Business Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Business Ethics - Essay Example In summary, Enron collapsed due to bankruptcy that was associated with a major audit failure of the company’s books of accounts. The bankruptcy led to major losses to shareholders, highlighted by a dramatic fall in prices from 90US dollars to less than a dollar within one year (Thomas, 2002). This was followed by investigations and summoning of the company’s executives who were later sentenced in various prisons. WorldCom was a big company involved in telecommunications business. It was declared bankrupt around July 2002 due to an accounting fraud, but later reemerged for business in 2004 after changing names to MCI (Tolunay et al., 2005). WorldCom was regarded as one of the largest telecommunications company operating in the United States, where it had expanded from Mississippi in 1983. Downfall of WorldCom begun when it started experiencing diminishing infrastructural demands due to the oversupply of telecommunications, and as a result, its revenues had fallen since t he debt was used to finance huge infrastructure investments. Thus, the main cause of demise of WorldCom was the increasing of net income and assets through transfer of expenses to the main capital account (Tolunay et al., 2005). There was an understatement of operating expenses and capitalized costs were treated as investments. There are specific ethical violations in accounting practices that were done by Enron and WorldCom since in the year 2000, Enron had started showing financial difficulties and problems. CEO Jeffrey Skilling did one of the ethical violations, as he had formed a method of concealing and hiding some company operations and financial losses it incurred. This was referred by financial analysts as Mark-to-Market accounting (Seabury, 2011). As Seabury (2011) highlights, it is a method used in trading securities by the determination their actual value at the current moment. This method is considered as not suitable for conventional businesses. The second violation tha t led tocollapse of Enron was issues of corporate governance (Jickling, 2002, p. 4). This was caused by a conflict of interest between the executives and the company. For example, Andrew Fastow, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), had made a deal with Enron by partnering with it to do business. In these transactions, the CFO concealed losses and debts which were acrued by Enron. Hence, this had a significant impact on the reported Enron profits (Jickling, 2002). The third ethical violation in accounting practice by Enron was referred to as Accounting issues (Jickling, 2002). This was due to the fact that Enron recorded cancelled contracts and projects as assets in its books and did not indicate which ones were cancelled. In accounting issues, Jickling highlights, Enron used derivative to manipulate accounting figures, and this was an ethical violation of accounting ethics. The fourth ethical violation was pension issues whereby, Enron’s employees held large percentage of stock . The last violation of ethics was in financial audit. The firm’s auditor used careless standards in auditing Enron due to a conflict of interest over the fees they levied for their services. They used unrealistic payment ratios which generated controversy as to whether they were taxable or not. On the other hand, WorldCom had also violated some ethics in accounting practice. Tolunay et al. (2005) highlights that there were three ethical violation

Ebusiness Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Ebusiness - Research Paper Example II. Competitor assessment The nearest competitor of the business is Dell Computers that also allow customization of personal computers to some extent. Dell Computers however rely too much on its own brand and suppliers that charge premium prices which is its disadvantage. This is where the business will position against Dell Computers to gain market share. The company will customize computers at a much lower cost because the parts that will make up the assembled computers will be coming from different suppliers affording customers greater latitude in terms specification and price. Other popular brands that sells online are also competitors but serves a different niche of customers who are not into customization of budget computers and such, not direct competitors. The traditional brick and mortar computer stores are also competitors only that the company can readily beat them in terms of price due to company’s lower overhead cost. III. Online marketing strategy The best way to gain market share is to differentiate from other competitors and serve a particular niche. In case of the proposed company, the product will cater to two types of customer. First, the technical users who would like to customize the performance of their computers. Second, the budget conscious users or business that are looking for ways on how to save on their computer purchase To be able to reach this target customers, the company must be able attract their attention. This can be done in several ways. First, the company can post ads in technical websites such as PC magazine, or even business websites such as The Economist where a link in such sites can land to the company’s homepage. It can also advertise with Google and even Amazon. Initially, it may suffice that the target customers has been informed of the company’s presence. But succeding marketing efforts should translate these product awareness into sales. Second, the company can sponsor popular blogs for review of certain computer parts that would lead the customers to visit the company’s website in their effort to know more about the product. If they are interested with the particular product, they can order it right there and then increasing the company’s sales. The company can also offer free online publication to those who would visit and register in the website to keep in touch with these potential customers. IV. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy There are several methods to optimize SEO for the site that would increase traffic and eventually to an increased sales. First, key words that is best associated with the company such as customized computers, computers, pc etch that would link popular search engines such as google, yahoo, bing etch to the site due to the usage of spiders that associate certain words to certain website. V. Social media integration Social media integration is now a need for business especially for online businesses where it has to make its presence felt by the customers. It also serves as a free advertisement of the company and can be taken as an extension of its official website where customers can inquire or look for information. Facebook would be an ideal venue because of its universal appeal. Twitter can be used for short