Make-or-Buy Decisions in International Business

International businesses invariably face decisions about whether they make all or just some of the components used in their final product and therefore buy in from other sources (outsourcing) those components they decide not to make. This make-or-buy decision is related to the degree to which a firm is vertically integrated: that is, the extent to which a firm is its own supplier and market. At one extreme a firm can make all of its own inputs and be its own supplier; at the other extreme, it can buy all its inputs and rely on external suppliers. Partial integration implies that some components are made and others bought. A major benefit of making inputs (backward or upstream integration) is the degree of control maintained over cost, quality and timeliness of delivery. Major drawbacks are the cost of investment and expertise needed to provide these inputs. A benefit of buying is Continue reading

Importance of Ethics in Business Management Practice

To put in simple words, ethics is the principle of moral values which helps you to take actions that are considered as the right thing to do. However, doing what is ‘right’ is not that straightforward. Since everyone has different backgrounds and cultures, we therefore possess different conceptions and perceptions. This causes complication in the process of understanding the meaning of ethics as each person’s point of view on what is ethical varies significantly. Ethics is not a set of rules that should be followed inevitably but is a guideline to lead you to behave with integrity. It includes values such as equity, responsibility, honesty, and fairness. The importance of ethics can be seen from the fact that many of what were considered as ethical behaviors in the past has developed into law today. For example, stealing is known as an unethical act and is against the law as it Continue reading

Social Network Analysis

Billions of people create trillions of connections through social media each day, but few of us consider how each click and key press builds relationships that, in aggregate, form a vast social network. Passionate users of social media tools such as email, blogs, microblogs, and wikis eagerly send personal or public messages, post strongly felt opinions, or contribute to community knowledge to develop partnerships, promote cultural heritage, and advance development. Devoted social networkers create and share digital media and rate or recommend resources to pool their experiences, provide help for neighbors and colleagues, and express their creativity. The results are vast, complex networks of connections that link people to other people, documents, locations, concepts, and other objects. New tools are now available to collect, analyze, visualize, and generate insights from the collections of connections formed from billions of messages, links, posts, edits, uploaded photos and videos, reviews, and recommendations. As Continue reading

Investments in Mutual Funds – Maximize Returns with Mutual Funds

Mutual fund companies [also known as Asset Management Companies (AMCs) collect funds from public (mainly from small investors) and invest such funds in market and distribute returns/surpluses in the form of dividends. Surpluses can also be reflected in higher Net Asset Value (NAV) of the scheme. In simple words, a mutual fund company collects savings of small investors (pool their money); the fund managers of the concern invest such pool of funds to market (securities); when returns are generated from such investment, passed back to the investors. This is how a mutual fund works. First an offer document (containing details of the scheme, its investment horizon and class(es) of securities it intends to invest etc.) is issued to the public. Then the collected money is pooled together to constitute a fund. This fund is managed by fund managers of AMC who take major investment decisions. A trust takes care that Continue reading

Case Study: Southwest Airlines Competitive Advantages

For most of the last fifteen years, the U.S. airline industry has been one of the least attractive to be in. Following the 1978 deregulation of the industry, twenty-nine new airlines entered the industry between 1978 and 1993- This rapid increase in air ­line carrying capacity led to a situation of overcapacity. As more and more airlines chased passengers, fares were driven down to levels barely sufficient to maintain the prof ­itability of U.S. airlines. Indeed, twice since 1978 the indus ­try has been engulfed in an intense price war–first in the1981-1983 period and then again in the 1990-1993 period. So intense did the com ­petition become during these two periods that in 1982 the whole industry lost $700 million, while in the 1990-1992 period the industry lost a staggering $7.1 billion, more than had been made during the previous fifty-year history of the industry. Despite the obviously hostile nature Continue reading

Scope of Grid Computing

EXPLOITING UNDERUTILIZED RESOURCES The easiest use of grid computing is to run an existing application on a different machine. The machine on which the application is normally run might be unusually busy due to an unusual peak in activity. The job in question could be run on an idle machine elsewhere on the grid. There are at least two prerequisites for this scenario. First, the application must be executable remotely and without undue overhead. Second, the remote machine must meet any special hardware, software, or resource requirements imposed by the application. In most organizations, there are large amounts of underutilized computing resources. Most desktop machines are busy less than 5 percent of the time. In some organizations, even the server machines can often be relatively idle. Grid computing provides a framework for exploiting these underutilized resources and thus has the possibility of substantially increasing the efficiency of resource usage. Another Continue reading