I recently read an article about the rush of Korean banks to Dubai. It was quite interesting because I’ve never heard of our national banks – Woori, Shinhan, and such - operating in other countries. And, I’ve never thought of Dubai as the financial center of the Islamic world, and of course, I’ve never thought that our national banks would rush to go there. This situation really gave me a desire to study about it.
The reason why Korean commercial banks are rushing to move into the Dubai International Financial Center in the Middle East is because DIFC has emerged as a financial center of the Islamic world, with oil dollars pumping into the area in the wake of skyrocketing oil prices. Korea Exchange Bank recently filed an application with the Dubai financial authorities to open shop in Dubai. Woori Bank also plans to open an office in Dubai to seek to meet demand in Dubai in conjunction with the operation of its Bahrain branch. Shinhan Bank is also set to submit an application this week to win approval to open its Dubai branch. These movements of our national banks are very impressive because they’re trying to take the opportunities that exist, by actually doing something to take it. In addition, this situation is also an opportunity for Dubai, too.
There are some reasons why the movement of Korean banks to Dubai is an opportunity for both them. First, banks need money to operate. No matter what they do to make lots of profits, they certainly need money to do something. Even though Korean national banks are having enough money to operate, it would be a good chance for them if they can make lots of money in Dubai to be deposited in the accounts that they are taking care of. They would have to leave Korea and open offices in Dubai, which is something not so easy. But then, why not? Why wouldn’t they leave Korea if they can get lots of money to take care of in Dubai? Second, lots of people or organizations in DIFC can also regard this situation as a chance to increase their money. Even though they already have enough money to spend in their entire lives, however, they will lose the value of their money if they don’t put it into bank accounts due to inflation. And concerning this, as far as I’m concerned, Korean banks are somewhat the best dealing with customers’ money. Therefore, this can be a good opportunity for DIFC’s riches.
The rush of Korean banks to Dubai reminded me of a simple truth. As we all know, “Business is all about money.” I really don’t think there are any good reasons to persuade me that business is something which is beyond earning money. There may be some other factors that are important. However, no one can deny that business is to make money, and to make our lives more wealthy.
Reference : http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSOD&mid=sec&sid1=108&oid=014&aid=0001964761
20700273 – Entry 11
Monday, May 19, 2008
Korean banks rushing to Dubai
Friday, May 16, 2008
Facebook gets its new face
This decision was due to its over-crowded users posting millions of profiles, and due to its quite disorganized design, users couldn't get the information a hundred percent clearly. Therefore, the new design's main concept is targeting simplification. All the functions of the current Facebook - personal information, photos, the news, and comments will probably have different tabs or pages respectively, making users to clearly define their information.
Facebook has been criticized for being more like MySpace lately for having few ads and banners on the web and creating the messy kind of look because Facebook had been well known for its neat and well organized interface. That's why the new design team had set up to solve this problem. - "differentiation"
This project was based on a part of the $20 million investment from Microsoft last October. Due to its rapid growing - U.S. membership has jumped 71% since last March - the new design must keep up with potential customers as well.
I think the main concern for this dramatic change is this: Now, the designers have to listen to the users, not the users who have to follow what the designers have already made. Because of its powerful force of users, Facebook must listen to their users carefully and adopt what they really looking for as much as possible. Also, redesigning does not guarantee that it's being differentiated from other similar service providers. When the firm creates a new feature or function, it should be seriously considered the "what if" factors as well. In that way, I believe they can create the "win-win" situation for both parties. Sometimes people do not need too many things. They just want to see and do what they really need to do; not the side dishes you think they would also like to enjoy.
Vella, Mett. "Facebook's Big Facelift" Business Week. May 14, 2008.
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/may2008/id20080514_205389.htm?chan=innovation_innovation+%2B+design_top+stories
20601008 - 10th Entry
Rivals LG, Samsung Cut Cross-Purchase Deal
Samsung and LG is long-time rivals in electronics industry. However, they recently have agreed on a cross-purchasing deal to aim in surviving the fierce competition in the global market for flat TV screens and panels. Lee Sang-wan, chief of Samsung Electronics mentioned that they will supply their 52-inch liquid crystal display (LCD) panel to LG Electronics from July. He said “As the supply and demand imbalance will be eased, thanks to the operation of the second phase of the eighth-generation line."
60,000 sheets of production capacity from the line is expected per month. Previously, Samsung Electronics has been refusing calls by LG Electronics to provide larger-sized panels making a tight supply in the industry. But as market situation is getting rough, Samsung will decide by July in purchasing 37-inch panels from LG Display. Although panel pricing and the technology gap is still remained as some technical matters experts are looking forward of the decision. If it goes well, as experts hoped, the Korean TV manufacturers will be in a advantageous position to compete their Taiwanese rivals.
Deciding Cross-purchasing has long been disputes but the bilateral tie-up will help Korean firms to widen the market gap with their rivals in Taiwan and Japan. According to industry estimates, Samsung buys a ambined 60% of its 32-,37-,40-,46 and 52 inch LCD panels from Taiwan-based suppliers while LG Electronics buys a combined 34% 32-,37-,42-,27 and 52-inch panels. Because the global flat TV demand is estimated 100 million this year, the Korean and their Japanese rivals (Sony, Sharp) have been competing mainly in U.S and European markets even thought there are concerns over profitability by aggressive price- cuts. The Taiwanese panel suppliers have been enjoying the increasing orders from LG and Samsung because they both wanted more market share in the global market. Samsung have also engaged in specific discussion with LG Electronics and LG Display to cross-buying unfinished LCD panels or cells and a decision will be made in the coming months.
In my opinion, I think cross-purchasing deal for Samsung and LG would benefit our domestic firm’s profitability and will be a good step to weaken their rivals from other nations. Before Samsung & LG had bought panels from Taiwanese to compete each other it only benefited Taiwanese firms to grow and rise to a position where they are able to compete with conglomerates of Korea. Because competing fiercely with their own nation’s firm will only give advantage to firms in other nations. I’m positive of the way Samsung & LG are cooperating to become the world’s greatest provider of LCD market.
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/biz_main.asp?CategoryCode=123
20620042 entry # 10
HP's Innovation in experimenting area
I read an article about HP's innovation in experimenting area. Generally, many corporations are progressing many research projects by inputing a lot of money. But most of the research projects don't have enough consequences. HP's new director of research labs, Prith Banerjee, considered these blind spots and cutted the scale of research projects. Originally, there are $150 million budget and 150 research projects, and he cutted the scale to 20 and maintain the budget. According to his interview, he considered the effectiveness of research projects. Sometimes the scientists don't consider the consiquence and just use the money in their research. Also, they didn't approve the interference of management.
The new director now engaged both research team and management. Through these changes, he expect that the techniques of HP will inprove rapidly. But perhaps he has to overcome many obstacles. At first, scientists don't like any inference in their experiments and often react negatively. Also, headquaters don't know much about research project. Secondly, cutting of research projects may result in the absence of core technology in the future. Although many of research projects spend huge money and the effectiveness is too low, there can be many possibilities. But I agree on the viewpoints of HP's new director.
In Korea, companies have high technologies. And some companies like Samsung or LG lead the global market.
But there are many sunk costs in research programs. Korean companies traditionally think little of engineering students. So, students hesitate to go engineering colleges and it can be great risks to korean technology. For example, Samsung considers engineering students as bluecollars and pay very little money to them. There are no countries in the world that despise these engineering students. I think it makes great distance between scientists and management in Korea. Most of managers don't have engineering skills at all and they just supervise performance of labs. Tf we want to be a advanced country, we have to throw away these concepts. And management should have special skills in engineering. I think it can be solved by enducating students both engineering and management. It's time to change our stereotypes and advance our viewpoints to the world.
Author: Aaron Ricadela
Title: HP Labs' Latest Experiment: Itself
Date: April 17, 2008, 5:00PM EST
Page: 1
reference:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_17/b4081072888929.htm?chan=innovation_innovation+%2B+design_innovation+strategy
entry #10 20700067
Monday, May 12, 2008
Naver Under Siege in Antitrust Debate
This first action by the FTC to rule over NHN for its monopolistic operation with Naver might facilitate further investigation of the government agencies to carefully analysis NHN's business progress until now. Having a huge amount of fine to pay and the government's observation from now on, it is possible that what used to be a creative decision making process might be slowed down after all.
Many other competitors have envied the success of Naver and put NHN on a lot of criticisms for having such a huge share in the Internet industry. Consequently, for many Koreans, when they open up the web browser, the first web page to appear is most likely Naver. The portal provides useful information including basic news to weather forecast, links to articles and blogs, and most importantly, a huge amount of knowledge database called "Ji-sik-in." One of the major criticisms NHN has been receiving is that they do not open up their datebase of Naver to other search engines unlike Google or Yahoo.
Of course, the company eagerly took an action insisting they will bring this to the court for the unfair charge against them. According to the article, NHN stated that since the Internet does not have any kind of barriers to entry, their success on Naver cannot be a monopolistic action.
In my opinion, having this kind of regulation over Naver is just a part of other competitors' jealous lobby to the goverment regulation because Naver is surely one of the best web sources where the information it provides is mostly accurate and productive. From basic new search to its blogs, photos and more, people are benefiting from the portal every day. Also, unlike other portal service providers, Naver is user-friendly, which means it's easy to use and not messy. I hope that instead of blaming NHN for its so called "monopolistic" behavior, other competitors would do the best work they could to compete fairly and equally with Naver.
20620042 entry # 9
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Huge Internet Portals
I read a news article reporting the change of market possession rate among huge internet portal sites. Since Naver of NHN has been the No.1 competitor for many years and it doesn’t seem to lose its top position, lots of portal sites have struggled to take the second place. However, despite the positions in the market, lots of portal sites have grown to become extremely huge and their role in the internet service is humongous. We cannot think of ourselves using internet without these portals, and therefore, we should really study about portal sites to use them effectively and to recognize the business affects of huge portals.
The reason why portal sites have become so popular is because they are the hubs of internet affairs. For example in Korea, almost every people using internet nearly automatically visit Naver/Cyworld/Daum homepage. They can communicate with others, read the latest news articles, and they can express their thoughts in these portal sites. Furthermore, people can get almost any information about what they do not know from portal sites’ searching function. In America, when people recognize that they have something they do now know while having a conversation, they simply say “Google it.” For all these reasons, we cannot think of not using portal sites while doing internet affairs. This is why portals have become so popular and huge.
The fact that some successful portal sites have become so popular and tens of millions of people are visiting these sites day by day has brought some other aspect. Lots of profit-oriented organizations which are trying to find the best way to advertise their products (i.e. movies, dramas, songs, clothes, shoes, etc.) have realized that putting commercial video clips or pictures on portal sites is amazingly effective. It’s quite obvious because if a picture was held like 10 minutes on portal front page, humongous number of people would have a look at it. And also, the effectiveness of putting commercials on portal sites has already been proved by its result. Many companies have recognized that it’s worth paying lots of advertisement fees to portal sites.
Portals are also making lots of money from individual users. There are lots of contents that attract millions of individual users to actually pay for achieving those contents (i.e. the acorn system of Cyworld). This business is really effective and well-going, and it is a good profit source to many portals.
Like this, we are living in a digital age in which huge portals have become so popular and important. Plus, we are experiencing the business aspect growth of several portals. In this situation, there are some advices to be recommended. For companies, it is recommended that they keep on using the portals as a way to advertise their products. And for individuals, it is recommended that they use portals just as they have been using it - communicate with others, search for information and such. In addition, why don’t some brilliant people create own portals? If someone who is really smart and confident can make such kind of portals, he/she can definitely make lots of money. In short, internet portals are opportunities.
Reference : http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=105&oid=076&aid=0000089609
20700273 – Entry 10
Friday, May 9, 2008
Nokia And Its Users
March of 2007, Nokia introduced an application for their cellphones called Sports Tracker to open public which was designed to help some sports lovers such as runners, hikers, cyclists to use the global positioning capabilities that are included in some Nokia models. Researchers and developers of the application haven't expected that it would be used by so many people; ever since they posted the application on the web, more than a million users have downloaded the software.
Quite interesting fact is that people have used the appliation for the purposes which the developers haven't expected such as paragliding, hot-air ballooning, and motorcycle riding. Also, what is more important is that people who used the program have given them a lot of feedbacks to Nokia so they could improve the function of it and then release that again to the public. The current application allows "... to create online groups where users can share favorite routes and even photos they took along the way" (BusinessWeek).
For the company, Nokia, having a keen relationship with their customers is a great business strategy since they could react to what the public wants or what they want to be fixed on Nokia's products. Not only it would save the money and time, but it would also have a great switching costs for the customers since they are having a good customer services with the feedback they are looking for. Using Nokia's Beta Lab Web site, which they post new application of user interface for the cellphones, allows Nokia users to download the application, try it, and then give some advices to the firm instantly. This process helps Nokia to meet high-tech users' rapid changing tastes.
I have never used Nokia cellphone but when I work at the cellphone retailer store, Nokia was one of the most popular cellphone brands. Not only they have an affordable price, but the functions of each device are very easy to use and user friendly with less defects. Having a strong brand value not only helps firm to sustain its position in the market, but I think it would also affect the country where Nokia comes from - Finland. I hope Samsung, LG, or other newly established international organizations in Korea to be like Nokia so they could improve the image of the whole county.
Reference;
20601008 - 9th Entry