My Notepedia

Friends in a row

2008-12-04T23:12:00.000+08:00

Friends to celebrate my MBA completion

2008-11-30T03:11:00.000+08:00

Joe in tux, again

2008-11-15T04:57:00.000+08:00

Joe in tux, again.

MBA Graduation from HKUST

2008-11-13T23:37:00.000+08:00

Vietnam - everyone has a motorbike?

2008-09-15T22:06:00.003+08:00

AV New Setup

2008-05-03T10:41:00.003+08:00

AV 2008

2008-05-02T12:20:00.002+08:00

AV 2004

2008-05-02T12:15:00.003+08:00

Match the colors

2008-04-27T19:54:00.002+08:00

Disneyland

2008-03-24T20:45:00.002+08:00

Charcoal BMW 525i

2008-03-17T22:39:00.004+08:00

BMW 525i - Owner's Handbook

2008-03-15T22:25:00.003+08:00

BMW 525i - Charcoal

2008-03-15T21:36:00.000+08:00

BMW 525i - Black

2008-03-08T22:30:00.001+08:00

UNCTAD

2007-12-09T20:04:00.000+08:00

The Set of Multilaterally Agreed Equitable Principles and Rules for the Control of Restrictive Business Practices (www.unctad.org)

Oops!

2007-12-01T00:35:00.001+08:00

Climate Change - The Stern Review

2007-12-01T00:23:00.000+08:00

Statistics of the Human Development Report - http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/

Corruptions Perceptions Index - http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2007

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071127/ts_nm/un_development_index_dc

Value Pricing and the Economic Perspective

2007-11-11T19:45:00.000+08:00

The traditional economic approach to product pricing is driven by a small handful of factors, as shown. http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b02/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=597028

Pareto Optimal

2007-11-10T23:48:00.001+08:00

Pareto optimal: no other allocation can make one better off without making the other worse off.
Given a set of alternative allocations of, say, goods or income for a set of individuals, a movement from one allocation to another that can make at least one individual better off without making any other individual worse off is called a Pareto improvement. An allocation is Pareto efficient or Pareto optimal when no further Pareto improvements can be made.

Coca-Cola's New Vending Machine (A): Pricing to Capture Value, or Not?

2007-11-10T23:30:00.000+08:00

Chairman and CEO M. Douglas Ivester stumbles when he tells a Brazilian newsmagazine about a new Coke vending machine that can automatically raise prices in hot weather. Reaction around the world is swift and negative.

Variable-Price Coke Machine Being Tested
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9804E7D91038F93BA15753C1A96F958260&n=Top/News/Business/Companies/Coca-Cola%20Company

Is a Cold Soda Worth More on a Hot Day?
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B01E0D9173BF932A05753C1A96F958260&n=Top/News/Business/Companies/Coca-Cola%20Company

Coke's New Pricing
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E07E6D9143BF932A35752C1A96F958260&n=Top/News/Business/Companies/Coca-Cola%20Company

Missing piece

2007-11-05T18:22:00.000+08:00

http://osorhan.com/bigo/

Pig's day

2007-10-16T23:56:00.000+08:00

Cash Flow

2007-09-30T16:02:00.000+08:00

How to Brand Private Labels

2007-08-19T23:24:00.000+08:00

Price it right: If the price is too low, consumers suspect that corners have been cut. Generally, thesweet spot of pricing is 10% to 20% below national brands

Pay attention to packaging: Make packagingmore distinctive than national brands to set the product apart on the retail shelf.

http://fusionbrand.blogs.com/fusionbrand/2004/05/how_to_brand_pr.html

Jagabee

2007-07-19T21:18:00.000+08:00

Turning Great Strategy into Great Performance

2007-07-14T22:55:00.000+08:00

7 basic rules for setting and delivering strategy:
Keep it simple, make it concrete.
Avoid long, drawn-out descriptions of lofty goals and instead stick to clear language describing what your company will and won’t do.
Debate assumptions, not forecasts.
Create cross-functional teams drawn from strategy, marketing, and finance to ensure the assumptions underlying your long-term plans reflect both the real economics of your company’s markets and its actual performance relative to competitors.
Use a rigorous analytic framework.
Ensure that the dialogue between the corporate center and the business units about market trends and assumptions is conducted within a rigorous framework, such as that of “profit pools.”
Discuss resource deployments early.
Create more realistic forecasts and more executable plans by discussing up front the level and timing of critical deployments.
Clearly identify priorities.
Prioritize tactics so that employees have a clear sense of where to direct their efforts.
Continuously monitor performance.
Track resource deployment and results against plan, using continuous feedback to reset assumptions and reallocate resources.
Reward and develop execution capabilities.
Motivate and develop staff.
Following these rules strictly can help narrow the strategy-to-performance gap.

The Strategy Process: Making the Link with People and Operations

2007-07-13T22:34:00.000+08:00

The strategy process defines where a business wants to go, and the people process defines who will get it there. The operating plan provides the path for those people, breaking long-term output into short-term targets.

Where the Performance Goes [Turning Great Strategy into Great Performance]

2007-07-11T21:55:00.000+08:00

This chart shows the average performance loss implied by the importance ratings that managers in our survey gave to specific breakdowns in the planning and execution process.

Strategies for Two-Sided Markets

2007-06-29T23:32:00.000+08:00

The crucial strategy question is, Which side should you subsidize, and for how long?

Users will pay more for access to a larger network, so margins improve as user bases grow. In traditional businesses, growth beyond some point usually leads to diminishing returns: Acquiring new customers becomes harder as fewer people, not more, find the firm's value proposition appealing.

{ Networked Markets / Side 1 / Side 2 / Platform Providers }

Cross-side network effects: If the platform provider can attract enough subsidy-side users, money-side users will pay handsomely to reach them.

Same-side network effects: snowballing pattern, when drawing users to one side helps attract even more users to the same side.

Charting the strategy

2007-06-18T23:03:00.000+08:00

Drawing a strategy canvas - 1. strategic profile of industry, 2. strategic profile of current/potential competition (which factors to invest in strategically), 3. company's strategic profile (the value curve)

Focus - setting the agenda;
Divergence - look for uniqueness; value curves of innovators' strategies always stand apart; create new factors;
Compelling tag line - strong and authentic; (Southwest Airlines: "The speed of the plane at the price of the car - whenever you need it.")

4 steps of visualizing strategy - visual awakening, visual exploration, visual strategy fair, and visual communication

Value innovation is about offering unprecedented value, not technology or competencies, and not the same as being first to market -- achieved through a combination of eliminating features, creating features, and reducing and raising features to levels unprecedented in their industries. A radically different value curve is difficult for incumbents to imitate, and the volume advantages that come with value innovation make imitation costly. 3 platforms on which value innovation can take place: product, service, and delivery.

Pioneers - value innovations. Migrators - value improvements. Settlers - me-too products.

Marketing: Customer Intimacy and Other Value Disciplines

2007-06-15T21:23:00.000+08:00

operational excellence - superb/lean/efficient operations, reasonable quality at competitive prices with minimal inconvenience (FedEx, American Airlines, Wal-Mart, Dell Computer)

customer intimacy - segmenting and targeting markets precisely, tailoring to match specific demands of those niches, so to build long term customer loyalty. The business processes stress flexibility and responsiveness. (Nordstrom, Home Depot, Staples, Ciba-Geigy, Kraft, Frito-Lay)

product leadership - strong in innovations, brand marketing and commercialize ideas quickly, relentlessly pursue new solutions to solved problems, lifetime value concepts, products/services that consistently enhance customer's use, thereby making rival's goods obsolete (Johnson & Johnson, Nike)

... pick one value discipline and vigoriously pursue it while meeting industry standards in the other two ...

MBA: Marketing Strategy/Policy + Strategic Management

2007-06-10T17:28:00.000+08:00

Information Technology Management was completed. Marketing Strategy/Policy and Strategic Management are now started. Also, enrolling into Business Simulation for the summer semester.

Strategic Issue - Each level of strategy must be consistent with - and therefore influenced and constrained by - higher levels within the hierarchy. The 3 major levels of strategy in most large, multiproduct organizations are (1) corporate strategy, (2) business-level strategy, and (3) functional strategiess focused on a particular product-market entry.

A strategy is a fundamental pattern of present and planned objectives, resource deployments, and interactions of an organization with markets, competitors, and other environmental factors.

Training: Leadership Through People Skills

2007-04-23T23:24:00.000+08:00

Training: Leadership Through People Skills
http://www.q4solutions.com/dimen.htm
Dimensional® Model of Behavior™

ArtJamming

2007-04-15T12:05:00.000+08:00

Chalet Suisse

2007-02-12T00:01:00.000+08:00

Milestone day

2007-01-11T23:26:00.000+08:00

Jan 11, 2007 - Milestone day

Countdown to 2007...

2006-12-31T23:59:00.000+08:00

轉貼 >> 迎新派對

2006-12-30T19:52:00.000+08:00

迎新派對

朋友們：
敝舍除夕迎新年派對的菜單，先睹為快：
鵝肝醬法飽
意大利風乾火腿蘆筍卷
三文魚忌廉脆餅
羅馬沙津
德國啤酒腸
燒羊架伴薯菜
蜜汁豬肋骨
鮮蝦肉醬螺旋粉
燒雞翼
沙嗲雞串
壽司
藍莓芝士撻

酒水有 France Brut, Italy Red, Sparkling Wine；別忘了我們的傳統：BYOB (Bring Your Own Bottle, 酒精10%或以上唔該)
還有什麼願望只管想，不要對我說啊。
萍果小姐

Christmas Risk

2006-12-25T23:39:00.000+08:00

2006 MBA X'mas Party

2006-12-24T22:38:00.000+08:00

http://picasaweb.google.com/josephckchu/HKUSTMBAChristmasParty2006

Little potato

2006-12-11T22:36:00.000+08:00

Decent, Delicious, Delighted...

2006-11-18T23:28:00.000+08:00

The STEAK HOUSE winebar + grill

Cheese – Tête de Moine – very good, salty and firm texture
http://www.directoalpaladar.com/2006/03/31-tete-de-moine
Arrowfield Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon
10 knives to choose.
12 different flavours of mustard.
8 types of salts to select from: Cyprus Flake; Gris de Guérande; Himalayan Pink; Alaea Hawaiian; Murray River; Ittica d'Or Sicillian; Peruvian Pink; Chardonnay Oak Smoked
http://www.artisansalt.com/products.html

Managerial Accounting - "The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement"

2006-10-30T15:59:00.000+08:00

Jonah, takes a puff on his cigar, and tells Alex that –
In a sequence of dependent events … in combination with statistical fluctuations:
· Dependency limits the opportunities for higher fluctuations;
· Not averaging out of fluctuations but an accumulation of the fluctuations;
· Identify constraints (bottlenecks), develop measurements (throughput)

Alex Rogo – plant manager for UniCo ; Jonah – physicist / scientist ; Ch 4 – intro ; Ch 13 – essence

Author - Eliyahu M. Goldratt

Managerial Accounting and Managerial Microeconomics

2006-10-30T00:27:00.000+08:00

Three and a half inches thick !

Econ buzzwords: marginal cost/revenue, customer value model, value-added, minimum efficient scale, market power, monopsony, double mark-up problem, profit-maximizing price, coopetition, game theory, Nash equilibrium, ...

Corporate Governance by Kenneth A Kim, John R. Nofsinger

2006-10-05T16:48:00.000+08:00

It focuses on the various incentives within the governance system, helps explain recent problems and scandals, and puts potential solutions into context.
The most fascinating part is how Enron uses complex SPEs.

One Minute ...

2006-10-01T15:10:00.000+08:00

* People Who Feel Good About Themselves Produce Good Results.

* The Best Minute I Spent Is The One I Invest In People.

* We Are Not Just Our Behavior; We Are The Person Managing Our Behavior.

* Goals Begin Behaviors, Consequences Maintain Behavior.

The Story Of The Present

2006-09-03T17:41:00.000+08:00

You Cannot Change The Past, But You Can Learn From It.

When The Same Situation Arises, You Can Do Things Differently.

"Success" Is Becoming Who You Are Capable Of Being And Progressing Toward Worthwhile Goals.

Each Of Us Defines For Ourselves What It Means To Be Successful.

Business Statistics and Financial Accounting as starters...

2006-09-02T16:19:00.000+08:00

"Free" textbooks ... "business statistics" and "Cases in financial reporting", were picked up from the bookshop. Just realized that the bookshop is now run by Commerical Press, no longer Swindon.

Experiential Learning Program out of the Xbox - stretched the limit

2006-08-26T20:52:00.000+08:00

High V, Giant Ladder, Hit the ball and Balanced beam are the 4 excellent ELP games which Microsoft can never put them inside Xbox.

What Doesn't Kill You Will Make You Stronger

2006-08-21T21:10:00.000+08:00

Survived the Residential Program ...
First day: worked till 1am
Second day: 7:15am to 2am
Last day started earlier than the sunrise... very tough.

see KxCracker team at http://kxcracker.blogspot.com

Despite the daunting outlook [of the 5kg readings] ...

2006-08-06T20:09:00.000+08:00

... progress turns out quite well in the past 2 weeks.

Give people plenty of leeway to devise their own means – Visionary Leaders

2006-08-04T23:29:00.000+08:00

Daniel Goleman distinguishes 6 styles of leadership - Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, Democratic, Pacesetting and Commanding.
Leadership styles are like the array of clubs in a golf pro’s bag. In a game, the pro picks the clubs based on the demand of the shot. Sometimes he has to ponder but usually it is fairly instinctively. The pro senses the challenges ahead, swiftly pull out the right tool and elegantly swing it. That’s how high impact leaders operate, too.

IS MANAGEMENT A PROFESSION ?

2006-07-29T22:39:00.000+08:00

Alec Horniman, Univ. of Virginia - "a profession has a set of standards that are defined, recognized, and acknowledged which implies the right way for the profession to be practiced"
C. William Thomas, Professor at Baylor Univ. - people who practice in a profession are "franchised by the public to perform a particular service"
Louis Brandeis, Supreme Court Justice - a profession is an occupation that is "pursued largely for others" and for which "financial return is not the accepted measure of success."
David Vogel, UC Berkeley - "management is not a profession and is unlikely to become one." If management were a profession, managers "would not be allowed to practice unless they were certified, but how could something like this be enforced? Would this mean that Bill Gates - who did not even graduate college - would not have been allowed to start or grow Microsoft?"

Case study - this is not fiction

2006-07-25T23:01:00.000+08:00

Case study - this is not fiction.
(Chapters 1,2,3,4,6 were done.)

"By putting oneself in the shoes of various decision makers, it is rehearsing the future career."
"Cases give you the chance to practice the art as well as the science of management in a laboratory setting, with little corporate and personal risk involved."

MBA Program Registration Day - July 22

2006-07-22T16:15:00.000+08:00

Ouch, 5 kg of readings arrived home, where to start? Sitting in front of me are the 4 cases, 7 articles, 2 textbooks and 1 handout. These are all supposed to be finished before the residential course MGTO 521 starts August 18, for 3 days locked up in a remote hotel. I reckon I need to download and install a module for speed reading... let me google some suitable modules.
Ai yo - what is "93122629"? Shouldn't I get one which has prefix "06"?

Tsunami in reef tank at home

2006-07-15T23:25:00.000+08:00

Following the 2 weeks’ work in lower Manhattan, New York (6/18-30), I was vacationing in Washington D.C. and Philadelphia (7/1-8). After I am back home on July 9 evening from this 3 week trip to US, I believe there had been a severe tsunami inside my 24”x12”x9” reef tank at home. All 3 fish dead, 3 shrimps cooked, green algae grew dark and hairy, and water was ammonia-contaminated, de-oxygenated and covered with a thick layer of protein giving out strong smell of flesh. The ammonia alert indicator re-emphasized the hopelessness for any living things. Standing there and looking at the fish tank, I noticed that the bio-filtering system was unplugged [so bio-recycling has not been operating for weeks]. I could instantly certify there was no hope (and no need) at all to rescue anything inside the reef tank. I just let them decay till I have time to clean up the aftermath. I decided to seal the tank with cling wrap. Usually I only cling wrap un-finished tiramisu but this time the smelly reef.

July 15, 2006, Saturday, 10:30am - the reef tank is being dismantled. The whole life-span of this reef-keeping hobby/project is 18 months, since January 12, 2005 when I brought my fish tank home. Totally 350 liters of water and 8225 grams of salts were used to do 24 water changes. Unaccounted amount of reef supplements, fish food, pH stabilizers and nitro-bacteria were mixed to the water throughout the life-span of the project. Many habitants have been around for more than 9 months and the Lawnmower Blenny has been around for 16 months.

New York

2006-07-10T23:55:00.000+08:00

New York, Washington D.C. and Philadelphia

2006-07-10T23:50:00.000+08:00

Following the 2 weeks’ work in lower Manhattan, New York (6/18-30), I was vacationing in Washington D.C. and Philadelphia (7/1-8).

my another blog at msn

2005-12-29T00:37:00.000+08:00

you can also follow this link to my another blog at msn: http://josephckchu.spaces.msn.com

My blog at blogger inaugurated today

2005-12-28T23:08:00.000+08:00

My blog at blogger inaugurated today !