Concepts of Throughput Accounting and Theory of Constraints

Financial Management

Kaizen – Understanding the Japanese Business Philosophy of Continuous Improvement

Operations Management

Role of Leaders in Shaping Organizational Culture

Management Principles

Organizational Culture – Development and Importance

Management Principles

Five Important Organizational Cultural Models

Management Principles

Currency Swap Deals in Foreign Exchange Markets

Swap contracts can be arranged across currencies. Such contracts are known as currency swaps and can help manage both interest rate and exchange rate risk. Many financial institutions count the arranging of swaps, both domestic and foreign currency, as an important line of business. This method is virtually cheaper than covering by way of forward options. Technically, a currency swap is an exchange of debt service obligations denominated in one currency for the service in an agreed upon principal amount of debt denominated in another currency. By swapping their future cash flow obligations, the counterparties are able to replace cash flows denominated in one currency with cash flows in a more desired currency. A ‘swap deal’ is a transaction in which the bank buys and sells the specified foreign currency simultaneously for different maturities. Thus a swap deal may involve: simultaneous purchase of spot and sale of forward or vice Continue reading

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Case Study on Consumer Behavior: Gillette

When most people hear “GILLETTE”, one thing comes to mind–Razors. That’s to be expected, since safety razors were invented by King C. Gillette in 1903, and the product in various forms has been the core of the company’s business ever since. Few firms have dominated an industry   so completely and for so long. Wet-razor shaving (as distinct from electric razors) is a $900 million market. Gillette’s share is 62 percent, with the remainder divided among SCHICK–15 percent, BIC–11 percent, WILKINSON sword–2 percent, and a number of private brands. Gillette would like to achieve a similar position in the men’s toiletries with a new line of products called the GILLETTE Series. However, its record that market is spotty at best. One Gillette success, Right Guard Deodorant, was market leader in the 1960’s. Right Guard was one of the first Aerosols, and it became a family product which was used both Continue reading

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Challenges faced by Family Businesses

Family businesses in developed countries such as the U.S account for the 50% of the gross domestic product from small business to large corporations. However in the fortunes 500 companies list family businesses account for the 35% which shows that big family corporations rule the world. These family businesses are powerful and at the same time very complex that create both of them advantages and opportunities as well as challenges. The most important challenge is to effectively align the business system with the family system which it cannot come naturally. In the one hand we have the family which is driven by emotions and on the other hand the business that is driven by economics. The interaction of family cohesion and business achievement often creates outstanding business performance but at a cost. If there is lack of coordination, good things that benefit the business can damage the family and when Continue reading

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SWOT Analysis of PayPal

PayPal is an e-commerce business that allows payments and money transfer to be made through the Internet. PayPal serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as cheque and money orders. The service allows members to send money without sharing financial information, with the flexibility to pay using their account balances, bank accounts, credit cards or promotional financing. PayPal is an example of a payment intermediary service that facilitates worldwide e-commerce. PayPal is an eBay subsidiary company and is made up of three leading online payment services: the PayPal global payment service, the Payflow Gateway and Bill Me Later. The company’s open payment platform, PayPal X, that allows developers to build innovative payment applications on multiple platforms and devices. PayPal performs payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other commercial users, for which it charges a fee. It charges transaction fee for receiving money. The fees charged Continue reading

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Some terms and concepts related to foreign exchange market

1 & 2. Exposure and Risk: Exposure is a measure of the sensitivity of the value of a financial item (asset, liability or cash flow) to changes in the relevant risk factor while risk is a measure of variability of the value of the item attributable to the risk factor. Let us understand this distinction clearly. April 1993 to about July 1995 the exchange rate between rupee and US dollar was almost rock steady. Consider a firm whose business involved both exports to and imports from the US. During this period the firm would have readily agreed that its operating cash flows were very sensitive to the rupee-dollar exchange rate, i.e.; it had significant exposure to this exchange rate; at the same time it would have said that it didn’t perceive significant risk on this account because given the stability of the rupee-dollar fluctuations would have been perceived to be Continue reading

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History and Background of Oracle

Larry Ellison, Bob Miller, and Ed Oats founded Software Development Laboratories (SDL) in 1977. SDL was founded to implement a commercial version of Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). Inspiration to implement RDBMS system came from the 1970 paper on RDBMS authored by Edgor Codd named “A Relational Data for Large Shared Data Banks”. In 1977 SDL implemented first commercial version of RDBMS for CIA. The code name for the project was Oracle. The unique product that the company offered was increasingly recognized in the market and company changed its name to Oracle Systems Corporation to identify itself with its flagship product Oracle. Oracle decided that it would use SQL to retrieve data from database because founders understood that IBM’s SQL will become a de-facto standard. This was one of the early strategic decisions. So Oracle made sure that commercial RDBMS that was developed was compatible with SQL. This gave Oracle Continue reading

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