Michael McMahon #1015041 Week 7 Assignment

1. Brand protection is a very important concept for any business especially those in a more competitive and well serviced industry. While an increased demand for your product can lead to greater exposure and higher profit, these same demands for that product can also cause an increase in counterfeiting of your product or in the case of an idea, the taking of your original idea and simply replicating it. The sporting goods industry and hockey equipment especially is one industry where there a wide array of suppliers all competing for a relatively small market s dollar. Bauer Hockey is part of a larger corporation called Bauer Performance Sports Ltd which is a publicly traded company in Canada and which also owns Mission Hockey, an inline hockey equipment company as well as Maverik Lacrosse a lacrosse equipment company as well. According to Bauer s website they are the #1 designer, developer, manufacturer and marketer of hockey equipment throughout the world and account for just under 50% of the global market for ice hockey products (Bauer, 2011). The company is involved in the production of every aspect of ice hockey equipment, producing skates, sticks, protective pads and goaltending equipment and while there are only a few true competitors that are at the level of Bauer when it comes to the amount and variety of equipment that are sold, there are still threats to the company s brand integrity that can have a number of negative impacts on the company. As a business entity Bauer wants its customers to have confidence in the products that bear the Bauer name and logo and that any product from Bauer is of the highest quality. To further this aim the protection of the brand is of paramount importance and Bauer must protect itself from a number of different threats which could arise. Bauer Performance Sports commitment to brand protection has helped to maintain a steady increase in profits over the past few years as financial records from 2011 show net revenues of over 300 million dollars which is an increase from 2010 of nearly 50 million dollars

(Bauer, 2011). While it would take a massive and catastrophic financial event to ruin a large corporation like Bauer, it is important to recognize what threats to brand integrity that face Bauer and what can be done to limit those threats. The first of these threats to product integrity is the reproduction of Bauer equipment by a competitor that then uses their name upon the product. Another threat is the loss of intellectual property, wherein a competitor uses an idea that Bauer developed and then markets that idea as their own. Finally another threat to our brand is the theft and resale of legitimate Bauer products. As Bauer has moved its hockey manufacturing overseas, there is the concern that theft and sale of legitimate Bauer products by employees or their associates could damage the Bauer name and product reputation. An employee that is stealing Bauer products and then selling them over the internet or to another person that sells them may not care for the products as they should be which could lead to premature wear or damage to the product. When a person then uses the product and experiences damage or wear in less time than is normal this causes the buyer to lose faith in the reliability and quality of Bauer and may lead them to feel negatively about the company which they then spread this opinion to others. In order to protect the Bauer product from this it is important for the company to put into place aggressive countermeasures to account for completed products within manufacturing facilities as well as controls over raw materials to ensure that the amount of raw materials that are being removed from stocks are appropriate for the amount of completed products that the employees are finishing. Loss prevention departments should also work to ensure that employees are not able to leave the manufacturing facility with completed products and that random searches of lockers, persons and bags will be conducted. Standard loss prevention strategies to ensure a secure workplace should also be undertaken including locking unused doors, promptly removing stacks of garbage or boxes near exit doors and monitoring the access of visitors to the facility. When it comes to other threats it will be important for Bauer to file trademarks on its products with the Trademark Office in order to claim that a product or innovation is

owned by Bauer and can be legally protected against others. In order to use these protections Bauer must ensure that loss prevention works to monitor sales from gray markets such as Craigslist or eBay to determine the location of origin of Bauer products sold as new to ensure that they are not stolen and resold. To prevent copying of an innovation or a product design it will take the combined efforts of loss prevention as well as Bauer designers to keep a careful eye on competitor companies such as Vaughn or Reebok to ensure that no original concept or design is copied in violation of trademark regulations. These steps should help to protect the integrity of the Bauer Hockey product and to prevent others from profiting from the hard work of Bauer designers. Bauer Performance Sports. (2011). Bauer Performance Sports 2011 Annual Report. Retrieved December 19, 2011 from http://phx.corporate-ir/phoenix.zhtml?c=242945&p=irol-reportsAnnual. Global Intellectual Property Center. (n.d.) Intellectual Property Protection and Enforcement Manual: A Practical and Legal Guide for Protecting Your Intellectual Property Rights. United States Chamber of Commerce. Washington D.C.

2. In reading the report Lost Laptops=Lost Data there were three additional issues regarding internal factors leading to the loss of laptops that I feel were missing from Kitteringham s original report. The first of these three reasons is a lack of training on the part of the company. I feel that it is incumbent on the company to properly educate and train employees who are responsible for taking laptops from the workplace regarding the value of the information contained on their laptops. This training and education would also stress the need to adhere to established company security policies when it comes to employees leaving the workplace with their laptops. I think that by educating employees about the damage that can be done through the loss or theft of just one laptop they would be more responsible with their laptops and prevent data from being compromised. I think that another factor that may lead

to stolen laptops would be the importance, or lack thereof the company places on efforts to recover their laptops in the event that one was lost or stolen. Leadership is a final factor that I think helps to explain the loss or theft of laptops and a key element in reducing these thefts. A leader sets a tone for any organization whether it is good or bad. A strong leader sets an example that should inspire those under him and act as a role model within the organization especially among officers or other junior supervisors. When it comes to laptop security a strong leader will set an example by strictly adhering to established procedures and doing their utmost to ensure their own personal sense of responsibility colors how they treat company laptops and other work devices. In making recommendations to prevent laptop theft I would make two suggestions to my boss. The first of these suggestions would be to increase the security of the laptops with the assumption that they would be stolen. While this may seem odd I think it is important not to plan for the laptops to not be stolen, but to plan and prepare for the laptops to be stolen and how to respond to the thefts. I think that a two prong approach should be implemented with this in mind. The first approach should be to install tracking software on the laptops that transmit a locating signal to the company that they can provide to law enforcement 24/7. This software would lie dormant until the company activated the software which could be done once the laptop is discovered lost. This information would be provided in real time and with little room for error regarding the laptop s location. This approach would be accompanied by at least one large, ugly sticker prominently displayed on the laptop s top and bottom that states that the laptop is under 24hr security monitoring and that the laptop s location will be broadcast across the United States. I would guess that a thief would not want a computer broadcasting his location and what he did on the computer all the time and that would guide the police right to him. A second measure that I would suggest would be more training to employees, especially older workers that now account for an increasingly larger percentage of our workforce. These older employees that may not be as familiar with computers and cyber security may require more training when it comes to

the type and amount of data that is contained on a laptop that must be secured and accounted for. That being said, these older employees may then become more reliable when it comes to their accountability for company laptops as they tend to be more careful and conscientious workers (ioma, 2009). ioma. Demographic Shift in Security Staff Presents Managing Challenges. Security Director s Report. Issue 09-02, February 2009. Kitteringham, G. (2008). Lost Laptops=Lost Data: Measuring Costs, Managing Threats. ASIS International, Alexandria, VA.

3. To explain the issue of tensions between the United States and China over international trade really revolves around two elements. Within the field of information and communications technology (ICT) there is tension between the countries over the issues of standardization and intellectual property (IP) rights. China has become the world s fourth largest economy and exports millions of dollars worth of products a year around the globe but has strict import policies that have also strained international trade relations. Around the world the ICT industry operates on standards that serve to integrate operations and increase efficiency however, the Chinese have adopted their own standards which are an impediment to international trade and have also argued that the existing international standards unfairly favor developed nations and create an uneven trade environment. These claims have been argued by both the United States as well as China to the World Trade Organization without significant results. The United States opposes the implementation of country specific standards over internationally adopted and accepted standards as has happened with China. The complaint of the

United States is that such country specific standards over international standards are a means of sheltering domestic ICT industry from the openly competitive nature of international trade. American trade representatives have pointed out that as China is a major player in international trade they should be prepared to follow the same rules and have the same expectations of them as other nations. While Chinese industry continues to make massive amounts of money from the free market in the US, the same cannot be said of American companies. Instead of the open market that has greeted China in the US, American companies face a relatively closed system where they cannot trade on an equal footing because the international standards that American companies manufacture under are not acceptable within China. This has led to calls that the Chinese ICT industry be more involved with standard setting and that these standards fit existing international ICT standards. From the Chinese perspective they see these measures as a necessary protection from what they have perceived as the unfair trade practices of established companies and nations that are trying to prevent the development of trade and industry within the emerging nations. The Chinese have argued that the current international standards exist to provide sole control of the IP rights to ICT products to patent holders in the world s developed nations who then charge outrageous fees for that IP to be used in the production of Chinese ICT technology made to international standards. Without paying these ransom like royalties Chinese products may be blocked from entering a foreign country and action taken against the producer. Another issue of contention with this trade issue is that the Chinese allege that the holders of the IP rights are also the same ones that control the bodies that set the international standards therefore they establish standards that force companies to use their IP and pay them royalties. I guess that it could be seen like a business being shaken down by organized crime. The criminals come in and tell a restaurant owner that he will only sell Elsinore Beer in his restaurant if he wants to remain in business. The terrified restaurant owner then only sells Elsinore Beer buying it from

the distributor he was told to buy it from. Of course the distributor he is buying it from is the head of the criminals that paid him the visit in the first place. In looking at this problem I can see the perspectives of both sides. The American position is that by creating its own standards the Chinese are in effect closing their import market to American ICT companies while the open American market and widespread proliferation of Chinese made products is causing the US to import more Chinese products than the Chinese are importing of American products. On the other hand the Chinese complaint is that they should be allowed to create their own domestic ICT standards in order to fairly compete with large, developed nations and companies that basically blackmailing Chinese companies into buying their IP if they want to see their products sold in foreign markets. It is a problem for which there is no good solution without knowing the true cause of the Chinese position. On way of looking at it is that the Chinese are simply trying to protect their own domestic manufacturing base against the strong arm tactics of the developed nations. Another more sinister way of looking at it is that the Chinese are waging a very smart campaign of economic warfare in which they are making the rest of the globe dependent on their mass produced ICT hardware while refusing to carry other nations ICT goods in China which only strengthens the Chinese ICT industry.