Soyeun D. Choi, a Palo Alto attorney specializing in business transactions and intellectual property, has been named a 2011 Northern California Rising Star by Super Lawyers magazine.

This distinction is bestowed upon the best young lawyers in the country. Selection as a Rising Star by Super Lawyers demonstrates Ms. Choi’s continuing professional achievements. As one of California’s leading business and intellectual property attorneys, this honor places her in the top 2.5 percent of lawyers who have practiced law for ten years or less.

In identifying its prestigious list of Super Lawyers, a committee evaluates candidates through multiple rounds based on 12 dimensions of peer recognition and professional achievement. The research team at Super Lawyers, which is a service of Thomson Reuters’ Legal division, made the selections for this esteemed list. To be eligible for the Rising Star honor, a candidate must be either 40 years old or younger or in practice for ten years or less.

Ms. Choi has been a solo practitioner almost her entire career. In the area of business transactions, Ms. Choi helps companies with matters ranging from entity formation to dissolution, contracts, purchases, sales, financings, and other business critical legal matters. Her intellectual property practice emphasizes brand identity and protection through trademarks, copyrights, licensing agreements and trade secrets.

In addition to maintaining her own thriving practice, Ms. Choi serves as Of Counsel to DYP Advisors. Douglas Y. Park of DYP Advisors states: “I have had the immense pleasure of working with Soyeun. She always exhibits the highest level of legal judgment and acumen. Soyeun absolutely deserves this recognition, and I am proud to be associated with her.”

Active involvement in the community is one of Ms. Choi’s hallmarks. She has shown exemplary community leadership in many capacities: President of the Palo Alto Area Bar Association for several terms, Co-Chair of the Newsletter Committee of the Asian American Bar Association, and Vice Chair of the Diversity Committee of the San Mateo County Bar Association. Further, Ms. Choi is a Board member of Bay Area Benefit, a non-profit organization whose mission is to serve the disenfranchised, under-represented and distressed members of San Francisco Bay Area communities and is a member of the Alumni Council of the University of California at Santa Cruz.

ABOUT SOYEUN D. CHOI:

Soyeun D. Choi provides services in business transactions and intellectual property law. For further information, please see Ms. Choi’s biography at http::/http://www.dypadvisors.com/people/soyeun-choi.

The original release is available at: http://www.prweb.com/releases/soyeundchoi/paloaltoattorney/prweb8969626.htm

On August 19, 2011, Douglas Y. Park, a Silicon Valley corporate governance consultant, attorney and owner of DYP Advisors, will present the webinar, “The SEC’s New Whistleblower Rules: Implications for your Company’s Compliance and Fraud Program.” The program begins at 10:00 am PST and runs for 75 minutes. This is one in a series of educational webinars that Mr. Park presents on corporate governance and compliance.

As part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street and Financial Reform Act of 2010, the Security and Exchange Commission's new whistleblower rules went into effect on August 12, 2011. With new monetary incentives and enhanced protection for whistleblowers, the new rules affect how employees and report alleged corporate malfeasance both internally and externally. Board members, general counsel, compliance and ethics professionals, internal auditors, and risk managers are keeping a close eye on this issue.

"Board members and compliance professionals must keep up with the latest trends in corporate governance to do their jobs effectively," explains Mr. Park.

Compliance Online, a leading provider of governance, risk, and compliance education based in Palo Alto, California, will host the webinar. For further information, including registration options, please visit the webinar home page..

Mr. Park draws upon his experience as an award-winning former faculty member at the highly ranked School of Business and Management, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Mr. Park now teaches business courses through the Stanford University Continuing Studies Program. Several publications have cited Mr. Park on corporate governance issues, including Time.com, TheWallStreetJournal.com, Agenda, a Financial Times service for corporate directors, Boardmember.com, and Boardroom Insider.

For more information, please contact Douglas Park at 650-814-3933 or visit the DYP Advisors website at http://www.dypadvisors.com.

About DYP Advisors:

DYP Advisors provides corporate governance services to boards of directors, senior executives, corporate secretaries, in-house counsel, compliance and ethics professionals, non-profit organizations, and investment funds. Services include live training and education on current corporate governance issues; counsel regarding how to strengthen governance, risk, and compliance initiatives in companies through ethical and socially responsible behavior; and due diligence of governance and reputation issues in major transactions such as mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructurings, and initial public offerings.

The original release is available at: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/8/prweb8728699.htm

Risks to Strategy Execution

Successful strategy execution is critical to business performance. Effective execution means getting a measurable benefit from your chosen strategy. While formulating a distinguishable and sustainable competitive position is challenging, reaching it is even more difficult.

Why? What are the main risks to successful strategy execution?

It doesn't matter whether you are a startup, family owned business, non-profit, or a publicly listed multinational company, here are four big issues.

1. Strategy Risk

Bad strategy is the first risk. Too many companies have a poorly developed strategy.

Richard Rumelt of the UCLA Anderson School of Management writes that bad strategy is a common problem that relegates many businesses to mediocrity. These companies are left wondering why they couldn't do what they wanted to do. The problem, however, was that they did not have a good strategy to begin with. Many companies don't even have a coherent strategy. As the saying goes, "Garbage in, garbage out." Don't let your company fall into this category.

2. Governance Risk

Weak Corporate Governance is the second risk.

Weak Corporate Governance means that the organization's systems and processes for promoting its strategy, including the relationship between management and the board of directors, needs fine tuning for better implementation. Good corporate governance requires that the board play a central role in strategy. However, all too often the board faces the dilemma of devoting time to legal compliance versus business strategy issues. Give your board the information and resources it needs to properly understand and review the company's strategy. This might include having certain directors emphasize strategy over compliance, and vice versa. Even though management is ultimately responsible for execution, the board of directors needs to know the challenges and achievements so that it can provide guidance.

3. Organizational Risk

Misaligned organizational structure and/or organizational culture is the third risk.

Organizational structure means how decision making authority is allocated through the company and how the firm's units relate to and work with each other. Lack of fit between organizational structure and strategy impedes implementation. For example, as a diversified online seller of consumer goods that competes primarily on price (e.g., Amazon), you should centralize some of your operations and decision making to achieve uniformity and gain benefits from economies of scale.

Organizational culture means the values and principles that guide the company's policies and operations. Culture is not just about what the firm publicly states as its values and principles; it's about what actually happens every day with the organization. Lack of fit between organizational culture and strategy impedes execution. If you are an online retailer focused on creating the best possible customer experience (e.g., Zappos), you need to have a culture that gives employees the power to provide that experience.

It is interesting that Amazon acquired Zappos in 2010 with an eye towards improving customer service at the parent company. For better or worse in terms of execution, that acquisition had strategic and cultural implications for both Amazon and Zappos.

4. People Risk

Wrong People and Resistance to Change constitute two large pieces of the fourth risk.

Wrong People means you're selecting and keeping people who do not fit your strategy. If you want to compete on producing innovative products, hire people who embrace change and disruption. Or, your policies might encourage people to be jerks. Regardless of your strategy, having an organization full of jerks will harm your prospects in the long term by increasing turnover, eroding morale, and decreasing collaboration and productivity.

Don't think you have this problem? Stanford Professor Bob Sutton argues that many organizations are full of a**holes.

Resistance to Change is one of the biggest obstacles to successful implementation. You must clearly explain the why and what behind a new strategy. Incentives for all employees must promote your organization's desired culture and outcomes. Reassure people that change will not mean the end of their job or their importance to the organization.

Conclusion

This short overview presents four big risks to effective strategy execution. Certainly there are many more than four.

What other challenges would you cite?

Douglas Y. Park
Twitter: @DougYPark

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In this short video, I discuss why lawyers should have a strong grounding in business strategy, and why they usually do not. I also talk about how attorneys can use such insights to their advantage.

Do lawyers need to understand business strategy?

The Wall Street Journal ran an article titled Law Firms Embrace Business School 101. The article explains that in today's complex business environment, lawyers need to strengthen their knowledge of business concepts and management skills. There are several benefits to doing so, including being better able to relate to and serve clients and being better able to manage a law firm. In the wake of increasing criticism of lawyers not sufficiently understanding business, more law firms are sending their attorneys to short courses that cover core MBA topics -- strategy, organizational behavior, marketing, finance, and accounting.

How well do attorneys know strategy?

You might think that business lawyers are well versed in strategy. Certainly, they should be experts in legal strategy. However, few lawyers are ever rigorously exposed to approaches to strategy and organizational management. Not surprisingly, many clients do not think their attorneys have a solid understanding of business.

Strategy is not about knowing one client's business, one industry, or one vertical. Instead, knowing strategy means having the frameworks and analytical tools to apply to any client's situation. Without those tools, how well can an attorney comprehend the real business impact of legal issues?

What is the benefit of lawyers bringing business strategy into legal advice?

First and foremost, clients benefit from better advice. Clients enjoy better performance and results. It's that's simple.

Lawyers who truly integrate strategic and organizational management insights into their counsel can obtain a competitive advantage. Why? Because few attorneys possess that ability. As the legal profession becomes more competitive, differentiating oneself from other service providers becomes increasingly important.

Share your experiences about your attorney understanding (or not) your business strategy.

Stay tuned for more posts and videos on how business and legal strategy go hand in hand.

Douglas Y. Park
Twitter: @DougYPark

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While Amazon's Kindle occupies the dominant position in the ebook market, it faces stiff competition.  The Apple iPad is gaining ground quickly on Amazon, with the iPad capturing 22 percent of the ebook market in its first 60 days.  However, since many readers want a dedicated e-reader in addition to the iPad, the Kindle and iPad may be complements rather than competitors.  Amazon's recent price cut on the Kindle has spurred sales of the device.  More Kindles equals more ebook sales.

But new entrants are entering the ebook business.  For example, Border's just opened a 1.5 million volume ebook store and released e-reader applications for Blackberry and Android phones. Only Amazon has more ebook titles.

Competition In The Ebook Market

How will competition affect the industry players?  The good news for ebook competitors is that the market will continue to grow.  Goldman Sachs recently forecast that sales of ebooks in the U.S. will increase 47 percent each year until 201o, with ebook sales reaching $3.2 billion by 2015.

According to this forecast, ebooks will constitute 12.8 percent of all book sales by 2015.  Ebooks currently make up three percent of total sales. Goldman expects print book sales to fall one percent each year through 2015.

Despite intensifying competition, the ebooks market will remain an attractive market.  Although profit margins on the ereaders are low, margins on the ebooks currently run over 20 percent.  For this reason, we can expect to see more players enter the ebook market.  The important point is potential industry earnings for the ebook market will grow.

As the number of incumbents increases, there will be a shakeout as device features, convergence around a few ebook formats, and ebook library size separate the winners from the rest of the pack.  One question is when will the shakeout begin?  With Amazon cutting the price on the Kindle and Barnes and Noble doing the same for the Nook, I would expect a shakeout in no earlier than one year, but probably less than two.

Aside from continued growth, the ebook market is full of uncertainties.  That makes the market one where competitive strategy will matter, and thus a market to watch.

What do you think will be the key determinants of competitive success in the ebook market?  And who do you think will have the largest market share one year from now? Two years from now?

Douglas Y. Park

Twitter: @DougYPark

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