Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

Who's Who of World Wide Business

Who are the mover's and shakers? Here they are, the worlds top 25 businesses. Coincidentally almost all of these businesses were listed on Forbes' list of most desirable companies for MBA's to work at. It's also important to note that many of these countries are growing and expanding due to new ventures in emerging economies like China, India, Bangladesh, and eastern European countries. View the full Fortune 500 here.

Rank	Company	Revenues ($ millions)	Profits ($ millions)
1	Wal-Mart Stores	351,139.0	11,284.0
2	Exxon Mobil	347,254.0	39,500.0
3	General Motors	207,349.0	-1,978.0
4	Chevron	200,567.0	17,138.0
5	ConocoPhillips	172,451.0	15,550.0
6	General Electric	168,307.0	20,829.0
7	Ford Motor	160,126.0	-12,613.0
8	Citigroup	146,777.0	21,538.0
9	Bank of America Corp.	117,017.0	21,133.0
10	American Intl. Group	113,194.0	14,048.0
11	J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.	99,973.0	14,444.0
12	Berkshire Hathaway	98,539.0	11,015.0
13	Verizon Communications	93,221.0	6,197.0
14	Hewlett-Packard	91,658.0	6,198.0
15	Intl. Business Machines	91,424.0	9,492.0
16	Valero Energy	91,051.0	5,463.0
17	Home Depot	90,837.0	5,761.0
18	McKesson	88,050.0	751.0
19	Cardinal Health	81,895.1	1,000.1
20	Morgan Stanley	76,688.0	7,472.0
21	UnitedHealth Group	71,542.0	4,159.0
22	Merrill Lynch	70,591.0	7,499.0
23	Altria Group	70,324.0	12,022.0
24	Goldman Sachs Group	69,353.0	9,537.0
25	Procter & Gamble	68,222.0	8,684.0

Thinking of Going for an MBA?

A big question a lot of people ask is are MBA's really worth the cost?

You can expect to spend anywhere from $30,000 to $150,000 (Typically these are the ivy league's) for the degree. While more compensation is one of the benefits of MBA's they typically provide more opportunities for higher corporate positions and leadership roles. Simply put, they can turbo charge your business career.

Recently there have been some criticisms of American MBA programs, specifically the lack of emphasis on ethics and perhaps an over emphasis on management theory.

I figured I would let the numbers do the talking and dug up this table that shows pre and post MBA compensation from top American business schools. I thought it might be of interest for others to see.

Rank	Business School	Pre MBA Salaries*	Median Total Pay Package	Percent Increase
1	U. of Pennsylvania (Wharton)	$60,000	$156,000	160%
2	Northwestern (Kellogg)	$56,000	$142,000	154%
3	Stanford	$65,000	$165,500	155%
4	Harvard	$65,000	$160,000	146%
5	Columbia	$50,000	$142,500	185%
6	Duke (Fuqua)	$49,000	$128,500	162%
7	MIT (Sloan)	$55,000	$149,000	171%
8	Chicago	$55,000	$140,000	155%
9	Cornell (Johnson)	$50,000	$135,000	170%
10	Dartmouth (Tuck)	$50,000	$149,500	199%
11	Michigan	$50,000	$131,000	162%
12	NYU (Stern)	$45,000	$140,000	211%
13	UC -- Berkeley (Haas)	$50,000	$135,000	170%
14	Virginia (Darden)	$50,000	$135,000	170%
15	Yale	$45,000	$130,000	189%
16	UCLA (Anderson)	$55,000	$136,500	148%
17	Carnegie Mellon	$45,000	$125,000	178%
18	UNC -- Chapel Hill	$48,000	$125,000	160%
19	Texas -- Austin (McCombs)	$45,000	$107,000	138%
20	Indiana (Kelley)	$42,000	$114,000	171%
21	USC (Marshall)	$45,000	$112,000	149%
22	Purdue (Krannert)	$35,000	$101,500	190%
23	Rochester (Simon)	$40,000	$110,000	175%
24	Georgetown (McDonough)	$45,000	$116,000	158%
25	Washington U. (Olin)	$42,000	$109,000	160%

Trackback: http://grantdeken.blogspot.com/2008/03/thinking-of-going-for-mba.html

Companies Want Intercultural Managers

In today’s world the list of qualifications for many management positions is of more and more resemblance to the Renaissance man. Sure you must understand some finance and economics and of course business strategy is a must-have for success. Then throw in some leadership and marketing know-how with a dash of sheer creativity and what do you get? You get someone who still needs to understand how to deal with people from a multitude of different cultures and then capitalize on burgeoning international markets.

Cultural diversity is extremely prevalent in our work force and populations. A company who wants to be successful needs management that both embraces this notion and understands it. The reality is that this is not happening enough. “Many leaders are operating on an old conception of the world around them and of human nature, including the nature of work, the worker, and the management process itself,” John Saee explains.

Further, many international assignments bring along with them high costs, low performance, and social challenges for involved parties. “The predominant reason for such failure is not a lack of managerial technical competence but the dynamics of intercultural experience”. What are these overpaid managers lacking? It turns out that our list of skills just lengthened. “These ‘dynamics’ include differences in cultural perceptions, in values and practices that influence understanding, in attitudinal satisfaction with living in a foreign culture, in relationship development, and in the accomplishment of goals”. In other words many international ventures involve people who cannot adjust to these environments.

As organizations begin to understand these complexities the first step they have taken is for the installment of language training programs for employees. While this is a step forward most make the assumption that speaking a language and understanding culture go hand in hand. The author notes, “Cultural dimensions to communication go far beyond syntax and vocabulary”. He goes on to say “Studying intercultural communication without studying culture is analogous to studying physics without looking at matter”.

Obviously placing emphasis on cultural understanding is important, but how do we become inter-culturally competent managers and people? Saee emphasizes Cultural awareness, the valuing of differences, and being non-judgmental as some of the most significant ways to improve on being culturally proficient.

How we become more culturally competent is important but for arguments sake we need to understand more clearly why it is important to diversify our cultural competency. In one word that answer is opportunity. The world is becoming interconnected. International trade is growing year after year and people want what developed nations have had for decades. It means that as more and more people make more and more money in emerging economies the demand for products and services is going to increase significantly. For example, think of the fraction of the 1.2 billion Indians who can now afford DVD players and Play Stations? What can your company bring to their market? It’s happening now. The companies who are successful in penetrating these markets will be the ones who are culturally diverse and understand how to work with all kinds of people.

This article is a testament in and of itself to the importance of globalizations role on our accepted business practices and management theory. It is quickly shifting the status quo of what is necessary for success. The list of qualifications may be long for top-tier managers but if you take the time to educate yourself and embrace cultural diversity you may find yourself in a much better place than you thought possible.

Origional Article

Trackback: http://grantdeken.blogspot.com/2008/03/companies-want-intercultural-managers.html

Shift Happens

This is a stylization of a slideshow originally created by Karl Fisch, examining globalization and America’s future in the 21st century. I thought this was really interesting...

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Your Links Help Educate

From now until June 1st I will donate one dollar for every person who links to my site to Unicef's Education initiative. I don't care if you want to link to me because you like the content I provide or you just want to help raise money for one of the most important humanitarian issues. As I grow and learn about the world I see more and more that people like us who have the opportunities to learn and speak out and advance ourselves in society also have a responsibility to help others do the same.

By linking to www.grantdeken.com (or any article on grantdeken.blogspot.com) you help me to grow my web exposure, but also allow me to reach more people and raise awareness about poverty, education issues (both domestically and internationally) and other important social and economic issues.

What your Links can buy:

$3 can provide a child with a pencil, paper pad and a pen to use in the classroom.

$16 can buy a double-sided chalkboard for classroom or outdoor use.

$176 can buy one school-in-a-box kit—a ready-made educational solution packed in a lockable metal box, containing equipment for 80 students such as pencils, erasers, exercise books, writing slates, scissors and carrier bags.

Support UNICEF's education programs.

If you want to join in on the initiative I encourage you. Contact me at Grdeken@gmail.com with link information so I can keep record. Also contact me with any ideas and perhaps we can create a network.

Trumping the Multinationals

This is a great article on bnet that explains how local companies are beating the competition from multinational companies like Wal Mart and Google. Below is an excerpt of the article.

Full Article: http://www.bnet.com/2439-13239_23-190912.html

Excerpt:

If you're setting out to compete in rapidly developing economies, beware: Smart domestic enterprises are staving off the challenge from global market leaders. And they're seizing new opportunities before multinationals can.

Consider: In China, search engine Baidu is used seven times more than Google China every day. In India, Bharti Airtel has trumped Vodafone as the market leader in cellular telephony. And in Mexico, Grupo Elektra has beaten Wal-Mart as the country's top retailer.

Domestic dynamos like these dominate foreign rivals by applying six strategies. For example, they use their deep understanding of consumers in their countries to create highly customized offerings. They leverage cutting-edge technology to keep operating costs down. And they tap into pools of cheap local labor instead of relying on expensive automation.

To prevail over local winners on their turf, set aside your tried-and-true strategies, advise Bhattacharya and Michael. Instead, understand--and emulate--domestic players' tactics.

Beating the Currency Crunch

Written by: Grant Deken

Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat explains to readers the concept of “wholesale” and “retail” reformation within economies. As transitioning economies adhere to these reforms globalization’s spread continues to reach the farthest places on the globe. The end results are more businesses, faster production, and fiercer competition in the marketplace. As this phenomenon takes place, the familiarity of the micro multinational company is more and more common as businesses aim to tap the brightest minds for the best price. What happens though, when your country’s currency declines to a thirty year low? What do business owners do to overcome this adversity? These are questions many American business owners are asking as they try to cope and develop strategies to beat the currency crunch.

WineCommune, a California based wine company that does a great deal of business through its e-commerce outlets has noticed a decline in growth compared to its stellar $17 million in sales for 2007.The company decided to mitigate its losses by entering into forward contracts. The idea is to lock in a price early with speculation that U.S. currency may be headed for a downturn. WineCommune locked in an exchange rate when the euro was worth roughly $1.25. When they were ready to purchase in the spring the euro had risen to $1.36, saving the business about eight percent. What’s especially intriguing (and ironic) is that the French consumers are now turning to WineCommune to take advantage of lower prices. What they lose in currency they are making up in higher sales volume.

Other companies are working with international vendors to make flexible payments since rates may be more favorable on different days of the week. This gives businesses a chance to try and pick the best day to pay suppliers. Naomi Novotny, whose company SaltWorks utilizes this practice explained that “when you’re dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars, every last penny counts.”

Other companies have struggled to beat the crunch and are seeking domestic suppliers. Rainbow Packaging, which primarily handles distribution, made the switch from German machines to ones manufactured in the U.S. “It’s like starting from scratch,” CEO Wes Henriksen said.

Certainly globalization isn’t the culprit of our current problems, but is it guilty by association? While some may be quick to point fingers, they need only to point to themselves. Third Quarter GDP in the United States, driven by exports and fueled by a weakening currency, soared this past year.

Globalization is responsible for our diversified collaboration, global work forces, shifting market places, and new opportunities if we open our eyes to see them. Millions of people in emerging countries like China and India are now able to afford products and services they thought they would never be able to enjoy. Labor costs are lessoning as more people gain the needed skill sets abroad. So while many businesses are struggling to stay afloat with a weak U.S. dollar I have just one question- Why?

With international market places growing, every company’s marketing department should be conducting extensive research on the three billion new capitalists in the first world. What’s the best way to reach these people? What do they prefer? How much does the average household buy online? Take advantage of a weak currency to grow and open new international markets. Your cost of doing business may be higher, but sales volumes will soar which should make up for loss in the short term and build your business’s international presence. Think “business cycle.”

Source: Inc. Magazine March 2008 Issue

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