UnearthedMedia» Business

King Pharmaceuticals To Lay Off 72

Kevin Harris — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:36:33 +0000

According to http://www.tricities.com King Pharmaceuticals is going to layoff 72 works because its Skelaxin had two of its three patents invalidated by a judge. Unfortunatly this is Kings top selling drug. If they lose the third patent then other drug companies would be free to develop generic versions of the drug. The layoffs won’t happen until sometime between March 31 and April 13.

This is a strong employee in Bristol, TN and we all hope they get this straightened out and back onto the right track shortly.

Economy didn’t take a bite out of Apple

Kevin Harris — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 13:46:39 +0000

Article posted on msn.com stated that Apple earned $1.78 per share on revenue of $10.2 billion. Analysts had forecast only a profit of $1.40 per share. Apple has lowered their forcast on revenue for the next quarter to $7 billion because of the economy and lack of interest from buyers. Technology companies should take notice someone in the profession knows what they are doing. I have to admit I have been looking into getting an iphone if it wasn’t for the fact you had to go with AT&T.

Heartland Payment Systems Credit Card Breach

Kevin Harris — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:13:10 +0000

According to foxnews.com and also reported on the companies website, one of the largest credit card breaches ever reported. A New Jersey based company, Heartland Payment Systems Inc, reported on 1/20/2009 that hackers got access to their network and had access to the 100 million credit card transactions they process monthly.

Heartland Payment Systems has created a website just about this problem. The website can be found http://www.2008breach.com. As stated on this website no Social Security numbers or credit cards were compromised in the attack.

Wow I bet someone is getting fired. I don’t know if I could work at tech company that handles credit card process and such. I get parinoid enough just setting up a gateway connection to paypal or other merchant accounts. As the great quote goes – if someone can program it, someone else can decompile it and find its flaws.

Circuit City Closing its doors….FINALLY!

Kevin Harris — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:00:45 +0000

The news is out Circuit City is going out of business. According to www.bizjournal.com Circuit City is asking judge to allow them close down its remaining 567 stores. I say finally! I use to shop at Circuit City all the time mostly because that was the only electronic store available in my area. Finally best buy moved in and now that is where I go if I don’t order it from the web. Evertime I went in ciruit city I always got bad customer service…sometimes none at all. One time I went in to buy a digital camera. I stood around for at least 30 minutes and no one came around no one talked to me so finally I gave up and went to best buy. I haven’t bought anything from Circuit City since. That wasn’t the only time that happened it was just the final straw.

Its hard to hear this during this time in our economy but I don’t know how they survived this far. The style of the business was getting dated and they could have used a new marketing plan.

I do sympathise with all those that will be losing their jobs though. That is never easy on anyone and I wish them best of luck finding a new job.

Leadership and Management

Kevin Harris — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:48:21 +0000

Most people would assume that management and leadership have the same definition. After examining several articles and through my own life experiences I would disagree and have to say that leadership and management are two different roles. You can be a leader and a manager but being both requires a special set of skills. A leader will inspire people by example and will create followers from their example. Whereas a manager will develop idea’s and task and assign those to others to complete on time.

A leader will most likely be natural born. They will have to posse great people skills, though difficult to teach it is possible. With that said, I think it would be more likely to have a leader become a good mananger than it would be to have a manager become a good leader.

A good manager should realize their weakness and will look for qualified people to help in the areas they are weak. For example, if a manager is not a strong leader but is a great planner and speaker then they should look for employee’s that will help fill in the area of leadership.

This is the main topic of discuss in my first class as I am going through a MBA program. Before this I never thought about a manager and a leader being different roles, but now that I have reflected back on my experiences and read about other theories and ideas I can definitly understand how the roles are different yet share a common bond as well.