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Dubai Ports World
Several students wrote about the demise of the Dubai Ports World deal. First among them was Humaid who posted on the divided house that belongs the former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton. As is well known by now, Senator Clinton opposes the deal while President Clinton is for it. This state of affairs has Humaid a little puzzled:
Maybe she needs to know more about other Arabs and Arabic government who are owning and controlling some of the key businesses in the United States and different parts of the world, with no security issues involved with that. Or maybe, out of sarcasm that I have heard from some business leaders, that Bill Clinton did not share with her the money back from the speeches held in Dubai.
Bandar was one of several students who performed a non-market environment analysis of the Dubai Ports World deal. Here's an article from his post, entitled " Should Dubai Port run its businesses in USA ports?". Here's what he saw as the major issue:
There is some arguments that whether businesses and politics should be related or not and by looking to this issue, we realized that businesses and politics are really related. And, that’s because people and government still relate and blame Dubai to what happened in 11 of September even though Dubai is in the alliance of fighting the terrorism.
Therefore, that enhances the analysis of Baron’s framework which shows that the four I’s are appeared here which are: (1) Issues - the issue of fighting terrorism and unfortunately linking Muslim and Arab countries to terrorists.
Noha also considered the matter. She saw non-market issues as an important aspect of the controversy:
According to Baron, it was clearly stated in the article that the issue is “whether or not the UAE should be allowed to manage U.S. ports highlights many of the paradoxes involved in fighting al Qaeda in the Middle East as well as the dangers of over-simplifying or mischaracterizing U.S. allies in the region.” The UAE is currently the only nation interested in this issue of managing major US ports, however, this might not be the case where there might be other Gulf nations concerned with this issue. In addition, there are also institutions concerned with this issue such as local government agencies, religious leaders and political parties.
Abdo's non-market analysis had this to say about "Information", the fourth of the 4 I's:
Dan Darling (writing in the Weekly Standard)... argues that the UAE is far from being supportive to this terrorist group. As a matter of fact they were threatened by Al-Qaeda which gave them several demands and if the UAE won’t response they will launch attacks and bomb many important locations in UAE but UAE officials never responded to their demand. More and more they captured one of their senior leaders, Abdulrahim AL-Nashiri “the mastermind of the USS Cole bombing” not to mention the severe threat from AL-Qaeda that UAE should stand against US and should never cooperate with them. All of these three defenses are enough to prove that the UAE has no connection what so ever with Al-Qaeda terrorist group.
Mohd al Sadah sees "Government Policy" as an important "Barrier to Entry."
It is clear that Dubai government was new entrant for the ports operation industry in the U.S but the government policy is shaped by many factors not just the White House as many think in the Middle East because people in that region live in authoritarian regimes.
Mohd also notes that more than a little political opportunism might also be at work:
After getting the U.S administration agreement, Dubai government seemed to be sure that they finish the deal successfully. Meanwhile Senator Hillary Clinton refuse her husband advise and began a campaign in the Congress to discontinue the deal. She thinks that operating U.S ports by a foreign company might affect the United States national security. Although the United States sea guards will have the full responsibilities about protecting the U.S boards and Dubai company will be responsible just for the financial operation of the 6 harbors Sen. Clinton refuse to accept that a U.S port would be in others hand. It might be just a political position that might help Mrs. Clinton for her plan to run in the presidential election as many are saying.
Virgin Atlantic
Haifaa Hassan has an analysis of Virgin Atlantic Airlines move to establish an office in Dubai. She expects that Virgin will encounter some signficant barriers to entry:
"Al Etihad, which is an Emirati airline, and British airways are a very strong airlines companies that also offered a very special and luxury services and considered to be a strong competitors with their good reputation and standard in the market. So the competitors are numerous and equal in some how in their strategies and size ,which can considered as (barrier to entry) for Virgin."
Hassan Ali also wrote about Virgin Atlantic. He smells trouble for local airlines:
Virgin adds value to their flights by adding some fun and excitements at the airplane to satisfy their customers. This fact will threaten Emirates Airlines as a new entry (Porter) in the market because they will be their main competitor.
Mohanad concludes that Virgin Atlantic's key capability is knowing how to have fun:
Emirates airline is one of fastest growing airlines in the world, so the question is how Virgin Atlantic airline can compete with such Airline? Well, we should analyze the value of resources and capabilities behind Virgin Atlantic. Virgin Atlantic operates under the concept of traveling and having fun at the same time. Boredom while flying with such airline is close to impossible, every kind of entertainment is provided with Virgin even in short distance flights. Moreover this can be considered as a rare source and capability (concept of fun) when we compare to other Airlines companies.
Mecca Cola
Rema analyzed the Mecca Cola article that I recommended. She sees the "Relationship Dynamics" at work:
Hamel’s customer interface also can be applied on this article. Under the subtopic of customer relationship dynamics, Hamel discusses the type of relationship that exists between the customer and the business. Although, with Mecca Cola there is no face to face relationship what so ever with its customers, Mecca Cola and its customers do share the same beliefs and are behind the same goal which is to boycott the Western products. This type of politics used to market this products, makes Mecca Cola customers feel that they are buying from a company which supports their voice which creates a unique type of relationship between the company and its customers.
Sheema considered the question of Indian call centers and the business process outsourcing industry to which they belong. She applied the resource-based view to the industry as a whole, rather than to a single firm:
According to Barney, resources include its fundamental financial, physical, individual and organizational capital attributes. In the "Call Centres in India face challenges" case the resources are survival where they make sure to have some qualified workers and well-educated young people, plus India’s unique combination of manpower and English language skills.On the other hand, Capabilities according to Barney, include only those internal attributes that enable the firm to coordinate and exploit its other resources. In the call centers in India case, the capabilities are that the CCAI with the Confederation of Indian Industry have launched a training program. It will offer a standardised qualification for new BPO workers: improving English, "neutralising" accents, teaching some computer skills and so on.
Hi-Technology
Nader see investments in information technology and better IT departments as a means by which firms, especially banks and insurance companies, can differentiate themselves from the competition:
In a competitive market such as insurance market, each company should try to posse’s competitive advantage against others through basis of differentiation. Therefore, I think the best way of differentiation is through investing more money in improving its IT department and provide the customers with unique and efficient products and services. I call it investing money rather than spending or wasting money when it comes to information technology because the return that the company would get exceeds the spending. Information technology will cut administration and processing cost. For instance, the writer mentioned that general insurance companies spend nearly 3 billion for processing and administrative costs. Furthermore, companies can provide their customers with information and support online to increase interactivity as a customer interface.
Bilal examined Microsoft's Revamped Search Engine.
According to Barney’s framework, the question whether Microsoft can create value for its customer, or not, is to be considered. Since Google and Yahoo add up to hold about 70% of market share with Microsoft holding 11%, the idea of whether Microsoft can drag a big chunk of their customers into their market addresses the notion if it provides greater value for its customers. Where basis of differentiation is concerned, through Microsoft’s promise of delivering faster search speeds and better design specifications, it surely differentiates itself from its competitors. But where imitability is concerned, Microsoft itself is imitating the “Question your query” format as that of Google. So there is no doubt that faster search speeds and better design specifications cannot be imitated by Microsoft’s competitors.
Mohd Fahdel analyzes Intel's new Conroe processor and concludes it can be the basis for sustaining the company's already large competitive advantage.
Intel has been known for the last couple of years as ‘the world's largest microprocessor company with 76.9% of the worldwide market at the end of 2005’. In addition, Intel is still moving on and is striving to fight in this competitive global market therefore came up with new innovations. The recent innovation it came with was a processor, code-named Conroe, which delivers 40% better performance while consuming 40% less power as the article mentioned.
Shivajith's most recent entry concerns to one of the most important but least glamorous segment of the local retailing industry- groceries.
AL maya will benefit from the idea of convenience shops of 3000 sq ft, they will require less capital (capital requiremnet)to establish such stores compared to huge hypermarkets which will need tens of millions of investment. I believe this change in strategy will shape a completely different "business mission" for the grocery retailing department of ALmaya.
Mohammed Mutahar wrote about the intense rivalry between Google and Microsoft particulary as it pertained to their figt over the same prize computer scientist:
It is pretty obvious from the article that Microsoft and Google are ‘rivals’. The fact that Microsoft asked a county judge to stop Lee from working at Google proves the existence of intense rivalry in a way that Microsoft doesn’t want its confidential information to be dispersed since Lee was familiar with them. This intense rivalry between them is related to some of the factors that Porter has mentioned in his framework which are: 1) Competitors are diverse in strategies, and 2) High strategic stakes.
Last week we talked about all kinds of hotels - EasyJet's discount hotels, Armani & Emaar's planned luxury hotels, the Hard Rock Cafe's trendy loft hotels. Omair of "Anecdotes, Uncensored" has a smart and humorous post about a kind of hotel we missed- those for canines and felines. You heard me right: a line of hotels for dogs and cats is being launched in The City of Brotherly Love and The City that Never Sleeps:
Pet Services is a $2.5 billion industry ladies and gentlemen, one that has grown by 24% over the last year and is expected to grow by about 20% this year as well. That is a large number, which undoubtedly means more and more companies would want to enter the industry, each of them trying to get a piece of the pie, or in this case, a piece of the bone.
Mahdi, blogging under the name "Bald Trump", has an insightful piece on the impacts of new technologies like file-sharing, on the entertainment business. His post is nicely divided into two sections: "what makes sense to me" and "what doesn't make sense to me." Check for yourself.
Tags: American University of Sharjah | AUS | Middle East |