Managment Discussion & Analysis

Management discussion and analysis (MDA) is an unaudited section of an annual report in which the management discusses the company's financial performance for the past period, its current financial position and provides insight into the company's future prospects, outlining future goals and approaches to new projects in light of its strategy. Additionally, it discloses its basis for critical accounting estimates.

Example

ExxonMobil annual report for the year ended 31 December 2011 contains a management discussion and analysis. It tells the stakeholders about ExxonMobil's:

1. Business environment and risk management
2. Segment-wise performance for financial year 2010 and 2011;
3. Liquidity and capital sources
4. Capital and exploration expenditures;
5. Taxes;
6. Environmental matters
7. Market risk, inflation and other uncertainties and
8. Critical accounting estimates

The MD&A is a very important section of an annual report, especially for those analyzing the fundamentals, which include management and management style. Although this section contains useful information, investors should keep in mind that the section is unaudited.

Audited financial statements and accompanying notes are standardized representation of the company's performance and its financial position which does not allow the management to have their say. MDA fills this gap by giving them an opportunity to justify the performance and communicate what they plan to do in future. The flexibility which MDA allows in communicating plans about future makes it a very important section for the company's stakeholders. However, it ought to be used with caution because the unaudited forward-looking statements of the management might be too optimistic.

Is it possible for a Company or Business unit to follow a Cost Leadership Strategy and a Differentiation Strategy simultaneously?

Some businesses follow the low cost strategy by striving for efficiencies and economies of scale whereas some businesses focus on differentiating themselves from the competitors in a way other than price.

The subject under discussion is, “Is it possible for a Company or Business unit to follow a Cost Leadership Strategy and a Differentiation Strategy simultaneously”? The answer to the question in my point of view is YES, it is quite possible for a company to continue a cost leadership strategy and a differentiation strategy simultaneously but it does not work for everyone.  Toyota is a good example of an organization that produces quality cars at low price coupled with differentiating strategy. A convincing example is the introduction of Lexus in 1989 by Toyota to compete with other luxury brands of BMW and Mercedes Benz new series.

Cost leadership and differentiation strategies are popular research topics within the field of strategy and have been widely discussed, in particular since Michael Porter presented his model of generic strategies in 1980. Porter’s theory argue that cost leadership and differentiation strategies are irreconcilable, that a business unit which is unable to achieve one of the competitive strategies is likely to be "stuck in the middle" of the competitive marketplace with no competitive advantage. That unit, according to Porter, is doomed to below-average performance. Research by Greg Dess and Peter Davis as well as by Rod White advocate that a trade-off does not necessarily need to be and refer to companies i.e. IKEA, Southwest Airlines, Toyota, IBM, Caterpillar, Wal-Mart and McDonald’s as examples of firms that have successfully reconciled both strategies and thus enjoy “dual competitive advantages”.

Businesses that join overall low cost and high quality differentiation strategy offer high quality and low prices which eventually complicate things following cost leadership. Grant (2005) argues: “Common to the success of Japanese companies in consumer goods industries such as cars, motorcycles, consumer electronics, and musical instruments has been the ability to reconcile low cost with high quality and technological progressiveness. The total quality management methods they adopted exploded the myth that there is a trade-off between high quality and low cost.

StationFi

www.stationfi.com

As Youtube is ban in Pakistan, so i found another website that is similar to Youtube but this site is purely Pakistani. I was searching for some songs over the internet and found this awesome website www.stationfi.com As its new so i think its traffic is less as compare to other Pakistani websites these days.But i like the content and the theme of StationFi The company should go for optimization of the website as its not searchable over the google. i wonder why such an awesome website is not searchable on google. StationFi should be available on the google

Is this world based on chance OR the events happening in this world can be pre-determined?

The study of probability mostly deals with combining different events and studying these events alongside each other. Aristotle said, 

"The probable is what usually happens."

You can't predict the future, but you can use mathematical probability to determine how likely it is that something will -- or won't -- happen. As per my interpretation, YES events happening in this world can be pre-determined. As in life lots of stuff happens, like good stuff and bad stuff and if we can understand the systematic patters and conduct some experiments that why stuff happens than we can predict. In this way we can prevent bad stuff and we can promote good stuff.

In the movie Forest Gump, the character of Forest Gump said: 

“Life is like a box of chocolates you never know what you are going to get”.

I don’t like the statement because as a statistician, using the probability distribution and random experiments, I can predict. Each event happening in this world has some probability and this is most likely based on historical data. An alternative account of probability emphasizes the role of prediction – predicting future observations on the basis of past observations, future observations should behave like past observations.

If we look into the definition of Probability, it is a measure of likelihood that the event will occur and for every event we have different chances that whether it will happen or not. So, we can say that Probability helps us in predetermining the events happening in this world.

From real world, we can take a very common example of a coin flipped before starting a game. Now that event has only two outcomes that whether it will be head or tail. Now by using probability we can find out or predetermine the likelihood of each outcome of an event. For example;

Life Expectancy

Life expectancy is based upon the number of years similar groups have lived in the past. These ages are used as guidelines by entities such as financial advisers to help clients prepare for their retirement years.

Weather

If you are planning an outdoor event such as a wedding, you'll want to check the probability of rain. Meteorologists predict weather based upon patterns that have occurred in previous years into forecasts.

Why We Invest....

As per an economist, when people earn a dollar; they do one of two things with it: they either consume it in the form of spending or save it. A distinction can be made between saving and investment. Some people keep money in the bank that yields nominal interest with minimal risk. Assume you are earning 10% interest per year on your bank deposit and the inflation rate turns out to be 13% in that particular year. In that case you are actually losing 3% per year. Investment in the stock market can make abrupt returns, though it does carry risk. KSE has invincibly risen more than 40% this year. This is the core reason that motivates people invest in financial markets.

“Investing is risky but saving is not.”

Reasons for Investing

People invest to …

1)   Supplement their income through :

a)   Periodic Dividend and Interest receipts; &

b)   Capital gains though price appreciation

2)   Experience the excitement of the investment process

Factors behind Investments in Stock Market

An investor while investing in the stock market keeps in mind the following factors.

·       Opportunity Cost: It is the cost an investor bears as a result of preferring an investment (stocks) and losing its alternative (saving account). The investor invests in the stock market if the opportunity cost is lower thereon.

·        Tradeoff between Risk & Return Risk comes in many forms, but when talking about the risk-return tradeoff, the primary measure of risk is volatility. For instance, stocks can fluctuate widely from one year to the next (or even from one day to the next), whereas the swing in bond prices tends to be less dramatic. Tradeoff between risk and return is based on the concept that an investor should be compensated for risk in an investment vehicle with equal magnitude of return i.e. risk and return should be at the same level.

·        Liquidity: Common stocks and bonds are traded on exchanges. Liquidity is the ease and ability of selling your investment in the marketplace without losing money.

·        Term: How long investor is planning to hold his investment.

Whereas in the insured saving accountholders will get the profits on yearly or interim basis only, the tendency of gains or profits is higher and not time restricted.