Women on Top.

Strategy. A term that is not only limited to business strategy, but also encompasses the strategy to manage a nation. On January the 15th, Michele Bachelet was elected to represent the Chile government. http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/world/national/2006/03/11/chile-bachelet060311.html

Women for president! You must be kidding? Women don’t know how to drive a car let alone a nation!

That was a comment made by a male friend when we heard about Chile women president on January the 15th.

Regardless of the fact that my friend just voiced gender inequality, Chile first female, Michele Bachelet, is a Business Concept Innovation.

And here is how, but first we have to assume the following,

The Business: Chile.
Business concept innovation: Chile first women for president.
Business mission: Bachelet mission is going to be different than her previous male counterpart,pinochet, who was authoritarian in his practices. Instead, nowadays, Bachelet is campaigning on free market policies, while increasing social benefits to help reduce the country's gap between rich and poor, one of the largest gaps in the world

She is not the first women president of a South American country, but her predecessors won elections to replace their husbands, who had died in office.
Basis for differentiation: Equality. Michele Bachelet is promoting equality in the country by giving equal opportunities for men and women to represent the current government.
The Socialist pediatrician has promised to have equal numbers of men and women in about 300 decision-making posts, and plans to introduce a law to make political parties include minimum numbers of women in contests for congressional and municipal posts
There have been a great number of women in history that have earned grandiose reputation for their greatness, just think of women such as, Queen Elizabeth or Joan of Arc. When given the chance and the equality these women have proved to be, more capable than their male counterparts to promote peace, equality and stability, something that is relatively absent in today’s world.

WHEN THERE ARE NO RULES, PIRACY RULES.

Ever since the UAE has joined the World Trade Organization in 1996, it has been concerned with the amount of pirated goods that are being traded.

A recent article in Gulf News discusses this in detail http://archive.gulfnews.com/business/General/10035899.html

I found that baron's non-market issues suitable for the article above.

Issues- PIRACY.
• Piracy of CD's
• Piracy of DVD's and other electronic devices.
• Piracy of medicine
• Piracy of food.
• Piracy of watches, bags and designer wallets

There seems to be huge concerns with regards to pirated food and pharmaceuticals, because these are items that can create the most harm to the consumers.


Interests – under organized interest groups comes,
Intellectual property rights



Institutions- many institutions come into play here, with the most evident being the
International organization
• World trade organization,

Local organizations
• Department of Dubai customs
• Dubai government

Information- there seems to be enough information circulating about piracy deals.

Counterfeit goods worth a staggering Dh9 million were seized
Between June to December last year.

With regards to comparative information
Five years ago there were no counterfeit food and drugs,
but now they are everywhere

Dubai, as the article suggests, is going to increase law enforcement governing illicit trade, as well as protect consumers from counterfeits and defend the integrity of member brands

Finally, as Dubai strives to become a better and more recognized economy in today's map, it has to pay close attention to details; details that determine whether it stays in the WTO or not.

the danish cartoons; a John Staurt Mill perpective.

John Stuart mill; a snapshot

• A nineteen century British philosopher and political economist.
• His life and thoughts were greatly influenced by his father James Mill.
• He was home schooled by his father, by the time he was fourteen he had acquired the equivalent of a university education.
• He was married to a prominent feminist, Harriet Taylor, where he dedicated all his books to her.

John Stuart Mill; on liberty

One of the best books on classical liberalism is John Stuart Mill on liberty.

His thesis in the book is that we as people are free do to whatever we want say whatever we want, and hang out/ have romantic relationships with whomever we want, as long as we do not cause harm to other people.

Then he dedicates each section in his book using reasoning to why these points make sense.

Mill dedicates a whole chapter on the liberty of thoughts and discussion.

Mill makes a case for the freedom of speech, the press and thought. He supports his case using four reasons;

First if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may for aught we can certainly know to be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility. In other words to say that the opinion we hold is certain is to assume that humans do not make mistakes.

Second thought the silenced opinion be an error, it may be and very commonly does , contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the reminder of the truth has any chance being supplied.

Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly defended, it will , by most of those who received it , be held in the manner of prejudice. In other words if we do not vigorously defend our beliefs they might turn into a prejudice, so there should be opposing opinions to our belief because that in turn reinforces our belief.

Fourth, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost. A dogma becoming a mere formal profession. If we do not act upon what we claim is our belief, it has a chance of becoming a dogma.


The real question that I am trying to answer is that, if John Stuart Mill was alive today what would he have to say about the Danish cartoons?
Would he consider them offending but still argue that they can be categorized under the freedom of speech umbrella (likes the Danes argued) or would he constitute them as harmful?

In on liberty, mill does not give a very clear definition for what constitutes harm. However we can deduce that he means physical or harm that can be depicted. For example, if a person traumatizes another person to the point where he inflicts physiological harm on that person, John Stuart Mill would consider that harmful.

At the beginning, mill would say, that the publications of the cartoons in the Danish newspaper were offending, he would say that because
• We are assuming that the people who published these cartoons were not aware of the outrage the cartoons would cause because as we saw the first few days caused "semi peaceful demonstrations.
• However, when the Danish government and the Jollands Posten refused to apologize to the Muslim world , inedited, when several European newspapers reprinted these cartoons , this would be were mill would argue that the Danish cartoons have caused harm and could not be considered freedom of speech and here is why.
• The semi- peaceful demonstrations at that time went from mild to complete out of control. 15 people in Afghanistan died during angry demonstrations. Moreover in Lebanon, they burnt the Danish embassy near Beirut. Hence, these two examples depict physical harm according to mill.
.

Finally, I address this Blog to every person who categorized these cartons under the freedom of speech and will only listen if logical as opposed to religious reasoning is used in the justification of the Danish cartoons. I have used one of the most modern prominent philosophers, a philosopher who is most famous for his ideas on freedom of speech, to prove that the cartoons that were published in Jollands Posten have caused harm to Muslims and should have been at least apologized for.

Sara Hamam is a business student in AUS, all idea and opinion published in her Blog are hers alone and do not represent the opinion of students in AUS.

i love my Big Fat Beautiful Brain.

Campaign for real beauty is the slogan for Doves new campaign. Dove recent (at least in Dubai) has been turning heads everywhere. Although we do not have the underwear featuring billboards, the dove billboards have managed to capture people's attention.

Are the campaigns innovative, yes
Do they boost self esteem, you bet!
They are also liberating




Hamel would classify this campaign as innovative and different. Hamel defines basis of differentiation as to how a company competes differently. Dove is differentiating itself by positioning its brand as a "humane" and "real" brand. The woman in the billboards represent real woman, not anorexic 5'8 models.
Relationship dynamics also come into the picture here. According to the dove website, dove based this campaign on a research study they have conducted with their customers.
Moreover, the question of value arises here, the article mentions
Also, Dove now owns the "friend of the everywoman" angle. Smart move on their part to spot this open niche and grab it.
The question of value, tells us that firms should exploit environmental opportunities which is exactly what dove did with regards to the campaign. Moving on to the question of rareness, this campaign is the first of its kind, we surely haven’t seen size12 underwear models before, not like this!
On The question of limitability, Revlon and Maybe line can surely follow, but I hardly doubt that anyone will take them seriously as is most cases with direct duplication.
Finally on the question of organization if all of the above are in check then organization just falls naturally into place.

Moving on to baron non-market issues, two institutions come into play here, public sentiment and the media. As we have noticed that the feedback from the public has been great so far in fact, dove has a website that is dedicated to feedbaxk from customers (www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/). Whereas, the media has been doing a good job at complimenting the campaign.

The real question is how long would this campaign work? One more month, a year at the most? The article mentions that consumers would start getting bored and associating dove with a fat brand. However, that’s not how I see it. I see this as a beginning to something big. If you look closely, dove in its campaign is not trying to tell us, its okay to be fat, there seems to be a more humanitarian message. The message that dove is sending is quite clear, that we as woman should not only accept our curves, chests, skin color but also admire these characteristics in our body.

Its interesting, in the Arab world, the ads also became specialized; the women in the ads are women with veils thus making sure that the ads relate to each woman in each culture.

At the end of this article, I truly have to congratulate the advertising team that was behind these campaigns because real beauty lies not only in the eyes of the beholder, but also lies within ones self as well.

Sara Hamam is a business student at AUS,

Talking about a Revolution

We can all agree that the year 2006 has started off on the wrong foot; unfortunately there are still the ongoing huge concerns of bird flu, where a cat in Germany has recently died from the infection. Another global concern is the situation in Iraq which is not getting better, Although Mr. bush would not admit to that. Lebanon's political situation is going from bad to worse. And finally there were the blasphemous images that were published in the Danish newspaper, Jollands Postsen.

The Danish cartoons that were posted in the government owned Danish newspaper, Jollands Posten, has been first published on the 12th of September but it was until late January that Muslims worldwide protested and are still protesting against the blasphemous images of the prophet Muhammad(PBUH). The protests have become so violent recently that fifteen people have died in Afghanistan. In Lebanon, they burned the Danish embassy and finally in India a grand prize is given to the person who kills the Danish cartoonist.

Danish companies have learnt it the hard way, they have learned that freedom of speech is not absolute and it comes at a price, a price of 1.5 million dollars per day as a result of the boycott ( that was the casefor Arla Foods Company).
Public sentiments in the Muslim world have led all supermarkets to remove any Danish products.Baron defines public sentiment as part of the non-market environment that is just as significant to a companies as its market operations.under
As we can see the non-market can have tremendous effects on the market, which was depicted in the case of the Danish boycotts. hamel would call this information and insight. the supermarkets acted on behalf of peoples public sentiments and removed any evidence of danish products from its shelf.
The media, another institution in the non-market environment, has enormous power over the people. The media in the Arab world has urged for the boycotts and has stirred all sorts of radical hatred.

Finally, the Danish Government should understand that since they place such a high value on freedom of speech, we as Arabs and Muslims place a very high value on respect, traditions and the holiness of religions. So as the demonstrations in the Muslim world come to an end, I wonder as Arabs if we will ever feel the same way again.

Selfishness Has Its Value to the Economy

February 13, 2006
Selfishness Has Its Value to the Economy
By Peter Brown

Self-interest gets a bad rap these days.
It is both the driving principle of capitalism and a fact of human nature.
And, it explains so much about many Americans' ambivalence toward Wal-Mart.
A survey of attitudes toward the nation's largest retailer among New Yorkers, who might be expected to be among the least supportive of the firm and its practices, explains much about that love/hate relationship.
They don't like the company and wish it were operated differently.
But in a New York minute they are on their way to shop there.
Now, remember New York City is not just in the bluest of states; it is among the few remaining U.S. hotbeds of unions - who see the retailer as their sworn enemy.
New York has become the final domestic frontier for a company with more stores in Milan, Tenn., population 7,000, than New York City.
Consider that Wal-Mart is further along in penetrating China than the Big Apple, or for that matter the entire Empire State. Wal-Mart has 11 stores in Shenzhen, a city of 7 million people located across the border from Hong Kong. In all there are 56 Wal-Marts in China compared to the 45 in New York State.
Wal-Mart, which has no stores in New York City but wants a piece of the action, is meeting resistance from the coalition of labor, civil rights and community groups that have declared it to be their corporate enemy No. 1.
In Manhattan, N.Y. those groups carry more political clout than in Manhattan, Kansas.
Yet, the Quinnipiac University survey of New York City residents last month found that even though most don't particularly like its non-union practices and global supply chain, that won't stop them from spending money there.
Only 51 percent wanted Wal-Mart to open stores in New York City, and 57 percent said the company doesn't pay its workers enough. Yet, 65 percent - 63 percent of union households -- said they would shop there if they could.
.(for complete view of the article visit http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-2_13_06_PAB.html)


Comment and analysis,

Selfishness has its value to the economy, a title that can stir up opposing opinions. Marxists would claim that the title is not true based on certain grounds, (selfishness equals private property which would lead to inequality and so on). But then again Marxists are called idealists because they believe in a world that only exists in utopia. A world where there is no politics and no state. However; an advocate of the free market would be in favor of MNC's like Walmart based on the following grounds selfishness has its value to the economy.

Brown argues in his article that selfishness is the fuel of productivity for the economy. I completely agree with him because the reason communist regimes have failed was that they took the motivation factor out of the equation. But let's pause and go back in history for a minute and look at these so called "communist" regimes.

The communist regimes that were implemented in Russia, china and Eastern Europe did not capture the true essence of socialism let alone communism. As dictated by the Communist Manifesto a communist state is a country where no state, no social class and no private property should exist. Looking at Eastern Europe there was a state, a state that controlled all, what's so communist about that?




On the other side of town lies capitalism with "greed is good" motto. Allow me to ask you this; is it fair that the wealth of nations should be in the hands of a few people? Is it fair that millions should be owned by warren buffet, Donald trump or Mr. Sam Walmart? I came across an interesting comment in the newspaper the other day; the Sheikh of Dubai predicts that people who have an income below 3000 dollars a month cannot afford live in Dubai in the year 2006. In this case, what should the laborers do? They are the ones who are behind all these tall towers and massive malls, where should they live? The United States seems to most people like the biggest capitalistic economy, but the United States offers medical insurance for the elderly in addition to social security, whereas in the UAE none of that is offered

Going back to the article, it mentions that although people in New York have negative sentiments towards Walmart, they would still go there because of its cheap prices; hence having a case of self interest versus morality.

I would like to tell Mr. Brown that this sentiment exists everywhere. Arabs like New Yorkers suffer from an identity crisis. We put up a bunch of pan Arab slogans but never act upon them. The most popular pan Arab slogans I have seen are "no to everything American", "death upon America", "boycott American products". Funnily enough the most popular café in the Arab world is "Starbucks".


Walmart, as the article mentions, is planning on having a larger piece of the cake in the Chinese market. The idea seems to be a good one especially after evaluating the Chinese market as a potential market.
• Real GDP of almost ten percent over the last few years,
• An official member of the WTO
• A population of 1,306,313,812.(cia.gov)
• Finally economists predict that at the rate its going china will overtake the U.S by 2050.


Reflecting on Barneys article, especially on the VRIO framework, I can say that Walmart is responding to environmental opportunities which places a right tick in terms of value. On the question of rareness,Walmart will be rare interms of effeciency its supply chain, its vast resources. The trickier question to answer is the question of imitability which ventures around whether there will be a Chinese duplication of Walmart.however, i think that will be farfetched because judjing from other american corporation that have opened in china, they were not imitated infact they were a huge success. The question of organization as baron mentions is an internal one, we know from its operations in the united states that Walmart secret to its success is its ability to operate smoothly from within, so that should be no problem in china.

On a more personal note, after reading this article and maybe reflecting on my own personal ideology, I choose to stand with the people of newyork, I chose morality over self interest.one final note I say that we should adopt social democracy. A system that has the best of worlds, equality and freedom.
Its working in Canada isn’t it?


Sara Hamam is a business student at AUS. All opinions and beliefs expressed in her Blog are hers alone and do not reflect the opinions of students at AUS or the business strategy class.

It's the burgers, stupid

Healthy items look good, but McDonald's makes its money from the basics
Despite healthier menu items at McDonald's, burgers and fries continue to be the major revenue makers for the fast-food giant.


•By Tom Van Riper
Updated: 3:13 p.m. ET Jan. 19, 2006
Chicken, salads, soup and breakfast.
From the way McDonald's is touting its lineup of healthful items and other nontraditional menu choices, you would think it doesn't even sell hamburgers any more.
The company went out of its way to cite the "strong" performance of its white-meat chicken items, along with better-than-expected overseas results, in announcing a 5 percent same-store sales jump in December from a year ago. That performance led to an upgraded prediction in fourth-quarter earnings of 48 cents per share, a penny above Wall Street estimates
McDonald's stock price has roughly tripled since sinking to $12.38 per share on March 12, 2003, the day the market began its comeback from a two-year slump. Year-over-year sales have grown for 32 straight months. That's been enough for Chief Executive James Skinner, who's been on the job for 14 months, to favor a back-to-basics approach centered around pleasing the customer. Along with the company's board of directors, he's rejected a plan pushed by private equity firm Pershing Square Capital to sell off some company-owned restaurants and distribute the proceeds to stockholders through dividends and share buybacks. The latest twist in the proposal from Pershing founder William Ackman calls for the formation of a new company — 20 percent of which would be sold off in a public offering — to take control of 1,000 of those restaurants located in mature markets and sell them to the public.
Meanwhile, even though many McDonald's menu boards now suggest that customers have the option to "add Campbell's soup to any meal," it's hard to find many of them slurping chicken broth. People — especially Americans — still love a hamburger. And they're coming to Mickey D's in stronger numbers recently, drawn to refurbished restaurants and to improved service that have put the "fast" back into fast food.
"The No. 1 entree ordered by men in America is a hamburger," says Henry Balzer, a vice president with NPD Foodworld who tracks data on eating habits. "And the No. 1 entree among women is a french fry, followed by a hamburger." NPD Group surveys show that the prevailing wisdom that people are more health conscious today than in past years is mostly myth. The number of people concerned about the amount of fat they consume has actually declined over the years — to 30 percent today from over 50 percent in 1994 — the group's latest survey showed.



Comments and Analysis,

Im lovin it! That is mcdonalds slogan that is parading eveywhere in the world,its a catchy one i might add. But does the slogan reflect people's sentiment towards mcdonalds? working as a market researcher three years ago i handled the mcdonalds account for the gulf region.basically,what i had to do was conduct several focus groups with different gulf nationalites and find what they liked and what they didnt like about mcdonalds .i came to the conclusion that that people were not very fond of mcdonalds.they mentioned that their kids liked it but they however, thought that the menu needed a larger variety,and a healthier one. inaddition they mentioned that the meal was small. Two years later and all of the above are offered at a mcdonalds near you.so do you think that that was a mere coincedence? i dont think so, a large corporation like mcdonalds does not make unplanned decisions. taking you five years back, mcdonalds was suffering from slumping sales and a decreasing stock price.inaddition, the lawsuits against mcdonalds were not increasing it popularity. i rememeber one lawsuit that was particulary funny, a woman in the united sates took mcdonalds to court because it made her son fat! well excuse me lady, did your sons excessive eating habits did not give you a hint to his cholesteral level? and who can forget the movie SUPERSIZE ME that was released in mid 2004. let me tell you something about that movie, it steered us clear from mcdonalds(or any fast food store for that matter) for at least six months. however, being the "king -kong" of the fast food market, mcdonlads had an image to keep.

one of the key components that hamel stressed in his essay was innovation.hamel also talked about increasing market share by increasing the market scope.and thats what mcdonalds did.it improved around the edges, in fact it appealed to a wider market scope. now a typical mcdonlads menu not only serves your regular hamburger and fries; it offers a campbells soup with your meal, a salad instead of greasy french fries, fresh orange juice instead of your regular up-sized coke and finally a "go healthy" snackbox.reflecting on porters essay, mcdonalds started a trend in the fast food industry, thus raising the barriers to entry. now you find a salad and a diet meal option in burger king.

to conclude this`essay i would like to say that innovation did not save mcdonalds sales, what did was an emphasis on customer satisfaction.so now can we conclude that we are lovin mcdonalds, i think we can say that we absolutely can .


Sara Hamam is an SBM senior at AUS these ideas and opinion belong to sara and sara alone,they do not reflect the opinions of SBM or the business strategy class.