A Musical Interlude

Shannon Farrell Williams and Jamie Hofman performed "Lament" by Frank Bridge at a gala on the occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of the String Academy of Wisconsin in 2010. 


 

The String Academy is closely associated with the distinguished Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, where both Mr. Hofman and Mrs. Williams continued their studies, working with Mimi Zweig, Atar Arad, Jerry Horner and others.   Today Mrs. Williams plays with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Colorado Music Festival.  Mr. Hofman is on the faculties of The String Academy, Carroll University and the Eastern Music Festival and has been a member of the Louisville Symphony, the Milwaukee Symphony, and the Louisville String Quartet.

The String Academy of Wisconsin at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee offers a unique educational experience for students ages four to eighteen to study the violin, viola and cello.  

Work We've Done

Click on the links below to see case study summaries of some of our past projects.

• Draining $70 million in Beer Distribution Costs
  
• Optimizing the Distribution Network
  
• A Better S&OP Process for a CPG Leader
• Simplifying Distribution for a Coffee Retailer
  
• Achieving Medical Claims Processing Accuracy
• Turning Data into Business Intelligence
• Fixing a Botched SAP Implementation
• Customer Service Leadership for a Major Brand
• Strategic Selling for Print and Distribution
  
• Restructuring a CPG Distribution Network
  
• Inventory Strategy for a Global Air Freight Carrier

See our newsletter on Restaurant Lifecycle Management here.

A collection of posts about the US Economy is maintained here.

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Restaurant Lifecycle Management

See these posts for perspectives on the development of retail and restaurant chains:

• A Lifecycle Approach to Retail Store Development discusses techniques for managing information about a retailer's most important asset
  
• The Evolution of the Quick Service Restaurant, our most popular post with college students, provides a condensed history of take-out food
• The Smart Kitchen discusses how enabling network monitoring of kitchen equipment can improve chain restaurant performance
• Design is Destiny, about the importance of using a holistic approach to restaurant design
• May I Have a Scone With My Coffee examines the information required to introduce a new capability to a restaurant chain.
  
• Starbucks: A New Forum reflects on the notion of retail location as meeting place
  
• Brand, Menu and Store Design, an excerpt from The Economist with our views on McDonald's branding dilemma
• Building the Scalable Enterprise, about the role of decisions about enterprise architecture in determining the success of McDonald's Corporation
• Too Many Starbucks? looks at the microeconomics behind the Starbucks phenomenon
• McDonald's Strategy: Meat, Potatoes and Coffee considers the direction McDonald's is taking under Jim Skinner

To learn more about our work in consulting, please see our Profile or check out our Case Studies.
Contact JP Farrell & Associates, Inc.

The Spymaster and the Economist

Jan Kmenta, Professor of Econometrics

The work of the best novelists and scholars burrow into the psyche. Peculiarly in my own mind the British intelligence officer and novelist David Cornwell (aka John le Carré), and Czech-born Jan Kmenta, the wry professor of econometrics, are inextricably linked. Both exemplify their generation's dedication to finding truth in ambiguous settings through careful application of craft.

Kmenta would begin his graduate course in econometrics with a set of definitions:

An Economic Historian goes into a dark room looking for a black cat.

An Economic Theorist goes into a dark room looking for a black cat that is not there.

An Econometrician goes into a dark room looking for a black cat that is not there and declares: "I found it!"

The rest of the course (and the three that followed) was devoted to an arduous study of the theory and practice that would keep us from making any such a mistake. With humor Kmenta could shoulder the futility of his quest, but he could not abide those who mistook shortcuts for progress.

John le Carré

These ruminations began when by some happy accident I picked up my decade-old copy of John le Carré's The Tailor of Panama. Writing in the mid-1990's, as the West was celebrating the end of the Cold War,
le Carré adapted his method to the times. Turning away from the earnest style of his previous spy novels, le Carré surprised his readers with a comic approach.

His unlikely protagonist, an expatriate tailor with a good heart and a questionable past, is recruited by a novice spy of uncertain virtue. Together they set out to prove the existence of conspiracy fabricated from whole cloth. True to his craft but inept in spycraft, the tailor weaves selective data with imaginative storytelling to flatter the careless and comfort the powerful. The institutions charged with analyzing and verifying his reports fail to question false information that suits their narrow interests. Let loose in a benign environment, the misdirected agents of change wreck havoc.

In the aftermath of the intelligence failures of this twenty-first century, John le Carré seems eerily prescient. By the same token, clients are advised to select their consultants and govern their projects with unusual diligence. It is all too easy to prove the existence of black cats that were never there.

To learn more about our work in consulting, please see our Profile, read a few of our Case Studies, or Contact JP Farrell & Associates, Inc. directly.

Timeline of Financial Bailout of 2008

Day	Date	Action
Q3-Q4: 2007		Subprime mortgage meltdown begins
Fri.	30-May-08	JP Morgan completes acquisition of Bear Stearns
Sun.	7-Sep-08	U.S. Treasury seizes control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-sponsored mortgage guarantors
Sun.	14-Sep-08	Bank of America agrees to buy Merrill Lynch under terms set by the US Fed
Mon.	15-Sep-08	Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy
Tues.	16-Sep-08	Treasury agrees to loan $85 billion to A.I.G.; takes control
Wed.	17-Sep-08	Treasury/Fed worry about runs on money markets and investment banks
Thurs.	18-Sep-08	Paulson and Bernanke present 3-page plan to Congressional leaders
Sun.	21-Sep-08	Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs become regulated bank holding companies, ending era of Investment Banking
Wed.	24-Sep-08	Economists submit letter in opposition to the original Paulson Plan, claiming it is unfair, ambiguous and short-sighted
Thurs.	25-Sep-08	Regulators seize Washington Mutual Saving and Loan and arrange sale to JP Morgan Chase
Sun.	28-Sep-08	First draft of Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (HR 3997)
Mon.	29-Sep-08	HR 3997 fails to pass the U.S. House
Wed.	1-Oct-08	Senate passes HR 1424, a modified version of the bill
Fri.	3-Oct-08	Congress passes HR 1424 and President G.W. Bush signs it into law
Week ending 10/10		Dow Jones loses 18% of value in one week. Iceland seizes its banks. Britain proposes direct investment in banks
Sat.	11-Oct-08	G7 finance ministers, then Group of 20 meet at White House to coordinate policy
Mon.	13-Oct-08	Paulson and Bernanke meet with leaders of 9 largest banks. Get agreement on direct infusion of cash
Mon.	10-Nov-08	AIG bailout restructured to include $60 billion loan from US Federal Reserve, $40 billion in securities purchased by US Treasury, and credit lines of up to $30 billion backed by Credit Default Swaps and $22.5 billion against mortgage-backed securities

A collection of posts about the US Economy is maintained here.

To learn more about our work in consulting, please see our Profile, or read some of our Case Studies.

Contact JP Farrell & Associates, Inc.

Health Care Reform Takes Shape

image from http://www.PiperReport.com


With the final markups of the Affordable Health Choices Act now clearing committees in the U.S. House of Representatives, the potential scope of the legislation is becoming clear. And, while the American Medical Association is on board with H.R. 3200, the House version of the bill, the insurance industry is coming out swinging.

Doctors have to appreciate several aspects of the bill. First, the bill would extend insurance coverage to tens of millions of Americans who currently are denied coverage by insurance companies or who simply can not afford it. (See An Explanation of the Health Care Bill.) Second, the bill enhances the role of the primary care physician in determining the effective course of treatment and offers economic incentives for doctors and medical students to take on this role. The bill also addresses flaws in the Medicare reimbursement mechanism and includes measures to promote wellness and disease prevention.

Insurance companies seem most concerned about the introduction of a government-operated insurance plan, which they view as unfair competition. Health care economists argue that a government plan is required in order to:

• Ensure access to affordable care
• Provide market leadership in setting standards and negotiating prices for medical services, which currently vary widely by market
• Develop (and share) processes and information systems for accurately assessing and paying claims
  

The legislative history of the bill, a work in process, demonstrates considerable cooperation between and within the Congressional chambers. The Senate had split the bill into two components. Sections of the bill relating to reform of insurance and other mechanisms for funding health care were drafted by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (H.E.L.P.). That Committee completed its work on the bill on July 15, 2009 and submitted it to the full Senate for consideration after the August recess. The Senate Finance Committee, which took responsibility for drafting legislation governing the cost of health care, has not completed its work.

In the meantime, the U.S. House divided its work among three committees, all of which have completed markup of H.R. 3200. That version of the bill closely mirrors provisions of the bill passed by the Senate H.E.L.P. Committee, but also covers areas still under debate in the Senate Finance Committee. Having effectively taken the lead in the legislation, the House of Representatives is expected to pass H.R. 3200 following the August recess, perhaps with amendments taken from the floor of the House, and submit it to the Senate. At that point the Senate may choose to accept it as it stands (which is unlikely) or continue work on its own version of the legislation. If the Senate passes a bill that differs from H.R. 3200, the House and Senate leadership would then create a Conference Committee made up of representatives from each chamber to negotiate a bill that would be acceptable to both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Important provisions of H.R.3200 that have not been cleared by a Senate Committee would empower the government plan to aggressively negotiate prices, delivery methods and standards of service with providers. The debate about the government's role in determining what kind of care is most efficient and effective is bound to be most contentious.

Expecting a fight in the Senate, the Administration has already begun to telegraph its fallback position by referring to the bill as "insurance reform." In other words, having gotten similar insurance reform provisions through committees in both the Senate and the House, the Administration is confident that at least those aspects of the bill will become law. And, while they would like to adopt stronger measures to accelerate cost containment, those more controversial measures could be sacrificed in the interests of getting insurance industry restructuring underway.

Businesses large and small should be prepared to reevaluate their health care policies, providers and pension plans in light of this new legislation. Economic effects are likely to be profound.

The American College of Physicians has published three white papers: A Public Plan Option in a Health Insurance Connector; Reforming the Tax Insurance Exclusion; and Individual Mandates in Health Insurance Reform.

A collection of posts about the US Economy is maintained here.

To learn more about our work in consulting, please see our Profile, download a brochure about our Practice, or check out our Case Studies.

Contact JP Farrell & Associates, Inc.