Professor Elam

Brands Not Likely to Survive

Wed Dec 31 2014

Ten Brands Not Likely to Survive  RSH and SHLD were both on the list last year, can they eke out another year?

 

Wed Dec 31 2014

Ten Brands Not Likely to Survive  RSH and SHLD were both on the list last year, can they eke out another year?

 

 

The Five Foot Shelf of Great Works, Towards a Required Reading List for Business

Since I put this up over the break  I received no comments. Given that in the Ethics class today virtually no one had heard of

Gladwell / Tipping Point

Taleb / Black Swan

Or other literature mentioned, perhaps this wold be a good time to begin a required reading list

 

Weekend Dec 28, 2014

Prof Paula Cohen contributed this article A Year of 15 Minute Daily Does from the Harvard Classics as  a recent Wall Street Journal op ed  In  a nut shell this Distinguished English Professor relates that

she inherited a five foot shelf of 50 classics published as a set in 1910. An intro volume actually had daily suggestions for 15 minute reads, so as to take the novice reader through the various volumes, putting the proverbial toe in the water so to speak. She relates it was tough to keep on the time line but it was worth it. 

Back in the day, universities used to have required if not suggested reading lists. And so I sent Prof Cohen an e mail suggesting we should at least have a 52 week list for business students. Most seem to arrive not having read anything quite frankly. 

I am going to use this post as a repository for links that just might serve as starting points for such a business list. These links in and of themselves would not serve as the specific suggestions but certainly there is material available here that would serve as readings, or lead to such an article, much of which changes over time. 

The Deming Institute  Founded by the original quality guru

Deming's Fourteen Points

Drucker Institute   dedicated to the guy who invented management

Tom Peters Website from the guy who gave us Management by Wandering Around

Thomas Sowell Home Page Prolific writer of 40 books, Milton Friedman Chair Stanford

Walter Willaims Home Page Fried of  Tom Sowell, teaches at George Mason

Ralph Waldo Emerson Society The original Transcendentalist

The Thoreau Institute A Tribute to the original Counter Culture Guru, one hundred years before his time

Richard Branson's blog Successful and original at the same time, founder Virgin Atlantic

24 Must Read Blogs for Entrepreneurs  A few of these might serve as a read

The Big Picture - Barry Ritholtz  lots of links here, again these are all general leads to find specific articles worth readingsocionomi

Socionomics  the New Predictive Social Science of How Mood Influences what happens

Malcolm Gladwell page. Author of Outliers, Tipping Point

The Pitchman This would be an example of a specific link to an article that could be read in fifteen minutes, Gladwell's award winningprofile of tv pitchman Ron Popeii

Nassim Taleb on Fooled By Randomness; The Black Swan - Taleb has sold over two million books on the idea that random events occur with surprising regularity

Tom Peters In Search of Excellence ONe of the original gurus of improvement, still going strong

Eric Hoffer Quotes, Author of The True Believer  The Philisophical Longshoreman

Dale Carnegie Page  Author of the original self help book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, this is a summary of his prnciples

 Charles Dickens Page

Will Rogers Quotations

The Art of the Essay E B White, the master, on good writing

E B White on Writing

 

The ultimate quote on quality

There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.

John Ruskin

Quotes form John Ruskin

 Quotes on Cheapness, i.e. the lack of quality

Will Rogers  The Transcendentalist of the Last Century

Alstom Pleads Guilty

Tuesday Dec 23, 2014

BRIBERY PLEA

Switching gears, energy companies world-wide are sure to be examining the fallout from the decision by French engineering giant Alstom SA to plead guilty and pay $772 million to resolve criminal charges that it paid tens of millions of dollars in a “widespread” bribery scheme to win electric power contracts around the globe. The record criminal bribery penalty comes after more than six years of investigations into Alstom from law-enforcement agencies in 10 countries. The company and its subsidiaries’ schemes lasted for more than a decade, into at least 2011, with the firms admitting to more than $75 million in bribes to help secure more than $4 billion in Alstom projects in countries including Indonesia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Bahamas.

“It was astounding in its breadth, its brazenness and its world-wide consequences,” said James Cole, U.S. deputy attorney general.

An Ethical Story

Monday Dec 22, 2014 I now know where I went wrong.

A few years ago robbers entered a bank in a small town. One of them shouted: "Don't move! The money belongs to the bank. Your lives belong to you.” Immediately all the people in the bank laid on the floor quietly and without panic.

This is an example of how the correct wording of a sentence can make everyone change their view of the world.

. While running from the bank the youngest robber (who had a college degree) said to the oldest robber (who had barely finished elementary school): "Hey, maybe we should count how much we stole." The older man replied: "Don’t be stupid. It's a lot of money so let's wait for the news on TV to find out how much money was taken from the bank"

This is an example of how life experience is more important than a degree..

After the robbery, the manager of the bank said to his accountant: "Let's call the cops and tell them how much has been stolen." "Wait”, said the Accountant, "before we do that, let's add the $800,000 we took for ourselves a few months ago and just say that it was stolen as part of today’s robbery."

This is an example of taking advantage of an opportunity.

The following day it was reported in the news that the bank was robbed of $ 3 million. The robbers counted the money, but they found only $1 million so they started to grumble. "We risked our lives for $1 million, while the bank's management robbed two million dollars without blinking? Maybe it’s better to learn how to work the system, instead of being a simple robber." ​​

This is an example of how knowledge can be more useful than power !!!

Moral of the Story : Give a person a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give him a bank, and he can rob everyone.

Where Were the Auditors?

Thursday Dec 18, 2014

Michael Dennehy embezzled $1.7 million form Bexar Waste from 2008 to 2014. As an accounts payable clerk he wrote himnself checks and deposited them to personal accounts.  A stamp forged the proper signature and names were changed for payeesin Quick Books. 

Bexar Waste is garbage collection service based in Schertz.  In my opinon the firm is in need of

improved internal controls

a serious outside auditor who would at least perform a review of the books

What other simple methods could have prevented an ongoing fraud like this?

After osting this news item early this morning I received, no surprise, this via my Interna Audit Membership.

PCAOB to detail internal control audit checklist. The PCAOB is still dissatisfied with the quality of many audits it inspects. While Bexar Waste is a small privately held company, that story highlights the importance of internal controls. 

As I have thought the Bexar Waste case over, it occurs to me that whoever was in charge must not have  known the company very well. If your accounts went missing $1.7 Million over five years, would you notice, that is 340K a year!  I would think that is a significant number in a firm that size. 

Wing Suit Flying

Wed Dec 10 2014

 

A truly amazing video, the amazing part is that this works and the guys survived.

Benford's Law and Detecting Fraud

Wed Dec 10, 2014

Benford's law has to do with the non random occurrence of numbers in data sets. TAke a look to see how a forensic accountant might use this tool.

As it turns out, randomness is not so random.

A MCD Ad for Soccer Crazy Brazil

Monday Dec 8 2014

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/-T7zyezBkuY?rel=0

 

I hvea no idea how many takes it took to record these shots but well worth it, enjoy!

Retailing Woes

Thursday Dec 4 2014

Sears SHLD  losing half a billion dollars and closing more stores. So how do you mae more money by closing stores, you don't. I would say, why wasste time, call the auctioneers.