Assignment Case Analysis

8/2/2019 Assignment Case Analysis

1/16

[TYPE THE COMPANY NAME]

Case Analysis II

Group Assignment

Mickey!!

2/3/2012

Gaurav Tikkas

Gaurav VermaPriya Agarwal

Dhruv Talwar

Ankit Chaturvedi


2/16

"On the basis of information given in the class and discussion held, about the case of Suez

canal shares, give your views as to how decisions by individuals can decide the future of

nations and people, even within a democratic framework. Assuming that an organization can

also be thought of as a state, explain how your views can relate to a corporation.

To be born a leader is an expression that can suffer some debate. Leaders are not born but theyemerge from situation. They gain experience, they absorb knowledge, and they see and listen tothe world around them - both inside the organization and beyond. A leader must have a visionthat should be at par with the organisation. Effective leaders envision what they want and how toget it. It is the leader who integrates the organisational activities to yield organisational goals. Aleader must also be courageous and should have the perseverance to accomplish a goal,regardless of the seemingly insurmountable obstacles. He should maintain calmness under stressand should be farsighted. All these characteristic of a leader can be analysed in case of BenjaminDisraeli under Suez Canal Case.

The Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea

and the Red Sea. The Suez Canal formed an important asset that the imperial British wanted toadd to their basket because they had formed colonies in eastern Africa, India, and parts ofAustralia. The voyage from Europe to Asia was reduced from six months to 6 weeks. Also aboutseventy percent of the oil requirement was fulfilled from transportation through Suez Canal. In1875, the Khedive ofEgypt had gone bankrupt and needed to sell shares in the Suez Canal inorder to gain money. Benjamin Disraeli understood the importance of Suez Canal and purchased176,602 shares in the Canal in order to stop the imperial lifeline to India and Australia fallinginto French hands. Disraeli persuaded Lionel de Rothschild to lend the British government the4m needed to purchase the shares.

Since Parliament was not in session at the time, Disraeli took the instantaneous decision on his

own, thereby opening himself to much criticism from Parliamentary opponents, but winningapproval from the Queen and the public. Benjamin Disraeli was a British Prime Minister,parliamentarian, Conservative statesman and literary figure. Starting from comparatively humbleorigins, he served in government for three decades, twice as Prime Minister of the UnitedKingdom. This incident highlighted some characteristics that Disraeli displayed as a leader.There are at times that leaders need to take decisions on their own for the betterment of theorganisation and be responsible for the decision that he has taken. He must be fearless andcourageous and should be ready to face the consequences of the decision.

In this case also Disraeli was fearless and took the instant decision to acquire the shares of theSuez Canal. The parliament was not sitting at the time when the offer for the sale of shares canalcame to him. But he was sure that the acquisition of the shares would definitely be of greatadvantage to the imperial British for trade and colonial purpose and so he conveyed the messageto the queen. He was farsighted and hence instantly approached Lionel de Rothschild for the loanand not the Bank of England because he did not want the acquisition to be delayed. It was a self-less decision on his part and was entirely for the benefit of the country. Had the process beendelayed the scenario might have been much different and French might have acquired the shares.Even then he had to bear the brunt of the opponents and the parliamentarians and was answerableto them. Hence Disraeli stood out as a great leader in this mess and added The Suez Canal to thebasket of the imperial British.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea-levelhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Seahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Seahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khedivehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_de_Rothschildhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_de_Rothschildhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea-levelhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Seahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Seahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khedivehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_de_Rothschildhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_de_Rothschild


3/16

History is full of examples where some extra-ordinary people changed the course of history by

their decisions which in some cases were Right and in others 'not so right decisions' as in the

case of Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln or Benito Mussolini, Adolf

Hitler. Accordingly the outcomes were inspiring in the first case and catastrophic in the later.

Their decisions significantly changed the history of their nations and left a permanent mark on

the future of the citizens of that nation.

Individuals who were activists, world leaders, scientists, or artists followed their convictions andfocused their lifes work that eventually became a catalyst for events to unfold in history. In eachcase the decisions and the route that the individual followed ignited a change. But , one thing thatstands out common to all these great men are the values and principles that they believed in.Values, such as courage in the face of great opposition or in striking out in a new direction;selflessness in helping others during a time of disaster; ingenuity in founding or building aninstitution; patriotism in time of national crisis; or leadership in a cooperative effort to protecthuman rights or improve the community.

Decision Making is as much a matter of art as it is a science. Probably , that is why , it finds

itself applicable in each and every field from technology to business and politics to practical life.

Chester Barnard, a retired telephone executive and author of The Functions of the Executive,

imported the term "decision making" from the lexicon of public administration into the business

world. There it began to replace narrower descriptors such as "resource allocation" and "policy

making." The introduction of that phrase changed how managers thought about what they did

and spurred a new crispness of action and desire for conclusiveness. "Policy making could go on

and on endlessly, and there are always resources to be allocated," he explains. "'Decision' implies

the end of deliberation and the beginning of action."

To make good choices, companies must be able to calculate and manage the attendant risks.

Today, myriad sophisticated tools can help them do so. But it was only a few hundred years ago

that the risk management tool kit consisted of faith, hope, and guesswork. That's because risk is a

numbers game, and before the seventeenth century, humankind's understanding of numbers

wasn't up to the task.

During the Renaissance, scientists and mathematicians such as Girolamo Cardano mused about

probability and concocted puzzles around games of chance. In 1494, a peripatetic Franciscan

monk named Luca Pacioli proposed "the problem of Points"--which asks how one should divide

the stakes in an incomplete game. Some 150 years later, French mathematicians Blaise Pascal

and Pierre de Fermat developed a way to determine the likelihood of each possible result of a

simple game. But it wasn't until the next century, when Swiss scholar Daniel Bernoulli took up

the study of random events, that the scientific basis for risk management took shape.

Bernoulli focused not on events themselves but on the human beings who desire or fear certain


4/16

outcomes to a greater or lesser degree. His intent, he wrote, was to create mathematical tools that

would allow anyone to "estimate his prospects from any risky undertaking in light of [his]

specific financial circumstances." In other words, given the chance of a particular outcome, how

much are you willing to bet?

But it wasn't until after World War I that risk gained a significant importance in economic

analysis. In 1921, Frank Knight distinguished between risk, when the probability of an outcome

is possible to calculate and uncertainty, when the probability of an outcome is not possible to

determine.Some two decades later, John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern laid out the

fundamentals of game theory, which deals in situations where people's decisions are influenced

by the unknowable decisions of "live variables".

Today, corporations try to know as much as is humanly and technologically possible, deploying

such modern techniques as derivatives, scenario planning, business forecasting, and real options.

But at a time when chaos so often triumphs over control, even centuries' worth of mathematical

discoveries can do only so much.

There is merit as well as nobility in the idea of people pooling their wisdom and containing their

egos to make decisions that are acceptable and fair to all. During the last century, psychologists,

sociologists, anthropologists, and even biologists eagerly unlocked the secrets of effective

cooperation within groups. Later, the popularity of high-performance teams, coupled with new

collaborative technologies that made it "virtually" impossible for any man to be an island,

fostered the collective ideal.

A breakthrough in understanding group dynamics occurred just after World War II, sparked--

oddly enough--by the U.S. government's wartime campaign to promote the consumption of

organ meat. Subsequently, psychologist Kurt Lewin discovered that people were more likely to

change their eating habits if they thrashed the subject out with others than if they simply listened

to lectures about diet. His influential "field theory" stated that actions are determined, in part, by

social context and that even group members with very different perspectives will act together to

achieve a common goal.

Over the next decades, knowledge about group dynamics and the care and feeding of teams

evolved rapidly. Victor Vroom and Philip Yetton established the circumstances under which

group decision making is appropriate. R. Meredith Belbin defined the components required for

successful teams. Howard Raiffa explained how groups exploit "external help" in the form ofmediators and facilitators. And Peter Drucker suggested that the most important decision may

not be made by the team itself but rather by management about what kind of team to use.

It seems that decisions reached through group dynamics require, above all, a dynamic group. As

Clarence Darrow neatly put it:"To think is to differ."Thinking Machines COMPUTER

PROFESSIONALS EULOGIZE XEROX PARC OF THE 1970S as a technological Eden where


5/16

some of today's indispensable tools sprouted. But comparable vitality and progress were evident

two decades earlier at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. There, a group of

distinguished researchers laid the conceptual--and in some cases the programming--foundation

for computer-supported decision making.

Future Nobel laureate Herbert Simon, Allen Newell, Harold Guetzkow, Richard M. Cyert, andJames March were among the CIT scholars who shared a fascination with organizational

behavior and the workings of the human brain. The philosopher's stone that alchemized their

ideas was electronic computing.Over the next decades, managers in many industries applied the

technology to decisions about investments, pricing, advertising, and logistics, among other

functions.

Unlike executives making strategic decisions, consumers don't have to factor what Herbert

Simon called "zillions of calculations" into their choices. Still, their newfound ability to make the

best possible buying decisions may amount to technology's most significant impact to date on

corporate success or failure." But when Jack Welch describes his "straight from the gut"leadership style, he's not talking about the alimentary canal. Rather, Welch treats the word as a

conflation of two slang terms: "gut" (meaning emotional response) and "guts"(meaning fortitude,

nerve).

We don't admire gut decision makers for the quality of their decisions so much as for their

courage in making them. Gut decisions testify to the confidence of the decision maker, an in

valuable trait in a leader. Gut decisions are made in moments of crisis when there is no time to

weigh arguments and calculate the probability of every outcome. They are made in situations

where there is no precedent and consequently little evidence. Sometimes they are made in

defiance of the evidence, as when Howard Schultz bucked conventional wisdom aboutAmericans' thirst for a $3 cup of coffee and Robert Lutz let his emotions guide Chrysler's $80

million investment in a $50,000 muscle car. Financier George Soros claims that back pains have

alerted him to discontinuities in the stock market that have made him fortunes. Such decisions

are the stuff of business legend.

Decision makers have good reasons to prefer instinct. In a survey of executives that Jagdish

Parikh conducted when he was a student at Harvard Business School, respondents said they used

their intuitive skills as much as they used their analytical abilities, but they credited 80% of their

successes to instinct. Henry Mintzberg explains that strategic thinking cries out for creativity and

synthesis and thus is better suited to intuition than to analysis. And a gut is a personal,nontransferable attribute, which increases the value of a good one. Readers can parse every word

that Welch and Lutz and Rudolph Giuliani write. But they cannot replicate the experiences,

thought patterns, and personality traits that inform those leaders' distinctive choices.

We further explore how leaders have changed the nation, their organizations and industry on the

whole through their thought and actions


6/16

Leaders who transformed their Organizations Culture

In this section, we take a look at how some brilliant leaders were instrumental in changing the future of

the organisations that they were in-charge of. They perfectly exemplify the saying, When the going getstough, the tough get going. Though many a turn-around stories have been triggered by some courageous

CEOs, we have decided to focus on two titans who deserve more plaudits than what they have got in

recent times: Lou Gerstner and Howard Schultz.

LOU GERSTNER

When Lour Gerstner took over as its CEO in 1993, IBM had just announced a $8.1 billion loss; the largest

in US history. He had 100 days of cash left and IBM was already being written off by commentators as a

dinosaur and an also-ran. Not surprisingly, IBMs workforce was demoralized and hostile.

Gerstners first task was to analyze the problem. Despite having good people, great technology and asound strategy, he found that IBM was suffering from a success syndrome. Gerstner described IBM in

the 1960s, 70s and 80s as the greatest commercial institution ever created. But instead of continuing to

build on this legacy, it had become insular, inward-looking and rigid.

Organizationally, it had become a decentralized fiefdom in which none of the business units

communicated with each other. Gerstner realized that his overarching task was to lead a massive

organizational and cultural change.

Gerstner quickly found ways to stop bleeding cash and identified the companys principal growth

engines. He wanted to break the assumption that customers would always buy IBM because of its past

achievements. He then started to rebuild the company around the customer.

To reintegrate the organization, he sought to provide total solutions to customers. To do so, he needed to

transform almost every business process conducted by IBM. He cautioned his audience of star struck

MBAs that managing a complete turnaround was not as glamorous as they might think. He quoted one of

his senior managers who likened the implementation of the reengineering process to going to work every

day and setting your hair alight and then putting it out with a hammer.

Painful as the process was, it was successful. The business units had been reintegrated and Gerstner made

$14 billion of cost savings. Gerstner said that he learnt three fundamental lessons from his time at IBM;

the importance of:

1. Focus. Gerstner stressed the how imperative it was for a leader to love their business and to killyourself to make it successful. There is no substitute for hard work and the desire to win. CEOs face

a multitude of choices, often peddled by a multitude of self-interested advisors, but they need to focus

on exploiting competitive advantages in core businesses. Accordingly, it is the CEOs responsibility

to manage consultants, investment bankers and advertising agencies so to best serve their business

rather than let them set the agenda.


7/16

2. Execution. Gerstner said that execution is what really separates business leaders. As an ex-McKinsey

Director, Gerstner said that consultants dirty little secret was that it is not that difficult to come up

with attractive strategies in public markets in which everyone has good information. The true

differentiator was how you implement them.

3.Personal leadership.

Gerstner said that despite the volumes of business books written on leadership

recently, he still thought that this was the most undervalued element of institutional change. When

asked later for his advice of how MBA graduates should behave to strive to emulate his success,

Gerstner said that as a start you should always strive to do the job you are doing better than the guy

before you.

Finally, Gerstner wanted to discuss the importance and challenges of transforming corporate culture. For

him, institutional culture is not what is said but it what is done. As an example of cultural change,

Gerstner discussed abolishing IBMs notorious dress code. He said that at the time the public reception

was as if he had sold the company to the Russians. But for Gerstner, it was common sense for IBMs

salesmen to dress as their customers were doing.

Gerstner said that changing the attitude and behaviour of thousands of people is hard to accomplish but

key to success. The work environment is the crucible for individuals productivity. Management cannot

change culture through words and policies alone. All leaders can do is create the conditions for

transformation and invite employees to respond. Not surprisingly, he attributed IBMs success to the

thousands of employees who were willing to react to his initiatives and work hard to make the elephant

dance again.

Howard Schultz

It is hard to imagine that a few years ago Starbucks was in danger of going out of business. Howard

Schultz bought the Seattle-based Starbucks Coffee Company in 1987 with the 11 stores he was workingfor. Years later after phenomenal growth, he gave up his executive leadership role only to return when

Starbucks was headed for disaster. By 2010 the company had regained profitability, finished its best year

ever with 16,000 stores in 54 countries run by 200,000 employees called partners.

But Starbucks would not have recovered if Schultz had remained on the sidelines. Since the Starbucks

crisis coincided with the 2008 recession it would have been easy to blame its decline on the negative

financial climate. When money is scarce, why, some wondered, would people pay two dollars and more

for coffee when they could pay much less at McDonalds or other of the competitors inspired by

Starbucks? Schultz knew that even, or especially, during the recession people still wanted a good cup of

coffee, but for some reason not at Starbucks. The big mistake he discovered was rapid expansion without

quality control. In its rush to grow the Starbucks experience or its soul, was sacrificed. The recoveryplan forced the closing of 600 stores.

As Schultz tells it:

We were closing 20 percent of our newest stores! We thought all we had to do was show up to be

successful. As I stared at the list of 600, a lesson resonated: Success is not sustainable if its defined by

how big you become. Large numbers that once captivated me40,000 stores!are not what matter. The


8/16

only number that matters is one. One cup. One customer. One partner. One experience at a time. We

had to get back to what matters most.

In spite of criticism from employees and skepticism from shareholders and Wall Street, Schultzinitiated top to bottom Transformation Agenda. He even shut down all Starbucks stored for a day

of transformation training. While making changes with new products and technology, theTransformation Agenda returned Starbucks to an experience the aroma of robust coffeebrewed by friendly baristas who know their return customers well enough to prepare theirfavorite coffee drink before being asked.

Today, the Starbucks mission statement reads: to inspire and nurture the human spirit oneperson, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time. Few would argue when we say, that Schultzhas reignited the fire that was dying well before its time!

Leaders who led to change the destiny of their Countries

The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.

- Che Guevara

He started out as a barrister, was a victim of racist behavior, took the oath to free his land fromforeign rule and finally defeated the queens rule.

He went to a jail in South Africa and fought for the rights of the oppressed. He became the firstblack president in South Africa. Who would have thought that a victim of apartheid wouldeventually become a role model for billions?

Once a decorated war veteran of World War I, he propagated the motive of the New Order, ledan uprising against the Jews, locked horns with the establishment and went away scarred.

The human history has been colored with anecdotes of many a heroes and anti heroes who have

lined the paths for generations to follow. These individuals dared to think beyond the realm ofthe ordinary and in the process, changed the face of history during and after their lives. Thecommon virtue among these personalities is that they always had a vision and never waivered intheir path to achieve the same. Even though, in some cases, both the means and the ends werenot justified but, nevertheless they tirelessly pursued their motives and affected the lives of otherordinary mortals. Here, we highlight the contributions made by a few illustrious politicalfigures who have engrained their history in our collective consciousness.


9/16

Mohandas K Gandhi

also affectionately known as Mahatma led India's independence movement in the 1930sand 40s by strictly following the mantra of Ahimsa non violence. He faced the bullets andsticks of the British colonialists with stirring speeches and non-violent protest.

More than anything else, historians say, Gandhi proved that one man has the power to take on anempire, using both ethics and intelligence. Other peaceful visionaries such as Martin LutherKing Jr. during the 1960s civil rights movement and Tibet's Dalai Lama have emulated hismethods in years to follow, shaking up the dynamics of world politics in the process.

The Mahatma started out as a barrister in South Africa and practiced law for a period duringwhich he also helped the alleviation of oppression of the lower strata of the society. On returningto India in 1915, he carried on his desire to improve the station of the lower classes.

Gandhi quickly became a leader within the Indian National Congress, participated in the local

struggles of various Indian communities. It was during those travels that his legend grew amongthe Indian community and the masses started following his path towards independence.

When he was arrested several times over the following years for his actions during themovement, Gandhi calmly fasted in prison, believing that his death would embarrass the Britishenough to spur independence, which had become the focus of his politics by 1920.

Gandhi's non-cooperation movement, kicked off in the early 1920s, called for Indians to boycottBritish goods and traditions and become self-reliant. His most famous protest came in 1930,when Gandhi led thousands of Indians on a 250-mile march to a coastal town to produce salt, onwhich the British had a monopoly.

India finally gained full independence in 1947 after Gandhi stuck his foot in the door anduprooted the Queens rule with his mass uprising movements. This event played a significantrole in inspiring others such as Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, Sarojini Naidu etc. and also laid afoundation for a scarred nation to rise up again and eventually become a force to be reckonedwith.

In summary, the Mahatma taught us the value of conviction and perseverance whichenables one to follow the successful path towards the goal.

The South African activist and former presidentNelson Mandela (1918- ) helped bring an end toapartheid and has been a global advocate for human rights. A member of the African NationalCongress party beginning in the 1940s, he was a leader of both peaceful protests and armedresistance against the white minoritys oppressive regime in a racially divided South Africa. Hisactions landed him in prison for nearly three decades and made him the face of the anti-apartheidmovement both within his country and internationally.


10/16

Released in 1990, he participated in the eradication of apartheid and in 1994 became the firstblack president of South Africa, forming a multiethnic government to oversee the countrystransition. Since retiring from politics in 1999, he has remained a devoted champion for peaceand social justice in his own nation and around the world.

Since leaving office, Nelson Mandela has remained a devoted champion for peace and socialjustice in his own country and around the world. He has established a number of organizations,including the influential Nelson Mandela Foundation and The Elders, an independent group ofpublic figures committed to addressing global problems and easing human suffering. In 2002,Mandela became a vocal advocate of AIDS awareness and treatment programs in a culture wherethe epidemic had been cloaked in stigma and ignorance.

The primary lesson learnt from this visionarys life is that one should always think ofinclusive development of the society and sacrifice ones comforts to serve the commonpurpose of humanity in a means possible.

Adolf Hitler

A much talked about anti hero throughout the post war era, propagated his political ideas whichhad originated in the rampant racism in his homeland, a form he had to accept with a pinch ofsalt when he was a young man in Vienna, trying unsuccessfully to enter an art school.

He moved to Munich in 1913, where he enlisted in the German army. He was twice wounded,and decorated, during World War One. His political career began in 1918, fired by the hatred forthe German revolution of 1918/19 and the Weimar Republic, which he regarded as symbolic ofGermany's defeat in the war and of the illegitimate 'power of Jews and Bolsheviks'.

In 1919 he joined the fascist German Workers' Party (DAP), whilst still employed by theGerman army. Demonstrating rare talent as a master-orator, he played to the crowds by stokingthe resentments of right-wingers, promising extremist 'remedies' to Germany's problems,including the killing of Jews, which few believed would ever be enacted. By July 1921 he wasthe unquestioned leader of what had become the NSDAP, the Nazi Party.

Using new techniques of mass-communication to project his own quirky charisma, and backedby the brutality of his storm troopers, he marched towards the west, the Soviets, democrats,communists, capitalists and Jews. At this time of rural economic depression, the 1929 crash, andmass unemployment, voters were in the right frame of mind to move his way, and by 1932 theNazis could no longer be ignored by Germany's political elites.

Although his party never won an overall majority in Germany, on 30 January 1933 Hitlerbecame chancellor of a coalition government. By 1938 radicalism, terror, expansionism hadbecome the norm, and many Germans tolerated the situation - with fear and propaganda beingpartial explanations for this acceptance.

Hitler sought world domination (he always took war to his enemies, not they to him), and hispolicies led inexorably to World War Two. His murderous racial and political intentions were


11/16

always clear, although secrecy sometimes shrouded the precise means of their execution. Hekilled himself in Berlin in 1945, when it became clear that the war was about to end in victoryfor the Allied Forces.

Even in his fall and eventual demise, he taught us a few important lessons

- Never waiver from ones beliefbut let not irrationality take over.- Do not let the fear of the competition get to the psyche and confidence will

surely follow.

In conclusion, the lives of these leaders have taught us a few valuable lessons in leadership andhow one can direct masses and nations with unshaken self belief in all their endeavors. One cancertainly apply all these in the daily life both personal and professional to good effect. Themost important fact to be remembered is that one should always listen to others suggestions butfollow ones own rationale.


12/16

Leaders who were flag bearers of change in the industry

You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you

get it built, they'll want something new.

Steve Jobs

The death of Steve Jobs reminds us of the stark times we live in. As the world wept, sheddinggenuine tears for a change, at the passing of one of historys most remarkable inventor-entrepreneurs, it seemed that we had entered an era of the end of the role model.

He had inspired a generation to reach for the starry heights of accomplishment. More than that,he reminded the world of the gift of life, its limited span and the importance of the personal

dream.

In his now historic 2005 Stanford University Commencement speech, Jobs had revealed thesavant in himself by declaring that Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It isLifes change agent. In that speech, he had briefly described his fairy tale life, starting with howhe had been put up for adoption by his biological mother, who was then a young, unwed collegegraduate student.

Mr. Jobs, who was raised by working class parents, did not graduate from college. But hecontinued to learn. He listened to intuition. He is listed as either primary inventor or co-inventorin more than 230 awarded patents or patent applications. Talent must be allowed to speak and

experiment with ideas, even if every move is not bound for immediate commercial success. Mr.Jobs has a timeless message for everyone the only way to do great work is to love what onedoes. A second powerful message from the 56-year old tech wizard is to learn from failure SteveJobs was revered not for being one of the worlds most successful businessmen but for hisseminal inventions, like the Mac and the iPad; his life story, worldview and later his terminalcancer had further elevated him to a cult figure.

It was Steve Jobs' obsession with perfection and minimalism that brought products like theoriginal iPod, a music player which could store 1,000 songs in a palm-sized device, the iPodNano that he pulled out of his pocket six years ago or the first-gen MacBook Air that he pulledout of a manila envelope. Steve Jobs' focus was clear he wanted to create products that were

innovative, path-breaking and above all, intuitive.

For Steve Jobs making money was not the primary aim; it was doing things differently andcreating products that no one had imagined could exist. Steve Jobs had no time or inclinations toconstruct such Towers of Babel; till the very end he continued to live in an ordinary middle classneighborhood, the kind where kids turn up for trick or treat. When it was known he was dying,Apple executives had to inform the local police to ensure that his open house did not getmobbed.


13/16

If anything really inspired him it was the Beatles. In a famous interview to the popular TVprogramme 60 Minutes, he said that his business model was the Beatles: They were four guysthat kept each others negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total wasgreater than the sum of the parts. Ideas like this helped him build hugely successful corporatestructures: Apple (named after Apple Records of Beatles fame), NeXT Computer and Pixar, the

animation studio.

Nevertheless, there was always an other-worldly side to Steve Jobs; he lived a simple, almostmythical life and became a veritable carpenter in the world of hi-technology.

People all over the world, especially the young, liked what they saw in Steve Jobs. Here was acollege dropout, a videogame freak and one time hippie who had no problems about admitting hehad tripped on acid. New York Times reporter John Markoff, in his 2005 book What the Doormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer quoted Jobs assaying, Doing LSD was one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life.

Jobs, in contrast, had both charisma and the capacity to inspire, even though he was by no meansa saint or a typical nice guy. Many had complained of his wild temperament and ruthlessness. Hehad even tried to disown his first daughter born out of a liaison with painter Chrisann Brennan.Steve Jobs also did not believe in charity and is said to have personally shut down all corporatephilanthropy programs in Apple.

He was a huge egoist who believed that his inventions were his real gifts to the world. Andperhaps he was right. Mankind will never be the same now that it has the PC, the iPod, theiPhone, the iPad and finally a legend to fit all of that.

Jeff Bezos

From an early age, Jeffrey displayed a striking mechanical aptitude. Even as a toddler, heasserted himself by dismantling his crib with a screwdriver. He also developed intense andvaried scientific interests, rigging an electric alarm to keep his younger siblings out of his roomand converting his parents' garage into a laboratory for his science projects. When he was ateenager, the family moved to Miami, Florida. In high school in Miami, Jeffrey first fell in lovewith computers. An outstanding student, he was valedictorian of his class. He entered PrincetonUniversity planning to study physics, but soon returned to his love of computers, and graduatedwith a degree in computer science and electrical engineering.

After graduation, Jeff Bezos found employment on Wall Street, where computer science wasincreasingly in demand to study market trends. His went to work at Fitel, a start-up company thatwas building a network to conduct international trade.

Over the years, Internet was adopted by government and academic researchers to exchange dataand messages, but as late as 1994, there was still no Internet commerce to speak of. One day thatspring, Jeffrey Bezos observed that Internet usage was increasing by 2,300 percent a year. He


14/16

saw an opportunity for a new sphere of business, and immediately began considering thepossibilities.

In typically methodical fashion, Bezos reviewed the top 20 mail order businesses, and askedhimself which could be conducted more efficiently over the Internet than by traditional means.

Books were the commodity for which no comprehensive mail order catalogue existed, becauseany such catalogue would be too big to mail -- perfect for the Internet, which could share a vastdatabase with a virtually limitless number of people.

He flew to Los Angeles the very next day to attend the American Booksellers' Convention andlearn everything he could about the book business. He found that the major book wholesalers

had already compiled electronic lists of their inventory. All that was needed was a single locationon the Internet, where the book-buying public could search the available stock and place ordersdirectly. Bezos's employers weren't prepared to proceed with such a venture, and Bezos knew theonly way to seize the opportunity was to go into business for himself. It would mean sacrificing asecure position in New York, but he and his wife, Mackenzie, decided to make the leap.

Jeff and Mackenize flew to Texas to make the drive to Seattle, where they would have readyaccess to the book wholesaler Ingram, and to the pool of computer talent Jeff would need for hisenterprise. Mackenzie drove while Jeff typed a business plan. The company would be calledAmazon, for the seemingly endless South American river with its numberless branches.

On July 16, 1995, Bezos opened his site to the world, and told his 300 beta testers to spread theword. In 30 days, with no press, Amazon had sold books in all 50 states and 45 foreign countries.By September, it had sales of $20,000 a week. Bezos and his team continued improving the site,introducing such unheard-of features as one-click shopping, customer reviews, and e-mail orderverification.

The business grew faster than Bezos or anyone else had ever imagined. When the company wentpublic in 1997, skeptics wondered if an Internet-based start-up bookseller could maintain itsposition once traditional retail heavyweights like Barnes and Noble or Borders entered theInternet picture. Two years later, the market value of shares in Amazon was greater than that ofits two biggest retail competitors combined, and Borders was striking a deal for Amazon tohandle its Internet traffic.

Today, Jeff Bezos and Mackenzie live north of Seattle, and are increasingly concerned withphilanthropic activities. "Giving away money takes as much attention as building a successfulcompany," he has said. The success of Amazon has also allowed Bezos to explore a lifelong

interest in space travel. In 2004, he founded an aerospace company, Blue Origin, to developnew technology for spaceflight. Blue Origin has received funding from NASA and is testingNew Shepard, a multi-passenger rocket-propelled vehicle designed to travel to and fromsuborbital space at competitive prices. In 2007, Amazon introduced a handheld electronicreading device called the Kindle. The device uses "E Ink" technology to render text in a print-like appearance, without the eyestrain associated with television and computer screens.


15/16

With the introduction of the Kindle, Amazon quickly captured 95 percent of the U.S. market forbooks in electronic form -- e-books. Hence showing that yet again Jeff continues to bend therules of an industry which does not see innovations every day.

Sam Walton

n 1945, after leaving the military, Walton took over management of his first variety store at theage of 26. With the help of a $20,000 loan from his father-in-law, plus $5,000 he had saved fromhis time in the Army, Walton purchased a Ben Franklin variety store in Newport, Arkansas.[4] The store was a franchise of the Butler Brothers chain.

It was here that Walton pioneered many concepts that would prove to be crucial to his success.Walton made sure the shelves were consistently stocked with a wide range of goods. His secondstore, the tiny "Eagle" department store, was down the street from his first Ben Franklin and nextdoor to its main (Newport) competitor. Walton leased the space mainly to preempt hiscompetitor from expanding. It held its own, but didn't fare as wel

Sam Walton wanted to focus on providing a wide range of goods at discounted prices to theconsumer and keep his stores open longer than his competitors, even during the Christmasseason. His lower-priced strategies allowed him to drive up sales and negotiate lower prices onpurchases with his wholesalers. A combination of his location and price strategies made him atop seller in the chain in the six-state region of the franchise market.

Higher rent and unfair lease negotiations eventually forced Sam Walton to open his own store inBentonville, Arkansas called "Walton's Five and Dime" and sell off his inventory and franchiselocation to the location's owner, instead. In Bentonville, Walton continued to provide low pricesand long hours while subsequently participating in community activities such as the Rotary Club

and Chamber of Commerce. He continued to open new stores and offered the managers tobecome involved in the business from an investment perspective. By 1962 Walton and hisbrother Bud owned a total of sixteen stores in Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas, most of whichstill functioned under the brand of Ben Franklin.

He preached three values of Leadership

1. Stick to fundamental values

Sam Walton had simple values that guided him through his life and business. He didnt followthe latest management fad, nor did he believe in any of the get-rich-quick ideas. He was solidly

living his life by the values that he grew up with.

Similarly, as a leader building a team or an organization, you need to get away from all thenoise about the latest management framework, or the next idea about how leadership should bedone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_Storeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport,_Arkansashttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Walton#cite_note-Forbes269-3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butler_Brothershttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_Storeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport,_Arkansashttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Walton#cite_note-Forbes269-3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butler_Brothers


16/16

The principles that existed for thousands of years still exist today and all you have to do is followthem, and people will follow you. There is nothing new under the sun and you shouldnt beswayed by different ways and ideas; but stick to your values and you will be successful.

2. Dont follow the money, follow your passion

Sam Walton didnt start off his variety stores with an ambition to become rich; he simply had apassion for his craft and at each point in time, he only wanted to do it better and better.

The thing is, if you follow the money, youll be running from one business opportunity toanother, without any focus. But Sam Walton had one focus: retail and so should you. When youfollow your passion, youll be successful, in whatever craft you do, and youll become a leaderin that field, no matter what is it.

3. Take care of your people

Sam Walton took extremely good care of his employees and he gave very employee a chance tobecome successful with him by allowing them to purchase stock options of Wal-mart at adiscount. He treated them as associates of the business and wanted them to enjoy part of Wal-marts success.

If you can value every single employee or team member in your organization, it will help towardyour personal success as well. But do it only because you genuinely care. Make them part of theorganization by allowing them to share the organizations success, be it by stock options or otherforms of rewards.

Theres a saying that goes, if you can make people around you successful, then you will be

successful too.

Documents

Assignment Case Analysis