Business - What's the Shrewdest, Smartest Maneuvers You'Ve Ever Seen in Business ?

Business: Business DevelopmentEdit ★ Business Strategy Marketing Survey Questions Unfollow Question What's the shrewdest, smartest maneuver you've ever seen in business? Edit Add Question Details Promote Question to 150 People 6+ Comments • Share (144) • Report • Options 181 Answers Suprabhat Tiwari, Living in the dust, Aiming for the St... Edit Bio • Make Anonymous 750 Credits to Promote Ask to Answer Related Questions Schools: What's the shrewdest, smartest maneuver you've ever seen in academia? Marketing: What's the smartest maneuver you've ever seen in marketing? Design: What's the smartest maneuver you've ever seen in Designing of any product & service or the design firm? Business: What's the stupidest maneuver you've ever seen in business? Business Strategy: What's the cleverest manouever you've ever seen in business? More Related Questions Share Question Twitter Facebook Add your answer, or answer later. Balaji Viswanathan, Founder Zingfin.com Votes by Mark Savchuk, Oliver Emberton, Greg Self, and 3469 more. In January 1914, Henry Ford announced a radical decision. He increased the worker wages from $2.34/day to $5/day and reduced the working time from 9 hours to 8 hours per day. Other businessmen derided Ford as a socialist, while common public heralded him as a hero. People even prodded him to run for a President. Even today, Ford's 5 dollar workday is widely remembered in the US. Newspapers had a field day. Ford's PR also worked the press to make this move as an egalitarian one (to make the workers rich enough to buy Ford's cars). Question Stats Latest activity 33m ago This question has 22 monitors with 1538497 topic followers. 748,495 views on this question. 5551 people are following this question. Business move, not just an egalitarian one While this was probably the most generous pay hike in corporate history, Henry Ford was no fool. By the end of 1914, Ford's 13000 workers made 260,000 cars annually while the entire rest of the industry with 66000 workers produced only 280,000 cars. Ford's workers were 5 times more productive ! (Although a part of it is owed to the assembly line innovation introduced a few years before this). Within 2 years of this radical pay rise, Ford's profit jumped 200% to $60 million/year. In another 5 years, Ford was rolling out Model - T's every 24 seconds (in the initial years it took 12 hours)!! Henry Ford's $5-a-Day Revolution and Henry Ford and the Model T: A Case Study in Productivity (Part 2) How? Until that time, factory workers were meant to be squeezed and thrown out. Labor was not seen as an asset back then. In a single move, he created a new corporate workforce and heralded the creation of the American middle class. Concepts such as 8-hour days and HR departments owe their existence partly to the ideas generated from this. 1. Employee turnover: Until 1914 Ford hired 300 men a year for every 100 jobs. There were a massive worker turnover as the tired and bored workers kept shifting jobs. Now, Ford provided an offer that was too good for the workers. The best of the workers were both motivated to stay and work. 2. Absenteeism dropped. Until then, factory workers randomly dropped out of work in the middle. They had little to lose, since they were so poorly paid. This absenteeism severely affected the assembly lines. No amount of force/threats worked. But, now they had golden handcuffs. 3. Massive movement of smart labor to Detroit. Soon word got around and there was a gold rush in Detroit. Within 24 hours, 10000 men queued up outside Ford's factories. Ford could now be very picky and hire from the best who would dramatically improve efficiencies in the automobile industry. 4. Skyrocketing productivity: The workers got into a rhythm as they were not shifting jobs any more and that meant they were moving up the learning curve. Ford could now introduce advanced processes without worrying too much about training expenses. The industry was changed and a new era of workers with a low turnover appeared in US corporations. There is so much present corporations can learn (especially in countries like India, where we are still in the pre-Ford era when it comes to our manufacturing mindset). 3.5k 36+ Comments • Share (24) • Thank • Report • 17 May Saurabh Jindal, Internet, Traveling, Football Votes by Karan Kumar, Manoj Memana Jayakumar, Ankit Bisht, and 1161 more. 1. Colgate Palmolive: Earlier, toothpaste tubes had a small opening of about two millimeters for squeezing out the paste. The company was hard pressed to increase its sales and revenue. It initiated an open competition to suggest anything that could facilitate or increase their sales. One person came up with a suggestion to just increase the size of the tube’s opening. It was considered to be a dumb and irrational idea. However, it was implemented on a trial basis. And as they say, rest is history. The whole rationale behind increasing the diameter was to increase volume consumption. The inherent characteristics of a smaller diameter opening restricted the volumetric consumption of the toothpaste. With the increase in size, consumption increased, decreasing replacement cycle, and thereby increasing sales. 2. Swan Vesta: An employee of Swan Vesta, the match company, went to senior management and told them that he could think of a way they could save themselves millions of pounds in production costs. He would reveal this to them if they agreed to give him some large share of the savings they made. They got the whole thing agreed with a solicitor, so that if they indeed were able to save millions, he'd make his cash. He then told them to put the sandpaper on only one side of the matchbox. They saved millions and he got his share. This is why Swan matches have sandpaper on only one side of the box. 3.El Cortez Hotel: The famous El Cortez Hotel in San Diego decided to install an additional elevator to better serve their guests. Engineers drew up plans cutting holes through each floor of the hotel. A janitor, who was concerned with this, made the comment that this would make a great deal of mess. The janitor was told not to worry because the hotel would be closed to guests during the construction. The janitor suggested, "You could build the elevator on the outside of the hotel." At the time, this architectural concept had never been done before, but after investigation by the engineers, it proved an idea that was worth developing, and is now commonplace in buildings today worldwide. The janitor's idea saved the El Cortez thousands of dollars in guest revenue, employees from losing salary, and major clean-up costs related to the construction of the new elevator. 7+ Comments • Share (5) • Thank • Report • 10 May Matt Richardson, Programmer and musician Votes by Aaquib Al Hossain, Aditya M Rao, Alberto Saenz Gomez Tello, and 652 1.2k more. How Richard Branson started Virgin Atlantic. In 1979, while on vacation with his fiancee in The British Virgin Islands, he was catching a flight to Puerto Rico which ended up cancelled. Richard decided to phone up some charter companies and chartered a plane for $2,000. After splitting the cost between the available seats, he grabbed a blackboard and wrote: VIRGIN AIRWAYS: $39 for a single flight to Puerto Rico. He walked around the airport terminal and soon filled every seat. When they arrived in Puerto Rico a passenger reportedly said: "Virgin Airways isn’t too bad – smarten up the services a little and you could be in business". 656 Birth of Virgin Atlantic Also talked about in his book: "losing my virginity" but I don't have it to hand. 3+ Comments • Share (6) • Thank • Report • 15 May Vivekanandan Jai, Nolanite, Huge fan of Batman Votes by Sameer Gupta, Betsy Megas, Andy Lee Chaisiri, and 4631 more. #From Page on Cracked "Back in the 1970s, liquid hand soap was sold by one guy: Robert Taylor, and his small company Minnetonka . It was his invention, and he knew he was on to something big. Test audiences loved the product and, despite barely having enough resources to do so, Minnetonka decided to go all in and make a push to take the product nationwide. There was only one problem: Nothing he was selling could be patented. The concept of liquid soap wasn't new, and simple pumps had been around since the dawn of civilization. As a result, Taylor knew several huge soap manufacturers were ready to happily steal his idea the very moment it looked like it could succeed on a large scale. Armed with superior resources and the ability to quickly R&D an imitation product, the industry giants were ready to crush tiny Minnetonka. Taylor, however, was ready for this. Before any other company had the chance, Taylor decided to go shopping one day and bought a few plastic pumps. And by a few we mean FUCKING ALL OF THEM. There were only two companies nationwide manufacturing those little pumps, and Taylor ponied up $12 million -more than the total net worth of his company at the time -- and ordered 100 million of them , effectively buying every single pump these two companies would be able to manufacture for the next year or two. Anyway, without the part required to dispense the soap, there was nothing the major companies could do but sit and watch Taylor slowly own the entire market. His product would become known as SoftSoap , Two years after his little stunt, Colgate-Palmolive would be forced to just buy SoftSoap from Taylor ... for $61 million." 4.6k 29+ Comments • Share (45) • Thank • Report • 16 May “I will buy $20 million of beef from you. Tudela`s final stop was in Philadelphia at the Sun Oil Company. and 4258 more. And his principal business.” Argentina gave him the contract contingent upon his buying the beef. 22+ Comments • Share (101) • Thank • Report • 8 Jun Roberto De Leon. He has built a billion-dollar business from scratch in less than twenty years. curious person 1. Life changed for Puma after that event. He has always made his own breaks. which is oil speculation. Rafael Tudela is a genius at taking the edge. In other words. “If you will buy $20 million of beef from me..is the story of how he got in the oil business in the fist place. Sameer Gupta. “If you will buy $20 million of butane from me. Once again he had found the edge and taken it. “then I`d start to worry about where I`d get the butane. respect.. 9+ Comments • Share (14) • Thank • Report • 12 May Nate Waddoups.got to Argentina. he discovered his competition was formidable: British Petroleum and Shell Oil.com/2012. and 1454 more. By knowing this one fact –his first “edge. “I will buy $20 million of butane gas from you. and Rafael Tudela fulfilled his desire to get in the gas and oil business..-) Votes by Sameer Gupta. he went there to see if he could secure the contract. In the mid 1960s..” When he – a glass manufacturer operating alone with no previous connections or experience in the oil business. He seldom deals in written contracts because his word is his bond." Several years ago I met a Venezuelan oil and shipping businessman by the name Rafael Tudela. which is being built in Spain. “If you will charter my $20 million supertanker. Excerpt from the book: "What they don't teach you at Harvard Business School. One of the best illustrations of this –of how he has the facts.5k 4. When he learned from a business associate that Argentina was about to be in the market for a $20 million dollar supply of butane gas.” so to speak. he has impressed me as the quintessential street-smart executive.3k . http://articles.” The Spanish were ecstatic and delivered a message to Argentina through their ambassador there that Rafael Tudela`s $20 million of beef should be sent directly to Spain. The camera made a close up and the whole world realized that the best player back then was wearing Puma shoes. “If I could get the contract.latimes.he became at least an equal to Shell and BP.. and admire him.. Tudela owned a glass manufacturing company in Caracas. CEO of two princesses .Salman Ahmed Votes by Rohankant Tatelu. “I will build a $20 million supertanker in your shipyard.. Puma paying Pele to tie his shoes in the middle of the field seconds before the kickoff of the World Cup final in Mexico (1970).” he told me. knows what people want. Jesse Lashley. a petroleum engineer by training. As I have come to know. Sriram Vamsi Ilapakurthy. Tudela then flew to Spain.” he told them. and figures out a way to give it to them. relies on his constant process of seeing opportunities where no one else does and taking advantage of them. But feeling around a little bit he also discovered something else: Argentina had an oversupply of beef which they were desperately trying to sell. he longed to be in the oil business. Marc Bodnick.” he told them. where a major shipyard was about to close down from lack of work. but.. It was a political hot potato and an extremely sensitive issue for the Spanish government.” he told the Argentine government.” Sun Oil agreed. Today she sits on this list as the youngest self-made billionaress: Sara Blakely was 27 working for a company selling fax machines door-to-door. Caroline Zelonka. because Salman Ahmed's answer is much better.4k 16+ Comments • Share (9) • Thank • Report • 9 May Dinesh Mallika. She’d abandoned the idea. AT&T had a long-distance service.. Dreamer Votes by Caroline Zelonka. Dave Cheng. called 1-800-OPERATOR.Votes by Oliver Emberton. I worked for a (now defunct) company that did some software development for MCI. and then one day she had her ‘a-ha’ moment. back in the day) realized that many people can't spell "operator" properly.. A 27-year-old fax machine saleswoman took a scissors to her pantyhose. and has barely over 100 votes so far. 2. so she cut the ‘feet’ off her pantyhose and bam: problem solved. . and a corresponding marketing campaign. Somewhere in there. but when she was watching the Oprah show and heard our dear O say that she too cut off the feet of her pantyhose. The ads were on TV every day. You'd call that number to get access to better-than-average long-distance calling rates. Andy Lee Chaisiri. She was going to a party and needed footless pantyhose to go with her outfit. Please give it a look. In the late 80s or early 90s.) Edit: I'm honored that over 2000 of you found this little anecdote worthy of an upvote. and 2441 more. MCI made a fair amount of money while AT&T continued to pay for the marketing campaign. This story was related to me by a co-worker who had dinner with some MCI people while they were visiting to discuss a business proposal. the spark was rekindled. but I feel a little guilty. she’d been praying to ‘the universe’ to give her an idea that will help her make millions and touch people’s lives. (In the mid-1990s. So MCI registered 1-800-OPERATER. and 1140 more. Someone at MCI (AT&T's biggest competitor. Jesse Lashley. working 9 to 5. She stayed at Danka. searching for a manufacturing partner who would make a prototype. She learned to subsist on minimal sleep and kept her sideline gig from her colleagues. effective.000 in savings on that fateful day when she cut the feet off of her stockings in order to wear them under her white pants for a more flattering look (and thus.almost as a confirmation that she should go ahead with her idea. and developed a completely new approach to developing women’s undergarments. Sara had only $5. regardless of the size of the garment). having early batches of her footless pantyhose delivered to her home while she was at her day job. When Sara began to research undergarments for women and how they’d been made for the last 50 years. to how products were tested (on manikins not real people). she’d drive back and forth from her home in Atlanta to North Carolina. Sara saw that the undergarment industry needed a female perspective – insights from a real woman wearing these items to shape the product development direction so the products were useful. rallying . two years after she first conceived of the idea for Spanx. until one mill owner who had dismissed her idea summarily called back with some good news: he had told his daughters about her idea and they convinced him to help Blakely. Blakely spent two years visiting every department store that sold Spanx. legally protecting her product. where she got used to hearing “no” once more. So she eschewed traditional beige and white packaging for bright red. naming the product. Blakely didn’t resign from her role at Danka until the age of 29. she was astonished. securing a manufacturer. From that $5. From the absurd sizing protocols (only one average waist measure was used on all the products. her packaging would have to pop. She was rejected consistently. When the time came to try and get her prototype made. Blakely called and visited one North Carolina hosiery mill after another. this time from the owners of hosiery mills. She broke the mold. and as comfortable as possible.000 she embarked on designing a prototype. but spent her evenings and weekends meticulously researching pantyhose design and existing patents. realized the world needed a new undergarment product that would be comfortable yet flattering to the female form). Blakely made her product to stand out in hosiery departments. She quit Danka and two and a half weeks later she was on the Oprah Winfrey Show. She didn’t turn in her resignation letter until she was absolutely sure her start-up was on the right track. and getting the word out to potential buyers. Harshad Mehta was one such . Her footless hosiery invention revitalized an industry and answered the prayers of women everywhere who wanted to look better in all of their clothes. Now. has zero debt. Today Spanx is to slimming undergarments what Kleenex is to tissues: a brand that stands for the category. In recent months four Wall Street investment banks separately valued Spanx at an average $1 billion. Securities scam of 1991 1. In the early 1990s. at the end of the week many banks would be desperate to buy bonds back. Tanmay Mathur. 9+ Comments • Share (18) • Thank • Report • 24 May Shishira Somashekar. The capital freed in the starting of the week could then be invested. there was an extra clause that said that the average percentage of bond holdings over the week needs to be above the SLR but the daily percentage need not be so. That meant that banks would sell bonds in the earlier part of the week and then buy bonds back at the end of the week. the banks in India had to maintain a particular amount of their deposits in government bonds. Now.1k Harshad Mehta was an Indian stockbroker who grabbed headlines for the notorious BSE security scam of 1991. Blak ely owns 100% of the company. The broker knew which bank had more bonds (called ‘plus’) and which has less than the required amount (called ‘short’). the government decided that the banks need not show their details on each day.sales people by educating them about the product and teaching them how to sell it. He then acts as the middleman between the two banks. At 41 she’s the youngest woman to join World’s Billionaires list without help from a husband or an inheritance. Also. Engineer by chance. a sum Forbes corroborated with the help of industry analysts. human being by choice Votes by Balaji Viswanathan. Aashish Katta. and 589 more. This ratio was called SLR ( Statutory Liquidity Ratio). This is where the broker comes in. they need to do it only on Fridays. He was Born in a lower middle-class Gujarati Jain family. Each bank had to submit a detailed sheet of its balance at the end of the day and also show that there was a sufficient amount invested in government bonds. has never taken outside investment and hasn’t spent a nickel on advertising. Broker was not supposed to handle the cash or the securities. 2) Bank Receipts (BR) what are Bank Receipts ? Securities were not traded in reality in a ready forward deal but the seller gave the buyer a BR which is a confirmation of the sale of securities. This strategy can also be explained in another way 1) Ready Forward (RF) What is Ready Forward ? The RF is in essence a secured short-term (typically 15-day) loan from one bank to another. So he said that the bank should write the cheque in his name rather than the other bank (which was forbidden by law). typically at a slightly higher price. then he takes money from C on Tuesday and tells D that he’ll pay on Wednesday and the money he gets from C is paid to B and as a result he has some working capital with him at all times if this goes on with other banks throughout the week. but would give a bank receipt of the securities which would be trusted by the next bank and treated as securities . A BR is a receipt for the money received by the selling bank and pledges to deliver the securities to the buyer. A bank would not give securities. a broker usually brings together two banks for which he is paid a commission. immediately. This capital he invested in the stock market and managed to stoke a massive boom. take their securities and ask for 1 week time for this process.and tells B that he’ll pay on Tuesday. In the meantime. He takes money from A on Monday. The borrowing bank actually sells the securities to the lending bank and buys them back at the end of the period of the loan. Loopholes of Bank Receipts The next loophole he picked was the Bank Receipt. the next Monday when he was supposed to pay to SBI. Harshad Mehta had very cleverly squeezed some capital out of the banking system. the banks agreed. Since he would deal with multiple banks.” In a ready-forward deal. Loophole of Ready Forward At any point of time. he ended up having both the securities and liquid cash for 1 week (which was illegal but banks did that because he had gained their trust). there would be banks wanting to sell their securities (like bonds/shares) for cash and there would be banks wanting to buy securities by offering cash. he took the money from A and went to B and said that he would pay the money on the next day to B but he needed the bonds right now (for A). Then. he wil go to ICICI and tell them that he will find a seller and take their cash and ask for 1 week time. In the above example. The banks at that time were not allowed to invest in the equity markets. he would make a deal with IDBI. so that he could make the payment to whichever bank was required. Doing this way. He worked as a middle man between many banks for a long time and gained the trust of the banks’ senior management. assets would usually not move but only circulated through receipts. But he offered a 15 % return for bank B for the one day extension. Crudely put. he would tell SBI that he will pay on Monday. Now what Harshad Mehta did was that he told the banker at A that he was dealing with many banks and hence did not know who would he deal in the end with. It was such a sophisticated pipeline process. Lets say that there are two banks A (short) and B (plus). the bank lends against government securities just as a pawnbroker lends against jewelers. He used to act as a middleman between such banks. get their money and pay it to SBI. then go to Canara bank and say he will pay them on tuesday and so on. He would go to SBI and assure them that he will find a buyer. the securities are held in the seller’s trust by the buyer. you saw how one bank would give securities and another would pay cash for such securities. Suppose SBI wanted to sell securities and ICICI wanted to buy securities. Phew!! This was the Ready Forward loophole. Bank B readily agreed with this since it was getting such a nice return Now since Harshad Mehta was dealing with many banks at the same time he could then keep some capital with him at all times. hence getting a breathing time of another week and the cycle would continue.broker. Since he was a trusted broker. But in banking system. Then. going back to the example of bank A and B. For eg. Millions of innocent stock traders went bankrupt. Mr P. as donation to the party. period. a columnist of the newspaper The Times of India. The same day Vijaya Bank chairman committed suicide by jumping from the top of the banks’ office.He got fake bank receipts from banks and took the fraud to next level. Harshad Mehta was charged with hundreds of criminal cases. Mehta made a brief comeback as a stock market expert and started providing investment tips on his website and in a weekly newspaper column.The market went up like crazy and the bulls were on a mad run is believed that It was later revealed that Mehta used the replacement cost theory to explain the reason for the high-level bidding. he made sure he always had crores of rupees as liquid cash and aggressively invested them in stock market. Mehta had been convicted in only one of the 27 cases filed against him.Thats an increase of 4400% . Vamsi Krishna Tellakula. . sources: My views Harshad Mehta Harshad Mehta 593 18+ Comments • Share (10) • Thank • Report • 16 May Anirvan Lahiri. This is my favourite story about business. But there was no money. IT department has itself admitted that they are still unaware of how much money Harshad Mehta amassed during this scam and they are unware of where it is hidden and who is handling the money now. and 852 more. When the banks realized they were taken for a ride and started demanding the cash immediately. Narasimha Rao. Last days of Harshad Mehta A few years later. It is rumored that when he died. The replacement cost theory basically states that older companies should be valued on the basis of the amount of money that would be needed to create another similar company. This way. who later got Padmashri award for exposing this scam. He worked with the owners of a few companies and recommended the shares of those companies only. What attracted the taxman’s attention was Mehta's advance tax payment of Rs 28-crore for the financial year 1991-92. Since he had to book profits in the end. There were news that he also held secret seminars on stock market for a huge fee for the elite in Rotary clubs during his last years. When he died in 2002. Harshad Mehta is now dead. creating an artificial boom and continued making more money. Bank Chairmen started quitting their jobs taking responsibilty. Geordie Keitt. It could be apocryphal but even then is a wonderful story. Allegations of payment of bribe to India's Prime Minister Mehta again raised a furore in 1995 when he made a public announcement that he had paid INR 1 crore (US$182. the day he sold was the day when the market crashed. The scam was exposed by Sucheta Dalal. Founder & CEO. Nimesh Shah still deals in the stock market and is known to be a heavy player. It was all a fraud. for getting him off the scandal case. The chairman knew that when it would become public that he had written cheques in the name of Mehta. He took the price of ACC from 200 to 9000. Chairman of Vijaya Bank committed suicide by jumping from top of his bank building. That man was Nimesh Shah. Another eye-catcher was his extravagant lifestyle. he would be dead meat. he still had 10% of ACC shares with him.One rather unknown fact about this scam is that there was a very important player in this scam who managed to keep a very low profile.V.I got it from my college professor who said he heard it from the hapless MBA in the story.000) to the then Congress President and Prime Minister. He was just as involved as Harshad Mehta but he knew how to keep out of the hands of the law.itself. I know of it second hand . There is a hindi movie named "Gafla" based on Harshad Mehta's life story and the way in which he exploited the system. InsightSplash Votes by Sriram Vamsi Ilapakurthy. The stock market collapsed. You borrow 100 shares of a company (from your friend) at a price of x each. Tata Steel was spending an inordinate amount on employee benefits like housing and education subsidies. here is how the system of short selling works. A bear cartel (group of stock brokers) from Calcutta decided to take advantage of this opportunity. The MBA whipped out a recent Tata Steel P&L statement. The MBA said in comparison to their competitors. He asked: Tell me this. Doing so will take a lot of dowry and saving up for that dowry. That would be a great place to start seeking efficiencies. the story is about this bright MBA from one of the IIMs. for long the premier management training institutes in India. When the miners emerged from the dark mine. including Reliance. How then will you motivate these guys to produce more? The MBA had prepared well for his interview but this was a total curveball. I will take my workers' kids. especially the daughters. Oakley sent a pair of shades to the Chilean miners who were stuck in the mine. It is the polar opposite of the short term. He said this is how we will do it. Oakley Gets Projected $41 Million In Exposure From Chilean Miners 712 856 4+ Comments • Share (2) • Thank • Report • 10 May Manas Jha.. Specifically they believe that any effort they put in this life will only be rewarded in their next life. that is what is going to motivate my workers. and started to short sell the shares of Reliance. Karan Kumar. who interviewed for a job with Russi Mody (http://en. he hemmed. Dhirubhai Ambani. But he had a question. the net worth of Reliance Industries was approximately INR 1 Million. Jan Leadbetter. Nitesh Goyal. they will need to be married into a social strata that is higher than that of her parents. Mody came to his rescue. Mody asked him what exactly would he change to bring the ratios in line. he hawed and finally admitted defeat. he could see that the young man seated in front of him had been taught well. Before 1977. Note 2: I love this story because it to me represents the best of capitalism . I say is a vital strategic investment in our future. and 708 more. ) the legendary chief of Tata Steel. presented some financial ratios that were out of line and said that he could help by identifying these and other inefficiencies.org/wiki/R. that is what is going to drive my productivity.930 Billion).m. financial engineering that so many companies fall victim to. the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) crashed and the stock prices of all major companies. They sent them to protect their eyes from the sun after not having been exposed to it for a very extended period of time.profit maximising behaviour aligned with shrewd strategy and long term vision resulting in shareholder and social value creation. was known for his brilliant management skills and his uncanny ability to tackle stock markets. and 447 more. Most of them are rural. knows the value of money. Early in the interview. what could he contribute to Tata Steel. This way when they grow up. My revenues depend on my steel output and my output depends on my workers. not very educated. the extremely extensive media coverage filmed and talked about how each one of them was wearing a pair of Oakley sunglasses. And their fate in this life is predetermined by their actions in their past life.. 11+ Comments • Share (5) • Thank • Report • 9 May Michael Burghardt Votes by Caroline Zelonka. He thought.wikipedia. and give them the finest education that money can buy. apart from being a good thing to do and the right thing to do. the net worth of Reliance is about $90 Billion (INR 4. the founder. Votes by Sameer Gupta. This one particular strategy of his is my personal favorite: On 18th March 1982. that is why I have not put anything in quotes. Srikanth Krishnan. it had jumped up to more than INR 1 Billion. Today. fell by nearly 10%. Note 1: the specific words are obviously mine.So. So what you say is a needless expense. Hindus and they believe in Karma. Mody asked the MBA. Now for those who don't know. By 1983. Mody admitted to being impressed. and . which was ridiculously high. 9+ Comments • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 10 May Janak Shah..If you didn't have enough money to buy the shares. So. A group of stock brokers commonly referred to as "The Friends of Reliance" started buying these short sold shares. the Calcutta based brokers were shocked when The Friends of Reliance declared that they indeed had enough money to buy the shares (which was given to them by Dhirubhai Ambani himself). Votes by Oliver Emberton. you asked someone else to buy them for you. due to such a huge number of shares (1. and the share price of Reliance was maintained at INR 152 per share. they demanded a penalty of INR 35 per share from the bear cartel. is history. On the day of the settlement.ly/j. and 1331 more.1 Million shares in all.. There are many reasons that the iPod was so successful. But it wasn’t always this way.1 Million) being bought on a single day (i. the demand of the shares increased drastically. At the same time. Does anybody remember the Archos? The Zune? Or Sony’s MP3 Walkmans? The preiPod market had a lot of devices. In case of non-settlement.e. you earn 10x in profit.immediately sell them for a total of 100x. Nikhil Joshi. the product was top notch. they failed to earn a single rupee. 1982). you buy 100 shares (with your own money) for a total of 90x. The bear cartel short sold 1. April 30). However there’s one other usually overlooked tactic .9x. the share prices drop to. and the price of a single reliance share jumped from INR 152 to above INR 180 within half an hour. made an iPhone app!!! http://bit. If anyone wants a device to listen to music on the move this is usually where they go. Since you sold those shares for 100x. and none came out top. Subsequently. When you had enough money. 0. Now. there’s no doubting that. Caroline Zelonka. You return these shares to your friend. as they say. the share prices hadn't dropped) on the very day of the transaction in order to complete the transaction. and they demanded the shares from the bear cartel. it looked like the market would be commoditised. until apple swooped in and monopolised it. say.) So The Friends of Reliance kept on buying the short sold shares till the day of settlement (April 30. Thus. you paid the amount back to the guy who bought them for you. who has to accept them even though the market price of these shares as dropped. plus an interest which was decided by the BSE. Apple’s iPod needs no introduction. The bear cartel was under the belief that the buyers won't have enough money to complete the transactions and would have to reach a settlement based on the Badla trading system. (The Badla trading system essentially worked as follows. the bear cartel had to buy the required shares themselves (remember. The rest. 451 A true genius. 1.3k If by "shrewdest. Raghav Kher. the colour of his earphones. MP3 players with white iPod earphones that they’d actually gone out and purchased separately. I answer Quora questions about money Votes by Siva Viknesh. not the iPod. when it launched. and 562 more. smartest maneuver" means making yourself unbelievably rich whilst personally influencing the US economy so strongly that you were asked to "please stop" by the President of The United States himself. The black earphone lead. the iPod was the coolest thing around. Sajith P Surendran. In fact. non-iPod. All the coolest people had white earphone leads.that Jobs implemented which helped the iPod go viral. Nowadays Social Media “Gurus” talk about making your product “inherently shareable”. It was so successful that you’d see people using their old. With the iPod. This meant you couldn’t show everyone how cool you were. if you design shareability into your product from the beginning it will help you down the line. This is a good piece of advice. Usually by sharing something on Facebook or Twitter. you knew what it was. That is to say make it as easy and simple as possible for customers to show their friends that they love your product. But the problem was you kept it in your pocket. Jobs had the foresight to understand the power of this one minor change. then the stock market . Even if you couldn’t see the iPod. Jobs accomplished this offline. Because every music player in the world back then had a black earphone lead. 13+ Comments • Share (6) • Thank • Report • 21 May Adrian John Cartwood. He made the product inherently shareable without relying on any social network. So Jobs did the opposite. How? Well. iPods became the only music players with white earphone leads. It also meant other people couldn’t see that all the coolest people owned iPods. Everyone knew exactly what those white earphones were connected to. All anyone could see was the earphone lead. even the advertising concentrated on the white earphone leads. “ ‘Now we know what a smart fellow you are. “ ‘Why? Why did you corner the cotton market?’ “ ‘To see if I could. Nobody except the secre. Mr. I’m not interested in anything that will hurt the country. just you asking me here today. Mr. Mr. “ ‘Nothing sir. But I always have to smile when I think of this story. to see if you could. Higher prices in something as important as the cotton market will be very bad while the nation is trying to get on its feet. Is that true?’ “ ‘Yes.tary of agriculture and the president . President. Mr.’ “ ‘Yes sir. “ ‘Let me ask you a question. Livermore. Mr.’ the secretary of agriculture said.antics of Jesse Livermore. and you have properly figured out that the projections for cotton demand in the next little while is high as the nation comes back from war and prosperity begins in earnest. how will you do it?’ the secretary asked. before the other traders really find out what’s happened here and start to drive up the price?’ the president asked. and the price of cotton is nice and low now. “ ‘And we don’t want inflation Mr. in an orderly way. certainly qualifies. “ ‘Yes sir. what would it take for you to undo it. It got out of hand a little at first. TL. once justifiably regarded as the World's Greatest Stock Trader.’ “We shook hands and I lived up to my promise. and waited. it has come to our attention that you have cornered the Chicago cotton futures market.DR “After greetings were exchanged. “ ‘We know you understand about inflation.’ I said.’ I said. ‘Mr. and with you having a corner on cotton you can pretty much name your price as the demand grows. Livermore?’ the secretary of agriculture blurted. Mr. President Wilson began. Livermore. “ ‘Yes sir.’ “ ‘How.’ “ ‘Yes. and I will sell only for what I basically paid for it. Livermore.’ I said. that will do it. Mr. don’t you think?’ the president added.’ I said. President.’ “ ‘You cornered the entire United States cotton market.’ “ ‘Well. President. a question that has my full interest. that’s all. Livermore. and then I wanted to see if I could do it. “ ‘I’ll sell it just like I bought it. Livermore. Alfredo Morgen Wiria. Hitesh Thakkar. Enter the Coca-Cola bottle. What's the best way to create instant brand-recognition and stand out in a monopolistically competitive market? Inimitable design. now you too.and myself ever knew about what had happened.com: Books ] 566 And. they took the P&Gs and Unilevers of the world by surprise . Recovering Optimist Votes by Seb Paquet. This way they made it more affordable to rural and common population. In 1894.” [Source: Jesse Livermore: World's Greatest Stock Trader: Richard Smitten: 9780471023265: Amazon. Quora :) 8+ Comments • Share (3) • Thank • Report • 15 May Ashwin Raja Votes by Deepak Mehta. Biedenharn began bottling Coca-Cola after he was impressed by its sales. which is pretty incredible. Mississippi shop owner Joseph A. Through clever marketing schemes. More than 80% of the Shampoo currently sold in India are from Sachets. and 127 more. and 123 more. Source : The inspiring success story of CavinKare 127 2+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 20 May Yehong Zhu. unexceptional glass bottle called a Hutchinson.they had become a household name in rural South India. Samrat Roy. ' Back in 1983 an Indian company by the name CavinKare was the first to start selling Shampoos in small sachets apart from the bottles. Vladimir A. . He sold the drink to his customers in a common. son. The Shampoo Sachet model in India One of those revolutionary ideas of repackaging a product in smaller volumes that changed the way FMCG companies looked at positioning a product. “And now you too. Frolov. he was inspired by a gourd-shaped picture of a cocoa pod in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Though he wasn’t able to find any information on the nut in question. over the next 24 hours Dean sketched out a concept drawing. So. Faced with the upcoming scheduled maintenance of the mold-making machinery. Dean was the bottle designer and supervisor at the Root Glass Company of Terre Haute. a person could tell at a glance what it was. While brainstorming ideas for the bottle. They wanted a bottle which a person could recognize even if they felt it in the dark. They wanted a bottle that would distinguish Coke from all other bottles. . and so shaped that. bottlers worried that a straight-sided bottle wasn’t distinctive enough. in 1915. Indiana. After explaining how he could transform the shape of the pod into a bottle. it was approved by his boss the next morning.Original Coca-Cola Hutchinson bottle However. the Coca-Cola Company launched a competition among its suppliers to create a new bottle for their beverage. since Coca-Cola was becoming easily confused with ‘copycat’ brands. he decided to base it on the kola nut. one of the key ingredients of the soda. even if broken. nearly two decades down the line. Earl R. 131 . the contour bottle became the standard for the Coca-Cola Company. the contour Coca-Cola bottle is one of the most recognized packages on the planet..Earl R. Dean's 1915 concept drawing Dean then proceeded to create a bottle mold and produced a small number of bottles before the glass-molding machinery was turned off. One of the small number of original contour-shaped prototypes During the 1916 bottler's convention. Dean's contour bottle was chosen over other entries and was on the market the same year. Today.. By 1920. He was able to secure a design patent in November 1915*."even in the dark!". Marc Bodnick. But Dow outsmarted them. Finally the Germans caught on and had to lower their prices at home. making it unstable on conveyor belts. Eventually Dow's business was in trouble and he had to expand. and made it widely available (even in Germany) at 27 cents per pound. He stopped selling in the US market entirely and instead arranged for someone to secretly start buying up all the German bromine he could get his hands on. the Monopoly Breaker 9. He sold the chemical for industrial purposes all over the US for 36 cents per pound at the turn of the 20th century. way below Dow's price. The Germans were wondering 1) why wasn't Dow out of business and 2) why was there suddenly such demand for bromine in the US?? The cartel lowered its price to 12 cents and then 10 cents. entrepreneur. and 9329 more. It was understood that the Germans would stay out of the US market so long as Dow and the other American suppliers stayed within its borders. offering the chemical way below their own costs.. however. Dow repackaged it as his own product.3k 83+ Comments • Share (156) • Thank • Report • 15 May . Source: Herbert Dow. He couldn't go overseas. CTO.. Sources: [1] Coca-Cola [2] Coca‑Cola Bottles History : Green Glass & Old Coca‑Cola Bottles [3] The Evolution of the Coca-Cola Contour Bottle . Votes by Jon Mixon. shipped it to Europe. because the international market was controlled by a giant German chemical cartel that sold it at a fixed price of 49 cents per pound. Things were okay for a while until a German visitor came to Michigan and threatened Dow that he had to cease and desist. Dow didn't like being told what to do and told the cartel to get lost. Fry Communications. Shortly thereafter German bromine started appearing for sale in the US for 15 cents per pound. The cartel flooded the US market. And customers got a wider range of places to buy bromine at lower prices. This is now the textbook way to deal with predatory price cutting. Michigan when he invented a way to produce bromine cheaply. Domhnall O'Huigin. Dow had broken the German chemical monopoly and expanded his business greatly. intending to drive Dow out of business.*The original prototype never made it to production since its middle diameter was larger than its base. Dow went on to do the same trick to the German dye and magnesium monopolies.The Dieline 1 Comment • Share (4) • Thank • Report • 10 Jun David Fry. Herbert Dow founded Dow Chemical in Midland. gaining huge market share in Europe. resulting in the design we know and love today. Dow just kept buying more and more. He took his bromine to England and easily beat the cartel's fixed price of 49 cents per pound. Dean later resolved this issue by decreasing the bottle's middle diameter. Ent. is history! .9 billion. a few years from now we could win a billion-dollar patent suit.. Microsoft invested $150 million for a nonvoting minority stake in Apple. At the end of March 1997. The rest. I said.858 Himanshu Yadav. Once again in charge of Apple. Steve's move to crush his ego at the right time and get Apple to partner with Microsoft marked the beginning of the mother of all comebacks by any company till date. On his return to Apple in 1997. Brett Hellman." A passage from Walter Isaacson’s Jobs’ biography about how Steve Jobs got Bill Gates to save the company with a $150 million investment – this is Jobs speaking: I called up Bill and said. I know that. Under Jobs' guidance.. We got him into the application software business. Three months later.. Middle class Indian. So let’s figure out how to settle this right away.” Microsoft was walking over Apple’s patents. But Apple’s not going to survive that long if we’re at war. and by the end of 1998.. “I need help. Votes by Oliver Emberton. So I called him and said. Jobs struck a deal with Microsoft to help ensure Apple's survival. Caroline Zelonka. and the companies agreed to "cooperate on several sales and technology fronts. You know it.” Bill always had a soft spot for Apple. boasted sales of $5. The first Microsoft apps were Excel and Word for the Mac. as they say. and 854 more. Under the arrangement. and I know it. Amelio resigned and Jobs took over as interim CEO. Apple announced a quarterly loss of $708 million. All I need is a commitment that Microsoft will keep developing for the Mac and an investment by Microsoft in Apple so it has a stake in our success. BITS-Pilani. “I’m going to turn this thing around. Apple quickly returned to profitability. “If we kept up our lawsuits. including GM. Pacific City Lines. By 1945 the consortium successfully acquired rail lines in numerous cities. the tracks were torn up. GM and Firestone have certainly reaped the rewards of an automobile-dependent nation. and especially the city of Los Angeles. The rest is history. A good move for those companies. And it worked. 6+ Comments • Share (3) • Thank • Report • 17 May . did it work. and Phillips Petroleum & others. and encourage further American dependency on the automobile. most famously the Los Angeles Railway . Ankit Sethi. and 157 more. a a consortium of companies with automobile interests. A great example is the General Motors streetcar conspiracy . have never recovered.6+ Comments • Share (9) • Thank • Report • 9 May Stefan Von Imhof. In 1936. which at the time were primarily streetcar & lightrail lines. Kshitiz Mishra. and by 1963 the entire system had been completely dismantled. but at a horrible cost to society. as they were called. companies make an extremely shrewd business move that is harmful to society. Follow me on Facebook 161 and Twitter . Standard Oil. Boy. tear them up. Firestone Tire. ɐı‫ן‬ɐɹʇsnɐ ǝʌo‫ ן‬ı Votes by Abhishek Ghose. were retired. Sometimes. and American City Lines The strategic goal of these new front companies was to acquire local transit systems throughout the country. convert them to bus operations. established three front companies: National City Lines. But the United States. The Yellow Cars. 1 billion. the Bank of England (BoE) was guaranteeing the exchange rate of the British Pound against other currencies." Anthony Goldbloom 1.co.George Soros.6k 20+ Comments • Share (7) • Thank • Report • 7 May Ian Crosby. Marc Bodnick. The problem with this strategy is the BoE had a limited amount of currency it could use to keep buying British Pounds. who'd forecast earnings for a food company by ordering a weekly muffin in order to count the invoice number. and I mean business. . CEO @ Bench. we were amused because that was about how much we wanted to sell." It caused the Pound to drop in value by over 20% in a few weeks. On September 16.1 billion in a few weeks? George Soros did this in 1992 by forcing England to devalue its currency. Top Quora reader 2013. 1992 In the end. 26. other currency investors observed the imminent devaluation. 1992. At the time. It would buy Pounds on these exchanges to create artificial demand and maintain its target exchange rate. How about making $1. George Soros didn't need to commit his full $15 billion. To this day he is known as "The man that broke the Bank of England. In fact. From a recent tweet: "Today I interviewed a trader. Diana Cretu. and 1603 more. By the time he short sold $10 billion. when Norman Lamont said just before the devaluation that he would borrow nearly $15 billion to defend sterling. and sold British Pounds in droves. Our total position by Black Wednesday had to be worth almost $10 billion. Oliver Emberton. George Soros earned $1. This date is now known as "Black Wednesday. the Bank of England ran out of funds to prop up its exchange rate. With his $10 billion in short sold pounds. Caroline Zelonka. Oct." . and 303 more. Votes by Sameer Gupta. Votes by Seb Paquet. He was right. We planned to sell more than that.Neil Bhakta. George Soros made a bet that he could short sell more pounds than the BoE would be willing to buy. 365 154 Incentivised. are one of the most consistent and successful retail companies in the UK. Enron used to pay networks of hobos / homeless people around the country to hop on coal trains. Diana Cretu. Balaji Viswanathan. and so even better profitability. that arrangement worked out well.7k 28+ Comments • Share (25) • Thank • Report • 17 May David Margines Votes by Oliver Emberton. Anyway. Brilliant! Dell could now focus on its core competency. Apparently it is inaccurate. and offered them PCs that were as good as Dell's but at a significant discount. branding. For some reason the Taiwanese didn't seem to care as much about profitability. and improved working conditions.. along with the Waitrose chain of supermarkets. and 150 more. but with a lower cost base. and 361 more. only cash. For most employees the yearly share of profits is a significant addition to the salary.making every employee a partner in the company. This helped them predict / hedge on coal prices with greater accuracy than the rest of the market.almost without competition.in a few small steps . Instead of implementing a round of layoffs. In 1914 Spendan Lewis took over the branch of Peter Jones in Sloane Square. this meant higher profitability: they'd have the same revenue. and part of the family business. Soon Enron was able to forecast with great accuracy where all the coal in the country was.307 Source: George Soros 7+ Comments • Share (3) • Thank • Report • 15 May Isaac Lewis. He reduced hours. Karan Kumar. the staff immediately improved their standard of customer service. Spendan enacted one of the shrewdest moves in business. After that arrangement was put into practice the company took another trip to the US. Swaathi Kakarla. It wasn't doing very well and Spendan realised that the problem lay in the staff. Today John Lewis. but this time they didn't visit Dell. Jonathan Reem. But that's probably because they're still a bit backwards in Asia and don't have any Harvard Business School-educated MBAs to teach them otherwise. As a part time employee of Waitrose (while at university) that bonus saved my financial bacon a couple of times. that meant even lower costs. For Dell. Then. By combining high quality products with passionate customer service the store has remained profitable . that company's name was ASUS. for the pleasure of knowing what put . Votes by Seb Paquet. one day that little company presented Dell with a new offer: they could start assembling whole computers for Dell. They went to Best Buy. and 2727 more. After that arrangement was put into practice the company came back to Dell and offered to start designing computers for them. For Dell. One day the company came back to Dell with a new offer: they could take over Dell's entire supply chain. . and let the Taiwanese do all the unglamorous work of actually building the damn things.the John Lewis Partnership . This was not the only thing. one of the first department stores. recruitment and training. see this answer: Dell: Is Clayton Christensen's characterisation of DELL's relationship with Asus essentially true? Dell computer used to outsource the manufacturing of their motherboards to a Taiwanese company. count the cars and see how full each car was. 2. He created . 5+ Comments • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 7 May Tim Bushell.. short the world Votes by Seb Paquet. By the way. Edit: this is the story as I originally heard it from Clayton Christensen. Balaji Viswanathan. who overthrew of government of Iran. explain this term. There were other exceptions as well. a democratically elected government. through cheating. It’s only in rare instances like Iraq where the military comes in as a last resort. The first real economic hit man was back in the early 1950’s. actually. After reading "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins I would have to say the shrewdest scheme in the history of business has been perpetrated by successive US governments and directed by the CIA.Not all employees are partners. through fraud. Okay. unlike any other in the history of the world. but no military intervention.m. Saniya Bhutta.. from sustainable farmers. and 128 more. As such he was not allowed. under UK law. Mossadegh’s government who was _Time_’s magazine person of the year. to our corporations. Some interesting reads: The partnership has its own constitution: Our Constitution The partnership is run by committee: John Lewis Partnership . This empire.m. as you call it.staff really are part owners of the business.Governance 4+ Comments • Share (2) • Thank • Report • 14 May Simon Brown. http://en. but ultimately I worked for private corporations. Dog Worshipper Votes by Seb Paquet. Without affecting profitability. AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. products are sourced using fair trade principles.. of course. the grandson of Teddy. You must be over 18. and our government. and in fact we’ve been very successful. the nation’s largest and least understood spy organization. I mention this to illustrate that this is no gimmick . It’s been done over the last 50 years since World War II with very little military might. We’ve built the largest empire in the history of the world. The rich in those countries get richer. to join a business partnership. I was initially recruited while I was in business school back in the late sixties by the National Security Agency. At . governments and corporations and has fleeced a number of poor countries of trillions of dollars since the first success with the Iran coup of 1953. Kermit Roosevelt. This is a scam of massive proportions involving various countries. This interview gives an idea of how this hideously sociopathic plan and scam works. the poor drown in debt. and he was so successful at doing this without any bloodshed — well. It was a stunning business decision that built a durable retail chain. AMY GOODMAN: How did you become one? Who did you work for? JOHN PERKINS: Well. has been built primarily through economic manipulation. " JOHN PERKINS: Basically what we were trained to do and what our job is to do is to build up the American empire. and the US drags in riches beyond belief. there was a little bloodshed. That's what you get when an entire work force owns the reputation of the company. through the economic hit men. just spending millions of dollars and replaced Mossadegh with the Shah of Iran. and with little compromise on quality.org/wiki/J.. Sammy Mdhra. I was very much a part of that. To bring — to create situations where as many resources as possible flow into this country.h." e. I worked with one staff member who had declared himself bankrupt. through seducing people into our way of life.wikipedia. "economic hit man. The setting was similar with a red sofa and a voice-over that said. But my real job was deal-making. There’s no two ways about it. So we make this big loan. We didn’t have to worry about the threat of war with Russia when we did it this way. we would have been in a lot of trouble.A. and 55 more. It was giving loans to other countries." And today we’re going in and destroying Amazonian rain forests. Explain the company you worked for. Vikram Rout. engineering firms. Learning the art of healing 59 Votes by Pratik Hire. Aditya Chauhan. Divya Shikha Singh. He was a government employee. to build the infrastructure — a Halliburton or a Bechtel.that point. I ended up having fifty people working for me. Mumbai) 132 A teaser ad by a strong new entrant has been completely hijacked by an equally aggressive rival. and the N. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions Global Intelligence Gate: From Confessions of an Economic Hit Man to the Stratfor Corporation 3+ Comments • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 17 May Abhay Jain. huge loans. we go to Ecuador and say.soon’. Big TV promo takes off on Bharti’s teaser ad (DTH services launch.S. we understood that this idea of economic hit man was an extremely good one. that viewers started to think the teaser ad actually belonged to Big TV. there would be no connection with the government. These were big ones. forcing Ecuador to give them to us because they’ve accumulated all this debt.000 employees. It would have been very embarrassing. most of it comes back to the United States. the country is left with the debt plus lots of interest. agent. the company I worked for was a company named Chas. So. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U. Those companies would then go in and build an electrical system or ports or highways.I. Massachusetts. The poor people in those countries would be stuck ultimately with this amazing debt that they couldn’t possibly repay. Clearly.S. We were about 2. you’re not able to repay your debts. Even as viewers were left guessing as to what the advertisement was trying to sell to consumers.A.I. So. ‘See you home. Exploring Self 66 Votes by Sushant Saraswat. and I became its chief economist. . 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 16 May Shyam Ravilla. our slaves. to recruit potential economic hit men like me and then send us to work for private consulting companies. Abdul Basit Suhail.. Had he been caught. It’s been extremely successful.A. “See you home soon’. One of the conditions of the loan — let’s say a $1 billion to a country like Indonesia or Ecuador — and this country would then have to give ninety percent of that loan back to a U. or U. the Big TV commercial took full advantage of the curiosity level that was created by Bharti Airtel. construction companies. and 62 more. we literally have them over a barrel. so much so. companies. which are filled with oil. The ad in question was a pre-launch campaign for Bharti Airtel’s DTH foray. And it really can’t do it. JOHN PERKINS: Well. It’s an empire. A country today like Ecuador owes over fifty percent of its national budget just to pay down its debt. So. Reliance Communication’s Big TV was quick to spot an opportunity here by releasing its own 10-second commercial. when we want more oil. a 10-second commercial of a plush red sofa was running with a voice-over which announced. company. except that this time the ad was accompanied with a Big TV logo. so that if we were caught. T. AMY GOODMAN: Okay. at that point. "Look. much bigger than they could possibly repay. Main in Boston. the decision was made to use organizations like the C. and these would basically serve just a few of the very wealthiest families in those countries. It’s a huge empire. therefore give our oil companies your Amazon rain forest. The problem with that was that Roosevelt was a C.S. Over the last few weeks.. and they basically become our servants. announcing all features like 32 cinemas and 200+ channels .S. ( A mere pittance compared to the hundreds of millions he has since made from the Air Jordan brand) The ban and Jordan 's flouting the ban made the shoes wildly popular. They even made a commercial out of it This helped kick start the Air Jordan campaign. So Michael Jordan was fined $5000 per game for wearing these. As you can see that was not the case. NBA has since revoked the above mentioned rule. At that time the NBA had a rule that the basketball shoes should be predominantly white. Phil Knight the owner of Nike asked Jordan to keep wearing them and promptly reimbursed the fine.Nike's response to NBA banning Air Jordans Nike introduced the Air Jordans in 1985-86. . otherwise we wouldn't have crazy shoes like these . and MJ' s subsequent rise to superstardom firmly cemented it's place as the best selling basketball shoes of all time. The number of smokers increased and since then the cigarettes have been known as Navy Cuts. These sailors used to smoke tobacco during their fixed-time interval breaks and as expected either they were not able to finish it. The story goes something like this: Back when cigarette packaging was not so common. smartest business maneuver in the history but it does make into my list of one of the best moves by a company to increase the sales of their product. Navy Cut Cigarettes. or they finished it too fast. Sumit Bhamboo. The tobacco would then mature under pressure and the sailor could then dispense the tobacco by slicing off a "cut". . the number of sailors who smoked decreased.Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 6 Jun Vibhore Jain. the sailors had the habit of taking a mixture of tobacco leaves and binding them with string or twine. Since these cuts were made manually. Quoraholic 28 Votes by Jagruti Jain. It might not be one of the most shrewdest. The history of John Player & Sons is pretty long but they were the ones who first came out with the Navy Cut Cigarettes. This is when Players stepped into the market with the optimum lengths of the tobacco cuts. As a result. there were of different lengths. Praveen Singh. and 24 more. he managed to sell his whole stock in record time.. So now Parle went back to Coke for the merger. Swaathi Kakarla. 3/. Pratik Hire. but it was money for jam. It's a tad negative. Ankit Mehta. I'll share a link. and 98 more. and selling the silver ingots to bullion dealers in London. officials in the treasury of the Arabian kingdom of Yemen noticed something funny happening to their country’s currency.” 1+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 18 May Arjun Subramaniam. So he began buying Rials.priceonomics. Parle didn't have enough money to start their open plant. Knowing the scope of the competition. and 126 more. IBM was in a deep crisis. 4 Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 28 May Neeraj Menta. Then offered a merger with Parle and were turned down. They traced the disappearing coins south to the trading port of Aden. I don’t believe in not taking opportunities. The story of DeBeers. and 113 more. Votes by Piyush Khemka. had an open order out in the marketplace of Aden for as many Rials as were available. Janaki Thakkar. but it contains the story of DeBeers http://blog. They've also done anything they can to try and maintain monopoly until very recently. Engineer with varied interests 99 Votes by Zubin Rada Krishnan. The main unit of money. Operation Bear Hug . they bought over all the bottling plants that Parle used. the diamond company could probably fit the bill. ‘The margins were small. e-commerce enthusiast Votes by Karanbir Singh Dhillon. melting them down. irrationality can help you better than any regression based pricing models. R Praveen Kumar. The crazy one. and selling this to the American youth in the 1930s there by making that the way of life. For the first time in its history. then barely into his twenties. the rebel.. then owned by parle drinks. 102 4+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 15 May Kaushik Lakshman.1+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 25 May Siddhant Gupta. Alphabet Votes by Abhimanyu Bhosale. so take that with a pinch of salt. Knowledge is Power Votes by Seb Paquet. People who read this had this urge to prove him wrong by buying 3 oranges one after the other for 9/. then a British colony and military bastion commanding the entrance to the Red Sea and southern approaches to the Suez Canal. Kamal Gaur..than his combined package deal of 10/Needless to say. Zed. They said they weren't interested in a merger and took over thumbs up.com/pos. the misfit. and 111 more. R Praveen Kumar. 10/. Coca cola came to India and realised that their biggest competition is thumbs up. Sandeep Hari..’ Dhirubhai later reminisced. A trader on a fairly busy street was selling oranges with a sign-board that read: Fresh Juicy Oranges.get it? ) 115 .. and 95 more. that it is today. but I made a few lakhs [a few hundred thousands] of rupees. A marketing campaign to create the idea that a diamond ring is a must have for marriage proposals. employees were being laid off by the thousands and revenues collapsed like nobody's business ( Pun. Pritesh Desai. After three months it was stopped. was disappearing from circulation. Sometimes. Inquiries found that an Indian clerk named Dhirubhai Ambani.for 3. Ambani had noted that the value of the Rial’s silver content was higher than its exchange value against the British pound and other foreign currencies. a solid silver coin called the Rial. 4+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 11 May Zahid Hussain..a piece. Jason McFarlane. 117 130 Value of metal > Price of coin --> Melt them and sell ! Early in the 1950s.IBM In the early 1990s.. The managers discovered that large corporate clients were interested in the Internet but largely unsure on how to use it effectively. This maneuver eventually has made IBM the futuristic. Nikhil Kodilkar. Comment • Share (2) • Thank • Report • 30 May David O'Donnell Votes by Jordan Leigh. Minister of Propaganda at Telepathy . That "empathic" connection to real-world customers helped the managers see matters from a consumer point of view. Its leaders had the courage to take on that challenge because they had seen their customers face-toface.had to change into something else. and 116 more. they were to listen to consumer concerns and see how IBM could help. Peyton Manning purchased a chain of 21 Papa John's pizza stores in Colorado just two weeks before voters approved an ammendment legalizing recreational marijuana use within the state. which IBM capitalized on in a flash. By his second year at IBM.a technology integrator with its hands in everything from giant data centers to consumer printers .. This resulting "e-business" initiative was successful beyond their wildest dreams. He believed that the company had to survive. the company was back on track. Rohun Ati. IBM realized that it could make a major impact by providing the infrastructure to help large.com. The goal of the managers was not to market IBM products .. technologically advanced company that we know it as today." 50 managers from IBM were sent around the world to meet with at least 5 customers in person . Beyond selling products. setting off a decade of unprecedented earnings growth and double-digit revenue. whether a certain product or service added value or destroyed it. 120 7+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 14 May Chris Grayson.Most agreed at the time that the company as it had been .A rather surprising empathy program from one of the least emotionally demonstrative companies in the Fortune 500. Except new CEO Lou Gerstner.Instead.frogdesign. It also revealed some real gold mines. putting them on the path towards recovery and long-term growth in the future. growing enterprises use the power of the Web to their own advantage. Off started "Operation Bear Hug. Their 200 executive reports had to do the same thing. Gerstner's style of leadership and his dogged attention to the consumer and their needs eventually brought a new and less arrogant face to the company. [1] http://designmind. He found a mark in a sleepy company. Valerie Raelynne. Wire Plastic Products. copying IBM's architecture. Ogilvy & Mather. . is the world's largest communications holding company. and 481 more.000. Dell. when he departed to start his own venture. The new PC was a spectacular success and inspired a lot of companies like HP. In 1980's Bill Gates was approached by IBM to write an operating system for their to be launched Personal Computer (PC). Longer Version : Many wouldn't know but it was IBM that made "Personal Computer" (PC) as we know it . Compaq into producing their own PC's. named it MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System) and sold to IBM rights to use MS-DOS forever for a one-time fees of around $80. To execute his plan. However Bill Gates convinced IBM into letting Microsoft retain the rights to market MS-DOS separate from IBM PC.000 (which was quite cheap for IBM). in 1985 he was the group financial director in charge of acquisitions. while Microsoft and Bill Gates made fortune licensing newer versions of MS-DOS softwares to all the companies.000 employees) decided to use help from other companies and some off-the shelf components. IBM (despite its 340. Arushi Agarwal. In the 1970's IBM was a market giant which made large mainframe computers (80% share) for large corporations. Martin had just spent 10 years with advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. Through acquisitions over the years WPP now owns such legendary advertising agencies as J. Guess from whom they licensed their operating System? Yes. he looked for a publicly listed company whose asset value was greater than its stock price. This is one of my favorite business stories showing power of vision and enterprise. CP/M-86 ($175) and Microsoft-DOS ($60). who primarily made shopping carts. heavily modified it. To ship this product fast. Bill gates bought "QDOS" (an Operating System) from some Tim Paterson for around $50. Walter Thompson. IBM originally gave choice of 3 Operating System software with each new PC: P-System ($450). is now a billionaire. His observation was that the money in advertising was really in media management. He used the shell as a holding company and the cash raised to acquire advertising agencies. 10+ Comments • Share (7) • Thank • Report • 13 May Prakul Agarwal Votes by Pratik Hire. Mark Savchuk.Votes by Caroline Zelonka. 485 Martin Sorrell made a shrewd observation and then executed on it with an unrelated brilliant maneuver. merely abbreviated to WPP. and 44 more. He staged a successful hostile takeover. believing money was to be made on hardware. GREY Advertising among them. since having been knighted Sir Martin Sorrell. they could pool their media dollars and turn the tables on media outlets (mostly TV broadcasters) with the leverage of scale. controlling the world's largest pool of media dollars. This lead to creation of an open architecture which anyone could copy. IBM accepted the deal. Microsoft! Soon All the companies started undercutting each other on hardware prices. Young & Rubicam. then liquidated the company's assets to raise cash. and if an advertising entity owned enough agencies. Johannus Vogel. Sorrell. To this day it keeps the name. in computers and had written the most successful operating system of the time. unlike what the answer might suggest ! :) 48 3+ Comments • Share (2) • Thank • Report • 17 May Thomas Goodwin. his operating system set the standard at that time. 1) Told the recipient that the person who sent the message was able to get mobile email.Did Bill Gates Steal the Heart of DOS? PS . The older I get. 2) Informed the person reading the message that the note was composed on a mobile device and therefore could be forgiven for typos and brevity.as others have pointed out Hotmail did a similar thing. for their prototype Intel 8086 based computer.000 copies of CP/M. one that would eventually wipe Gary Kildall's CP/M out of common use. YES. the "Quick and Dirty Operating System" written by Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products. Geordie Keitt. You could easily disable the function. Sources: 1 . Nikita Thakrar.Putting Microsoft on the Map 3 . 3) Told the world about the power of Blackberry as a mobile email solution. At the time Blackberries were very much for the most senior executives and held some real prestige. Kindall had his Ph. I Believe it was Bill Gates's Genius somewhere which helped create that a reality. 4) Built the blackberry brand. However. The Secret Birth of MS-DOS IBM tried to contact Gary Kildall for a meeting. since Microsoft had never written an operating system before. among them to have Basic written into the ROM chip. so Gates was more than happy to write a version for IBM.The Road Ahead by Bill gates 2.Needless to say MS-DOS went on to become most selling OS. to discuss the state of home computers and what Microsoft products could do for IBM. And yes they were *cheap* and easy to use (unlike Apple and Linux that that i now get to use). A great combination of a marketing campaign propagated by users but also carrying intrinsic value to the user. The genius of it was that it was basically a very subtle viral campaign spreading the word about the power of mobile email. IBM soon returned to Bill Gates and gave Microsoft the contract to write a new operating system. the more I find don'. ironically QDOS was based (or copied from as some historians feel) on Gary Kildall's CP/M. and 97 more. Gates had suggested that IBM investigate an OS called CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers). but this was clearly a viral campaign with no benefit to anyone except Hotmail. IBM first approached Bill Gates of Microsoft .Like most people in India I got and learnt Computer using Microsoft Products for a long time. written by Gary Kildall of Digital Research.D. selling over 600. "sent from my blackberry" (The automatically generated signature) ----------EDIT: I thought it was quite obvious how profound this impact was and the genius. So i am a big fan . Microsoft had already produced several versions of Basic for different computer system beginning with the Altair . but I think I am wrong. So this message was a campaign that effortlessly. 101 .Gary Kildall As for an operating system (OS) for an IBM computer. Gates gave IBM a few ideas on what would make a great home computer.. Votes by Andrew Boysen. but you would choose not too. Story of Microsoft and IBM collaboration In 1980. Tim Paterson had bought a CP/M manual and used it as the basis to write his operating system in six weeks.. The "Microsoft Disk Operating System" or MS-DOS was based on Microsoft's purchase of QDOS. executives met with Mrs Kildall who refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement. 4+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 7 May Christine Sy. John Phileas. but in my opinion launching Google Fiber is a pretty smart move by Google. The full panning out of its effects is still to be seen. more ads they are exposed to. Real estate mogul Tom Barrack buys the Fukuoka Dome . when the competitors like AT&T.. Geordie Keitt. The competitors are already falling in the trap .Japan's Yankee Stadium . you can always sell it as scrap metal!). Whereof one cannot speak. and 78 more. and 155 more. Kar Tong Tan.. They couldn't have done better. 6+ Comments • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 16 May Harsh Snehanshu. 2+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 8 May Krishna Keshab Kumar Votes by Karan Kumar..!! .. and an angry Steve Jobs. and 85 more. only in turn. Votes by Caroline Zelonka. Google buying Android and making it Open Source: 159 159 This bold move by Google completely changed the Smartphone scenario in the world.based on a calculation that the titanium in its retractable roof alone was worth the purchase price (hey. Dhruv Kumar. boosts the advertising revenue for Google . Vijay Gaikwad. setting up in network business is majorly capital intensive) business decision boosting the core business of Google . Ryan D'souza. Pan-India Traveller. I saw this video by Coca Cola and after ending this video with a smile. Bill Gates negotiating with IBM to let Microsoft retain the rights to sell MS-DOS operating system separate from IBM .) 4+ Comments • Share (8) • Thank • Report • 15 May Nitish Singh 89 Votes by Matt Wasserman. So. Rambo Lisbon.. if it doesn't work out as a stadium.5+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 10 May Brian W Allen. I 138 . Verizon etc rush to slash their prices / boost their Internet speed to compete with Google. Chaitanya Kota.. in my very personal. Google Fiber is a very shrewd and brave (as is.. and 155 more.Time Warner Cable combats Google Fiber with free WiFi hotspots Don't even get me started on the potential amount of data Google will capture from all this usage. Let's look at the very basic features: Connection speed 100 times faster than today's broadband Similar pricing to other network providers Now coming to the "not so obvious" genius of Google here: Providing low cost Internet. Today.Advertising.. Votes by Matt Wasserman. 750 million+ activated devices. more money Google makes Adding to this.. speculative opinion. it. not only an additional revenue stream. wishes she could come up with a cleve. Author.AT&T Announces Intent to Build 1 Gigabit Fiber Network in Austin Also in pipelines are the free wifi hotspots by Google. it enhances Google's advertising business. R Praveen Kumar. 75% market share. and 134 more. Rashid Mansoor. More time people spend on the Internet. 82 Votes by Ross Cohen. Young In. But they also thought to grab Page on Verizonsucks and others like it. Siddharth Ravikumar. Danilo Stern-Sapad. Verizonblows. But companies do this all the time. Verizon. you will find that both of those insulting domains are owned by . the first step was of course to register Verizon. it has crossed 20000 views. It turned out Verizon didn't have a legal leg to stand on. They immediately got a letter from Verizon's attorney's insisting that they turn over the domain. Back in 2000. 9+ Comments • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 21 May Anonymous Votes by Eric Mansfield.. You'll find nothing there. Here's why. Any common domain that could host consumer complaints about a company is grabbed by that company before the angry customers can. . and 77 more.. The target market of this video is one of the most populated markets of Asia. it was a trademark violation. but registration of critical domains has now become standard operating procedure . When Verizon was formed in the late '90s as a result of a merger between Bell Atlantic and GTE and the company came up with the name. out of curiosity. Almost everyone in my friendlist has shared this video Within few hours of releasing this video. We're guessing you'd be more than a little hurt. considering a company the size of Verizon has more than a few angry customers.com . to keep you from getting them. 2600 Magazine noticed this and. If you do a domain lookup.realized what a brilliant and smart marketing maneuver it is. Open up another tab in your browser and try to go to Page on Verizonsucks .. without really indulging in explicit marketing. and one day you find out that the company you work for has registered the domain name Page on BobSmithSucks . and what better way there could be to promote itself against its valiant competitor PepsiCo than by winning the hearts of the customers. Let's say your name is Bob Smith. Odd. registered the domain "Verizonreallysucks"(Can't put a dotcom because Quora displays it as DOMAIN ERROR). arguing that since it contained the company's name.. same thing. and if so.When WikiLeaks was threatening to publicize internal documents from Bank of America. But that just squelches some criticism. For instance.). They usually have this lady's face on them: You probably think it's a scam. But that news story is sandwiched by links that are in fact sites that sell acai berries ." You'll find that one of the first results is in fact an MSNBC news story pointing out that there is no magical berry that will replace diet and exercise.. . the latest weight loss supplement. etc.. If you want to be really smart about it. the first step is to go to Google and search for "acai berry scam. That's why CEO Brian Moynihan now works for a company that owns Page on Page on BrianMoynihansucks (and Page on BrianMoynihanBlows . all with headlines clearly intended to trap people looking to call bullshit on the product. you've seen ads around the Internet for acai berries. the company bought hundreds of domains for all of the company brass. you make it so that you can actually profit from it. You'll find that any kind of negative search for a weight loss program or supplement will give you the same. After being drafted by the Seahawks in 1987. Ritwik Sahoo. there are companies that for a fee. You've heard ads everywhere for the P90X workout program. Who sold those anti-Boz shirts? You can guess: it was Brian Bosworth's own clothing company ! 81 Now that's what I call Smart maneuvering ! 3+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 17 May Pritesh Desai. If you Google the phrase "P90X doesn't work. The competitors couldn't get their product to the market quickly and iMac became the fastest selling computer ever. will bury criticism of your company by pushing negative websites to the third or fourth page of search results. "The Boz" spent the week before the game trash-talking and hinting that he was going to injure local golden boy John Elway. Steve Jobs booked up all the airway cargo space during the launch of iMac during Christmas time. and 92 more. Edit: Apparently it was Tim Cook's idea. Abhay Jain. and examples tend to be hilarious. Loves designing websites Votes by Karan Kumar. capitalizing on consumer hatred extends beyond the online world. Of course. he didn't waste any time drawing up a storm of controversy before his first ever NFL game against the Denver Broncos. In fact. The result was that Bosworth was greeted by a stadium full of irate fans verbally abusing the rookie for three straight hours and wearing T-shirts bearing anti-Bosworth slogans. Apple bought $100mn worth of . Entrepreneur. if you remember the late '80s. while filling their text with that negative phrase in order to soak up skeptical Google searches. "1998 immediately after Tim Cook's recruitment. There is a term for the practice: reverse SEO. you remember famous NFL linebacker and asshole Brian Bosworth." the first page of results is full of sites selling P90X. Pricing: We need flexibility to price on a title by title basis outside the prescribed tiers in the contract. visited executives of HarperCollins and its parent company. Cristian Streng." 2+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 12 May Jonny Samson Votes by Janak Shah. CEO Rupert Murdoch over to his side. We’ve talked over the proposal and I want to make sure that you have a summary of the deal that HarperCollins would be willing to do in your timeframe. Thanks for coming in again this morning. Apple and News Corp. HarperCollins needs the ability to make that title available through other agents who support the higher price. but they also provide an extraordinary view of high-stakes negotiation between the leaders of two powerful firms. But most of those negotiations were hidden from view. Before book publishers. Commissions: We need a lower commission on new releases for the economics to work for us and our authors. News Corp. The new release window: We need to have flexibility on the agency window. MFN ["most favored nation" status]: In the event that HarperCollins and Apple disagree on a consumer price for a title. Ahead of its court date. but everyone knew delivering in time was key to making it a mainstream product. which have already settled the case. We will use our best efforts to meet the tiers we discussed. 2010. the following week. And before that. We believe a 30% commission will lead to more authors asking for ebooks to be delayed a result that will not work for Apple or HarperCollins. there was the movie industry. The substance of that meeting was conveyed in an email sent to Cue later that day by Brian Murray. The emails have mostly been viewed in the context of the lawsuit.this was led by Tim and totally left Compaq and others gasping for air (cargo). Thanks Brian . They start far apart. Apple’s then-CEO Steve Jobs successfully pulls the son of News Corp. Part of the iPad’s appeal was supposed to be the vast array of media that could be consumed on it. iMac was an astounding success. * * * News Corp. 4. spelling and grammar have been preserved from the originals.’s opening move It was a Friday morning. 1. with five days remaining until the iPad’s unveiling. 2. and 87 more. Jeff Meyerson. January 22. the CEO of HarperCollins. Tim was held in high regard by Jobs for totally frustrating all other PC makers. Eddy. was holding out from signing a deal to sell its ebooks in Apple’s iTunes store. a long-rumored tablet computer.96 holiday season air freight months in advance . Those were the stakes as Eddy Cue . music record labels. but over the course of five days. Apple was preparing to release its newest product. Leslie will be sending Kevin a contract that reflects these points in the event you wish to move forward on these terms. Apple’s head of iTunes and the App Store. HarperCollins. What follows are the emails released last week along with some context. We believe this window should be 6 months rather than 12 months in the event that one or more large retailers do not move to an agency model. Jobs was a famously hard-nosed negotiator who won these kinds of battles all the time. but one of the largest American publishers. The Steve Jobs emails that show how to win a hard-nosed negotiation The US government’s price-fixing lawsuit against Apple goes to trial next month in New York. It detailed the publisher’s opening bid in the negotiation. 3. the US released emails that purport to show Apple was the “ringleader” in a scheme to set artificially high ebook prices with some of the largest American publishers. Needless to say. Coincidentally. and included the following note: Steve. Fields Cookies is now a famous worldwide brand. Jay-Z approached Iceberg for a sponsorship but was turned down as the European designer believed Jay-Z had nothing to do with their growing sales. first baked cookies in her kitchen with the hope of making it into a business. stepped out of the store and started serving to people outside the streets. she virtually had zero customers in the first week. During the meeting.com Votes by Maxx A. ADGMastering. brought out the hot tray from the oven. a high-ranking News Corp. During the late 90's. Upon hearing this. She put on her mittens. and 38 more. James Murdoch. her husband's associate grabbed a piece and quickly raved about it to several people. Gareth Michael Jones.Those terms were never going to fly with Apple.99 per ebook would hurt its sales on the new iPad as well as the Kindle. the urban apparel space was taking off. 91 Thanks for. Debbie's confidence skyrocketted. 42 1+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 22 Aug Andre Gonsalves. Michael Lee. just rap about it and advise the marketing team from time to time. Entrepreneur Votes by Haoting Chow. 124 3 Comments • Share (2) • Thank • Report • 16 May Amaury Fernandez. Erick Coser. Which pretty much means Jay doesn't have to operate the company at all. and 92 more. Jay-Z has sold the rights to Rocawear for $204 million. so she immediately opened her first store with money only from her back pocket. while still keeping his stake in the company.99—three dollars higher than the typical rate at that time on Amazon—and take a 30% cut of each sale. "Your business won't work". Fields. (more) 1 Comment • Share (2) • Thank • Report • 27 Jun Ron Tan. Raghava Rayudu. Her sales grew dramatically from that point on. like Penguin (a division of Pearson) and Simon & Schuster (part ofCBS). Melendez. founder of Mrs. Debbie. Mrs. forwarded Murray’s email to Apple’s then-CEO Steve Jobs. Jay-Z stopped referencing the brand as well as wearing it in videos and started his own clothing line Rocawear. . Interestingly. which were famous for the Snoopy shirts.. Those deals would allow Apple and the publishers to set prices for new ebooks at $12. But HarperCollins wanted the freedom to set its own prices and worried that $12. Venelin Mitkovski. Studying money management and life Votes by Sameer Gupta. Anvesh Killamsetty. And I'm not even sure if Iceberg is still around. and 120 more. One such company he wore and rapped about was Iceberg History. It also didn’t want to give up 30%. Sadly. She was discouraged by almost everyone including her husband. many said. This was at the exact time. To back up its position. which had successfully signed deals with HarperCollins’s rivals. Jay-Z noticed the clothes he wore in his videos and referenced in his songs would become popular. her husband stashed a few cookies into his bag to bring to his meeting for his snack. executive.. today Rocawear has sales of over $700 million. it didn’t hurt that the stock market was experiencing the greatest bull market since the 1920s. stocks seemed mostly overvalued to him. In 1969. and most of his investment partners could not have been more satisfied. “What makes him [Buffett] the greatest investor of all time is that during a certain period when he thought stocks were grossly overpriced. in my experience. he wasn’t ordinary and was admittedly aware of his talent and supremely confident in his abilities. The voluntary returning of money that others would gladly pay you to continue to manage is. at age 39. I want to emphasize that: (a) Buffett started to earn money from an early age. First Decision Please consider the following table: In this table. he sold everything and returned all the money to his partners at a sizable profit to them. described what happened next. In the midst of this. Peter Lynch. Buffett was uneasy because – in staying true to his discipline in following yet evolving his investment methodology – he was having a difficult time finding opportunities to put his and his investor’s money to work in intelligent ways. In other words.One of the smartest maneuvers I’ve seen in business comes in the form of two somewhat simultaneous decisions made by Warren Buffett. the successful former mutual fund manager of Fidelity’s Magellan Fund. Buffett was coming off one of his best years as an investor. and (b) had an uncanny ability of compounding his net worth. unique in the history of finance." . He’d become somewhat of a local celebrity. his net worth hovered in the $25 million range. Also. ” A few years later. and I tried to smoke it.. and apparently easy. the 1973-74 bear market marked one of the worst stock market downturns of the twentieth century and Buffett. however. His initial intention was to flip his shares for a relatively quick profit. (more) 4+ Comments • Share (3) • Thank • Report • 6 Aug Wray Rives. profits to embrace an approach which I don’t fully understand. Jean Paul Valdez.. Second Decision Warren Buffett began buying shares in Berkshire Hathaway on December 12. I had a lot of money tied up in the cigar butt. I am clear. and 83 more. I worked with a company once who got their start selling refrigerated beer boxes in the early 40's. Seabury Stanton. So all you had was a soggy cigar butt in your mouth.50 a share. but changed his mind upon having some problems with Berkshire’s president. 1962 at $7. . was well positioned to take advantage of the opportunity. That was Berkshire Hathaway in 1965. I would have been better off if I’d never heard of Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett’s investment in Berkshire Hathaway would go down as arguably the worst investment of his career. possibly.Buffett gave his investment partners some insight into his thinking in an October 1967 letter: “My own personal interests dictate a less compulsive approach to superior investment results than when I was younger and leaner…I am out of step with present conditions. I will not abandon a previous approach whose logic I understand (although I find it difficult to apply) even though it may mean forgoing large. Vamsi Krishna Tellakula. He would later explain: “So I bought my own cigar butt. nine years of losses and had closed more than a dozen textile plants over the previous decade The textile business in the US at that time was not a good business and was going downhill. You walk down the street and you see a cigar butt. could lead to substantial permanent loss of capital. in large part as a result of foreign competition. Wray Rives CPA CGMA is a Certified Pu.. On one point. Votes by Rob Hood.” 96 Why? Berkshire Hathaway was undervalued for the wrong reasons.. have not practiced successfully. who had taken a step back to gain perspective. and it’s kind of soggy and disgusting and repels you. Berkshire didn’t have any more puffs. but it’s free…and there may be one puff left in it. which was squeezing profit margins to the point of no return Berkshire’s financial position was unlikely to improve What came next? Here’s an overview of some of the tactics used by. and ultimately bought enough Berkshire stock to control the company. and which. Emma Wayne. Western Union's take over by Jay Gould . Internationally. Martin Marietta started buying Bendix stock with the aim of assuming control over the company. Praveen Shivapur. 87 The present value of fifty cents a day for five years works out to selling a beer box that retailed for $500 for a little over $800. perhaps the best-known case was that of Porsche and the Volkswagen Group . They were having a difficult time convincing people to spend $500 for a refrigerated unit because the typical cost of ice was about 50 cents a day. Then after 5 years the shopkeeper would own the beer box. Then they followed the iceman around town and when he left they would go in to the store or restaurant and ask "how much did you spend on ice today?".S. However. 2+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 8 May Girish Meena. I was taught business Votes by Lim Jin Hui. in which the hero is at first chased around a maze of dots by 4 ghosts. later that year when the two companies announced an official merger. In response. When you put two quarters in the meter it allowed electricity to flow to the beer box for 24 hours. It was usually 50 cents. The iceman would go around town every day selling blocks of ice to stores and restaurants so they could keep things cold. However. and 61 more. Excerpt: The Pac-Man defense is a defensive option to stave off a hostile takeover in which a company that is threatened with a hostile takeover "turns the tables" by attempting to acquire its would-be buyer. and 37 more. so they would tell the store owner that they would give him a beer box and all he had to do was put two quarters in the meter each day and he would never have to buy ice again. after eating a "Power Pellet" dot. The term (though not the technique) was coined by buyout guru Bruce Wasserstein . 65 Votes by Ann Yael Scott. The incident was labeled a "PacMan defense" in retrospect.. The name refers to the star of a video game Pac-Man . Bendix persuaded Allied Corporation to act as a "white knight . A major example in U. 4+ Comments • Share (2) • Thank • Report • 25 Jul Dan Pepper. it was announced that Volkswagen would be the surviving partner.At that time everyone used an ice box because refrigeration was not very common. The Pac-Man defense as coined by the late Bruce Wasserstein ." and the company was sold to Allied the same year. 11 startups and counting. Shridhar Kulkarni. in which Porsche slowly acquired stake in the much larger Volkswagen Group. so they hired an electrician to rig up a coin operated meter that could be connected to the power supply on the beer box. eventually to the point of owning over 50% of the company in 2009. Jaspal Singh. he is able to chase and devour the ghosts . corporate history is the attempted hostile takeover of Martin Marietta by Bendix Corporation in 1982. And. During later half of the 19th century Western Union had absolute (almost) monopoly in the Telegraph business in much of the United States. In order to maintain status quo, they generally bought any competitor who threatened their monopoly in the business. Western Union bought out smaller companies rapidly, and by 1860 its lines reached from the East Coast to the Mississippi River , and from the Great Lakes to the Ohio River . In 1861 it opened the first transcontinental telegraph . ... The company enjoyed phenomenal growth during the next few years. Its capitalization rose from $385,700 in 1858 to $41 million in 1876. American robber baron Jay Gould will play them at their own game and boy the way he will do it! In 1878, Jay Gould started a telegraph company that was in direct competition to Western Union's telegraph business. Since Western Union wanted to enjoy the monopoly they simply bought this company and paid a hefty sum of money to Jay Gould for it. Jay Gould would lay low for a while but before late he was at it again. Just a couple of months after his company was acquired by Western Union, Jay Gould opened another company to compete with Western Union. Western Union again did the same, they bought him off. The pattern will repeat itself again. Jay Gould opened 3rd company to compete against Western Union, Western Union was about to buy him off but this time before they could do that, our man Jay Gould staged a successful take-over of the Western Union. In the end, by 1881 Jay Gould took complete control of the firm. How was this a shrewd move, you ask? As Robert Greene of "48 Laws of Power" puts it, He had established a pattern that had tricked the company’s directors into thinking his goal was to be bought out at a handsome rate. Once they paid him off, they relaxed and failed to notice that he was actually playing for higher stakes. The pattern is powerful in that it deceives the other person into expecting the opposite of what you are really doing. 41 Reference: The 48 Laws of Power: Robert Greene: 9780140280197: Amazon.com: Books Western Union Jay Gould Dark Genius of Wall Street Comment • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 17 May Stefano Sala Votes by Anmol Dureha, Aditya Lesmana, Achal Gupta, and 52 more. This goes back to the glorious days before the internet, and became a standard example of guerrilla-marketing: a dial-a-pizza service that would give you a 20% discount if you handed them upon delivery a competitor's ad (including phone number) taken from the Yellow Pages. The logic behind it was that next time you had to order a pizza, you would have had access to one less competitor of theirs... Just brilliant. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 4 Sep Joris Peels, 3D printing community manager, consul... 94 Votes by Caner Ahmet, Lim Jin Hui, Chaim Shia, and 90 more. A friend of mine used to do business with a Russian trader in the mid 90's. A friendly flash cash dealmaker with a firm handshake kind of guy. He was buying up overstock from him, He used to do deals with him every year for years and it was easy money for the trader giving him 200k revenue (with very low margin) a year in Deutschmarks. But, all of a sudden the Russian trader stopped calling him. They met a few months later socially and my friend asked him, so whats been keeping you busy? I thought our deals were extremely profitable for you? "Well....I've got this new business. We go to the Czech Republic and there a network of people collects and buys empty Coca Cola bottles. (In Europe such bottles are recycled and have a deposit on them. So you pay an extra 20 cents when you buy the bottle and get it back once you return it.) We then put these bottles in trucks and drive them to Germany. Then a network of people goes to the supermarkets and returns the empty Czech bottles to the German supermarkets. The bottles are indistinguishable once the labels are removed. In the Czech Republic the deposit is 20 cents, in Germany it is 1 DMark. The trader made at least 500,000 Dmark net in a few months on an arbitrage opportunity he spotted in empty used Coke bottles. And I keep thinking of the production manager at the bottling plant in the Czech Republic wondering why there were so few bottles comming back while the guy in Germany is seeing an increase. I wonder if they ever found out? 5+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 16 May Hermann J. Stern, CEO Finance research firm Obermatt 41 Votes by Anmol Dureha, Souz Minai, Dhruba Jyoti Chatterjee, and 37 more. Installing an employee into a mobile makers executive board and getting him back by buying the entire company on the cheap. 4 Comments • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 4 Sep Hunter McCord 60 Votes by Marc Bodnick, Anurag Kataria, Jason McFarlane, and 56 more. Nike in 1984 after posting its first ever loss spent all it's marketing dollars on an unproven NBA rookie. His name: Michael Jordan. Nike as a company made revenues in 1983 of about $867 million the year before signing Jordan. This year 2013 they are on track to do about $24 Billion dollars in revenue. The signing of Jordan put Nike on the map and the huge growth of Air Jordan sales helped propel Nike into other major sports such as Football, Baseball, and Golf. 4+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 16 May Selvakumaran Subramaniam, Born in Manchester of South India, 54 Li... Votes by Sriram Vamsi Ilapakurthy, Trusha Parekh, Uthara Padmanabhan, and 50 more. This is not a business maneuver but definitely one of the shrewdest and smartest moves which increased the number of children who got their education in my state of Tamil Nadu in India. Here goes the story: K. Kamaraj is one of the pioneers of education in Tamil Nadu . He was the chief minister (Equivalent of a Governor in the US) for three terms from 1954 to 1963. His main focus was on educating the young generation. Under his leadership, the government opened 12000 new schools and made sure that no village is left with out a primary school. Poverty was quite wide spread and people avoided sending their children to school because they could make them earn some money for living instead of spending time at school. K. Kamaraj realised this and came up with a genius of an idea which was to provide at least one meal to the children at school. It was a great idea and it encouraged parents to send their wards to school as they also got food there. This scheme widely known as Midday Meal Scheme was the first of its kind in India. In Tamil Nadu, during British regime the education was only 7 percent. But in Kamaraj's period it reached 37%. This scheme has been in practice till date. If you were to ask my parents, they always say that kids in their generation owed their education to this man! That was one of the reason why he was so popular among the public. Today Mid Day Meal is the world’s largest school feeding programme reaching out to about 12 crore children (120 million) in over 12.65 lakh schools/EGS centres (1.2 million) across the country. Sources: Mid Day Meal Scheme Official Site , Wikipedia: Midday Meal Scheme 1+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 21 May Chaitanya Kota, Am imperfect. And I love being it :) 36 Votes by Omkar Nisal, Sam Boosalis, Debdatta Basu, and 32 more. I can't call it a maneuver..but I read something like. That unknown insurance warrior who called `Insurance for Death' as "Life Insurance " 1+ Comments • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 18 May Glen Golub 57 Votes by Jack Wei, Silambarasan Madanakumar, Abdalla Alkadhimi, and 53 more. A con artist in Phoenix approached Hyatt about a multi-million dollar property that was for sale. The two parties reached a deal and the con artist wrote a check for the deposit which promptly bounced. He wrote a new check without a date on it and convinced them to hold onto it for just a couple days til he could make it good. When it became apparent several days later the check would probably never clear, Hyatt informed him they were backing out of the deal. The con artist took them to court. but this time. Stephanie Vardavas. This is another story about Henry Ford. and again by owning stock in the successful company.000 in dividends. It sold well. Not surprisingly. The other was a huge monster dozer with all sorts of bells and whistles that no one really needed and was much more expensive than the smaller version. Years ago I heard about an old guy who sold heavy construction equipment. which eventually changed its name to the Cadillac Automobile Company). and incorporate all the improvements the Model T didn’t have. 4 Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 19 Sep Doug Allsebrook 73 Votes by Nathan Dintenfass. the contract was still valid and both parties were still bound by the terms until the check becomes good. So the Dodge brothers now decided to build their own car to compete with the Model T. and profitable. and 69 more.. To bankroll the venture. 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 21 May . They knew all of the strengths and weaknesses of the Model T. In 1918. Needless to say the smaller version was the most popular at the time. and the first year. they’d suggested improvements to it to Henry Ford. he’s not the shrewd businessman.. They provided him with $7. Remember that their original investment was just $10. Ford offered to lease Dodge’s plant and run it himself.000 in parts and cash. So in 1903. The Dodge brothers sued and got $19 million in back dividends. plus the ongoing dividends from their ownership of Ford stock. and Dodge manufactured every part of it except the rubber tires and the wooden seats. He had a couple of bulldozers he was selling. bringing in $25 million. but the Dodge brothers had another idea. and he needed a supplier of parts. Instead. so he announced that he’d stop paying dividends. Kamal Gaur. when Ford completed a new plant in Detroit. Because the Dodge brothers made so much money from their business ventures with Henry Ford. he made a deal with John and Horace Dodge.000 worth of automobile parts and $3. The car was the Model T. the Dodge brothers received $10.In court the judge ruled that because they took an undated check and agreed to hold onto it until such time that the check would be good. they had their profits from their dealings with Ford. But the old guy knew human nature so he gave the dozers new names. he had already started one car company that had gone bankrupt (the Detroit Automobile Company). The new plant meant he no longer needed parts from the Dodges as he intended to make his own. the Dodge brothers. When Henry Ford went to start the Ford Motor Company we know today. Tanvir Aslam. it’s his suppliers. He was a high school dropout but very street smart. business historians consider their investment to be the most profitable in the history of American commerce. He needed cash to start again. The Dodge brothers were also to receive all of Ford’s assets if Ford went bankrupt again. Over the years.500 per share. and 70 more. "Big Dick" soared and the old guy made a fortune. JSwaroop Repaka. One was a smaller version that was cheap and efficient. This arrangement continued until 1914. Now of course no bulldozer driver wanted to be accused of driving a "Little Dick" and so sales of the more expensive. This hurt him personally as he owned 51% of his company. Hyatt ended up having to pay him a million dollars just to get out of the agreement. So the Dodge brothers were making money two ways: once by selling parts to Ford.the smaller one he renamed the "Little Dick" and the bigger one "The Big Dick". but he never agreed to them. and walked away from another (the Henry Ford Company. Comment • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 28 May Joseph Carpenter 74 Votes by Andy Lee Chaisiri. Ford was not happy that his profits were now bankrolling his competitor. the Dodge brothers sold their Ford stock for $12. but also much more profitable. They had also received about $10 million in dividends between 1903 and 1909 alone.000 cash in exchange for 10 percent ownership of the Ford Motor Company. nearly everyone--even people who were not Lotus loyalists--grabbed Borland's $500 software for $100. reaching to the common man. but one of Pole’s colleagues noticed that women on the baby registry were buying larger quantities of unscented lotion around the beginning of their second trimester. Science and Technology Writer Votes by Shailesh Pandit. In 1992. Investigative Reporter 69 Votes by Oliver Emberton. Lotus acted quickly: It offered to mail Page 1 to anyone who wanted it. Seeing a jujutsu opportunity. I don't know whether I should call it a maneuver or not." As Pole’s computers crawled through the data. 5+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 21 May Fred Landis. But in a bid to win over Lotus users. Student 16 Votes by Sundar Lakshmanan. the more. and 65 more.5 rupees and the shampoos moved from shelves in departmental stores to every store in nook and corner of India. was selling its spreadsheet software. Borland would let you buy the software for just $99. the scrappy newcomer. Omkar Nisal. for the same price as Lotus 1-2-3: a hefty $495. Ajeet Khhabya. the merrier. Many shoppers purchase soap and cotton balls. analyzing the data. and before long some useful patterns emerged. "[Pole] ran test after test. These cookie-based data analytics companies monitor your internet searching and website browsing to predict what kind of person you are or what is your current situation. A Brazilian kid who was a student in the US and took a job with Costco. Jack Yu. here it is. pregnant women loaded up on supplements like calcium. Comment • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 20 May Arjun Satya. Abhirut Gupta. and 12 more. it signals they could be getting close to their delivery date. The right package The Sachet Revolution by Chik Shampoo which changed the way FMCG giants like P&G and Unilever looked at developing markets like that of India. The first year they made over $100 million US. Jordan Hughes. Borland. and 40 more. Lots of people buy lotion. and 32 more. Shocked? Well don't be. Lotions. in addition to hand sanitizers and washcloths. Pole works for Target. All Mr. Quattro Pro. for example. but when someone suddenly starts buying lots of scent-free soap and extra-big bags of cotton balls. undergraduate @IITB 44 Votes by Omkar Nisal. Ranganathan did was. he was able to . Another analyst noted that sometime in the first 20 weeks. Siva Krishna Shushanth S. magnesium and zinc. The result? For a few weeks. Borland International and Lotus Software were locked in mortal combat to win market share. Chik packaged shampoo in small sachets and sold it at a mere 0.but here it is:- Predictive Analytics Company 'Target' Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did.95 if you'd mail them Page 1 from the Lotus 1-2-3 manual. Amit Kumar. As for what happened in the above news. They collect these raw data to segment you in a particular category based on your demographics and psycho-graphics and then forward these information to ad-serving companies that expose you to the advertisements that are relevant to you and there are chances that you might click them. Abhimanyu Bhosale.36 Paul Stregevsky. He returned to Sao Paolo and his family opened the first Costco-style store in South America. 5+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 7 May Bhargav Golla. the father was somewhat abashed. He looked at the mailer. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of. and a talented creative execution team. Eat24 reduced their marketing costs 90% by advertising where no else would dare tread: porn sites. Sure enough.” he said. More important. so Target could send coupons timed to very specific stages of her pregnancy. and 39 more. For the full story. and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?” "The manager didn’t have any idea what the man was talking about. say. Clever insight." "On the phone. "One Target employee I spoke to provided a hypothetical example. Adarsh Hegde. Ashton Lee." So Target started sending coupons for baby items to customers according to their pregnancy scores. “I had a talk with my daughter. Impact Inter.identify about 25 products that." via. an 87 percent chance that she’s pregnant and that her delivery date is sometime in late August. There’s. I owe you an apology. though. An angry man went into a Target outside of Minneapolis. a purse large enough to double as a diaper bag. Duhigg shares an anecdote — so good that it sounds made up — that conveys how eerily accurate the targeting is. Take a fictional Target shopper named Jenny Ward. demanding to talk to a manager: "My daughter got this in the mail!” he said.How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 19 May Lewis Lin. Votes by Andy Lee Chaisiri.. who is 23 and in March bought cocoa-butter lotion. he could also estimate her due date to within a small window. “She’s still in high school. The manager apologized and then called a few days later to apologize again. CEO of Impact Interview. zinc and magnesium supplements and a bright blue rug. allowed him to assign each shopper a “pregnancy prediction” score. fantastic results. nursery furniture and pictures of smiling infants. She’s due in August. when analyzed together. read their Sept 9 blog post: How to Advertise on a Porn Website 43 2+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 12 Sep . it was addressed to the man’s daughter and contained advertisements for maternity clothing.. I read everything I see. and 12 more. The channel is collectively managed by more than 3. Although most of your employees may offer advice in the company stores on a daily basis. How does this work? To understand how this thing works. but be more accurate. No tweet is added to the feed without the hashtag. members of the Twelpforce answer tougher customer service questions.16 Lakshay Verma. through a help desk account. They can create a new account with a name like “TwelpFromBob” to use just for Twelpforce contributions. Of course. and you propose to let every single one of your thousands of employees offer advice to customers… on the Internet. I am having problems with the geo location on my iphone … i am WAY off where I really am. Sam Boosalis. anything I can do to correct it? @PhoeLam have you turned on the GPS function? It will drain more battery. Twitter help force) is a real-time Twitter-based customer care service. The gamble appears to have paid off. Imagine you’re in the company boardroom. Twelp Force by Best Buy Twelp Force (i. isn’t allowing all of them to do it on the Internet a huge risk? Wouldn't everyone in the boardroom look at you like you were insane? Best Buy decided to take this risk using Twitter.Black via @agent1834 In addition to recommendations. To ensure employee accountability and allow customers to build a relationship with a specific employee. this tweet showed up on the Twelpforce account: @Despicable P This speak er dock by iHome is one of my personal favorites: iHome . let's look at examples directly from the Twelpforce feed: On July 23 @DespicableP tweeted: @twelpforce Do you have any suggestions on fashionable ipod speak ers? A few hours later.e. managing every day the requests of consumers who face technical difficulties or are in need of advice. Any Best Buy employee can sign up using his or her own personal Twitter account. from July 22: @TWELPFORCE Hi. via @bernierjohn @PhoeLam Under Settings->General->Location Services (On/Off) Turn on for better Location… via @bernierjohn . not all employees sign up using their personal account. Check out the following exchange.Speak er System .000 Best Buy employees. Votes by Omkar Nisal. Yash Gandhi. for example. and whenever they add the hashtag “#twelpforce” the tweet gets added to the Twelpforce feed. each tweet posted on Twelpforce includes a signature at the end indicating the personal Twitter account of the employee. "can we put our web directory on your front page?" Netscape said yes. Their idea was. Ritesh Sharma. Two guys. Rohil Philip. Sources: 1. When the competition between Coca-Cola and Pepsi was at it's peak and each company was trying to best the other somehow. Fearing that the worth of Ford stock would plummet. He even made plans and discussed the next car he would produce. any other place you can imagine. cafes. So Yahoo! did something shrewd -. Kartik Bhatia.they came in as a pair of goofy guys. the minority shareholders .In an age where most customer service hotlines consist of button pushing your way through five different menus just to reach the smooth jazz hold music. and -. http://www. In 1915. Netscape was the largest web browser in terms of market share. Henry Ford Again. Coke installed vending machines everywhere you can imagine.youtube. 2. vending machines. The rest is history.. https://twitter. schools.. Stephen Jordan. colleges. It was Coca-Cola which came up with stroke of brilliance by which their sales skyrocketed. The most amusing chapter was this -. and 77 more. and Yahoo!'s traffic burst began. http://mirskylegal. Hard to believe. In 1916. recognizing that it Henry's company.. in offices. devalued the stock. even in the face of record profits. Occasionally Witty Biped 81 Votes by Seb Paquet.com/watch?v=R. and that no one else's opinion would ever matter as much. one company came up with an idea that nearly crushed the other. In his own response to the escalating feud. and -. putting any message of value there (like a guide to the Internet?). Ford antagonized the other shareholders by declaring a paltry dividend. Hooray! Nobody at Netscape seemed to see the value of that front page. Created a rumor he was leaving Ford to start another company. it’s nice to know that there are real human beings on Best Buy’s Twitter account who want to help. and bought the entire company and took it private. silly name. and 20 more..com/twelpforce 2+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 18 May Arvind Prabhakar 24 Votes by Vinay Sharma. and 23 more. but if you downloaded a copy of Netscape Navigator in 1996. Digital Marketing & Communications 27 Votes by Prathamesh Karve. the shareholders sued. its advertising revenue. whenever someone is thirsty they should have access to Coke more easily than they have access to water. And it worked! Comment • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 23 May Ben Austin. silly name. 2 Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 29 May Richard Tabassi. or charging for others to access the space. the default "front page" of the browser would feature things such as press releases announcing that Archer Daniels Midland had licensed 200 copies of Netscape Navigator. In response. Natalie Friedberg.com/2010/08/b."can we serve our results to your customers?" Yahoo! said yes. Renaissance Ape. lobbies. Siva Krishna Shushanth S. When Yahoo! was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in 1994. What was this idea? Vending Machines! Yes.Google did the same thing right back at Yahoo! less than a decade later. The Ford Motor Company was forced to distribute $19 million in dividend payments. James Couzens resigned from the Ford Motor Company. Henry threatened publicly to leave the company and form a new one. and in 1919 the Michigan Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that it was unreasonable to withhold fair dividends under the circumstances. a fantastic outlay that he financed with a $75 million loan from two eastern banks. because of the rumors. and 13 more. Founder of http://leanbelts. whose designs and trademarks are used under license. 3+ Comments • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 4 Sep Hemanth Kumar Thangudu.Versace . the most wily of the lot. the fifty-five-year-old mogul was so enthused that he danced a jig. and 33 more.A. and Donna Karan .. With them paying him before he paid a penny to Lindstrom. plus $19 million for the court-ordered dividend -. and turned to a career in the U. Clara. Sahil Garg. received the highest price per share. On July 11. 4+ Comments • Share (2) • Thank • Report • 21 May Peter Johnston. 1919. He had full PR rights for the crossing. Yuvraj Wadhwani. Denis Bykov. Miu Miu . [3] Its prime competitor is the Safilo Group S.p.[2] Its best known brands are Ray-Ban and Persol . James Couzens. For effective marketing strategies.com Votes by Ipsita Nayak. For years a guy called Per Lindstrom had been punting the idea of a Transatlantic balloon flight. Luxottica owns 7000 retail lens shops in the USA. and 53 more.suddenly became eager to sell.$106 million of the stock. Branson offered him the £1/4m he needed on three conditions: 1. 17 Votes by Ashwini Anvekar. 37 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 2 Sep Abhimanyu Bhosale. 2. He could come too. Luxottica also makes sunglasses branded Giorgio Armani . Within a week he had sold subsidiary sponsorship around the balloon for £1/2 million. looking for sponsorship. Ford gained complete control of the company at a cost of $125 million -. and Edsel Ford. Tory Burch . The stock was divided up and placed in the names of Henry. . Then he met Richard Branson. 3. Yash Gandhi. is the world's largest eyewear company. Charging $100 to $1000 for 'designer' glasses that cost $30 or less to manufacture.S. unlike the old boss) with $30 million in the bank. Delivering the appearance of customization while remaining a monopoly. Burberry . I can be whatever you want me to be. It also makes sunglasses and prescription frames for a multitude of designer brands such as Chanel and Prada . It made Virgin a household name. Stella McCartney . when he signed the last stock transfer agreement. s. that they've all manufactured.. Luxottica Group S. a reputation as a daring adventurer and £1/4m (it rose to a lot more than that) in his pocket.A . The sellers did not receive all that the shares were worth. He had full advertising rights for the balloon. They sell hundreds of brands. but they each emerged with a fortune. Vogue. agents working surreptitiously for Henry Ford quietly bought up lot after lot of shares. Eric Pilon. Kamal Gaur.p. So he got worldwide publicity. Senate (he won his race. 57 Votes by Mangesh Singh. . It really set Apple computers apart from the rest.' Cherry on the pie Jobs got the Xerox guy. How? What is so smart about stealing ideas? When Steve Jobs was first shown the mouse at Xerox. Here are the instructions Jobs gave Hovey. Nathan Rothschild's Carrier Pigeons One of the most famous and consequential uses of real time knowledge occurred in Europe in 1815. and I want to be able to use it on Formica and my bluejeans. So YES. The Battle of Waterloo is possibly the most famous military engagement in history. Mouse and lot of other things. the person responsible for GUI.Steve Jobs Here. was just a year away'if PARC would 'open its kimono. Aditya Chauhan. treaty or an important political affair could takes weeks or months to arrive where the result was most keenly anticipated. and 61 more. There was no wire transmission or speedy organized courier services for delivering messages over vast distances.I think this was the most revolutionary thing happened to the computer industry. It needs to not fail for a couple of years.O. to Apple. . The battle site. [the Xerox mouse] is a mouse that cost three hundred dollars to build and it breaks within two weeks. It was a really smart move against IBM. is synonymous today with one's "final act". He convinced Xerox Jobs proposed a deal: he would allow Xerox to buy a hundred thousand shares of his company for a million dollars'its highly anticipated I. His inglorious defeat by the British forces. Abhishek Ghose. great artists steal. the tech giant at that time. the idea was from Xerox. Here's your design spec: Our mouse needs to be manufacturable for less than fifteen bucks. Early in the 19th century information obtainable through communication channels about distant events was painstakingly slow to arrive.P. expedited his exile to the tiny island of Elba and the decline of France as a military power for almost a century. This is what innovation sounds like: So he explains it. Word of the outcome of a battle. really little more than cart paths. Steve Jobs acquiring the mouse and GUI Good artists copy. remote Belgian village of Waterloo. he was sure this is the way people will be interacting with computers. Waterloo became Napoleon Bonaparte's denouement. and he says. unfinished. the tiny. 'You know. 1 Comment • Share (2) • Thank • Report • 19 May Chua Hsieh Li 65 Votes by Seb Paquet. its great innovation. Roads were rough. commanded by the Duke of Wellington. . The foresight to train a winged air force of carrier pigeons proved fortuitous and extremely profitable for the banking house of Rothschild.. 16 Votes by Philip Gamble. A friend of mine has a business catering parties and festivals in the Netherlands. Nathan Rothschild knew that early knowledge of the winner at Waterloo. The Rothschild banking family was already famous across most of Europe for providing a secure funding source for national governments. Pakistan and Sri Lanka) and Coke was the official sponsor for the World Cup. and spectacularly profiting from the knowledge. "Pepsi: There is Noting Official About it" campaign The 1996 Wills World Cup was being played in the Indian subcontinent (India. with long lines and too few drinks during the party and a very unsatisfied customer at the end. Their power and wealth has multiplied exponentially in the past 200 years and has been maintained to this very day. even under their cost price. Pepsi launched an advertising campaign which quite literally pulled the rug from under Coke and ICC. That was a very bad start for the company. fast packet ships and trained carrier pigeons to speedily deliver notes. Ayush Baheti. Rothschild took opposite positions. they had underestimated the real costs. and 59 more. His goal was to profit no matter whom was in power or won a war. details of the battle. and indeed the other guy got the job. and hired too few bar people and facilities. All of these great armies. he strategically released the actual truthful news that Wellington had vanquished Napoleon. moving across vast swaths of Europe terrain needed extensive provisioning. Massive funding was required to support the campaign. The family had invested heavily over the decades in field agents that forwarded tips and messages. During the World Cup. Uthara Padmanabhan. the severity of the loser's defeat would be invaluable in financially manipulating markets to profit from the result. "The man who controls the British money supply controls the British. using my friend's company estimate. It is estimated that the Rothschild family extrapolated an increase in wealth of 20 times their pre-war capital. PhD in education & technology @ tudel. Viraj Thakkar. Student of life. he knew that the organizer of the party was very good friends of the new competitor. Article Source: Page on EzineArticles 4+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 16 May Thieme Hennis. The Rothschild's were famously indifferent to rulers and governments. he sent in a very low offer. He has grown quite substantially the last couple of years. Hence. The edge they enjoyed in receiving real-time information. However. This enabled the family to profit on both sides of the trades. The largest. most important were based in Paris and London. and I control the British money supply". This was an incredibly expensive enterprise. and 12 more. My friend's company was invited to write an offer for a medium sized party in Amsterdam. Austrian and Russian armies had allied to fight with the British against Napoleon. Investors began to adjust their bond and security positions in reaction to this negative news. 63 1+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 20 May Poorna Shashank. became legendary and only increased the perception that they were a family of financial Merlin's.Prussian. . The arrival of the carrier pigeons in London with specific battle results from Waterloo provided Rothschild the information he needed to begin to plant rumors. and understood that his offer was only to benchmark and that the other guy would be employed for the job anyhow. and another person in his network wanted to enter the market as well. Seb Paquet. arming and logistic support to maintain troops as they girded for the great battle. The Rothschild's had established five branches of their enterprise. However. The final Napoleonic war was largely funded by Nathan Rothschild of the family's London branch. Nathan Rothschild once famously remarked. Votes by Marc Bodnick. Initially he spread the word that the British had lost. This house had provided large sums to both the British and the French. mainly Amsterdam Area. and then. with 70 million views online. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 1 Jun Ariel Trybuch Votes by Will Robbins. In spite of not being the sponsor. All the stalwarts of cricket were mouthing "Pepsi: Nothing official about it" and Coke in spite of being the sole sponsor was left fuming in its mouth. The following week ..the company aired their TV ad mocking the Apple fans queuing up for the new phone. on a mid-September morning. Here is the ad from Samsung that created a lot of stir in the Mobile Industry. They then took drops of water. the iPhone 5. This led to ICC formulating the rule that only the official sponsor could associate itself with the ad campaigns during the World Cup. Simultaneously.as the iPhone 5 went on sale . Sriram Sundar. Made a lot of money. digital and Tv ads. They went to the Vatican and during mass. Love it! 36 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 22 May Aakash Shah. and 26 more. 30 Votes by Neel Borooah. Jane Roe. The company that remarkably pulled this off . far away. when Mr. and 32 more. amidst great hype and fanfare Apple CEO Tim Cook stepped onto the stage to reveal to the world.Sample the video below containing all the ads of the campaign. Samsung Mobiles Last fall. which was technically true. Two hours later. 2 brothers took a 5 gallon water jug to Italy. were a geeky group of marketing executives.Samsung Mobiles. and subsequently their 5 gallon jug. Pepsi's ad campaign line became the line of the World Cup. the group had already drafted a series of print. Anantpal Singh Saluja.Engineering student . the pope bless the audience. in a Wolfgang Puck restaurant in Los Angeles huddled up around laptops and TVs. placed them in pendants and sold them as water blessed by the pope. carefully tracking each new feature they introduced and monitoring the swarm of online comments via blogs and social media websites. Steve Pender. Cook stepped off the stage.. . Avid Tech Reader. The commercial went on to become the most popular tech ad of 2012. Here is another pic from Samsung's marketing campaign highlighting the features of S3 over iPhone 5 . Sure iPhone 5 went on to become the top selling phone and people who were gonna buy the iPhone did eventually buy it. Some people may call it over-the-top campaigning but it was very effective and to me its was Marketing Genius! Samsung's move had a very huge and a positive impact on its sales and changed the perception of people to the way they saw Galaxy devices. But the ads and the campaign created a lot of buzz for Samsung and S3 went on to become the best selling Android phone ever with sales figures having crossed 50 million devices sold as of March 2013. Yes people do argue that Samsung under- . the latest being the S4. Today Samsung is one of the largest spenders in the Marketing Segment with huge campaigns for its Galaxy devices. Also Samsung's strategy of having a model of Galaxy devices in each price category is paying huge dividends. It also increased its brand value immensely. In one gesture. churning out 215 million smartphones last year and a huge credit for this goes to its Marketing Team. I heard this story on a video podcast called "Play Value" which is available here: Commodore 64 6+ Comments • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 21 May . Web Analytics & SEO services 13 Votes by Hamada Kaido. and 49 more. which Duveen helped create in 1937 by getting Andrew Mellon to donate his collection to it. “The art dealer Joseph Duveen was once confronted with a terrible problem. Rinse. and 54 more. I came across a story about Jack Tramiel. and 9 more. All this while the donors created the appearance of being public benefactors. it seemed unlikely that they would keep buying. The millionaires who had paid so dearly for Duveen's paintings were running out of wall space.. Samsung has percolated into every corner of the globe. overnight. and reduced the number of paintings on the market. Will Robbins. Bert Cattoor. Neglect to pay the company for the parts 3. The National Gallery was the perfect front for Duveen. Buy parts in bulk from a small company on credit 2. Nalin Savara. Vibhav Bisht. About 5 years ago. Coca-cola Coup Renders Pepsi Flat In Venezuela How Venezuela Is Becoming Coca-Cola Country 4 Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 14 May Ravi Janardhan.” Excerpt From: 48 Laws of Power. Jaspal Singh. Shailesh Pandit.specs every phone below the flagship line but that to me is justifiable. cleared wall space for new purchases. UX Design + Product Management 53 Votes by Seb Paquet. It bought the bottling operations from Pepsi that belonged to the Cisneros family and made Pepsi go from a dominant position to have 0% market share in that country. The Coca Cola move to enter the Venezuelan market in the mid-nineties. The solution was the National Gallery of Art in Washington. 1+ Comments • Share (2) • Thank • Report • 21 Jun Jorge Supelano 58 Votes by Marc Bodnick. How ethical was this move from the family (which was close friends to Pepsico's CEO? It's up to you to decide. Business lesson learned: don't put your all your critical value chain processes in the hands of one subcontractor. Forgive their own debts 6. maintaining the upward pressure on their prices. Samsung has managed to put a 'Smartphone' into the hands of people even in the lower strata of social order and has helped cement its place as The Largest Mobile Phone manufacturer in terms of Volume . One reason Commodore systems were so cheap was because he repeatedly used the following "evil genius" maneuver: 1. Aided by a tight supply chain. repeat. Buy out the company dirt cheap 5. Wait for the company to nearly go bankrupt 4.C. his clients avoided taxes. D. and with inheritance taxes getting ever higher. head of the once great Commodore computer company. 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 14 Sep Jeff Chausse. So in 2011. He then graciously bought up all the stock at pennies on the dollar (pound?) before the actual news of victory arrived. somewhat relaxed Votes by John Phileas. With the world flocking to the digital space. and 17 more. Watch this video to know more about the campaign. 3+ Comments • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 21 May Geordie Keitt. and gave people the tools to find. Jack of all trades. and 25 more. the more friends we gather online the fewer we see in real life. The move grabbed immediate attention and the campaign worked wonders for the company as their sales increased tremendously. and. master of (n)one Votes by Siddharth Agrawal. Coke needed to adapt to this changing environment and needed a campaign that would encourage people to connect with the brand both online and offline. but it's legendary that Nathan Rothschild cratered the English stock market by spreading rumors of English defeat at Waterloo. the way we connect has started to change. Athyuttam Reddy. The multi-platform communications strategy acted as an invitation to ‘Share a Coke’ with someone you know or want to know. Learner. it would seem. I've not "seen" this. The 'Share a Coke' campaign by Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola printed 150 of Australia’s most popular names on labels of Coke bottles for the first time in the brand’s history.23 Agrim Singh. . connect and share. and 19 more. Mike Prozan. to remind the Aussies not only of those people presently in their lives. Yash Gandhi. Nathan Mayer Rothschild 2+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 7 May Shreedhar Manek. but also the people they may have lost touch with. Dreamer Votes by Sriram Vamsi Ilapakurthy. Liver. Debasish Patra. Chris Grayson. Pritesh Desai. giving them a reason to connect. We all know what happened to Record Labels when Napster came along. which was then a separate company under the Unilever . have one thing in common for all Indians from aam admi to crorepati. All these multinational brands are also local generic names for their product groups. the popularity of the brand-name compliment to Nestle’s positioning and pricing strategy when it was launched 30 years ago. It remains the default word for instant noodles even today although it has received tough competitions of late from the other players in the market. Hawai chappal and Dettol. Yet strangely. Though Nestle didn’t do (as far as I know) any targeted hard-selling. 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 10 May Ipsita Nayak. Several attempts by other companies had failed. and 25 more. Maggi Instant Noodles is a case in point. including one by Lipton. David Lee. Back then. Volvo . Brands as widely differing as Maggi . Nachiketa Dash.21 Sir Richard Branson selling a successful Virgin Records to fund Virgin Atlantic Airways in 1992. Teacher and trainer 29 Votes by Koustubh Bagade. none of the multinationals that spent crores of rupees on promoting these brands has ever chosen to leverage this invaluable advantage. instant noodles had about as much chance of success as a wild card entry winning Wimbledon. Today it has found entry into millions of houses around the globe irrespective of their traditional concept of food. Oliver Harper. It was then repeated in later popular accounts. In the late seventies. it didn't work. such as that of Morton . Dealer in books also runs Jot101 37 Votes by Wellington W. Lipton’s instant noodle offering was called Supermum.. philosopher and historian Voltaire getting rich by gaming a math flaw in French lottery . Rothschild's first concern on this occasion was to the potential financial advantage on the market which the knowledge would have given him. he and his courier did not immediately take the news to the government. Reality Theorist. Nestle addressed a key concern of the average middle class Indian housewife and making it a major hit with this most important segment of consumers. Instead of trying to insinuate it into the main Indian meal as a cereal substitute. and 33 more.. but it failed mainly because of its positioning. In a consumer market in which eating habits were conservative. and 43 more. 47 Votes by Marius Nedelcu. 54 Votes by Bheshaj Joshi. The basis for the Rothschild's most famously profitable move was made after the news of British victory had been made public. for what at the time seemed an excessively high price.. Writer. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 20 Jun Nigel Burwood. The followers will be bound to struggle with their branding. Thanks! 4+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 10 May Seb Paquet. Pritesh Desai. So. in order to stop the competition. It has to be the Rothschilds getting the earliest news of the British victory at Waterloo and making billions from it. then selling the bonds on the crest of a short bounce in the market in 1817 for a 40% profit. by the time people learn to imitate you... Given the sheer power of leverage the Rothschild family had at their disposal.thus forcing them out of competition. though competition is inevitably eating into its market share. instant noodles was among Lipton’s many attempts to diversify from its core business of selling packaged tea (a cornflakes brand Bingo! and a tea drink called 21 were others). which would finalise the post-war restructuring of the domestic economy. Tim Cook may have devised this plan as he was in charge of supply chain management and is probably one of the reasons why he is now CEO of Apple. The method . and 50 more. you will be a household name. Although he tried to get the suppliers to exclusively work with Apple. Nathan immediately bought up the government bond market. Contrast this with what Nestle did with Maggi in 1984. Sculley. I read somewhere that when Steve Jobs came back to Apple he noticed that their competitors were ordering from the same suppliers as Apple was. BTW. Nestle chose the utility route.a relay of messengers on good fast horses! 1+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 30 May Chris Milas. Tom Gillis. he overbought supply to stall the competitors and by the time they could get any supply. Wiki explains: . By doing so. It was something unthought of and unimagined a few decades back. their tech was old and they couldn't move it . positioning the product as a snack for children.the family network enabled Nathan Rothschild to receive in London the news of Wellington's victory at the Battle of Waterloo a full day ahead of the government's official messengers. Arnon Ilani. Supermum was marketed as a replacement to the primary food in an Indian meal: rice and roti. President & Account Director @ PrintS. The positioning has proved so durable that Nestle hasn’t changed it significantly in a quarter century. Hassan Baig.umbrella. The strategy is simple . before waiting two years. if anyone can tell the story better.be the first one to do something. Nathan Rothschild calculated that the future reduction in government borrowing brought about by the peace would create a bounce in British government bonds after a two year stabilisation. please comment for an update. http://twitter. Another product which revolutionalized the Indian concept of breakfast is Kellogg's Cornflakes.[15] [16] [17] In what has been described as one of the most audacious moves in financial history. Austin Kelleher. this profit was an enormous sum..com/. Voltaire won the French lottery. My brother told me this morning of a shrewd business manoeuvre made by a company he used to work for. the company decided to include the feature but not tell anyone about it. Voltaire’s share was 1 million francs. my uncle was an avid poker player and loved the bluff. Source: Odd Statistical Snippet of the week: Voltaire and the statistician who won the lottery and proved that the earth is not round. Siva Krishna Shushanth S. Selling ice cream to drug stores in the 1950's was big business as they were a major seller of ice cream cones. Reading it brought to mind one of the personal anecdotes of my uncle. once the competitors spot this feature they would all develop it and drive down the price of the software. Together. Borden's began to lose drug store accounts. and 15 more. I don't want to give away a single freezer. at a hastily convened meeting of his sales managers. However. Unexpectedly one spring. 3+ Comments • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 25 May Seth Jeffery 19 Votes by Kirti Satish Manian.Voltaire was quite wealthy. learned that Sealtest was offering them new ice cream freezers free as an inducement to switch brands. I can't figure out why Sealtest would not offer a free freezer to loyal and long standing customers like you. we know how to treat our customers. Voltaire and Condamine noticed that the government was offering a sum of prize money that was far greater than what they would make by selling all the lottery tickets. Saurav Sharma. Instead of telling the clients they could use the feature to build their own reports. First of all. To increase their odds. and secondly. 1. and give their developers extra time to focus on making the product even better! 1+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 13 Jun Michael Douglas 22 Votes by Stephanie Vardavas. He was set for the rest of his life and free to write and observe as he pleased. they recognized a flaw in the lottery. 3. Visit the drug store owners of all the long standing Sealtest accounts. Let the sales reps know that if they have to give one away they'll lose their job. the clients would no longer pay the accounting company for the development work of the reports. It ran from 1728-1730 and was meant to raise money for the French government. while pretending it was taking just as long! This allowed the company to keep charging the client for the work. A man who clung tightly to every dollar he made. Finally. He had developed a brand new feature for their accounting software. My uncle. 2. You might assume that his riches came from the sale of his many writing pieces. allowing the reports that the company's developers used to have to code for their clients to now be built quickly and easily with an intuitive UI so that the clients could do it themselves. Felipe Pires. You would be wrong. the company continued to bill them for report generation but now they could build the reports in half the time. Voltaire teamed up with a statistician at the time named Charles Marie de la Condamine. Did they not tell you about the free freezers? None of the Sealtest customers I've visited have one of those new freezers either. as competitive a business person as I have ever encountered. So instead. Tell them this: "I know that you are a Sealtest ice cream customer. Ted Bauland.not to duplicate . and 18 more. At Borden's. though. (You see. The heads of the company saw a problem with this new feature. I love David Fry's post about Herbert Dow. Arjun Verma. I'm happy to give you the same freezer to become one. He ran sales for Borden's when it was a dominant dairy products producer in the middle part of the last century. yet I see that you don't have one of the new ice cream freezers that Sealtest is giving away to our customers. my uncle gave them three instructions. not let the competitors know about the feature. and let’s just say he didn’t do it honestly. He wanted his reps to understand that the counter tactic was a bluff meant to wreak havoc on Sealtest . Voltaire and Condamine bought a number of tickets and won the lottery. Mo Ostin. "David Geffen was presiding over a fledgling. and 21 more. This is one of my favorite music business dirty maneuver's and was the impetus that led to music mogul David Geffen becoming a Billionaire. Curtis F Rodgers. After admiring their new freezers.selling it to the Chinese and getting into the large scale services business. and that sales managers accompanied them to ensure nothing went awry. so he bought up most of the land to the south. money-losing record company that was a minor and not particularly distinguished satrapy at the margins of Steve Ross's Warner Communications empire. That was how my uncle liked to work . he married his own aunt (not by blood. 15 Votes by Gareth Michael Jones. Enjoy curiosities of l. What Geffen did next. You can be sure none of the reps winged it.high stakes. and 18 more. IBM getting out of the PC business. Pretty weird story. 4+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 15 Sep Joshua Landy. Broden's market share grew. The chief of Warner Brothers Records. The ante for the sales reps: their jobs. but still declassé) to re-merge the family fortune and take control once more.might be pliable. Henry Huntington was supposed to own the biggest railway company in the west. Within a few years my uncle would join Sealtest to run sales. In the early 1900's. Michael Lee. but Geffen sensed that Ross -. Tom King reports in this exhaustive and often fingerwagging biography of the entertainment mogul. The board booted him out.. Likey science. Luis Francisco Hernandez. was ''preposterous. the empty area called Los Angeles.who had a soft spot for Geffen -. Oh. Tom Wills. Southern Pacific because it was his family's dynasty. My uncle agreed under these terms: return all of the accounts you took from us.) Not a single salesman lost his job. IBM To Build Massive China Cloud Data Centers -. Brilliant! When his old competitors came after his business. which owned half of Geffen Records.. Talent Manager 22 Votes by Nicholas Snyder. Geordie Keitt. He built LA into the then-desert by building sub-developments and directing the railway into his new developments on land that he had sold to the developers. 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 28 May Ken Larson. Borden's stopped losing drug store accounts immediately. to give up its 50 percent stake as a reward for Geffen's agreeing to a five-year contract extension with the parent company. and I'll stop calling on yours. the sales reps were instructed to commend the drug store owner on his business. They would then ask the drug store owner how important it was to him to deal with suppliers who also knew the value a a good and loyal customer. and they get to keep the freezer you gave them.the tactic of his competitor. Geffen's audacious goal was to hornswoggle Warner. duplicitous and . Jason McFarlane.. A month later my uncle had his sales people visit the Sealtest accounts again.InformationWeek Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 7 May Josh Roybal. Within a few days my uncle received a phone call from a distraught Sealtest sales executive who insisted that he stop. Over 30 years in federal government p.. He expanded the city as folks arrived on Route 66 to escape the dust bowl and the Great Depression in the Midwest. 25 Votes by Robert S Mozayeni. mind you. was unlikely to accede to such a request. They are now building the largest server farm in Asia just outside of Beijing. and for knowing the value of a good and loyal customer. and 11 more. Kenyan billion Sameer merali was able to make a profit of 20 million $ from purchasing a kenyan telecommunication company at 0700hrs and selling it at 0900hrs on the same day in the next room to celtel international.peons etc. Jonathan Reem. it was about the equity. buying the American company for some $6. serial enterprenuer. Fractional reserve banking.'' and began making provocative comments about her health and children. "How do we boost our sales?" One of the janitors had this to say: "Increase the diameter of the opening of the toothpaste tube.. and 23 more. After several aborted attempts at antagonizing Ostin. 16 Votes by Gopi Nath. Geffen hatched a plan to alienate him through his wife. Over lunch at the Ivy. Ross Cohen...S. and 13 more.. Mrs. David Haddad. Hamza Alsbaihi. Ostin walked out. Their sales were dropping. the single biggest beneficiary of ''a Japanese acquisition of a U. Eventually.read the full story from the link below. he took an offer of more than $500 million in stock from MCA -. making him. Ross. allowing unimpeded access to the big man himself. and 12 more. Seb Paquet. Mori Yagi. Intel naming the 5x86 microprocessor the Pentium.a longtime mentor -. and 43 more.THE STORY BEHIND THE DEAL Suggestions Pending Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 15 May Brad Oberwager Votes by Marc Bodnick. The higher ups in the company had exhausted all of their options. The Japanese conglomerate Matsushita made its own over-the-top bid for MCA. Geffen Records soon embarked on a remarkable run that. 1+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 22 May Shrikant Kharade 12 Votes by Uthara Padmanabhan.'' Actually. Geffen ultimately spurned the cash-strapped Ross. ''it's not just about money. period. as King writes. Karanbir Singh Dhillon. But nothing seemed to work. AND REPEAT". and 8 more. 2x Startup Founder that is working on. and the couple would not talk to Geffen for the next year and a half.. THE CELTEL PURCHASE OF KENCELL . Instead. company in history. Yash Gandhi. 17 3+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 23 May Matt Mickiewicz.'' _Michael Hirschorn NYTimes Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 19 May Tekwane Mwendwa. ''At the end of the day. This felicitous sequence of deals left Geffen with $660 million in cash.he could use the dust-up as an excuse to refuse to negotiate with him.'' Geffen told Ross's deputies. Votes by Seb Paquet. Adding on a shampoo bottle: "Rinse. King writes." .and his good fortune was only beginning. would allow Geffen to put his now wholly owned company on the market for top dollar.. ''You know. Geffen got the deal he wanted..59 billion. The path cleared to Ross. Geffen did little to dispel that impression.. Lilit Khachatryan. given his rather extraordinary patronage of Geffen.) They were asked the question. Geffen told Evelyn Ostin. There was a time when the Colgate company wasn't doing so good. Duncandrive Fay. 3 Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 15 May Sinisa Rakovic.com & 99designs 27 Votes by Seb Paquet. five years later. they gathered everyone that was working in the company(including janitors. Turned a commodity component into a brand leading to billions in market cap.downright awful. Mo really doesn't care about you that much. Everybody had tried to come up with some solution. Co-Founder of Hired. figured the company was his by droit du seigneur.'' Geffen believed that if he could pick a fight with Ostin -. who had recently gobbled up Time Inc. it had made a small loss of $7 Million as it already had a debt of $686 Million. FedEx wouldn't have been able to foot a $24. the practice was too entrenched to be displaced. Skype had a revenue of just $860 Million on which it posted an operating profit of $264 Million. what do you know. Though Microsoft already had its own Skype-like-facilities in its Live. Fred Smith Founder and CEO took the company's last $5.(In those days the openings used to be pretty small) Well. HC dug in its heels. This caught on and while not the only reason. 5 days of high stakes negotiating. Rahul Karur. even considering Skype's payable calls which around 8 Million people make use of. Though Skype is better than Live.decades later . Steve Jobs Emails Show How to Win a Hard-Nosed Negotiation Steve Jobs arm twisting Harper Collins (NewsCorp) into selling their e books on the Ipad. Athyuttam Reddy. Some of the scientists started a collaborative campaign that the phrase from the original Old Testament was incorrectly translated from the Yiddish.000 fuel bill and the company would have died. many religious zealots protested its use for childbirth.000. saying that it was against God's will and that the religious guidelines required that the mother should deliver "through pain". Made some Tech + Biz contributions 38 Votes by Bryan Cheung. Himadri Roy. their sales jumped up by a factor of 3! Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 17 May Atul Salgaonkar. Reference Links: History of childbirth pain relief What a Blessing She Had Chloroform Utopian surgery? The case against anaesthesia in surgery. Seeker 22 Votes by R Praveen Kumar. When use of chloroform "ether" as anesthesia got introduced in 1850's.scholars would come back and explain that the new translation was incorrect and the original was the accurate. In 2010. Correctly translated. Had Smith's bet gone awry. the tide was shifting and many people -including several religiously minded priests . it read that mother should deliver "through effort" and not "through pain". all over email. 5 days before the launch of the ipad. they said. Skype was sold to Microsoft in 2011 for a whopping $8. 5+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 17 May Manu R Kittane.started seeing the relief that this magical "ether' was providing. by then. . it's hard to believe that it's around $7 Billion better.000 to a Las Vegas blackjack table after the shipping giant was denied a vital business loan. dentistry and childbirth Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 17 May Ninad Kulkarni 11 Votes by Abhimanyu Madiraju. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 24 May Harshal Ved 46 Votes by Karanbir Singh Dhillon. 1 day before the launch. Later . Ajeet Gupta.5 Billion. Sean Coleman. and 7 more. Skype was still bought for God-know-why. Abhimanyu Bhosale.on Apple's terms. (the use and tacit endorsement by the British Royalty helped tremendously) these techniques facilitated the wide use of this anesthetic during child birth. Still. In FedEx's early days. and 18 more. they signed on the dotted line . However. However. Manit Shah. and 34 more. and 42 more. He ended up winning $ 27. Manjunath Madakasira. This has decreased Instagram usage since. and without FDA approval. By now everyone knows Cisco's products are barely second rate compared to any competitor. With many companies already selling guaifenesin as an expectorant. just as Data General saw. it looked miraculous and the stock soared. out-date technology and inability to engineer it's way out of a paper bag into anything innovative in less than 5 years. The next time they actually had the products delivered to the addresses of people in cahoots who . singleingredient guaifenesin product available in the United States. Hunter McCord. 16 Votes by Seb Paquet. Also. Abhimanyu Bhosale. and 48 more. since then. The letters stated that such prescription products require FDA approval. Under the Durham Humphrey Act of 1951. Prior to our 505(b)(2) application for Mucinex SE. on the last day of the month. These two are few of the shrewdest deals I've come across. but their service. and they looked predictable quarter after quarter. frustrated writer and storyteller. Ernie Bornheimer. ship millions of dollars of product to non existent addresses on the opposite coast and recognize the revenues before it was returned. they will clean up the market. they made all their competition illegal. Great going. Each quarter it would get harder and harder to make it happen.Instagram was sold to Facebook in 2012 for approximately $1 Billion ($300 Million in cash and the rest in Facebook stock). despite their lack of formal approval by the FDA. Their 2006 SEC 10-Q clearly summarized the shrewdness of this move: This removal resulted in Mucinex SE being the only long-acting. The result was they kept stockpiling capital for the bad times. distributors. 2002. marketers. It's one of the ultimate fairy tales as the deal happened just 18 months into Instagram's existence. and retailers of single-ingredient guaifenesin extendedrelease products. they would work it so they only posted 1 penny over predicted results. Any products that violate this rule are subject to FDA regulatory action and removal from the market. Rather then post 10s of cents per share every quarter. In the end. and 12 more. I have seen some sharp things. the buy by Facebook also led Instagram to cause ripples in its relationship with Twitter leading to an eventual fall out between the two. the FDA established that no drug may simultaneously be sold as a nonprescription product and as a prescription product at the same dose for the same indication. they could no longer be marketed legally. only short-acting guaifenesin products had been marketed OTC. Probably the sharpest is when I worked at Cisco. Though Instagram was one of the first apps to provide features that it does. Source (offline): Page on Athenaalliance 52 3+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 18 May Jay Bazzinotti. which effectively made all competing products illegal. On October 11. As for slightly shady but still incredibly shrewd business practices. the FDA approved our 505(b)(2) application for Mucinex SE as an OTC long-acting guaifenesin product. The first time all they had to do was. the FDA issued warning letters to 66 manufacturers. Adams Respiratory Therapeutics went through the extra step of securing FDA approval. I used to work for a company (that will remain nameless) that posted gains quarter after quarter. but until then. people will get tired of Cisco's bland. We used to call it the "90 day bite" because every 90 days we would hold our breath and wonder what rabbit they would pull out of their hat. marketing and business acumen make them a machine that cannot be beaten. When Mucinex entered the US market in 2002. Skype and Instagram ! 5+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 7 May Mike Benson Votes by Andrew Boysen. but from the outside. Yash Gandhi. a lot more apps which provide better features have come up in all kinds of markets. From Adams 2006 SEC 10-K: In 2002. which always comes. while longacting guaifenesin products were marketed as prescription drugs. I like to know 13 Votes by Avinash Pothula. and 4 more. profitable. Microsoft released Internet Explorer as a free add-on for Windows user thus decimating the users of Navigator which used to be a paid browser at that time. This move required no R&D. Next. minimal if any investment (new equipment or additional ingredients. Aneesh Neelam. and without the saddle of debt the company grew quickly. Aditya Aggarwal. the value of AOL within 20 months of the merger was determined to be zero. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 16 May Jayant Dalmia. fun ride while it lasted. These things are no longer allowed. David Frazier. Pritesh Desai. American Jingo Votes by Bryan Cheung. training) and instantly increased revenue. 21 1+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 18 May Alexander Bogdan. there were all kinds of tricks like that to make it LOOK like you are actually making numbers. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 7 May Marco A. regardless of whether the product would come back later.. Harish Kashyap. a perennial company with actual revenue producing assets. Take a product that you already sell. But eventually. In subsequent writedowns. A friend of mine owned a CLEC in the early 2000s. at the peak of its stock value. the revenue was recognized.they take pennies on the dollar for the debt. it became too difficult to do this and one quarter the entire thing collapsed in a heap. The company never really recovered and is gone now.. Mudit Sinha. technology entrepreneur. It was saddled with massive debt that it could never have survived. and make loads of cash. 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 10 May Anonymous Votes by John Phileas. and 9 more. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 4 Sep . tasty. We would shake our heads in amazement every 90 days at each new trick. they had certain salesmen find abandoned warehouses and product would be shipped there for awhile and parked. The Church of Scientology receiving non-profit charitable organization status from the Internal Revenue Serivce. but it was a wild. Nicholas Snyder. merged with Time-Warner. Lanz.. Sam Boosalis. but in those days. AOL. a virtually worthless company principally noteworthy for printing and mailing billions of CD-ROMs. provocateur. Shrewd. or the only option was bankruptcy. He went to the debt holders and offered them two choices. Avinash Pothula. While it may not be the shrewdest or smartest business maneuver listed here my vote goes to whoever came up with the idea to sell breadsticks at pizza joints. and 12 more. Too late for Time-Warner shareholders.actually stored millions of dollars of product on their porches for a week before returning it. and lots of people made lots of money on the stock. and 17 more. there are new laws to prevent it. In the 5% 23 Votes by John McFarlane. and 19 more. cut it in a different way. but by then. Of course. Each quarter they came up with increasingly desperate and bizarre scenarios for recognizing those revenues. 2 Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 23 May Ian Andrew Bell. In order to compete with Netscape Navigator in the browser market. Brilliant engineering by AOL's management. 16 Votes by Seb Paquet. something like 4 years had gone by. my friend sold it and he made millions. Matt Brenner. The debt holders took his offer. by then. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 15 May David Llorens. Hunter McCord. and 5 more. 7 9 . If you live for the challenge the pet rock guy is laughing at you all the way to the bank. Say funny things on box. Sam Boosalis. 4+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 22 May Phil Wolff. Easy. and 7 more. After one shift someone said "the silver bullets were really flying around tonight" meaning the unprinted cans. No market for rocks as pets. Shashwat Rastogi. "If something you like is not available for you. My dad worked in the can plant and was there to see it first hand.. Rodrigo Tello. Jay Mehta.. then certainly there are someone looking for the same. Pradyumna Vajjah.." and the rest is history. I know one that was somewhat shrewd.go pick up rocks. Hunter McCord. R and D costs very low. it is a chain for restaurants with more than 25 branches in South India. And the restuarant chain is called as "Mast Kalandar". One of the most smartest marketing campaign I have ever witnessed ! Kumbh Mela: Of clean hands and rotis 2 Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 17 May Arun Bathey 19 Votes by Sheena Sakhuja. Figure out how to pick up rocks and put in box. Pradyumna Vajjah. Can't figure out why this was not a case study in Blue Ocean. Overhead very low . Pet rock. This is of course Smart and not shrewd. Founder. Prashant Gonga. they started a small hotel for the people from North India. One of the most memorable. All they did is. Coors was looking for a new marketing slogan for their light beer . Saurabh Sachan. The guys in the can plant in the 70's used to have to throw cans at one another to get someone's attention (it was that loud in the can plant). and 15 more. Put rock in box. longest running marketing phrases for free. A couple working in a software company in South India (Bangalore obviously). Realizing the potential business.. Unilever's strategy of Stamping "Kya aap Lifebuoy se haath dhoye hai? " on 2. Now.Coors Light. serving North India food. Don't have to come up with brilliant IP or best competitors. and 3 more. Assessing business strategy since 1382 Votes by Siva Krishna Shushanth S. Pretty shrewd.5 Million rotis at the Maha Kumbh Mela. One Block Off the Grid Votes by Harsh Mittal. were longing to get proper North Indian food.. 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 27 May Rohit Sudheendranath Votes by Raghuram Duraisamy. Put googly eyes on rock.Bud Montang 14 Votes by Aarti Dwivedi. Someone got word of the "Silver Bullet" part of it and it has been used since with ZERO payment for the IP of the tag line.. and 10 more. Now there is a market for rocks as pets. Make millions of dollars. Competition non existent. They started to cook North Indian food for them and slowly expanding it their friends. COO. His first book The Immortals of Meluha was a best-seller and he soon became a household name. Kartik Aneja.5 million Apple shares. the combined wages of five children is less than that of one adult. tricky. thrifty fashionistas have been snapping its bargains. Ruthless. When the old Coke was brought back it was with far cheaper HFC not cane suger. nor is there any trade union to fight for their cause. Seems rather apt! 5 Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 23 May David Spanierman 13 Votes by Nikhil Kodilkar. Dictionary definition of SHREWD is 'piercingly cold'.Steve Jobs taking back NeXT stock options from the employees for pennies to build up his stake when selling the company to Apple Inc.. Suggestions Pending 5 Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 14 May .. in order to target the non-Hindu population also which forms a significant chunk (~20%) of the country's population. disposed to artful and cunning practices. No one ever noticed and Coca Cola Inc. Not sure about the impact of this one. smartest maneuver that’s ever been seen in business? Since Primark opened its doors.. Sahil Garg. While its fashion sweatshops pay children in India just 60p a day. he silently included something in the preface of his 3rd book that he did not do for his first 2 books. worth 1. The preface to the first 2 novels mentioned only temples while the 3rd one was more 'secular' as you can see above. substantially reduced their costs. THE shrewdest business maneuver or commercial exploitation? Primark has achieved revenues of £3. and 12 more. 3 Comment • Share (2) • Thank • Report • 5 Jun Mark Sorenson. Their growth is often stunted by years of sitting in uncomfortable. So maybe this is the shrewdest. timely.5bn in the last 12 months. but this definitely seems a shrewd and a silent marketing tactic. The child workers have no fixed hours of work. For those who get paid at all. After the release of his first 2 books. Votes by Aditya Soni and Jayanthi Sundar. Amish Tripathi is a celebrated author in India known for his Shiva Trilogy novels. Janaki Thakkar. 1+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 6 Sep Adithya Sundar. Wharton Business School 16 Votes by Venkata Boppudi. But the low-cost clothes has come at a high price for young children toiling in the store's Indian sweatshops and the reality of a supply chain that sees children as young as 11 sewing T-shirts which cost shoppers just a few pounds to buy on high streets across Europe. New Coke. and 9 more. Clark Kent. hunched positions at the bamboo-framed workstations.. This one. Auðun Bie. with occasional telephone. Gard Orvik Nilssen. Entrepreneurial Code Monkey and Polymath. As that time. Microsoft. Moral to the story.When you take business away from the muckrakers they try and use the rules they came up with to limit their competition. The RJR Nabisco leveraged buyout was. Warner. Federico Mantiñan. My firm cut the cost for cremation and funerals by 50% compared to the high priced competition. It's overly documented. Asaf Bartov. Auðun Bie. Siva Viknesh. That was the real start of the biggest fortune ever and the rise of the original software company. We had a local registrar turn us in to the Funeral Commission for filing death certificates past the 10 day required period (We demonstrated in court that our average filing time went from 9. IBM. Bryan Burrough and John Helyar published Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco . Caner Ahmet. and people who had grown dependent on windows now needed Bill Gates and Microsoft. Compaq. Rodrigo Tello. and 14 more. Bill gates licensing . a successful book about the events which was later turned into a television movie for HBO . didn't see it coming: that everyone could build their own computer: HP. Acer. and 27 more. Musician 31 Votes by Seb Paquet. I opened the first affordable funeral home in Austin. et al) to agree to HIS price. running on a machine that they couldn't make work and saying: "Instead of 1MM I want half of that. Architect. 4+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 15 May Rodrigo Tello. it works the other way around.windows software. Janaki Thakkar. I had one competitor turn my firm into the Texas Funeral Service Commission for Solicitation allegations (we were found innocent). and 13 more. and 4 more. 4+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 14 May Azmir Ismail Votes by Salman Ahmed. widely considered to be the pre-emininent example of corporate and executive greed . . 1+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 16 May Nishad Shah 1 How can anyone forget the RJR Nabisco buyout by KKR & Co.Daniel So 18 Votes by Geordie Keitt.8 days using the same reports the registrar tried to use against us). Designer. After that they needed him. Here was a company that had just moved into digital music device and distribution and managed to cow the established industry big guns (EMI. We had another firm turn us into the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality for operating an illegal crematory in our building (the crematory did not exist in our building). For me. Funeral Director/ Owner 10 Votes by Srikanth Hanumanula. Dell. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 25 Jul Duane King. Votes by Neha Naidu. TX. and the disclosure that I can sell to everyone". at the time. and 6 more. Bill Gates selling something to IBM that they didn't even have . Nikhil Kodilkar.not selling . In one fell swoop they made Quizno's one unique differentiator redundant. and more generic machines. it was how Steve Jobs of Apple managed to get the music industry to agree the price of music singles downloaded from Itunes at 99 cents. I always thought Subway hijacking Quizno's oven-baked sandwiches as one of the smartest business moves. Sujoy Gupta.3 days to 5. on their arrogance. 17 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 14 May Robert Falcon. Shearson Lehman Hutton . The leveraged buyout was in the amount of $25 billion. . many in RJR's board of directors had grown concerned at recent disclosures of Johnson's unprecedented golden parachute deal. RJR's management team. Siddharth Surana. RJR management and Shearson Lehman Hutton had originally announced that they would take RJR Nabisco private at $75 per share. Forstmann Little . It can't get any stranger than that. Smit Mehta. while a lower dollar figure. Wasserstein Perella & Co. was ultimately accepted by the board of directors. submitted a bid of $112.Ross Johnson was the President and CEO of RJR Nabisco at the time of the leveraged buyout and Henry Kravis was the managing partner at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co . Once put in play by Shearson Lehman Hutton and RJR management. KKR quickly introduced a tender offer to obtain RJR Nabisco for $90 per share—a price that enabled it to proceed without the approval of RJR Nabisco's management.. and the battle for control took place between October and November 1988. KKR's final bid of $109. Additionally. Coca-cola and its play of colors to influence the brand's happy image Santa originally used to look like this: 7 But Coca cola wanted to promote itself as the brand of happiness and laughter. First Boston . Salomon Brothers . literal last-minute bids in a fog of incomplete or misleading information. Votes by Olalekan Tomori. So it made Santa into this: . meaning that the final share price might have been lower than their professed $112 per share.businessinsider. including Morgan Stanley . It was accepted because KKR's offer was guaranteed whereas management's lacked a "reset".. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 14 Jun Siddharth Gurjar. and Merrill Lynch . Source: Wikipedia More reading: http://www. and 3 more. Although KKR eventually took control of RJR Nabisco. working with Shearson Lehman Hutton and Salomon Brothers. Business fundamentalist. Goldman Sachs . almost every major Wall Street firm involved in M&A launched frenzied. A fierce series of negotiations and proposals ensued which involved nearly all of the major private equity players of the day.com/r. a figure they felt certain would enable it to outflank any response by Kravis. The rest is history :-) 1 Comment • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 15 Jun Sam Burgiss 51 Votes by Plan Maestro.." The audience was confused. new CEOs talked about profit margins. . One jogged to the lobby. The investors in the room almost stampeded out the doors when the presentation ended. Felicia Postica.' But O'Neill hadn't said anything about profits. New chief executive of Alcoa Paul O'Neill gives his first address to investors in 1987: "I intend to make Alcoa the safest company in America.. and 47 more. He didn't mention any business buzzwords. Someone who invested a million dollars in . and called his 20 largest clients. Within a year of O'Neill's speech. From The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. the company's annual net income was five times larger than before he arrived. I intend to go for zero injuries. Alcoa's profits would hit a record high. found a pay phone. and its market capitalization had risen by $27 billion. new markets and 'synergy' or 'co-opetition.. Kenneth Kline. By the time O'Neill retired in 2000 to become Treasury Secretary.. . Usually. So I decided I was going to start by focusing on one thing.this feature was presumably put in to promote the social aspect that the game required. Smith thought that a company carrying small." O'Neill told me. while attending Yale University. Yash Gandhi. stodgiest.realizing which they pivoted to focus on it. Preethi Chandur. Then the new group sold it for $8.6 Bn from Zennstrom and crew they did not buy all the IP . Flickr has its origins in a game called Game Neverending. this auxiliary photosharing service became wildly popular . This was how Flickr was born (the game project was shelved). Nice move Zennstrom and crew!! Would love for someone to correct me. and the value of their stock would be five times bigger when he left. David Haddad. and 20 more. it would spread throughout the entire company." How 'Keystone Habits' Transformed a Corporation 2+ Comments • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 21 May Abhishek Ghose Votes by Vijayalekshmi Kesavan. Liewkokk Liewkokk. and most potentially dangerous companies into a profit machine and a bastion of safety? By attacking one habit and then watching the changes ripple through the organization. To the surprise of the founders. Suggestions Pending Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 11 May Anonymous Votes by Prakash Chandra. "I knew I had to transform Alcoa. Smith. and 8 more. "But you can't order people to change. One aspect of the game was that players could talk to each other online and share photos . By targeting Alcoa's keystone habit. Smith wrote the paper at the last minute and did not go into details about how to actually run such a company." "That's not how the brain works. So how did O'Neill make one of the largest. If I could start disrupting the habits around one thing. Then 3 years later eBay sold Skype to a bunch of investors including the original founders who ended up owning 14% of a company as a result of the 2nd sale. Some articles: Flickr of idea on a gaming project led to photo website How Flickr Made It To The Next Level 1+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 16 May Anonymous 24 Votes by Marc Bodnick. Caner Ahmet. never stopped thinking about creating an express delivery system 7 . I hope MSFT bought the IP this time around. and 3 more. At the time.Alcoa on the day O'Neill was hired would have earned another million dollars in dividends while he headed the company. The story of Fed-Ex In 1965.5 Bn to msft (not sure if everybody fully liquidated their stakes). When eBay bought Skype for $2. all that growth occurred while Alcoa became one of the safest companies in the world. essential items by plane could be a more efficient transporter than existing companies. Amazing starting a company and getting to sell it TWICE. Fred Smith wrote an economics paper exploring how goods were transported in the United States.including the main peer to peer technology !!! eBay only bought the license. shippers focused on transporting large packages across the United States by truck or inside passenger airplanes. His professor gave him a "C" for the work. a massively mutliplayer online game. however. What's more. Ian Rosario. FedEx had $32. instead of taking a flight home. He plants that idea in your mind and suddenly $499 looks like a steal.which he created in 1971. thanks largely to rapidly rising fuel costs. By Monday. The company soon after was able to raise significant money and in 1976. three years after the company began. Not to be dissuaded.Then in the unveiling.000 from sources like Apple insider. losing over $1 million a month. At its low point. So how did we decide $499 was a good price? Why did it make headlines ? Good question. Fred Smith *** I copied this answer from Hunter McCord's Hunter McCord's answer to Startups: Which startups have the best stories ? *** 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 23 May Raghavendra Ramesh Votes by Vishnu Jayvel. Less than a notebook and it's more than a phone. Unfortunately. Federal Express was on the verge of bankruptcy. which was just enough to cover the fuel for their planes and to continue operating a few days more . The unbelievable price of the IPad The thing didn't exist before that day. Rohil Philip. Smith made a final pitch to General Dynamics for more funding. it made its first profit and despite challenges hasn't looked back. Smith took the $5000 and flew to Las Vegas and played Black Jack that weekend with the remaining company funds. This went on to make it the most sort after tablet. Mr. Jobs was sure to mention how everyone expects the device to cost a thousand bucks. but was refused.000 in its bank account. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 21 May 5 . Lija Makmagic. to the shock of other higher ups in the company. and Aditya Desai. all the company had was $5000 to its name. which wasn’t enough to continue operating as their planes needed fuel and that wouldn’t cover it. That was due to rumors leading up to the launch that it would cost $1. Laundry detergent companies have successfully pulled this off as well by supplying larger cups to measure with. marble columns etc. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 28 May Swami Iyer. and the rival won. Father. Watch the smartest men in the room. The rival had only doubled the price. and 3 more. 3 . Vivek Ponnaiyan. He asked my father what he quoted. Manipulating the price of energy to make billions. 2 Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 14 May Michael Agyeman Votes by Seb Paquet. and 18 more. Getting no marks as an Engineering st. and thus accidentally "won" the deal. and during use if it didn't deliver the heat perfectly evenly the marble could crack. Shrewd award goes to Enron. the company started to struggle because it was clear that Intel could not match the prices of its Japanese rivals in DRAM.Dealing with the government as a customer can be tricky. Funny was. a very elaborate muslim temple with thick slabs of marble for the floor. I live in the Czech Republic and a few years ago. unless it was guaranteed to make a handsome return. despite greater experience) hadn't expected. His rival recounted many unforeseen problems (quite a few which my father. So my father on being asked to submit the price put a price on everything he could think of. amongst themselves. created their "plop plop fizz fizz" tag line which dramatically increased their sales by simply encouraging people take two. the company exited from the memory business and refocused on microprocessors. Co-Founder of ToolSpinner 25 Votes by Seb Paquet. fitting it would be very difficult. engineer and geek. and 21 more. Steve Davis.. In the end. Votes by John Thekkayyam and AT Diving.T. Lockheed gets my respect for ensuring that suppliers for the F-35 are located in EVERY congressional district.. 2+ Comments • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 21 May Paul Mansfield. and was told about the tripling of the price. Positioning . Bottled water 22 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 22 Jul Daniel Cole. This is brilliant as even a whisper of cuts sets of a cry across the nation. [Gorkem Turgut OZER] 23 Votes by Balaji Viswanathan. husband. so as to lose the deal. Bheshaj Joshi. The heating system would be a big headache to design and deploy. The success of the new 32-bit 386 chips propelled Intel into being the world’s largest semiconductor company by 1992. Mathew Joy Maniyamkott. making people pay so they can do something amongst themselves that they could have done even without GWC Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 5 Sep Frank Termini Jr. Marc Bodnick.G. Some years ago my father had a contract to design and supervise the heating system for an existing mosque. Janaki Thakkar. Many months later he met a rival who'd also quoted for the work. Now. Intel was known as a memory company and had developed much of the complex technology required to design and manufacture chips. and clearly was regretting winning. Ozer. And then he tripled it because he decided he didn't want the work.Alka-Seltzer. a system or club that was to heap businesses and business people together. and 19 more. there was a thing called the Golden World Club. have discounts for services that the individual companies rendered. estimating the maximum possible cost of time and materials. Votes by Jake Peterson. THAT is shrewd. Smart . Smart for a $320 billion dollar program. Jay Prakash. Tawheed Kader. By 1984. these businesses paid GWC a fee so they could. We are the generation that has reaped the maximum rewards of the advances in technology. 2 Steve Jobs' handling of the Antennagate . for $5 billion and then collaring his Yahoo 3 2+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 16 May Abdul Basit Suhail. and antennagate ended up an example of shrewd business maneuvers to post on Quora. They were asked to come up with something else. Computer Trouble Shooter Loves Movies. while serving as part of the phone's antenna. and at the time. but also the very system where I sit wondering whether we have reached the pinnacle of technology. The probability of that happening was extremely low. whose imagination. The determination to achieve that integration gave the world not only all those smart.vision. Jobs came in. But if a person covered that gap with a finger or something. there could be signal loss. but if the device was held in a certain way. Votes by Austin Cameron and Navin Rajan. Phibes Votes by Siddharth Gv and AT Diving. arguing that it would spoil the look of the phone. his courage had blown away one and all. speechless. but they are unaware about the dud that was LISA and to an extent. the NeXT computer (Jobs' unsuccessful endeavours) . unrelenting with confidence one can only applaud. to the point.Vote by Soniya Kathaith. I'd add: Steve Case merging AOL with Time Warner at the peak Mark Cuban selling Broadcast. suave devices. and 9 more.com stock right before it got crushed. pleading and asking for returns. But. "We're not perfect. He held a press event where his response went something like this. This is where Mr. The iPhone 4 came out with a Steel rim on the sides of the device. One man. It gave a completely sleek and regal look. Phones are not perfect.creativity and management ability that particularly shaped the technosphere as it is today was Mr. We all know that. Father of Dr. Not known to be the most agreeable. or get a free bumper case from apple. the connection could be lost.. as well as providing structural support. Elevation Partners 13 Votes by Mike Xie. likable and peace friendly businessmen. covering the gap. . and they did. but Jobs was adamant. results were not always forthcoming. For serving as an antenna the steel rim had to have a tiny gap. 2+ Comments • Share (2) • Thank • Report • 26 Jun Wm Goldstein. But we want to make our users happy. Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs. but for Steve Jobs' tactical genius and business sense. the most appropriate. this display of openness and honesty proved to be a masterstroke. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 25 Jul Marc Bodnick. software or hardware. but there. He went on to discuss data that showed other mobile phones that had similar problems. His foremost motive in designing any product was to integrate all aspects of the product be it the designing. The iPhone 4 was a huge success. his reaction was steely. Co-Founder. The iPhone 4 was released and looked wondrous. Edwin Khoo. John Phileas. This is one such instance where things could have gone wrong for Apple with the iPhone 4. The engineers felt that a clear coating would rectify the issue.. It didn't work perfectly." He also added that people could return the phones if they were unhappy. Michael Corleone's tak eover of the Genco Pura Olive Oil Company. People always rave about the iPods and the iPhones. The media stood stunned. undeterred. Instead of crying wolf. however. UEFA were. While Pizza Hut was owned by Pepsi. jack of many trades and rookie at most 1 Perhaps not the shrewdest but yet it did what it was supposed to do. No wonder he calls Berkshire the '800 number when liquidity is in short supply'. Paddy Power decided to pay the hefty fine. but tons of in the money warrants. the striker lowered his shorts to show his 'lucky' undies. Publicity is good in any form it comes. However.000 'underpants' fine Paddy Power boosted by Arsenal striker Nicklas Bendtner's underwear Telegraph Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 9 Jul Vince Granieri Votes by Omkar Nisal and Sam Boosalis. Buffet is there getting a great return on capital he invests . as with all Yum! Brands concepts. Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway are now too big to succeed. In Euro 2012 bookmaker Paddy Power sponsored Denmark's Nicklas Bendtner's underwear. Pizza Hut.deals that no one else gets. Papa John's Pizza . since Pepsi's divestment of its restaurant business. not impressed and slapped a fine of £80.000 on the player (more the thrice the amount it fined the Russian FA over crowd trouble a few matches back). Whenever there is a crisis and liquidity is in short supply. The company revealed a huge jump in revenues after the incident. And it did. 3 . all three of Pizza Hut's major competitors--Domino's Pizza .Pepsi Sold Pizza Hut To Grow Sale Due to its previous ownership by PepsiCo . he lent $5 billion to Goldman Sachs and received not only a 10% annual return on the resulting preferred stock (which was itself redeemable at 10% over par). have a lifetime contract to sell Pepsi products. Fortunately for Bendtner. and Little Caesars —all sold Coca-Cola products. For example. both Papa John's (in 2012)[11] and Little Caesars (in 2007)[12] later switched to Pepsi products themselves Pizza Hut 3 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 19 May Subhabrata Bera. After scoring (twice) in the group match against Portugal. Somehow he does it though and his recognition that size has advantages is behind his success. What I mean by that is that it's tough to grow that behemoth at the same rate as smaller companies. Euro 2012: Bookmaker pays Nicklas Bendtner's £80. Ebony and Jet magazines. Suggestions Pending 3 3 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 4h ago Mildred Lewis. As a result. in 1997. condos. i'm sure you'll bring about innovation in the heaven too. his blue collar workers number at about 100k people. There is a real estate developer in my country who builds gigantic malls. was the first African American on the Forbes 400 list. Beauty Star eventually evolved into Fashion Fair.Student. delivered them to India and sold them for rupies.. then other businesses to have something to advertise in his magazines. While he remained first and foremost a publisher after getting his start in insurance. Fashion Fair has also raised more than $47 million for charity. About ten years back he adopted a policy where he only ever hires people who belong to one specific religious sect. And it all started with his mom pawning her furniture. the company delivered the product with delay but fulfilled the order. bought computers in the USA and delivered them to Russia. a travelling fashion show which launched Fashion Fair cosmetics which is still sold in major department stores. founder and publisher of Negro World/Black Digest. 5 . This is considered as one of the biggest and most successful comebacks of a company.Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 14 May Butch Adiviso. and Ravi Janardhan. and 14 more. Uzbek Marketing Guru Votes by Shreyas Saxena and Harish Kashyap. Dark Lord. Serial Accountant. The country's currency . Consultant. Hail Apple. one of Apple resellers bought fridges for rubles in Belorussia. Yet another writer-director. Johnson started Beauty Star cosmetics. Apple is the most valuable company in the world. luxury estates and the like. hires the same people so they never get out of probation and they never get their benefits. 1+ Comments • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 21 May Ayush Kumar.plunged compared to US dollar. Cereal Killer Votes by Kamal Morjal and Kirti Satish Manian. Hamada Kaido. Sounds tame? Well. Leave it to the Chinese. This happened in Russia 90s. Rodrigo Tello. Votes by Pritesh Desai. if there's a techie world up there. many companies with import related orders couldn't fulfill the orders. Then. Auðun Bie. However. fires the same people. Their religion apparently doesnt allow them to strike or unionize. 18 Votes by Tim Bushell. Steve. 15 years down the line. they exchanged rupies for US dollars. So. Paul Stregevsky. Faced with limited interest from advertisers. Johnson. John H. crushing his ego and asking Gates to save his company. Steve Jobs.. 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 13 Jun Mirobid Nosirov. So the guy hires and fires people every six months.ruble . I released a design to manufacturing that used a commercial grade digital oscillator component which was readily available from multiple vendors with a precision of the output signal of 200 parts per million.G. equipment. This principle also applied to virtually all government purchasing contracts in both states and the federal government. Piotrowski. GTE management realized there was no way they could change their ways to produce competitive products. Shrewd on the part of Clorox. Here's a link to the interview in which A. Public utility commissions all over GTE's market areas (and the rest of the country too) allowed each utility company a certain percentage of profit compared to their costs for products. Lafley (the CEO at the time) summarizes what Clorox did to smother a product launch by the competitor (P&G) “I Think of My Failures as a Gift” Share (1) • Thank • Report • 22 May 7 2 . I remember one example which might help readers understand how insidious this principle was. but I think it was a very smart decision on their part.. Jason McFarlane. Their monopoly product development and manufacturing system was infused with endless cost increasing features. 1+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 19 Jun Adam E. and 3 more. Before the "Green" decision in the mid 1980's the telephone companies provided nearly all telephone and switching equipment in the USA. Votes by Nicholas Moyne. It was the classic P&G attempt to enter the bleach market in the 1980's. Light Pl. IL. Since I was the designer of the product I felt competent to insist they use the specification I originally used to reduce the component cost by several dollars (perhaps 75 percent cost reduction for this part). Did you ask a good question today? Vote by Ravishankar Kodukula. The landmark decision forced the major phone companies (AT&T and GTE) to open their systems to competitive. "Automatic Electric" in Northlake. It was a basic truth in monopoly telephone equipment that the more expensive the equipment was the more profits the company made. GTE was very smart to realize their monopoly practices could not be easily changed to make them a competitive equipment manufacturer. This awesome Dow / German bromine story reminded me of an example I learned about back in school. third party. If they had tried to change their equipment design and manufacturing ways to become competitive they would probably have failed miserably and lost a great deal of money in the process. This action cost me and many thousand others their jobs.. When the design was processed by the manufacturing component engineering department they changed the specification for this part to require 50 parts per million precision. They are still in business today as a telephone company and doing just fine. then dominated by Clorox. Retired Electrical Engineer.2 Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 5 Sep Paul Mulwitz. Andrew Boysen. They refused saying the 50 PPM part was better and they would not allow my less expensive part specification to be used. In response to this decision GTE decided to get completely out of the telephone hardware business while AT&T decided to compete with others in this product area. GTE shut the doors on their biggest manufacturing facility. I refused.. After the historic public event. or not at all.. and Amanda Sapp. Bernays helped the smoking industry overcome one of the biggest social taboos of the time: women smoking in public. Votes by Nagib Meshkat.. 3/4 of my sales were returned. My sales doubled every month after that. I'm guessing it started way before that. women would have been arrested. I've been working with statups for 17. the toothpastes' consumption would have doubled and so would the sales volume.. One of the most famous campaigns of Bernays was the women's cigarette smoking campaign in 1920s... Six months later. Now. Women were only allowed to smoke in designated areas. It was through Bernays that 2 . who had issued a press release after the 1906 Atlantic City train wreck . Etc. I background check every client / customer who seems too good to be true. They offered to buy me out. who would eventually end up convincing their patients to do so.. a product of dow chemicals a foothold in the market 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 19 May Robert J. I just read an answer about someone at Colgate suggesting an increase in the diameter of the dispense tube. Six months is the maximum amount of time you can dispute a visa MasterCard transaction. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 25 Jul Vandana Puri I wonder why Act of Oskar Schindler is not mentioned on this list. If caught violating this rule.[11] Bernays staged the 1929 Easter parade in New York City .. The mere Aim of reinventing the enamelware factory with Nazi people was a pure opportunistic smart business idea first. landing him in an default Hero ACT (year 1939/1940) April 28 . Today you might say someone has no oral hygiene if he doesn't brush his teeth twice daily but there was no such concept earlier. It was my competitor. I had a thriving ecommerce store about 5 years ago. I am the little boy who told the Empe. Vote by Abhimanyu Bhosale. following its invention by PR man Ivy Lee . Chris Yee. The criminalization of marijuana to effectively stop the agricultural industry and get the newly invented 'plastic'. Seven months later. Ford realized that his workers were also potentially his customers.3 Samannay Ghosh Votes by Kenneth Harper and Gareth Michael Jones. They had their subsidiaries buy all my inventory and return all my stock--with damaged packaging in six months. Businessman. Kolker. half of my sales were returned. Righteous Among the Nations 5 2 1 Comment • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 18 May Anonymous Vote by Amanda Sapp.Oskar Schindler. Just by floating the idea of "oral hygiene" and the fact that teeth have to be brushed twice daily in the minds of the dentists. showing models holding lit Lucky Strike cigarettes. Augustus D'Souza.. That I believe was smart! Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 2 Jun Gursharan Sidhu 1 Sabeer Bhatia sold Hotmail to Microsoft... Smart fellow. women started lighting up more than ever before. Enemy of the Nazis.. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 21 May Bob Wan Kim. or "Torches of Freedom ". Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 29 Jul Vikrant Chauhan 1 Power of PR: Bernays refined and popularized the use of the press release . But in reality. He was uncle of Sigmund Freud. not advertising. and got $1.. Cirque de soleil transforming from an old fashioned and during circus act to a theatre show Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 25 Jul Anonymous 1 Water. of course.1 billion. but not more than.S. When can we read a Harvard B-School case study about it? 1+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 22 May Anonymous 1 The rapper 50 Cent made approximately $100 million by acquiring a large stake in Glaceau in exchange for being the spokesman for their Vitamin Water product. was the best medium to carry their message to an unsuspecting public. it wasn’t. Taking a basic necessity of all humans and putting it into a convenient container has become a business it itself. but expensive for consumers. When all the other costs had been deducted. Cutting down hundreds of product line to a few memorable ones which eventually revived Apple Co after he took over as interim-CEO. 50 Cent's take was much less. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 26 Jul 2 . initial reports put 50 Cent's cashout at $400 million..signed an agreement of mutual confidentiality. Still. 50 Cent would take a stake in the privately owned company.the diversified Indian conglomerate Tata had invested $677 million for 30 percent of Glaceau in 2006. 10 percent of the value of the company. In May 2007. Another stakeholder needed to be paid off first . one that would graduate over time and escalate if the company hit certain numbers. Bernays created this event as news. calculated by dividing the purchase amount by 50 Cent's reputed 10 percent share. which. He and his manager opted for a large share of the company rather than a more traditional cash payment.2 billion when Coca-Cola bought them out. word got around that Lighty had negotiated something close to. 50 Cent was thought to have walked away with a figure somewhere between $60 million and $100 million.[citation needed ] Bernays convinced industries that the news. In the media. Another (unrelated) story of a hip-hop artist who made tons of money by being a shrewd businessman: Beat By Dre: The Exclusive Inside Story of How Monster Lost the World Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 29 May Anonymous Vote by Amanda Sapp. The two entities . P.women's smoking habits started to become socially acceptable. . the Coca-Cola Company purchased Glaceau for $4.50 Cent on one hand and Glaceau on the other . And is it cheap? Cheap for businesses yes. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • Sat Irwin Kun 1 Steve Job. Excerpt from the terrific article How 50 Cent scored a half-billion : In the weeks and months thereafter. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 8 Aug Anonymous 1 What the banking industry did to (a) capitalize on bubble AND the meltdown followed by (b) evading prosecution for helping to cause both. Lightly [50 Cent's manager] and Oza [marketing executive at Vitamin Water's parent company] hammered out the terms of a deal. Suggestions Pending 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 3 Jul Ethan Greenspan 1 Not sure I would call this Shrewd. And so they probably felt comfortable pushing a bit too hard. I looks and tastes very much like PEPSI. is that you can't be to sure of yourself no matter who you are. and it it's place was this new. the local supplier introduced a new cola called EST. A serial entrepreneur now entering my. The future of Facebook is rather secure because even if people won't open their Facebook account. after all. for many years. own one of the strongest brands in the world. almost identical. I can only imagine PEPSI being rather sure of itself in these negotiations. it appears PEPSI got in to a contract dispute with their local supplier. Most of the popular sites are connected to Facebook. . fat egos. Student Vote by Amanda Sapp. Around the time when Circuit City was failing horribly. 2 Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 16 Jul Joe Stafura. 1 When Charles Schwab lowered commission rates after deregulation. and plummeting margins. The smartest business maneuver my friend has seen is allowing people to log into websites by using their Facebook credentials. I even heard that the local supplier had used their connections to cut the off from packaging etc. it has a guaranteed supply of data streams which will ensure its future viability. So. I got to know some of the management team. to filling them. Although I'm unsure of the details. These guys took care of everything from sourcing cans and bottles. I was interning for a little company called Systemax [SYX]. It's been a year or so since this all transpired and PEPSI is starting to come back. almost over night. At some point negotiations broke down. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 23 Jun Andreas Holmer 1 PEPSI had. Word has it PEPSI wanted to up their licensing fees or some such. but definitely one of the smartest decisions I've seen. They do. But they were gone for quite awhile... I guess. and then marketing the final product. Most people prefer to sign in using their Facebook credentials rather than create a new account. but it is different. And it wasn't a small rollout either. the moral of the story. He cleaned house of the "dirty laundry" and supplanted them with smart clear-thinkers. Comment • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 24 Jul Andrew McClure 1 Reinstalling Stevie Jobs back in '97 after 12 years of management disasters. And as it turns out. Facebook is like an artificial octopus that engulfed the web and its digital tentacles are accumulating information from all popular spots of the internet. the underdog had a few cards up its sleeve. they are highly likely to do a Facebook login when using other sites. And POS advertising was quickly switched from PEPSI to EST. they practically blanketed the market. this allow him to take advantages of the emerging technologies to lower his costs of business and make money even at the lower fees. but I'm not entirely certain. Their where billboards and print ads. As an outsider. Turns out the local bottling supplier had stood up to the multinational corporations. drink. Schwab now has well over a trillion under management. PEPSI was gone.2 Haritha Gorijavolu. been outsourcing their Thai bottling operations to a local company. Within a very short time. So. Prior to the launch of the IBM PC. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 11 Aug Alfonso Buano 1 I also want to think of a niche product n marketing or is it already too late to blossom . 1 Microsoft getting IBM to.. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 28 Aug Bill Weiner. and they never disappoint.. So it's not a kind of rubbish but a useful thing. Internet Critic . (Which is now labeled TigerDirect.com so they could sell unwanted merchandise for cheap without devaluing their brands. essentially.com. It was genius.. and to this day I maintain relationships with the Leeds. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 25 Jul Jeremy Lee. open the door for the Modern PC... But it's not just a common flyers. Tiger Direct (all under Systemax at the time) purchased CircuitCity. the modern equivalent of that today would be to buy up all the physical gold on COMEX at the currently manipulated prices and wait for fiat systems to implode then create new gold based fiat at $10.. Film Executive .Host of the web ser.Los Angeles 1 Read "the Big Short" by Michael Lewis about the handful of guys who did their homework and figured out the subprime mortgage business and bet against it and made billions. the guys at Systemax. About half of the college students eat boxed meals in daily life. It says "special paper for padding the boxed meal"and "place the boxed meal here". The short version of the explanation works like this. which ran on different processors (possibly made in house. Lawyer. like TI's. I ask them for advice whenever possible. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 25 Jul Patrick Hwung 1 Dow must of had an incredible amount of capital to soak up all that Bromine.000/ounce or whatever. possibly made by a ...and they informed me that they purchased CircuitCity. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 25 Jul Alexander Case. Basically. Global Industrial. most computer manufacturers each had their own model of computer. single 1 It's a flyers of an app which is designed for Chinese college students. " Professional sports and the NBA are big business. These had different hardware specs. based on the suggestions of Microsoft. A simple change of perspective with dramatic results. When Bombardier Inc. badly. The broadcast alone. and Commodore. the hobbyist "build it yourself" approach to user hardware that launched the computer boom managed to survive the locked-down proprietary days of TI. where almost all desktop PCs can be modified as much as we want. changed their business model from "manufacturer of snowmobiles" to "manufacturer of people moving machines" and went on to become the world's largest manufacturer of passenger trains and the third largest manufacturer of aircraft. This meant that porting software between computers was extremely difficult..the IBM Compatible was born. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 21 May George Bradbury.. and often had operating systems that were built in-house. when James announced in 2010 that he would depart the Cleveland Cavaliers to team up with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh in theMiami Heat. They had missed the boat on microcomputers.. he did so on a live TV broadcast carried by ESPN.com . Comment • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 25 Jun John Fossey Vote by Olalekan Tomori. They also did not sign Microsoft to an exclusivity deal. and were getting out maneuvered by newer companies like Apple and Commodore. The company remains highly focused on its core business. Microsoft was able to take their operating system to other companies and let them build a system that would effectively run any program that would run on IBM PCs . Lebron James "taking his talents to South Beach. Votes by Sairam Rangachari. CT. different sound chips. Gamin Inganela.Exclusivel. IBM had been working around this time about getting into the lucrative Personal Computer market. and Brian Roney. According to the version I've heard. and in turn.different company like MOS Technology and the Atari 800).0 operating system. yet expanded that core business into a field that was at the time open for the taking. different video processors (if they had separate video processors in the first place). and using parts which were basically available off the shelf. He . 2 4 James mentioned that going to the Miami Heat would allow him to win multiple championships.5 million for the Boys and Girls Club of Greenwich. using Microsoft's MS-DOS 1. the inventor of the snowmobile.. That happened in the 2011-2012 season. This meant when the IBM PC became successful. and which is why Microsoft got their start making compilers for BASIC and other programming languages for other computers .. they built the system around Intel's more affordable 8088 processor. titled "The Decision" brought in $2. Founder of bwresults. Atari.because people needed those compilers. in turn leading to the computer culture which we know now. and again in 2013. It said nothing about starting his own retail hardware company. second only to the Dutch purchasing Manhattan for $1.marchitexture.000 Twitter followers in just one hour. asked to pay for them by the management and they weren't really useful. he saved approximately $1. My door admittance person then gave one to every person who paid the $5.. he qualified it as a business decision. Comment • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 2 Jun Brad Szollose. Sports journalists were quick to call James' move to the Heat a business decision. Derision for LeBron's business decision shows sports disconnect LeBron James' Decision Was Business Not Personal." Although in contract terms James actually lost some money when he arrived in Miami.. Shrewdest for me is when John Chambers. New York brand consulting agency Interbrand estimated that James' net worth will reach $600 million over time and perhaps $1 billion after a few more NBA titles. who's contract said he could not work for another hardware retailer for a period after leaving Pay and Pak.masterminded his decision by contacting key players that used to be his rivals and talked him into joining a winning team. He founded what was then known as Eagle Hardware. which will put him in the same league as Tiger Woods in terms of net worth. Of course most people brought a friend.and not easy for a leader to give up power and authority in favor of speed. What a comeback. US Army Veteran of the Viet Nam Era. Cereal Entree Per Noir Vote by Amanda Sapp. So I spent more money on a custom ink stamp. The Dot Com Bust almost put Cisco out of business. Ken Berger of CBS Sports understood that when James said that he did not have "any hurt feelings or hard feelings" for fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Chambers realized HE was the bottleneck that kept Cisco from being productive in the 21st Century. got rid of products that were a waste of time and made Cisco's hierarchy flatter and more democratic. CEO of Cisco fired 3000 employees. NOT 2 for 1. www. Free advertising from a customer. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 25 Jul Atchison Frazer. So did Jerome Foster of Bleacher Report. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 26 Jul Margaret Ost. He did this when the stock was at $89 a share one year and the following year it plunged to $11.01 million in state income taxes. Pay and Pak folded about five years later as Lowes and Home Depot captured the revenue. who wrote "professional sports is a business above all other things. I did something simple when I had a comedy room in NYC.. Vote by Amanda Sapp. a glaring omission. 2 2 . His televised decision helped him gain 150. Born in Manhattan. which pioneered the big-box concept in the NW market. He also consulted with the legendary Pat Riley. 1 Back before the big-box hardware stores. returned after col..000.com Bill Gates acquiring DOS in lieu of IBM for roughly $75. Dan Gilbert Comment • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 3 Jun Bruce Wade. I was presented with business cards. 2 Comment • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 25 Jun Virat Singh.. there was a NW US hardware chain called Pay and Pak.00 cover charge showing them that it was good for one FREE admission next time. president of the Miami Heat. Mr. .. 21st Century Agent of Change Vote by Michael Mayer. The shrewd move concerns it's CEO for several years. but only on TV. Professional with experience in educa... and Ben Bakhshi. it's more money now and still a 7yr contract. As Seen On TV! Typically. They saw the commoditization of the computer 5 5 2 .. It owns nearly 100% of the market. Brilliant! Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 12 Aug Joel Wishkovsky. these items became so special that you could not even buy them in stores.. Amazon Prime or Netflix. Vote by Hunter McCord. And then. They did. Gareth Michael Jones. Sagar Irabatti. items were advertised on TV and also sold in stores. Pay up.selling a product under the pretext of "donating a portion of the proceeds to charity. Sign up with us instead of the other startups in the space or you won't have access to the other surrounding area inventory. This means that regardless of which source you download your movie from. a few years later as the outer area MLS contracts were expiring the company had them by the balls. This time they could offer all of the real estate agents in the MLS access to the lockboxes of surrounding areas that also had the system. Votes by Joshua Oliver. The boxes are essentially given to the MLS in exchange for forcing every MLS member to pay a monthly or yearly fee. Amazon sells space on the servers to various companies like Netflix to stream its content. Collaborizm. And now. It was a big deal. Once the season passed.com needed additional servers to handle the holiday season. all of a sudden. At year 3 in these contracts the company went back to the big MLS organizations in metro areas and sold them the units. Yishi Zuo. Sounds great. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 12 Aug Richard Reubenstone. So the business went to all the MLS groups on surrounding towns and got them setup on good terms under 7yr contracts. The company was owned by GE but now I believe it's part of United Technologies. and Amanda Sapp." the level of "shrewdness" could be easily abused (by not donating anything at all) and it is definitely smart because it provides consumers added incentive to purchase your product. new onlin. IBM's transformation about 7-10 years ago from a hardware company to a technology services company. Amazon is drawing a portion of the revenue off that download.. Chief Advisor.I worked at the facility briefly while at GE and was told by the head of the business the story of it's rise: The company made an amazing lockbox that let any real estate agent in an MLS get access to a key. only the really big MLSs were playing hardball on negotiations. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 23 May Larry Mann. Also. They rinsed and repeated this 7yr cycle where all the surrounding areas were on different parts of the contract to drive up prices and corner the market. COO of Sols 1 Have you ever visited a home with a real estate agent? Chances are they got the house key from a Supra lockbox. To this day this has been my shining star example of brilliant business strategy. except now these items have attained celebrity status! Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 3 Jun Brian Dalphonse. Geordie Keitt. in a section called "As Seen on TV". Born right the first time Votes by Abdul Basit Suhail. It's back to the way it was before. the servers were mostly idle. many stores have these items up in front.. Amazon. Amazon took advantage of the servers to launch Amazon Web Services. More sales for everyone! GE settled on a little better terms but got them on 7yr contracts. A byproduct of this was that the surrounding area agents now had access to the big MLS properties as well. the amount of free-floating VW stock would decrease. technological know how. your basic supply and demand at work. Write Home 576 Suprabhat . Source: Ivan Krstić (How Porsche hacked the financial system and made a killing ) 3 4 1k How Porsche Hacked the Financial System & Made a Killing In 1931. I’m going to first tell you about a financial maneuver called shorting. Comment • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 12 Jun Josh Clement 1 Here's something recent: The Goldman Sachs Guide To Manipulating Commodities Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 25 Jul Justin Snider. Porsche. It offered car design consulting services. In 1933. Every time it purchased more. Austro-Hungarian engineer Ferdinand Porsche started a German company in his own name. Eventually the share price became high enough that. and the result was the iconic Beetle. widely fueling market expectations that it would eventually buy Volkswagen outright. or buying the private tram lines and shutting them down. Porsche kept accumulating VW stock without telling anyone how much it owned. Now she's super wealthy. and pivoted to their core strength. A clear removal of a choice. the company. This woman bought up/acquired so many of these items that when things flip-flopped and the Chinese people became very consumed with status she had all of these gorgeous items that were worth far more than their original value and significantly more than what she paid for them. I don't know the specifics. To explain what happened next. and 1048 more. Omkar Nisal. The auto manufacturers getting the US cities to pull out tram lines. he was approached by none other than Adolf Hitler. and was not a car manufacturer itself until it produced the Type 64 in 1939. For three years [2005-2008]. Rahul Singh. and Sam Boosalis. Apparently during the 90s when the Chinese people went through a revolution of sorts and did not want to be associated with material objects people sold off all of their expensive items for pennies on the dollar (if not just giving/throwing them away). Today. driving the stock price up slightly. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 26 May Burke Files. to outside observers. and applied it to a services based model that would be definition create a dramatically higher ROI and ROE. who commissioned a car designed for the German masses. Of course. Volkswagen found itself fearing a foreign takeover. and married to/dating a famous Chinese actor. “people’s car”) brand. it wouldn’t have made any sense for Porsche Search to buy Volkswagen. manufactured under the Volkswagen (lit. But things got interesting for Porsche long before then. Porsche’s company is one of the world’s premier luxury car brands. decided to step in and start buying VW stock ostensibly to protect the landmark brand. Porsche accepted. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 15 May 60 Answers Collapsed (Why?) Unverified Name: Jimmy Chong. while Volkswagen (VW) is itself the world’s third-largest auto maker after General Motors and Toyota. Bryan Cheung. Financial Investigator Votes by Darragh McCarthy and Amanda Sapp. In 2005. but when I was in China with my girlfriend and her family they were telling me about a woman who owned all these magnificent museums stocked with her private collection of furniture and art and the like. Clueless Votes by Rohankant Tatelu. this isn’t quite what came to pass. It would simply have cost too much. SEO Votes by Mike Prozan.hardware business. and the downside is obvious: if your bet was wrong. they stepped forward and bared their portfolio: through a combination of stock and options. saying it wasn’t doing anything unusual. Once all is said and done. and you sell it when it costs a lot. Adam Jonas from Morgan Stanley warned clients not to play “billionaire’s poker” against Porsche. This is called short-selling or shorting the stock. you get $10. borrowing it from existing owners and selling it into circulation. the numbers scared the living hell out of the hedge funds: if they didn’t immediately buy back the Volkswagen stock they were shorting. another rumor about Steve Jobs’ health sends AAPL crashing to only $6 per share for a few hours. and the funds were willing to bet on it. They’re the only game in town.000. profiting on the difference. and Porsche can ask for whatever price it wants per VW share — twenty times their value. which is almost all the company’s circulating stock. and it isn’t their stock — they have to return it to someone. but play along). everyone’s familiar with the basic idea behind the stock market: you buy stock when it costs little. funds. Porsche’s revenue for the whole year of 2006 was a bit over €7 billion. you would have lost money buying back the shares that you have to return to your lender. Gains Porsche’s ownership disclosure sent the hedge funds on such a flurry of purchases for any Volkswagen stock still in circulation that the VW share price jumped from below €200 to over €1000 at one point on October 28th. you might borrow a thousand shares of Apple stock from me (I don’t actually own any. Two and a half months later. Porsche’s move took three years of careful maneuvering.Shorting At any given point. Porsche made between €30-40 billion in the affair. Betting the right way. you earned $4. Apple stock is worth $10 per share.000 minus the borrowing fee. According to The Economist. you want to make money betting the company will go down? You can — by selling stock you don’t own. Do you see where this is going? Analysts did. Porsche roiled the financial markets and took the hedge funds for a . But then. you immediately sell it. instead of betting a company will go up. After you borrow the stock. But that assumes a company’s value is going to increase. With Porsche out of the picture. Now. a hundred times their value — because there’s no other place to buy. So. At the time. a number of hedge funds realized that Volkswagen shares have nowhere to go but down. On paper. Say you borrow a certain amount of stock from someone who already owns it. The rest is held in various portfolios. (The remainder is tied up in funds that cannot easily release it. Where Things Get Kinky When Volkswagen’s share price exceeded the point where it made sense for Porsche to buy the company. Because you successfully bet the company would go down in value. the actual profit is closer to some €6-12 billion. and investment vehicles. a wealth transfer ingeniously conceived like few we’ve ever seen. making Volkswagen for a brief time the world’s most valuable company by market cap. Porsche anticipated exactly this situation and promptly bought up much of these borrowed VW shares that the funds were selling. It was darkly brilliant. At $10 a share. costing you $6. there might not be any left to buy later. If their only option is thus to buy the VW stock from Porsche.) To put it mildly. then the miracle of supply and demand will hit again. pay me $100 for the privilege. waiting for the price drop they considered inevitable. so you buy a thousand shares. only a certain amount of a publicly traded company’s stock is floating freely in the market. last October 26th [2008].000. To put those numbers in perspective. So they shorted huge amounts of VW stock. there was simply no reason for VW to keep going up. Porsche denied any foul play. You pay a fixed fee for borrowing the stock. and sign an obligation to return my stock in 3 months. What if. and you sign a contract saying you will return exactly the same amount of stock you took after some amount of time. You give me back those shares. they owned 75% of Volkswagen. veitnam Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 5 Sep Mojojoey Wojiwoji 1 A man opened an electronic store. one night. opening a store beside and almost identical to his. Aarti Dwivedi. 2 2 . at the other side claiming to have a price lower than the others. after a few weeks. a competitor arrived. so here they are. Adding "rinse and repeat" to shampoo instructions. and this question in particular has some really interesting and quality stories on it. This is especially true when the client has unrealistic expectations of cost or scope. he had an idea. aside from the fact that in the Film "Don't Mess With the Zohan" by Adam S. his light bulb turned on! The next morning. It was big enough to be noticed by people passing by.. when Ford announced the $5 day he said that a worker should be able to affford the product they manufacture. maniuplating makets. I know this is just a story scattered all over the internet.. Most of the Stories revolve around finding a hidden need or opportunity.fortune. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 24 Jul Denislets Denislets 1 test Comment • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 22 Jul Firligned Jason 1 Quora always has some interesting information on it. its the best story of business i ever read. having a sign that indicates low price etc and everything. the sign said "Main Entrance". Yishi Zuo. finding a way to hold an industry or company by the balls (corning a market. etc). ON SALE" Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 31 Jul JP JP Asia Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 31 May Downvoted: Craig Tucker Vote by Hendrik Little. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 16 May Jack Hanneman Vote by Plan Maestro. but as far as i know.. and then suddenly. and 7 more. The shrewdest maneuver I have ever seen is telling a client they can't have something when what they want is unrealistic or based on a false assumption. and while scary to do it lends credibility to you that your integrity as a professional is more important than making a quick sale. i can recall that there was a store there with a sign saying " GOING OUT OF BUSINESS. I wanted to share my favourites. 15+ Comments • Share (13) • Thank • Report • 19 May One Citizen 11 Votes by Sharon Pakir Krygger. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 15 May Scott Scott 1 Some have mentioned it already but more specifically. Let's see if anyone can top this: Adding three simple words to the instructions -doubled usage and skyrocketed sales . The man couldnt get much sleep thinking about his situation. he got the ladder and put on his very own sign. a few more weeks and another opened exactly the same. or taking advantage of the human nature. .. Our President lamented to her CEO that we 3 .. A post graduate in marketing from Uni. He knew AOL was waaaay overvalued. although Coca Cola was the official sponsor of the tournament. Vote by Mathew Joy Maniyamkott.Steve Case. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 30 May Sandra Del Tiempo. Yet another one of my fave is this yet another example of Ambush Marketing 2 Comment • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 24 Jul Christopher Yoder Vote by Aaron Roach.. Suggestions Pending 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 7 May Matt Cauble 1 The airline industry collectively convincing the general public that it should pay extra for space that is uninhabitable. Business from Oh. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 21 May Nikhil Chandra. TARP Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 15 May Anonymous Votes by Imad Hashmi and Harish Kashyap. MX Newspaper. a free newspaper distributed at major train stations to the crowds of commuters has built a readership that now has sponsors paying them for the huge traffick they receive and paid nothing in advertising costs. 1 Our company was missing our sales goals due to a competitor who was selling the 'same' product for 1/2 the price. Pepsi's Cricket World Cup Campaign Nothing Official about it. During the 1996 World Cup. for managing a merger between AOL and Time Warner. Pepsi ambushed the campaign by coming up with the tagline “nothing official about it”. Bachelor of Science. and he managed to turn it into a solid asset-backed stock for his shareholders. a classic example of ambush marketing. and got a payment to him that day. gutted them and watched as they sold their products off. in that case. George Soros' break of Bank of England. Seen in some website. and 3 more. He told the person he was on the phone with what his banker just did." Bill Gates : "Ah.) Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 19 Sep 3 7 .ok" Finally Father goes to see the president of the World Bank. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 17 May Janos Fejos Votes by Anmol Dureha and Kruttika Nadkarni." Bill Gates : "But my daughter is too young to marry!" Father : "But this young man is a vice-president of the World Bank. all while grinning like a fool. had a client that was jerking him around about paying back his loan. During an in-person meeting to discuss loan repayment...couldn't hit our numbers due to this competitor... Published Children's Author w/ a New . Apparently the client had taken his wife's car to the meeting that day. but it's the first one that came to mind! My dad used to be a commercial lender and VP of Business First National Bank and one time. got off the phone promptly. stopped jerking my dad around. Father : "I have a young man to be recommended as a vice-president. in that case. Now mind you." President : "Ah. Anshoo Grover.. I didn't actually SEE this with my own eyes. Essentially we ransacked their best talent. The next year.presidents than I need!" Father : "But this young man is Bill Gates's son-in-law. he's so professional. in between evading the questions my dad was asking. and started to massage them around. 1 Not sure if this is a great answer. Arjun Verma. After the third phone call. Father : "I want you to marry a girl of my choice" Son : "I will choose my own bride!" Father : "But the girl is Bill Gates's daughter. " President : "But I already have more vice. in that case... the client started taking calls on his cell phone. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 11 Sep Sreeraj Pengattu Votes by Mark Milotay." Son : "Well. our President was replaced . Father : "I have a husband for your daughter. but I did get a recounting of it several times over lunch with dad the following day! Ha.with leadership from the competing company.Father approaches Bill Gates. . my dad grabbed the clients keys (which were on the desk) and dropped them down his pants.ok" This is how business is done!! 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 5 Sep Jessica Duncan. then fired most of the leaders we had recruited a year later..ok" Next . The client was shocked.. "Simply increase the size of the mouth and people will use more toothpaste and will buy more. That is my 'endgame'. before natural external forces reduce its value (or saleabliity)..many years ago. losing customers or being the victim of customer 'taste change'.. recession.. rather than dreaming about it. I never wanted to 'run' a business. These include emergence of competitors. 2 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 24 May Bhuvi Jain. being taken over. A not very successful mind-reader! Vote by Sriram Vamsi Ilapakurthy. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 17 May P. writer 1 It's a story I've heard about Colgate ." Needless to say. Founder of "Zoe Kennedy" Passionate t.. Starting one. being outdated. An employee came up with the suggestion. when the toothpaste sales in India were not going as well as expected. Easy. Michael Hutchins 1 Er. Start one. what about Bill Gates's buying DOS from IBM?!?!?! . Mom of two just-out-of-teen agers. the CEO offered a huge bonus to anyone who could come up with a strategy to double sales. the man got his bonus and sales doubled.1 Michael Livingstone. Got this one from a facebook. I always wanted to sell one. Comment • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 30 May Moby Duncan. being bettered by someone. How do I do that? Easy. Then selling it at its optimum point. and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848. Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. smartest move that I've seen in business was Andrew Carnegie's sale of his steel company to JP Morgan. education and scientific research. Carnegie started as a telegrapher and by the 1860s had investments in railroads. with special emphasis on local libraries. railroad sleeping cars. Carnegie was born in Dunfermline. Morgan in 1901 for $480 million. he built Carnegie Hall. I'd say this move is one of the best. Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. Carnegie Hero Fund. and if so. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company. Carnegie Institution for Science.S. where I extracted this paragraph. Steel Corporation. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. world peace. which he sold to J. bridges and oil derricks. my apologies for the repeat endorsement. Perhaps its already been posted by others as well. creating the U. among others. and founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York. How many millions of lives were improved or empowered through this benevolent act? How many business were conceived or created based on the knowledge and insights gained from these books? Here is the extract from Wikipedia. Not only did this transaction help strengthen a steel company. Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy. but also the free funds enabled Carnegie to fund/donate more than 160 libraries in order to empower and to educate other people.P. I'd argue that the shrewdest. but as someone who (eventually) used his wealth to help others. His life has often been referred to as a true "rags to riches" story.Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 21 May Glen Robertson 1 With apologies to WIkipedia. Be well. With the fortune he made from business. Scotland. 1 Comment • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 25 May Anonymous 1 . He built further wealth as a bond salesman raising money for American enterprise in Europe. .. they knew exactly what they were doing Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 22 May Shrey Tulsian. Some of the very best of the time worked for coca cola. My Prof insisted that this was not pre-meditated. Airtel offering 3g speed free of cost to its 2g customers for 15 days to promote customers to switch to 3g speed from snail paced 2g net 3 .Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 9 Jul Ronny Gonzales 1 I was in a marketing class when coca cola announced that they were doing away with Coke. Acquiring Knowledge Votes by Gaurav Dahake and Geetika Gupta. I disagreed. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 22 May Ken Likness 1 It was listening to a lawyer describe his client as being a "shrewd businessman". . especially since maintaining ur position is so hard. Angel Investor. 1 I fancy business being a game of shrewdness more than hardwork. CEO. (since legally shrewd is the strongest word in the english language one can use to describe someone else without being liable for deflamation).Remember this company went from one store to dow iones 500 and then to standard and poors.Ray Kroc buying the rights to the McDonalds name and system for 50k. and seeing him satisfied Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 22 May David Brabbins 1 Lather. It is so simple and basic that does not need shrewd processes to have them managed. 1 The manoeuvre which is closest to my heart and knowledge goes no further than our own company. Repeat Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 29 Jun Sangram Singh... Comment • Share (1) • Thank • Report • 22 May Mukesh Mehta 1 Understanding a customer to fullest.. the . BE (IT).This move made him and others billionaires and created a worldwide empire starting with a single outlet.1+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 25 Aug Fred Driemeyer 1 Oh you techies and finance types. Krocs vision and belief drove the growth.. The basic principle of our business is to keep in view the ground realities. Prints Publication Pvt Ltd. Rinse. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 22 May Pranav Gupta. Entrepreneur. 2 4 . and creative accounting. The list can go on. Market Leadership. Make the vendor as shareholder in the enterprise. and Kevin Kuo. 3. They are certainly one of (not the only!) groups most responsible for polluting our democracy. Also in young businesses who often take their businesses public.. Warren Buffet was to invest in Coca Cola or Pepsi.000 of their fellow Americans every year along with millions of gross and unnecessary and quite awful illnesses and disease. the combined market cap of Time Warner stood at less than $40 billion. Even Lakshmi Mittal is known to redo the entire technology framework of his Steel empire every 3-5 years as using teh old technology is unviable for maintaining leadership. The 2000 acquisition of TimeWarner by AOL in which a legendary 1926 company was acquired by a 1991 upstart. to acquire market leadership in "yesteryear industries". They are now promoting the addiction to cigarettes for 2 to 5 year olds in Indonesia and far east – a truly great new market. 4. According to this story I have heard. Thank you for reading. Employee retention. (Gun lobby comes to mind along with Haliburton. Everyday Sr. They are billionaires already. the figures themselves are not correct and a lot of creative book keeping is involved. nine years later. Technology. Management of tobacco companies get up and set about deliberately to promote the addiction to their products that kill 600.. Later on his unyielding focus to change industry after industry (itunesmusic.. down from $350 billion at the time the merger was announced. Management of tobacco companies employ very smart people to frame issues. he used to hang out near restaurants and eateries at night and go through garbage bins after the shops were closed. it is in the millions and over a 10 year period of time it is hundreds of millions of deaths. In order to find out which was more popular. In 2009. Products and IPs.. Narayan Murthy. 1+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 10 May David Fisher 1 That's easy. Is often maintained by selling at a loss. it is not as though these guys are not rich already. to apple store -retail. I am not sure whether it's true. Ross Levin. and Bharti Mittal for telecom.1. Day Dreamer. 5.but Warren Buffett became a lot cooler in my mind after I heard this! Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 7 May Gary Stiffelman. Storyteller. Probably the worst transaction in business history. They eclipse the reign of terror that "terrorists" wish they could create. 2. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 19 May Kiran Franco. that is 600. He found more Coca Cola bottles and cans compared to Pepsi and thus. to control the “debate” and to own politicians at the State and Federal level. Lets not name companies in this.) And. 6. First Mover with Vision: Kishore Biyani may be credited with the man behind the grandest vision in Indian Retail. They push their personal costs of living off onto their stockholders without a pause.000 of their fellow Americans. Vote by Sean Coleman. The tobacco industry is a classic example of this in spades. Steve jobs focus on motivating his smart workforce to generate as much IP as possible to create singular products in each categories is remarkable. Entertainment Attorney Votes by Seb Paquet. The Older Ambani's known for threatening senior employees lives and careers if they think of leaving. Both the DLF king KP Singh and smaller players like the MD of Renuka Sugar. made share holders of the Land Sellers and Sugar Cane growers respectively. Premji for IT services. Worldwide.) to control the User Experience is phenomenal. And mind you. invested in the former. Creative financing. The Sr. National Preparedness Month Webinars Never Fail . building one of India's largest conglomerate. so please. it's the small stuff that makes your workplace un/non-productive. 720-490-4531.Ortiz. What would you do? Where would you go? What would your employees do? How will everyone get paid? Will they still have a job? What about your clients? What about. Like SmartRecruiters. More often than not.thanks Esther Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 20 May Conan Fu 1 pure love for someone Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 16 May Aco Strkalj 1 Steve Jobs 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 10 Jul Shaun Trennery Vote by Lors Soren. Jack of all trades ..Master of none 1 Laying a great Business Continuity foundation. This month is National Preparedness Month..Agility Recovery Join LinkedIn | LinkedIn Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 18 Sep Sandesh Patil.i like your profile on this site and i will be delighted to have a good relationship with you. if anything happened. 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 18 May Scott Wise.That this all works. Votes by Priyansh Tiwari. dust off that plan and update what you would do. He can help guide you to obtaining information for your company.com ) so that i we send you my new pictures and tell you more about myself. 2 Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 17 May Lexie Forman. The addition of perforations to cling wrap...you can send me an email direct to my inbox(missestherdavid@yahoo. TODAY. and contributes billions in tax revenues to government at all levels is a wonder of shrewdness and smart maneuvers of all time. I'd call Trevor Mickelson at Agility. You get the idea. continues to work. it's not the CNN type of disasters that shut businesses down for good. and Sam Boosalis. 1 Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 21 May Sarah Pressler 1 Marissa Mayer: Everything she does! Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 21 May Esther David 1 Hello i am Esther. One liner. Ecommerce Enthusiast 1 Dhirubhai Ambani's creation of Reliance from scratch. Hats off to them for daily proving the value of free market capitalism. It's worth the call. David Smooke. Giving away your product for free.. It's amazing how many businesses close their doors forever do to a silly interruption in their operations. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 7 May 2 4 . Robert Chokr. Voluntarily withdraw the UK trade mark application. 5. have no reason to do that whatsoever. 6. There is no intention to be detrimental to ebay as an organization. especially those that involve trading. drop the word BAY or we'll pursue you. Not to pass off or directly or indirectly assist others to pass off any goods or services as being linked to ebay. am having a bit of a problem with ebay. which is … barter bay is not an auction site. Sachin Gupta. the entity. auction service. retail/wholesale service. as the driver of barter bay. as there was/is no conflict. hence my attempt to register. and Fardeen Rahaman. It says we are trying to 'Pass off' by using the name BAY. fix it. isn't happy with our attempting to 'pass off' ebay and will suspend our account unless we: 1. market place service. my colleagues. our Solicitors and the Intellectual Property Office here in England thought the word BAY in context was simply a word to denote an online store. so as not to conflict with ebay. classified advertising services and the like. Not to directly or indirectly assist. even though I. our 'Cousins across the pond'. I find it rather daunting that such a large global organization. They went on to advise us that PayPal. auction service. want to stamp this small British-based start-up from existence. not verbatim). This matter arose its ugly head in July and remains ongoing. procure or enable any third party to register or use the trade mark barter bay in the UK or the European Community. They further advised us (again. classified advertising services and the like. Amend the company name from barter bay limited to any not containing the bay element. for any sort of online business. indeed. 2. We explained our view to their Lawyers. Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 2 Sep Kemar Jones. If it's broken. the same as shop (here in GB) which is synonymous on our High Streets. which wants to shut barter bay down. One consideration in this seems to me to be that of protectionism from any remote competition and protectionism in a Market Economy seems to me to be totally at odds with the underpinning rationale for a Market Economy! I also took advice from the IPO and after a brief discussion the representative of the IPO said she saw no reason or problem for attempting to register the trade mark. since October I believe). The response from the Lawyers was (not verbatim). So you see Mr Dow’s innovative thinking is sorely needed by barter bay right now. I. Business Advisor 1 From last few many years there are many changes that happens in the business because online business take place and many business that are done internationally. 4. when it's not in competition and even if it were. 3. market place services. What a great story! I have much to learn from Mr Dow… I. as the founder of barter bay. from the US of all places (the greatest sales people on earth in my opinion). Personal development coach . for any sort of online business. How I wish he were still ‘in the ball game’ so that I could gain from his expert advice! 5+ Comments • Share (3) • Thank • Report • 7 Sep Jones Lincholn. I intend to write to Mr Omidyer (and if need be Mr Obama and Mr Cameron) as I can't see for the life of my why ebay would go to such lengths to wipe barter bay from the face of the earth – our respective economies need start-ups such as barter bay to assist in bringing beneficial change for the peoples of both out great nations. I refer to my comment above on a Market Economy.. retail/wholesale service. Ebay. In addition to this. wholly. eBAY (you see it is fairly difficult to avoid a potential issue when ebay (as it is now known. We took advice from a suitably experienced professional before applying for the trade mark and after some deliberation.. it's great!). Immediately cease all use of the trade mark barter bay. covers various posts so as to eliminate competition). I think Mr Omidyer's creation is fantastic and I support it and what it did in creating a global market place. If it's fixed. especially those that involve trading. it was agreed to change our previous logo to the logo you are contesting. Not to register or use the trade mark barter bay or any bay formative trade mark or any trade mark similar to EBAY in the UK or the European Community.5 Simon Allen. Votes by Arjun Vijay. that they have noted that barter bay uses PayPal as it's e-commerce engine (and why not. Votes by Siddhant Mohan and Anish Agarwal. 3 Out thinking the competition. Best move I seen. Some times the little idea in your head is worth billions you just did not realize it yet Comment • Share • Thank • Report • 3 Sep Peter Bhatt Votes by Nishant Patel and Siddhant Mohan. Indians (from all over the World) are dominating this entire Q & A Website .....EXCELLENT !! QUESTION: What's UP ?? Baat Kya Hai ?? 1+ Comments • Share • Thank • Report • 15 Aug Needs Improvement: Bassam Al-Bassam, iRead 14 Votes by Jatin Puri, Pritesh Desai, Alp Yücebilgin, and 10 more. How about this Trojan horse maneuver: 3 This answer violates Quora's Images Policy. 1 Comment • Share • Report • 5 Sep (more) 197 Anonymous Votes by Garrick Saito, Swapnil Jain, David Fry, and 193 more. An Indian man walks into the New York City bank and asks for the loan officer. He tells the Loan Officer that he was going to India for some business for 2 weeks and needs to borrow $5,000. The Loan Officer tells him that the bank will need Some form of security for the loan. So the Indian man hands over the keys and the documents of the new Ferrari car parked on the street in front of the bank. The loan officer consults the president of the bank, Produces all the required items and everything check out to be OK. The loan officer agrees to accept the car as a security for the loan. The bank president and the Loan Officer had a good laugh at the Indian For keeping a $750,000 Ferrari as a security and taking only $5,000 has a loan. An employee of the bank then drives the Ferrari Into the banks underground garage and parks it there. Two weeks later the Indian returns and pays $5000 and the interest which comes to it $15.41. Seeing this, loan officer says, “Sir, we are very happy to have your business And this transaction has worked out very nicely, but we are a little puzzled. While you are away, we checked you out and Found out that you were a multi millionaire. What puzzled us was why would you bother to borrow $5000?” The Indian replies "Where else in the New York City can I park my car for 2 weeks and For only $15.41 and expect it to be there when I return". This is a true incident and the Indian is none other than Vijay Mallya This answer doesn't answer the question. 4+ Comments • Share (1) • Report • 15 May Chris Fury 1 (more) A full-on broadsword. Dude had a full-on broadsword. This answer should be a comment. Comment • Share (1) • Report • 24 Jul Prateek Chandra Jha, Esoterican (more) 1 This answer may need improvement. Comment • Share • Report • 18 May (more) Soufian Malih, Strategy junior consultant, web devel... 1 A Businessman walked into a New York City bank asking $5,000 loan for two business weeks travel to Europe versus a Rolls Royce as collateral. An employee then drove the Rolls into the bank's underground garage and parked it there. Two weeks later the businessman returned, repaid the $5,000 and the interest which came to $15.41. The loan officer said, 'We do appreciate your business and this transaction has worked out very nicely, but we are a bit puzzled. While you were away we checked and found that you are a multimillionaire. What puzzles us is why you would bother to borrow $5,000?' The business man replied: 'Where else in New York City can I park my car for 2 weeks for 15 bucks?' This answer doesn't answer the question. Comment • Share • Report • 22 May Micmic Ro, MAGAZIN JUCARII 1 MICMIC | Jucarii, Haine, Incaltaminte, Accesorii pentru copii si bebelusi This answer doesn't answer the question. Comment • Share (1) • Report • 22 May Carlos Julian Lacayo Munoz, Poli-Sci, Economic and Social Develop... When Tywin Lannister convinced Walder Fray and Roose Bolton to betray Robb Stark at the wedding of Edmure to one of Frays daughter. This answer is a joke answer. This answer has been collapsed and locked. Comment • Share • Report • 24 Jul Andrey Delov, Ruby/IOS - developer 1 ЙЙЯф This answer doesn't answer the question. Comment • Share • Report • 20 May Ernesto Mandowsky 1 Not even going to read through all the BS. Just read Game of Thrones... This answer doesn't answer the question. Comment • Share • Report • 5 Jul Bill Hendrickson Vote by Matt Hausmann. Tuft themittkemjuuyj f TDX (more) (more) (more) (more) 1 2 This answer doesn't answer the question. Comment • Share • Report • 7 Jul Mohamed Azzouzi 1 Wonderful This answer should be a comment. Comment • Share • Report • 4 Sep Jullia Wilson 1 (more) (more) There are no words to say it is a great question you have shared.The business world is full up with clever, sharp movers .Feel free to surf this Business Directory Australia Edit Bio • Make Anonymous (more) Add your answer.ne.... Comment • Share • Report • 4 Sep Suprabhat Tiwari.. you can use @http://marketingemailsoftware... This answer doesn't answer the question. or answer later.This answer doesn't answer the question.. ... Comment • Share • Report • 4 Sep Stefan Jordon 1 Thanks (more) (more) If you rae interested to share own personal information related to business.. ... Living in the dust.. It can easily verify and send emails This answer needs to disclose relevant affiliations. Comment • Share • Report • 27 Aug William Cancroft 1 Classic manuvering. Aiming for the St.