...Update...

Ok, So I have started to work on doing the pages thing for this blog. I have moved the postings to the pages. Let me know if you can't find them.

Thanks!!

Johana

Personal Strategy Project Proposal

            For my project I would like to watch the consumer goods market. Mainly watching Kraft and Dole. I have a cluster in Culinary Arts and I think it would be a fun and wonderful learning experience to be able to combine my accounting skills and my knowledge of the Culinary Arts. Mostly, they are looking for someone with an education, who can thrive as leaders in team situations. They need individuals who are self-motivated and decisive. They want people who aren't afraid of coming up with objectives, developing them and taking action. I am going to push myself to be more assertive, making more decisions and putting myself out there. I want to be more outspoken in my day to day life and to start that I could offer my opinion more in class. I think that knowing more about each of these companies ( what they do, why are they successful, etc.) will help me have a more competitive edge.

Key Insights

          What is a business model? It is a set of forecast about how a business will accomplish by generating value for employers, employees, customers, and so on. A business model is similar to a story, telling how the business is going to work. Whether it is successful or not will come out on its own, does the business flourish or does it flop? Chapter 2 mentions American Express and how they came up with the concept of travelers checks. What about the concept of eBay? Pierre Omidyar found a better way to do this. It’s like a yard sale, but thousands of times larger. He had a really good idea, and when he hired Meg Whitman, she was able to take it to the next level. Good business models are all about making a profit and creating value for the customer with a new and innovative idea. Dell had a really good concept when it came to eliminating the middleman. Customers are able to order the product straight from dell and they get a decent price for the product too. No more jacked up prices from buying the computer from the middleman. All of these companies were giving a value to the customer. Each and every one of these businesses could not have done well if they hadn’t created a value for the customers that no one else could create. Creating a value for customers is important, it is the reason that they will continue to buy your product or service over and over again. People want a better value for the product, and if they can get that, that’s what they are going to go with. However, none of the businesses mentioned would be able to be where they are today if there hadn’t been an accumulation of good value, a strong business model, and management. Without management, these companies wouldn’t have been able to grow and adapt to the changes that have come around. All of these things are very important. We need management to help guide us where to go next, how to get the next strategy, and how to keep us on our toes. With all of these things combined, our consumers will continue to come back over and over again.

          Strategy... When I played soccer as a child, we were always told that we had to be faster and better than the other team; think about that in the business world and how it correlates. Strategy is all about making you stand out more than others, offering something that the competition can’t offer. But how does that work? Chapter 3 talks a lot about Wal*Mart and how Sam Walton made Wal*Mart stand out. He had a good business plan, but how was he going to make it different? Wal*Mart stores were put in locations where other stores hadn’t even thought of; areas with a smaller population, places where they could compete with the local stores prices. Wal*Mart has done a remarkable job at creating prices that stores like Kmart can’t compete with. A concept I found interesting was building a moat or moving the castle. The moat was different barriers set up to impede competitors. It’s interesting to compare that to us as college students being so close to graduation. We are the seller in this situation and we are all hunting for jobs. We have to make ourselves standout from all the other competition. What makes us a better candidate for this position than someone else? What do we do that makes us different? How do we do it? We have to convince them that there isn’t anyone else for the job. Then we have a sort of security. However, we have to be constantly keeping ourselves in check, making sure that someone else isn’t going to eliminate us from the competition, in other words, we have to keep our game in check, distinguish ourselves at all times. There is a concept of game theory, Pepsi used this against Coke. Pepsi created a better value, a bottle made of plastic. Coke of course, did the same thing, but it was very costly for them. Coke had always been known for the unique shape of its bottles. Now, they were going to have to take in the cost to go with the value of plastic bottle. Strategy is difficult, because it is all about others reactions to the actions you take.