Business 600 - Financing

Single minded focus can be detrlimental to Financial Evaluation. There are times where an industry or a financial instrument is Overvallued. Therefore, like in the Wall Street, Being able to detect a bubble and keep it from bursting is extemelry vital to our economy. I remember the .com era where the industry is blooming in an extremely fast past. When an overexpansion occurs, it is very likely that the field is growing at a rate more than it needs to be and employees are being hired more than the resource required. The result? Later on, this overhiring at the beginning of the boom and the over abundance of opening new comopanies will eventually create a supply or service that is more than the economy demands. Hence, several business of the field will shut down and those employees will lose their jogs. When this happens, these former workers will need to be trained to work in different fields and thus the economy will get a massive dose of layoffs which brings down our economy, Hence bursting the bubble. Several Types of Entities exist for individuals who would like to start a business for themselves. Corporation , partnerships, and proprietorships are all examples of different business entities. In turms of investment, Rate of Return is correlated with the risk involed of losing your initial investment. The Higher the risk, the higher the return. Being able to detect good investment and stay away from risky investment is also an important topic in finance. To detect a good investment is a difficult task since the nature of an investment instrument is volatile. An MBA is often hired during a merger or acquisitoin to help diversify the company, improve sales and earnings, and purchase an undervalued company.

Kevin's Most Anticipated games of 2010

Hi, Guys,
Here are some of the most anticipated video games of mine for 2010:
Top: Castlevania Lords of Shadow: You take the place of a vampire killer, who travels to Dracula's Castle to destroy the great vampire himself. The path is blocks by mythical beasts, monsters, and ghosts.

Middle: Lost Planet 2: A game where you are a space pirate who stumbled into a planet full of new life forms. Your mission is to defeat the monsters and make that planet habitable to humans. Also supports online Multiplayer.

Bottom: SUPER MARIO GALAXY 2: My favorite videogame character since child hood, Mario is on his way to save the Princess again??

Business 600 - Quantitative Analysis - Additional Tools

High and Low Method:
You take the highest and Lowest of 2 points in a set of data and divide it by its denominators. The denominators are determined by the relevance to their numerators.

http://www.allbusiness.com/glossaries/high-low-method/4948480-1.html

Scatter Graph Method:
You simply draw a dot for each data you collected from a data group and draw a line by visualizing where the trend is.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.statcan.gc.ca/kits-trousses/images/scatterGraph.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.statcan.gc.ca/kits-trousses/univer7-eng.htm&usg=__yrP5NGcqIE1jSqES21DS2zRch3I=&h=488&w=513&sz=177&hl=en&start=2&sig2=2Md9netyg2UHooVIA1cG_w&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=5oZD435P5jQ8HM:&tbnh=125&tbnw=131&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dscatter%2Bgraph%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DX%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=V7PaS-CZFpzGswOKt7Bu

Business 600 - Quantitative Analysis

Decision Tree Analysis:
1. Determine all possible alternatives and risks associated with situation
2. Calculate the monetary consequences of each alternatives
3. Determine uncertainty associated with alternative
4. Combine the first three steps into a tree diagram
5. Determine the best alternative and non monetary aspects of problem
Must be able to determine Sunk Cost- Cost that has no affect on decision.
Must Determine Expected Money Value by multiplying dollar vale by probability to determine mutually exclusive alternatives.

Cash Flow Analysis:
1. Define the value of investment
2. Calculate the magnitude of the benefits
3. Determine the timing of the benefits
4. Quantify the uncertainty of benefits
5. Do the benefits justify the wait?
Depreciation and financing costs are not relevant in cash flow analysis.

Net Present Value:
We use the Table to determine how much a dollar is worth in the future with interest or how much a dollar is worth in the past.

Probability Theory:
Calculating the EMV.
Normal Curve
Cumulative Distribution Functions


Regression Analysis and Forecasting:
Y axis is the Fixed Cost.
X is independent variable, or # of units produced
The Slope is the Contribution Margin Per Unit
We use that graph to determine the profitability of the plant.
The R^2 tells us the percentage of data of the regression equation is correct. The Higher the R^2, the more we can rely on our data.

Business 600 - Self Evaluation with VCM Model

Evaluated Subject: Kevin Yuan
Field of Study: Accounting
Criteria: Vision, Commitment, and Management Skills

Performing Self-Analysis Simulation:

Vision: Test subject has several ideals and could be too creative at times. Refinement of ideas is mandatory. Test subject also need to stay focused to one common goal. Overall rating in this criteria: 6/10

Commitment: Test subject is willing to put in long long work hours for his job. However, still need to stay focused at times to avoid being side tracked. Overall rating in this criteria: 7/10

management Skills: Test subject has not yet developed any management skills nor have any experience. Serious business training is required. Also, test subject is proved to be a push over at times. Rating: 4/10

Overall VCM Model Score: 57%, Fail. Test subject still has a lot to learn before becoming a leader.

Business 600 - Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior deals with how a person acts in the work place.
The 3 Step technique to solve organizational problems are:
1. Problem Definition:
A manager must find out the gap where miss-communication begins and how many party is involved. We must define if the problem exists in a personal level or an organization level. We also need to figure out the cause and source of the problems.
2. Analysis:
MBA must then link the problem to its causes and ways to resolve the problem.
3. Action Planning:
Where a manager actually implements the solution for the problem and it can be defined in the following categories:
a. Set specific goals.
b. Define activities
c. Set a timetable for action
d. Forecast outcomes, develop contingencies.
e. Formulate a detailed plan of action
f. Implement, supervise, execute, and evaluate based on goals in step one.

Each MBA has a value system comprised of Expectations, Beliefs, and Values. These 3 factors will affect the way each MBA manages his organization. An MBA managing an accounting firm may put his value on ethics and integrity while a MBA managing a designing studio may emphasize on creativity. Either way, if an organization all have congruency among the goals they are sharing, this organization is more likely to succeed.

Expectancy theory of Motivation deals with how management captures the essence that their employees is sought after. In general, motivated employee is correlated with expectation performance and ultimately, the value of reward will be high. In general, each individual, as David Mcclelland puts it, has a need for achievement, power and affiliation. However, each manager must recognize and feed the need of their employees to obtain maximum output from each employee.

MBA Personality Traits:
Each MBA should possess the traits of Leadership (Comprised of Vision, commitment and Management Skills), and Creativity

It is also very vital for an MBA to deal with their boss. One must understand their boss and themselves in order to find a balance to work in a style that will fit both individuals.

Since the MBA holds key responsibility in an organization, every word they say or every action they take may result in dire consequences. Therefore, it is important that they think before they act.

Business 600 - Accounting Reflection

Accounting:

The Basic equation of Accounting is Asset = Liability + Owner's Equity. Asset's nature account Debit while Liability/Owner's Equity's Natural Account is Credit. Simply put, Debit simply means Left and Credit simply means right. Whenever there is a Debit transaction, there must be a credit transaction one one other accounts. There are different types of accounting, Financial and managerial. Financial accounting focuses on compliance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and are required to answer to external auditors. Managerial Accounting, on the other hand, does not follow the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and instead, it focuses on Operations, and forecasts of a firm in general, and they only have to answer to internal auditors. Accounting is important because it is not only provide an objective review of a company's performance its external users (E.g. investors), it is also used by managers to determine how should they improve their company. Accounting records, however, can also be misstated intentionally or intentionally which can significantly impair an external user or management's judgement of a company. Enron Corp., is an example of using manipulated number or creative accounting methods to cover up liabilities. Hence, Auditing is extremely important.

Business 600 - Business Ethics Reflection

Hello,

On the subject of Business ethics, the capitalists and socialists are always finding a balance between generating the maximum revenue and making our society a better place . One general example of this conflict of interest is pollution by car. During the early 90s when gasoline is cheap, Several US automakers produced huge quantities of Sport Utility Vehicles which not only consumes a lot of gasolin but also has an extremely high emission rate. Although these cars were hot sellers due to their size and cargo space, the huge amount of CO2 emission produced by these cars will pollute our air way more than those of the smaller and more efficient cars. U.S. automakers are faced with the dellima of spending time and money into developing more high energy efficient and low emmission generating vehiacles or just keep producing those pollution monsters. However by doing so, they will need to put a lot more cost into Research and Development department which will then decrease their profit. Is the action taken by the U.S. Automakers unethical? From the book, by the principle of Role relativism, the automaker's role is to create an automobile that will improve the convenience for its customers. However, does this conflicts with their social role, which as members of the community they should provide cars that is cleaner for the environment? How about the Cultural Relativism? Does other countries have the right to judge our American style of living? Later on we find out that if the US automakers could invest more time and money in making their engines more efficient and cleaner, they may have a chance of averting themselves from the financial crisis they faced in 2000s. In several cases, the determination of an "ethical" decision may be obscure. However, as time passes by and the consequences starts to unravel, the ethical decision will then become apparent, and hopefully it still will not be too late for us to steer back to the correct course of action. I honestly believe, ethics and profits will ultimately go hand in hand. Being able to determine which is an ethical decision and be able to follow through will ultimately result in a long term gain for everyone. On the contrary, a company should never lose their integrity for a short term gain, and this statement applies to all businesses.

Are Hybrid Cars truly good for environment?

Hello, Everyone,

Since Toyota and several other car companies are having huge recalls, a thought just came to me. Are Hybrid Cars truly good for the environment? Recently I've been thinking that the fight against CO2 emission has been utilized by several car companies as a mere marketing tool. I honestly believe that automakers has the capability of making a traditional gas only car that can give the same power output and fuel efficiency as a current hybrid vehicle. Yet, due to the recent hype about global warming, they would put a electric engine and market it as "environmentally friendly" vehicle while it may not be as environmentally sound as its image projects. I m not sure how hybrid batteries are made but if we think about it, just our regular alkaline batteries and car batteries are extremely detrimental to our environmental and is extremely difficult to recycle, they cannot be incinnerated or decomposed since the poisonous heavy metal will eventually leak into the soil and our water. I read the figure from Wikipedia and that just Toyota alone had sold about 350k Priuses world wide, that is 350K batteries each in the size of a cardboard box that will eventually have to be recycled or got rid of in the next 10 or 20 years. I honestly think, although hybrid may alleviate our co2 emission a little, but yet the technology could be a double edged sword that may lead into a huge environmental crisis in the future.

---maybe we should get back to horse riding--- like the good old days....JK

Please let me know your thoughts. Thank you.

Anto News

Hello, Guys,
Some interesting news happens in the auto industry lately that I would love to share with you all. This weird yet stunning looking car is called KTM-Cross Bow. Here are its Specs:

Manufacturer: KTM (an Austrian motorcycle company)
Engine: 240 HP Audi TT 2.0 Turbo
Transmission: Volkswagen 6 speed manual gear box
Cost: around 50K Euro (the conversion rate right now is about $1.81 to 1 Euro)
Since this car is so light in weight, it goes as fast as an entry level Ferrari for the fraction of the price!!

Pretty cool, eh, the part of the car I love the most is that you would best drive it with helmet on.

Business 600 - My Study Schedule

Monday 1.5 Hour 800-930P
Tuesday 1.5 Hour 800-930P
Wednesday 2.0 Hour 800-1000P
Thursday 1.0 Hour 800-900P

Business 600 - My Business Vision

All basketball players, whether professional or recreational, are on an incessant search for indoor basketball courts. My business plan is to one day own and run a community based indoor basketball stadium for everyone with various skill levels to play on their leisure. The business will be a family run small business with no more than 5 part time/temp employees. Net profit for the owner is expected to range from $50,000 to $100,000 annually after all expenses are paid. The stadium is not intended to generate massive revenue its owner. The Business is intended to provide a place for everyone in the community who is interested in playing basketball to enjoy the sport in high-quality basketball courts - especially during the raining season .

My initial business plan will be based on the following criteria:

Capacity:
My initial Plan is to run the stadium with 5 to 10 NBA regulation sized Basketball Courts. The number of basketball courts will vary depending on the cost for maintenance, utility, property rental/mortgage, Equipment, insurance and Profit.

Hours of Operation:
initially, I plan to open my Courts from 5am to 12am on weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 8am to 9pm. Since my primary market will be the working professionals and Middle School to College Students, this hours is made to fit their schedule after school or work. I also Plan to hold basketball tournaments/Camps during weekends and holidays.

Methods of Income:
methods of Income will be based on monthly membership fee and flat fee per hour per person for Walk-In players. A huge part of income will also come from League Tournament packages and basketball Camps for different age groups.

Additional Methods of Income:
Selling Basketball related goods to members. Example, Shoes, Jerseys. In the future, I may be able to get endorsements from retailers.

Marketing Targets:
Nearby Business who may hold Company-wide employee basketball event. Recreational Basketball Players, Students, Professional Basketball Players.

Marketing Strategy:
Hand out fliers within community. Hold Free events for grand opening to have people try out our facility. Door to door sales and cold calling for larger business.

Stadium Structure:
The setup of the Courts will be loosely based on 4 levels of basketball Skill level on regular business hours:
1: Warm up Court: for People that just wants to shoot around
2: Noobie Court - for everyone with low or no experience in basketball
3: Its just a game - for recreational basketball players with beginning to intermediate skill level to run a senmi-organized game.
4: Who's got Next?: for recreational Basketball players with Advanced skill level to run a semi-organized game

Special Events:
The special events are to be held on Weekends or weekdays by special demand. I have listed 3 special event catagories in mind
1: We are the Champion: Special tournament Events with hired referees
2: Training Day: Basketball Camps with hired coach
3: Tricks are for Kids: Special Events for just kids and parents

Court rules:
After payment, each individual will be based on a first come first serve system. Each player will have to "sign up" on the wait list correspond to the court they desire to play on.
For "It's Just a game" and "He got Game" courts, each court will start a pick- up basketball game as soon as 10 players have been reached. A game will either be 11 points by one point per basket or 13 points by 1or 2 points per basket. After a game, the team that lost will need to sign up on the wait list again if they wish to play another game. Winner will be able to stay on the court until they lose. If there is only one person waiting for next game, he can simply pick up 4 players from the team that just lost. If friends would like to come in in group of 5 as a team, all 5 will sign in as an individual. If one player is already on the waitlist before the team, the team of 5 can either choose to break up and allow that individual to join their group or they can wait one more game and play with their original team.
For "Noobie Court", instead of a full-court with semi-organized game, each courts will be broken to 2 half courts. player can engage in their own style of playing with no rules and wait lists.
For "Warm up" Court, there will be no wait list since anyone can just go and shoot around.

Job Positions:
Cashier: Collect Money/verify membership status
Manager: Resolve customer issues on the court/answer questions
Custodian: Cleaning the Stadium
Contractors: Referee and coaches for special events


Customer Service:
A Comment Box will be placed in the stadium for customer feed backs. The feed back will be personally read by me, the owner!! A member will also receive E-mail upon oncoming events in the stadium.

Business 600 - MY First Day

Exciting and comforting are the 2 words that best summarize my first experience at CALMAT this past Saturday. It has been my pleasure to meet everyone with different background and interest in that class.

I have to admit, I was a bit nervous before I stepped into the class room since I thought the course would overload us with intense materials. Professor Tao and Professor Blood, however, made the class extremely relaxing and interactive. I have yet to encounter a learning environment which I enjoyed as much as this class before. To me, this class was more similar to a productive business meeting.

Just to show that I was not taking a nap during the class, I was especially intrigued when Professor Blood talked about "Virtualization". In the modern Business world today, information technology, along with many other MBA related topics, is extremely important since efficiency generated by computerization is a big step forward in the field of business management.

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and background with me during our class and I look forward to work with all of you in our upcoming meetings.

Kevin Yuan

Business 600 - Marketing Plan

I plan to use the following Marketing Strategies for my Basketball Gym:
My General Targeted customers: Students/Recreational Basketball Players/Parents and Kids

1. Word of the mouth: Tell people about my new basketball Gym when I play basketball at the nearby park.

2. Give Out Fliers: Send Fliers to School Bulletins, Colleges, Nearby Businesses, Parks, and buy mailing list from post offices and send my fliers to surrounding neighborhood and cities.

3. Cold Calling: To HR Managers of nearby business to see if they wold like to hold a company sport event at my gym.

4. Internet: Use Face book and Crag's list Ads.

5. Collaboration with similer Businesses: Speak with Businesses such as Fitness 19, 24 hour business,or Gold's Gym to see if they can help me hold an advertising campain or customer referrals, in return, I will give them a % incentive.

6. Special Promotions: Hold a grand opening promotion where everyone can play a week for free and post it on a Billboard.

Business 600 - BMW Vs. Lexus Advertising Campaign

BMW and Lexus are both car industries and they often engage in similar marketing strategies. For example, both company uses Newspaper Ads, Television, Websites for their marketing campaign. However, although they use similar advertising methods, we can find distinct difference in their marketing contents as each targets different customer groups.

For Lexus, We can see their TV Ads has a strong emphasis on the following:
1. Luxury (Build quality inside and out of the car)
2. Reliability (Maintenance required and chance of car having problems)
3. Fuel Efficiency (is the car a gas guzzler or a environmental savior)
4. Ride Quality (Comfort and quietness in the cabin, entertainment system)
From the overall contents of the commercial, we can assume that Lexus is targeting individuals who has an above average stands of living, who values cabin comfort and quietness over a strong engine, who will prefer a car with less technical problems over a car that is fun to drive. From the above assumptions, we can presume the Lexus is targeting a well-refined middle aged professoinals who perceives their car as a reliable daily commuter.

For BMW, their marketing campain's main focus is based on the following:
1. Drivability (Associated with Driving Feel, the sportiness of the car)
2. Performance (How fast the car turns a corner, 0-60 time)
3. Appearance/Sex Appeal (BMW is a sexy car)
4. Brand Name (BMW M-Series = Ultimate Driving Machine)

From the contents of BMW's TV Ads, we can assume that BMW focused their marketing target to be driving enthusiasts and young professionals where reliability and comfort may not be their most important concern regarding buying a car as compared to overall performance and the appearance of the car.

We may get the impression where Lexus spends their technology in making the car comfortable and elegant, BMW focuses their technology on how to make the car more powerful, more aerodynamic, and ultimately, more fun to drive. Also, Over the years, BMW has also established their reputation as one of the best driver's car. the M-series from BMW is a brand name that several other car manufacturers still do not have. Where BMW has set a benchmark in performance, Lexus has set one for its luxury and reliability. By targeting different customer base, they will always remain competitive in the automobile industry.