What are the main problems encountered during the formation of Essay

What are the main problems encountered during the formation of alliances - Essay Example These factors jointly represent a better placed company that is in a position to compete in the overly competitive global market. Unfortunately, global strategic alliances do not always present the envisioned merits. In any case, they present greater resource challenges. This is often the case when a firm selects the wrong partner. The wrong choice of an alliance partner diminishes the chances of an alliance’s success. Besides the choice of the wrong partner, other factors lead to the collapse or failure of strategic alliances. These reasons include opportunism, cultural differences, lack of commitment by one of the partners, lack of trust, relational risk, and lack of clear objectives amongst others. Globally, there has been a wide preference of global alliances; unfortunately, most of these never achieve the envisioned goals and objectives. In fact, statistics indicate that close to two thirds of alliances fail within the first two years of constitution. Even though the case s of productive strategic alliances are scarce, there exist firms that have benefited from these arrangements. The most common benefits are diversification of risk, competitive advantage, synergy, and ease of market entry. Increased globalization and heightening technology application has augmented the importance of strategic alliances. ... Emergence of technology and globalization has rendered the simplistic generic strategies applied in U.S. markets ineffective. Modern day firms must embark on a path of frequent innovation to remain at par with the ever changing market dynamics and preferably, forge ahead of equally effective and innovation conscious rivals. As a result, firms have to alter tradition approaches to market domination they must be flexible in their market approaches. Most of the areas requiring flexibility are technology, marketing, distribution channels, and plant economics and heightening constraints on resources. To effectuate inter-firm partnership and utilize it as a strategy, business heads must alter their traditional thinking regarding competition and realign themselves to mutual ways of running businesses in the global economy, as resources and strengths of organizations are so varied that no particular firm has all the essential ingredients to come up with effective global strategies (Hiriyappa , 2010). Business leaders are converging on the idea that congregating the capabilities of others firms across the globe to compete efficiently is not only sensible but also necessary. It is clear that strategic alliances have attracted widespread attention and are frequently being viewed as one of the few alternatives to withstanding and outwitting widespread competition. In this sense, global alliances are considered as accommodating contracts between firms from dissimilar countries that are real or possible competitors (Hill & Jones, 2010.p.273). Strategic alliances run come in different arrangements; they can either be official joint ventures, where

An evaluation of computerised accounting information systems Essay - 1

An evaluation of computerised accounting information systems - Essay Example Recently there has been a rise in the corporate accounting scandals which has spread as an epidemic across various regions (Amudo & Inanga, 2009). The data stored in the computer form a valuable asset for an organisation. This data is eventually used in the exchange of funds in the form of Electronics Funds Transfer (EFT). This type of data has a high value. It includes assets like balances in accounts receivables & accounts receivable, inventory levels, funds balances etc. These assets constitute the tangible form of assets whereas the intangible assets include confidential programs and other confidential financial information. The financial data is the most prized asset in any financial reporting process. The financial reports presented by the company exercise an important influence on the general society and capital markets. As long as 1958 there was no tabulation or tracking of the computer related crimes. Such incidents have slowly gained momentum and currently the computer crime can be grouped into categories like financial frauds or theft, information theft and vandalism. The conditions that have induced such crimes are related to the internal environment of the firm as well as external environment that encompass the general marketplace. The internal reasons that contribute to the computer crimes in financial reporting include: The fraudulent fund disbursal is a commonly committed fraud using computers. This is committed by the clerks at the data entry level in accounts payable, benefits section or payroll departments. At the top managerial level financial fraud involves inflating profit figures by misrepresenting the amount of sales. In such cases the higher management arbitrarily raises the sales figures and understates the total business expenses. This is done by either reducing the amount or carrying forward the expenses to the next accounting year. By deferring the expenses incurred in the current