"China’s Unethical Practices" a discussion of M.Azim Ulfati

"The regime in China has been known to manipulate it currency creating a competitive a world competitive advantage for the manufacturing of goods. Evaluate the impact to the U.S. manufacturing industry and make a recommendation on how the U.S. should deal with the practice of currency manipulation."

I think that manipulation of China’s currency and its unethical practices impacts to the US. Manufacturing industry. Chinese currency manipulation undermines American manufacturing and our very own job-creating efforts.

The unethical practices includes stealing intellectual property of the US, flooding the US market with cheap goods, child labor, wage and hour issues and poor working conditions, the traditional gift giving for the purpose of building network connections, bribery concepts and corruption affects all the shareholders of the USA in the business. These practices have a lot of negative impacts to the USA economy and business of the companies that can take the businesses of the United States of America down in the long term.

I think the United States of America needs to pass a bill and enforcement of a trade law and include new ways of administration and management to fight currency manipulation and improve oversight of currency exchange rates and the Treasury Department should undervalue and trigger tough consequences and sanctions for Chinese’ s unfair trade.

"China has been known to violate the intellectual property rights related to technology, goods, and services, harming the companies from which it steals. Make a recommendation on how a U.S. company that has fallen victim to this Chinese practice should respond so as to protect its intellectual property."

The US companies must set up their own manufacturing and trade rules and laws and enforce them in order to have more access and freedom to legally run their businesses. They need to best protect their intellectual property assets and understand the various pieces that make up their IP portfolio that should include trademarks, copy rights, patents and trade secrets owned or used by the company in its business. And also they need to have some suggested practices that businesses can utilize as part of their overall anti- counterfeiting and piracy strategy.

The US Companies should also urge the Administration to continue to press China to abandon its protectionist policies that disadvantage U.S. manufacturing companies, employees and communities and in order to achieve open and free trade, China should end its import barriers on industrial good, export restrictions on raw materials, limit on foreign investments, state subsidies to its manufacturing industries and undervaluation of its currency.

"Detecting Unethical Practices at Supplier Faculty" a discussion of M.Azim Ulfati

"Assess the value of having a Supplier Code of Conduct when outsourcing operational functions to international markets and the enforceability of such a code."

A supplier code of conduct is a set of different cultural, legal, social, ethical and environmental rules and practices outlining the responsibilities of proper practices for an individual, company and sets forth a company’s expectation of vendors contractors and others with whom a company conducts business. It is necessary for the supplier to must meet, comply these rules, guidelines, and requirements and communicate the principles of the supplier code of conduct through out their supply chain of command and do business when outsourcing operational functions to international markets and also to enforce those codes.

Most of the companies adopting codes are involved in the marketing or the manufacture of brand-name clothing and footwear and organize production internationally through outsourcing to subcontractors and suppliers. Companies and industry associations in other labor-intensive industries, such as the toy industry, also adopted codes in response to negative publicity. The enforceability of such codes can pave favorable ground of business for suppliers to do business in a clear and compatible method at the company standard.

"Evaluate whether or not you believe a U.S.-based company outsourcing jobs to foreign markets is ethical.""Support your position."

I think there are two sides of the coin to assess and with assessing those, we know that there is also ethical and unethical issues on each side. There is not good profits and productivity on one side but there is more profits and productivity on the other side of coin for the companies however let’s not forget that this is a capitalism system and free market for the businessmen which has been very successful because it has rewarded the businesses and hardworking workers within the USA and overseas to work, and sell products and services across the globe.

The companies who outsources they are not required to have many facilities in the USA and thus they are not taxed and the government does not make money for the services and supplies and also they do not need to follow the same production requirements as those of companies staying in the USA. When companies outsource they nearly always save money, and are able if they want to reduce the prices of their products or keep them much lower than the competition therefore, it hurts the small companies that can't outsource.

Outsourcing jobs to foreign markets have impacts on the employees who have been with the company for many years and that who no longer is needed in the company in the USA. Is it ethical to fire these people and handout their jobs? The answer is that such unexpected firing or laying-off is unethical in today’s standard business. Companies are very responsible to try their best to continue a possible income for employees within the framework of outsourcing. It is ethical and important for the companies to be honest and have an open communication and good planning and aware their personal in advances for the decisions and cutback and outsourcing jobs of the company. They should be given advance notice so that they shall have enough time to look for an alternative or replacement jobs or think about relocating overseas with the company. They should be notified that how long more they could work in the company. It is also necessary for the company to hold some workshops and training conferences on writing their resumes, interviewing techniques and job opportunities and assist them in finding a new job.

"Assume that you have to make the decision to outsource work to a foreign market. Determine what country would be your best option. Explain your rationale"

As I consider all the ethical code of conducts, and will be outsourcing to farm out jobs from the USA home base to other country for the purpose to cut costs. I would choose India and will transfer the company’s technology development, customer service, financial and administrative jobs because India is the leading recipient of the outsourcing information technology functions like software development and maintenance and business process outsourcing.

Not only that, it also has many prestigious technical universities, but the Indian Institute of Technology stands apart as one of the world's best. India produces 75,000 IT graduates and 2 million English-speaking graduates annually.
Furthermore, labor costs have crept upward over the years but have been offset by falling telecom rates. Typical salaries range from $5,000 to $12,000 for technical staff, while back-office salaries range from $3,500 to $7,500.

And lastly, outsourcing is so ingrained in the fabric here that the Indian government has a national minister specifically for IT. The government favors IT foreign ownership and imposes no export taxes.

"PepsiCo" a discussion of M.Azim Ulfati

"PepsiCo has historically trailed the Coco-Cola Company in carbonated beverage sales. Suggest a strategy that may enable PepsiCo to close the gap in this market. Explain how this may allow PepsiCo to achieve the number-one market position."

I think that Pepsi Next is obviously designed to fill the gap between normal sugar cola drinks and diet colas, trying to appeal to consumers that may sometimes prefer lower-calorie drinks but are concerned with the taste or the social image of diet drinks and vice versa and and in order to close the gaps it also needs to improve their strategy, improve quality of the products, the other gap is the lost Pepsi drinkers, it needs to win the Pepsi drinkers back from the Coca Cola Co and with that Pepsi needs to announce more strategic investment to growth for its share holders, increase advertising and marketing support, building a social media program is an exciting opportunity to allow PepsiCo to achieve the number one market position. As U.S. Consumption of carbonated soft drinks has steadily declined in the past decade.

Part of that comes down to the array of alternative beverages the market now offers. Part of it comes down to health concerns in a nation with an obesity problem. Also I think Pepsi company has to refocus Pepsi and modify its products and focus on water, juices, teas and sport drinks besides its top brands like Aquafina and Gatorade and while it trails soft drinks sales, it should lead the world in ready to drink teas through Lipton and creating more and more healthy food through its Quaker Oats, Gatorade and Tropicana divisions and strengthen its global nutrition Group to deliver breakthrough products.

Further more, it’s an opportunity to dramatically change the way it connects with customers and other constituents - a chance to tap into conversations, learn more about how your brand is perceived, promote your product or service in new ways, and ultimately grow its business. Often the things that the PepsiCo learn in the social media program can inform them more traditional marketing efforts as well, as it engages directly with its audience and learn more about what makes them tick.

Social Media Marketing has helped and will help more and more Pepsi to localize social marketing efforts in different culture contexts to gain more customer insight than it would have otherwise and close the gap in the market, which it has historically trailed the Coco-Cola Company in, carbonated beverage sales. Consistency of brand image is necessary on a global scale, but it is equally important to leverage the local social media platforms and understand the local consumers in order to carry out successful and efficient campaigns.

Social Media Marketing would create platforms to target multiple consumer segments with all these varying platforms using habits. For example, somebody who registered both on Facebook and Twitter probably does not use them for the same purpose. The saying that “ Facebook is on the social graph and Twitter on the interest graph” still holds. It is generally believed that Facebook friends are interested in the person while Twitter followers are interested in the topic, not necessarily the person. Twitter is more open and dynamic than Facebook, but tweets also fade into the crowd faster. If one carefully checks Coca-Cola and Pepsi’s Facebook and Twitter pages, one would discover that they do not have the same style at all. The Facebook page of Coca Cola is a place for anybody to express any feeling, while Pepsi’s page is neatly managed by a team, aiming to elicit dynamic interactions with the consumers which correspond closely to Pepsi’s fun image.

Other social platforms such as YouTube have even looser connections, but can attract users with a different manner. Pepsi Company analyzes these platforms carefully and chooses the correct strategy, which corresponds to their brand image and company vision.

Social Media marketing help Pepsi Company to understand what the followers want.

Social Media Marketing helps Online and offline events for Pepsi to gain more customers. Pepsi Company chooses to launch both offline and online campaigns separately.

Building relationships, brand loyalty, and business in very important, but it’s also an amazing tool for search engine optimization, opening more doors for people to find you online than anyone could have dreamed of a decade ago via the following Social Media Marketing.

"Take a position on whether PepsiCo’s actions of spinning off its fast food establishments created value for the shareholders."

I think in my idea PepsiCo, the world largest snack maker and second biggest soda producer lost in the past few years and the shares jumped to Coca Cola Co, the largest soft drinks maker. Breakups are accelerating as Kraft prepares the spinoff of its North American grocery unit to focus on snack food. The combination of snack and beverage portfolios create significant value for the shareholder through synergies driven by a common customer base and distribution platform, supplier leverage and shared infrastructure. The value of combined portfolio can be greatest in international markets, which share many activities, and PepsiCo is well positioned to make profits in North America for the successful integration of its bottling business.

PepsiCo’t s market value had dropped so many billions of USD in the past two years, while Atlanta based Coca-Cola’s have gained many billions of profits in the past few years.

"Predict the next international market for PepsiCo and if the Power of One strategy is likely to be successful." "Explain."

My anticipation about the next international market for PepsiCo is that, it will launch and invest more money on ad campaigns. It will push more of their efforts on the quality of the products and making healthier and nutritious brands than Coca Cola Co, it will reduce Calorie and sugar in the beverages. Also it will try and win back cola drinkers lost to other beverages. Pepsi’s research suggests that sugar and carbohydrates is an issue for some consumers, but a reasonable proportion of these consumers have not warmed to the taste of diet colas. Therefore, these ‘sugar-avoiders’ have migrated to non-cola beverages as a better product solution for their needs and preferences.

There fore I would say that PepsiCo would be successful if it tries its best to improve their strategies and to satisfy the needs and wants of customers.

“ Diversification" a discussion of M.Azim Ulfati

"Take a position as to whether or not your believe diversification increases shareholder value in a given company."

Diversification is a corporate strategy decision matter and is an essential tool available to investors. It is a decision taken at the highest level those impacts on the fundamental direction of firm and enables them to capture broad market forces while reducing the uncompensated risk associated with individual risk. Moving towards diversification has sometimes been compared while some firms succeed, many others get lost forever. In fact, in no other area of corporate strategy do so many companies made such disastrous decisions. Nonetheless, the attraction of growth and new opportunities continues to be irresistible for most companies.

We all know that many companies are diversified companies, like Apple, Microsoft, Walt Disney and Nokia.

What is vital is that each of these firms seeks to find a coherent path of profitable growth as it takes on new challenges.

If I was an investor, I would use diversification corporate strategy. I will picture a diversified firm as a collection of individual businesses to compete in diverse industry environments; I will have multi business and multi industry corporate strategy.

For instance I will open multi restaurant businesses. I will do business in each restaurant differently from what I do in other restaurants.

Diversification tends to spread through industries where growth and profits decline.

For example, I had stock shares of Oil Company few years ago and there was a declining demand for oil in that year and I was not able to sustain growth and profit in oil stock shares in the stock market.

I was using diversification strategy and I had shares from many different companies like bank of America, AT&T, Fort Motor and so on. I lost in oil stock shares but because of my good diversification strategy and increasing demands in AT&T and Bank of America stocks in the market, I benefited from my shares with these two other companies.

I had a friend who had also stock shares of Oil Company and he lost four hundred thousand USD and was left broke. He lost his house and whole almost every thing in his life and was so miserable because he did not have any previous diversification strategy.

"Given a company that is already diversified, suggest how senior management may determine the most effective strategy and how it should be evaluated."

Studies and mathematical models have shown that maintaining a well-diversified portfolio of 25 to 30 stocks will yield the most cost-effective level of risk reduction. Investing in more securities will still yield further diversification benefits.

I think senior management needs to have a clear strategic vision and the commitment of an effective top management team to determine the most effective strategy and to evaluate it.

The best way to make sure that there is a clear strategic vision is to probe and question.

Also the senior management needs to spread business risk over a variety of industries, achieve greater earnings stability over the business cycle, and take advantage of opportunities for quick financial gain, frequently termed corporate turnaround. Further more it is important to avoid pitfalls of unrelated diversification, select capable manager and have the time to monitor what is going on.

"Corona Beer" a discussion of M.Azim Ulfati
 

"Evaluate the effectiveness of Grupo Modelo’s growth strategy for Corona to become the number-one imported beer in the U.S."

Grupo Modelo’s founded in 1925. This company leads beer production in Mexico and distributes and markets it in the in the local and International markets. Corona beer was originated also in Mexico within this Company. Coronal beer has contributed a lot to and has successfully maintained great taste and highest market share in the history.

The effectiveness of Grupo Modelo’s growth strategy for Corona to become the number-one imported beer in the U.S. is to implement a greater campaign ads and more associate its brands image with fun in the sun and the last thing is that it should increase its best quality beer and distribute it all over the United States and other countries of the world. They need to come up with innovative ideas and a better strategy of how to find better market for their products and continue to improve their marketing strategy.

"Discuss how Corona can sustain its position as one of the most desirable imported beers in the U.S. marketplace given the competitiveness of the beer market."

Corona can sustain its position as one of the most desirable imported beers in the U.S. Because of its great quality beer taste in the competitive market and also by increasing the quality and effectiveness of its advertisements in various forums like super bowl and other impressive and interesting sports and tv shows within the United States of America and other countries where other companies can’t.

I think in order to compete with other companies, it also needs to widen their markets, improve marketing strategy and increase the variety of their products and introduce new brands for the satisfaction and attraction of more and more customers.

United and Continental Airlines" a discussion of M.Azim Ulfati

"Based on your research of the United and Continental Airline merger, evaluate the challenges experienced during the merger and the resulting impact to the business."

"Assess the effect of mergers and acquisitions on the company’s customers, employees, and shareholders, and determine how what has been learned can be applied to companies doing acquisitions and mergers in the future."

The United and continental airlines merged for the hope of success and sustaining the best quality service as the best and largest company in the world. I guess when these two companies merged, the problems and frustration of customer started. Mergers and acquisitions had many different effects like changing the technology system of the company, operational performance and culture of the company.

Communication system affected the employees in management, getting along with the system and other employees within the company. It created uncertainty environment to the shareholders and made shareholder nervous and insecure and that, which also affected the stocks.

When these companies merged they needed to anticipate and make strategic management plans before merging and when they started to merge they had to accept risk.

They needed to allow enough time to the employees to go through trainings so that they get familiar with the new system, culture, plans, management, technology, equipment’s and all other operational and customer service performances and strong communication with share holders. Once every thing was well set and planned then the company could go and could lead to the positive side by the merger and there would have been hope for achieving outstanding success and achievements.

"Panera Bread" a discussion of M.Azim Ulfati 

 
"Evaluate Panera Bread’s strategy and its effectiveness with executing the strategy within the competitive fast-casual restaurant marketplace." 

Panera Bread Company is an expanding chain of bakery-café restaurants throughout the United States that targets urban workers and suburban dwellers. Panera is known for its fresh baked goods, made to order sandwiches with the company’s fresh bread, salad, custom roasted coffees, and other café beverages.   Panera has maintained a good business strategy and has tried to employ differentiation strategy to compete against rivals and gain profits and as well as to achieve success for their product and market through the best opportunities. Panera bread is working on improvement of its strategy to inform clients of food specials during the times the clients would not normally show up.   A coupon will be given to the customers along with the receipts. With these coupons, clients will tell others through the “ word-of mouth” technique. Panera can target families into the market to come for a quick, cheap dinner. The company does not have to change the menu since the menu has food for all ages including a children’s section.
Panera strategy is to constantly change the menu so foods are current with the seasons.  

Panera has differentiated its self from other rivals like, Five guys, Pizza hut and others. It has focused on highest quality food and using organic and natural ingredients for their products and every day fresh dough to their locations.

"Discuss the pitfalls to this strategy and the potential impact to the performance of Panera Bread."

I guess the pitfalls to Panera Bread's strategy would be increasing raw material and cost and also lack of the best customer service in the region and lack of wider selection on the menu compare to the rivals and that has the potential impact to the performance of Panera bread. Panera Bread needs to focus more and more on the cost of products, improving customer service.

"Select one of Panera Bread’s competitors and discuss a disadvantage that Panera has with the competitor and how this disadvantage may be overcome."

I would compare Panera Bread with Starbucks. Starbucks has a wider selection and market advantages while Panera Bread does not. Panera’s disadvantage is lack of brand name popularity or lack of presence in most areas of the state and other countries overseas.
Panera bread requires to expand its agencies to many important locations and as well as overseas to maintain an international name and to be able to compete in an international level. Further more it needs to enrich its menu with new ingredients and cater more healthy food than other competitors. And lastly lack of stores in diverse areas within the United States and overseas. It needs to study and find out more populated and good locations for marketing and set up more shops and increase its brand name at local and international levels.