Bird flu 'not hitting business'

The outbreak of Bird flu significantly has a negative impact on some industries such as food and poultry industry. However, there are still some companies in this particular industry that have not been affected by this outbreak.

In the article, Bird flu 'not hitting business', Banham Poultry Ltd of Attleborough says “its customers are being very supportive and orders remain about the same”. This illustrates that the company still has a good performance in this unstable market. According to Hamel’s framwork, strategic resources are “specific resources unique to each firm giving it competitive advantage”. One of these resources for this company is “a 1km protection zone around the farm” which refers to strategic assets (Hamel defines these as “what the firm own”). Moreover, regarding strategic assets the article says that “Banham Poultry Ltd has eight breeder sites and 24 broiler farms and sells hundreds of thousands of birds a week to supermarkets”. The above examples also illustrate that the company has a perfect physical capital especially plant, location, and equipment. The core competency of the company which means “what the firm knows” is another special resource for the company as stated in the article “the company produces 13 million turkeys a year worldwide” and its bio-security measures are stringent.
In addition, Hamel defines core processes as “what people in the firm actually do”. In this case, the company has significant powerful core processes as “the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) are in full control of the situation and working with [the company’s] consultants at the veterinary services and the agriculture department” technical manager from Banham Poultry, told BBC News. Thus, this control from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the agricultural department shows the powerful organization capital of the company.
Importantly, the industry in the eastern has a great human capital, 13,000 employees, but around half of these people work for the company.

New Business Daily to Hit India Newsstands

According to the article, Newspapers in Trouble, nowadays the newspaper industry has faced difficulties especially in America. However, it is interesting that this industry still has a good performance in some countries such as India. As stated in the article, New Business Daily to Hit India Newsstands, “[Indian] government estimates indicate a 14 percent annual increase in newspaper readership as literacy rates go up among the country's 1.2 billion people”. Interestingly, according to the World Newspaper Congress “more than 72 million newspapers sold in the country each day, making it the second largest market in the world after China”.
As I noticed in this article, HT Media Limited is an example of a company which practices business concept innovation by concerning new way of differentiating exciting concept. The company differentiates its business model by publishing business news daily newspaper “to meet the growing demand in that region for accurate and insightful business journalism — both in terms of covering Indian business, as well connecting the dots between India and the rest of the business world” as editorial head said. Moreover, according to Hamel’s framework, a company’s core strategy “is essence of how the firm chooses to compete”. In this case, HT Media Limited chooses to compete in the country’s business news by expanding its product scope and specifying basis for differentiation. Therefore, although this company publishes The Hindustan Times, India's second biggest English-language daily, it also plans to lunch an English-language business daily newspaper and the Web site. In addition, Hamel defines strategic resources as “specific resources unique to each firm giving it competitive advantage”. In this case, appointing the editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe and deputy managing editor of The Wall Street Journal as editorial head of the new daily will be the core competencies of the company who will be influential to publish high-quality daily newspaper by his special skills.

Academic Studies Starbucks Cultural Impact

This article, Academic Studies Starbucks Cultural Impact, is based on a recent research about Starbucks which is done by a researcher who spent a lot of time at 300 Starbucks to observe consumer behavior. According to the researcher, Bryant Simon, consuming Starbucks has become as a culture around the world. I will discuss this article according to Hamel’s framework to show business concept innovation of Starbucks in the coffee industry.

According to Hamel, a company’s core strategy is the “essence of how the firm chooses to compete”. In this article, Starbucks chooses to compete in the coffee industry by expanding product and market scope and specifying its basis for differentiation. Starbucks has been expanding its market scope by expecting “to open 1,800 new stores this year and aims eventually to have 30,000 outlets, half of them outside the United States” and it has already “11,000 outlets in 37 countries, including 500 in Tokyo”. Moreover, since Starbucks is aware that its customers have different taste and expect new flavors, the company specifies “regional variations” especially when it introduced green tea frappuccinos in Taiwan and Singapore in 2001. That is, it is expanding its product scope or differentiating its products to attract new target market.

Regarding strategic resources, Starbucks stores’ environment is unique specific resources,strategic assets , for the company which gives it competitive advantage over other coffee shops. In the article indicates that customers “are renting space” and actually they buy a cup of coffee to have some space.

As part of the customer interface, Starbucks has a relationship dynamics and fulfillments and support by “selling comfort in an anonymous” to its customers. The researcher mentions in the article that “the number of times people have told him that when they traveled to a strange country, the first thing [they] did when [they] got off the plane was go to Starbucks”.

Oracle launches business-intelligence software

In this article, Oracle launches business-intelligence software, it is obvious that there is a high competition in software industry. Recently, Oracle has introduced a new line of business-intelligence applications which is a growing area of the software market and it will compete with products from Microsoft Corp. and vendors such as Cognos Inc. and Business Objects SA.

From Porter point of view, Oracle creates barrier to entry for their competitors. This is done through product differentiation where the company is creating a new product for three different segments including Standard Edition One for medium-sized businesses, Standard Edition for companies running Oracle software, and Enterprise Edition for large customers with more complex systems. Moreover, the company’s price structure is the notion of entry deterring price when Thomas Kurian, Oracle senior vice president in charge of server technologies development, said “the new products were priced "significantly" more aggressively than the competition”.

According to Barney’s framework, a new product would result in an increase in Oracle financial capital as the article indicated Oracle shares edged up 37 cents, or 2.7 percent on the NASDAQ Stock Market. In addition, the company is increasing its physical capital along with increasing financial capital when Oracle’s president, Charles Phillips, said “business intelligence represents a "new leg" to the company's business, alongside databases, middleware, and business-management applications.”

As a result,in this article, it is noticeable that rivalry among existing competitors caused Oracle improves its position by using tactics like product differentiation and price competition to become a mutually dependent firm.

IBM launches business solution centre

Recently, IBM has lunched a new global business solution center in Bangalore. Main ideas are taking place in this article, IBM launches business solution centre, discussed below according to Porter, Hamel, and Barney’s Framework.

This new establishment classifies as a threat of entry, according to Porter’s definition, to the current companies in consultant industry. As Product differentiation is one of the barriers to entry, IBM creates a tough condition for other competitors by using its brand identification, difference in product offering, and customer service. In addition, capital requirements creates a barrier to entry for other companies in this particular industry as it states in the article “IBM expects to invest more than $ 200 million, per year, to develop, enhance and market these solutions.”

According to Hamel, the establishment of this business solution center is core competencies and core process of this firm under the part of strategic resources. That is, IBM with unique skills, capabilities, methodologies “[creates] a new model for delivering consulting services that will allow [its] clients to have greater access to innovative solutions for solving their most important business issues,” said Amitabh Ray, Director of Global Delivery, IBM India. As part of the customer interface, IBM has a relationship dynamics and fulfillments and support when it emphasizes on providing a great customer service. Also, the company new solutions based on “IBM’s Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) methodology and in collaboration with IBM clients and business partners” shows the company’s ability to collect its knowledge and information from its customer to utilize on behalf of customers. Mentioning “business partner” in this article refers to the value network and it is about IBM’s partners who supplies complement to a services solution’s of the firm.

From Barney point of view, the lunch of the solution center represents the question of organization as article mentioned “IBM will create and enhance a portfolio of replicable industry solutions that are developed by combining the strengths of IBM’s business consulting, research, software, systems, engineering, and emerging technologies”. That shows IBM is organized to exploit the full competition potential of its capabilities.

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Profit Jumps 30% at Hewlett a Year Into Chief''s Tenure

You can see in this article, Profit Jumps 30% at Hewlett a Year Into Chief''s Tenure, how a new chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, Mark V. Hurd , succeed to increase profit by 30% in a year. He said what he would do is “increasing its revenue and improving its profit margins.”

In my opinion, one of the elements that are most responsible for its increase in revenue and profit margin is “core strategy”. According to Hamel, a company’s core strategy is “the essence of how the firm chooses to compete”. In this example, HP chooses to compete by focusing on its “business mission” and specifying its “basis for differentiation”. HP’s business mission focused on the printers. This company introduced the printers into the market and after that it found out new uses for its inkjet printer by making printers capable of printing large advertising signs or quickly producing large print jobs. Therefore, the success of the company is because of considering the more selling of the printers, the more selling of ink and toner as Mr. Hurd described this as a “demand creation model”. Moreover, Focusing on business mission is essential for this company because when HP’s revenue declined 2 percent in its consulting services division “Mr. Hurd said that the company was being more cautious on which jobs it bids for”. Regarding the basis for differentiation, HP competes differently than its competitors by “cutting-cost”. “The strong earnings growth can be attributed in part to continued cost-cutting” as it is mentioned in the article.

Another element that is responsible for HP’s incredible revenue is “core competencies” which is under the “strategic resources” category of Hamel’s Business Concept Innovation. According to Hamel, core competencies are “what the firm knows. It encompasses skills and unique capabilities”. HP Company is using its core competencies to introduce commercial printing and push color laser printers and copiers in offices. They have a skill to sell printers that consume more ink so they profit from the printing supplies. “We've grabbed market share in printers that use a lot of supplies,” Mr. Hurd said.

Retailers must do more to stay on top of competition

In the Hamel’s Business Concept Innovation, Hamel says that “in the new economy, the unit of analysis of innovation is not a product or a technology—it is a business concept.”

Recently, in the article, Retailers must do more to stay on top of competition, we see a leading retail analyst says that retails outlets in Dubai should not just focus on the basic products but they should “deliver experiences” if they want to succeed in the retail market.
I n my opinion, “deliver experiences” is exactly what Hamel means about a business concept innovation. Hamel says:

“Business concept innovation is meta-innovation. Business concept innovation goes beyond incremental innovation. It takes the entire business concept as starting point; it is more comprehensive than innovation that focuses solely on products or technology.”

If today the Middle East is in the attention of the world’s retail markets because of “its innovation management techniques”, it is because of applying a business concept innovation into practice.

McArthur, the first Middle East based trustee to the International Council of Shopping Centres (ICSC), implied on Dubai Festival City with 2.6 million square feet retail, entertainment and hospitality focal point which are planned to entertain customers. Therefore, if he says that “they are moving along in the right direction”, it is because they “create competition within a broad domain, not between products or companies but between business models” according to Hamel.