BizAims

The first thing you should do when exploring a new career path, is to research companies that you see yourself a part of. What determines, differentiates, and pleases you about the company? How important is company size, professionalism, and structure?

Recently I have jumped into the field of market research. I had no idea about market survey research, market research surveys, quantitative research, but soon found that these terms are integral to market research.

As a sales professional, I sold products in the past. I am now selling a relationship and this is refreshing. I am giving a service to companies that can use a quality outcome for their marketing needs. As I began my journey into my new career, I focused on what got me here in the first place. First and foremost I had to be determined and realize that my skills can be adapted to any field or market.

How Xilinx Began

Two brilliant engineers and a marketing guru working in Silicon Valley in 1984 had a dream. Bernie Vonderschmitt, Ross Freeman, and Jim Barnett dreamed of starting a different kind of company.

They wanted to create a company that would develop and launch state-of-the-art technology in an entirely new field. And they wanted to lead it in such a way that the people who worked there loved their jobs, enjoyed working together, and were fascinated with their work.

The technology that propelled Xilinx into being was considered an off-the-wall concept in 1984. Invented by Xilinx co-founder Ross Freeman, the new semiconductor, now known as the field programmable gate array, was a completely new form of programmable logic.

These chips could be personalized by customers to perform a variety of functions by programming them with the help of software. "The concept required lots of transistors and, at that time, transistors were considered extremely precious -- people thought that Ross's idea was pretty far out,” said Xilinx Fellow Bill Carter, who when hired in 1984 was the company’s eighth employee.

1874 Establishment of Vaillant as a craft workshop for installation work. The 23 year old tailor’s son declares in the newspaper in Remscheid that he has “established himself as a coppersmith and pump manufacturer

1894 Patent for gas bath boiler “closed system”. This boiler permits heating water in a hygienic way for the first time, without the combustion gases condensing into the water. The temperature of the water can also be controlled. This is a groundbreaking innovation in the field of heating technology.

1899 Johann Vaillant adopts the “Easter bunny in an egg” as the trademark of Vaillant. This makes him one of the pioneers in the field of branded products in the German consumer goods industry. The Vaillant bunny is today the most familiar heating technology trademark in Europe.

1905 Wall-hung version of the Vaillant gas bath boiler “Geyser” conquers the world. There is enough space in virtually any room for the convenient hot water preparation system. An innovation which survives to the present day.

1924 Vaillant develops a central heating boiler. It was previously necessary to have an oven or fireplace in each room and this innovation allows heating of all the rooms in a house from a central location. It is now only necessary to have radiators in the rooms.

1943 Vaillant factory buildings in Remscheid are destroyed in an air-raid.

1977

By accident, home shopping gets its start on a Clearwater, Florida AM radio station when an advertiser cannot pay his bill. The station owner accepts 112 electric can openers in lieu of cash, which he decides to auction over the air. A complete sellout gives birth to "Suncoast Bargaineers," a regularly scheduled radio show.

1981

Concept moves to Tampa Bay-area local access cable as "Home Shopping Channel."

1982

Home Shopping Channel graduates to a regular local Tampa-area cable system and is assigned a permanent channel number.

1985

Rechristened "Home Shopping Club" (HSC), the network launches nationwide, broadcasting 24 hours a day through cable and local television stations.

Company employs 300 people and boasts 75,000 regular customers.

1986

The Home Shopping Network emerges as a public company trading on the American Stock Exchange.

1995

Barry Diller, former chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Paramount Pictures Corporation and Fox Inc., purchases The Home Shopping Network and joins HSN as chairman of the board.

1997

Parent company HSN Inc. purchases a controlling interest in Ticketmaster, the world's leading ticketing company.

OOLCORP is the world’s largest wholesale distributor of swimming pool supplies, equipment and related leisure products with a long and distinguished history of customer service coupled with quality products. The company currently trades on the NASDAQ stock market under the ticker POOL.

The company was incorporated in the state of Delaware in 1993 as SCP Holding Corp. In 1995, the company changed names to SCP Pool Corporation and on May 16, 2006, the name was changed to Pool Corporation (POOLCORP). Corporate headquarters are based in the New Orleans suburb of Covington, Louisiana.

About POOLCORP

Under the guidance of a seasoned management team, POOLCORP operates wholesale branches through three networks: SCP Distributors LLC; Superior Pool Products LLC; and HorizonDistributors Inc. The company also owns an equity interest in Latham Acquisition Corp., a company that manufactures pool kits and vinyl liners.

POOLCORP sells swimming pool equipment, parts and supplies and other backyard related products to approximately 70,000 wholesale customers around the world. The company operates 287 sales center locations with more than 3,400 employees.

ENTERING NEW PRODUCTS

The 1990’s

1993:

·                          MTS receives first license to provide mobile phone services using the GSM standard

1994:

·                          MTS begins offering mobile phone services in Moscow and the surrounding region

1997:

·                          MTS expands operations into Russian regions

The 2000’s

2000:

·                          Initial Public Offering (IPO) of MTS securities on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)

2002:

·                          MTS introduces pre-paid Jeans brand and begins expansion into neighboring CIS countries through joint venture in Belarus

2003:

·                          MTS acquires UMC, a leading mobile phone operator in Ukraine

2004:

·                          MTS receives additional licenses in Russia to extend its license coverage to include all but two regions of the country

1954-1957

Back in 1954, Bill Frohlich, an advertising executive, and David Dubow, a visionary, set out to create a new kind of information company that could enable organizations to make informed, strategic decisions about the marketplace.  They called their venture Intercontinental Marketing Services (IMS), and they introduced it at an opportune time, when pharmaceutical executives had little data to consult when in the throes of strategic or tactical planning.

By 1957, IMS had published its first European syndicated research study, an audit of pharmaceutical sales within the West German market. Its utility and popularity prompted IMS to expand into new geographies — Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain, and Japan among them.  Subsequent acquisitions in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand strengthened the IMS position, and by 1969, IMS, with an annual revenue of $5 million, had established the gold standard in pharmaceutical market research in Europe and Asia.

1969-1980

With the North America market beckoning, IMS purchased the Chicago pharmaceutical sales audits firm of Davee, Koehnlein and Keating (DKK) in 1969.  Just one year later, with the acquisition of a regional sales audit company, IMS put down roots in Latin America.

IKON Office Solutions was known as Alco Standard Corporation prior to its name change in January 1997. Since the 1960s Alco was a holding company with operations in a variety of industries including steel, gift and glassware, food service, aerospace, paper and office products. By 1992, Alco was a distribution company with two business groups—paper and office products. The paper business was spun off to Alco shareholders in December 1996.

Alco/IKON aggressively acquired businesses from fiscal 1994 to 1998, including traditional office equipment products and service providers, outsourcing and imaging services companies and technology products and services organizations. Beginning in fiscal 1999, IKON ceased its acquisition activity in North America and began to transform from a decentralized holding company of more than 450 acquisitions to an integrated operating company focused on document management products and services.

Beginning in 2000, IKON’s vision was to become the largest and strongest independent document management channel in the world. This vision was accomplished through three strategic priorities:

Growth – IKON invested in resources and programs to capture new market opportunities, retain and expand its customer base, and grow our market share in Europe through a city expansion strategy.

May 1948

The Operation Bureau of Kinki Nippon Railway Co., Ltd. begins handling international freight and travel service.

Nov 1948

Becomes an approved IATA (International Air Transport Association) agency.

Oct 1954

The International Transportation Dept. of Kinki Nippon Railway Co., Ltd. is transferred to Kinki Nippon Travels, Co., Ltd. and changes the trade name to Kinki Nippon Air Travel Co., Ltd.

Sep 1955

Trade name changes to Kinki Nippon Tourist Co., Ltd.

Apr 1969

Kintesu World Express (H.K.) Ltd. is established in Hong Kong.

May 1969

Kintetsu World Express (U.S.A.) Inc. is established in USA.

Jan 1970

GAF Corporation is one of the largest building projects manufacturers in North America, offering not only residential and commercial roofing, but also decking, railings, decorative stone, ductwork and specialty fabrics. The company is known for producing asbestos-containing products.

GAF was originally established in 1929 as an American arm of the German chemicals trust I.G. Farben-Industrie, known throughout the world as I.G. Dyes. The company later known as GAF (originally named American I.G.) was set up to provide competition for other American chemical firms. Best known for its process for the hydrogenation of coal, the company also manufactured dyestuffs, pharmaceuticals, solvents, lacquers, photographic products and films, synthetic silk and other fabrics, a wide range of nitrogen products (including chemical fertilizers), and many other organic and inorganic chemicals.

The name of the company was changed in 1939 to General Aniline and Film Corporation, having acquired all the assets of General Aniline Works and merging with Agfa-Ansco Corporation, a photographic supply business. Due to World War II, the company was seized in 1942 because of its German interests. From that time until 1965, GAF was managed by government-appointed directors. This caused much stagnation in its growth during a time when competitors like Kodak, Xerox and DuPont were growing quickly.

In 1965, government control ended and the company was sold to the public. In 1967, the company acquired the Ruberoid Corporation, which added roofing and related products to its product line. This was the forerunner of what is now known as the GAF Materials Corporation. Ruberoid was originally founded in 1886 in Bound Brook, New Jersey as the Standard Paint Company. The new name, GAF Corporation, was officially adopted in 1968.

The Story of Convenience Shopping

7-Eleven pioneered the convenience store concept way back in 1927 at the Southland Ice Company in Dallas, Texas. In addition to selling blocks of ice to refrigerate food, an enterprising ice dock employee began offering milk, bread and eggs on Sundays and evenings when grocery stores were closed. This new business idea produced satisfied customers and increased sales, and convenience retailing was born!

The company's first convenience outlets were known as Tote'm stores since customers "toted" away their purchases, and some even sported genuine Alaskan totem poles in front. In 1946, Tote'm became 7-Eleven to reflect the stores' new, extended hours - 7 a.m. until 11 p.m., seven days a week. The company's corporate name was changed from The Southland Corporation to 7-Eleven, Inc. in 1999.

Today, 7-Eleven is the undisputed leader in convenience retailing. Based in Dallas, Texas, the company operates, franchises and licenses more than 7,750 stores in North America. Of the more than 5,700 stores the company operates and franchises in the United States, some 4,200 are franchised.

Business Operations

7-Eleven and other convenience stores are operated, licensed and franchised by 7-Eleven, Inc. in North America, and they serve approximately seven million customers each day.

Mark is currently Principal Investigator on the DARPA Integrated Learning Program's POIROT project, where he is coordinating the efforts of fourteen university and industrial research teams to develop a system that can learn hierarchical task procedures or 'workflows' from observations of semantic web service traces.

Dr. Mark Burstein was previously the Director of the Human-Centered Systems Group in BBN's Intelligent Distributed Computing Department, a group of roughly 35 people that includes scientists in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Psychology, Human Factors, Mixed-Initiative Agent-based Systems, Intelligent Training Systems, and interactive planning and scheduling systems.

Mark's research interests include automated and mixed-initiative planning and scheduling, mixed-initiative agent-based organizations, organizational simulation systems, machine learning, models of human memory organization and retrieval, and cognitive models of plausible analogical and qualitative reasoning. He has a long list of published papers, articles and book chapters.

Mark was a founding member of the OWL-S Coalition, a group of researchers from across the country that worked together to develop the OWL-S, a semantic web ontology and methodology for dynamic utilization of web services. He designed many key aspects of the OWL-S model. (See publications on Semantic Web Services.)

HDOS Enterprises operates the Hot Dog on a Stick chain of more than 100 company-owned units, located mostly in regional shopping malls in 15 states, and several international franchised operations. The Carlsbad, California-based company is a quick serve restaurant chain that is completely owned by employees. In addition to its signature batter-dipped turkey hot dog on a stick, the chain sells batter-dipped cheese on a stick, French fries, and freshly made lemonade. A few locations serve all-beef hot dogs on a bun. The chain is known for the brightly colored uniforms and handmade caps worn by its service personnel. This signature outfit has proved so popular that employees are forbidden to lend them out as costumes.

Beginnings

1990

Louisville Gas and Electric (LG&E) forms LG&E Energy Corp., an exempt utility holding company, to prepare the business for future acquisitions.

1991

Acquire Hadson Power Systems, which we eventually rename LG&E Power Inc. (LPI).

1992

Acquire a 36.5 percent partnership interest in Natural Gas Clearinghouse (NGC) of Houston, the nation's largest gas marketing company ($70 million total investment). LG&E becomes the first utility to open its electric transmission system to other parties.

1993

LG&E is the first utility to reorganize to create strategic lines of business: retail gas, retail electric, wholesale generation.

1994

Sell our interest in NGC to NOVA Corporation (Canada) for $170 million. LG&E Energy realigns our corporate structure into two distinct business units - utility and non-utility. The non-utility group (known as Energy Services) becomes the first in the industry to combine the management of all regulated and non-regulated power generation. LG&E Power Marketing is created and receives power marketer (trader) status from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission - the first power marketer affiliated to a regulated utility to do so.

1995

chinadotcom was established in 1995 and listed on NASDAQ in 1999. From its early days as an Internet pioneer in Asia, the Company has grown and evolved into a global provider of enterprise software, business solutions and mobile and Internet applications. Our name change to CDC Corporation helps clarify the identity of the Company and better reflects our development into a larger and more diverse enterprise. The new name, without "dotcom", signals the shift of our business focus away from a heavy reliance on the Internet sector. In addition, the new name without the clear component of "china" symbolizes the Company’s more geographically diversified revenue and customer mix.

Today, we operate in 14 countries around the world, and employ approximately 1,800 staff worldwide. We are a diversified enterprise that owns, directly and indirectly, a global family of businesses across three core areas (i) enterprise application software, (ii) IT consulting and services, and (iii) mobile value added services and Internet media services in China. The principal enterprise application software companies owned by the Company include Ross Systems, Inc., Pivotal Corporation, and IMI. IT consulting services are offered by our Ion Global, Pacific Connections, and Software Galeria subsidiaries in Asia, Australia and North America. In the People’s Republic of China, the Company is a leading provider of mobile value added services and Internet media through the Company’s 81%-owned subsidiary, china.com.

In addition to its diversified business lines, the Company’s revenue and customer mix have also expanded to cover broader geographical regions outside of Greater China. For the quarter ended December 31, 2004, revenue contributions from North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific accounted for 39%, 30%, and 31% of revenues, respectively.