Filed under: Management , Books The New York Times reports that one of the co-authors of a very popular and influential management book, Reengineering the Corporation , has died. Michael Hammer, a former MIT professor, helped popularize the idea that managers should view their organizations as a "clean sheet of paper" and make them work more effectively for their customers. In the 1990s, the idea of Reengineering a company took over the thinking of managers around the world and led to billions of dollars worth of consulting work.
As it turns out, I have a professional connection to Hammer and his co-author, James A. Champy. Hammer taught me at MIT -- I took a course called Office Automation Systems from him in which he talked about the importance of imagining how a process would work if it could be re-imagined from scratch. And Champy hired me to work for the firm he co-founded with several MIT Sloan School professors -- Index Systems -- which grew dramatically after the R...
Content suppressed by ://URLFAN, for full article visit source
Websites mentioned in article (click for rank details):
Filed under: Private equity University endowments and pension funds for government employees and teachers are big investors in venture capital partnerships. Now, thanks to the decline in the stock market, these endowments and pension funds have too big a proportion of their portfolios invested in illiquid venture capital and private equity funds. So they are trying to sell those interests -- and I am guessing they will fail to do so or take big losses when they do.
Two of the biggest fu... more
Filed under: Private equity University endowments and pension funds for government employees and teachers are big investors in venture capital partnerships. Now, thanks to the decline in the stock market, these endowments and pension funds have too big a proportion of their portfolios invested in illiquid venture capital and private equity funds. So they are trying to sell those interests -- and I am guessing they will fail to do so or take big losses when they do.
Two of the biggest fun... more
Filed under: Personal finance , Presidential elections I realize that it’s not a reason to pick a president, but if you care about your stock portfolio, you’d be better off with a Democratic president. How so? Peter Siris of Guerrilla Capital has run some numbers -- comparing an investment of $10,000 in the S&P 500 under Republican administrations to the same investment under Democratic ones.
Since 1929 both parties have controlled the White House for 40 years and Siris estim... more
Filed under: Economic data , Recession To provide further fuel for the economic fire, jobless claims in the first week of November were higher than they have been since September 2001 . My hunch is that the current recession will be worse than the one in 2001. And the reason is that the 2001 recession was an equity-led recession, while the current recession is debt-led.
How bad are the jobless statistics? Initial jobless claims grew by 32,000 to a larger-than-forecast 516,000 in the wee... more
Filed under: Economic data , Federal Reserve , Recession , Financial Crisis I confess that I am getting sick of writing about bad news. But it is worse to put your head in the sand, so here comes some more: October retail sales plunged by a record 2.8% -- surpassing the previous record of 2.65% set in November 2001. And if that’s not bad enough, despite hints at a rate cut, the Fed is effectively out of ammunition.
What’s behind the collapse in retail sales? Key factors in... more
Filed under: Employees , Citigroup Inc. (C) , Goldman Sachs Group (GS) Vikram Pandit, Citigroup (NYSE: C )’s CEO, is set to announce an even bigger round of job cuts this morning. (This round may supercede the potential 10,000 layoffs announced last Friday.) Will these cuts help revive Citi? No. But they may lower its cash burn rate by $50 billion in 2009. And investors are not impressed, sending its stock down 2.2% in pre-market.
Citi’s 53,000 job cuts would represe... more
Filed under: Politics , Presidential elections Maybe it took the prospect of going down to an inglorious defeat to a relative political novice to get Hillary Clinton to loosen up. In the last 72 hours, the New York senator has appeared on both "Saturday Night Live" and "The Daily Show." On both appearances, she was calm, relaxed and natural, qualities that have been decidedly lacking in her campaign. The question heading into today’s important Texas and Ohio primaries is whether this ... more
Filed under: Allergan (AGN) , Stocks to Buy The choppy/consolidating (or perhaps worse) market conditions sometimes give the impression that growth plays do not exist, but that is not the case, and one growth company worth reviewing is Allergan. Allergan, Inc. (NYSE: AGN ) is a leading producer of ophthalmic, neuromuscular and skin care pharmaceuticals, and, via its March 2006 acquisition of Inamed Corp., aesthetic products. Analysts see 10-13% revenue growth... more
Filed under: Law , Scandals If you’ve read my posts on Overstock.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSTK ) CEO Patrick Byrne’s allegations of a vast conspiracy of market manipulation involving a character from Star Wars and crooked reporters, you know that I’m a bit skeptical. But for this post, let’s put all that aside and assume that Patrick Byrne’s whacked out conspiracy theory is right on: there is indeed a cabal of hedge fund managers and "captured journalists" ... more
Filed under: Mutual funds , Media World , Chasing Value , Stocks to Buy , NASDAQ People are always looking for the perfect investment that is going to be able to beat the market. I have been intrigued recently with the Ultra EFTs. For some investors Ultra ETF’s may be the magic bullet to beat the market over the very long term.
ETF’s such as SPY , QQQQ and DIA have become very popular tools for investors to mirror the indexes with minimal fees. The QQQQ has a man... more
Feeds and posts are not affliated with ://URLFAN. They are displayed here simply for informational purposes, if you would like to remove your feed, posts, or domain from ranking and analysis, please contact us.
Content suppressed by ://URLFAN, for full article 
Websites mentioned in article
Buzz Words mentioned in article:
How popular is feeds.feedburner.com?
