Coquettish Rebirth

The problems brought about by Enron and Andersen have been further expanded.Originally, the stock market crash in 2000 had made the economic situation of the United States a bit clumsy, and the financial stock market had a direct impact on the real economy. This forced the Fed to cut interest rates several times in a row, hoping to stimulate the liquidity of the real economy of the United States by cutting interest rates. , I want more people to take loans or take out deposits for investment.However, this kind of interest rate cut has almost reached the bottom before Enron filed for bankruptcy, and it is unlikely to cut interest rates afterwards, so it can be said that Enron and Andersen really hit the real economy again!Moreover, the impact they brought directly affected the confidence and enthusiasm of the people to invest money after the interest rate cut!This all of a sudden hurts the real economy too much!

And what hurts more?It was after Arthur Andersen was at the end of his rope that he had to "confess and be lenient" to report the financial problems of other companies they handled.This revelation embarrasses many companies—ibm, Cisco, Xerox, etc. have all had a series of "cooperations" with Andersen before, but their financial violations are not as serious as Enron!This hit the U.S. stock market again, and even IBM's stock price rushed all the way down!But speaking of Cisco, this company is simply too unlucky.Originally, they finally managed to stop losses. After laying off more than 8000 employees in the second half of the year, the company's sales revenue in the fourth quarter was more than 40 billion US dollars, and the final profit was 700 million US dollars.Although it seems unbelievable that a huge Cisco has only earned $700 million in three months, this is mainly caused by the various severance pay they fired employees.Now in the fourth quarter, more than 8000 employees have been completely dismissed.In other words, there will be fewer people getting wages in the next quarter, so they can start to "turn losses into profits" anyway!

But after Arthur Andersen broke the news, their stock prices turned around and fell again!Cisco this is really bad luck!But they are not the only ones who are unlucky, and they are even considered lucky in the industry. In half a year, a total of 2001 employees have been laid off in the telecommunications industry alone!The entire industry has laid off 22.5 people. Is this an exaggeration?It is directly equivalent to the dismissal of one-fifth of the employees in the entire industry!Is this an exaggeration?Speaking of which, the more than 22.5 people fired by Cisco are considered a minority among the 8000 people!That's just a little more than a fraction!

And in the middle of the year, there were all kinds of bragging, calling for all kinds of French brothers Alcatel who wanted to reintegrate the world telecommunications market.In the second half of the year, the vegetables will be wilted!They announced it on January 1rd.Because the performance in the third and fourth quarters is too ugly, it will lead to a loss of 3-2001 million euros in the business situation for the whole year of 1, and the losses in the third and fourth quarters themselves must be even greater, so Alcatel is preparing to take the next step. In the next month, there will be large-scale layoffs.All over the world except Europe.They're laying off 2 employees.Then in Europe they will lay off 2.3 people!

What a massive layoff this is, it's simply too scary!Obviously half a year ago, this Alcatel still had all kinds of ambitions!Still shouting everywhere to buy it!Why do you have to lay off staff again and lay off more powerful than Cisco?That's right!Alcatel's loss in the third quarter was as high as 2.15 million euros.In the fourth quarter, it is estimated that the loss will be as high as about 15 billion euros. How much is the direct loss!That is to say, losing so much all at once led to Alcatel driving so many people!Moreover, the business loss in 2001 mentioned earlier was only a loss in the main business. If the money spent on acquisitions is included, then Alcatel is expected to lose about US$2001 billion in 40!

When various companies in the telecommunications industry here began to lose money, there was a lot of panic in the United States. Various companies didn't know if they were joining in the fun, but they broke out one after another. Wal-Mart's traditional retail giant "Kamat"... No, it was "Kmart" that declared it was in crisis and filed a bankruptcy protection application with the court!This Kmart is already 70 years old!Wal-Mart has a much longer history than Wal-Mart. As early as 30 years ago, Wal-Mart was just a little bit of learning from Kmart!Then 10 years ago, the two companies could keep pace with each other, but today, Wal-Mart is 6 times larger than Kmart!It can be said that Kmart really has sufficient power. What is sailing against the current? If you don't advance, you will retreat!

And why would such a Kmart file for bankruptcy?The reason is also very simple, they are self-defeating-in the past few years, in order to compete with Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart relied on large purchases to lower the purchase price, but Kmart only has the US market, and it has not yet developed as Wal-Mart Okay, so in the end, Kmart must pay more than Walmart!So this Kmart thought of a model on a whim, just like KFC McDonald's most of their food has designated cooperative suppliers, this Kmart also thought of such a way of centralized procurement.After ordering almost all the food from a relatively large food company in the United States, the price given by this food company is also quite low. After all, the running volume is relatively large, but people also said that Kmart must settle the payment every week!Otherwise, the food merchants themselves will not be able to turn over their funds at all!

Under such circumstances, Kmart foolishly signed the contract and set a huge liquidated damages.How about the result? By the end of 2001, they really had no money to pay for the goods!Wal-Mart may have a monthly payment for the goods, and it can still have a relatively good cash flow, but if Kmart has no money for a few weeks, it may directly be sued for compensation!In the end, that is, the one-month payment was not settled, and the arrears of 7800 million US dollars were owed, and then the pressure of breach of contract compensation may be faced immediately!So Kmart couldn't stand it all at once, and simply filed for bankruptcy protection!

It can be said that such a Kmart is stupid to death!A group of retail malls in China are in arrears of payment, and some of them have been in arrears for three months just like Taiwan. However, Kmart in the United States is still paying. Do you really think you are an invincible Iron King Kong?According to the "dark management theory" prevailing all over the world, the best way to run a business is to "occupy other people's funds for turnover"!That is to pass on the risk to others and keep your own funds as much as possible!And this Kmart foolishly spent all of his funds, and the cycle is still locked so tightly, it is definitely time to hang himself!

Such a goofy Kmart looks retarded?As a result, even so, Kmart is still No. 500 in the world's top 100!It is much higher than Huaxia Hi-Tech's ranking!Then such a high-end enterprise was only dragged to death by arrears of 7800 million US dollars!It's only more than 6 million yuan!It actually killed the 500th of the world's top 100!Such a case is too shocking?It has indeed caused a great impact in the United States. Everyone can't figure out why Kmart collapsed!As a result, after some analysis by various analysts, everyone knows that although Kmart is ranked high and famous, and can even be said to have accompanied many Americans to grow up, such a company has long been far behind by a rising star like Wal-Mart. Get away!

The simplest data can compare the gap between the two sides - Kmart wants to compete with Wal-Mart, so it opened more than 120 shopping malls a year, while Wal-Mart opened a total of 1000 stores around the world a year!With such a quantitative comparison, how can Kmart be cheaper than Wal-Mart?A company that sells products to [-] stores will definitely have a different price than a company that sells to [-] stores!Under such circumstances, the general company can think of making use of its strengths and avoiding its weaknesses, that is, try not to compete with Wal-Mart on prices, because Wal-Mart is playing low-price competition all over the world, and what they are playing is the most well-known brands in China. Look down on the price war genre!Without any technical content, it is cheaper than others!So the best way for Kmart to compete is dislocation competition. It is best not to take the route of price competition, otherwise it will enter the field where the opponent is best at and wait to be killed by the opponent?But this Kmart just gritted his teeth and entered the field of price wars, and in the end he really drove himself to death!

In addition to Kmart, WorldCom, the second largest long-distance telephone company in the United States, announced that it will have a huge loss in 2001. If such a WorldCom company falls further into the abyss, it is estimated that such things as bankruptcy and bankruptcy will be the same. It's been half a year.Then Adelphia, the sixth largest cable TV company in the United States, also announced that their financial situation in 2001 was very bad, and it is estimated that it will not be long before bankruptcy.In mid-January, Global Crossing filed for bankruptcy protection in the New York bankruptcy court due to its high debts. The company listed assets of 1 billion US dollars in the bankruptcy application documents...

The news of such a series of losses and bankruptcy made the United States really panic.Originally, after the Federal Reserve cut wages, the market still had some improvement, but now such a series of events happened, but it scared all the investors in the United States!Everyone is like a frightened bird, afraid that a company they invested in looks good today, but will announce a serious loss tomorrow, and then go bankrupt in a few days!In this way, doesn't that mean that all the hard-earned money was wasted?And in this way, the economic situation in the United States will inevitably head towards another round of downturn... (to be continued...)