FC Barcelona, PIIGS, BRIC countries & Wal-mart stores in China

Presentation and case studies on FC Barcelona, PIIGS, BRIC countries and Wal-mart stores in China.

FC Barcelona:

Barea developed a virtous circle which he divided in 3 main parts: social, economic and sportive activity.
Sportive activity consists of (the best palyers) and (win championships).
Social activity consists of strengthen and grow global for base and expand revenue sources, control costs and healthy financials.
The club should be go global, because the market is quite big. Europe e.g. has 80 millions football interested people, China and Japan more than 700 million and they have a growing standard of living, growing purchasing power, the biggest TV market on the earth and the most important point of Barea, football is mainstream sport and attracts many people.
Exhibition are very popular, stadions are sold out and promoters are paying very high fees. 75 % of Barceas turnover are not from Spain.
Another indicator is that players from all around the world play in Europe and so the fans have someone they can support and identify with. SOme more facts ar ethat the premier league already broadcast into 190 countries, Real Madrid open a football academy in China as well as Nike published a statistic that the Barea shirt is the top-selling product in Japan. Go global is very importnat for Barea to be a global leader.

PIIGS: why are Europe's PIIGS getting so much attention and what are the reactions of their governments?

PIIGS are getting much attention, because they are the countries with the highest unemployement rate, highest national debt and highest budget deficit rate across Europe.
These made the euro losing trust and it decreased a lot, because there was a high uncertainty about the ability to make payments of this countries.
All the countries try to save money, governments of European countries and IMF discussed and created an aid package for them. But first of all they have to help themselves. Ireland already started a cost-cutting program in 2009, so that they are more fruitable and can finance their deficit with bonds.

Spain e.g. cut wages of civil servants (5%) withdrawal  bonuses from 2011 and stopped infrastructure investment.
Italy with the highest national debt. (150% of GDP)
are less future oriented and hav a lack of research and infrastructure investment and with just 1,5% growth in the last decade. It seems t obe difficult to get down of this debts without saving the next years and cutting costs.

Greece as biggest problem cut also civil servant wages. Try to avoid more tax evasion and corruption and finance their deficit of 13,7 % with help of the aid package as well as new bonds.
They also indtroduced new taxes from alcohol, cigarettes and increased the VAT.

BRIC countries: SWOT analysis of  BRIC countries.
the main strengths of BRIC countries are their natural ressources, competitive economic ..., they have a big amount of foreign currency reserves and they have also more and more skilled, well-educated workforce and growing international influence.
Weaknesses are still lack of infrastructure, a hig disparity between country side and cities, e.g. in China their banking sector.
The main opportunity is their growing international influence they are a very strong force against USA, Europe, etc.
Increasinf investments in infrastructure often for Olympic Games and World CV's, are also very important to get more stability.
Other countries are very intersted in BRIC countries that their foreign investment is also considered as oportunity of BRIC's. Some countries are in front of new elections and nobody knows what happens with new minister and governments. Their threats are often considered with other countries and regions. e.g. Kashmir conflict, Taiwan question or Georgia conflict.
In some countries it is although a lack of infrastructure investment or dramatic interest-rate risks. Elections could be considered as threats as well.

Wal-Mart stores in China: company's strategies as well as its market entry in China in terms of opportunities and challenges.

Wal-Mart strategy is to retreat loss-making countries like Germany or South Korea and may be Japan in the near future.
In China there was a total sales of 680 in the year 2005 and in the year 2020 they expect a total sales value of 25 trillion. This shows what a big potential is in China. But they have to survive a lot of challenges.
The hav a big competition with international and local players, profit margins fell, store productivity fell as well as sales also decreases.
Another problem is the lack of street systems and toll fees (at least 10% of freight costs).
They also have to consider income disparity, local protectionism, labour unions, shopping behavoiur(frequent little shopping trips), limited expansion (shops, stores need approval) and the ... of satellite system usage. But they need a web-based system for distribution and if they launch a system, just 30% of the suppliers are connected. But if they can work with these problems and a bad economy of scale they can make a good money, because of the potential and the increasing standard of living.

The economist wrote an article about germany in March 2010. They talked about the current situation in the country, their past and what will happen in the future. Ulm is a good example was forced to big problems, because their Mittelstand companies are suppliers for machine or car producing companies.
But the region had less unemployement rather than the rest of the country and they will be better preapred for an increasing economy than other countries. But this region shows a german problem. There are many people without good education, often showing bad background and the population is getting older. They adapted Swabian habits and try to master german. Another problem is the falling number of school leavers, missing number of engineers or workforce in general.
The biggest german challenge is integration and it will be more and more important,because more and more people will have migration backgrounds.
Germany depends on export and although they have less population in future, they will have a lot of unemployed people too. That shows that their is a big ... of education needed and offered, the other also mentioned that the social welfare declined and more growth is sectored.

Mr. Götz as example told how they try to educate their workforce, but the german dual system is often used to be for education and after 3 years people do not get a new contract.
As mentioned Schlecker as example for ht epower of labour unions who tried to cut costs with closing stores and re-opening with less expansive temporary staff.
In Germany they have to handle strong unions wich help to keep production locations in Sindelfingen.
Germans miracle is also known with the Kurzarbeit which made companies very flexible during the crisis. And that is very important for the Mittelstand, because they are very long-term oriented and not fixed on shareholder values. ut they have to make money and export will increase again, because BRIC countries already started to increase their demand.