Christian Baumann – författare

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1,2, , language: English, abstract: In 2007 the Volkswagen group with its headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany sold6,191,618 vehicles worldwide and 329,305 employees generated a sales revenue of108,897,000 with an operating profit of 6,151,000 which in turn resulted in a profitafter tax of 4,122,000 .1 The group is divided into two divisions, namely the automotiveone, accounting for 91% of total revenues plus the financial one, contributing 9% tothe total turnover. Within the automotive sector, the company markets its vehiclesunder brands like, VW passenger cars, Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Seat andSkoda. In 1984, Volkswagen as the first western auto maker, began its operational activity inChina. When it entered the market it had to form a joint venture with a Chinesecompany to produce cars. By now the group has thirteen representative companies. Due to its early engagement in the biggest Asian market, it reached a leading positionwhich despite some previous challenges lasted until today. For example, the corporationsold 910,000 vehicles (VW + Audi) in Hong Kong as well as in the mainland of Chinawhich resulted in a market share of 17.8% in 2007.2 Therefore, China is (yet) afterGermany the second most important market for Volkswagen, representing almost 15%of the company car sales. In the following international marketing plan, the author willdescribe how to increase car sales and boost market share up to 20% over the next 2years with the introduction of a new small light weight hybrid car, the VolkswagenCotha. [...]

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1,2, , language: English, abstract: 1. IntroductionIn 1984, Michael Dell, a student from the University of Texas has found his owncompany selling computers build together from stock parts. With the philosophy ofoffering customers customized PC s and selling these directly to them Dell s companybecame the biggest PC seller in the United States in 2000.1 Since in 1996 Dell startedto market his business predominantly over the internet. With this paper the authorwants to analysis the main company homepage, www.dell.com, from an effectivenessperspective. On the following pages the reader will receive information about thebusiness objective, Dell s business models, the audience profile, the web evaluationand a competitor analysis. At the end the findings will be summed up in an overallassessment and a conclusion with a recommendation will be given. [...]

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Leadership and Human Resources - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,5, , language: English, abstract: Today's business world is in many ways different as it used to be 40-60 years ago. One of such dissimilarity concerns the staff turnover. Whereas in the 1950's, 60's and 70's many employees used to work their entire life in only one or two companies the employment culture changed drastically to this day in this regard. Nowadays enterprises have to deal with (early) retirement issues form the so called baby boomer generation and beyond this it is much more common to change workplaces every few years too. Present figures underline that the annual 2005/06 voluntary turnover rate for the US was circa 23.4% which was an increase by 0.7% from the previous year. Although this high value might be specific to the US, another survey identified this rate for the UK in "e;old Europe"e; still to be 17.3% in 2007. These numbers are especially for companies worrying because each job change also means a loss of money. Including the direct costs (e.g. recruitment, selection and training) as well as the indirect ones (e.g. loss of expertise, increased workloads for colleagues plus morale effects on employees) researchers estimate costs between 30% of yearly salary of entry-level staff and up to 400% for high-level employees. Since the impact for firms seems to be significant it has to be their goal to minimize the potential turnover causes. Regarding the UK survey the key ones are change of career (55%), promotion outside of organization (45%), level of payment (41%) and lack of career opportunities (33%). The good thing is that based on a US study the majority of asked business executives, namely over 80% in 2008 against 41% in 2007, realized the top priority of employee retention and its effect on the company overall performance. One firm that was always not as strongly affected as others from high staff turnover but still suffered from it is the Solvay Group. Due to its growing international strategic orientation, the enterprise underwent a restructuring process until 2007 and managed in this course to improve one of the key retention aspects, namely its workforce mobility program. In line with the homonymous human resource issue, the author will initially state the different mobility types including their determinants. After emphasizing the close link between the retention tool of talent management and international mobility including current survey data it will be analyzed how successful Solvay uses its expatriate program to gain a competitive advantage. [...]

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Politics - Environmental Policy, grade: 1,5, Grenoble Ecole de Management, course: Business Ethics, language: English, abstract: For many years scientists alert that a climatic change is taking place which is significantly caused by the way human beings are treating their environment. The negative effects of this development had their origin in the end of the 19th respectively in the beginning of the 20th century when the industrialization in many western countries began. With the industrial progress over the last 100 years an increasingly amount of greenhouse gases is released into the atmosphere causing the ecological balance to become incrementally out of order. The impact can be already felt today as temperatures are rising and this is likely to bring about changes for nature including the human beings and many other species. Although the global climatic change is unlikely to be stopped medium-term because carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas with the largest quantity in the air, is said to have a 100 years+ lifetime span in atmosphere , the effects of the worldwide warming can be mitigated. In the early 1990’s this environmental issue was picked up and first steps for global climate policies were made. In 1997, the diplomatic efforts led to the resolution of the so called Kyoto protocol which obligates the member states to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. This result can still today be seen as a milestone in the international climate policy. Therefore, this agreement will be the subject of examination on the following pages. The author will firstly describe the rationale behind the protocol before underlining its main provisions for developed and less developed countries. Moreover, the effectiveness of the treaty will be critically evaluated and finally emphasize will be also given to the impact it has on my home country, Germany.

Master's Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject African Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,0, Grenoble Ecole de Management, course: International Business, language: English, abstract: In the present 21st century the global distribution of power among countries seems to be changing. While since World War I predominantly the United States of America have begun to gain worldwide importance especially politically and economically, it is currently experiencing a slow loss of power due to a number of reasons. One of such is the development in Asia towards economic liberalization and linked with it the rise of China. In particular after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, the Asian country has introduced several reforms under its new political leader Deng Xiaoping that led to ongoing fast economic growth until today. Together with the increasing economic strength China aims for more international influence and recognition as a world power. A demonstration of such claim could be seen in the media on October 1st 2009 when China was celebrating the 60th anniversary of the finding of its People's Republic in the form of the biggest military parade ever. In order to turn this signal of a new global distribution of power into reality, China can not solely rely on a strong economy but needs to establish international political ties too. One reason concerns the geological structure of the largest Asian country because it can be considered to be poor in natural resources. As a result it needs to secure its economy by importing those and hence in the search for international partners it decided to focus also on the African continent. While in the beginning of the 20th century the European hegemony was unbowed in Africa and no country could withstand the traded goods from Europe this development changed drastically just six decades later. The former European dominance on the African continent yielded a rise in influence from other countries like China and India. Or more generally in the words of a Financial Times reporter: Europe was the past, the US is the present and a China-dominated Asia the future of the global economy. If this quotation will come true remains to be seen, but China is certainly working towards that goal and among other things the (re)establishment of close relations with many African states is one part of the current governmental strategy. The following master thesis shall be devoted to the phenomenon of China s return to the African continent since the mid 1990 s. The research question which shall be answered at the end is what is the impact of China s engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa with a country focus.

Software gewinnt zunehmend Einfluss auf menschliche Interaktionen und gerät so zunehmend in ein Spannungsverhältnis zu Recht und Gesellschaft. Probleme ergeben sich insbesondere dadurch, dass Softwaregestaltungen ohne jegliche demokratische Legitimation tief in viele Lebensbereiche eingreifen ohne hierbei den rechtlichen Rahmen angemessen zu berücksichtigen. Aus Sicht des Softwareentwicklers geschieht dies in der Regel aus Unkenntnis des Rechtsrahmens. Der vorliegende Beitrag zur Rechtsinformatik leistet deshalb die Konzeption und Umsetzung eines Produktivsystems zur Unterstützung bei der Entwicklung rechtskonformer Software vor, die überdies eine Laufzeitkontrolle erlaubt. Der Ansatz beruht auf einer technischen Umsetzung der juristischen Subsumtion soweit dies möglich ist und wird durch eine weitgehende Komplexitätsreduktion der normativen Fragestellungen ergänzt. Als Szenario soll die Entwicklung des „Internet der Dienste“ dienen, welches als umfassendes Ökosystem betrachtet wird, in dem Dienste beispielsweise über Marktplätze im Internet handelbar sind.