A pratical way to evaluate synergy

There has been recently a renewed interest in the. concept of synergy due to increasing levels of economic, competitive complexity which are forcing synergy due to increasing levels of economic, technological organizations to achieve greater benefits from strategic planning to achieve greater benefits from strategic planning. There is however the need for a technique which will enable managers to evaluate on a case by case basis, the potential synergy of a new market entry. To present such a technique is the purpose of the paper.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Everything is important: but some things are more important than others

Did you ever wonder why Nestle is so concerned with its image? And why IBM focuses . so much on service (installation, client coaching and after-sales)?-Or why Scandinavian Airlines System puts such a strong emphasis on the punctuality of its flights? In fact, each of these firms focuses on the key success factors (KSF) of their environments that is, they focus on those tasks which must be performed particularly well for an organization to outperform its competition. In the baby food business, a good image is critical for success since it decreases the risk perceived by mothers when buying the product for their children. In the computer business, the client's information processing depends more on service (installation, teaching, repairs) than on things such as hardware and distribution. Scandinavian Airlines which concentrates on the executive segment, has found that punctuality is one of the critical factors for success in such a market segment. It so happens that all these organizations, distinguish between what is more and less important in their competitive settings and focus on the former. Paraphrasing George Orwell they discovered that in the market everything is important but some things are more important than others. In spite of its importance, the empirical evidence of the key success factors has been, up to the present, based upon case-studies and anedoctes. No large survey .has ever been conducted.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Regionalização e a reforma das finanças locais : que ordem de prioridades?

Apesar da reforma iniciada em 1979, o processo de efectiva descentralização financeira tem tido dificuldade em concretizar-se em Portugal. O atraso na criação das regiões reflecte esse facto. Naturalmente, a introdução da reforma aumentou o grau de descentralização, permitindo as autarquias quer um maior volume de recursos financeiros, quer um maior poder discricionário na sua afectação a satisfacão das necessidades locais. Apesar disso, existe ainda grande desigualdade entre as várias jurisdições, gerada pelas extraordinárias assimetrias na distribuição da população e das actividades produtivas. A redução efectiva das desigualdades tem forçosamente de passar por uma política de desenvolvimento e ordenamento do território, tendo as finanças locais e as transferências financeiras da Administração Central um papel relativamente limitado nesse domínio, num país bastante centralizado como é o nosso. A introdução das regiões pode, em princípio, contribuir para a resolução deste problema. Porém, a extensão da descentralização às regiões, pode entrar em conflito com outros objectivos, como desenvolveremos neste paper. De molde a contribuir para a discussão desta temática este artigo tem por objectivos: (1) Caracterizar a descentralização existente na administração pública portuguesa e discutir as vantagens e eventuais desvantagens do seu alargamento através da criação das regiões; (2) Comentar a evolução recente nas finanças locais; (3) Argumentar que a reforma das finanças locais em Portugal é necessária, independentemente de se concretizar ou não o processo de regionalização, sendo até prioritária em relação a este. A metodologia adoptada baseou-se na seguinte organização da exposição: - na introdução apresentam-se e discutem-se as razões que servem de base a descentralização, assim como as principais condicionantes; - na secção 2 é feita uma breve caracterização da Administração Local em Portugal e comenta-se o grau de descentralização actualmente existente; - na secção 3 analisa-se a evolução recente das finanças locais; - na secção 4 salientam-se as limitações do sistema e referem-se os aspectos que devem ser objecto de reforma no domínio das fontes de financiamento das autarquias locaisinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A reforma das finanças locais

A introdução da reforma iniciada em 1979 aumentou o grau de descentralização da Administração Pública, permitindo as autarquias, quer um maior volume de recursos financeiros, quer um maior poder discricionário na sua utilização. Porém, o actual sistema de finanças locais ainda apresenta limitações. Este artigo apresenta sugestões para a reforma das finanças locais. Embora a discussão em tomo da reforma incida sobretudo nas fontes de financiamento da Administração Local e na aplicação da lei das Finanças Locais, pensamos que a reforma deve abranger também alterações no modelo de gestão autárquico. Com efeito, o facto de estarem vocacionadas para a provisão pública, não impede que as autarquias enveredem por técnicas de gestão de natureza empresarial conducentes ao aumento da eficiência e que apelam para a ampla participação dos seus munícipes. Pelo contrario, o aumento da produtividade e da eficiência que dai advierem trarão certamente benefícios para as populações, que são também contribuintes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

How to implement a strategy (a practical guide for the little Rabitt)

Several articles have recently reported a growing disenchantement with strategic planing. More and more corporations that planing has failed to provide its expected benefits. This disenchantment with strategic can be attributed primarily to the problems corporations face when it comes to implementation. This article proposes a step by step procedure to the implementation of strategy.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

How to complete and comunicate in nature industrial products

This article addresses the subject of how manufacturers of mature industrial products conpete among themselves and how they communicate with customers. Data collected.in this research lends credibility to the hypothesis that within mature industrial products there are profound differences regarding how firms compete (based on cost, quality or delivery) and which variables firms use to promote their products (advertising, sales forceI etc). The survey data suggests that it is possible to predict which type of competition and promotion will dominate, based on two contextual characteristics faced by the firms: The risk of product malfunction and the risk of product availability. The study concludes by advancing suggestions for future research and by suggesting some implications for managers. The implications respect which areas of the firms should managers FOCUS on. That is, which areas of firms should receive most of managers attention, ' firms budget and people.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The importance of key success factors for the marketing of nature industrial products

Everything is important: but some things are more important than others This paper reports the implications of interest to industrial marketing managers of and empirical research project concerning the key success factors of mature industrial products. Four main conclusions can be drawn from the survey data: 1) There are critical success variables is the mature industrial context; 2) The critical success variables change from industrial product to product; 3) Homogeneity is grater in unit technology than in products using mass or process technology; and 4) The importance of the several competition modes (quality, cost, delivery) change within the mature industrial context. The paper concludes by extracting implications useful for industrial marketing managers .info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A model of the sources of benefits in strategy

This paper presents a model which interprets organizacional behavior in terms of five-sources of strategic benefits: environment; attractiveness (profits, sales, growth); size; time; diversity; and relevant strengths. These five sources of strategic benefit are used by organizations in order to pursue both effectiveness and efficiency. The utility of the model presented in this article lies in its capacity to interpret organizational phenomeno such as mergers, joint ventures and licensing and in its ability to put different types of organizational behavior into perspective, including specialization, opportunity, innovation and synergy. Based on the model it is also possible to see where some major opportunIties for tuture research lie.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

How to suceed in industrial marketing management

The study focused on mature industrial products because it was hoped that by limiting the study’s domain to a specific type of product, it would be possible to asses whether different requirements for success could be identified, even within apparently similar product, contexts. Second,mature industrial products are of great importance both in terms of' their relative numbers and in terms of their contribution and value in the American Economy (Thorelly and Burnett. [25].info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Some empirical evidence on a contingency theory of success factors

Key success factors are important concepts in the strategy area. Several authors have suggested the propositions that different contexts possess different key success factors; and that the more similar two contexts are, the more similar their key success factors will be. To test these two hypotheses (within the domain of mature industrial products) through a large survey conducted in the United States, is the objective of the article. The conclusion reached by the study is that, although a few exception exist, in overall, the empirical evidence supports the study's hypotheses: success factors differ from context to context and they become increasingly different as the contexts are further apart in their make-up. There follows the implication for managers, that a firm wishing to extend its product line should enter preferably into related areas so that the new key success factors will be similar to the old ones. Thus a firm can keep on relying on the same old strengths to match the key success factors. Finally, it is important to note that the methodology used in this research can be applied to studies on other types of products, such as non-mature industrial products, consumer goods and services. The replicability of the methodology constitutes an invitation for follow-up research.