Category: Business and Management

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (alibaba.com) was founded in 1999 by Jack Ma as an e-commerce company to facilitate sales among companies that provide consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer, and business-to-business products sold via the internet. As the world’s largest e-commerce platform, Alibaba is on a path to realizing its vision of facilitating $1 trillion in product sales annually, while it also pursues a goal of reaching 2 billion consumers. The company is headquartered in Hangzhou, China, has a revenue of more than $23 billion (primarily via advertisements on its sites), and employs about 51,000 people.
Alibaba’s global supply chains are strained tremendously on “Singles Day” or Guanggun Jie, a Chinese holiday celebrated on November 11 (the solitary 1s of the date—11/11—suggesting bare branches,” the common slang for singles in China). On this day alone, more than $20 billion in sales (more than 300 million orders) takes place on Alibaba’s internet platforms (e.g., Tmall, Taobao). When global retailers think of mega-sales online, they generally think of Black Friday or Cyber Monday, but they ought to be watching 11/11 closely as well, especially because 11/11 amounts to double the combined sales of both of those U.S. e-commerce holidays.
Each year, Alibaba handles more than 80 percent of China’s e-commerce business. The company also now operates in 190 countries. Moving forward, the vision for Alibaba is simple: Bring in non-Chinese brands to the Chinese market and expand products to customers outside of China’s borders. So far, the impact is clear. Beyond its own employees, Jack Ma claims that Alibaba has created more than 30 million jobs in China related to companies that sell their products on the Alibaba e-commerce platforms. Ma has also committed to creating 1 million new jobs in the U.S. With such large ambitions, Alibaba’s global supply chains must be top-notch, innovative, and always pushing the boundaries for what can be done to deliver products from manufacturers to consumers.
Alibaba does this by focusing on a differentiation strategy, partner connections, buyer protection, mobile technology, and large-scale product selections. Its differentiation strategy entails operating as an intermediary, connecting buyers and sellers, while largely avoiding the need for maintaining capital-intensive warehouses and depots. Partnering with Alibaba enables small manufacturers and suppliers to reach thousands, and likely tens of thousands, of new customers. Importantly, in these buyer–seller exchanges, Alibaba emphasizes buyer protection. That is, if a customer is not satisfied for any reason, he or she can request a refund. This consumer focus also carries over into how customers interact with the company. Alibaba has seamlessly adapted its e-commerce sites to mobile platforms, an important part of its strategy given that more than 80 percent of its sales is done via mobile devices. The large-scale product selection on Alibaba’s platforms has resulted in some 15 billion products sold annually and 15 million packages shipped daily (compared with 5 billion items sold on Amazon and 3 million packages shipped per day).
Please address the following questions in detail;
1. According to Alibaba’s promotional efforts and strategic initiatives, Alibaba is on a path to realizing its vision of facilitating $1 trillion in product sales annually as it also pursues a goal of reaching 2 billion consumers. It is already the world’s largest e-commerce platform. Can one company really achieve $1 trillion in sales and reach 2 billion of the world’s 7 billion people?
2. Each year, Alibaba handles more than 80 percent of China’s e-commerce business, and now operates in 190 countries (only 196 countries and 61 territories exist in the world). Moving forward, the vision for Alibaba sounds simple: Bring in non-Chinese brands to the Chinese market and expand products to customers outside of China’s borders. Do you think this global strategy is viable?
3. As mentioned, Alibaba’s immense number of sales and shipments puts tremendous pressure on its global supply chains. Do you think its supply chains can continuously facilitate the increased demand that its customers place on the global supply chain systems? Why or why not?
Paramater:
1. Your assignment should be 3 – 4 pages in length and written in APA style format.
2. Separate title and reference page (minimum of 3 reference)
3. Double spaced with 12 point Times Roman font and 1” by 1.5” margins.
4. Paraphrasing of content – Demonstrate that you understand the case by summarizing the case in your own words. Direct quotes should be used minimally.

Prepare and submit a 4 – 5 page paper that defines, compares and contrasts leadership and management, identifies the traits and characteristics of effective leaders and efficient managers, assesses your effectiveness as a leader and manager, and reflects on insights gained. A well-constructed paper will reference 3 or more scholarly sources including 2 journal articles such as those assigned in Weeks 1 and 2, and adhere to APA standards.
Leadership and Management
Define, compare and contrast leadership and management. Support your analysis with 2 scholarly sources including 1 journal article.
Traits and Characteristics
Identify the traits and characteristics of an effective leader and efficient manager, and discuss why they important. Support your analysis with two (2) or more scholarly sources including 1 journal article.
Personal Assessment
Based on your analysis of the traits and characteristics of leaders and managers, assess your personal effectiveness as a leader and a manager. You may want to draw on the findings from the Trait and Skills Questionnaires at the end of chapters 2 and 3 in Northouse. Include an analysis of why you are or aren’t stronger in one and/or the other role.
Reflective Analysis
Identify three (3) insights gained into leadership, management, and/or your personal effectiveness. What surprised you and what will you do differently to enhance your effectiveness? Describe two (2) specific actions you will take to enhance your leadership and/or managerial effectiveness.

Introduction
-Introduce the topic and summarize the paper.
The main body of the paper should address the following areas:
-Provide an overview of motivation tools or techniques each company currently uses to inspire its employees to perform at an optimal level.
-Explain what motivational issues you would expect in each company.
-Identify what motivational techniques you would suggest that each company employ.
-Examine how multiculturalism may be a factor in motivating their employees.
Conclusion
-Provide a summary of the paper and an overview of what the reader should take away from the paper (purpose).
-There should be a minimum of three separate outside sources correctly cited and referenced to support and validate your case study paper this week listed on a separate reference page.

Management and organization behavior class, different tasks with deadlines. Must finish before each deadline

Personal statement Requirement
Please check the programme details before writing; Programme link:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/graduate/taught-degrees/business-and-sustainability-msc#programme-choice
Personal profile, see the attached CV for reference
Please write no less than 700 words (British English spelling); the statement should be a coherent piece of writing which addresses the following questions effectively:
What inspires you to take a master’s degree in business and sustainability?
Do you have relavant experience or skills that support you to pursue the programme?
Why do you think the programme is suitable for you?
What do you expect to gain from the programme?
How will this programme help you pursue your academic interests and career goals?
How would you contribute to the programme after being admitted.
NOTE: While addressing question 2, please don’t simply list the internship experiences from CV by bulletin points, you need to link each experience to the concept of sustainability in business, elaborating what insights you developed from the experience that associated with sustainability.

Management of information system class, different tasks with deadlines. Must finish before each deadline

This week, the case study is on page 105. please read the textbook contents about Netflix, watch the video, and answer the three questions in the “Questions and Exercises” section

5.1 Introduction
Learning Objectives
Understand that although Netflix is one of the few firms to successfully pilot through disruption—remaining the top firm in two markets (DVD-by-mail and video streaming)—the firm has experienced wild swings in market perception and stock performance.
Appreciate that the dynamics at work in the old and new businesses are fundamentally different in many key ways that influence product offerings, operating cost, competitors, and more.
Recognize that the breadth of disparately motivated competitors, many of whom have a strong portfolio of competitive assets, presents uncertainty as Netflix seeks global growth in hopes of remaining the world’s leading streaming service.
Perhaps no CEO in recent memory has experienced more significant whipsaw swings than Netflix co-founder (and now co-CEO) Reed Hastings. In the firm’s early years, Hastings was a target of Wall Street naysayers who dragged down Netflix stock with predictions that the firm would crumble as Blockbuster and Walmart entered the firm’s then-core DVD-by-mail business. Plot-twist—Netflix growth surged as the tech-enabled strategic assets Hastings built hammered Blockbuster into bankruptcy and sent Walmart fleeing the market. Netflix’s profits, customer base, and stock went on to hit all-time highs, Fortune featured the Netflix CEO on its cover as “Businessperson of the Year,” and Hastings was appointed to the board of directors of two of the tech industry’s most influential firms—Microsoft and Facebook.
But concerns over transitioning the firm to a future where Internet streaming dominates and DVDs are a clutter-creating relic of the past resulted in a painful series of self-inflicted wounds that left the firm reeling. A poorly communicated repricing scheme was followed by a botched attempt to split the firm into two separate services. This caused an exodus of nearly 1 million customers in three months, a collapse of the firm’s share price, and calls for Hastings’s resignation (see “The Qwikster Debacle”). Hastings quickly moved to address these mistakes while aggressively licensing streaming content, investing in its own original series and movies, and expanding the availability of the firm’s streaming platform across devices and into new global markets. Record subscriber gains and Street-beating earnings reports once again powered the firm’s previously beaten-down stock to record highs. But another market shift launched another round of bearishness on the firm’s future.
First, Netflix lost $8 billion in market value within minutes of Disney announcing that its new Disney+ service would undercut it in price. Disney stated it would not renew a streaming agreement with Netflix, taking the world’s most popular collection of media properties—including Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and the princesses—along with it. Oh yeah, and Disney now owns the majority stake in Hulu and has acquired 20th (now 21st) Century Fox. Then came a rare, big Netflix miss in subscriber growth. Analysts had been expecting Netflix to add 5 million subscribers in a quarter when the firm added only 2.7 million and actually saw U.S. subscribers drop by 126 thousand. Wall Street’s response was another $26 billion valuation haircut in the week after the shortfall.
Yet despite competition from Disney and its princesses, Netflix—home of Tiger King, the Queen’s Gambit, and The Crown—held the crown as the world’s biggest streaming service. Despite criticism over content quality, Netflix recently led all other studios in both Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. The firm’s service is now available in every country on the planet, save for China, Syria, and North Korea, and Netflix ended 2020 with over 200 million worldwide subscribers, Street-beating growth, and record profitability. While COVID-19 hurt so many, it actually enhanced Netflix performance as those in quarantine binged, new subscribers signed up, and costs were lower than expected as production of new titles halted in lockdown.
Lots of challenges suggest a brutal coming battle, and analysts are concerned about Netflix maturity (is there much growth left in the firm’s core U.S. market?), rising costs to license and create new content, the company’s prior debt load, and unprecedented competition. There are currently over 100 streaming services, and clearly not all will survive. Netflix streaming service rivals now include deep-pocketed Apple; “new” media giant AT&T, hot for growth after its 2018 acquisition of Time Warner (which includes HBO and Warner Bros. films); a reunited ViacomCBS (with fan-loyal Star Trek and family-friendly Nickelodeon in its portfolio); Comcast, which owns the most widely available U.S. cable pipe, Europe’s Sky TV, NBCUniversal television and movie properties, Olympics rights, and has launched its own streaming service—Peacock; and, of course, Amazon, which gives its service away for “free” as a bundled perk to Prime subscribers. While Netflix could vanquish all DVD-by-mail subscribers to become the single source favored above all, content fragmentation means there won’t be the same single choice for the full slate of streaming offerings, and we won’t have one winner.
Why Study Netflix?
Studying Netflix gives us a chance to examine how technology helps firms craft and reinforce a competitive advantage. Even more importantly, Netflix provides one of the very rare examples of a firm that has continued to lead as the firm shifts from one technology-focused business model to the next. While the still profitable DVD-by-mail business is dying, many will still want to read this section for key learning. Topics covered in this section include how technology played a starring role in developing assets such as scale, brand, and switching costs that combined to repel well-known rivals and place Netflix atop its industry. This section also introduces important business and technology concepts such as the long tail, collaborative filtering, customer churn, and the value of the data asset. In the second part of this chapter we examine Netflix, the sequel, and the firm’s transition to video streaming. This section looks at the very significant challenges the firm faces as its primary business shifts from shipping the atoms of DVDs to sending bits over the Internet. We’ll see that a highly successful firm can still be challenged by technical shifts, and we’ll learn from Netflix’s struggles as well as its triumphs. This section gives us an opportunity to examine issues that include digital goods, licensing, content creation, international growth and regulation, supplier power, crowdsourcing, platform competition, legal and regulatory issues, and technology infrastructure. We’ll also look at the kinds of competitive advantages that Netflix is crafting as the world’s largest streaming service.
Key Takeaways
Many firms are forced to deal with technology-fueled disruption that can challenge the current way they do business. However, successfully transitioning to a new business model is often extremely difficult, even for firms that were dominant under a prior operating model.
Despite being the clear leader in global streaming, Netflix faces a daunting set of challenges, including rivals that enjoy a set of assets that Reed Hastings’s firm lacks. These include existing distribution networks from telecom subscribers and hardware owners, popular media libraries with loyal fans, and profitable businesses that can fuel the foray into streaming.
Questions and Exercises
Survey your class, friends, or family. How many subscription services do they have and how many are they likely to have in the future? Have you or any relatives or friends ever dropped a service? Which one and why? Have you ever “rejoined” a service you’d previously dropped? If so, why? What would make you drop a service, switch services, or keep a service but subscribe to a new one? What role does technology play (if any) in the likelihood that you’d continue to subscribe to a service?
During his time as CEO of Netflix, Hastings has also served roles for other firms. What additional managerial roles outside of Netflix has Reed Hastings accepted? Why might these roles potentially be important for Netflix?
Can you think of once-successful firms that were forced to radically redesign their businesses based on technology change? How did the firms in your list fare with the new model—better or worse than their prior success? Why do you suppose they experienced the outcomes you’ve identified?

Analyse an organisation’s operational data, to provide insights that will inform future decisions.
THE BRIEF
• Read the case study below.
• Download the associated excel file containing case study data
• Analyse the data
• Using the assignment template, answer the questions at the end of the brief

***I have attached all the sources, annotated bibliography and detailed outline. Please go off of that***
Instructions
The final paper will be between 5 to 8 pages with 10 scholarly articles. This does not include the title page, abstract or the reference page. This week you will submit your final paper in APA format and writing.
Guidelines
The annotated bibliography paragraphs are not included in the paper. The references from the portfolio (as corrected) should be on the reference page of your final paper. The outline is NOT included in the paper. The outline is used to help you with the flow of your paper.
1.) You must have 10 scholarly articles that are within the last 10 years. Scholarly articles are peer reviewed and can be found via the APU/AMU library. You do not submit the annotated bibliography as part of the final paper. You do use properly formatted references for the reference page.
2.) Follow the detailed outline that you submitted. Your detailed outline is to help you write the paper and to ensure all references are used. It is not included in the paper.
3.) Make sure that your abstract is on a separate page immediately following the title page. The heading is Abstract not the title of the paper. If you do not understand what is to be included in an abstract read the abstracts from the articles you selected.
4.) Utilize the APA Helps as necessary in the Resources area to help you present your research paper in APA format, which means that you need to write a Title Page, Abstract Page and References Page separate from the body of the text of the paper. Avoid unsupported statements whenever possible. In many cases, you will write a paragraph of text and insert a citation only once. When you use a direct quote, include the page number of the source, too. Some may ask why APA is so important. APA is the mode of communication of the written word in the research field. It is the due diligence of graduate management students to excel at APA.

After drafting the designated section of the final project for the workshop and posting it to the discussion topic, students are required to critique two peer
drafts, providing substantive feedback and discussion.
Reply feedback to Michelle Goebel and Sharon Spiller post.
As a Reviewer:
Take the time to read the drafts thoroughly. Refer to the Final Project Document as you review your peers’ work. You might want to read
through each component in its entirety and then jot down your first impressions. Then, you will want to read it a second (and even a third) time
to develop your critique.
You are critiquing the work, not the person. Your goal is to help the author achieve his or her goal. The critique should start with the strengths of
the work. What works and why? Identify at least two places in which the writer does something successfully, and provide concrete examples.
Next, suggest any areas for revision. Keep the tone positive and provide concrete suggestions forrevision
The final comment should be an overall summary of the piece and your impressions, focusing on thepositive.
As the Author:
1. Listen to (or read) the critique carefully, avoiding any desire to defend your interpretation.
2. If you are unclear what the reviewer means, ask him or her toclarify.
3. If you have any questions after hearing/reading the critique, feel free to pose them to the group.
4. Thank the reviewers for their feedback and address any questions/comments that your peers may have posed of your work.
5. Remember, it is your writing. Your peers may have approached the same topic differently. However, do not just dismiss suggestions out of hand.
6. Accept that negative feedback comes with the territory. Your job is not to make everyone happy but to make your writing the best that it can be.