贵在第一黄金印象

良言一句三冬暖。人与人之间需要进行必要的沟通,以寻求理解、帮助和支持。而介绍是最常见的与他人认识、沟通、增进了解和建立联系的方式。     

企业家怎样让企业活得更长

联想是在中关村土生土长,从一家小企业成长到大的一家跨国公司。2000年后,他们决定开展风险投资业务,从2001年到2008年联想投资的风险投资金额大概有3亿多美元,投了80多家企业,每投资一家企业他们都要在一年、两年后对该企业进行复盘,研究这个投资的成功与否。用联想董事局主席柳传志在2009中关村论坛演讲中的话说,“我们对企业创新创业的能力和企业家精神是有一定发言权的”。为什么说企业家的因素特别重要呢？且听柳传志娓娓道来     

How to make experience your company's best teacher

In our personal life, experience is often the best teacher. Not so in corporate life. After a major event--a product failure, a downsizing crisis, or a merger--many companies stumble along, oblivious to the lessons of the past. Mistakes get repeated, but smart decisions do not. Most important, the old ways of thinking are never discussed, so they are still in place to spawn new mishaps. Individuals will often tell you that they understand what went wrong (or right). Yet their insights are rarely shared openly. And they are analyzed and internalized by the company even less frequently. Why? Because managers have few tools with which to capture institutional experience, disseminate its lessons, and translate them into effective action. In an effort to solve this problem, a group of social scientists, business managers, and journalists at MIT have developed and tested a tool called the learning history. It is a written narrative of a company's recent critical event, nearly all of it presented in two columns. In one column, relevant episodes are described by the people who took part in them, were affected by them, or observed them. In the other, learning historians--trained outsiders and knowledgeable insiders--identify recurrent themes in the narrative, pose questions, and raise "undiscussable" issues. The learning history forms the basis for group discussions, both for those involved in the event and for others who also might learn from it. The authors believe that this tool--based on the ancient practice of community storytelling--can build trust, raise important issues, transfer knowledge from one part of a company to another, and help build a body of generalizable knowledge about management.     

Six IT decisions your IT people shouldn't make

Senior managers often feel frustration--even exasperation--toward information technology and their IT departments. The managers complain that they don't see much business value from the high-priced systems they install, but they don't understand the technology well enough to manage it in detail. So they often leave IT people to make, by default, choices that affect the company's business strategy. The frequent result? Too many projects, a demoralized IT unit, and disappointing returns on IT investments. What distinguishes companies that generate substantial value from their IT investments from those that don't? The leadership of senior managers in making six key IT decisions. The first three relate to strategy: How much should we spend on IT? Which business processes should receive our IT dollars? Which IT capabilities need to be companywide? The second three relate to execution: How good do our IT services really need to be? Which security and privacy risks will we accept? Whom do we blame if an IT initiative fails? When senior managers aren't involved in these decisions, the results can be profound. For example, if they don't take the lead in deciding which IT initiatives to fund, they end up overloading the IT department with projects that may not further the company's strategy. And if they aren't assessing security and privacy risks, they are ignoring crucial business trade-offs. Smart companies are establishing IT governance structures that identify who should be responsible for critical IT decisions and ensure that such decisions further IT's strategic role in the organization.     

Underwriting relationships: Information production costs, underwriting fees, and first mover advantage

We study underwriting relationships in the floating rate debt market, where many issuers have a large number of offerings. We find that frequent issuers maintain close relationship with only three to five underwriters and pay significantly less underwriting fees than infrequent issuers. The findings are consistent with the notion that starting an underwriting relationship requires expenses for information production. We also find that an issuer’s first underwriter has a cost advantage over later-comers in competing for the issuer’s business. As a result, the first underwriter wins a larger share of the issuer’s business. JEL Classification G21 · G24     

Managing your boss: a compatible relationship with your superior is essential to being effective in your job

Good managers recognize that a relationship with a boss involves mutual dependence and that, if it is not managed well, they cannot be effective in their jobs. They also recognize that the boss-subordinate relationship is not like the one between a parent and a child, in that the burden for managing the relationship should not and cannot fall entirely on the boss. Bosses are only human; their wisdom and maturity are not always greater than their subordinates'. Effective managers see managing the relationship with the boss as part of their job. As a result, they take time and energy to develop a relationship that is consonant with both persons' styles and assets and that meets the most critical needs of each.     

纳斯达克:应使404条款更加可行

树立多元化的形象 中国网络游戏运营商完美时空(PWRD-US)董事会主席兼CEO池宇峰于美国东部时间7月26日9:30(北京时间7月26日21:30)敲响纳斯达克开市钟,庆祝该公司进行首次公开招股(IPO),拟最多融资约1.9亿美元.     

神雾集团如何做大赚钱的学问

在坐落于北京中关村科技园区昌平园的神雾集团大楼内,《国际融资》记者独家专访了北京神雾环境能源科技集团股份有限公司(简称:神雾集团)董事长兼总经理吴道洪博士。吴博士独特的创业经历与睿智的战略手笔,让我们看到了一家中国民营企业18年来是怎样从一家小微公司,发展成集"节能技术的研发-制造-设备配套-咨询与设计-工程总承包"全产业链布局,拥有石油化工甲级设计、咨询和工程总承包资质,冶金甲级设计、咨询和工程总承包资质,北京市唯一炉窑工程专业承包一级资质等工程资质,节能核心设备制造基地,全球最大的节能与低碳技术联合实验室等七家全资或控股子公司的股份制集团公司;又是怎样从最初销售工业炉喷嘴节能技术产品,创新研发出适用中国劣质黑色金属矿、劣质有色金属矿和冶金固废处理的高效清洁冶炼新技术和新工艺,并使多项核心技术走在了世界前列     

Physician practice acquisitions: preparing for the transaction

Hospitals embarking on acquisitions of physician practices should lay the groundwork for these transactions by: Building a framework for consistency. Preparing for possible exceptions to the framework. Broadly assessing the practice before advancing to the thorough valuation of the practice. Being alert for red flags and potential deal breakers and ready to address them.     

2011:决断不易

去年岁末闭幕的中央经济工作会议指出,今年经济工作,各方面要切实把重点放到加快转变经济发展方式上来,必须以更大决心和勇气全面推进各领域改革。     

Nonprofits: check your attention to customers

Nonprofit organizations chronically face financial difficulties. Now the situation has worsened because they are being squeezed between the uncertain economic climate and cutbacks in government support. While the managers of these institutions may think that they have already tried everything possible, more than ever they must be innovative in developing additional funding sources. As Mr. Andreasen argues, most nonprofits have failed to exploit marketing techniques which can build support from users or customers that leads to improved cash flow. The author contends that managers of nonprofit organizations focus too closely on their products or services; he admonishes them to give more attention to the needs and wants of their consumers.     

Equity indexing: Optimize your passive investments

Carol Alexander and Anca Dimitriu discuss two strategies for enhanced index tracking designed to best suit a passive investment framework.     

中小企业要善于从政策中寻求融资妙方

在商言商,在政言政,但从商不能不懂政策。俗语说“商道随政道”,可见了解政策,熟练地运用政策是何等重要。在中国,政府政策对经济资源、特别是财政金融资源的调配能力还是很强的,中小企业要善于从政策中寻求融资的渠道     

亮出投资价值十家企业拔得头筹

本刊组织的"2006对新农村建设贡献卓著的十大具有投资价值企业"评选活动,经65位金融业内专家推荐并投票之后最终在2006中国ZPARK国际融资论坛上揭晓:北京中农大康科技开发有限公司等十家高新技术企业在此次评选活动中脱颖而出,成为被金融业内专业人士认可并看好的最具投资价值的企业.评委们基于适合投资的角度,对当选企业给予了较高的评价,提出了很多中肯、见解独到的推荐意见,并针对企业的现状和发展,提出了他们所关心的问题.这些意见和问题,体现了投资者的眼光和原则,对被评选的企业来说,无疑是一份宝贵的财富.     

Beyond offshoring: assess your company's global potential

In the past few years, companies have become aware that they can slash costs by offshoring: moving jobs to lower-wage locations. But this practice is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how globalization can transform industries, according to research by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI). The institute's yearlong study suggests that by streamlining their production processes and supply chains globally, rather than just nationally or regionally, companies can lower their costs-as we've seen in the consumer-electronics and PC industries. Companies can save as much as 70% of their total costs through globalization--50% from offshoring, 5% from training and business-task redesign, and 15% from process improvements. But they don't have to stop there. The cost reductions make it possible to lower prices and expand into new markets, attracting whole new classes of customers. To date, however, few businesses have recognized the full scope of performance improvements that globalization makes possible, much less developed sound strategies for capturing those opportunities. In this article, Diana Farrell, director of MGI, offers a step-by-step approach to doing both things. Among her suggestions: Assess where your industry falls along the globalization spectrum, because not all sectors of the economy face the same challenges and opportunities at the same time. Also, pay attention to production, regulatory, and organizational barriers to globalization. If any of these can be changed, size up the cost-saving (and revenue-generating) opportunities that will emerge for your company as a result of those changes. Farrell also defines the five stages of globalization-market entry, product specialization, value chain disaggregation, value chain reengineering, and the creation of new markets-and notes the different levers for cutting costs and creating value that companies can use in each phase.     

The decision to first enter the public bond market: The role of firm reputation,funding choices,and bank relationships

This paper uses survival analysis to investigate the timing of a firm’s decision to issue for the first time in the public bond market. We find that firms that are more creditworthy and have higher demand for external funds issue their first public bond earlier. We also find that issuing private bonds or taking out syndicated loans is associated with a faster entry to the public bond market. According to our results, the relationships that firms develop with investment banks in connection with their private bond issues and syndicated loans further speed up their entry to the public bond market. Finally, we find that a firm’s reputation has a “U-shaped” effect on the timing of a firm’s bond IPO. Consistent with Diamond’s reputational theory, firms that establish a track record of high creditworthiness as well as those that establish a track record of low creditworthiness enter the public bond market earlier than firms with intermediate reputation.