How Risk Management Can Turn into Competitive Advantage: Examples and Rationale

In light of the occurrence of many disruptive events since the beginning of this millennium, we can observe a change in the way risks and uncertainties are being viewed in the business world. To put this change into perspective we compare the evolution in the companies’ perception of risk management with the evolution in how companies look at their supply chain management. The main driver behind the change in the way companies view risk management is the increased level of uncertainties. There are many evidences that suggest the current very high level of volatilities in the business world is going to get worse in years and decades to come. This trend of increasing uncertainties and the resulted risks for businesses, demand a strategic-level attention to risk management. This strategic-level attention is warranted not only by the high level of risks which threatens a business (a defensive view), but also by the fact that proper risk management capabilities can lead to competitive advantage (an offensive view). This article does not intend to focus on how proper risk management capabilities can be acquired. Rather, it tries to show how risk management capabilities, when a company managed to acquire them, could lead to competitive advantage

How Risk Management Can Turn into Competitive Advantage

In light of the occurrence of many disruptive events since the beginning of this millennium, we can observe a change in the way risks and uncertainties are being viewed in the business world. To put this change into perspective we compare the evolution in the companies’ perception of risk management with the evolution in how companies look at their supply chain management. The main driver behind the change in the way companies view risk management is the increased level of uncertainties. There are many evidences that suggest the current very high level of volatilities in the business world is going to get worse in years and decades to come. This trend of increasing uncertainties and the resulted risks for businesses, demand a strategic-level attention to risk management. This strategic-level attention is warranted not only by the high level of risks which threatens a business (a defensive view), but also by the fact that proper risk management capabilities can lead to competitive advantage (an offensive view). This article does not intend to focus on how proper risk management capabilities can be acquired. Rather, it tries to show how risk management capabilities, when a company managed to acquire them, could lead to competitive advantage

Role of images on World Wide Web readability

As the Internet and World Wide Web have grown, many good things have come. If you have access to a computer, you can find a lot of information quickly and easily. Electronic devices can store and retrieve vast amounts of data in seconds. You no longer have to leave your house to get products and services you could only get in person. Documents can be changed from English to Urdu or from text to speech almost instantly, making it easy for people from different cultures and with different abilities to talk to each other. As technology improves, web developers and website visitors want more animation, colour, and technology. As computers get faster at processing images and other graphics, web developers use them more and more. Users who can see colour, pictures, animation, and images can help understand and read the Web and improve the Web experience. People who have trouble reading or whose first language is not used on the website can also benefit from using pictures. But not all images help people understand and read the text they go with. For example, images just for decoration or picked by the people who made the website should not be used. Also, different factors could affect how easy it is to read graphical content, such as a low image resolution, a bad aspect ratio, a bad colour combination in the image itself, a small font size, etc., and the WCAG gave different rules for each of these problems. The rules suggest using alternative text, the right combination of colours, low contrast, and a higher resolution. But one of the biggest problems is that images that don't go with the text on a web page can make it hard to read the text. On the other hand, relevant pictures could make the page easier to read. A method has been suggested to figure out how relevant the images on websites are from the point of view of web readability. This method combines different ways to get information from images by using Cloud Vision API and Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and reading text from websites to find relevancy between them. Techniques for preprocessing data have been used on the information that has been extracted. Natural Language Processing (NLP) technique has been used to determine what images and text on a web page have to do with each other. This tool looks at fifty educational websites' pictures and assesses their relevance. Results show that images that have nothing to do with the page's content and images that aren't very good cause lower relevancy scores. A user study was done to evaluate the hypothesis that the relevant images could enhance web readability based on two evaluations: the evaluation of the 1024 end users of the page and the heuristic evaluation, which was done by 32 experts in accessibility. The user study was done with questions about what the user knows, how they feel, and what they can do. The results back up the idea that images that are relevant to the page make it easier to read. This method will help web designers make pages easier to read by looking at only the essential parts of a page and not relying on their judgment.Programa de Doctorado en Ciencia y Tecnología Informática por la Universidad Carlos III de MadridPresidente: José Luis Lépez Cuadrado.- Secretario: Divakar Yadav.- Vocal: Arti Jai

Do Competing Suppliers Maximize Profits as Theory Suggests? An Empirical Evaluation

This research compares results from laboratory experiments with predictions from theory for decisions made by competing suppliers. We consider a supply chain in which a single buyer outsources the manufacture of a commodity product to suppliers not on the basis of price, but rather on service. Three different criteria on which suppliers compete are evaluated: 1) a guaranteed specific inventory fill-rate, 2) guaranteed level of base-stock, and 3) a parameter optimizing the supply chain in the buyer’s favor. Our results show that in most cases, suppliers’ decisions are significantly different than the Nash equilibrium, meaning that they do not maximize profit. We examine loss aversion as an influence that might offer an explanation for this behavior

Product Bundling: Impacts of Product Heterogeneity and Risk Considerations

Bundling has been extensively studied in the literature and its benefits have been manifested through three perspectives of achieving better price discrimination, helping to save costs, and preserving the power for deterring a potential entrant. In this study, we examine two aspects of bundling which have not been studied before. We examine the impact of product heterogeneity on bundling decisions. We also address risk considerations in a bundling problem. Specifically, we consider a retailer who has the option of selling a bundle of two products (pure bundling policy), or selling the products separately (no-bundling policy). The retailer could also face a product selection problem for which we consider three scenarios of choosing two products with perfectly positively correlated, perfectly negatively correlated or independent reservation prices. We use a Mean-Variance approach to include retailer’s risk through her profit variability when maximizing the expected value of profit. We characterize the conditions under which a policy or scenario performs better than the others under the influence of product heterogeneity and/or retailer’s risk aversion. Among other findings, we show that optimal bundling price chosen by a risk-averse decision maker cannot be larger than the one chosen by a risk neutral decision maker

An Experimental Investigation of Outsourcing through Competition

Our research uses laboratory experiments to examine the theoretical results of competition between suppliers in an outsourcing setup. We consider a supply chain in which a single buyer needs to outsource the manufacturing of a product among N potential suppliers. The buyer allocates demand to suppliers not on the basis of price, but rather on service. We analyze the levels of service suppliers will decide to provide when competing on three different criteria specified by the buyer. For the first, suppliers compete by providing the buyer a specific service level (fill-rate), and for the second by maintaining a specific quantity of on-hand inventory. For the third criteria, suppliers compete based on a parameter designed to optimize the supply chain in favor of the buyer. Prior research and existing theory predict that the decisions will reach stability at the Nash equilibrium for all three types of competition. Theory also predicts these equilibrium points will be ordered, from competitions based on service level as the lowest and those based on the optimal criteria as the highest. Our experimental results show that the equilibrium points reached by subjects are in fact ordered as theory predicts. However, there are large and statistically significant differences between those equilibrium points and the theoretical predictions. Using the Quantal Response Equilibrium (QRE) we show that random errors can explain some of these discrepancies. Our analyses also suggest that, under optimal criteria for competition, other behavioral factors such as rival chasing and loss aversion can play an influential role

Fatty acid composition of more brown seaweeds (Phaeophyta) from the coast of Karachi

Six species of multicellular, thalloid, brown algae, belonging to five genera of the classes Laminariophyceae and Fucophyceae were collected from the coastal areas of Buleji near Karachi (Pakistan) during October 1997 and February 1998. They were extracted in chloroform: methanol, saponified, subjected to column chromatography (CC, TLC), esterified and analysed for fatty acid (FA) composition initially by gas-liquid-chromatography (GLC) and finally by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). They displayed only a few SCFAs, PUFAs and substituted FAs, no VLCFA, C22 UFA, CFA, DCFA and monoynoic FA, large amount of CI6:0, very large quantity of C18:1, very small RCCL and FA-diversity, C18 UFAs up to four DBs, C20 UFAs up to three DBs only. They were characterized by the largest amount of C18:1, lowest degree of unsaturation of C20 UFAs, lack of C22 UFAs, the shortest RCCL and the smallest FA-diversity as compared to other phyla

Fatty acid composition of some brown seaweeds (Phaeophyta) from the coast of Karachi

Ten species of filamentous and multicellular thalloid algae (Phaeophyta) belonging to six genera of the class Dictyophyceae were collected from different seawater habitats of Karachi, Pakistan at the northern boundary of the Arabian Sea during September 1997 and July 1998. They were extracted in chloroform: methanol, saponified, subjected to column chromatography (CC, TLC), esterified and analysed for fatty acid (FA) composition initially by gas-liquid-chromatography (GLC) and finally by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Algae of the classes Laminariophyceae and Fucophyceae (Phaeophyta) displayed only a few SCFAs, PUFAs and substituted FAs, no VLCFA, C22 UFA, CFA, DCFA and monoynoic FA, large amount of C16:0, very large quantity of C18:1, very small RCCL and FA-diversity, C18 UFAs up to four DBs, C20 UFAs up to three DBs only. They were characterized by the largest amount of C18:1, lowest degree of unsaturation of C20 UFAs, lack of C22 UFAs, the shortest RCCL and the smallest FA-diversity as compared to other phyla

Graphical Contents and Health Websites Readability

Health-related websites provide valuable information, resources, and support for individuals seeking to improve their health and make informed decisions about their well-being. Graphical content makes websites visually appealing and helps create a positive first impression. Relevant and high-quality graphical content can immediately capture visitors attention and make the website more attractive and memorable. However, irrelevant graphical content on web pages also indicates poor readability, distracting readers from the texts focus. This papers primary objective is to assess the effect of irrelevant or low-quality graphical content on the readability of a health-related website. The relevance of graphical content on a website was computed using a tool proposed in our previous research. A user study comprised of end-user evaluation and heuristic evaluation by readability experts was conducted using a variety of question categories. Both evaluation methods yielded comparable results, confirming that the pertinent graphical content enhances the readability of the web page

Outsourcing to Non-Identical Suppliers via Service Competition

In this paper, we consider a single buyer who wishes to outsource a fixed demand for a manufactured good or service at a fixed price to a set of N suppliers. We examine the value of competition as a mechanism for the buyer to elicit good service quality from her suppliers. In particular, we consider a scheme in which the buyer allocates a proportion of demand to each supplier, with the proportion a supplier receives increasing in the service level she offers. Suppliers compete for expected market share, which increases in the offered service level. The suppliers affect their service levels by exerting effort once they receive a positive portion of demand, with the cost of effort increasing in the service level offered and the demand allocated. Each supplier chooses a service level to maximize her own expected profit, subject to the behavior of other competing suppliers. In making this decision, the supplier effectively weighs the market share benefits of each service level against its associated cost. The possibility of inducing service quality through competition raises several important questions. For example, under what conditions does service competition lead to an equilibrium? How does the number and type of suppliers affect the buyer’s service quality and the suppliers’ expected profits? Is it more desirable for the buyer to contract with suppliers that are equally efficient or to have a mix of suppliers with varying capabilities? How should the buyer choose parameters for the competition to maximize the quality of service she receives? In particular, what is the impact of the allocation functions on the buyer’s quality of service and is it possible for the buyer to choose an allocation function that forces the suppliers to provide the maximum feasible service level? In this paper, we address these and other related questions