When Sporting Ambitions Deliver Social Benefits

The challenge was simple: find a way to leverage my push for the 2012 Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii, to generate funds for indigenous education.

The solution was equally simple: use my entrepreneurial skills base to attach a fundraising component to my qualifying event and the actual World Championship race itself, while nominating the Indigenous Marathon Project and the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME) as designated recipients. It was a plan designed to hinge on the following marketing fundamentals.

1 - Become more than just another individual Seeking support in the form of sponsorship, I attached my project to sponsors and brands, thus immediately increasing my credibility and exposure. By leapfrogging off the back of their media channels and other outlets, I effectively increased my own audience.

2 - Develop a brand I gave each project a title that acted as a personal brand for that journey. (For example, my first initiative was dubbed the ‘Marathon Effort’). I also created a personal website (www.jamesgoswell.com) to update my audience on my progress.

3 - Personalise the message I linked my platform (charities) to my personal history. For example, I related the story of my three-year-plus involvement with AIME, and how an AIME staff member actually served as my inspiration to strive for the World Championships.

4 – Utilise social media This comprehensive strategy saw me:
 • Turn my project brand/titles into hashtags (eg: #AIMEfor Kona).
 • Include my sponsors as ‘@’ mentions in my tweets.
• Ask my sponsors to retweet my tweets.
• Link my Twitter and Facebook accounts.
• Develop an audience outside social media and then asking them to connect with me through social media.

I’m happy to report that my fundraising projects have proven highly successful. Having raised $2000 at Ironman Australia in May, I’m also on target to raise a further $3000 at this October’s World Championships. In the process I’ve discovered a strong interest in marketing and the use of social media for advancing not-for-profit causes. Maybe this is where my future career direction lies.

Author: James Goswell – Bachelor of Commerce graduate, University of Sydney Business School.

Doing The Math On Logistical Challenges

The application of customised algorithms to difficult logistical challenges is one of today’s most exciting business trends.

While most small to medium-sized companies are still likely to be employing a rule-of-thumb approach and trying to learn from past experiences, larger organisations are increasingly opting to develop their own mathematical models or adapt existing ones that work for their particular needs. Used correctly, it’s clear this cutting edge strategy can yield significant cost savings.

So, what types of specific problems can algorithms help solve? My own modeling research is based on examining production problems from the perspective of a manufacturer who’s trying to optimise a performance measure constituting a combination of different costs. The aim is to try and minimise total costs involved, which are reflected by the time required not only to produce, but also to deliver.

With this in mind, consider a situation where:

• Production takes place at several locations and is performed at different speeds depending on the available technology at each individual facility.
• The use of limited capacity vehicles for moving finished products from these facilities to the customer is causing transportation constraints.
• The goods supply chain routinely encounters a bottleneck. For example, exporting through a seaport will see all goods bottleneck at the dock before proceeding further.
• The ship transporting the product to market has a deadline for leaving the port.

In a new paper we’ve been working on, we’ve actually developed a mathematical model for addressing this very set of problems. While we haven’t yet had the opportunity to test it within the parameters of an actual business environment, my past experience of applying algorithms to real-life situations leads me to believe that, in a manufacturing scenario such as the one stipulated above, cost savings of 15% to 20% could definitely be achievable. Now that makes perfect business sense in anyone’s language.

Author: Associate Professor Daniel Oron -
 Discipline of Business Analytics, University of Sydney Business School

Growth Through Acquisition: The Story Of Emerging Market Multinationals

The global expansion of emerging market multinationals has become one of the hottest trends in international business circles over the past decade. 

Typically, these firms started out small but have internationalised in a rather accelerated fashion.

Originating from a wide variety of industries including resources, IT, consumer electronics and pharmaceuticals, their expansion has come primarily via the acquisition route. This has seen them accessing mainly developed economies and buying out existing technologies, brands and companies in those markets.

The reason for this strategy is simple. Unable to develop many technologies for themselves due to a lack of homegrown resources, going out and buying it represents the most expedient way forward. Interestingly, this type of expansion strategy differs significantly from those employed by the older, established Western multinationals, which were more likely to favour collaborative partnerships as a means of growth.

So, is this drive to internationalisation through acquisition a positive or negative for these emerging market dynamos? At this stage, the jury is still very much out. That’s because many of these international expansions have not been implemented long enough for the true nature of any profitability impacts to become apparent. In reality, I believe we’ll need at least a decade before the full ramifications can be assessed.

For already established companies, however, I would say this tendency of emerging multinationals to acquire often generates negative short-term consequences, with the resulting increased competition for a finite pool of resources and talent creating the usual associated challenges. On the other hand, the push to acquire may actually provide opportunities for some established organisations to partner with these emerging market companies, to form alliances and benefit from an association. This could lead to joint collaborative projects in terms of developing new products and processes that perhaps would not have otherwise emerged.

Author: Dr Vikas Kumar - Associate Professor and Director EMIRG, University of Sydney Business School

Why Not Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining

While the many benefits of cloud computing are well documented, businesses need to carefully consider a number of vital issues before deciding to take the plunge.

True, effective utilisation of shared ICT resources and services can provide excellent cost-effective information systems solutions. This is especially appropriate for small businesses, with the pay-as-you-use services model potentially lowering their cost of ICT. Cloud computing can also offer organisational flexibility and systems agility that are all or partially implemented, managed and monitored by an expert third party. Yet these may not be reasons enough to embrace the concept.

Indeed, our current research is examining multi-enterprise requirements of cloud computing in the context of disaster management. Significantly, it’s in these types of complex scenarios involving multiple organisations that particularly salient problems arise. These relate to:

• Data security management 
• Privacy
• Compliance and risk management
• Legal issues (often the case with off-shore service providers)

It’s clear that these issues must be overcome if a cloud computing service model is to effectively underpin government, enterprise and community efforts during disasters.

When it comes to the general question of whether an organisation should embrace cloud computing, it is critical that management is clear as to their requirements for data and information, business process effectiveness, as well as organisational risk and operational structures. Only then should they decide upon the appropriate application of a cloud model that meets these requirements.

While an external third-party provider may well be the best option, some problems arising from third-party provision are causing many organisations to establish their own private cloud configuration, essentially taking the ideas behind cloud computing and doing it for themselves. Choosing a hybrid of both public and private cloud services is also an option, while sharing ICT resources and services with another business in a "community cloud" is also something that could make perfect sense.

Author: Associate Professor Deborah Bunker - Director of Doctoral Studies