Businesspundit: Good Managers and Bad Strategies

Michael Porter, director of Harvard’s Institute for Strategy and Comeptitiveness, stressed that managers get into trouble when they attempt to compete head-on with other companies. No one wins that kind of struggle, he said. Instead, managers need to develop a clear strategy around their company’s unique place in the market.

Which is why The Blue Ocean Strategy, a new term coined by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne might just be your strategy  to focus on your competitive strength, instead of banging head on, is getting increased popularity.

The Personal Finance Weblog: My Stupidest Money Decisions

My name is Justin and I’ve been stupid with my money…..  What can we say?  A fool and his money will soon be parted.

China Venture News: New China White Paper on Employment Practices

The White Paper, The China Talent Paradox, reports that rapid economic and social change has spurred a skills shortage that is set to escalate in the next few years. The labor shortage in China is even more problematic than in other nations because it is most severe among managers. Two in every five companies find it difficult to fill senior management positions.

China Venture News: China M&A Tsunami Forecast

n recent years, Chinese companies have burst onto the global mergers-and-acquisitions (M&A) scene, according to a published report from The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Since 1986, Chinese companies have invested some $30 billion in non-Chinese companies, nearly a third in 2004 and 2005 alone.

The Outsourcing Weblog: Top Outsourcing Cities in India

India remains to be the most popular outsourcing destination based on the same research study. Here are the top outsourcing cities in India:

1. New Delhi
2. Bangalore
3. Hyderabad
4. Mumbai
5. Pune
6. Chennai
7. Kolkata

The Outsourcing Weblog: Top Outsourcing Destinations in the World

Here are the top outsourcing destinations in the world:
1. New Delhi, India
2. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
3. Manila, Philippines
4. Shanghai, China
5. Moscow, Russia

Today, I go back to my university - to teach Entrepreneurship in a Master of Management program. It is just a three hour commitment per week for the next 14 or so weeks, or roughly 52 hours.

But if you want to be fair to your students, you have to spend far more time organizing, and presenting a good course.

I have spoken to various audiences, sometimes numbering to hundreds or thousands, but teaching in a formal school ( albeit with only 20 students) is giving me the jitters - it is a different challenge.

I have put up a new site where I post all the readings and also my powerpoints discussion, and I am inviting the students to discourse, debate and give comments on the topics. Everybody, even not in theis school program, can also do the readings, and help give comments and share experiences.

To Entrepreneurs worldwide, unite! You have nothing to lose but your …..

Naked Conversations: Sten Shares Skype Vision & Strategy

When you invent something truly useful, as Skype does, which truly have helped numerous businesses by making sure phone calls are affordable if not free, then you have all the reasons to reap commercial rewards.

I was in the blog site of a person who laments that the record companies are losing big time to piracy.

I think changes in media and market situation also means changes also in business models.

Changes in business models pertains that the market grows, the way you earn your revenues changes.  In today’s global world, where you can sell almost worldwide, and market size is a hundred times before, I think some companies are maintaining old business models.  Some are screaming losses, but some are raking it in –until they find out too late that they did not adjust fast enough.

When you can sell only 5,000 pieces of $10 CDs, then you need to make 60% margin to cover your fixed cost.  But when the market grows so that you can sell 25,000 pieces of $10 CDs (produced at a cost of a few cents) at almost the same research/production costs, then some people will come in and try to sell 50,000 pieces by pricing it at $7, and if they are successful, another company will come in to try to sell 100,000 pieces by pricing it at $5, and when the market size establishes even that, somebody will try to sell 1,000,000 pieces by pricing it at $2.

Then somebody will try to sell 10,000,000 pieces of it by trying to price it at 99 cents.

Obviously the record companies ( and notably also IPR companies like software, and film outfits) have to review their pricing policies.  As the market grows, they have kept the prices constant, and earning more, and many people plainly feels that at this current stage, some are plainly pricing the records too high.

I remember the time when a word processor sells for 500 dollars.  Twenty years after, Microsoft sells a word processor, spreadsheet, graphics, organizer, and database package for less than that, and each a thousand times more complex and sophisticated at even cheaper than that, and yet manage to make more because of the market size.

Another company bets that in order to beat Microsoft, they develop products and sells it for free, and then just choose to make money in services, books, consulting etc.

Maybe artists may choose to make less money in record sales, and knowing that if they become popular, they can also make more money in live concerts, product endorsements and other sources.