, 1996. Stearns, D.M. "A prediction of chromium (III) accumulation in humans from chromium dietary supplements". FASEB. Dec;9(15):1650-7, 1995 Trent, L.K. "Effects of chromium picolinate on body composition". Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness. Dec;35(4):273-80. Walsh, Julie. "The great chromium debate". Bicycling. Oct/Nov; 37(10), 1996.

Acquisitions: Motivations & Challenges Essay

a. Identify five main motivations (discussed in class) for acquiring a company. Provide a specific, real-world acquisition example for each motivation. b. Which three motivations are most relevant to Paragon Tool’s potential acquisition of MonitoRobotics in the Growing for Broke case? c. Identify the four main challenges (discussed in class) when executing a corporate acquisition. Provide a specific, real-world acquisition example for each challenge. 2. Blue Ocean Strategy a. Draw a strategy canvas for the Nintendo Wii and briefly describe what it says about why Nintendo has been successful in such a competitive industry. Include the Sony Playstation and the Microsoft Xbox on the canvas. b. Identify and briefly describe the six paths to finding Blue Oceans. Give a specific, real-world example of each path (other than the examples I gave in class). 3. Cisco Systems’ Acquisition Strategy a. Outcomes of nearly 75% of corporate acquisitions fail to meet managerial expectations. Identify 7 reasons why Cisco Systems has been more successful than most other companies in executing over 100 acquisitions (see the two attached articles). b. Identify 3 reasons why Cisco Systems began having trouble with its acquisition strategy. 4. Diversification at Starbucks a. Illustrate and concisely explain the Boston Consulting Group’s Growth-Share Matrix. Make sure you identify: i. the dimensions upon which the Matrix is based ii. each type of businesses embodied in the Matrix’s quadrants iii. the three functional assumptions of the model b. Specifically apply the model to Starbuck’s product diversification efforts since the 1990s (see the attached article). c. Concisely explain two reasons why BCG’s Growth-Share Matrix might not accurately reflect Starbucks’ historical development. 5. Google’s International Strategy a. Identify and briefly explain the three types of international strategy. b. Identify Google’s international strategy and explain why Google Finance would have only been possible under that strategy (see Tom Friedman’s â€Å"Outsourcing, Schmoutsourcing! Out Is Over† article below). c. Give a specific, real-world example of each of the other two types of international strategy. 6. Reconfiguration in the Personal  Computer (PC) Industry a. Identify and briefly explain six distinct methods that firms can use to acquire the resources and capabilities they need to develop new products and businesses. b. Drawing on our discussion of the strategic sourcing framework, briefly describe and/or illustrate the relative advantages and disadvantages of these methods. c. Both PC software and hardware manufacturers have been forced to adapt to the rapidly evolving industry in order to survive. Using the PC industry, provide a specific example of 5 of these 6 methods. d. Briefly explain why Xerox may be greatest success and the worst failure in the history of the PC industry. 7. Outsourcing at GM a. Concisely describe the Strategic Sourcing Framework. Be sure to identify the relevant costs/advantages associated with the make-or-buy decision. b. In February 2006, GM announced a â€Å"huge package of outsourcing contracts.† See the attached article. Using the Strategic Sourcing Framework and our class discussions of GM, explain why GM chose to do this. c. Concisely describe the disadvantages GM faced in choosing to outsource, like this. 8. In the early 2000s, Boeing began aggressively outsourcing the development and production of the 787 airplane design. By late 2008, Boeing managers admitted that they made some mistakes in pursuing the outsourcing strategy and that Boeing would significantly curtail outsourcing. List Boeing’s initial motivations for outsourcing and the reasons behind its subsequent change of heart. 9. Diversification a. Concisely describe and explain the relationship between diversification and corporate performance. b. Give one example each of companies with very low diversification, very high diversification, and moderate diversification. Make sure these examples accurately reflect the relationship you described in part a. c. In class, I argued that Tyco could be considered an exception to the generally understood relationship between diversification and performance. Explain why you think this is true or untrue. d. Regardless of how you answered part c, identify 4 or 5 ways that Tyco’s diversification strategy is different from typical corporations’ corporate strategy. 10. Hybrid Engine Technology & Industry Evolution a. Concisely explain what type of industry disruption best describes Toyota’s  introduction of the first hybrid engine car targeted for the United States mass market. c. Give a specific historical example (from any industry) of the other major type industry disruption. d. Using a technological S-curve graph (Walker Figure 4.5), illustrate the evolution of the automobile engine. In your illustration, make sure you capture the development of 1) hybrid, 2) hydrogen fuel cell, and 3) standard gas-powered combustion engine technologies. Also include in the illustration indicators of today’s date in addition to the dates at which each technology was (will be) introduced to the U.S. mass market. e. Concisely explain Utterback’s model of innovation (Walker Figure 4.4). f. Use Utterback’s model to specifically and concisely explain why hydrogen fuel cell engines might not be commercially viable for a very, very lo ng time. How Cisco Makes Takeovers Work With Rules, Focus On Client Needs By Mike Angell, Investor’s Business Daily Investor’s Business Daily Investing in technology is risky. Just ask Cisco Systems. In 1997, the networking leader bought Dagaz, a company that made gear for digital subscriber lines. Dagaz wasn’t solid, and Cisco had to buy another company to get the right product. â€Å"You have to be ready to take those risks,† said Ammar Hanafi, Cisco’s business development manager. He’s been involved in almost every Cisco takeover since 1998. But Dagaz was an exception among the 70 companies Cisco has bought in the last seven years. That makes Cisco an exception, too. According to a study by consultant A.T. Kearney, more than half of mergers don’t work out. Here are some of Cisco’s rules: Stay close to home – 73% of Cisco’s targets make network gear. Deals make geographic sense, too. They’re close to a Cisco unit or a key talent capital. Get early wins – targets have products customers want right now. Familiarity – Cisco has stakes in 15% of its targets. Think small – Cisco buys start-ups mostly Management stays – and quickly learns the Cisco way. Beyond those factors, Cisco looks at what the target firm wants to accomplish, the needs of Cisco’s customers and how targets fit. â€Å"Cisco is the best example of a company with a well-established acquisition and post merger strategy,† Kearney’s Max Schroeck said. Many failed mergers stem from companies trying to enter new markets or just cut  costs. Successful mergers are between companies in related lines, the stud y says. That means joining people who share knowledge and experience. Cisco stays close to network gear. It strays, but not far. Smaller forays have been in Net-based phone gear (3%), software for content delivery (15%) and wireless gear (8%). Customer Focus â€Å"We’re always focused on our customers’ wants and needs,† Hanafi said. â€Å"We’re always expanding the range of products we have as our customers’ own networks expand.† The best example may be Cisco’s first acquisition in 1993. CEO John Chambers, then Cisco’s top salesman, was negotiating an order. But the client leaned toward a rival. So Cisco bought the rival, Crescendo Communications, for $ 89 million. Crescendo’s product was no â€Å"killer,† Hanafi said. But by the third generation, it brought in almost half of Cisco’s sales. â€Å"The first generation should be good enough for a customer,† Hanafi said. â€Å"The second generation is usually a great product. By the third, it should be a market leader.â⠂¬  Buy Vs. Invest But how does Cisco know this will be the case? Homework. Thirty people screen companies, probe market potential and talk to likely targets. Its engineers study products, and it queries customers. In some cases, this leads to an investment – one that helps Cisco learn about new technologies. If it’s a new market and product line, Cisco will invest. If the technology isn’t ready but looks right, Cisco will invest as well. â€Å"We’re always looking to enter new parts of the network,† Hanafi said. â€Å"Sometimes there are companies that are not as strategic, but we’d like to know what they do.† Of the 20 companies Cisco bought this year, it had stakes in eight. Overall, it has stakes in about 15% of its possible targets. Sometimes investments prompt Cisco to go with a rival. Two years ago, Cisco bought a stake in a company called Tellium that made an optical switch. Following some changes at Tellium, and after learning about that market, Cisco bought Monterey Networks instead for $ 500 million. Cisco still has a â€Å"passive† investment in Tellium but may sell its stake when it can, Hanafi says. For the most part, Cisco targets start-ups. Chambers doesn’t believe mergers of equals can work. The Kearney study agrees. It  said nearly one-third of mergers of equals destroy shareholder value. Cisco’s 1996 buy of StrataCom makes the point. At $ 4 billion, StrataCom was Cisco’s largest takeover to date. StrataCom’s sales force tou ted one data standard, Cisco’s another. Users were confused. â€Å"Integrating the two sales forces was more difficult,† Hanafi said. Geography’s Role Cisco also has a rule that targets must be physically near one another. This year, Cisco added a fourth company to its Israeli portfolio. And it added its second Canadian company, a software firm called PixStream. These areas are promising new high-tech hubs, and Cisco needs to â€Å"go where the talent is.† â€Å"People asked us why buy PixStream? It’s in Waterloo, Canada,† Hanafi said. â€Å"It’s right next to the University of Waterloo, a good school for engineers.† Though it may take up to two years to identify a potential acquisition, Cisco doesn’t waste time closing the deal. Hanafi has seen some sealed in as few as 10 days. Ultimately, Cisco buys talent. It woos people by telling them Cisco will help make their product No. 1. Integration Teams â€Å"We’re saying to them, ‘Use our sales force, our manufacturing size,’ † Hanafi said. â€Å"Come in and we’ll help make you a leader.† That’s kept 75% of acquired companies’ CEOs at Cisco. Cisco sets up a chain of command, and the CEO of the acquired company stays in charge. Integration is easier. Cisco has made integrating companies a discipline. Hanafi has a team of 10 people who run this process. They send up to 65 others from sales, human resources, manufacturing and finance to meet with every worker to discuss salaries, benefits and roles. †The first question people ask after being acquired by Cisco is, ‘What’s going to happen to my dentist?’ † Hanafi said. Cisco Shopped till It Nearly Dropped By John A. Byrne and Ben Elgin in San Jose, Calif., BusinessWeek It was an all-too-typical deal for Cisco Systems Inc. Monterey Networks Inc., an opticalrouting startup in which Cisco held a minority stake, was a quarry with no revenue, no products, and no customers  Ã¢â‚¬â€ just millions in losses it had racked up since its founding in 1997. Despite those deficits, Cisco plunked down a half-billion dollars in stock to buy the rest of the company in 1999. But within days of closing the deal, all three of Monterey’s founders, including its engineering guru and chief systems architect, walked out the door, taking with them millions of dollars in gains from the sale. †I came to the realization I wasn’t going to have any meaningful impact on the product by staying,† says H. Michael Zadikian, a Monterey founder. Eighteen months later, Cisco shut down the business altogether, sacking the rest of the management team and taking a $ 108 million write-off. That dismal tale hardly jibes with Cisco’s widespread reputation as an acquisitions whiz. Not since the conglomerate era has a company relied so heavily on its ability to identify, acquire, and integrate other companies for growth. CEO John T. Chambers believed that if Cisco lacked the internal resources to develop new products in six months, it had to buy its way into the market or miss the window of opportunity. Some put a new name on it: acquisitions and development, a way for the company to shortcut the usual research cycle. Its belief in the strategy has led Cisco to gobble up more than 70 companies in the past eight years. Analysts and academics heaped praise on Cisco’s acquisitions prowess in articles, books, and business-school case studies. In the early days, some of this praise was deserved, as Cisco morphed from a router company to a networking powerhouse. Its first acquisition, Crescendo Communications Inc., guided Cisco into the switching business, which generated $ 10 billion in sales last year. All told, acquisitions have laid the foundation for about 50% of Cisco’s business. But in early 1999, with exuberant investors enticing a growing number of unproven companies to go public, Cisco suddenly had to acquire companies at a much earlier stage. Cisco had long claimed an unprecedented success rate of 80% with its acquisitions. Chambers now says it fell to something like 50% during the Internet craze — still above the industry average. †We bet on products 12 to 18 months out,† concedes Chambers. †We took dramatically higher risks.† Chambers often maintained that his acquisition strategy was aimed at acquiring brainpower more than products. But an analysis of the 18 acquisitions Cisco made in 1999 shows that Monterey was no fluke. Many of the most valuable employees, the highly driven founders and chief executives of these acquired companies, have since  bolted, taking with them a good deal of the expertise and experience for which Cisco paid top dollar. The two founders of StratumOne Communications Inc., a maker of optical  semiconductors purchased for $ 435 million, left Cisco. The chief exec of GeoTel Communications Corp., a call-routing outfit acquired for $ 2 billion, walked out after nine months. So did the CEOs or founders of Sentient Networks, MaxComm Technologies, WebLine Communications, Tasmania Network Systems, Aironet Wireless Communications, V-Bits, and Worldwide Data System s — all high-priced acquisitions in 1999. Some simply felt Cisco had become too big and too slow. †People who crave risk don’t do so well at Cisco,† says Narad Networks CEO Dev Gupta, who sold Dagaz and MaxComm Technologies Inc. to Cisco in 1997 and 1999, respectively. †Cisco focuses much more on immediate customer needs, less on high-wire technology development that customers may want two to three years out.† Chambers maintains that Cisco’s turnover rates are the best in high technology. †In our industry, 40% to 80% of the top management team and top engineers are gone within two years,† he says. †Our voluntary attrition rate is about 12% over two years.† Difficulty holding on to top talent was not the only flaw in the Cisco acquisition machine. Cisco often paid outrageous sums for these unprofitable startups — a total of $ 15 billion in 1999 alone. Even some of the deals that Cisco considers successful look pretty dreadful using simple math. Its 1999 acquisition of Cerent Corp., a maker of opticalnetworking gear, is a good example. Cisco paid $ 6.9 billion for the company, or $ 24 million for each of Cerent’s 285 employees, even though the company had never earned a penny of profit and had an accumulated deficit of $ 60 million. Even if earnings bounce back to 2000 levels of roughly $ 335 million, it would take Cisco about 20 years to recoup the purchase price. Of course, deals such as Cerent found their rationale in Wall Street math. If investors were willing to pay 100 times earnings for Cisco’s stock in 1999, then a Cerent profit of, say, $ 300 million could effectively increase the market cap of Cisco by some $ 30 billion. Call it bubble economics. Besides, many of these deals were done for highly inflated Cisco stock instead of  cash. Even so, that wampum could have been used to buy other assets that could have delivered greater returns. Only in the months since the bubble burst has it become evident just how muddled Cisco’s mergers-and-acquisitions strategy became. In its haste to do deals, Cisco often purchased companies it didn’t need or couldn’t use. In some cases, the buying spree led to overlapping, duplicative technologies, political infighting, and just plain wasted resources, as Monterey shows. †M&A works to some extent, but at Cisco, it got out of hand,† says Iqbal Husain, a former engineering executive at Cisco. After losing many of the leaders of these businesses, product delays and other mishaps were not uncommon. When Cisco closed down Monterey, for example, the company still hadn’t put a product out for testing, which alone would take as long as a full year. †By the time the product was there to test, the market wasn’t,† says Joseph Bass, former CEO of Monterey. Chambers says he has moved to correct the flaws. Its acquisition binge has slowed —  from 41 companies from 1999 through 2000 to just two purchases in 2001. While Chambers expects to do 8 to 12 acquisitions this year, he insists that market conditions will let Cisco wait at least until a target company has a proven product, customers, and management team before cutting a deal. †We’re making the decisions to acquire a company based on a later point in time, which dramatically lowers the risk,† Chambers says. Anything more ambitious, Cisco now knows, may be foolhardy. A Costly Acquisition Strategy Often lauded for its buyout successes, Cisco has purchased more than 70 companies in the past eight years. In 1999 alone, it paid $15 billion for 18 startups, many of which never delivered on their early promise. Here are the most noteworthy: COMPANY PRICE STATUS SKINNY CERENT $6.9 Alive and Although Cerent has generated $1 billion well billion in estimated sales for Cisco, two decades could be needed to recoup the steep price. PIRELLI $2.2 Alive but A disappointing attempt to bolster OPTICAL billion struggling Cisco’s long-haul optical networking. SYSTEMS But Pirelli’s technology still trails that of rivals. MONTEREY $500 Dumped This  upstart optical company never NETWORKS million in April produced a viable product, and Cisco cut its losses with a $108 million write-off in April. AMTEVA $170 Sold at a Lackluster revenue forced Cisco to million loss in July sell this unified-messaging business. MAXCOMM $143 Part of their Founders and key technologists walked TECHNOLOGIES million DSL strategy out soon after the deal closed. Data: BusinessWeek The Toronto Star April 28, 2006 Friday SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. F01 LENGTH: 631 words HEADLINE: Starbucks develops taste for independent films BYLINE: Sharda Prashad, Toronto Star BODY: First it was coffee, then CDs, now it’s movies. Today, the independent flick Akeelah and the Bee will make its debut in theatres, with a marketing boost from Starbucks. The java giant is advertising the Lionsgate Entertainment Corp. film about spelling bees, starring Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett, by using promotional coffee sleeves, coasters and displays in stores. Neither party has disclosed the amount of cash that’s changing hands in this deal, other than divulging Starbucks will be receiving a cut of the film’s profits for its marketing efforts. And when the DVD goes on sale, it will get a share of those profits – the DVD, by the way, will be available at Starbucks. Akeelah’s soundtrack will also be flogged at the coffee house. â€Å"Our customer is the demographic that Hollywood needs as it is facing a double-digit decline in the box office and slowing DVD sales,† Howard Schultz, Starbucks’ chairman, told Business Week earlier this year. â€Å"We have a unique cross-section of assets – a foundation of trust and confidence in Starbucks – that can promote a move that our customers know is relevant.† But is the purveyor of java risking its strong brand appeal by moving away from its coffee core with this latest venture? Starbucks, named for a character in the literary classic Moby Dick, currently has 11,000 outlets in 37 countries and is planning to open 1,800 this year. Its long-term plan is to have 30,000 outlets around the world. â€Å"Starbucks doesn’t sell coffee, it sells a retail environment that’s chic, urban and  authentic,† says Jay Handelman, marketing professor at Queenà ¢â‚¬â„¢s University School of Business. â€Å"If they were just selling coffee, why would they (customers) pay $4?† Since Starbucks is in the business of selling an urban experience, the professor says, the foray into a movie such as Akeelah and the Bee is consistent with that brand since the film is an urban, intellectual tale. If the movies and coffee were selling different experiences, the brand strategy wouldn’t work since customers would be confused about what Starbucks stood for, adds Andrea Wojnicki, marketing professor at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. Should the movie do poor box office sales, it won’t necessarily affect the Starbucks brand, she says. Starbucks is about connoisseurship, she argues. It introduced people to the subtleties of coffee and it’s attempting to do the same with its CDs, which it started selling in 1995. The CD venture has also involved an urban experience. In 2004, for example, it coproduced Ray Charles’ Genius Loves Company and last year it held exclusive distribution for Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill Acoustic. Should the movie become a box office flop, Starbucks isn’t necessarily in trouble, says Wojnicki. It could hold up its connoisseur flag and say its campaign is about appreciating art and not about flogging blockbusters. It could also be argued that Starbucks took a growth opportunity that has stretched its brand too far, argues Mary Crossan, business policy professor at the University of Western Ontario. â€Å"When they start to move into movies, they’re not leveraging their resources or capabilities (in coffee).† Starbucks has stated that it is not interested in producing movies, just promoting them, but Crossan warns that companies need be careful about taking focus away from the core business. And Starbucks has made some poor business choices. It has failed in previous ventures, including an attempt to get into the Internet business in the 1990s and an in-house magazine called Joe that folded after three issues. But Akeelah star Angela Bassett thinks the movie business is a good move for Starbucks. â€Å"Everybody’s got something to sell,† she told Newsweek. â€Å"You just have to be sure of what you’re trying to sell.† Copyright New York Times Company May 19, 2006 I was on my way from downtown Budapest to the airport the other day when my driver, Jozsef Bako, mentioned that if I had any friends who were planning to come to Hungary, they should just contact him through his Web site: www.fclimo.hu. He explained that he could show people online all the different cars he has to offer and they could choose what they wanted. †How much business do you get online?† I asked him. †About 20 to 25 percent,† the Communist-eraengineer-turned-limo-proprietor said. The former secretary of state James Baker III used to say that you know you’re out of office †when your limousine is yellow and your driver speaks Farsi.† I would say, †You know that the global economy is spinning off all kinds of new business models when your Hungarian driver has his own Web site in English, Magyar and German — with background music.† Jozsef’s online Hungarian limo company is one of many new business models I’ve come across lately that are clearly expanding the global economy in ways that are not visible to the naked eye. I was recently interviewing Ramalinga Raju, chairman of India’s Satyam Computer Services. Satyam is one of India’s top firms doing outsourced work from America, and Mr. Raju told me how Satyam had just started outsourcing some of its American work to Indian villages. The outsourcee has become the outsourcer. Mr. Raju said: †We told ourselves: if business process outsourcing can be done from cities in India to support cities in the developed world, why can’t it be done by villages in India to support cities in India. Things like processing employee records can be done from anywhere, so there is no reason it can’t be done from a village.† Satyam began with two villages a year ago and plans to scale up to 150. There is enough bandwidth now, even reaching big Indian villages, to parcel out this work, and the villagers are very eager. †The attrition level is low, and the commitment levels high,† Mr. Raju said. †It is a way of breathing economic life into villages.† It gives educated villagers a chance to stay on the land, he said, and not have to migrate to the cities. A short time later I was interviewing Katie Jacobs Stanton, a senior product  manager at Google, and Krishna Bharat, founder of Google’s India lab. They told me that Google had just launched Google Finance, but what was interesting was that Google Finance was entirely conceived by the Google team in India and then Google engineers from around the world fed into that team — rather than the project’s being driven by Google headquarters in Silicon Valley. It’s called †around sourcing† instead of outsourcing, because there is no more †out† anymore. Out is over. †We don’t have the idea of two kinds of engineers — ones who think of things and others who implement them,† Ms. Stanton said. †We just told the team in India to think big, and what they came back with was Google Finance.† Mr. Bharat added: †We have entered the generation of the virtual office. Product development happens across the global campus now.† Last story. I’m in gray Newark speaking to local businessmen. I meet Andy Astor, chief executive of EnterpriseDB, which provides special features for the open-source database called PostgreSQL. His primary development team, he tells me, consists of 60 Pakistani engineers in Islamabad, who interact with the New Jersey headquarters via Internet-based videoconferencing. †The New Jersey team — software architects, product managers and executives — comes to work a couple of hours early, while the Islamabad team comes in late, and we have at least five to six hours per day of overlap,† Mr. Astor said. †We therefore have multiple face-to-face meetings every day, which makes a huge difference for communication quality. We treat videoconference meetings as if we were all in the same room.† What all these stories tell me is that we are seeing the emergence of collaborative business models that were simply unimaginable a decade ago. Today, there are so many more tools, so many more ideas, so many more people able to put these ideas and tools together to discover new things, and so much better communications to disseminate these new ideas across the globe. If more countries can get just a few basic things right — enough telecom and bandwidth so their people can get connected; steadily improving education; decent, corruption-free economic governance; and the rule of law — and we can find more sources of clean energy, there is every reason for  optimism that we could see even faster global growth in this century, with many more people lifted out of poverty. GM’s Landmark in IT Outsourcing By Steve Hamm – BusinessWeek – 2/2/2006 A huge package of outsourcing contracts announced Feb. 2 by General Motors seems to signal shifting fortunes in the $600 billion-a-year information-technology services industry. EDS, GM’s longtime primary supplier, lost ground, while Hewlett-Packard’s sometimes-overlooked services unit got a big lift. The profile of India’s tech industry rose when GM named one of the country’s leading companies, Wipro, as a tier-one supplier. All told, about $7.5 billion in five-year contracts were awarded. Another $7.5 billion in contracts are expected to be parceled out as new projects come up over the next couple of years. EDS, which formerly had about two-thirds of GM’s outsourcing business, still has the biggest share. It got contracts worth $3.8 billion — or about half of the business. HP’s contracts totaled $700 million, and GM called it out as one of t he major gainers. IBM got $500 million in contracts. FINANCIAL SHADOW. The package is significant beyond its sheer size because it’s an indication of how GM Chief Information Officer Ralph Szygenda is reshaping the way the company handles tech outsourcing. He handed contracts in large chunks to companies that will handle them on a global basis rather than country by country. Also, GM and the tech suppliers worked together to create new standards for managing technology, which means all suppliers will do things in a uniform way. Szygenda says the new strategy will allow GM to improve global collaboration while assuring reliability of its computing systems and cutting costs. â€Å"It lets GM focus on innovation rather than spending a lot of time on managing its suppliers,† he said at a press conference. GM’s financial woes cast a shadow over the announcement, however. The carmaker reported a $4.8 billion quarterly loss on Jan. 26. While Szygenda said low prices were only a secondary impetus behind the way he structured the outsourcing contracts, some suppliers didn’t even participate in the bidding, most notably, Accenture. Others said they didn’t bid on all of the pieces because they were concerned they wouldn’t make enough money on them. â€Å"A BIG KICK.† Yet  those who did win contracts were jubilant. â€Å"HP selectively bid on areas where we know we can do a great job and where focus was on core areas of importance to HP and GM,† says Steve Smith, senior vice-president of HP Services. His business is often overshadowed by IBM and Accenture, but it has been gaining momentum lately. Its revenues grew 6% in HP’s fourth quarter, to $3.9 billion. Last quarter, IBM’s services revenues were in the doldrums, declining 5%, to $12 billion. Wipro had already been doing some work for GM, but the new package gives it a credibility lift. Its contracts were worth $300 million over five years. Wipro Executive Vice-President Girish Paranjpe says the company is delighted to be picked. â€Å"It’s a huge morale booster for us to be able to play with the big boys,† he says. â€Å"Also, because we’re the only tier-one player GM picked from India, it’s a big kick for us.† If GM’s new strategy for managing outsourcing works well, it could become a model for other large corporations. The package has five-year contracts instead of the more traditional 10-year pacts and splits the work up among several suppliers instead of relying predominantly on one. â€Å"This is a tipping point for IT,† says Robert McNeill, principal analyst at Forrester Research. â€Å"Organizations will have to add skills to their vendor management function and make transition management a key for success when moving to a more flexible services model.† Another lesson from the contract: Even financially troubled companies are spending big on IT. That’s great news for the tech titans that got a bigger piece of the GM pie. It should even provide solace to EDS, however diminished its share.

Debates over Immigration Restriction

Name: Trent C. Thurman Course: HIST C175 Debates Over Immigration Restriction The term immigration refers to moving from your native country and coming to a foreign land for the purpose of a permanent residence and searching for greener pastures. There are several arguments by scholars about immigration restrictions to the United States. They had several similarities supporting immigration restrictions. Prescott Hall, Robert Ward, Frank Wright, Frank Fetter and John Mitchell all argued supporting the immigration restrictions. Immigrants from countries other than the United States came in plenty during the 1900s. They were strong and worked in industries during the industrialization era developing the United States at a very fast rate. The Native American saw that the immigrants were highly valuable and so encouraged more and more immigrants. This led to a high population increase and a growing economy. As this high influx of immigrants continued, some issues emerged. The immigrants didn’t bring change in political, social economic and educational matters. They were three times as illiterate as the native whites and those living in Massachusetts were twice as illiterate as the natives. They were very illiterate such that they didn’t see a reason for taking their children to school. Immigrant children were three times as criminals as native Americas. It forecasted that a second generation of immigrants was more objectable to degenerate in future. The immigrants took the jobs of Native Americans but at a very low pay which resulted to cheap labor. The immigrants were very unintelligent, had low vitality and poor physique. They made cheap labor to be very common such that it reduced the standard of living of a worker and led to emerges of poor classes, poor homes and very bad personal customs. It led to socio-economic problems which affected education and charitable institutions. Immigrants were not physically and mentally alert and were unfit for job training. Cheap labor was mainly in railroad, large industries, mining, contractors, and grain growers. They were very arrogant and unskilled such that the towns they lived in were of low standards. They worked as domestic servants in rich Native Americans at very low pay. Illiteracy led to alleged evils on political, social and morals standard of living in communities. The overall effects of a high influx of immigrants’ resulted to more negative effects to native America. For America to prosper, they had to improve their own industrial organization, elevate standard of living and limit the number of immigrants by passing a bill restricting immigration. While others argued supporting immigration restrictions to the United States, other scholars argued against the immigrations restrictions. They were Max Kholer, Sulzberger, Willcox, Bailey, Isaac Horwich, Grace Abbot and Jane Adams. They argued claiming that immigration of foreign persons brought a high influx supply of materials of different characters. Immigrants had the free mind to choose on whether to come or not. They had high intelligence, some financial resource and high levels of energy to work. They were industrious, worthy, courageous, family men, liberty- centered and of high integrity. Those arguing for immigration restrictions should remember that the largest employer of external labor was iron and steel industry. Cigar makers had a high numbers of immigrants from Scotland and English Jews. The company that made direct steamship between china and Japan employed external immigrants from china. The Chinese claim to provide materials for constructing railroads, reclaimed swamp, mining, farming, and fruit culture. Immigrants brought up American civilization by working smart and providing intelligent decisions in industrialization sector. They also brought about assimilative influence in the environment, schools, newspapers, political institutions and social places. A census conducted showed that illiteracy wasn’t found in immigrants but the country they came from and mostly affected their children. In the case of labour, increase in demand led to increase in labour supply, so there is no statistical proof of an oversupply of unskilled labour resulting in displacement of Native Americans by the foreign immigrants. America didn’t have a national system of labour exchange that showed how unemployment is misadjusted on supply to demand and oversupply of labour. From my own point of view, I think the better side is being against the immigration restrictions. They should let immigrants come to a foreign land because he/she carries different, multi- cultural skills and information which have a very positive effect on the native people. It leads to understanding and appreciation of culture, abilities, strengths and weakness of one another.