Drained

I am drained of every bit of motivation. Squeezed dried of the last drop... h..el...p

Distribution Channels

Distribution channel is a set of interdependent organisations involved in the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption by the consumer or business user.

The importance of channel members or intermediaries results from the greater efficiency in making goods available to the target markets through their contacts, experience, specialisation and scale of operation. The cost effectiveness, expertise and market standing of the intermediaries allow for value added services.

Number of channel levels depends on the strategies of the company; zero level/direct marketing to indirect marketing.

Oh gosh. I thought i studied this before. Instead of having straightforward questions testing the learnt concepts and models (like those in NUS), i ended up having to decipher the "coded" question. However, i must say that the marketing module is less deceptive than that of the organisation theory.

Sample question: Discuss the view that multi-national companies will always find their most profitable market opportunities in the large developed countries of North America, Europe and Japan.

So if you took a marketing module (introductory level) in NUS, would you be able to answer this question in a close book exam? Well, this module i'm taking is introductory indeed and candidates are expected to answer this relatively easy question eloquently with generous use of appropriate authentic examples. I love UOL.

Chem Tutor

I am feeling amazingly down. Then again, tuition seems to be more fun that reading past year questions on organisation theory. Perhaps i am meant to be a chem tutor, why bother studying so much siah.

Watched TV (again) just now and there's this mother who is a song composer + a great mum. She works from home and stuff. The program is about new-age mother and the host goes around interviewing supermums. She popped this question to the prolific song composer "i know most of your pieces are amazing, if i want you to pick one, which one will you choose to best represent your work?"

She confidently replied "my next song".

I don't know if i can be like her but that little phrase struck a chord within me. Continuous improvement, perhaps the single most difficult thing ever. Exams 6 days away.

Discouraged

I wonder how i am suppose to make it through the exams. Took an over-due peep at the past year questions today.

Economics and Organisation Theory

A brief introduction to what i am studying. Please avoid reading if you were trying to enjoy your holiday.

Throughout the study of organisation theory, economics played little part of it until Oliver Williamson came up with some theories involving transaction cost. Organisation theory is the study of how organisation structure itself, how it comes about, its existence and its demise. For this part of the theorem (among many others), economics tried to explain the perennial question of "why firms exist?"

Ronald Coase, more famous for his Coase-Theorem in microeconomics (studied last year), used his point of view as an economist to offer an explanation for the existence of firms. Markets offer mechanisams to ensure an optimal efficient allocation of resources between buyers and sellers, a process of negotiation which only stops at the effecient point actually. Firms, however, applied different principles of allocation, directed by a management hierarchy. The management decided what was required and goes into the supply market in search of the lowest cost supplier. Based on coase theroem then, institution of firm should not have arisen since allocation is by hierachy and not by market.

Oliver Williamson then skips along the playground and offered his share of explanation.

Williamson explained that a transaction occurs when "a good or service is transferred across a technologically separable interface" (Williamson, 1994). He furthered identified three different types of governance structures - market, hybrid and hierarchy structures. Market structure is one where the nature of competition is perfect and goods and services are exchanged at their production costs (i.e. a dream). However, transaction (as correctly identified by Williamson), is not cost-less and hence the varying level of transaction cost leads to the different governance structure. Note that the firm is fluid in structural nature, in the sense that the firm may move from market structure to hybrid and then back to market or hierarchy structure depending on the environment.

Transaction costs arises due to three main reasons - boundedly rationality, opportunism and asset specificity.

People are boundedly rational and hence face incomplete information which under normal circumstances pose no immediate problems. However, in a highly complex and uncertain transaction, the incomplete information affects the cost. To specify contractual specifications, plenty of negotiation (ex ante bargaining for that before the contract is signed) and hence effort is needed, increasing the cost of both parties. Ironically, this undermines the key characteristics of market contracting which are speed and flexibility.

Opportunism occurs "when a person acts to deceive or cheat the other" and is controlled by market machanisms where there are large numbers of buyers or sellers. People learn from their experience and will not engage (duhz) with a person who continually cheats (except for certain fools). However, when the market is characterised by small numbers, the opportunist is harder to control since the buyer is dependent on the seller. Thus the buyer is risking opportunism when entering a market of small numbers and seeks to bind the seller to a transaction (by means of a legal contract) which further introduces cost to the transaction.

Asset specificity increases the transaction cost. In certain cases, the buyer requires something specific in nature from the seller which cannot be used for any other purposes. The seller risks providing the specific goods or services as they have no use should the buyer takes the business elsewhere. To reconcile their interest, the two parties engages in detailed contracts for the supply of the otherwise useless asset. Once again, transaction costs increase.

Hybrid governance involves "creation of long-term contractual relationships between buyers and sellers", which inherently seeks to inhibit opportunism and enhance co-operation. Inter-firm networks, "systems of relations between groups of firms that go beyond simple market exchanges and enable organisations to enter into long term relational contracting without the fear of suffering opportunism", are developed as a result.

In a inter-firm network, the co-operation discourage opportunism and encourage the investment in specific assets. Furthermore, it avoids the creation of hierarchy which allows for the retaining of some market incentives and flexibility. However, this only works when the firms in question no longer feel threatened by opportunism.

Although networks appears to be an improved efficiency over markets and hierarchies, this economising view underplays the significance of institutional factors such as duties of responsibilities and trust towards other. For example, firms in Japan operate on basis of trust and forms networks without contracting while in Germany and Denmark, well recognised legal and reputaional factors act to inhibit opportunism instead of contracts. Thus hybrid structures can vary in their form, depending on their institutional environment. As conditions changes, hybrids may move back to markets (long-term contracting too expensive to sustain) or move into hierarchies in order to take ownership of the other members (when opportunism resurfaces).

Hierarchies enable the reduction of all types of transaction costs as they are brought inside the firm and subjected to management's control and monitoring. Several advanatges arises due to this form of governance structure. First, as mentioned, transaction costs are reduced. Secondly, hierarchies enable easy coordination across transaction boundaries inn complex and interdependent production processes. Thirdly, hierarchies are better at handling risk and uncertainty in the market.

Due to the huge size of the structure, hierarchies are traditionally slower to response to the market. Also, they lack high-powered incentives to force the structure to be more efficient. In order to counteract this, Williamson provided a justification by borrowing Sloan's theory on M-form and suggested that the divisions within the structure can be managed according to targets, resources and investments go to units with high profit growth and those failing to meet the targets are wounded up.

In addition, the principal-agent problem bugs the hierachy structure as the ownership is separated from the control. Managers, who are not under complete supervision of the owners, may act in the interest of growth and stability rather than increasing the wealth of shareholders. To curb the problem, there have been managerial compensation schemes such as performance-related pay or stock options to align the interests of the managers and the owners. Furthermore, in view of possible takeover or acquisition by other firms (which will inevitably lead to the loss of managerial positions), they managers are forced to improve efficiency and firm value.

WHO the hell is interested in the above. I'm more than willing to pass you my book and notes after my exams. =|

Exams AGAIN

Next week will be the official start to my papers. I've been studying hard at home, covering the chapters that would otherwise taken me months. However, the past few days saw me chalking up more TV hours than ever. Programs like "da chang jin" book their daily hour slots while taiwanese variety shows easily rip 2 hours off. Though i thoroughly enjoy watching them, it's kinda guilt inducing if i were to be slower on my books that day.

For those who are even remotely interested in what i am studying - Organisation Theory, Corporate Finance, Management Mathematics and Marketing.

FA Cup Champions

Liverpool won the FA cup from the hammers and the hero of the day was Reina. The game played for 90 minutes and for most of the match, i thought west ham deserved to get their hands on the trophy. Though pool was much better in their attack (for a couple of minutes), the over all fighting spirit was stronger from the hammers. They chase the ball, they close down the opponent's striker, they didn't give the midfield enough time to pass the ball around, forcing pool to go long ball all the time. Much was done yet they didn't take the only chance they created right after the restart. All three goals for the hammers came...without much of a strike from their strikers. First was an own goal from carragher, the second a spill from Reina and the third, a mis-cross that caught reina cold.

Pool defended like...us playing at st wilfred. Enuff said.

Mahjong 101 Installment Two

...Titles are arranged in double decker fashion with 19 columns for the banker or the "dong" player and the player opposite the banker (the "xi" player). The remaining two takes 18 columns of two rows of titles. They are lined up in rose pattern (google it if you have to, i can't describe with mere words) and the dice is thrown.

The direction of the play is always directed in a counterclockwise fashion, meaning you always pass the dice to the player on your right. Sum the three numbers of the dice and count off (e.g. 5, 9, 13, 17 is back to the banker). The player which the number counts to will have his/her tiles divided. Counting from the right the number of columns according to that indicated by the dice, the players start to divide the tiles. The banker starts collecting the tiles from the dealing wall followed by the player on the right (counterclockwise direction, again), each time taking 2 columns (or 4 tiles). The cycle repeats three times before the banker "jumps" the tile by taking the first and third tile on the top row. The second takes from the first tile on the second row and the third and fourth player removes the second column. Each player should have 13 tiles now with the banker being the exception with 14.

Each player reviews the tiles and display the flower tiles and animal tiles infront of their own tiles. Any variations of display (e.g. placing in an obscure corner or behind certain tiles blocked from view by the hand) is punishable by the rest of the players since it's considered as cheating. Once the flower and animal tiles are displayed out, they should be replaced by similar number of tiles from the "dead" wall which starts from the remaining tiles of the player indicated by the dice total. The replacement order starts from the banker and goes counterclockwise.

The game starts with the banker discarding a tile first. Each turn starts with a drawing of tile from the dealing wall before discarding a tile. The game play continues in counterclockwise fashion until a certain player uses any of the following:

Chow: This move can only be executed when the player on your left throws the desired card. In chinese, it means "chi" or eat. The move involves claiming a card that makes the a sequence of consecutives with two of your own tiles and performed only on similar suit. E.g. the player has one and three bamboos and the player on the left discard a two bamboo. You "chow" the two bamboo and display all the three tiles infront of your hidden tiles. After chowing, you have to discard a tile as the "chowing" symbolises a drawing tile, however, the tile you discard cannot be one that would make your sequence complete. E.g. you have four and five characters and you chow a six character from the previous player. Then you discard a three character which would otherwise complete 3.4.5 characters, thus you are deemed play-disrupting and is liable to punishment (bao, explained later).

Pong: A move that enables the player to get any discarded tile when you have two similar ones. E.g. you have two 3 circles and the opposite player discards a 3 circles. Then you pong to get the 3 circles and discard a tile. This move has a higher priority than chow and hence overwrites the chow move should the player on the right of the discarder wants to tile. The turns of the inbetweens are skipped and the game continues.

Kong: A similar move to pong but you have to have 3 similar tiles first. E.g. you have three 3 circles and another player discards a 3 circle. You "kong" the 3 circles and display all four tiles infront of your hidden tiles and then promptly draw a tile from the dead wall. The "kong" move is liable for payment of chips/money which should be decided before the game.

Win: This, obviously, has the highest prority of all the four moves (don't you dare question me between kong and pong...). If, by any chance, two players declare the same winning tile, the counterclockwise direction determines the winner. A winning hand should consis of a pair of "eye" which is two identical tiles and 4 sets of three cards determined by chow, pong or kong.

Draws: The game ends, in the event of no winners, when the dead wall has seven and a half columns left (15 tiles) and is considered a draw round if no players "kong". The round is restarted with the same game and wind players. Should any players kong in such situation, the game and wind players change accordingly like that of a game with a winner. There are also several types of situations where the game may be aborted, such as three players declaring win on the same tile, four same tiles being thrown in the first round and so on. You may read it up at other sources because i don't practice that.

Email Chains

The advances of technology and how people of today absorbs them is simply amazing. The proliferation of the blogger-age and podcasts made it into my mum's laptop. She just pulled me into her room to listen to mrbrown's non-political podcast poking fun at the G-incident. The meepok man and the seemingly harmless sounding customer re-created the recent scenario where lighting strikes the G spot, repeatedly.

It was rather funny but somehow, never did it sound appropriate from my mum's laptop.

Memories

Memories, it's such a fascinating thing. The process is selective in nature and yet many of us live in this self denial mode and insist otherwise. My house gate key used to work on both sides until recently after several fatal drops. On one side, the key has its serial no. engraved on it while on the other, the brand of the key. After the recent damage, i have been thinking aloud in my mind why i always use the damage side on the first attempt to open the gate. Initially, i do not know which side is damage and went flipping the key each time i wanted to open the gate. Reasoning with myself, i hypothesised that the way the key was hooked in the key chain was such that i have been conditioned to always flip out the key with the damage side facing up. Perhaps it was also this reason that this side was damage. Then i started to notice that the side with the brand is the damaged part.

Moments ago, I flipped out the gate key, a natural response, as i moved closer towards my house. Milliseconds before i insert the key, i glanced and realised i was using the side with the number on. It hit me. There must have been times when i flipped the key with the working side up and times when i flipped the other way round. I concluded that when things were working fine, i took absolutely no notice of it, yet when things screw up, I'll glance down and take a look at the spastic key. Well, am i human or am i human?

I have been taking so many things for granted and God has blessed me in many many ways. In the most minute ways he made things go so smoothly that i didn't realise his presence. That, my frens, is the most miraculous thing. If i had known that he was paving my path, then things might have been less spiritual.

Do not take things for granted. Small tasks like opening a door and stuff, i know i may not be making sense but i trust that you can extrapolate this to your daily life. It's late you know.

Anyway, first day of "studying" failed miserably and i ended up watching Tom Cruise fighting against an entire army to save his wifie. Last night was memorable in a sense that...let's put it this way, A lift ride to remember.

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I finally understand why England has to change her manager. A teenager who has yet debut first team, an injured gifted player and a recently recovered player who lacks pace and match fitness as three leading strikers over the leading english scorer and other more worthy players. Taking a gamble? He brought his lifestyle habits into his work. Even Wenger, the team manager of the boy did not take the gamble to include him in ANY of arsenal's last few crucial matches. Are you telling me that the World Cup games are inferior to champions league struggle? Come mon. If you wanna gamble, visit LV or S'pore in a couple of years time, not on the world's largest soccer stage. England has finally got a pool of players capable enough to win the coveted trophy. His choice of players have certainly let me down, though i should not be surprised after his refusal to drop the celebrity midfielder who has done nothing in the past seasons to justify his place.

Mahjong 101 Installment One

As promised (to a kid), here is the mahjong 101 guide for beginners. The following installments and that below are typed out by me and is by no means an official guide. Any reproduction of any part of the guide is at your own risk. Do not attempt to quote this document because none of it will be acceptable at the table. I'll skip the part on the history and go straight to the practical guide.

To start playing, you'll need a set of titles which can be purchased from some shops in the neighbourhood. If you cannot find any within your new town, try visiting the pearl centre at china town, saw a few there. These sets come at various prices from the cheapest travel set to the exquisite white gold and ivory ones. There are couple of standard sizes with the smallest for travelling at about less than an inch in height to those standard size at about slightly over an inch. Then of course you'll the table which also comes at various price ranges. A standard foldable one with plastic surface (those removing the need for paper) will set you back by about $40. Personally, I prefer those with paper top and the good old thumb tacks to keep the whities in place.

Each set of mahjong titles has at least 136 titles to 148 titles. The ones which i usually play with consist of 148. The break down is pretty simple. There are three suits to begin with; Circles (Tong zi), Bamboos (suo zi) and Character (Wan zi). For each suit, there are a total of 36 titles with numbers one to nine, each number repeating four times (e.g. 4 one circle titles, 4 two circle titles...4 nine circle titles.) Each title can be identified by counting the number of patterns on the face or by the inscription except that of the first bamboo which has been traditionally characterised by a bird. The three suits with their repetition tiles account for 108 titles.

Following closely to the suits, there are the "big" titles known more appropriately as the Wind titles. They can be easily identified on a compass as East (dong), South (nan), West (xi) and North (bei). Similarly, each of these are repeated four times and in addition to the suits, totals up to 124 titles. Also commonly categorised with the "big" titles are the Dragon titles which consists of Red title (hong zhong), Green title (fa cai) and White title (bai ban), all in sets of four. The calculator now reads 136 and is now the minimum no. of titles you need to start a game.

Then there are the perks which adds to the "tai" or score of the player - flower titles and animal titles. Traditionally, the flower titles are in sets of two and number off 1 to 4. One set of the flowers is red and the other is blue. The way the flowers and animals add to the points will be discussed under the points section later. There are only four animal titles, namely the cat, the rat, the chicken and the centipede. Adding these to the number we have earlier gives the grand total of 148.

Before you start the game proper, it is only courteous to visit the loo, off the handphones and get the necessary snacks and beverages. Then, pick out the four diffferent wind titles and lay them down. One of the player throws the dice and the persons on the left of the thrower shuffles the four titles. The shuffler then deals a title first to the player which the dice indicates and the rest follow in counterclockwise. The wind titles will determine the seating of the players with primary choice sitting on the shoulders of the "dong". After choosing the seats, the players will sit themselves down and the wind indicator (usually triangularly shaped) is placed on the right hand corner of the "bei" player.

The wind titles have special meaning to the game, in particular the prevailing wind and the game wind. The prevailing wind will be that indicated by the triangular thingie besides the "bei" player while the game wind follows that of the player. Each mahjong round consists of four prevailing winds (dong, nan, xi, bei) and each prevailing wind consists of at least four game winds. I know it's complicated but stick with me here. The game wind indicates who is the banker or the dong player, changing which only when some player other than the banker winds or when the game runs into dead end and none of the players "gang"-ing (term explained later). The nan player sits on the right of the dong and the xi on the right of the nan. Each prevailing wind ends when the original "bei" player passes his banker dice over to the original "dong" player. The dice always sit on the left of the game wind player for clarity (pls take note).

The game starts by shuffling or "washing" the titles. Some believe that certain techniques of washing the titles bring good luck to the player but i believe it is just to randomise the titles. Do not attribute too much of the "luck" element in this game because truthfully, there isn't any. Whether you win or you lose depends a whole lot on your skills and secondarily on that of your opponents. You may have lousy cards for all the rounds but losing a few dims or your whole bank account depends on your skills. More on that later.

Titles are arranged in double decker fashion with 19 columns for the banker or the "dong" player and the player opposite the banker (the "xi" player). The remaining two takes 18 columns of two rows of titles. They are lined up in rose pattern (google it if you have to, i can't describe with mere words) and the dice is thrown.

A Walk to Remember

The shoes were muddy and i soaked them in the pail, adding some powder detergent to get the soil out of the fabric. I estimated a few thousand people doing the same as i did last night. The ground was wet from the recent downpours and the party didn't have much finance to get a better place. The main intention was to speak to the masses and that was exactly what they did.

After dinner, I diligently followed my parents to my first ever rally. The car park was packed, traffic was heavy, buses were loaded and the pedestrian walkway overflowing with enthusiastic people rushing to hear the WP talk "bad" about the government. We were "fortunate" to find a carpark lot about two precincts down from the rally site while many others continue their search around the neighbourhood.

When we finally made our way to the muddy field, the rally has already begun. The second speaker was deep into his speech as i found a relatively drier spot to stand on. My new NewBalance was browned and drenched. Nevertheless, I took the opportunity to hear out what the most promising opposition this election has to say. The speakers took their turn to hit out at the PAP and many of the audiences applause and cheer them on each time. A look around the arena 15 minutes into the rally and the whole field was packed. Only the spots with visible pools of water were left unoccupied. The overhead bridge nearby was squeezed and suffocated any human flow. Though the numbers were strong, the situation was surprisingly well contained, a typical singaporean behaviour.

Hit after hit, speech after speech, the WP attacked the "dirty tricks" used by the dominant party. I had enough of the perennial topics such as HDB upgrading, issuing of progess package to "buy" votes and many others. Took off my shirt (had my running gear underneath) and went jogging home, leaving my parents to savour the speeches in traditional dialects.

Pardon my inpatience with the WP but i thought i was in for something juicier from the "most promising" opposition. They rant about PAP not being able to be the "first world government" and continued on talking about the lack of foresight when they were building the HDB flats 40 years ago. Give me a break. I suppose they are contented to believe people are choosing MPs to take care of themselves rather than the nation this GE. Issues of great importance such as terrorism and more crucial issues of economic survival were left untouched. Future growth plans for the nation and other investments were conveniently left out of the speeches. Some may argue that the audience that they were speaking to had differing priorities from me, yet one must conceed that the generation of today has slowly evolved from that of post independence. We are more educated, more exposed to the world through the proliferation of the Internet and cable TV. Political, economic and social columns are easily available and all these attribute to a population with higher awareness. While delievery methods widely used now may have appealed to the people in the past, they may not work as well in today's context. Speaking to the ground people in their homely dialects and addressing their immediate needs are victorious ways of the past.

Today's younger generation are in need of a more politically, economically and socially sensitive opposition. Trudging in mud yesterday, i saw many destroying their shiny leather shoes and sweating it out in their long sleeves. Do you think they rush down from work in their best to listen to promises of HDB upgrades? How many of today's generation could understand the string of dialect spoken by the WP? Even i could barely decipher the mumblings when the speaker take the podium into gear five.

I remember the speaker sniggered when he spoke of PAP as the "first world government". During the run home, I recalled that MM Lee challenged and desired a "first world opposition". What a joke.