Talk:EDSLIONS/weekly discussions/April 26, 2009
AGENDA FOR TODAY
- Wrap up of Financial Management Discussions
- Strategic Management Discussions
- Company Selection and Overview
- Section 1
- Section 2
- Section 3
- Section 4
- AOB
- [View source↑]
- [History↑]
Contents
| Thread title | Replies | Last modified |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome to the meeting | 19 | 01:20, 28 April 2009 |
| Bye-Bye's and Many More | 4 | 08:27, 27 April 2009 |
| Business For Today | 71 | 08:24, 27 April 2009 |
Hi all. Online now and i will be chairing the meeting. I will wait for about 5 more minutes then we start the discussions.
- Are there any apologies?
- Kindly go through the AGENDA far above.
Hi Victor, it is good you are on line, I was getting worried, welcome--Luisaserra 17:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
No fears my dear. I was stoped by the police on my way to the cafe for overspeeding but all is well and cozzy now.
that's interesting to hear. police rae leaving up to thier responsibilities.
a big roar to you all.--Shungunyoni 18:04, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Victor, while we are waiting for the others to log in, I think it is not a good idea to assign work to Hermanus. I have spoken with him last Sunday and he confirmed to me he is dropping out this year his studies, it is indeed a sad story. My suggestion would be that the work given to hermanus goes to Jeremiah and Utang and I can take the three points, 1.1; 1.2; and 1.3. Let's discuss.--Luisaserra 18:03, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
that is a sad story, is it because of the job loss?
Dear Akachi, it is indeed because of his job loss, and his voice does not sound too good. It looks to me he does not need the pressure of school while focusing on getting the job, and we need to respect.let's pray he gets a job and he can move on with his plans.--Luisaserra 18:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
That is ok. I will effect the changes. I hope Utang is in agreement? Jeremiah was making a comment about his being away for some period. His main assignment was shifted to him doing a comprehensive breif out of all the numerous documents we have about the company. But we will do that in the main discussions shortly.
Luisa, I take note of your suggestion. The only issue i have at the moment is I am travelling on business and will be committed for 12-14 hrs days. I have a few things for the group, so you may need to consider that when you allocate wor to me.
Hi Jeremiah, please make another suggestion that can fit with your current work schedule, thanks, I am sure all of us can fit to that.--Luisaserra 18:13, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
yep, i think utang will not be available as she coming back today
fine, hope my submission was useful
Thanks Akachi, I was so busy I didn't acknowledge it. Thank you very much. It was useful --Shumimlingo 18:10, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Hey
I am looking through your document, I am using track changes to ensure that we get all the spelling right, then we need to format paragraphs. Remind me something, the font, do we have a standard font for all assignments or we you deliberately used size 11 to meet the page requirements?
Kindly reply here with your log-off messages.
Thanks for the meeting, very well conducted and participative. Let's keep it up. please check the mylifeUnisa email it has got the dates and the physical address of the exam center. Please make sure all of you have the UNISA identity card for the test.--Luisaserra 19:27, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Agenda Item 1: Wrap up of Financial Management Discussions
Kindly reply to this and put your comments about the FM assignments here. Shumi will respond accordingly
(
: DISCUSSION CLOSSED !!)
I have been asked to look at the rationale for using thr turnover figures against the revenue figure for the trend analysis that we performed. I can see the ratio analysis was done using revenue, so I am yet to respond to that. Shumi, its on my to do tonight.
please i need clarifications as well, what's the difference between revenue and turnover?
the assignment was ok on myside, shumi will comment better as the project leader
Lions as per e-mail sent a little earlier. I need your final comments on the draft. Shungu will be putting it on 'letter head' shortly. That assignment is quite subjective hence the more thoughts the better. For now 2 questions
I have not managed to keep it to 8 pages. There are a lot of tables there. Should I maintain the current 11 pages or chop stuff. The 11 pages is driven by Tables
Who will do the final quality check in the absence of Hermanus....is this Jerry??/
In the abscence of Hermanus and with Jeremiah travelling this week perhaps Utang can fill in? Utang has made very good point also about referencing etc. We can still use the same templates developed, etc.
I think I may be the culprit on quality checks. However, I am not able to pdf documents using my notebook. So i will ask any member to help pdf after i do the final quality checks.
Thank Jerry. I'm sure Utang can PDF. --Shumimlingo 18:27, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Utang is the substitute of Hermanus on the project charter. The probelm is she is not online to commit to do that, i will chase that up with her. can some of the tables be put as Appendixes, then you do not have to chop the document, right? This is a braod comment because I was not able to see the document yet.--Luisaserra 18:25, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
lets go with utang. as suggested by luisa. use appendixes so as to avoid chopping off the documents
I do not know whether i have missed the draft or not are we sure we can wrap up before the first draft? and this afternoon Shumi asked us about the formulas which were used there after i did not check with my mail. --Shungunyoni 18:18, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Lions The first draft is in your e-mail boxes. I sent it earlier today. What I need is for everyone to have a look and comment on it and send responses via mail. Shungu, I need your assistance with the final editing. --Shumimlingo 18:21, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
okay can you give people a deadline for their comments so that if no comment comes along l get to know that all is fine. the other question is , l know it is sensitive but l need to know on the members contributions, it is purportedly said that Hermanus has withdrawn is this official, so that he appears on the contribution lists?--Shungunyoni 18:39, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Lions, we need to have this draft by tomorrow available to all. Shungu & Shumi please make sure it happens. Quality checks needs to be done by Utang she is the one that replaces Hermanus as per the project charter, she is not online so I will try and get hold of her, otherwise who is available to do quality checks on the document?--Luisaserra 18:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
well, moving forward we may look at utang now so that we can sort out the assignment.
Akachi, is she back in Lagos? do you know?--Luisaserra 18:26, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
AGENDA ITEM 2.1: Company Selection and Overview
- Are there any comments/questions about the company selected?
- Jeremiah -- any comments about your assigned task?
(: DISCUSSION CLOSSED !!)
I will do the brief analysis of the company tonight and ship the document to you. The key reference document will be the 10K document, which i forwarded to all of you.
Thanks a lot. Its nice we will have the doc by tommorrow. ALthough the 10K document is available, the breif developed in the format i gave will be helpful. We will all also be falling on you for more bits and peices of info. You must definitly know the company - even if not too thouroughly, better than any of us.
Victor - Maybe the key question is do we need to look at an entity where we have authority to talk to the company or not? If so, then we may have an issue here?
At this particular stage i beleive the most important thing is to KNOW the company and how their operate. We may use any company at all so far as we can make authoritative assessment of issues. Even without permission from the company (like in my first case), because i KNEW how we operate, the brief allowed all members to make analyses even without having TOO MUCH information on the company.
yes, i have gone through the documents as sent by jeremiah. its quite large. does the company know about the study?
Maybe to add more detail on the company selected. It is called ACE Insurance. It is Swiss domiciled, NYSE listed and operates in over 50 counrties in the world.
Products - Life and Non Life insurance - Reinsurance products
Markets - Over 50 countries in the world. - Across all continents of the world. - Dominant in the US and EU. - Has massive operatiosn at the Lloyds of London
Competition - Key competitors include AIG, XL, Allianz, etc
Distribution Channels - Brokers - Online products In short this gives you a glimpse of the entity
thanks for your explanations.
AGENDA ITEM 2.2: Section 1
- Per the new arrangments, i beleive Luisa will be handling this whole section now - is that the case?
- Are there any questions/comments?
(: DISCUSSION CLOSSED !!)
Victor - I posted a question to you on point 1 based on what Akachi asked. Do we need to have authority to speak to the company that we analyse?
I really dont think so. My detailed answer above in the original querry.
Not necessarily.--Luisaserra 18:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Hi Victor I am ok with the section, I will keep in touch with you and Jeremiah as I progress. Utang is flying into Nigeria this evening so I definetly will talk to her tomorrow, we can move to the next topic. Regarding the company, I believe it is fine to have this company. We will use the website and other available business information on ACE. When we run into a sang we will have to make a consultation to Jeremiah on how we proceed. Dear Lions it is to late to start debating now about this being the right company, let's take the challenge and deliver this assignment. The problem we are facing a lot of other groups must be facing, I am sure of that and we all need to make plan B, that is what we have done, let's move with confidence forward.--Luisaserra 18:41, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
i agree with you luisa, we need to make progress i think the assignment is due on May 15 just three weeks away. the document/company information sent by jeremiah has detailed information about ACE. so we can work with that.
my section is okay l am still marrying it with the selected organisation ace.it should be straight forward.--Shungunyoni 18:57, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
AGENDA ITEM 2.4: Section 3
Any comments/questions?
(: ACTIVE for discussions for the nest 5 minutes)
please can you help with the details of each section? this may help for the discussion.
Akachi, i provided detailed on the SoW about the expected outputs from everybody section by section. It may be helpful if we ALL had our SoW opened in front of us?
ok, with the information available i will proceed with the internal & external environment analysis of ACE as assigned.
Thanks a lot my brother. How about you Shumi?
Vic
I responded to this...I'm ok. --Shumimlingo 19:04, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Can someone kindly email me the Strategic Management SOW. Use these addresses: hove@work.co.bw or tmatabire@yahoo.com
Hovelet me do that when we finish the wikitalk--Luisaserra 19:10, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Hi Victor,
Sorry for the delay. I was a bit lost. I'll do my part. --Shumimlingo 19:00, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
since there is no response, can we close for the day?
Maybe as a point to everyone, we wil need to focus on the Insurance business of ACE. I will summarise the different types of businesses/ segments they have and expand on what they represent. Dont worry about the insurance jargon, but they sell a product just as good as blades from Gillete.
Maybe as a point to everyone, we wil need to focus on the Insurance business of ACE. I will summarise the different types of businesses/ segments they have and expand on what they represent. Dont worry about the insurance jargon, but they sell a product just as good as blades from Gillete.
though the information is very large. there seems to be no difficulty in the assinment. so we can proceed.
AGENDA ITEM 3: Any Other Business
- Any comments/questions?
- We are wrapping up today's meeting now.
(: ACTIVE for discussions for the nest 5 minutes)
I will make efforts to respond to emails, but please bear with me, i have a hectic 2 weeks away from home.
dear Lions, we still did nto discuss hermanus contribution % for the finance assignment, what is the teams position?--Luisaserra 19:11, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
is the withdrawal official? i guess if the withdrawal is official, then we can remove his name from the team list.
Luisa
I'm a bit confused about Hermanus. If he has withdrawn will us giving him any contribution help? Anyway for the record I'm ok with giving 100%. Just a bit confused. Please e-mail us an official position --Shumimlingo 19:15, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Shumi, he told me he would send all of us an email saying good bye and he was going to talk to SBL about dropping the studies for this year. I will give hima a call tomorrow and find out, because if he has dropped from studies us giving him 100% does not show a lot of credibility as group you understand?i will come back to you all on it, thanks.--Luisaserra 19:19, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps what makes his case different, is that he communicated his issue. I sympathise with him, and i urge you guys to support him for now. I go for a 100% score.
Dear Jeremiah, I will contact him regarding this issue, so I express to him that we asa team will give him 100%, but I need to know if he has officially drpped from SBL. Thanks for the contributions--Luisaserra 19:24, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
yes o. how are we preparing for the test? has everyone checked on mylife email account. how about study school in june? can we plan to stay in one hotel?
Akachi I hope u will act father christmas and shower us with beers at the study school.
get ready. how many bottles can you go?
I am also very interested in the test. Has there been any new EDS posts with past questions etc?
For the study school, we need to live together or in very close proximity as discussed. We should also arrive on the Saturday as discussed and agreed by the group so that we have our scheduled formal group meeting for the year.
Arriving on Saturday is a must, as we agreed back in February. i will be staying at Mia's Nest as I did last study school. Akachi are you staying there too?--Luisaserra 19:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
