Competition in Marketing： Survival Yardstick for Small and Medium Enterprises （SMEs） in Nigeria

The topic investigated competition in marketing as a survival yardstick for small and medium enterprises （SMEs） in Nigeria. The objectives addressed by this study were： （1） identifying different types and intensity of competition that SMEs are exposed to along the life-cycle portfolio in Nigeria; （2） quantifying the strength of SMEs vis-a-vis some foreign enterprises in terms of market competition; and （3） proffering solutions on how best they could match competitively these foreign enterprises. Relevant models and theories were employed in literature to evolve detailed analysis of issues relating to the variables used in terms of competition in marketing and survival of juice-producing SMEs. Two hypotheses were investigated through the survey of 20 prominent Ikeja based SMEs using Cluster sampling, 5-points Likert summated rating scale was adopted, while Yard＇s formula with 95% confidence level and 5% error tolerance was used. Alternative form validity of the instrument was measured at 0.63 while its reliability was measured at Cronbach＇s alpha of 0.70. Pearson＇s product-moment correlation was used in testing hypothesis 1 while standard multiple regressions were used to test hypothesis 2. Findings revealed that there was strong relationship between survival of juice-producing SMEs with forms of competition on a firm＇s life-cycle; while competition had positive effects on survival components for the enterprises. It was concluded that since competition subsists in any firm＇s life-cycle, strategies to support operations for survival must be adopted. It was recommended that operators of SMEs have to monitor and manage competition as it affects their businesses positively and/or negatively.     

An introduction to the Millennium Project

The pace, complexity, and globalization of change requires attention to the future. The change of millennia — the coming of the year 2001 — provides an opportunity, a psychological focus, for a global review of past achievements and problems and a unique chance to assess and reflect on future issues and opportunities.Unfortunately, there is as yet no mechanism or information utility to support a worldwide effort to study past achievements and problems or future issues and opportunities. Although there are many individual, isolated, special purpose, and one-time study efforts underway, there is no international system that can provide coherence or continuity to these studies, including feedback and sharing of information, and, in particular, the systematic exploration of future possibilities and policy alternatives. With growing interest in the future, the spread of instantaneous and global communications, the advent of powerful new nondeterministic modeling techniques, the ability to evoke, capture, and share information and perceptions with systematic questioning techniques and software, the proliferation of data bases, and knowledge visualization, it is now possible for futurists, scholars and others around the world to interact globally and take a fresh look at the future possibilities and policies in ways not previously possible.As the World Bank provides an ongoing system for research and feedback to improve economic policy, so too the United Nations University could provide an ongoing system for the improvement of futures research and its application to the policy process. According to a series of interviews, questionnaires, and meetings with leading futurists and scholars around the world, the proposed “Millenium Project” has the potential to become such a system.This study had as its principal objective determining the design of an information system that could effectively tap contributors, worldwide, to focus on lessons of the past that bear on world issues and the potential of future developments for intensifying or mitigating these and future issues. The first phase of the feasibility study was both methodological and substantive. Worldwide panels of experts contributed their judgments about the method or process of organizing the project; and the system that emerged from this interaction was applied in a prototype study to the issues of growing world population and the environment.During the first phase of the feasibility study, we found that:

1. 1. The Millennium Project is feasible and likely to be helpful to many institutions in examining and resolving policy issues at several levels. An overview of the project design and objectives appears in Section 2 of this article.

2. 2. Organizations that have an issues scanning function, or have a mandate to keep abreast of a broad range of futures thinking, have a need for access to a non-political, scholarly, and international system of future studies. Such organizations have requested continued participation in the second and third phase of this feasibility study, as well as establishing formal relations with the full Millennium Project.

3. 3. While several questions remain, the design features of a system to collect judgments using the Delphi process that were suggested by the international panel (outlined elsewhere in this report) form a straight forward operational system. Among the remaining questions are the design and use of international information systems and data bases, integration with quantitative techniques such as system modeling, the requirements for special study teams, and institutionalization and financial support. The design of the operational system is described in detail in Section 3 of this report.

4. 4. Cost estimates have been made for establishing international panels and collecting and analyzing information they provide using the Delphi process. Several assumptions are required. If a maximum of four topics are addressed in a particular year, each of the four panels consists of 150–200 people, the staff is kept to a base of three people with an additional 1.5 per panel, and advisors are paid an honorarium of $1.500, then the cost of this element of the full scale Project is likely to be approximately $900,000 per year. While communications modes are important in terms of timing and information access, the costs of communications are the smallest of the Project's cost elements. Detail of our cost estimates appear in Section 7 of this report.

This is not the final feasibility study report, but only a report on part of Phase I. As such, it contains our initial findings about how the Project might be organized. We welcome comments from the reader. Please consider this as work in progress.     

基于可持续发展观的企业财务政策选择研究

企业的财务政策是企业根据其目标和理财环境以及本身的财务实力制定的财务方针和策略，它大量涉及企业理财的谋略和企业的商业秘密，所以必须根据企业内外客观情况的变化，对政策不断加以修改补充，甚至更新替代。然而，这种更新与替代却是很难的，一方面旧的财务政策由于其内部韧性作用而得以维持；另一方面，人们由于心理中的惰性因素而倾向于维护自己已经熟悉的政策。本文探讨如何把可持续发展观引入企业财务政策的选择过程，以解决以上的矛盾。     

企业处理顾客、供销商、同业者关系的战略观点

为了可持续发展,忠诚的顾客关系建立在企业集中战略资源满足顾客合理需求的基础上,是具有真实性、价值性和持久性的营销。稳定的供销关系,对于企业保证产品和服务质量、降低原材料采购和市场拓展成本、降低市场风险具有重要意义,是互惠互利、休戚与共的关系。而基于公平合作同业者关系,可以使企业与同业者分享技能、信息、技术和市场机会,分担成本。     

请注意，特斯拉还留了一手

特斯拉开放专利给习惯吃独食的汽车业带来了不小震动。但是请注意,特斯拉CEO埃隆·马斯克的声明中明确表示：对方必须是出于利他行为,这给他留下了回旋的余地.     

Comments on Warren Samuels's "Why the Georgist Movement Has Not Succeeded"

A BSTRACT . The 16^th Amendment and the formation of the European Union were major political/economic reforms that should be seen as affirmations of the fundamental principles and teachings of Henry George. That these are not matters of interest to the self-defined Georgist movement reveals an excessively narrow focus of that movement and suggests its members' unfamiliarity with much of George's teachings.     

中国消费金融公司《试点办法》解读及建议

消费金融公司作为在西方发达国家存续已久的主要消费信贷机构,其管理政策已经建设得相当完善。目前,对处于试点阶段的中国消费金融公司,如何借鉴、吸收发达国家的成功经验和失败教训,在中国特有的外部环境下,逐步完善《消费金融公司试点管理办法》,是其试点成功和未来推广的重要保障。本文试图通过对现行管理办法的解读,发现其中的缺陷与不合理之处,并提出改进建议,希望能为其突破发展瓶颈提供一定参考价值。