Definition: Cook’s Tour

A Cook’s Tour is a guided but cursory tour of the major features of a place or an area.

Broadly, a Cook’s tour is a rapid but extensive glance or survey of a subject matter.

'Thomas Cook: 150 Years of Popular Tourism' by Piers Brendon (ISBN 0436199939) According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the phrase has its origin in Thomas Cook & Son, the prominent British travel agency, and precursor to the present-day global travel company Thomas Cook Group plc. The first known use of the phrase Cook’s Tour was around circa 1909. Thomas Cook & Son was started in 1872 as a partnership by Thomas Cook and his son, John A Mason Cook.

Recommended Reading: Thomas Cook: 150 Years of Popular Tourism by Piers Brendon.

15 Rules and 10 Don’ts for Evaluating Companies by Value Investing Pioneer Phil Fisher

Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits, by Philip Fisher

Philip Fisher, Investor, Author of Common Stocks And Uncommon Profits Philip Fisher (1907–2004) is widely considered the pioneer and thought process leader in long-term value investing. Even after ten years after his death, Fisher is widely respected and admired as one of the most influential investors of all time. Fisher developed his long-term investing philosophy decades ago and discussed them in his seminal book, Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits. Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits was first published in 1958 and continues to be a must-read today for investors and finance professionals around the world.

Phil Fisher’s Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits is a perfect complement to Ben Graham’s The Intelligent Investor. Fisher’s book explains the qualitative side to value investing, while Graham explains the quantitative side of value investing. Warren Buffett, the world’s most successful value investor, describes himself as “85% Graham, 15% Fisher.”

Core to Fisher’s value-investing philosophy is that long-term value investors who will be investing in a company for 20-30 years should understand and appraise the management of a company because it is the management who is directly accountable for the long-term financial performance and business competitiveness of the company.

Phil Fisher’s Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits can be summarized by means of his 15-point checklist for buying stocks and a 10-point don’t list. These principles will stand the test of time.

Phil Fisher’s 15 Rules for Evaluating Companies for Value Investing

  1. Does the company have products or services with sufficient market potential to make possible a sizeable increase in sales for at least several years?
  2. Does the management have a determination to continue to develop products or processes that will still further increase total sales potential when the growth potential of currently attractive product lines have largely been exploited?
  3. How effective are the company’s research and development efforts in relation to its size?
  4. Does the company have an above-average sales organization?
  5. Does the company have a worthwhile profit margin?
  6. What is the company doing to maintain or improve profit margins?
  7. Does the company have outstanding labor and personnel relations?
  8. Does the company have outstanding executive relations?
  9. Does the company have depth to its management?
  10. How good are the company’s cost analysis and accounting controls?
  11. Are there other aspects of the business somewhat peculiar to the industry involved that will give the investor important clues as to how the company will be in relation to its competition?
  12. Does the company have a short-range or long-range outlook in regard to profits?
  13. In the foreseeable future, will the growth of the company require sufficient financing so that the large number of shares then outstanding will largely cancel existing shareholders’ benefit from this anticipated growth?
  14. Does the management talk freely to investors about its affairs when things are going well and “clam up” when troubles or disappointments occur?
  15. Does the company have a management of unquestioned integrity?

Phil Fisher’s 10 Don’ts for Evaluating Companies for Value Investing

  1. Don’t buy into promotional companies.
  2. Don’t ignore a good stock just because it is traded “over-the-counter.”
  3. Don’t buy a stock just because you like the “tone” of the annual report.
  4. Don’t assume that the high price at which a stock may be selling in relation to earnings is necessarily an indication that further growth in those earnings has largely been already discounted in the price.
  5. Don’t quibble over eights and quarters.
  6. Don’t overstress diversification.
  7. Don’t be afraid of buying on a war scare.
  8. Don’t forget your Gilbert and Sullivan (Don’t be influenced by what doesn’t matter).
  9. Do not fail to consider time as well as price in buying a true growth stock.
  10. Don’t follow the crowd.

Recommended Reading

  • 'The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel' by Benjamin Graham, Jason Zweig (ISBN 0060555661)
    The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel: Benjamin Graham, Jason Zweig updates timeless “value investing” wisdom from the greatest investment teacher of the twentieth century, Benjamin Graham. This beloved book has been the investors’ bible since its original publication in 1949.
  • 'One Up On Wall Street' by Peter Lynch, John Rothchild (ISBN 0743200403)
    One Up On Wall Street: Peter Lynch, John Rothchild describes a well-revered bottom-up approach to investing in stocks by selecting companies familiar to the investor followed by a comprehensive fundamental analysis with emphasis on a company’s prospects, its business, it’s competitive environment, and then determining a reasonable price for the company’s stock. Peter Lynch is Vice Chairman of Fidelity Management & Research Company.
  • 'The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America' by Warren E. Buffett, Lawrence A. Cunningham (ISBN 1611634091)
    The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America: Warren E. Buffett, Lawrence A. Cunningham is a thematically arrangement of the lengthy writings of Warren Buffett. This classic book provides an understandable and consistent understanding of the principles and logic of Warren Buffett’s attitude to life, investing, and business.

The Rules of Bill Hewlett and David Packard’s Garage

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard

When Bill Hewlett and David Packard started HP in a Palo Alto garage, they prepared a set of eleven rules that represented their core beliefs. To keep these core beliefs front and center of their new-found venture and remind them of the founding principles as they tinkered and toiled with various inventions, they posted a sign at their garage that articulated the succinct and to-the-point guiding principles they shared.

These guiding principles coupled with core values of Bill Hewlett and David Packard— the HP Way—translated into a wide-ranging set of operating practices, cultural norms, and business strategies that transformed into the one of the most respected companies of their time.

  1. Believe you can change the world.
  2. Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, and work whenever.
  3. Know when to work alone and when to work together.
  4. Share tools, ideas. Trust your colleagues.
  5. No Politics. No bureaucracy. (These are ridiculous in a garage.)
  6. The customer defines a job well done.
  7. Radical ideas are not bad ideas.
  8. Invent different ways of working.
  9. Make a contribution every day. If it doesn’t contribute, it doesn’t leave the garage.
  10. Believe that together we can do anything.
  11. Invent.

For Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard’s legendary management style and the history of Hewlett Packard, read ‘Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World’s Greatest Company’ by Michael S. Malone and ‘The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company’ by David Packard.

Three Ways to Use AutoHotKey to Rock Your Firefox Experience

AutoHotkey Numeric Keypad for Firefox

We are devoted aficionados of AutoHotkey, an open-source scripting language that can be used to religiously automate repetitive tasks on the Microsoft Windows operating system tasks and save time. AutoHotkey primarily works by overriding the default key commands on any software that runs on Windows. The core of AutoHotkey is a custom scripting language that can help define keyboard shortcuts or hotkeys.

If the keyboard on your Windows computer has a numeric keypad, you can use the keys on the numeric keypad to assist you with using the Firefox browser. By installing and running these scripts to scroll and close tabs, you don’t need to move your hands a long way from the mouse. Here are three simple scripts.

Scroll Down a Firefox Page using the ‘Add’ Key on the Numeric Keypad

This simple script substitutes the ‘Page Down’ key with the ‘Add’ key on the numeric keypad, thus helping you scroll down on Firefox pages.

NumpadAdd::
        Send {PgDn}
Return

Scroll Up a Firefox Page using the ‘Subtract’ Key on the Numeric Keypad

This simple script substitutes the ‘Page Up’ key with the ‘Subtract’ key on the numeric keypad, thus helping you scroll up on Firefox pages.

NumpadSub::
        Send {PgUp}
Return

Close a Firefox Tab using the ‘Pause’ Key

This simple script substitutes the ‘Control + F4’ key combination with the ‘Pause’ key on your keypad, thus helping you close the current tab in the Firefox application.

Pause::
        Send ^{F4}
Return

This AutoHotkey Script Needs ‘MozillaWindowClass’

To restrict the customization of these special keys just to the Firefox browser, you will need to an #IfWinActive block with the ahk_class set to MozillaWindowClass. Here is the full script. Actually, MozillaWindowClass refers to any window in any Mozilla application; hence you will notice that these shortcuts work on the Mozilla Thunderbird email application as well.

#IfWinActive ahk_class MozillaWindowClass
        Pause::
                Send ^{F4}
        Return
        NumpadAdd::
                Send {PgDn}
        Return
        NumpadSub::
                Send {PgUp}
        Return
#IfWinActive

For a basic introduction to the utility of AutoHotkey and a tutorial on installing AutoHotkey and compiling AutoHotkey scripts, see this useful YouTube video or this orderly guide from howtogeek.

Creating a Winning Corporate Strategy: Jack Welch’s 5 Key Strategy Questions

During his adored tenure as Chairman and CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch created a strategy development framework that was implemented across the vast organization. managers across General Electric used the winning corporate strategy model to gauge their businesses and make decisions about where to go next.

'Winning' by Jack Welch, Suzy Welch (ISBN 0060753943) Jack Welch advocated that strategy is not something that should be left to the management and strategy consultants. He called strategy “a living, breathing, totally dynamic game.” In his book “Winning” (with wife Suzy Welch,) Jack Welch declares the key to success is to “pick a general direction and implement like hell.”

For Jack Welch, strategy was a “killer idea” or a “winning value proposition” that can provide any organization a general direction for durable competitive advantage. He described strategy as a living, breathing story about how your organization is going to win. In this pursuit, strategy should be a tool, that is agile and can change over time, but it is not arbitrary or indiscriminate.

Jack Welch's Questions for Strategy Planning

Jack Welch’s Questions for Strategy Planning

'HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy ' by Harvard Business Review (ISBN 1422157989) Conceptualizing and developing a successful business strategy lies not in having all the right answers, but rather in asking the right questions. Creating a winning corporate strategy is the process of asking (and answering) the question of what needs to change and why? Jack Welch proposes a rapid, practical questioning procedure to come up with a winning corporate strategy by probing for answers to five key questions:

  1. What does the competitive playing field look like?
  2. What have our competitors been up to lately?
  3. What have we done lately?
  4. What future events or possible changes keep us up at night with worry?
  5. And, given all that, what’s our winning move?

Theme 1: What the Playing Field Looks Like Now

  • Who are the competitors in this business, large and small, new and old?
  • Who has what share, globally and in each market? Where do we fit in?
  • What are the characteristics of this business? Is it commodity or high value or somewhere in between? Is it long cycle or short? Where is it on the growth curve? What are the drivers of profitability?
  • What are the strengths and weaknesses of each competitor? How good are its products? How much does each one spend on R&D? How big is each sales force? How performance-driven is each culture?
  • Who are this business’s main customers, and how do they buy?

Theme 2: What the Competition Has Been Up To

  • What has each competitor done in the past year to change the playing field?
  • Has anyone introduced game-changing new products, new technologies, or a new distribution channel?
  • Are there any new entrants, and what have they been up to in the past year?

Theme 3: What You’ve Been Up To

  • What have you done in the past year to change the competitive playing field?
  • Have you bought a company, introduced a new product, stolen a competitor’s key salesperson, or licensed a new technology from a startup?
  • Have you lost any competitive advantages that you once had—a great salesperson, a special product, a proprietary technology?

Theme 4: What’s Around the Corner?

  • What scares you most in the year ahead—what one or two things could a competitor do to nail you?
  • What new products or technologies could your competitors launch that might change the game?
  • What M&A deals would knock you off your feet?

Theme 5: What’s Your Winning Move?

  • What can you do to change the playing field—is it an acquisition, a new product, globalization?
  • What can you do to make customers stick to you more than ever before and more than to anyone else?

Strategy Questions for Global Competition for Resources and Market-Access

Strategy Questions for Global Competition for Resources and Market-Access

'Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works ' by A.G. Lafley, Roger L. Martin (ISBN 142218739X) In the context of global completion, both for resources and access to markets, leaders need to identify factors and attributes that will shape the future of globalization. Such a framework should provide guidance to those who will make, influence, and predict decisions about the global economic structure and develop a game plan to succeed in an increasingly global environment. Here are Jack Welch’s five strategy questions modified for the global nature of business.

  1. What does your global competition look like over the next several years?
  2. What have your competitors done in the last three years to upset these global dynamics?
  3. What have you done to them in the last three years to affect those dynamics?
  4. How might your competitor attack you in the future?
  5. What are your plans to leapfrog the competition?

Applying a strategy-development framework can help companies focus their activities and goals in ways that are more efficient and lead to a more powerful approach to growing their business. The framework helps analyze the dynamics of the current line of attack, reveal the forces currently influencing the global competition. The framework works by, in part, by recognizing that the strategy must not only be understood by everyone in the organization, but must be acted on by everyone.

Recommended Reading: Best Books for Strategy Planning

Recommended Reading: Best Books on and by Jack Welch

Winston Churchill’s Famous Sense of Humor

Winston Churchill's Famous Sense of Humor

Winston Churchill was one of the most eminent and one of the most debated men of the 20th Century. Churchill was greatly admired at this time of his career (having just won the war) and recaptured his seat in Parliament to represent the Woodford constituency. The British people nevertheless were exhausted of war and didn’t regard Churchill and the Tory Party as the party to “lead the peace”. Therefore, even though Churchill was in Parliament, his party moved to the backbenches as the Labor Party took power and Clement Attlee became Prime Minister.

Churchill won the Second World War, but in the election of July 1945, he was defeated. Many thought that the British public showed flagrant thanklessness. Churchill was still a Member of Parliament, his party lost control of Parliament and thus by tradition the right to the position of Prime Minister.

When the news came out, Churchill was taking a bath (was there ever a statesman who spent more time in the bath?) He commented, “They have a perfect right to kick me out. That is democracy”. When he was offered the Order of the Garter, he asked, “Why should I accept the Order of the Garter, when the British people have just given me the Order of the Boot?”

Recollect Winston Churchill’s prominent dictum from a oration he made at the House of Commons on 11-Nov-1947: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

Churchill returned to power in 1951. The remark about democracy was made when he had lost power and had every reason to be bitter. Fortunately, he kept his sense of humor even in the most trying circumstances.

Best Books about Winston Churchill

Responsibilities of a Process Consultant

Responsibilities of a Process Consultant

A Process Consultant is a process expert who is part of the project team right from the project initiation till the project closure. The main responsibilities includes,

During Project Initiation

  • Participate in the project kick-off meeting
  • Help the project team in understanding the customer requirements, scope and expectations about the project
  • Identifying the necessary Quality Assurance mechanism for the project

During Project Planning

During Project Execution

  • Providing process support and ensure that there is no process violation.
  • Intimate quality manager on any process violation.
  • Review weekly process activity reports of the project
  • Participate in weekly meetings of the project
  • Review the monthly status report
  • Participate in reviews of monthly status reports
  • Send weekly Process Activity reports to the top management and the quality manager.
  • To routinely take the Quality and CM view in project’s technical screens
  • Assist the project team in closing the discontinuities and ensure that the project team closes all audit discontinuities by the target date

During Project Closure

  • Participate in the closure meeting of the project and contribute as to ‘what went right’ and ‘what went wrong’

Strategic Success in Joint Venture Management

Joint Venture Management

A joint venture represents the prospect of two businesses that believe that they can collaborate to accomplish marketplace goals that neither could achieve single-handedly. Joint venture partnerships are essential to how multinational companies can best achieve their global business objectives and improve top-line and bottom-line growths. Alliances and joint ventures provide many benefits, including filling gaps in capabilities or facilitating entry to new markets. Through carefully structured joint venture partnerships and international alliances, businesses can combine mutual strengths and capabilities to gain the benefits of scale that they would be unable to realize without help.

Each company must strive to be exceptional in how it develops, manages, operates, and evaluates joint venture partnerships. Joint ventures frequently go wrong due to neglect of the first stage (development of strategy) and operating implementation. A frequent and detailed joint venture assessment can determine if the company’s partnerships are being operated and managed in a way that provide real value to end customers and the joint venture partners and to determine ongoing improvements to ensure that the joint venture represents a rapid and very effective mechanism for strategic growth.

Doing Business in China

Statements of Joint Venture Management Excellence

  1. The JV partners and the joint venture recognize the needs of the end-customers in order to present tangible business value.
  2. The joint venture partnership is structured and leveraged to generate multiple sources of economic value for each JV partner.
  3. JV partners pay particular attention to the ownership and governance arrangement of the joint venture.
  4. Business objectives, strategies, and processes of the joint venture partnership are aligned with the objectives, strategies, and processes of the respective JV partners.
  5. The support mechanisms and processes of each JV partner that are significant to the success of the joint venture partnership are documented, synchronized and controlled to generate measurable results.
  6. The JV partners set priorities, convey the underlying principle behind them, advocate them even when the outcomes are undefined, and provide the support that the management of the joint venture needs to stand behind those choices as well.
  7. Business and functional leaders of each JV partner offer best practices and capable processes, tools and people to sustain the joint venture partnership.
  8. The joint venture partnership is managed using best practices, processes, tools, and quality standards as established by the JV partners.
  9. Confidential information received or created by the joint venture partnership is defined and maintained in a confined environment.
  10. Regular and consistent communication and flow of information occur within the joint venture partnership and between all parties at numerous levels.
  11. Representatives of the JV partners engage in shared activities that develop mutual trust.
  12. The parties openly define the roles of the JV partners, the Board and operating management of the joint venture partnership, and then they authorize the management and operate according to the agreed definitions.
  13. Managements of cross-border joint venture partnerships consist of a diverse mix of local managers and locally capable expatriates. Companies that survive the experience of doing business in other countries can learn from this experience and develop a distinctive competitive advantage that will serve them well when entering comparable challenging markets around the world.
  14. The right environment within the joint venture partnership is established based on reciprocated trust and shared respect. By understanding the changing nature of business and the potential pitfalls of joint venture partnerships, businesses can collaborate stronger alliances that benefit both JV partners.
  15. JV partnerships operate in conformity with all governmental laws, regulations, environmental standards, and safety standards and with the codes of conduct of the JV partners.
  16. JV partners are treated as customers and favored suppliers. Profitable exploratory actions hold more meaningful lessons for companies than failures do.
  17. Joint venture partnerships use shared problem-solving tools as reciprocally agreed by the partners. Lean manufacturing and other reliable management principles are used to identify and deliver process improvements.

Businesses pursuing joint ventures would do well to contemplate on the lessons of other companies that have engaged in joint ventures to improve the chances of success.

Airbus A340 Passenger Compartment Cross-section: Typical Seat Configurations

The Airbus A340 is a long-range four-engine wide-body commercial passenger jet airliner manufactured by European aircraft company Airbus. The A340 aircraft was designed concurrently with the Airbus A330, a medium-range twin-engine wide-body similar in design. The four-engine A340 was built for long-haul, trans-oceanic routes due to its immunity from ETOPS. Over the years, the dramatic improvement in the reliability of jet engines, rising cost of jet fuel, and elevated maintenance costs of four engines vis-a-vis two engines led to the economic attractiveness of the twin-jet Airbus A330 and the twin-jet Boeing 777 aircraft. Eventually, Airbus stopped offering the A340 in 2011 due to the dearth of new orders.

Typical 6-Abreast Seat Configuration in First Class

A340 Passenger Compartment Cross-section in First Class: Typical 6-Abreast Seat Configuration

Typical 6-Abreast Seat Configuration in Business Class

A340 Passenger Compartment Cross-section in Business Class: Typical 6-Abreast Seat Configuration

Typical 8-Abreast Seat Configuration in Economy Class

A340 Passenger Compartment Cross-section in Economy Class: Typical 8-Abreast Seat Configuration

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Tells Stories: The Vastness of God’s Creation or the Parable of the Frog in the Well

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836–1886,) the eminent Hindu mystic of 19th-century India, used stories and parables to portray the core elements of his philosophy. The meaning of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa’s stories and parables are usually not explicitly stated. The meanings are not intended to be mysterious or confidential but are, in contrast, quite uncomplicated and obvious.

In the Hindu and other traditions of the major religions of the world, parables form the language of the wise for enlightening the simple, just as well as they form the language of the simple for enlightening the wise.

The Parable of the Frog in the Well

A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time. It was born and brought up there. Moreover, it was a small little frog.

One day another frog that lived in the sea came upon the first frog. The frog of the well asked the newcomer, “Whence are you?”

The frog of the sea replied, “I am from the sea.”

The frog of the well questioned, “The sea! How big is that?”

The frog of the sea said, “It is very big.”

The frog of the well stretched its legs and questioned, “Ah! Is your sea so big?”

The frog of the sea said, “It is much bigger.”

The frog of the well then took a leap from one side of the well to the other and asked, “Is it as big as this, my well?”

“My friend,” said the frog of the sea, “how can you compare the sea with your well?”

The frog of the well asserted, “No, there can never be anything bigger than my well. Indeed, nothing can be bigger than this! This fellow is a liar, he must be turned out.”

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa concluded, “Such is the case with every narrow-minded man. Sitting in his own little well, he thinks that the whole world is no bigger than his well.”

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa once said, “If you first fortify yourself with the true knowledge of the Universal Self, and then live in the midst of wealth and worldliness, surely they will in no way affect you.”

Recommended Books