Acknowl­edged as the most cre­ative by CEO of War­naco Group Joseph R. Gromek among others

Writ­ten by Vik­toriya von Berg

Sam­ple

Based on exten­sive research of our tar­get demo­graphic group who in 2012 will turn 18–21, present eco­nom­i­cal sit­u­a­tion, adopted busi­ness mod­els, socio-economic issues and present eco­log­i­cal state of our envi­ron­ment, our group rec­og­nized the need to develop an inno­v­a­tive busi­ness model to rein­force a con­cept of sus­tain­abil­ity as a future of retail busi­ness operations.

We look at sus­tain­abil­ity at a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive that intro­duces  a shared value both to retail­ers and con­sumers.  Since, the require­ment of ini­tial cap­i­tal is the main con­cern for a busi­nesses to ‘’ go green’’, we devel­oped our store pro­to­type that requires rel­a­tively fewer resources and offers con­sumers more than just a merchandise.

Our portable store, which will be eas­ily assem­bled and dis­as­sem­bled from stan­dard Amer­i­can ship­ping con­tain­ers, will become an inter­ac­tive cen­ter, a com­fort­able place for our young audi­ence to social­ize, to  relax,  to learn and  shop. We visu­al­ize it as a social net­work­ing site so pop­u­lar in today’s youth cul­ture, but away from home computers.

We offer our cus­tomers to par­tic­i­pate in cre­at­ing such a place by tak­ing their part in our sus­tain­able green busi­ness model as con­sumers of our prod­uct and employ­ees at our store.  As our con­sumers become more aware of the ben­e­fits of recy­cling, sus­tain­able store oper­a­tions and make a con­scious choice toward greener prod­ucts we offer, our store, that ini­tially will travel, will  grow into sta­tion­ary cen­ters through­out the USA.…

1st place in col­lege com­pe­ti­tion judged by PR/Marketing pro­fes­sion­als in NY phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal industry

Excerpt

By Vik­toriya von Berg (Cor­tado)

Prod­uct -”Breath Right” nasal strips 

TARGET MARKET

1st Place: Term Project: Plac­ing a Prod­uct in Inter­na­tional Markets

Based on our research and analy­sis that involved hybrid seg­men­ta­tion tech­nique, we cre­ated psychographic-demographic pro­file of women ages 18–34 who cur­rently live in the USA.  To bet­ter mar­ket Breath Right nose strips, we decided to uti­lize con­cen­trated mar­ket­ing approach and fur­ther nar­rowed our tar­get demo­graphic. Specif­i­cally, we con­ducted a research on the sub­set of women who enjoy healthy lifestyles

Accord­ing to our sec­ondary research, in terms of psychographics/lifestyle seg­men­ta­tion, we iden­ti­fied our tar­get group  as “Inward Alter­na­tive Seek­ers,” who use tech­niques like mas­sage, aro­mather­apy and yoga to relax.  Our pri­mary research backed up our find­ings.  For this project we sur­veyed thirty woman ages 18–34 -  twenty five  respon­dents pointed to a high level of stress  and the impor­tance of its man­age­ment (1)

Data from Mintel Analy­sis con­cern­ing women within the age bracket of 18–34 proves iden­ti­cal con­sumer char­ac­ter­is­tics stat­ing that our tar­get demo­graphic is ”  espe­cially con­cerned with reduc­ing stresses, get­ting into and main­tain­ing a pos­i­tive men­tal state, exer­cis­ing and hav­ing a good night sleep.” (2)

Based on phys­io­graphic analy­sis con­ducted by Mintel Group, “sin­gle women within our tar­get age group  are prone to sleep-disorders, depres­sion and anx­i­ety dis­or­ders.  This attrib­utes to stresses in women who are work­ing to pur­sue higher edu­ca­tion, career and ”find­ing one’s way in life. ‘’As a result, these women are seek­ing spa ser­vices, mas­sage ther­apy and vari­ety of relax­ation or revi­tal­iz­ing tech­niques to relieve these symp­toms.’’ (2)

MARKETING  STRATEGY

Con­sid­er­ing the demo­graphic pro­file of our cus­tomers, the grow­ing usage of the Inter­net, blog­ging, iPhone and other portable elec­tronic devices that play a sig­nif­i­cant role in the lives of our tar­get mar­ket , we devel­oped a unique mar­ket­ing strat­egy that includes Viral Mar­ket­ing, Prod­uct place­ment, Pub­lic Rela­tions and con­ven­tional adver­tis­ing such as Print, Tele­vi­sion and Online Commercials.

To gen­er­ate a social buzz about our newly re-vamped prod­uct, we decided to uti­lize viral mar­ket­ing as an effec­tive and uncon­ven­tional method of adver­tis­ing and pro­mo­tion.  Since our tar­get cus­tomers have a high SNP (social net­work­ing poten­tial) we rec­og­nized the ben­e­fit of reach­ing them via sev­eral social media sites such as Face­book, Twit­ter, MySpace and vari­ety of other social net­work­ing sites.….»We also decided to uti­lize prod­uct place­ment tech­nique using an increas­ingly pop­u­lar online video plat­form such as YouTube..»

In addi­tion, we would like to spend a por­tion of our bud­get on a strong inter­ac­tive web com­po­nent. Our web­site  will include blogs about the prod­uct in addi­tion to relax­ation tips, infor­ma­tion about aro­mather­apy and func­tion­al­ity of  the prod­uct . In addi­tion, cus­tomers will be able  share sto­ries, videos and receive coupons via email. In return,  we will build a com­pre­hen­sive data­base of our con­sumers. Our com­pany will uti­lize the data­base for fur­ther ana­lyt­i­cal research, direct sales and guide our future prod­uct devel­op­ment. In addi­tion, our cus­tomers will  be able to make pur­chases through our web-site via e-store…»

Sam­ple writ­ing clip

Analy­sis of Brazil­ian econ­omy 2009

By Vik­toriya von Berg

In order to under­stand cur­rent mon­e­tary and fis­cal poli­cies of Brazil it is impor­tant to look at the dynam­ics of eco­nom­i­cal growth of the coun­try in the past two decades. In  1980 Brazil was endur­ing slow eco­nomic devel­op­ment com­pared to other devel­op­ing nations. This eco­nomic trend was attrib­uted to the large for­eign debt that was con­sid­ered to be the piv­otal part of eco­nomic dif­fi­cul­ties of Brazil. How­ever, by early 1990 it was obvi­ous that this view was uni­lat­eral in the sense that it over­looked the pub­lic sec­tor of the coun­try   which in itself was heav­ily indebted to local and for­eign creditors.

At that time many econ­o­mists came to the unan­i­mous con­sen­sus that it was impor­tant to see how this par­tic­u­lar sec­tor was financed given the fact that it was almost bank­rupt. Since in 1982 the for­eign credit flow was elim­i­nated, and the cost of domes­tic cap­i­tal was extremely costly, the deficit was thought to be financed through infus­ing mon­e­tary sup­ply which in turn sky­rock­eted infla­tion rate to 4,000% (four thou­sand per­cent) at annual rate.  (1) The adop­tion of Fis­cal Sta­bi­liza­tion Pro­gram in 1998 pos­i­tively affected fis­cal posi­tion of Brazil push­ing down country’s debt-to-GDP ratio. (3) Governmental spend­ing increased by 7% dur­ing this period of sta­bi­liza­tion (2) This resulted in the rel­a­tive sta­bil­ity of the coun­try until the global crises swayed the world in 2007 (2)

In 2009 Brazil is an emerging-market econ­omy that com­pared to the other devel­op­ing coun­ties is less affected by the global eco­nomic crises. Nonethe­less it delas with the exter­nal and inter­nal dif­fi­cul­ties that neg­a­tively affect its econ­omy. In a con­text of cur­rent global crises Brazil is in a posi­tion of deal­ing with its rapidly dimin­ish­ing indus­trial pro­duc­tion, espe­cially in the motor sec­tor which is cap­i­tal inten­sive. The avail­abil­ity of the for­eign credit that was abun­dant before global eco­nomic dete­ri­o­ra­tion was dra­mat­i­cally reduced in 2008–2009 and the cost of domes­tic bor­row­ing went up.  (2) This period is also marked by the dwin­dled demand for Brazil­ian export that adds to pre­car­i­ous eco­nomic con­di­tions of the coun­try.  (2)

Fis­cal Policy-Rules Based Fis­cal Management

To effec­tively deal with cur­rent con­di­tions Brazil is in a process of imple­ment­ing fis­cal pol­icy reforms that are indented to recon­sider its indi­rect tax sys­tem that is extremely com­plex. The  reform intends to lift up  tax bur­dens on the motor and con­struc­tion indus­tries as well as on finan­cial sec­tor that includes finan­cial trans­ac­tions. The goal of fis­cal reform is to extend from enter­prises to the labor taxes by elim­i­na­tion of Salário-Educação, a fed­eral levy on pay­rolls and indi­vid­u­als and decreas­ing the social secu­rity con­tri­bu­tions of labor force.(5)

In addi­tion ‚the cur­rent fis­cal pol­icy reform dic­tates  the extended time period for unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fits, increased min­i­mum wage that will con­tribute to the higher spend­ing, social hous­ing pro­grams and cap­i­tal invest­ments in the devel­op­ment of the infra­struc­ture. Since his­tor­i­cally pub­lic debt was the sin­gle most cen­tral point of macro­eco­nomic dilemma in Brazil, the new fis­cal reforms are note­wor­thy in a sense that they con­tributed to the lower pub­lic debt. (2) It is pro­jected that the sur­plus of the pri­mary sec­tor, or in another words debt, will decrease from cur­rent 4.6% to 2.3% as of 2009.

In addi­tion, the newly cre­ated Sov­er­eign Wealth Fund (Fundo Sober­ano do Brasil) was estab­lished in 2009 to pro­tect the econ­omy. Brazil intends to sell trea­sury bonds to finance its fund with the ulti­mate goal of facil­i­tat­ing local firms to extend abroad and engage in inter­na­tional trade. Also, it will facil­i­tate the invest­ment (4) According to Paulo Bernardo, the Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and bud­get­ing of Brazil, the gov­ern­ment might be well able to increase spend­ing by accu­mu­lat­ing $8.6 bil­lion in its Sov­er­eign Wealth Fund within next year while avoid­ing the increase in its deficit all together. (4)

In addi­tion, Sov­er­eign Wealth Fund might be able to finance the gap in tax losses. Tax breaks were granted this year and many firms choose to post­pone tax pay­ments aggres­sively exploit­ing the law of extend­ing tax pay­ments till next year.(4) As of begin­ning of 2009 Brazil is in posi­tion of los­ing 1. 9 % of tax rev­enue because of slow tax pay­ments, how­ever it claims that it is in a posi­tion of reim­burs­ing these losses using fund’s money in 2010(4)

Over­all, gov­ern­men­tal spend­ing increased from only 7% dur­ing the time of macro­eco­nomic sta­bi­liza­tion in 1994, to 32. 5 % of GDP in 2008.

Mon­e­tary Policy-Inflation Targeting

In order to acti­vate eco­nomic envi­ron­ment of Brazil, Cen­tral Bank of Brazil    reduced com­pul­sory deposit reserve, or in another words ‘’ require­ment for com­mer­cial banks to hold cash reserves equal the frac­tion of their deposits’’ to encour­age lending.

Also, the fed­eral gov­ern­ment granted loans of 4% of national GDP to BNDES (National Devel­op­ment Bank) and other banks that are owned by the government. (2)  This rel­a­tively low per­cent rate allows these banks to engage into lend­ing as well (2). In addi­tion, the author­i­ties allow large finan­cial insti­tu­tions to pur­chase dis­tressed port­fo­lios of smaller banks that have been affected by unfa­vor­able credit envi­ron­ment. (2) The inter­est rates of real ax ante are at his­tor­i­cally low lev­els. (2)

Besides fed­eral loans and mon­e­tary eas­ing, Brazil is advised to let auto­matic sta­bi­liz­ers to take on its pur­pose with­out fur­ther gov­ern­men­tal inter­ven­tion that oth­er­wise might carry a neg­a­tive effect. (2)

Writ­ing clip

By Vik­toriya von Berg

Out­sourc­ing from China

The People’s Repub­lic of China (PRC) is the largest coun­try in East­ern Asia. The Com­mu­nist regime that assumes a sin­gle party sys­tem is dic­ta­to­r­ial and dom­i­nat­ing, and people’s rights are often nonex­is­tent or sig­nif­i­cantly reduced.  How­ever, Chi­nese gov­ern­ment rec­og­nized the poten­tial of its coun­try on inter­na­tional busi­ness arena and intro­duced com­pre­hen­sive eco­nomic reforms in 1978 that notice­ably pulled out China from poverty. The avail­abil­ity of labor that is pro­por­tional to the large pop­u­la­tion of China, approx­i­mately 1.3 bil­lion, is the major fac­tor that influ­enced growth of the apparel man­u­fac­tur­ers serv­ing Euro­pean and North Amer­i­can clients. The low cost of labor con­sti­tutes the major com­pet­i­tive advan­tage of Chi­nese sup­pli­ers along with improved tech­nol­ogy, attrac­tive lead times, qual­ity con­trol, high pro­duc­tion vol­ume and effi­cient communication.

China– is a per­ma­nent mem­ber of the UN Secu­rity Coun­cil and enjoys its mem­ber­ship within sev­eral mul­ti­lat­eral agree­ments such as WTO (World Trade Orga­ni­za­tion), APEC (Asia Pacific Eco­nomic Coop­er­a­tion), EAS (East Asia Sum­mit), G-20, and SCO (Shang­hai Coop­er­a­tion Organization.)

World Trade Organization

Tex­tiles and Apparel

The safe­guard on tex­tiles and appar­els com­ing from China to the USA that allowed the USA work­ers and com­pa­nies to respond to increased imports from China has expired in 2008. Quo­tas on tex­tiles and apparel have expired in 2005 (2) Even before these changes took place, roughly by 2000, ‘’Amer­ica became China’s sec­ond largest trade part­ner, sup­ply­ing vari­ety of goods.’’  How­ever, there is a trade imbal­ance between two coun­tries with China enjoy­ing a hefty sur­plus by using high tar­iffs and restric­tions on the USA exports. (3)

Per­ma­nent Nor­mal Trade Relations

PNTR is the acronym used to describe free trade of the USA with any for­eign nation. PNTR replaced the MFN ( the most favored nation) in 1998.  Since China is the mem­ber of the WTO it enjoys Free Trade Agree­ment with the USA.

Asia Pacific Eco­nomic Coop­er­a­tion (APEC) is com­prised of 21 Pacific Rim coun­tries with an ulti­mate goal of regional trade and invest­ment coop­er­a­tion in order to enhance ‘’eco­nomic growth and pros­per­ity’’ (1) Its mem­bers con­sti­tute approx­i­mately 40% of the pop­u­la­tion around the world, more than half of the world GDP (54%) and lightly less than half of the world trade (44%) (1)

China is also a mem­ber of the G-20 –a forum of the world’s largest economies that play a cru­cial role in today’s global market.

Timely and effi­cient com­mu­ni­ca­tion of Chi­nese sup­pli­ers was the major rea­son that affected my deci­sion to work with one of the fac­to­ries in that part of Asia.

After con­tact­ing dozens of dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers in China, there was one par­tic­u­lar com­pany that responded in a timely and pro­fes­sional man­ner. Dongyang Mohang Imp & Exp Co., Ltd, is a man­u­fac­turer and trad­ing com­pany located at the city of Dongyang Province/State of Zhe­jiang. It oper­ates as a full ser­vice fac­tory with capac­ity of 50,000 per month. There is no min­i­mum order require­ment; how­ever they do charge higher costs for lim­ited orders.  The Dongyang Mohang Imp & Exp Co accepts LC (let­ter of credit) as a pay­ment option. In addi­tion, com­pany has an estab­lished 5 year rela­tion­ship with Tar­get and K-mart. The com­pany spe­cial­izes in baby cloth­ing –dresses, rompers, skirt, baby sleep­ing bags, baby suits, hats chil­dren. Accord­ing to Susan Bao, man­ager, the num­ber of employ­ees totals to about 101. The fac­tory size in sq. meters is 5,000–10,000. The com­pany focuses South­east Asia and West­ern Euro­pean mar­kets. They export approx­i­mately 81%-90%.

There are 5–10 peo­ple in qual­ity con­trol depart­ment. In addi­tion, com­pany works with third par­ties that per­form QA/QC. The deliv­ery time is about 25–30 days from the time of order.

Total Costs

The fac­tory quoted the FOB Shang­hai of 40$ and fac­tory charges $4.05 per item. The ship­ment will be deliv­ered to the Port of New York. There is 9.4 % tar­iff for children’s and adult cot­ton dresses accord­ing to HTS (please refer to the attached excel calculations.)