Robin Hood of Germany

tomorrow another world cup will start... Germany 06...and the million dollar question is who is going to win the cup this time??.....is this the only concern....NO
ART.. who they have the exclusive rights to broadcast the in the middle east for the coming 3 world cups have their bargaining powers of suppliers and they are imposing any price on their customers.... saying that the Fifa are responsible for it... as the fifa are asking for millions of dollars.
Actually the past season Aljazeera Sports bought the rights to broadcast the italian soccer league (which is not expensve relative to the World Cup rights) for 3 years and they charged their viewers $30/annual.... not mentioning that you will be able to watch the spanish league...
now ... pirates show up with brillinat techniques to "steal" signals and frequencies and sell them to customers by half price....
can an average family afford to pay $400 to watch the world cup.. and the coffee shops are asking for $15 as a cover charge for each match....
where shall go to watch the game...
remember this game was raised by the poor, and will always be ......
So, dont call them pirates....they are Robin Hoods

The world is getting even closer

I was introduced to Blogging in general by my professor in MBA program, Professor Hunter, former MIT and current AUS professor. I never heard of it before, but when I logged in, OH MY GOD....
thousands of people blogging each minute, you can't even keep a track of that.
Last week I was doing my daily mourning newspapers reading with a cup of french coffee, and I read that a girl won the World Best Blog for a blogg she did over Iraq. they are even doing trophies for it, I guess I was a bit late.
Bloggs makes the world a smaller place when dealing with cultural, business and human issues. You can even cross the line CNN or BBC or Aljazeera are drawing for viewers and hear it from the people, and fortunately whatever they believe in, they have knowldge of the topic and that you should respect.
Imagine the value of this close interaction can to youth and even children at schools. they can exchange projects, papers and even knowledge among teachers. they should do this and close the gap of starting the clash of civilization as the famous Smauel Huntington wrote.
after the bubble burst in 2001 in IT myslef and others believed that it is the end and the positive value of the internet is over and now it is more like TV. but still internet can be run by people with barriers of entry, where TVs are all run with skilled with holding high barries of entry to others to join.
I am glad to notice that children are substituting TV by the internet, even if it hard to control, but it is managebale if firewalls are implemented.
I would definitely suggest implenemting blog strategy to exchange information, and I would love to witness that taking over TV false misleading news.
We are still wondering what happened in Iraq and what is still happening there, but imagine when the US soldiers open a blog entry sharing esperience with billions. Touch down for them and KO for CNN

TPS still holding the title

Mr. Okuda is a man who is really undervalued in the A-list business community in the world. this guy with Toyota Production Strateg,or called TPS, are still holding the world title for best car manufactureres.
In couple weeks earlier in read an article that Toyota are moving in to North America with factories mainly applying the TPS assembly lines of production.
Couple of weeks later, i read another blog stating that Okuda is hammering the prices AGAIN, so with the assemblies of TPS allocated imagine the chaos GM and Ford are going to make.
So what is so special about that TPS?
TPS mainly is a perfect assembly lines of auto productions dealing with all the resources available, physical and human. It is based on fast, accuracy and simplicity in mechanical aspects integrated with techincal stuff in big envelope of efficiency.
So what value does it add?
Toyota are the number manufactures of cars when it come to numbers and that's because with such an operational strategy they are more involved with mass markets not niche markets as Volvo and VW are. Plus, the mass production always play a huge part when satisfying fleet operations, for countries and taxi companies all around the world.
this fast andeasy to implement machines in body makes it so easy to fix by mechanics and service lines, and that makes it so rare dealing with others.
Such a strategy is so hard to imitate by others as they need a re-calculation of resources available, which is so costy, in addition to some plotical issues that might pop up, which already did years ago.
Congratualtions for Toyota again, they are the best. Don't you ever try to imitate them or you will end up in jail ( Hyundai.............read the news, he is there because he was buying info from Toyota)

Proctor and Gamble's Connect & Develop

One of my interests in my life is to keep track of the big organizations. Day after day it turns out to be a hobby, I like to dig into organizations’ information and know how they perform. This is going to be the first episode of a series of digging, and I will start with Proctor & Gamble.

Huston and Sakkab, currently working for P&G, wrote an article discussing the business innovation done by their latest CEO Lafley in 2005. The man turned the organization’s strategy from R&D to C&D. Connect and Develop is the new strategy to develop. Lafely wanted to hire everyone with a great idea that he thinks it is going to add value to his company, so he simply not getting into details introduced online integrations with their best suppliers of materials worldwide. His vision is to make P&G’s manpower around 1.5 million.

The innovation shifted the organization’s business strategy to take advantage of everyone who has ideas, they didn’t change their markets or moved to new ones in the beginning, but eventually they will do as they are going to be overloaded with great ideas. As they are connecting with everybody, then they are much faster in product launch over their competitors, and that is their basis of differentiation, they are fast and accurate.

Lafely is simply trying to grow his core competencies much stronger, and he is doing that pretty well, they have the labs, they let the suppliers share their labs, and even they ;leverage some projects which they think they are in the introduction stage and they have the potential to grow.

All what they are doing is simply to fulfill the customer’s wants and needs, with reasonable and never changing over the inflation rate prices.

Finally, this strategy is valuable, rare, hard to imitate because simply it is hard to find the resources P&G has within other competitors.

Congratulations Lafley for the Competitive advantage over UNI……

Ford's move to Dell's Supply Chain

I have always been of the biggest admirers of Dell’s organizational performance, and especially their supply chain management. Dell’s shows great outcomes from such innovation in the SCM field, which let other companies, try to imitate such strategy, and one of them was the big rich and famous FORD.

Teri Takai, director of supply chain management division, wanted to implement the Dell’s strategy in Ford. In 1999 she was successful to do so to a certain limit.

Ford wanted to eliminate the middlemen, which means in our case no distribution channels; they want to be directly involved with the suppliers and the customers directly. Ford introduced in 1998 a retail network in the US, fully owned by Ford to do their sales, and it shows huge profit figures. That was considered to be a step to the implement the whole process.

Some issues that concerned the board of management is the involvement of Ford directly with the suppliers, neglecting the manufacturers, in other words, the procurement of raw materials and the manufacturing is to be 100% monitored by Ford. Teri promised to solve such issues in the future with proper contracts and monitoring systems to their suppliers and outsourcing companies.

Ford is ranked second in the US, where it is ranked 3rd in the world behind Toyota and Daimler Chrysler, many refers that rating to the great growth done in Ford after they somehow implemented 70% of the strategy in their SCM division.

The strategy is valuable, as it increases the sales of Ford, it even add some value to Ford Explorer, which won the best SUV car in 2005. Also, we can’t question the value of the strategy itself as it was tested before by Dell, and it ranked them as number one.

Nobody can say that it is not rare in the auto industry, Teri got guts to implement such concept and she is earning outputs. But do you think that it is hard to be imitated, I don’t think so, simply because Ford imitated Dell, and many others can imitate Ford.

Ford has one of the best organizational structures, but not the best. Good job Teri but you should come up with something new fast, and I really mean fast.

Ford's move to Dell's Supply Chain

I have always been of the biggest admirers of Dell’s organizational performance, and especially their supply chain management. Dell’s shows great outcomes from such innovation in the SCM field, which let other companies, try to imitate such strategy, and one of them was the big rich and famous FORD.

Teri Takai, director of supply chain management division, wanted to implement the Dell’s strategy in Ford. In 1999 she was successful to do so to a certain limit.

Ford wanted to eliminate the middlemen, which means in our case no distribution channels; they want to be directly involved with the suppliers and the customers directly. Ford introduced in 1998 a retail network in the US, fully owned by Ford to do their sales, and it shows huge profit figures. That was considered to be a step to the implement the whole process.

Some issues that concerned the board of management is the involvement of Ford directly with the suppliers, neglecting the manufacturers, in other words, the procurement of raw materials and the manufacturing is to be 100% monitored by Ford. Teri promised to solve such issues in the future with proper contracts and monitoring systems to their suppliers and outsourcing companies.

Ford is ranked second in the US, where it is ranked 3rd in the world behind Toyota and Daimler Chrysler, many refers that rating to the great growth done in Ford after they somehow implemented 70% of the strategy in their SCM division.

The strategy is valuable, as it increases the sales of Ford, it even add some value to Ford Explorer, which won the best SUV car in 2005. Also, we can’t question the value of the strategy itself as it was tested before by Dell, and it ranked them as number one.

Nobody can say that it is not rare in the auto industry, Teri got guts to implement such concept and she is earning outputs. But do you think that it is hard to be imitated, I don’t think so, simply because Ford imitated Dell, and many others can imitate Ford.

Ford has one of the best organizational structures, but not the best. Good job Teri but you should come up with something new fast, and I really mean fast.

Show Box: Showtime's new MOVE

Couple of weeks ago I was surfing through the hundreds of cable TV channels, and I stopped by what Showtime calls the new innovation in TV. It is the Show Box. Show Box is a new receiver that has a built in hard disk that is capable of letting you watch two channels and record the third at the same time. You can even create your own channel by having a built in timer that allows you to record maximum of 40 hours of selective material from different channels and play them pack again once you press PLAY. In other words you can have a channel playing your best shows, movies, music shows all on one channel.

In the marketing campaign, the slogan was “The new generation of TV viewers.” Is it?

In the Middle East the main cable TV companies are Orbit, Arabic Radio & Television (ART), Al Jazeera and Showtime. All these are competing to win the maximum market share. Four years earlier Showtime was leading the race, as they were having the first Pay per View channels, plus other popular shows as Friends, 24 and others. Then Showtime moved a bit further when they had a deal with Abu Dhabi Sports Channel who had the exclusive rights for the Italian soccer league, who was the best during the past days. Orbit and ART were in a complete mess, showing old Arabic movies and tennis grand slams.

But things changed, fours years ago ART won the rights of broadcasting the Korea Japan World cup in 2002, and that was the start of taking over. Then ART went further by introducing their first pay per view channels showing Arabic and Hollywood movies, and they moved even further by taking over the European Champions League, the most valuable European soccer championship.

Al Jazeera is the new group of TV channels, who won their great reputation from Al Jazeera news, leapfrogged Showtime to be second on the race by taking over the rights of the Italian league from them paying around 24 million dollars. That was after they announced that they have the rights for the Spanish league.
Showtime is suffering as Rotana Cinema (owned by Walid Bin Talal), Melody movies are free subscription channels showing the recent movies released. Then, Showtime tried to save what can be saved and reduced the monthly subscription from 280 Dhs to 220 Dhs giving free receivers and installation. That did not work either.

Actually I have heard of the built in hard disk receivers long time ago, they even sell it in Carrefour; I bought it for my friend as a birthday gift. The value of this receiver is great, and it fits the life style we are living in the Middle East. If you are living in a crowded city like Dubai you are spending 5 hours daily driving, so you need to catch up what’s going on with Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland, 24 hero) or want to hear the latest Osama Bin laden voice tape. Show Box is valuable to such life style.

Even if the concept is new to some population, but it is definitely not to others, actually others do have the Show Box but with different brand name and they use its facilities. Unfortunately, rareness doesn’t show up here, and if they don’t really lower their prices in selling their items then, bye bye, you can’t win anything back from the large piece of cake.
ART, Orbit or Al Jazeera don’t need to imitate Showtime and acquire such a service to their customers, for simple reason as the audience are aware of this technology, they can go and buy it from Plug Ins or Carrefour. No need for the competitors even to bother.
Showtime’s organizational internal protocols and strategy are one of the best; it is clear that everybody loves to work there, but Al Jazeera is there too with huge pay checks. Al Jazeera and Showtime have a competitive advantage over ART in their internal organizational frame work.

So, congratulations for Showtime to bring out to their customers the huge innovation in TV industry, they may win some competitive advantage, but they need to work faster, it is only the beginning and winning the lead is tough, but staying there is tougher, which our Showtime guys failed in doing.

Show Box: Showtime's new MOVE

Couple of weeks ago I was surfing through the hundreds of cable TV channels, and I stopped by what Showtime calls the new innovation in TV. It is the Show Box. Show Box is a new receiver that has a built in hard disk that is capable of letting you watch two channels and record the third at the same time. You can even create your own channel by having a built in timer that allows you to record maximum of 40 hours of selective material from different channels and play them pack again once you press PLAY. In other words you can have a channel playing your best shows, movies, music shows all on one channel.

In the marketing campaign, the slogan was “The new generation of TV viewers.” Is it?

In the Middle East the main cable TV companies are Orbit, Arabic Radio & Television (ART), Al Jazeera and Showtime. All these are competing to win the maximum market share. Four years earlier Showtime was leading the race, as they were having the first Pay per View channels, plus other popular shows as Friends, 24 and others. Then Showtime moved a bit further when they had a deal with Abu Dhabi Sports Channel who had the exclusive rights for the Italian soccer league, who was the best during the past days. Orbit and ART were in a complete mess, showing old Arabic movies and tennis grand slams.

But things changed, fours years ago ART won the rights of broadcasting the Korea Japan World cup in 2002, and that was the start of taking over. Then ART went further by introducing their first pay per view channels showing Arabic and Hollywood movies, and they moved even further by taking over the European Champions League, the most valuable European soccer championship.

Al Jazeera is the new group of TV channels, who won their great reputation from Al Jazeera news, leapfrogged Showtime to be second on the race by taking over the rights of the Italian league from them paying around 24 million dollars. That was after they announced that they have the rights for the Spanish league.
Showtime is suffering as Rotana Cinema (owned by Walid Bin Talal), Melody movies are free subscription channels showing the recent movies released. Then, Showtime tried to save what can be saved and reduced the monthly subscription from 280 Dhs to 220 Dhs giving free receivers and installation. That did not work either.

Actually I have heard of the built in hard disk receivers long time ago, they even sell it in Carrefour; I bought it for my friend as a birthday gift. The value of this receiver is great, and it fits the life style we are living in the Middle East. If you are living in a crowded city like Dubai you are spending 5 hours daily driving, so you need to catch up what’s going on with Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland, 24 hero) or want to hear the latest Osama Bin laden voice tape. Show Box is valuable to such life style.

Even if the concept is new to some population, but it is definitely not to others, actually others do have the Show Box but with different brand name and they use its facilities. Unfortunately, rareness doesn’t show up here, and if they don’t really lower their prices in selling their items then, bye bye, you can’t win anything back from the large piece of cake.
ART, Orbit or Al Jazeera don’t need to imitate Showtime and acquire such a service to their customers, for simple reason as the audience are aware of this technology, they can go and buy it from Plug Ins or Carrefour. No need for the competitors even to bother.
Showtime’s organizational internal protocols and strategy are one of the best; it is clear that everybody loves to work there, but Al Jazeera is there too with huge pay checks. Al Jazeera and Showtime have a competitive advantage over ART in their internal organizational frame work.

So, congratulations for Showtime to bring out to their customers the huge innovation in TV industry, they may win some competitive advantage, but they need to work faster, it is only the beginning and winning the lead is tough, but staying there is tougher, which our Showtime guys failed in doing.

BOYcut II

By the beginning of the year 2000 there was a flow of boycotting the american goods in muslim countries. That was really done wrong.

Many believe that Hardee's, KFC, Burger King, etc. based in the muslim countiries are american companies. Customers believe that the 15 Dhs they pay for the meal goes directly to Mr. Kentucly's pocket. They weren't aware of the franchise system.

Nowadays the boycot is back. Danish goods are blacklisted as a reaction to the awful, unexpected cartoon drawings in the top read newspaper in Copenhagen. The Danish are hit in the heart, their international trade and revenues are so affected in the Middle East and Muslim countries. Denamrk are not safe, and this boycot is much stronger that the one against the US. why?? because:

When the American fast food was on the US Blacklist, substitutes showed up. Oriental food restaurants, serving Middle Eastern platters, which many are aware of, actually they were cooking it at home and it tastes much better that the ones served in restaurants. Restaurant owners started realizing that their customers are looking for the taste and the easiness of getting the food, it is FAST FOOD, so they started doing their own burgers, and even their "name" fried chicken. So the quality, taste and service accompanied with the served meal was the main advantage for the American brands.

Americana, the poor unknown, at that time, owners of the franchised american fast food restaurants based in Kuwait, lifted up the barriers for entries for the their competitors, or wanna be rivals, by increasing the offers, which mainly targeted the kids under 10, who aren't aware of the political issues going around the globe. Then, they invaded the gas stations and university cities in the big major trading cities, i.e. they increased their places of distribution and their REACHABILITY, they showed their customers that we are strong and we really care to make you know that we are Kuwaitis, not americans.
Since the government announced the official boycot of the Danish goods, many companies started doing informative advertisements about their headquarters and nationalities to clarify any misunderstanding that might show up. I read the other day Nestle published an ad clarifying that Klim and Nido are Swiss milk not Danish some of the forwarded emails going around. This one is big, even Nestle, the shark, is afraid of his market share.

Laurpak butter takes over than 80% of the market share of butter sales, even more, but corn oil is taking over now. The Danish are really trying hard to prevent this from hapenning, I dont think that they can. Also, customers or buyers are mostly muslims or arabs who are totally aware of what people mean by boycotting this time, and they know what and who to hit. Their hit is much accurate.

It is a win/win scenario for the suppliers. They follow the government rules and orders and win their support in the media and win a solid ground for future economic crisis. And, they are selling their goods anyhow, if they are selling Danish juice or Saudi juice, they are still getting money. The extra stock will be replaced by other goods from external trades. So no worries.

So we don't need KDD or Laurpak, I think that they should apologize and let this go. They need us more than we need them.