The Issue Essay examples

Submitted By kevanmc7
Words: 518
Pages: 3
Open Document
09/19/2012

Tomeka Harbin

MGT 305-01

The Issue: De Beers' Multifaceted Strategy Shift

De Beers' manager, Gareth Penny, faced a multitude of challenges in the 1990s, due to rising geopolitical and geoeconomic factors from all sides of the industry. De Beers was founded in 1888 in Luxembourg, and since has been the “poster boy” for monopolistic strategy. The company controlled as much as 90% of the world's diamond market, with mining operations in companies such as Botswana, Namibia, Canada, and South Africa.("De beers ," 2012)

De Beers' strategy through its 124 year history has been strict control of the supply of diamonds available around the world. If a smaller company tries to enter the market with diamonds at a certain rate, it simply floods the market with similar diamonds and causes the price to fall temporarily to defeat its new entrant. This strategy worked well for over 100 years. However, Gareth Penny, the companies' director during the 1990s, decided to change its business model from supply side control to sparking demand, mainly due to new discoveries of diamond supplies outside of the company's control. Additionally, the fall of the Soviet Union flooded the market with soviet diamonds. The had agreements with the Soviet Union to sell its diamonds through De Beers, so when it fell so did the agreements.. It had goals of increasing global diamond demand by 5% a year, by offering its own brand direct to consumers and and marketing its suppliers, as the preferred distributors of De Beers diamonds.

A contributing factor to this shift from supply management to demand sparking, was the widespread media bombardment on “conflict diamonds” or “blood diamonds”. The United Nations defines conflict diamonds as “...diamonds that originate from areas controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments, and are used to fund military action in opposition to those governments...”("Conflict diamonds," 2001). Penny's response for De Beers was to align itself with the governments of these countries, to certify that the diamonds it receives and distributes are free from blood diamonds. He also
Show More

Related Documents: The Issue Essay examples

Issues Of Diversity

Issues of diversity Issues on diversity By: Derrick Brown BUS200 Workplace diversity is referred to as the variety of differences between all people in an organization which consist of race, sex, age, ethnic group, personality, education, cognitive style, tenure, organizational function, background and so forth. It not only involves the way people perceive themselves, but how they perceive others as well. Those perceptions affect their interactions with others. For a variety of employees…

Words 924 - Pages 4

Eeoc Issues

regards to my ongoing medical issues. When I started the job I was not aware of the illness. After being at this company for a year and had FMLA time and had to request the necessary work accommodations such as intermittent FMLA, and other accommodations regarding my disability, the former employer did everything they could to not provide any accommodations. As a result of medical issues the employer discharged my employment and said to “reapply when my medical issues were resolved.” The complaint…

Words 746 - Pages 3

Gerrymandering Issues

Zachery Key AP Government 3AB Ms. DeLong This Article highlights the issue of gerrymandering in Wisconsin and further elaborates on ways to identify this problem primarily through analysis of the efficiency gap, or the number of votes spent on the losing candidate or even votes beyond those necessary to elect an individual running for office (also known as wasted votes). The efficiency gap computation relies on complex mathematical formulas that discern the relative number of wasted votes of…

Words 425 - Pages 2

Issues Project

Issues Project With your group, you will be identifying, researching and presenting either a science based or social based “issue” to your peers. The following information needs to be included in your report. All members must contribute to the project and the presentation. Science based issue- below are the general guidelines to finding research for your assigned issue. Use the guidelines as reference for researching and presenting all aspects of your issue. * Identify the issue you…

Words 626 - Pages 3

The Issue Of Art

Art issue, highway sculptures: Everybody sees them as they race down the freeway, especially down the East Link. These large pieces of art you see for about ten seconds are there mostly to break up the monotony of the freeway drive but are also there to pay artists, some sculptures costing easily over twenty thousand dollars for something as simple, and to some as stupid, as a giant rams skull. There are points to make for both sides of the issue. The people for the sculptures will say how they…

Words 394 - Pages 2

The Issue Of Breastfeeding

Introduction In today’s society we are faced with numerous local and worldwide issues that tend to stir up some level of concern and emotion. Some of those issues include such things as drug abuse, poverty, and gang violence. Another issue that surprisingly gets a lot of feedback believe it or not is the subject of breastfeeding. One might wonder, why would anyone make a big deal about nursing your child? However, society has found many reasons why it is such a popular topic. Opinions about breastfeeding…

Words 1076 - Pages 5

The Issue Of Independence

and establish if the CPA Firm and its associates are independent. These two steps must be done before the CPA Firm can decide to accept the audit engagement. There are many important factors, steps, issues, knowledge, just to name a few that go into an audit but this paper will focus on the issue of independence. One of the principles listed in the AICPA Professional Code of Conduct states that an auditor in public practice must be independent in appearance and fact (AICPA Standards). As stated…

Words 4418 - Pages 18

Issues Of Homelessness

reality is that thousands of other people experience that situation on a given night. Many of the people sleeping in the streets do not only deal with the issue of lacking a home, however, they might also be dealing with other issues such as an illness or a disability. I find homelessness to be an immense social issue in our world today. This issue…

Words 778 - Pages 4

Abandonment Issues

I chose the poem by Isaac Golle and the title is “Abandonment Issues,” and a art work by Jaroslav Panuska named “Death and Abandonment,” to analyze my reading while I read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. All of these helped me have a deeper understanding of my Big Question I have. Also all of these three things helped me have a different understand to my Big Question. To begin the poem “Abandonment Issues,” by Isaac Golle helps me have a deeper understanding to my book because he explains how he…

Words 427 - Pages 2

The Issue Of Entitlement

French WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama raised anew the issue of cutting entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security as a way out of damaging budget cuts, a White House official said on Sunday, as both sides in Washington tried to limit a fiscal crisis that may soon hit millions of Americans. Signaling he might be ready to explore a compromise to end automatic spending cuts that began late Friday, Obama mentioned reforming these entitlement programs in calls with lawmakers from…

Words 444 - Pages 2