My Capstone theme ( final post for BUS600)

THEME: Networking Market Research and Analysis

Currently I am thinking to study up-to-date Networking product marketing research and analyze by leveraging the throughout knowledge from my 10+ years of working experience in the field.  

The summary would be as follows:
   

• Abstract / Outline     

• Market Analysis

          Do the Networking market segments analysis as followings:        

          - Campus and Datacenter    
          - Distributed core        
          - Campus Wireless         
          - Storage Networking         
          - Blade Networking      

• Competitions    

          - Discuss Place(customer segments)  and Pricing,
          - Create chart       

• Strategy         

          - Discuss what to sell to whom·        

• Leadership     

          - Provide vendor (system integrator) analysis (DELL, IBM, HP, CISCO, Juniper, etc)     

• Conclusion

         - Winners prediction

Chapter 10 mini-courses for MBA

Here are the list of items I need to improve/learn:

1. Research - use internet, trade show
2. Public speaking - keep simple and short
3. Negotiation - know the opponents and do HW
4. International business - know culture and working style, local law
5. Business Law - contract and property law, see page 375
6. Writing - spell check twice. Read whole before submit
7. Real estate - Need to know the basic and cash flow
8. Leadership - do not change mind too often, good leaders make group attractive
9. Financial plan - retirement planing etc. page 393

Chapter 9 Strategy

Suppose a company has a goal to achieve, strategic plans must fit the organizations.
Formation and Implementation.

Tool to help for strategic planing: 7-S model
To see the complicated problems visually, the center is the goal.

• STYLE is the culture.
• Affects STAFF and SKILL
• Affects STRUCTURE and SYSTEM
• Affects STRATEGY
• Meet the GOAL

Value Chain

Supply and channel participant

• Forward / Backward
• Vertical / Horizontal

Level of Strategy

• Functional - value activities in operation and management
• Business - how to be competitive
• Corporate - determine the business field

Chapter 8 Economics

Chapter 8 Economics

Two branches of Economics {Micro, Macro}

• Microeconomics focuses on patterns of supply and demand and the determination of price and output in a certain industry. (i.e. Coffee, PC, Cars, etc) It analyzes the market behavior of individual consumers and firms in an attempt to understand the decision-making process of firms and households level. For example, people who have any desire to start their own business or who want to learn the rationale behind the pricing of particular products and services would be more interested in this area.
• Macroeconomics is a national, regional, or global level behavior such as GDP, unemployment, inflation/deflation, international trade and finance. However to understand large scale behavior, understanding of micro level is crucial.  For example, to understand why a change in interest rates leads to changes in real GDP, we need to understand how lower interest rates influence decisions, such as the decision of how much to save, at the firm or household level.

Keynesian Theory
An economic theory stating that active government intervention in the marketplace and monetary policy is the best method of ensuring economic growth and stability.  A supporter of Keynesian economics believes it is the government's job to smooth out the bumps in business cycles. Intervention would come in the form of government spending and tax breaks in order to stimulate the economy, and government spending cuts and tax hikes in good times, in order to curb inflation. - This is an opposite thoughts from Adam Smith's invisible hand.


Monetarist Theory
This theory states macroeconomic performance is mainly determined by the supply of money and central banking. (Milton Friedman – Nobel Prize in Economics)


GNP – Gross National Product
The centerpiece of macroeconomic.
GNP is the total value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a particular year, plus income earned by its citizens. GNP is one measure of the economic condition of a country, under the assumption that a higher GNP leads to a higher quality of living.


GNP ranking:
http://www.studentsoftheworld.info/infopays/rank/PNB2.html
Amazing that what US is making ??

List of countries by GNP(GNI) (nominal, Atlas method) (millions of US$)[5] (Top 10)

Rank	2010		2009		2008
1	* United States	14,600,828	* United States	14,223,686	* United States	14,506,142
2	* China	5,700,018	* China	4,857,623	* Japan	4,853,005
3	* Japan	5,369,116	* Japan	4,785,450	* China	4,042,883
4	* Germany	3,537,180	* Germany	3,473,814	* Germany	3,504,510
5	* France	2,749,821	* France	2,750,418	* United Kingdom	2,799,960
6	* United Kingdom	2,399,292	* United Kingdom	2,538,578	* France	2,700,770
7	* Italy	2,125,845	* Italy	2,114,668	* Italy	2,115,482
8	* Brazil	1,830,392	* Brazil	1,563,126	* Spain	1,449,186
9	* India	1,566,636	* Spain	1,472,046	* Canada	1,446,669
10	* Spain	1,462,894	* India	1,405,064	* Brazil	1,433,699

Finding happiness outside the GNP / Bhutan searching for a way to stop drift from harmony
January 23, 2006|Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer
http://articles.sfgate.com/2006-01-23/news/17279481_1_bhutan-gross-national-happiness-consumer-goods

Chapter 7 Operation

Chapter 7 Operations

Operations generally mean production management in business. The important issues for production is how to produce and deliver 1) Cost effective 2) High volume 3) High quality products timely to the market.

When a company and its investors can profit from the products, it can continue the business and exist in the market.  Thus it is always important that the company can make profits, however on the other hand, it should be done in good and reasonable way, to make its employees proud and its customers beneficial, and finally overall valuable to human life and society.

POM Problem ~ Production Operation Management ~ is not only technical or numerical problems but also humanistic, workers’ condition, motivation, and environmental problems. It is a complicated issue which deals with a trade offs of 2 things.

Problem 1 Capacities in manufacturing process

• Has constraints
• How to maximize
• Basics of Mfg frame works: Flow Diagram, Linear Programming, Scheduling

Problem 2 Inventory

• Keep optimal inventory size, balancing of materials, sales and inventory sizes is the major issue.

Problem 3 Quality and Standards

• Increase of testing coverage for the products.
• Effectiveness of testing process.
• Trade off between high yield rate and quality

BUS600 Chapter 5 and 6 Summary + Class Notes - 10/22/2011

Lecture of 2 chapters { Chapter 5 and 6 }

Day5 - Quantitative Analysis (Page 159)

Taked about Group assignment this week (From ULearn):
Using at least three tools/concepts in the Quantitative Analysis and Finance Chapter, decide how are you going to fund your start up and why. Spend at least 30 minutes in your group, come to an agreement, upload 250-1000 words of your plan (mention the concepts/tools) to your learning journal. It is fine for each one to upload the same text, but variation and your own ideas are encouraged.

Class Notes:

Getting other people's money:
1) Sell Stock
2) Bond
3) Loan (must pay interest)

Learn 3 concepts and tools.

Goal:
Numbers & facts ==> Solve the problem systematically ==> Decision Making.

Tool 1) Decision Tree
Tool 2) NPV Page172-173
Tool 3) IRR Page 175
Tool 4) Bell Curve, statistics
Tool 5) Regression Analysis Page 189

Day 6 - Finance
Finance - Strategy & Decision Making
Accounting - Deal with Info and facts, book keeping, database

Business structure

• Proprietorship
• Partnership LLP
• Corporation { S-Corp, C-Corp }

C-corp pays double tax 40%, Stock - open market
S-corp 100 stock holder max

Beta  - Page 206
Bata = -1 Opposite of market movement
Bata = 0 Cash only

Index { ? }
S&P 500
Wilshaire 500
Nikki 225
Dow Jones 30 { Disney, GM, IBM, MS, Cisco, Amex, Coca Cora, etc.}

• Bonds (Bank interests vs Coupon, trade off )
• Stock Price/Earning P/E ratio, Growth rate, why earning = $0 but stock has value? because of  Book value (Assets)
• Option - Page 221 Buy/Sell before the stated date, advantage and risk

R Squared

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_determination

T Test

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_test

  

(Group) Assignment 2 – How to read financial statement

Financial Data: Apple Inc. Q3 2011 Unaudited Summary Data (http://images.apple.com/pr/pdf/fy11q3datasum.pdf ) 

This table shows Apple's Q3 2011 quarterly revenue (as net profits). Data is arranged by operation segments and by product basis in 2 tables, while both should indicate the same amount of the total revenue; 28.571 billion USD.  This amount is almost double of a year ago.  

My Notes and Analysis.

Apple Q3 is April to June time period.

iPad2  release – March 25 2011

iPhone 4  release – Jan 11 2011 (Verizon) March 2011 (AT&T)

The reasons for sales increase (From Group Meeting 10/10/2011)

1.       Obviously the sales revenue during the 3^rd quarter is due to iPad2 and iPhone4’s new release.

2.       Japan, Pacific, European sales increased dramatically. Popularity in oversea compare to the other smart phone products. (62% of the sales came from oversea)

Speaking of my analysis above, I agree with the financial reports in Apple’s Press Info – Time Record Revenue and Earnings (7/19/2011) http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/07/19Apple-Reports-Third-Quarter-Results.html

All the analysis and numbers are true regarding sales facts and same my analysis.

Regarding forward looking statements from the press, I had the following feedback.

This company’s product concept development has been done by Mr. Steve Jobs and he was literally a genius in the history.  There was a claim that even Microsoft copied Apple’s concept regarding PC, and Apple makes both hardware and software while Microsoft does software only.

The company is probably OK for a while after Mr. Jobs death  because they just announced a new release iPhone4S (Some said 4S is a for Steve, BTW) However, they need to understand the importance of the next generation of the current product lines so that they continue to be the leader, since other companies ready to copy the similar products with lower costs. e.g.  Amazon, Google, Samsun.  

What I think of Apple is, they are just very expensive. Not only tablets or smart phones, I love even Apple’s PC/Notebook, and also SW development tools!!  However I end up with using DELL and Microsoft due to cost efficiency…

The next hot business opportunities for these IT companies may be cloud business, means that services thru the internet via portable devices.  However, I would warn the society with such centralization, if internet is down, everything becomes not available.

Group D Skype Meeting report (9/26 Mon 7:45PM)

Group D Skype Meeting report (9/26 Mon 7:45PM)

We had very good discussion under excellent leadership of Jamie Williams who is the meeting organizer for Sept 26th. We went through the topics as ULearn suggested with A-G steps. (See ULearn BUS600 site). One of the accomplishments is that we could have a consensus with mission statement of our small business.

Mission Statement: Our business helps customers make wise purchasing decisions that influence corporations to make products and business operations choices that are socially equitable, non-environmentally damaging and support the communication in which they operate.

Grope Name: We had discussed but I believe we did not have finalized idea of our group name yet. There are some proposals in the past (via email exchange): InSight, Society Trust, Wise Choice, We Trust. My proposal here is “goForIt.com”. 

My Feedback: In today’s market, there are many kinds of rating companies for various fields and some of them are very powerful (means that has strong influence for decision making of people).  For example, financial, environmental (sometimes called green), human rights, operation transparency etc. Our group is probably more focusing on environmental side such as sustainability of products, grading of carbon emission for companies. Speaking of carbon emission, it is controversial because some can reduce carbon emission by increasing dependency on Nuclear Power Generation which generates more toxic to the earth for long term.  See the documentary movie preview: “Into Eternity”  http://www.intoeternitythemovie.com/ 

The following is a memorandum of research links group members presented recently.

1. Carbonpig
Website: http://carbonpig.com/
Submitted by: Daniel
Business segment:  products sustainability
Over view:
This site maintains a list (database) of eco-safe products for consumers. The intention is to help customers to make a decision, find a product to buy. Evaluation standard is not clearly described in the site while it said it gives a certain rating for consumers. This is an Non-profit organization (NPO).

2. Terrapass
Website: http://www.terrapass.com/business/
Submitted by: Chiori
Business segment: Carbon emission calculation and reduction
Overview:
TerraPass helps companies to demonstrate their environmental leadership by measuring, reducing and offsetting the carbon footprint of their business. TerraPass carbon offsets fund clean energy and carbon reduction projects in North America and are verified to the highest standards.(from website) It sells clean energy as "carbon offsets" in online shop: http://store.terrapass.com/store/p/53-TerraPass-carbon-offsets-1mT.html
This is not an NPO, it actually has products.

3. Energy Watch Group
Website: http://www.energywatchgroup.org/Mission.11+M5d637b1e38d.0.html
Submitted by: Kerry
Business segment: promotion for renewable clean energy
Overview:
This is an organization (NPO) run by scientists to review and evaluate various issues of current and future energy generation.

4. Corporate Responsibility Group (CRG)
Website: http://www.crguk.org/?id=8&ob=1
Submitted by: Kerry
Business segment: Ethical and Environmental responsibility for business
Overview:
Probably they provide consultation to business.
CRG is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee and run cost-effectively by a volunteer Board of experienced members. A small contracted secretariat team and a consultant programme adviser put the Board's plans into effect.(from website)

Chapter 2 Ethics - Silbiger, The 10-Days MBA

A company should grow business such a way that as it helps its customers success, it benefits the environment and society. It also means that a company should operate legally and ethically. In today’s increasingly transparent business world, HOW companies do things is just as important as WHAT they do.  These applied to the daily corporate activities such as transactions, booking, decision making, manufacturing, and treating people. How a company can win with integrity? 

Code of conduct plays an important law to achieve our goal. Defining and developing an effective code of conduct for organizations is a major interest to companies.  Here is some bullet points to the code of conduct I saw as an example:

Example of Code of Conduct from a renowned global company

• Honesty
• Trustworthiness
• Judgment
• Respect
• Courage
• Responsibility 

Non ethical examples (Not-to-do examples) of companies

• Apple:    Tenth apparent suicide at Foxconn iPhone factory in China

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/27/foxconn-suicide-tenth-iphone-china

• Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power):    TEPCO submits heavily redacted copy of Fukushima nuke accident manual

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110908p2a00m0na022000c.html


Good example for environmental and social responsibility 

• Google:    Google invests $280 million in SolarCity

http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/14/technology/google_solarcity/index.htm

Chapter 1 Marketing - Silbiger, The 10-Days MBA

Chapter 1 Marketing

Marketing Mix = 4 Ps.

Market Mix is elements of marketing plan and analysis process to identify the target market.  It should be described in Product Requirement document. 

• Product: Goods or Service
• Price: Should be set to gain revenue but be competitive in the market
• Promotion: Advertizing, PR, sales promotion (coupons etc)  - communication with customers.
• Place: market place, segment, for example, customers’ age, { consumer/enterprise/government/organization }, geographical place – sold to where?  

Example:

• Product: Data center core routers 
• Price: Must be competitive - Given in per port (1,10,100GBps) price
• Promotion: Partner Program with Resellers, Technical support, benchmark support.
• Place: World wide.  Enterprise, government, school campus, internet providers, research organizations (HPC customers – high performance computing) 

BUS600 ~ { 1st entry } My Vision and Goal

BUS600: Foundation of Business Management, Professor Tao

 I am working as a software developer in computer and networking industry over the last 10 years. My specialty is always focused on technology so that I did not really pay attention to the business of my organization. My company was a leader of high Giga technology, so that it had high chance of going to the public in early 2000s. However the top management made mistake just only one time then they (we) missed the chance to go public entirely. With my observation,  the management seemed luck of a certain knowledge regarding financial documentation so they could not file IPO in right timing.  It is OK for individual engineers to move one firm to the others to do the similar tasks continuously but I am more interested in the company organization as a whole to success and grow myself in the organization; how to survive in the market with having right knowledge and good ethics. MBA is a best place to learn. It is not only for learning but also the place for application to the real business idea of ourselves appreciated by customers.