CocaCola compra Monster M&A

Inminente compra de Monster por parte de CocaCola, gran M&A del año 2014.

Análisis técnico

Lo importante del análisis técnico.

Finanzas personales

Te regalamos un excel para que controles todos tus gastos personales y puedas controlar ingresos y gastos.

El dólar Americano

La historia de la moneda Americana, todo sobre el Dólar $.

Divisas

Como operar con divisas, todo lo que necesitas saber.

viernes, 20 de enero de 2012

FBI Kills Megaupload

Mixtape mecca and openair piracy expo Megaupload has a serious problem: it's just been shut down by the feds. The feds. And they didn't even need SOPA!
The federal indictment accuses Megaupload—which shocked the internet with the revelation that rap producer Swizz Beatz is for some reason its CEO—of over $500 million in lost media revenue from hosting pirated media. They had quite a run, though! Megaupload boasted "more than 150 million registered users, 50 million daily visitors and accounting for four percent of the total traffic on the Internet," according to the DoJ. And some famous friends.

Lucky for us, there are plenty of alternatives to Megaupload. And luckily for Swizz Beatz, he's still a super-successful rap producer, an NYU professor, and Alicia Keys' husband. Not so lucky? The crazily named MP3 baron and Megaupload founder Kim "Dotcom" Schlitz who is now in the slammer awaiting prosecution. Dotcom's had a busy past few years, racking up up embezzlement charges, multiple arrests, a lardy face, and most recently, ownership of one of New Zealand's most fabulous houses.


Let's also think about the timing of this bust. It's a pretty spectacular coincidence that the Department of Justice Task Force on Intellectual Property was able to destroy a copyright villain without any help from SOPA or PIPA the day after the internet's giant SOPA protest. Do you hear that, lawmakers? The law, as it stands right now was able to kill Megaupload.com, no draconian censorship powers required. The power you have now—with due process—is achieving the things you say you want to do. Your IP is protected. Online piracy was stopped, except for the dozens of Megaupload rivals like HulkShare and MediaFire. And I wouldn't be surprised if they're next. [AP]

Update: The WSJ says seven Megaupload employees are under arrest, with four already locked down—four of them in New Zealand! No word if one of them is Swizzy himself.

Update 2: As of 13 hours ago on Twitter, Mr. Beatz did not seem to give a shit about anything.

Update 3: The AP reports the following statement from Megaupload: "The fact is that the vast majority of Mega's Internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay. If the content industry would like to take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to enter into a dialogue. We have some good ideas. Please get in touch."Well, not really, no.

Update 4: The Department of Justice has issued a gleeful statement regarding the takedown, coordinated with police around the world, calling it "among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States," and listed the individual charged with "racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement."

Update 5: The Next Web shares the the full 72 page indictment. That's a lot of indictment.

Mega Indictment of Megaupload

Source: Gizmodo.com

lunes, 16 de enero de 2012

Importance of incorporation of ICT

Why the interest of governments in promoting new technologies and ICTs?

I talked about what is an ICT in this post

Well, now businesses have to work in a new context, the context of the information and communication.






Most businesses will need to manage huge quantity of information, and this part is easier with an Intranet and an Extranet, this systems helps to share, update and use the information between suppliers, clients and employees much faster. With this systems businesses may also save time and improve productivity, and as you know, time is equal to money.


According to figures from the OECD at the end of the 90s, between 40% and 50% of improving productivity is related to the incorporation of technology in a company´s production processes.


As you can see on this bar graph, the diference between EEUU and EU is big, and that is because in Europe we are far behind USA and Canada in terms of productivity (nowadays this difference is not so big). In europe we need to improve our productivity and we can do this with the integration and implantation of ICTs that help businesses to make more with less resources.


Companies must understand the need to incorporate ICT tools in their daily operation. Companies that stay on the sidelines or delay the introduction of ICT in their internal operations and in their business relations will put in danger not only their competitiveness but even their survival.


So, in conclusion, the incorporance of ICTs to businesses it's really importance if you want to improve competitiveness and productivity.

The revolution in information technology and communication (ICT) and especially Internet, has made available a great deal of information to SMEs that could be essential.

The application of ICT means that SME may have the same resources applied to each link in the chain of value that a large company has.

Incorporating these technologies can help SMEs to innovate in their business model to become more competitive and grow without over-costs.

Companies must identify which processes can be improved and made more profitable with the application of technology.

Do not invest and incorporate new ICT tools without making a study of the needs and possibilities for
improvement.

It must seek transformation processes using technology, and this ICT tools must give support to procedures.

And that is all for today, hopefully you will find this article useful for you.

domingo, 15 de enero de 2012

Information and communication technology

Recently I have been studying Information management here in Spain, and now I want to show you the most important things of this subject.

According to a definition given by the European Commission, information technology and communication (ICT) is a term that is currently used to refer to a wide range of services, applications and technologies, which use diverse types of equipment and software, and they are often transmitted through telecommunications networks.

(Source: European Communities Commission)

For organizations, ICT has completely changed the traditional value chain in relation to the way in which business are conducted. Concepts like B2C (business to consumer) and B2B (Business to Business) are nowadays familiar in companies. In the same way, the new trends that are supported by this approach, have created other concepts such as CRM, ERP and Business Intelligence.


But the importance of ICT is not the technology itself, it is the opportunity that it gives its users to have direct access to information, communications and knowledge in general.

Although ICT makes the production and information management on a large scale and low cost possible, it is only useful when it allows us to approach the great quantity of information that is produced, received and stored, analyzing and dealing with it so it can be assimilated by possible Users.

Examinations

Sorry for all this time without an update, I had to attend my exams here in Spain and it was hard because I had to study all the subjects from the beginning with just a little previous knowledge, I decided just to study two of them, Information Management and SIIG (Integrated information systems for the management).

I will make some posts with information of this subjects, both are really interesting for management.

martes, 3 de enero de 2012

The 14 Principles of the Toyota Way

This information is from a book that my teacher of Business management & enterprise development gave to me this year. I hope that you will find this useful to understand the TPS and the toyota way.

Section I: Long-Term Philosophy

Principle 1. Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy,
even at the expense of short-term financial goals.


■ Have a philosophical sense of purpose that supersedes any short-term
decision making. Work, grow, and align the whole organization toward a
common purpose that is bigger than making money. Understand your
place in the history of the company and work to bring the company to
the next level. Your philosophical mission is the foundation for all the
other principles.
■ Generate value for the customer, society, and the economy—it is your
starting point. Evaluate every function in the company in terms of its
ability to achieve this.
■ Be responsible. Strive to decide your own fate. Act with self-reliance and
trust in your own abilities. Accept responsibility for your conduct and
maintain and improve the skills that enable you to produce added value.

Section II: The Right Process Will Produce the Right Results

Principle 2. Create a continuous process flow to bring problems to the surface.

■ Redesign work processes to achieve high value-added, continuous flow.
Strive to cut back to zero the amount of time that any work project is sitting
idle or waiting for someone to work on it.
■ Create flow to move material and information fast as well as to link
processes and people together so that problems surface right away.
■ Make flow evident throughout your organizational culture. It is the key
to a true continuous improvement process and to developing people.

Principle 3. Use “pull” systems to avoid overproduction.

■ Provide your downline customers in the production process with what
they want, when they want it, and in the amount they want. Material
replenishment initiated by consumption is the basic principle of just-intime.
■ Minimize your work in process and warehousing of inventory by stocking
small amounts of each product and frequently restocking based on
what the customer actually takes away.
■ Be responsive to the day-by-day shifts in customer demand rather than
relying on computer schedules and systems to track wasteful inventory.

Principle 4. Level out the workload (heijunka). (Work like the tortoise, not
the hare.)


■ Eliminating waste is just one-third of the equation for making lean successful.
Eliminating overburden to people and equipment and eliminating
unevenness in the production schedule are just as important—yet
generally not understood at companies attempting to implement lean
principles.
■ Work to level out the workload of all manufacturing and service processes
as an alternative to the stop/start approach of working on projects in
batches that is typical at most companies.

Principle 5. Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right
the first time.


■ Quality for the customer drives your value proposition.
■ Use all the modern quality assurance methods available.
■ Build into your equipment the capability of detecting problems and
stopping itself. Develop a visual system to alert team or project leaders
that a machine or process needs assistance. Jidoka (machines with human
intelligence) is the foundation for “building in” quality.
■ Build into your organization support systems to quickly solve problems
and put in place countermeasures.
■ Build into your culture the philosophy of stopping or slowing down to
get quality right the first time to enhance productivity in the long run.

Principle 6. Standardized tasks and processes are the foundation for continuous
improvement and employee empowerment.


■ Use stable, repeatable methods everywhere to maintain the predictability,
regular timing, and regular output of your processes. It is the foundation
for flow and pull.
■ Capture the accumulated learning about a process up to a point in time
by standardizing today’s best practices. Allow creative and individual
expression to improve upon the standard; then incorporate it into the
new standard so that when a person moves on you can hand off the
learning to the next person.

Principle 7. Use visual control so no problems are hidden.

■ Use simple visual indicators to help people determine immediately
whether they are in a standard condition or deviating from it.
■ Avoid using a computer screen when it moves the worker’s focus away
from the workplace.
■ Design simple visual systems at the place where the work is done, to support
flow and pull.
■ Reduce your reports to one piece of paper whenever possible, even for
your most important financial decisions.

Principle 8. Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your
people and processes.


■ Use technology to support people, not to replace people. Often it is best
to work out a process manually before adding technology to support the
process.
■ New technology is often unreliable and difficult to standardize and
therefore endangers “flow.” A proven process that works generally takes
precedence over new and untested technology.
■ Conduct actual tests before adopting new technology in business
processes, manufacturing systems, or products.
■ Reject or modify technologies that conflict with your culture or that
might disrupt stability, reliability, and predictability.
■ Nevertheless, encourage your people to consider new technologies when
looking into new approaches to work. Quickly implement a thoroughly
considered technology if it has been proven in trials and it can improve
flow in your processes.

Section III: Add Value to the Organization by Developing
Your People


Principle 9. Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the
philosophy, and teach it to others.


■ Grow leaders from within, rather than buying them from outside the
organization.
■ Do not view the leader’s job as simply accomplishing tasks and having
good people skills. Leaders must be role models of the company’s philosophy
and way of doing business.
■ A good leader must understand the daily work in great detail so he or she
can be the best teacher of your company’s philosophy.

Principle 10. Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company’s
philosophy.


■ Create a strong, stable culture in which company values and beliefs are
widely shared and lived out over a period of many years.
■ Train exceptional individuals and teams to work within the corporate
philosophy to achieve exceptional results. Work very hard to reinforce
the culture continually.
■ Use cross-functional teams to improve quality and productivity and
enhance flow by solving difficult technical problems. Empowerment
occurs when people use the company’s tools to improve the company.
■ Make an ongoing effort to teach individuals how to work together as
teams toward common goals. Teamwork is something that has to be
learned.

Principle 11. Respect your extended network of partners and suppliers by
challenging them and helping them improve.


■ Have respect for your partners and suppliers and treat them as an extension
of your business.
■ Challenge your outside business partners to grow and develop. It shows
that you value them. Set challenging targets and assist your partners in
achieving them.

Section IV: Continuously Solving Root Problems Drives
Organizational Learning


Principle 12. Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation
(genchi genbutsu).


■ Solve problems and improve processes by going to the source and personally
observing and verifying data rather than theorizing on the basis
of what other people or the computer screen tell you.
■ Think and speak based on personally verified data.
■ Even high-level managers and executives should go and see things for
themselves, so they will have more than a superficial understanding of
the situation.

Principle 13. Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering
all options; implement decisions rapidly (nemawashi).


■ Do not pick a single direction and go down that one path until you have
thoroughly considered alternatives. When you have picked, move
quickly and continuosly down the path.
■ Nemawashi is the process of discussing problems and potential solutions
with all of those affected, to collect their ideas and get agreement on a
path forward. This consensus process, though time-consuming, helps
broaden the search for solutions, and once a decision is made, the stage
is set for rapid implementation.

Principle 14. Become a learning organization through relentless reflection
(hansei) and continuous improvement (kaizen).


■ Once you have established a stable process, use continuous improvement
tools to determine the root cause of inefficiencies and apply effective
countermeasures.
■ Design processes that require almost no inventory. This will make
wasted time and resources visible for all to see. Once waste is exposed,
have employees use a continuous improvement process (kaizen) to
eliminate it.
■ Protect the organizational knowledge base by developing stable personnel,
slow promotion, and very careful succession systems.

The Toyota way JUST IN TIME

I have studied the Toyota way this year in my subject Business Management and enterprise development, I want to give thanks to my teacher Marc Cashin from the AIT. I found so usefull and interesting that I want to explain the Toyota Way and give you a summary of the culture behind TPS (Toyota production system).

"The more I have studied TPS and the Toyota Way, the more I understand that it is a system designed to provide the tools for people to continually improve their work. The Toyota Way means more dependence on people, not less. It is a culture, even more than a set of efficiency and improvement techniques. You depend upon the workers to reduce inventory, identify hidden problems, and fix them. The workers have a sense of urgency, purpose, and teamwork because if they don’t fix it there will be an inventory outage. On a daily basis, engineers, skilled workers, quality specialist, vendors, team leaders, and operators are all involved in continuous problem solving and improvement, which over time trains everyone to become better problem solvers. One lean tool that facilitates this teamwork is called 5S (sort, stabilize, shine, standardize, sustain), which is a series of activities for eliminating wastes that contribute to errors, defects, and injuries. In this improvement method, the fifth S, sustain, is arguably the hardest. It’s the one that keeps the first four S’s going by emphasizing the necessary education, training, and rewards needed to encourage workers to properly maintain and continuously improve operating procedures and the workplace environment. This effort requires a combination of committed management, proper training, and a culture that makes sustaining improvement a habitual behavior from the shop floor to management"

The 14 Principles of
the Toyota Way:
An Executive Summary of the
Culture Behind TPS


The principles are organized in four broad categories:

1) Long-term philosophy

2) The right process will produce the right results (this utilizes many of the TPS tools)

3) Add value to the organization by developing your people

4) Continuously solving root problems drives organizational learning.

domingo, 1 de enero de 2012

What is a Bad Bank? / Qué es un Banco Malo?

Today I want to explain to you what we understand as a Bad Bank.

Bad bank is an institution created by the state in order to keep or hold the toxics assets of the banks of the country. This banks are created when the flow of the money is broken, companies and people can't access to the credit, and that is because the banks have liquidity problems. This institution helps banks to clear from their balance sheets their toxics assets. Normally Bad banks can negociate the prices of those assets, the price established is normally ranged between the market price and the price at the balance sheets of the banks.

There are some variants of a Bad Bank:
  1. The good bad bank forces banks to write off those assets and clean up their balance sheets. Those that are insolvent are recapitalized, nationalized or liquidated 
  2. Bad bad bank buys toxic assets at inflated prices and thus the financial system can start lending money again.


David Roche writes in the WSJ


"Desperate to preserve the value of asset prices inflated by this huge liquidity bubble, policy makers have avoided the painful solution. The liquidity injections, the bailout programs, and the fiscal-stimulus packages try to sustain asset prices, when these prices need to fall to market levels so they can be cleared. The policy makers have just prolonged the crisis.

As we saw in Japan in the 1990s, if the market is not allowed to clear, the financial crisis will be prolonged. Although debt deflation may be avoided, the economic recession will be longer and the recovery weaker.

By not adopting the good bad-bank solution, the system remains as corrupted as before. The bad assets will continue to suck resources out of the economic system in the form of zombie borrowers, misallocation and mispricing of capital, public sector debt, and budget deficits."


Here you will find the whole article: David Roche at The Wall Street Journal