Free Essays on Deadbeat Parents

There will more than likely never be an easy solution to the issues this country faces with child support. However the new proposals help children with deadbeat parents have a better shot at life. The government is working hard to find answers in helping these children to obtain the financial support that they need, but it is becoming more difficult to find arguments that support proposal likes the 3 strikes proposal. Many times these proposals are being called illegal and against the laws of the Constitution. The most important people in this whole argument are the children. If they are not taken care of properly, they often times fall into the welfare systems and find it difficult to make it in life. The US Department of Health and Human Services is also concerned with a child’s mentally stability if they are not receiving support from both parents. They worry that with lack of money, children will experience stress at a younger age and will become emotionally or me ntally unstable as adults. All of these factors have to be considered when coming up with child support proposals. Are the children of today going to carry such a burden that they are stressed out by the time they reach adulthood? When dealing with child support issues it is important to keep in mind what is the most important thing; the child. After all these children did not ask to be born and they sure did not chose their parents.... Free Essays on Deadbeat Parents Free Essays on Deadbeat Parents There will more than likely never be an easy solution to the issues this country faces with child support. However the new proposals help children with deadbeat parents have a better shot at life. The government is working hard to find answers in helping these children to obtain the financial support that they need, but it is becoming more difficult to find arguments that support proposal likes the 3 strikes proposal. Many times these proposals are being called illegal and against the laws of the Constitution. The most important people in this whole argument are the children. If they are not taken care of properly, they often times fall into the welfare systems and find it difficult to make it in life. The US Department of Health and Human Services is also concerned with a child’s mentally stability if they are not receiving support from both parents. They worry that with lack of money, children will experience stress at a younger age and will become emotionally or me ntally unstable as adults. All of these factors have to be considered when coming up with child support proposals. Are the children of today going to carry such a burden that they are stressed out by the time they reach adulthood? When dealing with child support issues it is important to keep in mind what is the most important thing; the child. After all these children did not ask to be born and they sure did not chose their parents....

Adidass Strategy

Adidass Strategy Free Online Research Papers What is adidass corporate strategy? â€Å"To lead the sporting goods industry with brands built on a passion for sports and a sporting lifestyle. To provide athletes with the best possible equipment to optimize their performance. Leveraging opportunities across their brand portfolio 1.Market penetration – gaining market share across all markets in which they compete 2.Market development – expanding into new markets and addressing new consumer segments To have a leading market positions in all regions where we compete. Leading though innovation and design Customizing distribution 1.Mono-branded stores run by retail partners 2.Shop-in-shops that Adidas establish with their key accounts 3.Joint ventures with their retail partners 4.Co-branded stores with sports organizations or other brands Creating shareholder value† Was there a common strategic approach used in managing the companys lineup of sporting goods businesses prior to its 2005–2006 restructuring? No, Adidas was trying to regain the number one position within the sporting goods industry by investing in many different areas of sporting goods. â€Å"Adidas’s 1998 acquisition of Salomon had several businesses that adidas’s management viewed as attractive-its Salomon ski division was the leading producer of ski equipment: TaylorMade Golf was the second-largest seller of golf equipment; and Mavic was the leading producer of high-performance bicycle wheels and rims.† Adidas was not focused on athletic footwear and started selling bike wheels and rims that had nothing in common with their main business of athletes’ footwear. Also the ski division was out of line with their many main business goals and strategies. Has the corporate strategy changed with restructuring? Yes, Adidas sold the divisions that were not inline with their main strategy or didn’t have noting in common with their main business. â€Å"Adidas announced near the end of its second quarter 2005 that it would divest its winter sports brands and Mavic bicycle components before the end of the year.† Adidas started focusing on its main business strategies and divisions that were in common with the strategies. â€Å"Adidas’s October 2005 announcement that it would acquire Reebok International Ltd for three point eight billion was the final component of a restructuring initiative that would focus the company’s business lineup primarily on athletic footwear and apparel and golf equipment by 2006.† With the restructuring and acquisition of Reebok the company strategy has changed. The new Adidas will start focusing on their core business strengths in the athletic footwear and apparel business. The combined companies will offer the spectrum of their product mix to gain a greater combined market share. â€Å"The brand adidas will continue to have a clear focus on sport performance and will highlight team sports, while brand Reebok will be positioned as a fitness oriented, sports-lifestyle brand with the focus on individual performance. The positioning will also be reflected in the distinct brand communication to reach different consumers.† What is your evaluation of adidass 1998 acquisition of Salomon SA? Adidas should have not acquired Salomon SA since they did not have the knowledge to run the division and it made adidas to diverse. â€Å"A Merrill Lynch analyst suggested that the Salomon acquisition might prove troublesome for adidas since other athletic shoe companies had dabbled in the hard goods segment, but they have been unsuccessful to date in making inroads.† By adidas becoming too diverse, they were unable to capitalize on any value chains and unable to cross promote their products. The acquisition did give adidas more market share â€Å"Adidas’s 1.5 billion acquisition of Salomon allowed it to surpass Reebok to become the world’s second-largest sporting goods company† This was not a good business decision because adidas already owned Reebok and just because they gain market share showed that the end result would not be profitable (bigger is not always better). Did the acquisition achieve the Robert Louis-Dreyfuss objective of putting together the best portfolio of sports brands in the world? NO. Louis-Dreyfus used 100 percent debt financing to create adidas-Salomon thinking that the new business units would boost adidas’s pretax profit by 20-25 percent, however, Louis-Dreyfus’s projections never materialized. In 2000 Louis-Dreyfus resigned since his objective failed. What does a 9-cell industry attractiveness/business strength matrix displaying adidas-Salomons business units look like? A 9-cell industry attractiveness/business strength matrix for the time would have showed that the combination of adidas and Salomon AS would not be a good fit. Adidas brought to the deal a company that had underestimated the competitor (Nike), falling to the eighth position of athletic footwear market within the United States. Their was no competitive advantage for adidas within an maturing industry. Both adidas and Salomon had challenges within their industries that were not fix or address before or during the merger. Did adidass business lineup prior to the divestiture of Salomon and Mavic exhibit good strategic fit? No, at first it looks like a very good fit since both companies are in the sporting goods industry and having well known brand names. Both of them have strong apparel lines and having presence in similar geographical regions. However, it’s obvious that the hard-goods categories of Salomon and Mavic would not create synergies with the apparel and footwear industries of adidas. Skill transfers between the businesses would have been a problem to because each business was so different. What value-chain match ups existed? Adida’s knowledge in the apparel and footwear industries were a good match up for running TaylorMade, Salomon, etc. footwear and apparel lines. What opportunities for skills transfer, cost sharing, or brand sharing were evident? Adidas should have gain more bargaining power that should have resulted in cost savings for all the companies. Advertising cost could have been shared since all the companies are in the sporting goods industry. TaylorMade can use adidas’s apparel and footwear manufacturing strengths to its advantage to come up with more apparel and footwear products to increase its market share. Cost reduction learned from adidas could be used at TaylorMade to save money. What strategic fits will be possible once Reebok International is acquired? Reebok will give adidas’s company the ability to position adidas as a technologically superior shoe designed for athletes and adidas can then focus on the high-end of the markets. Reebok would be positioned as leisure shoes that would sell at middle price points. Adidas can keep endorsement contracts with respected athletes and Reebok’s endorsements would be from more edgy celebrities. This is a great strategic fit since both companies are in the same line of business, but in different segments of the market and so they compliment each other. Another great fits is that Reebok would keep its CEO to lead Reebok after the acquisition so both companies will have the management that knows how to run their part of the business. Did adidass business lineup exhibit good resource fit between 1998 and 2004? No, because the businesses were too different in order to gain any economies of scale from combined production. Management skills and employee skills could not be moved from one company to the other without retraining. What were the financial characteristics of each of three major segments? Exhibit 5 Adidas 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 Net Sales 80% 79% 78% 79% 80% 83% 85% Gross profit 75% 71% 71% 71% 75% 82% 86% Operating profit 88% 78% 75% 74% 79% 87% 94% Salomon 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 Net Sales 10% 10% 10% 12% 12% 11% 10% Gross profit 8.47% 9% 10% 12% 12% 10% 9% Operating profit 2% 7% 9% 13% 12% 6% 1% TaylorMade 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 Net Sales 10% 10% 11% 9% 8% 6% 5% Gross profit 9.74% 10% 12% 11% 4% 7% 6% Operating profit 10% 14% 16% 13% 9% 6% 5% Salomon was far behind Adidas and TaylorMade with operating profit declining from 2002. As of 2004 Salomon is getting to the point where it is just able to cover expenses. Which businesses might have been considered cash hogs and cash cows? Adidas is the cash cow with 75% gross profit. Solomon is the cash hog with only 9% operating profits then TaylorMade is the second cash hog How did adidas-Salomons performance vary by geographic region? On average from 1998 2004 Europe with 51% of adidas’s sales Asian with 16% of adidas’s sales Latin American with 3% of adidas’s sales Based on your analysis of adidas-Salomon businesses, did the 2005 restructuring make sense? Yes It allowed adidas to focus back on its core business of athletic footwear and apparel. At also allowed adidas to get rid of businesses that it was unable to manage. Does it appear the acquisition of Reebok International will produce positive results for shareholders? Yes, since adidas sales has gained more market share in china, overtaking Nike within that business region. What strategic actions should adidas CEO Herbert Hainer initiate to improve the companys financial and market performance now that the restructuring is nearing completion? Grow in other location out side of Europe. Adidas must increase market share in North America. Either sell or get the Salomon’s division more profitable. Focus on getting more business within the basketball area’s were Nike is slam dunking them at the hoops. Work Cited adidas-group.com/en/investor/strategy/default.asp Crafting and Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage- Concepts and Cases, 15th ed., by Arthur A. Thompson Jr, A. J. Strickland III, and John E. Gamble (New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2007). Crafting and Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage- Concepts and Cases, 15th ed., by Arthur A. Thompson Jr, A. J. Strickland III, and John E. Gamble (New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2007). Crafting and Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage- Concepts and Cases, 15th ed., by Arthur A. Thompson Jr, A. J. Strickland III, and John E. Gamble (New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2007). businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/aug2005/nf2005088_0844_db008.htm Crafting and Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage- Concepts and Cases, 15th ed., by Arthur A. Thompson Jr, A. J. Strickland III, and John E. Gamble (New York: Mc Graw-Hill/Irwin, 2007). Crafting and Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage- Concepts and Cases, 15th ed., by Arthur A. Thompson Jr, A. J. Strickland III, and John E. Gamble (New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2007). Research Papers on Adidas's StrategyAnalysis of Ebay Expanding into AsiaMarketing of Lifeboy Soap A Unilever ProductOpen Architechture a white paperDefinition of Export QuotasBionic Assembly System: A New Concept of SelfPETSTEL analysis of IndiaIncorporating Risk and Uncertainty Factor in CapitalThe Project Managment Office SystemTwilight of the UAWRelationship between Media Coverage and Social and

Applied Statistics for Finance and Economics Project report Coursework

Applied Statistics for Finance and Economics Project report - Coursework Example Since in this data we are focused on 2002 to 2006 we see that the seasonal and the cyclic component are present. We take a time plot of the returns data of home furnishers to investigate if the data exhibit trend in this case. From the above trend we can see that there is linear trend in the returns of the home furnishers. To eliminate trend to make the returns data stationary, we take the differencing of lag 1 and observe the progress the remains. The time plot of the returns also shows that the return data exhibit trend. Thus from the above analysis of the returns and return squared, the returns can be predicted and has a very high predictive power while the return squared has very low predictive power. Broadly speaking, a time series is said to be stationary if there is no systematic change in the mean (no trend). If there is systematic change in variance and is strictly periodic variations (seasonal and cyclic component) are removed. Most of probability theory of time series analysis is concerned with stationary time series and for this reason time series analysis requires one to change a non-stationary time series to a stationary time series analysis so as to use it. In this study we plot the variables and test their stationary using a particular variation of unit root test- the Augmented Dickey-Fuller test. We then difference the time series of return to make the series stationary. After differencing the return data we can observe that the data is stationary. This can be clearly seen in the time series plot of the differenced data at lag. The plot of differenced data of returns below shows that the data is stationary after differencing it once. The pair trading is a common thing in the trading market. Literature on pair trading, market efficiency and return volatility behavior is plenty for a developed stock market. The study involves pair trading using the

Analysis of Competition Bikes Inc Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Analysis of Competition Bikes Inc - Term Paper Example Income Statement is one of the fundamental financial statement that provides results of revenues, earnings, and EPS (Earning Per Share). The income statement provides a consolidated view of the revenue a company earned, the expenses it incurred and its effect on the bottom line, i.e. the profit during a certain period of time. It is a mirror to the investors reflecting on company performance and its potential to perform. Essentially a company should be earning more than it is spending and thus signal profit earning opportunity to the investors. The horizontal analysis of the Income Statement of Competition Bikes Inc. would compare the performance of the company during the year 2006-2008. The following is a snapshot of the Income Statement of company during 2006-2008 along with its horizontal analysis. We have compared the Income Statement of 2007 keeping 2006 as the base year and then analyzed the performance of 2008 keeping 2007 as the year of reference. Horizontal Analysis of Incom e Statement 2006-2007 As we have mentioned earlier, there are two major sections of an Income Statement: Revenue, Expenses, and Profit. Revenue minus the expenses is the profit and we would look at the company’s change in revenue and overall expenses during the period of 2006-2008. As it is evident from the horizontal analysis of 2007 with 2006 as the base year, revenues have increased by 37.5% during the year 2006-2007 due to the increase in Net Sales by 33.3%, which shows that the company is strong in its area of operation. The Cost of Goods Sold also increased by 31.8%, which is very close to the percentage change of Sales during the year, thus indicating that it is not a negative sign. It is a concern for the company even if the profits are high when the increase in Cost of Goods Sold is not relative to the increase in Sales. A definite weakness for any company is its increasing expenses, specifically administrative expenses. The Selling expenses also increased during the year by 33% including the expense on advertising that increased by 37% and administrative expenses increased by 20.4%. A major chunk of the administrative expense is the expenditure on Research and Developed which increased by 37.5%. The company believes in bringing a superior product to the market that has quality as well as first movers advantage with it, and it provides the company a strong selling potential. Thus, the overall increase in the expenses was by 24%, which is not a positive sign for any company, specifically increment in administrative expenses exhibit operational inefficiencies as the company cannot justify the expenses with any particular expansion project. However, a more clear idea of selling and administrative expenses as compared to the sales would be evident in the vertical analysis of the company. The operating income of the company, which is the revenue minus expenses increased by 154.6% and the overall profit before income tax and the Net Earnings increase d by more than 300% showing abnormal but phenomenal growth. A horizontal analysis of year 2007 keeping 2006 as the base year reveals positive growth for the company in terms of Sales and the overall Net Earnings that shows that Competition Bikes Inc. is moving in the right direction and growing. The major strengths of the company lies in the increase in S