Elsmar Cove Forums Index - Is goodwill a quality criteria?

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Is goodwill a quality criteria?
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Posted by: sal881vw

Hello all,
I hope that all of you are enjoying summer

. I tried my hand at another short article that I hope not to bore you with

I have saved the article in a different format and moved it to post #6

Posted by: gpainter

Can not open this. Has anyone else had the same problem?

Posted by: ccochran

Sal,

I'm having the same problem gpainter is having--the file won't open. Can you reload the file?

Craig

Posted by: Cari Spears

Yep - a window pops up that says word needs a converter to view the doc and offers to install now. I did not opt to, as I don't know what it is.

Posted by: Wes Bucey

Quote:

Originally Posted by sal881vw

Hello all,
I hope that all of you are enjoying summer

. I tried my hand at another short article that I hope not to bore you with

Like others, I have no time to figure out what your original program was in order to open your document in readable form.

Best option, in my opinion, is for you to convert document to plain text (ascii) and repost. If formatting and other considerations are important, the Adobe web site offers a free transcription of a document into pdf. It will lead you through directions to get a quality finished document.

Alternately, tell us what program you used to create the doc file.

Posted by: sal881vw

I was out all day yesterday. I'm working from home and I did open the doc. from my side when I posted it and so I thought that it was ok. The document is in OpenOffice.org 1.0.1 text document. I'll try and fix the problem by saving it to windows 95 format and post it again, do excuse the inconvenience.

Posted by: Claes Gefvenberg

Quote:

Originally Posted by sal881vw

I was out all day yesterday. I'm working from home and I did open the doc. from my side when I posted it and so I thought that it was ok. The document is in OpenOffice.org 1.0.1 text document. I'll try and fix the problem by saving it to windows 95 fromat and post it again, do excuse the inconvenience.

You fixed it Silvio. I can read thae latest version

. On with the show...

/Claes

Posted by: Al Dyer

In my opinion goodwill is one of the saving graces in our chosen field. I have said for years that if you have an "in" with a customer rep., half the job is done. It is a tough business keeping customers happy, and the best thing to do is acquire some "good will" with an SQA and become a partner with them. Above and beyond "Big 3 Policy", the action happens on a lower level and having a friend in the system is the only way to smooth over the small problems and expedite the larger problems that should not be ignored.

Which is not to say "kiss butt"!

Al...

Posted by: Charmed

Dear Sal:

You fixed the problem and now have earned my goodwill. I tried to read the file yesterday, and could not open it either. I got a message saying it is on a CD ROM etc. and could't open it. I thought, I will wait to see if anyone reports any problems. Looks like others had some problems.

First of all I enjoyed reading it and it was 'good' to know how 'goodwill' can actually be measured. Now, I have a question. In the last paragraph you mention that there are some (in any organization, I assume) who do not generate goodwill. What do we do with such people, if Goodwill = Asking Price - Market Value is taken to be the only reason for the company's existence? Any thoughts Covers?

Charmed

Posted by: Charmed

Dear Covers:

Sal881vw's article on goodwill reminded me of a recent article in the July/Aug 2004 issue of the Harvard Business Review, by G. Bennett Stewart III. The author defines Market Value Added (MVA), which is sort of like a goodwill, if we look at goodwill as being defined by the equation

Goodwill = Asking Price - Market Value

Stewart defines MVA by the equation,

Market Value Added (MVA) = Market Value - Total Capital Invested

He then ranks companies according to their composite Revenues Growth score, over the period 1983 to 2003, and the Ratio of MVA/2003 Revenue. To make a long story short, the following are the top five companies from the US, ranked according to these criteria.

1. GE
2. Walmart
3. Altria Group
4. Home Depot
5. Microsoft

Intel, which holds a rank of 12 in this list of US companies, had a very high ratio MVA/2003 Revenue = 5.59, second only to Microsoft, whose ratio was 7.07. But it ranked relatively low because of its lower revenue growth. I see a connection between this article and the idea of goodwill discussed by Sal.

Charmed

Posted by: Craig H.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charmed

Dear Sal:

You fixed the problem and now have earned my goodwill. I tried to read the file yesterday, and could not open it either. I got a message saying it is on a CD ROM etc. and could't open it. I thought, I will wait to see if anyone reports any problems. Looks like others had some problems.

First of all I enjoyed reading it and it was 'good' to know how 'goodwill' can actually be measured. Now, I have a question. In the last paragraph you mention that there are some (in any organization, I assume) who do not generate goodwill. What do we do with such people, if Goodwill = Asking Price - Market Value is taken to be the only reason for the company's existence? Any thoughts Covers?

Charmed

Ahh, accounting. Let's see.

First, the "book" value of a particular company can be impacted by many things, not the least of which is depreciation and amortization. These decrease the book value of assets (BV=acquisiton cost-depreciation or amortization). Now, the amount taken as depreciation and/or amortization can vary for a particular asset from organization to organization, and depends upon the schedule used (straight line, accelerated, double declining balance, etc.) Since the book value of the assets is ultimately figured into goodwill, the dep./amort. can (and likely will) have a material effect.

One of the things that many find confusing is the word "goodwill" itself. From an accounting standpoint, "goodwill" has nothing to do with feelings of trust and understanding. A company with a bad reputation can be purchased with a sizable amount of goodwill on the purchasing party's books as a result. It is also possible for a transaction to result in negative goodwill, although I know of no such occurrence.

Posted by: Charmed

Quote:

Originally Posted by Craig H.

Ahh, accounting. Let's see.

It is also possible for a transaction to result in negative goodwill, although I know of no such occurrence.

Dear Craig:

I just wanted some "accountants" to take a stab at this. Here's an example of a "transaction" that comes to my mind that led to negative goodwill. Almost 15 years ago, a videostore owner once charge me a $10 fine for late return. This was a mom and pop operation and also a specialty grocery store. They used to be quite liberal with their late return policy. My wife and I never went back to that store. That was just one "lousy" transaction, a $10 fine, but no repeat business (specialty groceries!) from a good customer after that.

Charmed

May be

Posted by: Craig H.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charmed

Dear Craig:

I just wanted some "accountants" to take a stab at this. Here's an example of a "transaction" that comes to my mind that led to negative goodwill. Many years ago, when video rentals first started, we used to rent videos from a store here. They were quite liberal about their late return policies. They never charged us, if we were a day or two late, since we would return the videos and pick up some more.

Anyway, once I was busy and let things slide by as much as a week, may be even close to two weeks. The storeowner got mad with me and gave me a mouthful for being tardy. When I tried to politely remind him about how they had been treating us in the past, he wouldn't budge and insisted on charging a fine (it was more than $10, as far as I can remember).

Anyway, I came home and told my wife about it. She got mad and said she is never going back to that store again. Besides renting videos, this was also a specialty grocery store where my wife used to shop regularly and buy all her specialty groceries. This was more than 15 years ago, at least. I don't think she has ever gone back to that store. She does all her shopping in another store about a mile away. Neither have I. (This competitor had always been there, but somehow we never went there. This storeowner is now a good friend.)

That was just one "lousy" transaction, a $10 fine, but no repeat business from a good customer after that.

Charmed

Charmed:

Sure, you had "negative goodwill' (badwill?) with the store, but this also illustrates my point - without a transaction involving a change of ownership of an accounting entity (i.e. corporation, partnership, LLC, etc.) there is NO WAY any goodwill is generated from an accounting standpoint. None, nada.

As far as the books are concerned, your $10 fine was entered (as "other business income" possibly) and that was it. From an accounting standpoint no goodwill was generated or lost.

Again, the ONLY WAY for a company to have an account on the books with a balance and labeled "goodwill" is for the company to have been involved in a merger and/or acquisition of another entity.

Look at it this way. There is no real way for us to put a value on the "goodwill" (in a noinaccounting sense) acquired by a company. That is, until we find someone who is willing to buy the company - not only its assets, which we can fairly easily value - but all of the company. Its name, trademarks, etc. Then we have a problem. There is a difference between the price offered and the book value of the company. THIS is goodwill (in an accounting sense) and is put on the books as such, if and when such a transaction takes place.

Have I muddied things up even further?

Posted by: Craig H.

For what it's worth, and I have just barely scratched the surface here, if you are interested in how this accounting mumbo-jumbo can impact you and your company directly, read Goldratt's The Goal, particularly the parts about cost (managerial) accounting. I very highly suggest it.

Posted by: Charmed

Quote:

Originally Posted by Craig H.

Charmed:

Sure, you had "negative goodwill' (badwill?) with the store, ...Again, the ONLY WAY for a company to have an account on the books with a balance and labeled "goodwill" is for the company to have been involved in a merger and/or acquisition of another entity.

Look at it this way.... There is a difference between the price offered and the book value of the company. THIS is goodwill (in an accounting sense) and is put on the books as such, if and when such a transaction takes place.

Have I muddied things up even further?

Dear Craig:

I not familiar with the details of how "book value" of a company is calculated. I do know that the "market value" of a company is defined as M = NP where P is the price per share and N is the number of shares outstanding. The price per share keeps changing each day as the stock is traded. This depends on many complex factors. Analysts look at many different things to evaluate a stock and the "value" of a company. Profits and revenues are certainly included in this analysis.

What I guess I was trying to say is that the sum total of all "transactions" such the one I described affects the revenues and profits on a daily basis and ultimately the "book" value or the "market" value. If you do not pay attention to these types of daily transactions, you might as well forget that one "BIG" transaction when the company is involved in a merger or acquisition. Rome was not built in a day. Neither is goodwill earned on one day. You did not "muddy" anything. I was just digressing a bit. Have a great weekend. TGIF, almost!

Charmed

May be?

Posted by: Greg B

Quote:

Originally Posted by sal881vw

I was out all day yesterday. I'm working from home and I did open the doc. from my side when I posted it and so I thought that it was ok. The document is in OpenOffice.org 1.0.1 text document. I'll try and fix the problem by saving it to windows 95 format and post it again, do excuse the inconvenience.

Sal,

Please take some time and go to this thread, that I posted last year on 'OpenOffice'. I'd love to know what you think of the product. Many of us had trouble downloading it or are still on dialup which makes it untouchable. I'll give your article a read in the mean time.

http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread....ht=open+office

Posted by: sal881vw

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg B

Greg,
I have still not full grasped "OpenOffice" because of some menus differences, but IMHO it is another version of MS Office. We actually got this software for free when I bought our home system, since we had to pay additional for MS Office, it works just as good. One needs to remember to save the work according to the end users system

, which was exactly my mistake.

Posted by: Claes Gefvenberg

Good writing Sal,

To answer the question in the title, Is goodwill a quality criteria? : I'll say yes right away... It is also hard earned and very, very easy to lose.

/Claes