JOVIAL: “It’s Another World”
Since Mohamed Dabaan, Chairman of Jovial Watches SA, had took over the company in 1988, his vision was to moderate the brand while remaining true to its solid traditions and values, its pioneering spirit and its quality craftsmanship. He had chosen the slogan to impress his vision and draw the company’s future. As he was from the Middle East, he built his vision and plans on the fact that Jovial well known brand in this region and his long business experience in the watch field.
The actual physical revolution of the company began in 1996. The main market targeted was the Middle East. The economy in the Gulf area was growing rapidly and especially Dubai, where the company had planned to open its regional office.
Jovial core strategy is to produce watches that meet the taste and demand of the region. Watch designs were prepared according to the well acknowledge of the market and different segments’ requirements.
Jovial philosophy is to expand by opening exclusive Jovial boutiques, with special style of decoration and culture, to sell its products. Hence, it worked on structuring valuable distribution network.
Jovial differentiates from others by its various collection and products, which covers all kinds of watches and market targeted segments. Watches vary by use from the wrist watches to wall clocks, by functions from promotion to gold watches, by movement from quartz to automatic, and by range price. The R & D department is organized to create and change according to the market.
To meet the slogan statement, Jovial expanded its products to complete the collection of its boutiques. Jovial French perfume, Germany pens and cufflinks, and Italian sunglasses and ties was been added to the collection during the last five years.
The company’s business model had made great success in the market. Jovial now has 40 exclusive outlets in the region. But it didn’t forget the worldwide market. Jovial with the valuable resources and capabilities had planned to concentrate on the international market form its Switzerland’s office as a 77 years old watch maker.
“JOVIAL is universal, above and beyond the unpredictable changes of fashion and different cultures” says Mohamed.
Nothing to "Loose", More to "Gain"
No need to do anything more than what you used to do. Just use your card to pay for your normal transactions.
The "
rewards" program launching had increased during the last couple of years by the local and international banks in the region. A growing number of banks, looking to get more out of their existing customers, are offering new programs that allow consumers to accumulate points that can be cashed in for a variety of items.
The core strategy of the program is to motivate the bank's customer to use his credit card for any transaction and try new services offered. The bank will make money on more transaction fee from the merchants, who usually pay 1 to 2 percent of the transaction to the bank.
All programs are designed in a very similar way, but with different functions and facilities. Exclusive programs were launched and designed by banks, such as
me bank loyalty program and
Mashreq bank millionaire. For each dirham spent by your credit card you will gain number of points. Also it will allow you to enter a draw for a major prize at the end of periodic time.
On the other hand, some banks corporate with some existing programs to attract their customers. By using your
HSBC credit card you can gain miles from the "
airmiles" rewards program. This program will allow you to change your cumulative points with certain prizes offered according to that.
Citibank had corporate with "
skywards" program, (the loyalty program for Emirates airline). By using your credit card you will gain miles which will be added to your skywards points. You can exchange these miles with tickets to special destinations or add value to your trip by Emirates through upgrading your class from economy to business or first.
There are many other programs with different features and facilities that have its exclusive competitive advantage and attractiveness.
All these programs are concentrating on exciting customers of the bank by pushing them to have two or more relationships at the bank. The customer will buy nothing for using his card, but the bank will benefit from the fees paid by the merchants.
It is more expensive to find a new customer than it is to market to the current customer so it's a cost effective way to grow business.
The loyalty and reward business model had found its way into the financial services. From the bank's perspective, the idea is to make your bank the customer's first choice for additional needs.
The banks say their motivation is increased business, loyalty and a genuine attempt to make banking more fun!
Stop Junk-Food Ads Aimed at Kids!
The calls to limit the marketing of junk food to kids through food, advertising and entertainment had risen again.
The ads aimed to children of junk and high calories food should be restraint, and companies should reduce these ads. The philosophy of these ads should be revised also. The advertising agencies are concentrating on cartoon characters to promote for their products which in television and other media to raise more attention of children.
The federal government had risen lately this issue in the United States. Also the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Trade Commission had released a report industries should voluntarily set the minimum nutrition standards for foods that can be marked to the children.
A similar issue was raised last year by the Institute of Medicine. It said that Congress should mandate changes if the food and beverage manufactures fail to promote healthful products in the next two years. Thus the national science advisory panel said licensed characters should be used to promote healthful products.
The Children Advertising Review Unit (CARU) has been taken action against companies when it considered an ad to be deceptive or inappropriate for the intended age. CARU is considering more stringent requirements on the newer media including internet; hence new rules on the kinds of foods that should be marketed to kids.
According to these recommendation and raised issue many companies had already started to make some effort in this way. Kraft Foods Inc. announce last year it would stop advertising less nutritious products on television, radio and in magazine aimed at children under 12. Also Kraft and Pepsi Co Inc. have reformulated many of their products to reduce fat and trim portion sizes.
On the other hand, the report did not call for further government regulations. This was pleasant for some industries and institutes, but Gary Ruskin, executive director of the public advocacy group Commercial Alert, commented: "The report merely recommends more self-regulation, which has historically been a dismal failure."
Just a "Test"
Not long ago, A/B testing was solely available to large companies only. It was time consuming, expensive and required much IT help. Now, many hosting and service companies offer this to small businesses, such as Kefta, Offermitica, and Optimost, offer the test.
The core strategy of this test is to help e-tailors to test the efficiency of their website and improve it. The test is designed to find the positive areas in the website and focus on it. Also it determine the less used areas and gives solution to improve it. The main focus it to attract the internet users and visitors to the site and make the steps easier to do their transactions.
The test allows you to test two different versions of your website. You can measure how costumers respond to both versions and then optimize the site based on that information. That is how the test works and differs among other services.
One of the companies which has a successful story with A/B testing is RingCentral Inc. in San Mateo, California. It is an e-tailor growing telecommunication firm targets small businesses and sells its services exclusively online. It worked with Offermitica to run some A/B test with the goal of boosting the percentage of visitors signing up for its services.
RingCental tested two versions with various elements of its site. It learned that the page with more links to additional information led more people to the sign-up page.
After changing the site accordingly, the 35-employee company saw a 46 percent increase in overall sales at the end of the year.
"A/B testing lets the public vote – basically with their wallets." says Vlad Shmunis, RingCentral's founder.
Rewarding Failure, is it a strategic resource?
"Failure" is an option at some business environments. Growing numbers of large & small companies are recognizing that fostering an environment that encourages risk-taking is essential for innovation and staying a step ahead of the competition.
As an orgaizational resource, these managements are rewarding their staff for the best failyre idea. The core competency is to encourage the employees to initiate and create new ideas and opportunities. Ordinary rewards could be well recognized, but will have its limits. Rewarding failure is a unique idea to create a culture that encourages risk-taking and recognizes people who are looking to succeed.
The core process of such companies is to open the door to innovate and take risk. Companies avoid failure to low their costs and employees usually think about failure as a "black point" in their currier portfolio. They measure and study each step of their job in the proper way, as they should do, to avoid any mistake. That could limit their mind and thinking of any new ideas of innovation to improve their job.
The new environment would open the door to step out and take risk.
This idea was in some large and small companies and led good and well-recognized results. Some examples of such rewards:
- "failure of the month" reward which was innovated in PlumpJack Group (www.plumpjack.com).
- "creative error of the month" contests which is sponsored by BMW
IBM's Thomas Watson Sr. quipped, "The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate"
Although the idea of failure have many disadvantages and limits, but it is considered as a business concept innovation for some growing companies.
Restructuring Intel Inc.
During the last decade Intel was the major player in a monopoly market of computer chips and microprocessors, but it recently it is facing big competition. Intel had lost a great share of the market as new and big competitors had risen to the surface. A host of new products from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has allowed Intel's biggest competitor in PC microprocessors to steal away market share.
In addition, Intel Inc. had reported great drop in profits (38 percent in first-quarter), which caused the management to plan for a restructuring process.
Intel management main restructuring plan is based on benefiting of its physical resources. These resources are considered variable to Intel as they have the ability to be changed and used to make competitive products. The plan is to product new chips and processors, which will be more competitive in the market, such as "Woodcrest", "Conroe" and "vPro".
The resources are rare also as Intel was and still the biggest processor and chip manufacturer in the market. Even thought it lost some of the share market, but it’s the main player and has great capabilities and assets.
The imitation of Intel's physical resources is very hard. It has many factories and offices all over the world with around 130,000 employees.
Thesr resources are well organized. The management had redesigned it to deliver much as 40 percent better performance while consuming 40 percent less power.
"You will see a leaner, more agile and more efficient Intel Corp" said Otellini, CEO of Intel.
eBay Express under construction:
eBay is planning to launch a new website named eBay Express
(www.express.ebay.com) which is currently in "preview" mode. The competitive idea of this new website is making shopping for new goods a lot easier and more pleasant. As the competition is getting more and more in the e-commerce and online purchasing field, eBay had a new idea to gain advantage of new services and meeting the customer's interest. To compete in the existing numerous field of ecommerce, the web is designed to look classier and more streamlined. The recent main eBay homepage has a long list of goods and services provided. Merchandize in eBay Express is sorted by category, including seasonal bin for special occasions such as "mother's day" to differentiate than existing competitors services.
The buyers or customers in the online purchasing field is very powerful. The switching cost in such a competitive field is vest low. You chould always have some special advantage to compete others. Customers most consirened points are to find their requested product or service as easy as possible and in the shortest and fastest steps. It won’t take more than two to three clicks to look for deals on Apple iPods or Garmin GPS products.
Also and beside offering new merchandise from eBay power sellers, the Express interface has live chats with customer service and lets shoppers load everything into a single shopping cart for a simpler purchasing transaction.
The main question remains: will eBay Express be an innovated experience for online purchasing customers? That's what the buyers will answer after their first view to it.
Seniors at Senior levels. Are they "valuable"?
"
The Boss is right, even if he is wrong, but he is still the Boss", I common phrase which we normally hear from high level managers, especially seniors.
Seniors in senior levels usually works not only for the "work" itself but because they are used to do so for the last couple of decades. Work in their opinion is to give as much as you can as you have energy left. They are ready to do their work as soon as they are able to, regardless of their age.
Applying the VRIO framework of Barney on Seniors could be possible according to the information that we could gather. Hence I'm going to mention some of the points that concern the valuable question.
Seniors could be considered as valuable human resources to the company or the firm. It depends on how and what he is doing or providing to it. Also the nature of the firm's job plays a big deal in this evaluation. Experience, wisdom, reliability, anxious, vision, supervision and love are some of the features that a senior could have. Even though he has passed his retire age, but he still has more to give to his firm. He is not required always to work in hard circumstances; hence he is still a fortune to the firm. On the other hand some points could make these seniors considered as disadvantage to the firm. The old age, health problems, loosing concentration, negotiation conditions and others could be some of these points. Nobody can guarantee his health, especially in such an age over 65. Seniors in such positions are required sometimes to be available in health and mind in critical situations, and his absent is unpleasant. The most important thing is the negotiation conditions. Seniors in this age can have some opinions and thought that are difficult to change. Managers or employees, who are under the senior's responsibility and specially the young ones, could face many problems in explaining or negotiating with these seniors in some technical or operating matters.
Other disadvantages that seniors could face are the ability to understand and apply the new technology changes, technical changes, new world economy approaches, new management theories and applications and others. The question of value of the Senior to the firm depends on the relationship between him and the nature of the firm's work.
We should always ask ourselves: "why such a man or women in this age is still willing to go to work while he should be thinking about how to enjoy and spend the rest of his or her life?" It is a very critical question which you won't easily find two similar answers to.
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