थे beginning

2007-11-15T22:23:00.000-08:00

Well, the objective is given in Management Class - IT section. I have not been active researcher in Operations Management (other than on areas of business processes), and I strongly feel that one can't be a real good teacher without active ongoing research in relevant area. Good thing is, and as I say it: If all the students understand importance of Business Processes and can map versions of it with their pros-and-cons; much of the objective of the course is done.
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For QT: .
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US-China Solar Trade Dispute May See India Joining With Probe.
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China’s 10-Year Ascent to Trading Powerhouse & Insight: Ten years on, American business rethinks China dreams.
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Shares Dive as Olympus Scrambles for Answers.
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Sony's Existential Crisis.
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Reinventing Post Offices in a Digital World.
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Penalized in China, Wal-Mart reopens Chongqing stores.
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Air India CAG report (Introduction) & other sources
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Transport and Communications of Planning Commission
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Apple Cuts IPad Supply Chain Orders: JPMorgan
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Boeing to deliver first 787 Dreamliner
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False Take-Down Notice Hits Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and Others
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China Benefits as U.S. Solar Industry Withers with Electricity generation
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Business Studies Become Environmentally Friendly
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Where is Angela Merkel? Some Germans ask in crisis
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Falcon hypersonic vehicle test flight fails & DARPA update
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U.S. official: Quality of Chinese products greatly improved
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Sony Executive Deputy President: Turning Around TV Business Top Priority: Particularly liked: 'TVs are essential to the company's strategy to offer products for the "four screens" on which people watch content--smartphones, tablet computers, personal computers and televisions.'
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Getting Bin Laden
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BMW Profit Rises 66% on Demand for X3, 5-Series
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Infographic: How China's Clean Tech Industry Crushes The U.S.
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Barack Obama unveils 'historic' agreement on fuel economy standards
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Foxconn to Build Army of Robots
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View: Industrial Policy Is Just Corporate Welfare
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Now begins the era of the Soyuz
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Android Still Dominates Phones, But What About the Rest of Mobile?
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Treating the Cause, Not the Illness
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First Walmart Express to open Wednesday
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Analysis: Boeing engine move is key Airbus win: on Product design, development and segmentation
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Outsourcing IT: An FT Special Report
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India's growth story to continue in IT industry, and India Telecom Industry To Touch Revenues Of Rs.3,77,683 Crore Between 2010 And 2014 & Reliance Infotel's LTE ready tablet for Rs 8,000 (keeping in mind earlier launch of Reliance phones under Mukesh Ambani, which was a mess)
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India's Actual Mobile Users 500 Mn, Lower Than Projected 810 Mn
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ID-Only Shopping Encourages Wal-Mart in India Where Retail Is Off Limits
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Why Bill Keller Stepped Down As Times Executive Editor — And How the Paper's Staffers Staged An Intervention Over His Column My tweet on it: Here every coder /journo wants to be manager /editor
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Stephen Elop's Nokia Adventure
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India's Tata puts Jaguar, Land Rover back on track
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Arab oil faces higher ‘break-even’ price
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Toyota Advisers Fault Lack of Local Control, Safety Chief for Auto Recalls: Panel members included:

'In addition to Rodney Slater (leader, & former Transportation Secretary) and Brian O’Neill (former president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety), the panel includes Norman Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp.; Patricia Goldman, a former National Transportation Safety Board vice chairman; Mary Good, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s dean of engineering and information-technology; Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management; and Sheila Widnall, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and former Secretary of the Air Force.'
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Steve Jobs: Get Rid of the Crappy Stuff
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Li & Fung Shuffles Top Ranks
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Hotel Keycard of I.M.F. Chief May Tell a Tale: Hope that the class is matured...
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HSBC Looks to Cut $3.5 Billion in Costs
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Cisco chief vows to restore "flawed" company
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Mobile tech brings big retail brands to rural India
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Would you buy a Tata Nano from the local supermarket?
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Can China compete with American manufacturing?
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Japan supply chain fears rattle world stock markets
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MONOZUKURI -- ANOTHER LOOK AT A KEY JAPANESE PRINCIPLE
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Toyota Unveils Global Vision: "Rewarded with a smile by exceeding your expectations"
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The Little Car Deconstructed
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Patent Woes Threaten Drug Firms
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Treat the Patient, Not the CT Scan
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MBAs, you can learn from Mani Mama, the master chef
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The Power of the Right Question
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Offshoring Opportunities Amid Economic Turbulence
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Tata’s Unending Quest For a Telecom Strategy
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No Takers: Is the Tata Nano Running Out of Gas?
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Volkswagen, BMW Pinched as Suppliers Struggle to Keep Up
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Wal-Mart Takes a Healthy Turn
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Tata’s big embarrassment is only a little problem, & Tata Steps Up Nano Marketing to Stem Plummeting Sales. The ads of Nano picked up from these deficiency - as it seems. Here's one more: Small wonder or big challenge?
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Copper Ore ‘Seller’s Market’ for 5 Years, Sumitomo Metal Says
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Special report: World's workshop heads to inland China
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Nordstrom Links Online Inventory to Real World.
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VW, Suzuki India Customers Wait on Parts Shortage
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Computer says no: Big banks need IT reform almost as badly as regulatory change
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Wal-Mart Radio Tags to Track Clothing
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Cutting and Pasting: A Senior Thesis by (Insert Name)
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Factory Efficiency Comes to the Hospital
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Pity the Poor C.E.O.’s
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Deep in the Heart of Texas & Student Evaluations, Part Two
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In Faulty-Computer Suit, Window to Dell Decline
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After Tough Year, Pay Cuts and Forfeited Bonuses for Top Toyota Executives
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The Runaway General
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How Do You Recall Tainted Food?
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Clogged Rail Lines Slow India’s Development
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The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: Although the books, as the title suggests, deals less with operational issues.
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The Customer Service Hall of Shame
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The Disservice Economy
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Head of Nokia’s Mobile Phone Unit Is Leaving
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Top 50 Management Gurus
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It Started More Than One Revolution
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It is Trying to Rebuild Its Image, But Can Vedanta Find its Soul?
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Software Process Improvement. Also this man in Twitter (Michael Munz) does post about such online content.
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Talk to Me. I’ll Turn Off My Phone.
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Microsoft’s Creative Destruction
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Toyota’s Slow Awakening to a Deadly Problem
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Summary-Main points from Toyota quality chief's comments & If My Car Is Being "Recalled," Why Aren't You Taking it Back?.
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Japan Ceded Top Auto Maker Title To China In 2009 - Nikkei
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'Bullwhip' Hits Firms as Growth Snaps Back
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Toyota Halts Sales over Safety Issue . As an operations faculty, I also love Toyota and its philosophy, however it must be in an open-minded way. Here's some criticism of Toyota that I came across (without knowing veracity of same). Reuters came up with Scenarios: With image under fire, Toyota looks for fix couple of days later.

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Hey Google, Anybody Home?
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On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Weird Are You? : I heard about Zappos.com earlier, but had to refresh my mery...they are leaders in selling leather products (shoes) online.
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Failing Like a Buggy Whip Maker? Better Check Your Simile : However, on a broader perspective in managing change; much of it was anyway inevitable.
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Unilever R&D Chief Seeks a Swiffer Repeat for Polman
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Can India's logistics Industry deliver a better model for transportation?
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The Toyota Way and TPS overview high quality low cost
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McKinsey report | Infra project delays may cost $200 bn.
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What’s The Best Way to Reward Sales People?
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Why Customer Service Is So Bad
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At Wal-Mart, Labeling to Reflect Green Intent
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GM Bankruptcy Seen as Tale of Best, Worst of Assets .
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Dell Plans to Sell Factories In Effort to Cut Costs.
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Toyota Plans Changes To U.S. Manufacturing Operations
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Spitzer Sex Saga Offers MBA Case Study Lessons: I wonder what's happening...
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McDonald's tries home delivery to push China sales: Interesting...in IRCK, researchers did quite a few cases on both the firms and probably on their Chinese operations too.
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Vision and Strategy: DOuble Helix Planning Strategies: Interesting as didn't apparently play with words...
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China Snowstorms Kill 24, Cause Economic Loss of $3 Billion : 'Schwartz (Head of McDonald's China operations) said the storms were causing McDonald's Corp., which has 875 restaurants in the country, ``real challenges in the whole of central China,'' particularly in Wuhan. ``Our average restaurant has 2-3 days supply of products,'' he said. ``Our supply chain manager has been working out a strategy to supply Wuhan if this lasts much longer.'' A real SCM problem...however sales would also be much less, therefore inventory to last longer.
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Microsoft Pushes Virtualization: Another new game...IT + Process together
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EBay's Whitman: An Appraisal: Well, from being rated as the most powerful lady (by Fortune few times, in different order of ranks) to retirement...I did follow it as a researcher and also because I worked with baazee, a firm eBay took over in India as an Associate Director. China operations didn't reach traction, I believe it to be true for India also (the fundamentals of markets are different in India/China than US). So Donahoe becomes the new CEO...
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Ford, Chrysler Designed New Pickups Before $3 Fuel : 'At the Detroit auto show yesterday, Ford rolled out its redesigned F-150, the best-selling vehicle in the U.S. for 31 years. Chrysler introduced its top seller, the Ram pickup. The companies were completing plans for both new models five years ago, when gasoline sold in the U.S. for an average of $1.52 a gallon. Now gasoline sells for $3.16 a gallon, contributing to a 2.5 percent drop in U.S. auto sales in 2007, the worst showing in a decade. While Ford, Chrysler and General Motors Corp. all are exhibiting fuel-efficient vehicles, they're stuck with decisions made years ago, said John Casesa, managing partner at Casesa Shapiro Group in New York. ``Automakers are struggling to adjust to a new long-term reality of higher gas prices, but they have to sell today what they can make today,'' he said.' Also interesting to note is this comment due to legal changes: '`Russian Roulette' : Also looming over the industry are mounting concerns about global warming and the first revision of U.S. fuel-economy standards in 32 years. On Dec. 19, President George W. Bush signed a law that mandates 35 miles per gallon nationwide by 2020. That's about 40 percent more than current requirements. ``Being a product planner in this environment is like playing a game of Russian roulette,'' said Bill Reinert, national manager for advanced technology at Toyota Motor Corp.'s U.S. sales unit.'
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China's BYD Aims to Sell Hybrid Cars in U.S. by 2010 : As stated in clockspeed, no doubt that we are reaching the inflection point of a new powerful emerging value chain in hybrid technologies in trillion dollar auto sector. 'China's BYD Co., the world's biggest maker of mobile-phone batteries, said it will sell hybrid cars in the U.S. as soon as 2010 as Chinese automakers aim to offset shrinking domestic profit margins by expanding in North America. ``We are the best in battery technologies, and I am sure we will be the best in the automobile industry as well, because electricity will replace gasoline,'' founder and Chairman Wang Chuanfu said in an interview at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit today.' Makes sense...and why not? When Tatas came with Nano, one of my colleague asked that it may be the first (branded) product from India, and I could not disagree, at least during post-IR era. Leave aside the zero and fine textiles (moselins), we really don't have any tangible or intangible products. Thanks to Tatas (though I again keep my stand against Singur land acquisition and getting it free, true two are different), the world now knows about one product from India. As I was thinking same about China (of whom we know so less), it shows that there are many like the BYD (or even Lenovo now, and lot many electronics like Hait?)
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Toyota Will Offer a Plug-In Hybrid by 2010 : Toyota's Prius (or even Tata's Nano on a different front or GM's Volt) all exemplify the product design part in operations management (many examples come from Apple i-Phone and iPods as well). They also showcase the clockspeed, disruptive tehnologies (for Nano, in pricing and perceptions), and how it may impact trillion-dollar auto industry in future (as we have seen in telecom industry over last decades). Effectively it means 2.7 kwh yileds 7 miles (around 4.2kms/kwh). Assuming 1 kwh in India costs Rs. 3 (average tariff), it comes to be much cheaper than gas. 'By contrast, G.M. claims that the Volt will be able to hold a charge equal to 40 miles, after a six-hour charge...The Prius starts at $21,100. ' So that's the upfront cost, not much higher than the respective class even in India (well, 20-40% more at most).

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Dell: Confounded by Costs: Siddhartha Paul (of IRCK) focused on this area, and had a few cases. This is a good article on BPR, process Management, Identifying where the problem is, and on the need of continuous restructuring in high clockspeed industries.
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And on 17th Jan'08 came the next quarterly report with improved retail sales: Dell seen back to strong growth: '"Having struggled through the past year, Dell is starting to turn around," IDC said in a statement. "The company's rapid expansion in retail also has helped boost volume and address competition from other leading players."
Dell lost the top market-share spot to Palo Alto, California-based HP in 2006 as consumers bought more laptop computers in stores, where HP had an advantage. Dell last year abandoned its 23-year-old direct-only sales model and started selling PCs at Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) in the United States and Carrefour SA (CARR.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) in Europe, among other retailers.
Dell has been expanding in retail, cutting costs and making acquisitions since founder Michael Dell returned to take the CEO position a year ago. HP and Dell appeared to feel the impact of Taiwan's Acer Inc (2353.TW: Quote, Profile, Research) aggressive expansion, including the October purchase of Gateway Inc in the United States. Its PC shipments surged 60.3 percent after the Gateway purchase. Acer held 9.6 percent of the worldwide PC market, up from 6.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006...Rival researcher Gartner said that fourth-quarter global sales rose 13.1 percent, led by HP. Gartner said that Dell had shown signs of recovery at the end of the year. '
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1. A look at the MIT's course content showed what I need to brush up. The detailed lay-out would surely be helpful again. Manufacturing Strategy as covered by Tangram tech also can give basic ideas. Clockspeed, a new concept to me, is an interesting concept (but old wine in new bottle?). Even Dell at times become its own victim in not able to further milk its unique SCM model (expected anyway). 'For Fine, industries change at different rates, or "clockspeeds," depending on differing opportunities for innovation and competition, as is the case in the animal kingdom. Changing relationships and their causes often seem more apparent, he notes, in fast-clockspeed scenarios such as the current computer industry. However, "all advantage is temporary," Fine continues, "and the faster the clockspeed, the more temporary the advantage."
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We often talk about measurement and importance of it and the right measure. Came across this one in OO Programming: 'Tom DeMarco summarizes the
essence of these sentiments by stating, "You cannot control what you cannot measure"
[DeMarco 87].'. There are various versions of it...you can not manage it...you can not improve it...however I believe this is the oldest original one.

Management Class - Operations Management

थे beginning