The BizTech Journal

A Question about the present ‘AAA’ Credit Rating of the USA

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 19:27:00 +0000

Two years back, the word "Credit Default" was never associated with the United States of America. However today it is very difficult to find a financial newspaper or a magazine which does not have an article on a possible US Default if the US government is unable to raise the debt ceiling by an August 2nd deadline.

What is surprising is that all three major rating agencies Fitch, S&P and Moody's maintain the top notch credit rating for the US at this point in time even when a CNN.com article headline reads Countdown to default: U.S. debt talks enter critical week (CNN might change the headline from time to time as the story develops) . Although imagining such a default by the US is very difficult it is apparent that the probability of defaulting as at this moment is definitely not zero.

Therefore one might question as to why this uncertainty is not reflected in the US credit rating, especially when there is an increased uncertainty about reaching a debt deal. The author of this article is in the opinion that it is highly counter intuitive to maintain an AAA rating when the "Talk of the town" is about averting a default! A question that one would ask the rating agencies is that even if a deal is reached , and a default is averted does it mean that credit rating should still be AAA ? Or does it even deserve a rating just one notch down from AAA which is AA+ ? The fact that the US is contemplating to avert a default, by all means is an unfavorable situation, where one might not associate a top credit rating.

In stark contrast, the rating agencies were very quick to downgrade Greek debt continuously, even though the European Union made efforts to agree on a bailout. This made it increasingly difficult for Greece to borrow funds and moved the country even closer towards a possible default. The most recent downgrade of Greek debt by Moody's happened on Monday 25th July 2011.

If the rating agencies continue to maintain the prime (AAA) rating, in case of an unlikely event of a US default, they will have no option but to bring down the rating from AAA to default overnight. An example for such a credit rating downgrade could be found during the recent Sub Prime Mortgage crisis where the AAA ratings of certain CDOs were downgraded to junk status overnight.

Comment on LinkedIn Discussion : No wonder CompSci grads are unemployed

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 01:25:00 +0000

Just commented on a LinkedIn discussion based on an article published by the theregister.co.uk titled "No wonder CompSci grads are unemployed". Find the LinkedIn discussion here ( Login might be required ) and the extract of the comment below.

" In my opinion Computer Science/IT Graduates need to understand the programming concepts thoroughly, and there is no need to know each and every new programming language that pops up. If somebody understands the concepts, the programming language would just be a tool to get the task at hand done. In this respect I fully agree with Mark DeFilippis.

Due to the same reason some companies (like ours – IFS) pay more attention to identify the conceptual knowledge/ability than the knowledge of particular programming languages when recruiting graduates. If you are thorough with a programming language that would be a definite plus but knowing "programming concepts" is more important. Someone who knows programming concepts would be at ease when learning appropriate programming language/tool depending on the requirement. However it should be mentioned that we are able to train graduates for the required programming language skills be it C# or Java. However some companies cannot afford to provide such trainings to recruits and it has to be understood that these companies might look for specific programming language skills when they recruit.

By going through some of the posts in this thread it seems that there is a notion, that in order to be a good programmer/graduate one should know the latest programming language skills (i.e. the latest four letter acronym). In my opinion one should exercise caution when selecting and learning programming languages as well. The reason for this is that these new languages might not be around in three to four years time and perhaps no one might be there support or promote them as well. Most of the programming tools are so hyped at the inception but later on we find that the real usability and value of such tools would not live up to the hype. One example for this is "Java Applets". When Java Applets were gaining popularity in late nineties some analysts made predictions to the extent that the Applets will play a key role in web applications in future but nowadays it is not the case.

From a company’s perspective careful research has to go in when identifying programming languages that last before making any significant financial commitments to build up such language skills /software. Similarly it is important for graduates to do his/her bit of research to judge the future of the selected language tool depending on the expected future commitment from his/her side. "

SLASSCOM Future Careers Documentary

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 02:14:00 +0000

Sri Lanka Association of Software and Service Companies ( SLASSCOM ) together with some of Sri Lanka's leading IT and BPO companies produced a documentary on IT / BPO Industry of Sri Lanka. The 10 minute documentary is aimed at creating awareness of IT/BPO among students and parents.

The video was officially launched on 22nd January 2011 at the EDEX 2011 exhibition held in Colombo. At EDEX 2011, SLASSCOM Future Careers pavilion provided a wealth of information to prospective entrants to IT/BPO industry. The pavilion featured the employers who contributed to the documentary and many others while several among them offered Walk In Interview opportunities.

You can help your friends and colleagues to realize the potential of the IT/BPO industry by sharing this video. The video is provided under Creative Commons (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs) license. Therefore feel free to use this video for non-commercial purposes such as career fairs, school exhibitions. You can also embed this video in your blog/website by extracting the HTML code from here.

All Roads Lead to Sri Lanka !

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 04:23:00 +0000

Sri Lanka has been getting positive press coverage in the recent past over many aspects of its economy. Prospects in the Tourism Industry and IT and BPO Industry have received wide publicity together with overall economic prospects. Such coverage helps to attract more investors to the country and helps to revive tourism industry which has a vast untapped potential.

Overall Economy

A recent article appeared in the Wall Street Journal inquired if investors have already missed the boat in Sri Lanka, although the post war economic boom just started. The article was referring to the speed at which financial markets have developed since the war ended in May 2009. The Article further states that the market implied sovereign debt rating for Sri Lanka stands at Ba1 ( Moody's) , while Moody's official rating stands three notches below Ba1. Investors widely expect an upward revision of Sri Lanka's rating. A complete chart of ratings awarded by major rating agencies can be found here .

Further confirming the trend the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) ended the year 2010 with an All Share Price Index growth of 96 % YoY. However it should be noted that the market capitalization of the CSE reflects only 40% of the GDP of Sri Lanka as of now.

IT / BPO Industry

Most recently top IT Research firm Gartner Inc. included Sri Lanka in its Top 9 IT Offshore Service Destinations in the Asia Pacific region. This positions Sri Lanka among the world's top 30 Offshore IT Service providers as well.

New York Times carried an article highlighting Sri Lanka's potential as an outsourcing center for financial services with particular emphasis on Accounting function. The article also positively commented on Colombo's suitability as a business travel destination. It stated that " Many international executives also quietly admit that Colombo’s colonial architecture, excellent seafood restaurants and proximity to miles of sandy beaches make it a more alluring business travel destination than India’s outsourcing centers. "

Tourism Industry

Tourism industry has been a major beneficiary of the post war revival of Sri Lanka. Tourist arrivals have been steadily increasing towards record numbers where for the year 2010 tourist arrivals stood at 654476 - up by 46.1 % YoY.

Tourism industry received a major boost in 2010 as New York Times picked Sri Lanka as the number 1 place to visit in 2010 among 31 destinations. Among other destinations featured in the same article were Seoul, Copenhagen, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Kuala Lumpur.

National Geographic channel put Sri Lanka in the number 2 position in world’s 20 best islands . Following is a recorded segment of the NatGeo program on Sri Lanka.

Other Indices

Apart from the above Sri Lanka was ranked high by the World Economic Forum in its Global Gender Gap Report 2010. In the report Sri Lanka was ranked in the 16th position ahead of the USA, Canada and the Netherlands. Sri Lankans was ranked in the 8th position in league with the developed countries in the World Giving Index 2010 developed by the Charities Aid Foundation. The index measures the charitable behaviors of people in countries.

The A380 Experience!

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:19:00 +0000

On the 8th of July, I had my first flight aboard the new Airbus A380 aircraft. The Singapore Airlines flight was from Singapore - Changi airport to Tokyo -Narita Airport. Singapore Airlines being the only operator that uses A380 at the moment, you have to be traveling to or from this part of the world (Asia) in order to Experience this.

The Super Jumbo : An A380 in the terminal 3 of the Changi Airport - Singapore

First thing that you feel could be the relative quietness of the aircraft, compared to Boeing 747-400s or Boeing 777s that Singapore airlines operate. The economy class seats that I flew onboard the A380, were very spacious and they were more like the Business Class seats that that can be found in some Airbus A330 aircrafts operated by other airlines.

Onboard A380 : Economy Class seats in the Main Deck have more space

The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine aircraft. It is designed to carry 555 to 840 passengers. This is about 35 percent more than the Boeing 747. There were many manufacturing delays in the A380 project and it appears that EADS have finally got hold of the control of project. The early manufacturing delays were said to be mostly due to problems in the cabin wiring system.

Boeing responded to the challenge posed by A380 in a different way, by moving ahead with their 787 Dreamliner project which is also currently plagued by production delays. The 787 is supposed to be a is a mid-sized, wide-body, twin engine aircraft.

The two Aircraft Manufacturers have different strategies to meet the future demand for Air Travel. Due to the size of the A380 aircraft it is capable of flying large number of people between major hub airports. Singapore Airlines already fly to London, Tokyo and to Sydney from Singapore. However Boeing have put their faith in carrying relatively less number of passengers between many smaller airports frequently.

Making the aircraft fuel efficient remains one of the key priorities common to both the programs. In this aspect Boeing has an edge due to the fact that in order for A380 to be fuel efficient it has to fill up most of its seats. Even a small number of empty seats could raise the amount of fuel consumed per passenger. This was probably the case in the flight I took.

Google Earth on Web!

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Thu, 29 May 2008 13:09:00 +0000

In my blog post created on the 15th of April 2008, I highlighted that Google has an opportunity to make browsing of Geographic Information (KML) and Web Content seamless. This was after they standardized their Mark-up language for Geographic Information Representation KML.

On the 28th of May 2008, Google announced the availability of a Plug-In which enables web browsers to run Google Earth 3D application inside browsers. This opens up new opportunities for software developers to make the web more interesting by creating Mash Ups that include Google Earth. Currently “Google Earth Web” provides a limited set of features that can be found in Google’s proprietary Earth Browser. However in the long run, I believe that Google will provide the full functionality found in Google Earth over the Plug-In.

This also opens up exciting opportunities for Google to deliver Google Earth to mobile phones, in a manner similar to which they deliver Google Maps for mobiles. In order to make this a reality Google has to certify the Plug-in (Modify if necessary) for Mobile browsers.

O’rielly provides an interesting article about new Google Earth features and the video below was released by Google demonstrating some possibilities.

Innovation and the “Quarterly Company”

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Mon, 12 May 2008 05:09:00 +0000

Trying to meet Wall Street Analyst’ targets, by focusing on the short term goals can do much harm than good for technology companies. This is mainly because of the fact that sustainability of a technology company is highly dependent on the innovation it brings to the marketplace. If a company loose the focus on the long term strategy due to “external influences”, a company might find itself running the company from “quarter to quarter” - and effectively becomes a “Quarterly Company” with hindered innovation .

Recently there was a good discussion provoked by ZdNet’s Larry Dignan related to the influence that the Wall Street has on the technology companies. However it should be stressed that it is futile to say that shareholders should not be taken seriously. Ultimately it’s shareholders money that companies are spending. However it helps to have at least some majority shareholders who have a sight in the long term strategy of a company. Keeping them enlightened about innovation and R&D strategies of companies is one way of getting the buy-in of such shareholders.

However companies like Amazon and Google have more luxury than some of the small time tech companies to invest more in innovation. Apart from that they have the power to withstand the pressure / criticism of the Wall Street when pursuing high risk long term goals. A recent BusinessWeek magazine’s interview (April 28th 2008 issue) conducted with Amazon’s Jeff Bezoz clearly indicates this fact. Bezoz claims that“I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you're going to innovate”. The mis-understanding stems from the fact that when you are innovating you do not have the freedom to enlighten all the stakeholders of the companies on your strategy in an in-depth manner. If you do so this can very well help your competition. Adding to that there is no clear cut path that leads to innovation as well. This makes it even more complicated to spell out a strategy.

At the same time Google does not guide the investors on their future earnings and yet apparently earns the respect of majority of investors. The article titled “No More Earnings Guidance? Hallelujah” provides a brief insight into the “No Guidance policy” of Google. The Reuters article “No guidance" policy jolts Google investors again” echoes the sentiment of some sections of the Wall Street with regard to the said policy.

At the same time, there are examples of companies who got a beating in the innovation side trying to focus on the short term profits. Introducing Six Sigma to increase the efficiency of 3M Corporation was one such example where the creative culture was put on a back foot while attempting to increase the short term profitability.

KML Standardized by Open Geospatial Consortium

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:46:00 +0000

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OCG) has accepted KML (Keyhole Markup Language) as an international file standard for representing Geographic Information. As a result of this the OCG will take over further development of the file format and Google will no longer own it.

KML initially gained wide popularity with the release of Google Earth. I believe that in the long run with KML gaining wide acceptance and popularity, browsers used to view geo-spatial information will be integrated with standard web browsers. May be this would be an opportunity for Google to integrate standard Web Browsing to Google Earth browser they already own. This would enable seamless browsing of HTML and KML files.

More information revealed about Societe Generale

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:34:00 +0000

Today International Herald Tribune has made some startling revelations about the trading fraud at Societe Generale. The article contains information related to warnings made to the bank in November 2007 by the surveillance office of Eurex one of the biggest European exchanges. Please find the informative article here.

Societe Generale and Risk Management 101

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 14:41:00 +0000

The corporate world was in for a total surprise when Societe Generale uncovered the massive trading loss of EUR 4.9 billion (USD 7.2 Billion). This loss is termed as the largest such loss in the banking world.

If we put this figure into perspective, it would be interesting to observe that, the net income of the corporate and investment banking division of Societe Generale was only EUR 2.3 Billion and the banking revenue of the same unit was only EUR 6.9 Billion in 2006 (Click here for details accounts from the web site of the bank ). It is similarly interesting to note that this loss caused by a single trader dwarfed sub prime write offs announced by Societe Generale which was a “mere” EUR 2.05 Billion.

The biggest question is how a single rouge trader could have done such a damage unnoticed to the immediate supervisors or the top management of the corporate and investment banking unit of Societe Generale. Considering that this fraud has been going on for last 3 years, one would get a reasonable, doubt about the auditors who certified the financial records of past years as well.

However Societe Generale did have a bigger responsibility in its hand to prevent such losses by enforcing the needed system controls. Amid these developments one might think that more sophisticate software systems are needed to detect such frauds which apparently have involved fictitious companies/trades. However as an IT professional I believe that even a simple system control would have detected this fraud in the very beginning of it. In my opinion if the total volume or total amount of transactions that can be executed by a trader was restricted by the bank and if the supervisors had access to reports of individual traders’ performance, it would have been much more difficult for the rogue trader to carry on executing the fraudulent trades. However it is hard to imagine that the software used by Societe Generale did not have the above mentioned functionalities which are nowadays built into most financial transaction handling software. Although the investigations are underway, I would rather form the hypotheses that these controls were not strictly enforced by the bank authorities, which essentially is a fundamental human error. Although the bank has been using apparently sophisticated risk management software (See a related report here ) , it is surprising how they might have managed to neglect 101 of Risk Management.

While the investigations are going on related to the uncovered fraud, it would be a good idea for Societe Generale to re-evaluate the accuracy of write offs previously made with regard to the US sub prime exposure, and undertake a thorough investigation of all its futures and other trades which used similar management control systems. Hopefully this would help to avoid future surprises.

What's next for SAP ?

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 11:19:00 +0000

It was announced that Shai Agassi of SAP will leave the company soon. He was responsible for SAP's technology strategy. I used to read the blogs maintained by Shai in the SAP web site and they surely brought a lot of insight into Technological aspects of SAP Systems. His departure from the company means, that there will be some tough time ahead for SAP as far as making the right technological choice is concerned.

White papaer on SOA by IFS

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 05:00:00 +0000

While reading the below article do not forget to to have a look at the white paper on Service Oriented architecture sponsored by IFS. There is a link to the white paper on the page panel on the right.

P&G and SIMPL

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 04:36:00 +0000

Can innovation be run as a process ?Found an interesting
article on Innovation which takes examples from P&Gs new
innovation model.

Read the following CIO magazine editorial
http://www.cio.com/archive/030107/forum.html?CID=29105

Additional URLs for the BizTech Journal

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 04:47:00 +0000

Now its possible to reach this blog using all the URLs mentioned below.

http://www.NuwanPerera.com
http://www.BizTechJournal.com
http://www.BizTechJournal.net

Ghost-writing Corporate Blogs

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 09:36:00 +0000

Ghostwriting of blogs can be described as somebody who writes a blog for another person on the understanding that the other person will receive sole credit as the author. There was some discussion in the blogosphere whether it is ethical for a PR company to ghostwrite blogs on behalf of their clients.

Well I think one of the major differences between a blog and any other communication mechanism (web magazine/journal) is the personal touch associated with blogs. While mainstream media writers and editors increasingly criticized for representing the ideas of the owners of respective media firms, blogs gained huge popularity at the expense of traditional media. This popularity was mainly due to the personal touch and temper associated of the write associated with the blogs. Blogs also provide good means of establishing two way communications between the author and the reader which would build up a discussion around a topic.

If PR agencies actively involve in ghost writing blogs the very essential ingredient of blogging will be lost and the blog in subject will not be different from yet another press release from the client company. These blogs will not braw any sustainable readership over time as sooner or later readers will realize that authenticity of the blog is in question.

Therefore I believe the most appropriate blogging mechanism for corporations would be to publish authentic blogs by employees/executives rather than hiring a PR firm to ghostwrite blogs.

There is a good discussion on the topic on the below blog which I found interesting and which motivated me to write the above comment.

Morgan McLintic on PR: Should PR firms ghost-write client blog posts?

Importance of Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Thu, 25 May 2006 04:42:00 +0000

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)has been hotly debated topic where a lot of companies pay less emphasis on. A new trend is developing among companies to better align CSR activities with corporate strategies and those activities can be called as Strategic CSR activities.

Strategic CSR is all about aligning corporate goals and strategies with the CSR activities that the particular company is carrying out. Generally Strategic CSR will improve the companys impression among shareholders. Companies which are better at strategic CSR are perceived as highly credible entities. This helps organisations in many ways. The reputation gained could help companies when raising funds through equity sales or other financing activities.

Mr Ravi Fernando, (Director Corporate Branding and CSR of MAS holdings Sri Lanka - http://www.masholdings.com) delivered a presentation on this very same topic at the University of Colombo, Residential MBA Workshop. The workshop was held atthe Villa Ocean View Hotel in Wadduwa Sri Lanka on the 29^th and 30^th of April.

One of the major topics of discussion during that presentation was how Sri Lanka could better promote its garment exports while facing the increased competition from China and India.Sri Lanka could promote itself as a garment manufacturing country which is socially responsible while highlighting two key strengths

1. No Child labour used ( Unlike in China , Vietnam and other East Asian Countries )
2. Empowers Woman in making apparel ( When China and other East Asian Countries exploit women )

There was also some mention about some companies who lost credibility and market share due to socially irresponsible activities. Such companies are

1. Nike for using child labour
2. Mitsubishi Motors for making faulty cars

Additional companies that I can recall are

3. Bridgestone For making faulty Firestone tires which were used in Ford SUVs

Jonathan Schwartz spars with Gartner

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Mon, 22 May 2006 03:07:00 +0000

The debate was hot as to whether Sun Microsystems would be able to show a sustainable profit with the current business model. Suns newly appointed CEO Jonathan Schawarz disputes the claims by Gartner Analysts by claiming that growth of Infrastructure will bring cash inflows to Sun. However I believe Sunâ€™s dependency on infrastructure solutions will increasingly become less viable due to growing competition from other major vendors. Sun should think about generating more revenue from the popularity it already has in the community, the growing usage of Java based applications. Why not compete with Apple iPod, and produce something similar, which is far reaching and more affordable and most importantly more open? But the challenge here is as to how to build a business model to generate revenues while all those above mentioned qualities are being upheld !

ï¿½ Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz spars with Gartner analysts Between the Lines ZDNet.com

The Art of Framing

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Thu, 18 May 2006 05:49:00 +0000

The way you perceive your competitors actions might very well decide your future course of actions in an organization. However if you start to see the lighter side of the things you will be more free to be creative. I encountered the following article from the Harvard Business School website which is very interesting

Disruption: The Art of Framing : HBS Working Knowledge

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Thu, 18 May 2006 05:38:00 +0000

Yale School of Management: Leaders Forum 2004-2005 Speakers

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Tue, 09 May 2006 03:41:00 +0000

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=printArticle&ID=1463

Welcome to Nuwan's Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Mon, 08 May 2006 05:08:00 +0000

Welcome to Nuwans Blog

Category: Corporate Finance > Valuations

noreply@blogger.com (Nuwan Perera) — Sun, 19 Sep 2004 13:00:00 +0000