The following is the video of Toufic Gebran from i-Tech, an Arabic technology program from the Washington DC based satellite channel AlHurra TV, reviewing Shawshara.com.

I just completed several infographics and charts that illustrate the growth of international trade with Canada and the G8+5 countries.

Chart 1:

A chart that plots exports, imports, FDI in and FDI out as a percentage of nominal GDP for the G8+5 countries. The chart also includes a timeline of important global events that have had an impact on  international trade.

Chart 2:

A chart that plots Canadian exports, imports, FDI in and FDI out values in US$ and their percentage of Canada’s nominal GDP. The chart also includes a timeline of all the Canadian free trade agreements.

Source: IMF Balance of Payments Statistics (Yearbook 2008)

In a recent article published in the Wall Street Journal (click here for the article), a Mideast-Deutsche bank executive predicts that Dubai will recover from the global financial crisis quicker than other economies in the Middle East because of its openness. That is great news for Dubai’s economy which is suffering tremendously in this current financial crisis.

Executive Summary

Bibliography

• 2007 Canadian Travel Intentions. (n.d.).
• City of Toronto. (2008). City of Toronto: Toronto Overview. Retrieved October 22, 2008, from City of Toronto: http://www.toronto.ca/invest-in-toronto/tor_overview.htm
• Datamonitor. (2007). Hotels & Motels in Canada – Industry Profile. New York: Datamonitor.
• Habib, M. (2008, June 5). Business Travel: Belt-tightening need not be painful. Globe and Mail .
• Hotel Association of Canada. (2007). 2007 Canadian Travel Intentions.
• OECD. (2003). OECD Territorial Review of Montreal. Paris: OECD.

After 10 rounds of Markstrat, a realistic marketing simulation game, our group TNNE was able to maintain its lead and end in first place.Click here to see our final presentation which details our marketing strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to document and analyze the airline industry’s green marketing initiatives. In this research we focused on the 15 largest European and North American airlines based on scheduled passenger carried in 2007.

Over the past couple of years Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) have received massive media coverage, leading many to mistakenly believe that they are a 21st century invention. This media coverage has focused on several high-profile deals that went sour. The reality of the matter is that the history of SWFs date back to 1953 when Kuwait established the first SWF, Kuwait Investment Office (KIO), to reinvest Kuwait’s petrodollars. Furthermore one of the more high profile deals that went sour happened in 1987 when KIO bought more than 20% of British Petroleum. This deal inflamed the British government and KIO responded by selling more than half of their stake.
As with most things under the sun, SWFs are neither villains nor saviors. These funds are not isolated islands. Rather,  they are complex entities that are forced to play within the international political landscape. SWFs are thrown into the mix of international political tension, string pulling, power play, political perception, pragmatic nationalism, sovereignty and autonomy, the rising price of oil, and huge US foreign account deficits and Asian and Middle-Eastern economy surpluses. This mix results in a multidimensional equation with a slew of stake holders ranging from your average Joe to governments. In other words, everyone on this earth is directly or indirectly affected by SWFs.

For the full report, please click here.

For the accompanying presentation, please click here.

“That bitch Monica, here she goes again with her relentless approach. She thinks that she’s a hot shot and that everything she says has to be done. Well not on our watch.” This is not a quote that was directly extracted from “The Monica Ashley Case,” but reading the case from Parker’s point of view surely makes us imagine that this is a possible conversation he had with Kane. “The Monica Ashley Case” illustrates the story of an ambitious woman with tunnel vision that sinks in HEAL-INC politically charged waters. Power struggle, influence, politics, sexism and resistance to change all come into play to create this organizational behavior perfect storm. In this paper we will focus on the power struggle between Monica and Parker in the pursuit of influencing the decision making at HEAL-INC.

Monica, a woman in a male dominated business, takes on the assignment of program manager for Project Hippocrates. The assignment was supported by HEAL-INC’s president, Garry Dorr. Monica mistook this assignment as a cart-blanche allowing her to single handedly do anything needed to deliver the project. As a program manager in a highly visible line position, Monica falls into the trap of relying heavily on the same persuasion tactics she successfully used during her tenure in an important staff position. She also adds fuel to the fire by taking Parker on directly, thus defying Garry Dorr request not to do so. Instead of stepping back, Monica continues her pursuit head-on consequently disengaging her coworkers and marginalizing her rather more appealing proposal.

Power Sources
We will use French and Raven theories to analyze both Monica and Parkers’ sources of power. Before delving in the analysis, we have to highlight that Monica has several targets including Gary Dorr, Parker and Kane (we do not distinguish between them in this paper), and her team. Furthermore, Parker has several targets as well – Monica and Parker.

Monica assumes two sources of power: expert power, and legitimate power. Her expert power is characterized by her track record of “many successful years in important staff positions.” Monica took this knowledge and transferred it to Project Hippocrates. Her expert power also came from the research she spearheaded – she knew all the technical details needed to successfully deliver Project Hippocrates.  Monica’s assumption to legitimate power comes from believing that she had a strong mandate from Garry Dorr to deliver the project.

Expert power does not work in a vacuum. French and Raven emphasize that not only should the agent “have specialized knowledge or skill that the target needs”, but that for the power to work three conditions must be fulfilled. Let us see if Monica meets all these three conditions for all three targets. The first condition is: “the target must trust that the expertise given is accurate.” This condition is not met with Parker, Monica’s target, as he did not believe that Monica was the subject matter expert when it came to the choice of signal processors. After all, he is the vice president of signal processor design, and he believe that he is the only person that can specify the type of processor (analog or digital) to be used in the project. Parker goes even further and tries to discredit Monica’s findings by directly attacking her study group labeling it as “not competent”. The second condition is: “the knowledge involved must be relevant and useful to the target.” This condition is not met with Gary Dorr, Monica’s second target, since he values a “peaceful and productive environment” with no “hot competitors” more than the agent’s knowledge. One can infer that Garry Dorr sees teamwork to be more important to HEAL-INC than expert power. After all, Garry Dorr is the Presidents and as we learned from Robert Jackall’s “Moral Mazes”, managers “expect highly successful results without complications.” The only target that passes all three conditions is her team.

Monica used legitimate power successfully with the team that reported to her. For example, she was able to impose the Taguchi methodology on her team. On the other hand, Monica lacked legitimate power with Dorr and Parker. Her attempt to use legitimate power with Dorr and Parker fired back. Dorr was frustrated with her thinking that she had legitimate power and described her as “an Imperial Chinese Emperor.” Parker questioned her legitimate power when he shouted: “Who the hell do you think you are, going to an outside vendor.”

Parker throughout the case used coercive power to intimidate Monica. He taunted her by calling her a “traitor and a renegade.” Parker surely did not stop there and sneered at Monica saying “Ha, ha, you lose!” The power used by Parker to influence Dorr was not discussed in the case since most of their interaction happened behind doors. Though, whatever power used, it surely was more effective than that of Monica. Parker knew how to play the political game, while Monica thought that her numbers and data are going to be enough to get her targets’ buy in.

Power Tactics and Influence   
Monica’s influence tactics relied heavily on rational persuasion. Before the Hippocrates project she used this rational persuasion successfully to influence Dorr. As Monica puts it, she backed up “her views with data when he (Dorr) asked why she disagreed.” Monica’s attempt to use rational persuasion during project Hippocrates did not yield the same positive results. She used rational persuasion when she gave “detailed calculations” in her presentations, and repeatedly waved the independent taskforce’s supportive results.

On the other hand, Parker and Kane knew how to “kick down, and kiss up” at HEAL-INC. While Monica stuck religiously to one tactic, Parker and Kane used a slew of tactics in an attempt to influence their targets. This included: pressure, upward appeals and coalition. Pressure was exerted on Monica, and she ate the bait and appeared to fight back. Monica appearance to fight back worked against her since managers are expected to exert self-control. Through upward appeals and back channels Parker and Kane brought Garry Dorr to their side of the argument and used this coalition to marginalize Monica’s proposal.

Furthermore, we believe that Kane was purposely sent in by Parker to minimize the importance of Monica and the whole process. This move goes along with Michael Korda’s look at symbols of power in organizations. Parker as a VP did not have the time to discuss matters with Monica, a manager. Instead, Kane, who has the same manager title as Monica, was sent in. This power play is nothing new, and is widely used in international politics. The importance of a visiting delegate can be minimized by sending a low ranking official and not the president to great them at the airport.

What should Monica have done to be more effective?
Monica needs to avoid heavily relying on the merit of her work and viewing politics with distaste. This view is further supported by Robert Jackall who argues that hitting numbers is important, yet not enough for effective managers. Effective managers need to also have self-control and show a perception of being team players. Monica needs to nourish her relationship with her pears and superiors at HEAL-INC. This includes reaching out to the President Garry Dorr, her boss Dan Stella and last but not least Parker and Kane. In addition to that Monica needs to adapt her influence style. She needs to accompany her style of rational persuasion with a mix of upward appeals, coalition and consultation.

Monica took her coworkers views of Parker as facts and did not bother to talk to him directly. This in it of itself is a grave mistake. Monica needs to talk to Parker out of the context of presentations and possibly even work and learn more about him. The goal of meeting with Parker is to enable her to build trust and rapport with him. Monica should not stop there, instead she should work actively on finding ways to include Parker in the decision making process. We learned from our reading that “Often, people engage in political behavior when they feel excluded from decision-making process in the organization. By including them, you will encourage positive input and eliminate behind-the-scenes maneuvering.”

Monica’s VP, Dan Stella, was out of the picture for the most part of the case. Monica needs to bring him in as a strong supporter of her ideas. Dan Stella with his title of VP can bring legitimate power to Monica’s case. By playing an active role he can also defuse any tension demonstrated between Parker and Monica.

Monica should also manage her relationship with the president Garry Dorr. Monica needs to understand Dorr and his context then assess her needs and finally work on developing and maintaining a relationship with him. Monica should also allow for Dorr’s active input in the process. She needs to make Dorr feel that he is the person with the final decision.

There is a famous English idiom that goes “Hindsight 20/20″. Urbandictionary.com explains this idiom by saying: “an individual has a realization about the event that should have been obvious all along, yet they didn’t catch on because they were acting in the heat of the moment.” The Honda A and B cases were written in hindsight of Honda Motors’ success in the United States. The Honda A case describes that success by citing a report written by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). On the other hand, Honda B case describes the same success from interviews conducted by Dr. Richard T. Pascale with the founders of Honda Motors. In other words the Honda A case is from a consultant’s perspective and Honda B case is “straight from the horse’s mouth”.
One would think that BCG and Pascal would underline the same success factors. Though, it turns out BCG and Pascal did not agree on the success factors. Instead, they were too far apart. After reading the cases one can only conclude that Hindsight is not always 20/20, especially in the Honda A case. This paper will compare and contrast BCG’s perspective and Pascale’s perspective as to why Honda succeeded in the USA.
BCG’s case was written a thousand feet away from the action. The case was written as though Honda had a grand plan all along and that it was immaculately executing it. BCG supports its theory by providing numbers and diagram. They go into details about the Japanese selling and distribution systems and cost and price performance. Finally BCG concludes with “competitive strategy implications” as if to suggest that they have revealed a guaranteed recipe for success.
Pascal on the other hand details the story behind the story. Yes, Honda had great selling and distribution systems and cost and price performance. Though we need to stress that Honda did not start off with this or that. Instead, Honda started off with a failure, and a tweak to correct that failure. The tweak was followed by another failure, that failure was followed by a tweak, and so on and so forth. Each time Honda failed it grew stronger as it learned from its mistakes thus strengthening its knowledge as an organization. Honda also took advantage of external happenstances as though it had a “just in time” strategy.
We learn from Pascal’s case that Honda’s strategy in the United States was simply a goal. The goal was aiming for a “10% share of the US imports”. Its founders were so committed to their strategy that they were on the ground reacting to every road block that might hinder achieving that goal. We also learn from Pascal’s case that Honda’s selling and distribution systems were a result of Honda’s bad experience with its first exclusive distributor back in 1949. As for its obsession with market share, we can infer that it was the result of its 1940’s exclusive dealer limiting its sales to 80 units per month. Furthermore its cost and price performance was a result of knowing the business since a “50cc engine is 50% cheaper to make than a 100cc engine.”
To sum it up, from the first case we learn that consultants looked at the motorcycle industry’s raw data and saw certain patterns. Without a core understanding of the motorcycle industry the consultants falsely concluded that these patterns where the reason behind the success of Honda in the United States. From the second case we learn that these patterns were the result of Honda’s success in the United States and not the reason behind Honda’s success. We also learn that the real reasons behind Honda’s success were: First, Honda’s founders got their hands dirty by being there in the middle of the action reacting to changes in the environment and tweaking their strategy. Second, Honda knew the business inside out: from knowing how to build a motor to knowing the reseller that delivered the motorcycle to their customer. Third, as a learning organization Honda fed its failure back into its organization to help it with its future decision making.

I have to confess, I am not a coffee drinker. By that I mean the last time I drank a cup of coffee was over seven years ago and even then I drank coffee once every other month. Since I do not drink coffee, does that imply that I have never heard about Starbucks and I am at a disadvantage here because I am analyzing a case about the biggest coffee chain in the world? The answer is no. On the contrary, I frequent Starbucks regularly. Contrary to conventional wisdom Starbucks’ main product is not coffee, instead Starbucks’ main product is the “Starbucks Experience.” The “Starbucks Experience” can be described as the “romance”, “theatre” or “uplift” that a customer feels once they enter a Starbucks store.

Starbucks Growth
In the 90’s Starbucks was growing at a rapid pace in the United States and Canada. With a Starbucks stores as a percentage of total possible stores at 33% of the top 100 US and Canadian Market, Starbucks was able to benefit from economies of scale. Though, I believe that this rather sporadic growth came at a huge cost. Not only did Starbucks cannibalize its own market with several stores on the same street, but it also diluted its brand name. As a result of this rapid expansion the “Starbucks Experience” was replaced by a rather fast foodish/commodity like expectation.
Starbucks growth should never come at the cost of its highest barrier of entry: “its product differentiation” represented by the “Starbucks Experience”. Anyone can open up a coffee shop, but not anyone can replicate that experience. The 90’s should have been a decade when Starbucks grew its store numbers at a slower pace thus enabling Starbucks to focus on enhancing the “Starbucks Experience”. I am sure that people can drive the extra mile or walk the extra block to get to a Starbucks, rather than being bombarded with a Starbucks everywhere.
Economies of scale allow Starbucks to save on the cost of preparing a cup of coffee. Product differentiation allows Starbucks to be a coffee cup price giver. The cost of a coffee cup could never go to zero, though on the other end, price of a coffee cup can tend to infinity. When given the choice of cutting cost or setting your own price, Starbucks needs to value the latter more than the prior.
Mr. Schultz should take the “Starbucks Experience” to the next level. By the next level I mean that instead of having an experience that is common amongst all Starbucks stores nationwide, this experience should be unique for each store. The “romance”, “theatre” and “uplift” should not be thrown out of the door. Instead the romance that a customer feels when entering the Starbucks in downtown Montreal should be different than that of their store in Laval or for that matter any other Starbucks store. Starbucks should know what its customers want from that specific location and customize its services, music and decorations around its local customer. For example the downtown Montreal store most probably is frequented by university students. Customize that location to appeal to university students. Why not offer free internet? Maybe decorate the store with bookcases filled with reference books. How about having specially designed tables that are more comfortable for laptop use? Maybe the Laval location is frequented by families. Customize that location to have children toys. This level of customized experience will set Starbucks’ product differentiation miles apart from its next competitor.

McDonald’s Enters the Market, So we Panic
In late 2007 McDonald’s entered the flavored coffee market. How should Starbucks react to this news? Again, Starbucks’ unique competitive advantage is its product differentiation, and should keep its focus on improving that. Besides, McDonald’s can replicate Starbucks’ economies of scale in a heartbeat. Furthermore, Starbucks should not become McDonald’s. For that reason Starbucks should stop making breakfast, your customers didn’t ask for that change, and close your drive-thru windows because you do not want to be perceived as a fast food joint.
One can comfortably infer that customers that frequent Starbucks typically do not frequent McDonald’s. This is made clear in the Wall Street Journal article McDonald’s Takes on a Weakened Starbucks. Two points stand out in that article. First, McDonald’s customers are being educated about lattes. Second, teenagers are now being seen at McDonald’s after school. A Starbucks customer surely knows what a latte is, and a teenager would not even think twice about entering a Starbucks. In other words McDonald’s is not taking customers away from Starbucks. McDonald’s is introducing a whole new type of customers to specialty coffee. Starbucks’ value proposition to those new McDonald’s customers should be: “Now that you’ve had a taste of specialty coffee at McDonald’s, we are sure that you’ll be able to move up to better coffee and a better experience at Starbucks.”

Baristas Know Starbucks More than Starbucks Managers
Starbucks Managers should solicit feedback from their baristas and stop reacting to news and making decisions in a vacuum. It seems that Starbucks’ Baristas know Starbucks more than their managers. The Starbucks Barista that faces customers must be one of the biggest untapped resource Starbucks has. The person behind the counter in Starbucks is different than that of McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts. The barista tend to be in either a college or university, while competitors’ customer facing workers are either in school or at most only have a high school diploma. Thus, Management should talk more frequently to its baristas and learn on how to improve the Starbucks experience. After all, the baristas are educated and will give useful recommendations.