CASE STUDY
A major worldwide Financial Services company demanded more computing power from its existing data centre facilities to deliver higher speeds for transactions, with tighter security, whilst reducing their operational costs and carbon emissions. As a result of replacing all existing switches with BLADE’s RackSwitch G8000 1/10Gb aggregation switch units, operating costs were reduced by 80 percent over a three year period, latency was reduced 73 percent and cabling requirements were minimized through the use of consolidated infrastructure.
From a network perspective, it is important to consider the significant benefits that more efficient switching equipment can provide in speed and power usage, as well as in reduced cabling. Bringing the networking back to a rack level will have a positive impact on the overall resource usage in the data center. Though this type of technology is mainly suited to large IT operations, it may be relevant to those SMEs that have high processing needs and where there are opportunities to consolidate switching hardware. Featured Organizations BLADE is the leading supplier of Gigabit and 10G Ethernet network infrastructure solutions that reside in blade servers and server and storage racks. BLADE’s virtual, cooler and easier Rack Switch family demonstrates Rackonomics – a revolutionary approach for scaling out data centre networks in order to drive down total cost of ownership. The problems needing to be addressed? A major worldwide Financial Services company demanded more computing power from its existing data centre facilities to deliver higher speeds for transactions, with tighter security, whilst reducing their operational costs and carbon emissions. New solutions for the existing switching infrastructure were needed so that these demands could be achieved, scaling out data centre networks to drive down total cost of ownership. The Proposed Solution Operating 25 data centres worldwide and 18 pods per data centre, existing legacy switches were replaced with high performance BLADE’s Rack Switch G8000 1/10Gb aggregation switch units in each location. Each of BLADE’s integrated blade switches provide network intelligent switching features, simplified cabling, and fewer network ports to purchase, cable up, and manage. What were the End Benefits? (Efficiencies, Productivity, Financial, Cultural or Other) By replacing the older external switches with BLADE’s Rack Switch G8000 1/10 GB aggregation switches; overall power costs were reduced by 80 percent over a three year period. In addition, BLADE’s integrated blade switches provide network intelligent switching features that simplify cabling and reduce the number of network ports that need to be managed, thereby providing significant savings in associated cabling costs and annual maintenance contracts.
Answer the following question.
Q1. Explain how savings in power consumption leads to sustainability.
Q2. Discuss how Financial Services company was able to reduce various costs associated with data centres.
CASE STUDY
An excellent international case study comes from bike manufacturer Triumph, which lost steam in its British home base three decades ago, but found new life by heading overseas. In 2010, Triumph sold just 7,562 bikes in the UK, but 50,000 worldwide, indicating that an international interest paid off for the company. Triumph’s famous factory in Warwickshire closed up shop in 1983, but the Indian factory remained, and these days, the motorcycles have become the country’s Harley Davidson. The company struggles to meet demand in India, with a six month waiting list and a new factory being built. India’s middle class has embraced the vehicle as an affordable commodity, even giving them as dowries in weddings.
Answer the following question.
Q1. Give your views on the case.
Q2. How the bike manufacturer survived, despite the steep fall in sale of bikes in their home country. Discuss.
CASE STUDY
After the dismal financial performance in the early 2000s, Yahoo! (Yahoo) is on its way back to profitability in 2003. Under the guidance of Terry Semel (Semel) CEO Yahoo, the portal is on the way to becoming the largest media company in the world. With the spread of broadband, brand advertising is steadily becoming the largest source of revenue for online companies. As advertisers flock to Yahoo, Semel has a tough task of convincing traditional media, which is responsible for most of its content, to continue their relationship with Yahoo Semel believes that ‘Social media” where content is generated by users themselves, through their photo and video blogs, podcasts and hyperlinks, is the “next big thing” on the internet both for the user and the advertiser. As Semel makes investments to make social media a reality, he wonders if his bet will pay off. With so much content being generated in Yahoo, will Yahoo be able to maintain the fine balance between guiding the user to the most relevant content and its own content?
Answer the following question.
Q1. Discuss Yahoo’s growth
Q2. Discuss the competition and changing markets
Q3. Explain Yahoo’s new growth Strategy in changing environments
Q4. Give an overview of the case.
CASE STUDY
Since the formation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947, its main objective has been to promote international trade between nations by reducing agricultural tariffs, export subsidies and domestic support, the major barriers to trade. To achieve its objective, GATT monitored eight rounds of negotiations starting with Geneva round in 1947 to the Uruguay round that lasted for 9 years. However, except the Uruguay round that succeeded in setting targets regarding reduction in tariffs, domestic support and subsidies by both developed and developing countries none of the rounds was successful. What were the reasons for the continuous failure of the rounds, when the objective of all the member countries has been the same? n 1995, World Trade Organization (WTO) replaced GATT to carry forward the same noble objective – remove barriers and uplift the developing nations. The major negotiating round post WTO’s formation was ‘The Doha Development Round’ in July 2008. However, not surprisingly, this round also collapsed on the 9th day on the issue of usage of ‘Special Safeguard Mechanism’ by developing countries. Interestingly, Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) between two or three neighboring countries have had a higher rate of success than Multilateral Trade Agreements (MTAs). When RTAs could be successful, why couldn’t developing and developed countries meet on a consensus with regard to MTAs? In spite of benefits from trade liberalization, why do these trade negotiations continuously fail? Who should be blamed for the failure of the Doha Round? The case delves into the same issues. On November 15th 2008, few of the member countries decided to conclude the Doha round and meet in December 2008 for the same. Will this round be successful? The case also explores into the measures that need to be taken to make all the member countries think and act alike.
Answer the following question.
Q1. Explain the historical relevance of formation of WTO (GATT) and other MTAs.
Q2. Explain the difficulties in reaching consensus in MTAs and implementing those policies
Q3. Analyze the reasons for the failure of Doha round of trade negotiations.
Q4. Debate the way forward for this impasse and reflect on the relevance of MTAs in the light of increasing globalization and bilateral trade in the world.