Letting Go

As I am contemplating the candle's flame burning, I started seeing this flame that is fighting so hard to not let go of its fire. After all there is a disturbing breeze infiltrating through my window. But soon it was not about the candle or the flame's battle anymore, it was about the concept of the fear from letting go the things we have, the things we possess. Why is it so hard to move on and just let go? We hold on to the little or big things although they might hurt us, just like the candle is holding on to the fire that is burning it.

I wrote previously about quitting, and I can't help but find the two topics related...At least in my mind. Moving on without closure resembles quitting an ambition, a dream, a challenge without having hit the dead end wall several times. After all I am perfectly content with holding on to a dream that my mind knew was harmful and irrational, but my heart refuses to listen...Or so I thought. And so, as with every decision I took, I decided to find reason and look for counter arguments to my premature conclusions. Why is it so difficult to move on and leave behind things or people we felt emotionally attached to? and what is the rational behind fearing the unknown emptiness "letting go" will engender?

1. Fearing "letting go" is simply fearing the unknown. We become comfortably accustomed to an emotion, a routine or ritual, a face...If we were to know exactly how things will turn out when we move on, our fear will dramatically be reduced, if not disappear.
2. Letting go means we are perfectly convinced there is better. After all we are all on the quest for the best. Knowing for a fact that moving on will only create better experience opportunities, stability and peace of mind; can only make us want to accelerate the "letting go" process. Ironically the many times we let go of uncomfortable situations, life gets better. But yet we thought our world has come to an end when we took that step. Some people will just tell you: "Everything happens for a reason" and they mean that it is for the best. I specifically got this conclusion from "The Alchemist". I can't remember the last time I was eager to finish a book in one read.
3. Ignorance is also a factor, as harsh as this may sound. We are ignorant about our own good. How many times we looked back in time and thought "what was I thinking?". We all have chosen to walk eye blinded at some point or the other, only to open our eyes to a wake up call from our mind to our heart. It is the call of reason and enlightening.
4. Failing to acknowledge our other options makes us prisoners in our self-made cage. We are so worried about keeping what we think we have, that we completely fail to explore the outside world.

I am sure some will relate to this struggle, but some will just have the same confused face reading through the post. But it is time for me to take away the flame's fire...obviously the candle is not letting go.

Music Background: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmjEewiUciw

Relying on Luck?..Well Don't

Moroccan Lucky Khmissa

As I am sitting here thinking about how lucky I have been with many of the opportunities that were presented to me during my journey in the United States. I began to think a little more deeply about the concept of luck or fortuna. Is luck inherited?...perhaps inherited as we would inherit dark or blond hair? Is it a coincidence... randomly distributed among individuals? Is a power out there deciding whom to bless with it? Can we create luck?

I once had a brief conversation with my French teacher in Morocco about luck. The conversation lasted no more than 5 minutes, but every single word of it remained engraved in my memory forever. As many Moroccan students in their senior high school year, I was preparing for my Baccalaureat exam. Studying countless hours for that decisive two-days exam, which will determine my future, make my parents proud, and open doors for a higher education at a prestigious university...Le Bac! While trying hard to absorb content from 9 different ten month long classes, I decided I needed to complain a little, after all it may release some of my stress. I entered the teacher's conference room and told my teacher that studying for the baccalaureate exam was pointless, because in the end it is luck that matters. If I am lucky I will pass. Many bright students didn't pass because they were unlucky, or so I thought. He listened to me for a couple of seconds and said: " If I am testing you on one chapter of your book, and you read half of the chapter and came to the exam, what are your chances of getting a 20/20?". Without thinking much I answered: "50%". He then continued: "Let's look at a different scenario, if you actually read carefully the entire chapter, what would be your chances then?". Again, without much thinking, I answered: "100%". He then says: " See how you were able to increase your chances by 50%? What makes you think you can't do the same for the Baccalaureate exam?". The moral of the story was that we are able to increase chances by working harder. You cannot leave chances decide for you. His words were of great motivation, since I was able to not only pass the exam, but get an honorable grade. I didn't let chance play with me, I played with it and maximized it.

Now, can we create luck? Of course we can. Another great phrase I like to quote here is " Get Up, Get Out, and Get Something" by Jerome Love. Jerome is one inspiring entrepreneur I met at one of the C.E.O National Conferences in Dallas. Reading his book was only to confirm what I learned over time on catching those opportunities that fly by and need little or great effort to be seen and embraced.

Just when you think you are unlucky, do yourself a favour and get out of your comfort zone to meet new people, experience new things, and learn. There are endless opportunities but not enough people with the talent to create luck out of them. Stay alert, work hard, and strive to increase your luck or simply your probablity of succeeding! And Just when you feel you are lucky, take some time to celebrate because you most likely worked very hard for it.

Arab-Israeli conflict: the conquest of Palestine

The Arab-Israeli conflict is the main axis around which all the conflicts in the Middle East turn. It started in the 19^th century when Zionism came into being. Zionism as defined by Goldschmidt as a nationalist and political movement aiming at forming a Jewish state in Palestine. Many Jewish people joined the movement and started immigrating mainly from Eastern Europe with the help of Lovers of Zion and Beit Ya’cov ichu vnelcha, two organizations that sent young Jews to Palestine. This first immigration process from Russia to Palestine was called the “first aliya”.

The choice of Palestine wasn’t made randomly as many people might think, but the land of Palestine that is today Israel is believed by Jewish people to be the Promised Land. They believe that they should form Israel as a Jewish state in Palestine and await the Messiah.

Britain, on the other hand, has played an important role in the establishment of Israel in Palestine. In The Balfour Declaration, Britain had promised The Zionists to support their cause. However this declaration didn’t give The Zionists as much material support, however, it did give them hope and more determination to accomplish their goal. Zionists proceeded first by an immigration plan and then land purchases, which were faced by an increasing resistance from the Palestinians and Arabs in general who became more aware of the colonial intentions behind those purchases. Soon after World War II, a great number of Jewish people immigrating from Europe settled in Palestine and established organizations for self-defence, political parties mushroomed. They set up factories, food processing plants, and even a construction company (Goldschmidt 281). The next steps were to have the United States’ support for their cause and declare the creation of Israel as a Jewish state on 14^th May 1948. And since then, Israel tried to conquer more land. In 1967 the Israeli forces conquered the Gaza strip and also Sinai in Egypt, parts of Syria and Jordan during what is called the six days war. The colonisation of Palestine caused the frustration of Muslims around the world because of Jerusalem’s mosque, which is as important to them as Mecca in Saudi Arabia. That explains the support of Muslims to the Palestinian cause and their refusal of approving the creation of Israel even though most of the Arab and Muslim states recognize Israel as a Jewish State.

Peace in the region is quasi-impossible because it is home to two strong nationalist movements Arab nationalism and Zionism that both claim their right to establish and maintain their state in Palestine or what is now called Israel. And today both parts are victims of terrorism taking lives of innocent civilians among Palestinians and Israelis.

The fairest proposed solution for peace is the establishment of a state where the three Abrahamic religions’ followers can live in peace because this particular land is of equal importance to Muslims, Christians and Jews. For that to happen, a Jewish state or Muslim state cannot be officially declared. There is need for a secular state where politics is free from religious bonds.  

American Moroccan Competencies Network Forum ( AMCN) 2012

Before I break the news here about how great the forum was, let me start by defining the word competency. It is defined by others as "the ability to do something successfully or efficiently". Competency is excelling at what you do and going above and beyond of what is expected from you. At the AMCN forum, most, if not all participants were competent, but what striked me most was their ability to innovate and engage in activities that were beyond their job descriptions and "the expected". It was heart warming to see how motivated these Moroccans were and how eager they were to give back to their home country.

When the President of HMEMSA, Amine Chigani, suggested I submit a project proposal for the forum, I immediately thought of an idea that I have been thinking about for a while. I thought it was a great opportunity for me to actually start the definition and planning phase of the idea. I did not know how fast other people will get seriously involved and push the idea to the next level. I immediately connected with people who could help, and got great feedback from people in Texas, New York, California, Wisconsin, Virginia and even Morocco. Not that I didn't believe in the idea, but having feedback, support, and another person than yourself tell you it can work, made a big difference and gave me more motivation. Henry Schwartz and Boushra rafi were the biggest part of this initiative. From day one, they believed in the concept, worked hard to make a strong case for it, and took crucial roles as team members.

I had the opportunity to present the idea of "E-Mentorship" at the forum in front of government representatives from different ministries in Morocco and in front of business professionals coming from all over the U.S.

Me, Ambassador of his majesty to the U.S, and Boushra

The forum was also a fun event for me to meet other Moroccans and connect with the community while learning about all the great achievements they have all done in the United States. The words from the ambassador of his majesty on the official launch of the American Moroccan Competencies Network, were very well phrased, as it showed his commitment to helping the community, and helping us give back to our home country while shining in our fields of expertise here in the U.S.

The next meeting was announced to take place in Rabat, Morocco in March 2013.

Peer2Connect on Whitewaterbanner.com

PEER2CONNECT LLC --- Jan Olson UWW College of Business Assistant Dean is discussing the Beta Version of their International Student connections offering with partners of PEER2Connect, Maxim Abdusselimov an international student from Kazakhstan and Sara Amiri is an international student from Casablanca, Morocco.

PEER2CONNECT LLC "Your Global Academic Network" - The main goal of Peer2Connect LLC is to create a strong network of specialized support services for international students around the world. They provide international and exchange students with social, cultural, and learning experience throughout their college career abroad. The web page is under development.

Source: www.whitewaterbanner.com 

ZARA's Supply Chain Performance

Zara is a fashion forward company based off a business strategy that is very unique within the industry.  Fashion lines and trends are created similarly with other companies about six months away from being in store.  However, it’s the process and strategic plan that separates Zara from the rest.  The company’s innovative idea to keep up to 40% of manufacturing operations in-house allowed for in-season manufacturing, which creates a flexible inventory system.  For example, if an item is selling well executives make a decision to stop manufacturing the product to create an unsatisfied demand on purpose.  This creates a culture that the customer better get it today because they might not find it tomorrow.  The company’s ability to respond to in-season demand is what gives Zara a different fashion risk profile from other apparel retailers.  By having such a flexible inventory system and responsive manufacturing capability, Zara is able to operate with a very high close-to-sale-time manufacturing system.  This system creates short lead times that are incomparable when considering other apparel providers.  The innovative idea to create a product line based on its manufacturability has created the ability to provide the customers with trending items that are more in demand than any other product offered by competitors. 

The European textile industry is one of the first victims of globalization and discrimination based on price.  The most important textile markets are located in Europe, the United States, China and Japan.  In this extensively competitive environment, brands like Zara saw the need to undertake major changes in order to survive in this global competitive market. Fashion companies share some characteristics; however, Zara is unique because it distributes fashion and luxury products to a wide audience.

Companies in the textile industry, therefore evolve in a chaotic environment.  Fashion is, by nature, in constant motion: it embodies the tastes of the moment.  In addition to the uncertainty of time, there are many other variables to consider when Zara was developing its business strategy.  To attract a large number of customers in a very competitive industry Zara needed to be creative and unique in its business modeling, business management, design of collections, and marketing and communications strategies.  Zara chose a strategy that contrasts with that of its main competitors.  They chose the vertical integration to implement their different strategies.  The vertical strategy is achieved through a thorough organization and logistics.  It allows Zara to implement its management of scarcity as mentioned in the previous answer.

The vertical integration also allows Zara to cut cost and time by choosing not to outsource any of its channels.  The company is therefore faster in production, more effective and more efficient.  Vertical integration also prevents conflicts that can potentially arise from having different channels.  As mentioned, Zara manufactures and distributes its collections in small batches, which makes it more efficient to manage the design, logistics, and distribution of its products in house instead of outsourcing.  It gives Zara more flexibility in following the market trends and customers tastes and adjusting to them in a short period of time.  Zara’s vertical integration is one of the main sources of success and competitiveness in the market of textile and fashion because it allows the company to not only be efficient and cut cost and time, but to develop a competitive merchandising strategy, hence the establishment of the environment of scarcity, opportunity and fast-fashion model.

            Supply chain performance can be determined by many financial metrics such as Return on Asset (ROA), SG&A / Sales, Days of Total Inventory, Working Capital/Sales, and Days of Account Payable.  As in earlier discussion, inventory incurs total supply chain cost and also increase total asset in the company’s Balance Sheet.  Thus, top supply chain management (SCM) companies such as Zara, which better utilize their inventory to generate net income, will have the higher ROA than their competitors.  Second, Sales, General and Administration (SG&A) expense also incurs cost.  Top SCM companies with better integration with upstream and downstream partners will incur less of this transaction cost and result in lower expense than other companies providing the same level of sales.  Third, Days of Total Inventory fortop SCM companies is expected to be low.  Since companies may each have same level of sitting inventory, but if one can sell it all faster than the other, it will handle less demand uncertainty as well as face smaller loss of price marking down at the end of seasons.  Forth, working capital/ sales fortop SCM companies is expected to be low as well.  Since top SCM companies better manage their working capital, the companies will have the capability to use less working capital to provide the same level of sales as competitors or use the same level of working capital but provide more sales volume than their competitors.  Lastly, Days of Account Payable for top SCM companies is oftenlow.  Unlike traditional firms, purchasing managers in top SCM companies are making a trade-off by giving favorable payment terms to their suppliers in return for excellent performance and closer relationships.  Considering market capitalization, the research shows that top SCM companies higher attract investors since the companies provide both higher and less variable returns on share (ROS) by generating significantly higher average monthly stock returns when compared with rival options.

Given the expansion plans and the strategies pursue by Zara in its supply chain processes, several positive aspects can be marked as effective models for different firms in the operations level.  Zara choose markets that are not only can expand in it but also that are compatible with its strategic plans; for example Inditex excluded the United States markets despite the fact it is active market, which is achieve its plans by entering new markets even if it is limited but still give the minimum margins financially on one hand and a shape the structure of the production on the other hand.  In this context, Zara launches limited amount of products into the market to spread a unique culture among its customers to buy at the beginning of the seasons and to pursue a precautions policy to keep inventory relatively little to reduce the holding costs, however; there is a distinctive ability to meet the demands in a maximum period of a week.  Another method to reduce the holding costs is to move the items that have not been sold in certain store to other stores or locations to be sold and to avoid the markdown policy.  In this context, Zara uses a pricing strategy that is compatible with different target markets or countries Finally, the most prominent strategies in Zara is its ability to create a competitive advantage in the in house-production versus outsourcing whether for one stage or for the all stages in production besides shifting some of the productive sector to other countries in order to take advantage of skilled labor and low wages such as China and the Asian countries in general. 

Authors: Sara Amiri, Matthew Radke, Dalia Alsaleem, and NuntidaWatcharanurak

IPO Process: Benefits and Techniques

An INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING (IPO) allows companies to diversify their assets with funds raised from the public and to facilitate the trading of securities that shareholders decided to retain. In the case when the government or governmental institutions are selling securities in the stock market, it is mainly to restore public finances and facilitate more effective management practices within the organization.

For a firm, the IPO process can help raise more funds and capital, promote acquisitions or expansions in operations and to increase its visibility to the public. It usually sends good signals to the consumers about the company and encourages people to think that the company is in a strong position. Furthermore, the IPO process helps companies sell securities to many different investors such as: institutions, individuals, employees.

            Looking at the technical process of IPOs, the introduction to the stock market may include a primary market (which is the sale of shares newly issued by the company), and / or secondary market (which the sale of existing shares). Placement techniques depend on whether the securities are placed with institutional investors, individuals or employees. The global placement (or guaranteed investment) is the technique most commonly used to distribute securities to institutional investors.

            One or more banks organize the marketing, promotion, and sale of securities to investors using a technique called the book building, and banks not wanting to take this opportunity of substantial commissions. Following this procedure, the offer price is set to open simultaneously at the same open-price offer (OPO) which can benefit individuals. The global placement offers banks that are loaded by companies IPOs discretionary allocation of shares and fixing the IPO price (based on analysis of financial information relating to the undertaking concerned). Placement to individuals (or made available to the market) meet the regulatory requirement to invest at least 10% of the shares to individuals. Receipt of orders are then centralized by the Exchange (Euronext France), and not by a bank.

            The techniques available to the market are numerous and include: direct quotations which are usually for a transfer to another stock exchange or on the SME market Alternext of Euronext, minimum price offer (OPM, used very little ), price offer (OPF), Open-Price Offer (OPO, the most frequently used). In fact, direct quotation is identical to a normal trading and the first course is set up so as to enable the exchange of the greatest possible number of shares (minimum sale price fixed, non-centralized purchase orders by the company scholarship).  Furthermore, the minimum price offer (OPM) is a sort of auction process. Buyers interested in the shares of the company listed soon denominate their trading orders, valid only on the day of introduction, "at any price" or a limit price or minimum price 10% above. And finally, the price offer (OPF) and Open Price Offer (OPO, which implies a price range) sets the issue price of the securities, which is announced in advance.