Understanding Akerlof’s “Lemon Market Theory”

The Lemon Market Theory (LMT) explained by Nobel Prize winner George A. Akerlof in 1970 in his seminal paper, “The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism” describes how markets that sell good products is never identified because of poor quality supplying markets, as sellers of the poor quality products are provided incentives to sell their products. Incentives such as guarantees, warranties and brand names oppose the quality uncertainty issue. The Lemon Market Theory also focuses on the information asymmetry or unbalanced information between the buyer and seller, where the entire set of sellers take the credit for the quality of the product or service rather than granting the individual quality reward to the appropriate seller who provides the good quality ones. This result in extinguishing the existence of good quality sellers from the market because their product’s quality or service is never recognized or identified and they Continue reading

Types of Foreign Bonds

Yankee Bonds Yankee Bonds are US dollar denominated issues by foreign  borrowers (usually foreign governments or entities,  supranationals and highly rated corporate borrowers) in  the US bond markets. Yankee bond has certain peculiar  features associated with the US domestic market. SEC  regulates the international bond issues and requires  complete disclosure documents in detail than the  prospectus used in Eurobond issues. Foreign borrower will have to adopt the US accounting practices and the  US credit rating agencies will have to provide rating for  these bonds. These bonds are sponsored by a US  domestic underwriting syndicate and require SEBI (Securities  and Exchange Board of India) registration prior to selling them in  the domestic US market. Reliance Industries Ltd. has  been the most successful corporate to tap this instrument  with a 50-year, $50 million Yankee Bond issue. Samurai Bonds These are bonds issued by non-Japanese  borrowers in the domestic Japanese markets. Borrowers  are Continue reading

GE/McKinsey Matrix

GE/McKinsey Portfolio Matrix Model   GE/McKinsey Matrix  is the business portfolio framework developed by General Electric with the help of McKinsey and Company,  an American global management consulting firm. GE Business Screen includes nine cells based on long-term industry attractiveness and business strength/competitive position. Factors that Affect Market Attractiveness: There are several factors which can help determine attractiveness. These are listed below: Market Size Market growth Market profitability Pricing trends Competitive intensity / rivalry Overall risk of returns in the industry Opportunity to differentiate products and services Segmentation Distribution structure (e.g. retail, direct, wholesale) Factors that Affect Competitive Strength: There are several factors which can help determine the business unit strength. These are listed below: Strength of assets and competencies Relative brand strength Market share Customer loyalty Relative cost position (cost structure compared with competitors) Distribution strength Record of technological or other innovation Access to financial and other investment resources Continue reading

Total Quality Management (TQM) – History, Concepts, and Principles

Quality Control processes in business are aimed at ensuring a good or service is of the standard of quality that the manufacturer or supplier has determined. Under the concept of   Total Quality Management (TQM), quality control extends to every aspect of the way a business operates. In the case of a manufactured good it means that during design, production, and servicing the quality of work and materials must be up to the standard laid down. The emphasis put on quality control in many countries in recent years was to a large extent a response to the competitive edge Japanese businesses had achieved by paying attention to quality. However, it was an American management consultant, W. Edwards Deming, who brought the message to the Japanese that “the consumer is the most important part of the production line”, and who taught them methods that would help them control quality. He was Continue reading

Case Study Analysis Techniques

A case study is a concise description of a situation which exists or a series of events which have taken place in an organization. This description may be drawn from actual events in a particular organization or it may be a fabricated description which draws its inspiration from several parts of the author’s experience. Whatever its source, this description (perhaps with organization charts and tables of data included) is the scenario which you will be asked to analyze. Often these scenarios describe a number of things which have gone wrong or indicate things left undone which should have been done and sometimes illustrate effective and sometimes ineffective practice and management. Usually you will be given questions to answer or a course of action to comment on or you will be invited to make recommendations which have to be supported by argument and analysis. This method of learning from case studies Continue reading

How Does Enterprise Computing Support Business Organizations?

Nowadays Information technology has a rapid growth. Almost every day there are new ideas to improve the performance of technology. It cannot be denied that people who lives today unconsciously depends on technology. Each task did by the people gets many help from technology. For an instance, a hand phone that help us to communicate with our colleagues, the internet that serve certain time information for us and many more technology which made our daily activity become easier. At least we can follow the technology progress so that we don’t left behind. Technology has an important role both in our lives and business. A company or organization need to know about the technology to help them to running their task in easier way. They must change their manual way to the automatic one. The automatic system will help finishing several tasks easier. There are several benefits if an organization or Continue reading