THE STRATEGIC ROLE OF PRIVATE EQUITY IN THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF ITALIAN SMEs

The internationalization of the portfolio company is a key strategy used by private equity (PE) investors to create value and produce returns. In recent years, the focus on the strategies for value-creation through operational improvement has become essential to achieve the exponential growth required to the portfolio company, given the low multiples and the market risk of leverage. In this paper, we define the key types of contribution that a PE investor can provide in order to support the internationalization process and their effects on the portfolio company’s performance. The research is based on a survey administered to 47 PE fund managers, which covers 156 deals involving Italian companies. The results offer insight into the contribution to the corporate governance, strategy and management that PE provides in addition to the monetary support. The findings show that the non-financial support given to the portfolio companies has a positive impact on the performance and that the most impactful contribution the PE can give is the support to the relational network when the company strategy involves a foreign direct investment.

Material convergence issue in the pharmaceutical supply chain during a disease outbreak

PurposePharmaceutical donations are a practical approach to increase medicine availability during disasters such as disease outbreaks. However, often donated pharmaceuticals are inappropriate and unsuitable. This convergence of inappropriate pharmaceuticals is a severe operational challenge and results in environmental hazards. This study explores the pharmaceutical supply chains (PSCs) during a disease outbreak to relieve the negative impact of the material convergence problem (MCP).Design/methodology/approachThis study adopts a situation-actors-process learning-action-performance (SAP-LAP) linkage framework to understand the PSC dynamics. The problem-solving component of the SAP-LAP analysis provides the strategies catering to MCP. The findings from the SAP-LAP helped to develop the causal loop diagram (CLD). This study conducts several experiments on the proposed strategies by integrating CLD into a stock and flow diagram. Later, a disease outbreak case study accessed the pharmaceutical donations effect on PSC performance.FindingsThe study synthesises and evaluates propositions and strategies to incorporate circular economy (CE) principles in PSC. This study proposed two strategies; one to sort and supply and the other to sort, supply and resell. The reuse policy improves humanitarian organisations' finances in the simulation study. This study verified the operational improvement of PSC by reducing the transport and storage burden due to MCP.Originality/valueThis study comprehensively approaches the issue of drug donation and uniquely produced several propositions for incorporating a CE perspective in PSC. The study also proposed a unique simulation approach to model the donation arrivals in response to a disease outbreak using susceptible, exposed, infectious and recovered modelling.

Assessment of Alternative Fuels and Engine Technologies to Reduce GHG

Current greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from maritime transport represent around 3% of global anthropogenic GHG emissions. These emissions will have to be cut at least in half by 2050 compared to 2008 as adopted by IMO´s initial GHG-strategy to be consistent with Paris agreement goals. Basically, the required GHG emissions reduction can be achieved through: Design and other technical improvement of ships; Operational Improvement; Fuels with zero or lower GHG footprint; or a combination of these. Where fuels with zero or lower GHG footprints often are perceived to be the most promising measure. The motivation for this study has therefore been to investigate these alternative fuels with focus on their feasibility, energy utilization and cost in addition to their GHG reduction potential. The results indicate: First, that fuels with zero or very low GHG emissions will be costly; Second, that these fuels might double or triple the maritime sector's energy consumption in a Well-to-Wake context; Third, if large amounts of renewable electricity becomes available at very low prices, synthetic E-fuels such as E-diesel and E-LNG which can be blended with conventional fuels and used on conventional vessels, will be more commercially attractive than hydrogen and ammonia.

The Journey to Net Zero: Driving Down Emissions from Bp's North Sea Operations

bp's strategy sets out a decadeof delivery towards becoming a net zero company by 2050 (or sooner) with targets set for emissions from operations to fall by between 30-35% by 2030. In pursuit of this, a North Sea carbonplan has been developed to identify, track, and deliver sustainable emission reductions (SERs) activities. Proactive engagement has been essential in delivery of this plan, helping to empower colleagues to prioritize emissions reduction opportunities. To date, the plan has identified more than 80 SERs across bp's North Seaportfolio and cumulatively reduced carbonemissions by more than 400,000 tonnes from offshore operations. It is on track to reduce almost 70,000tonnes of carbon from operations in 2021 alone. Whilst it is recognised that this represents only part of bp's annual scope 1 emissions in the North Sea; this is a lasting operational improvement. The plan has also significantly reduced sources of unknown flare gas. It also contributed to a 45% reduction in flare activity in 2020 vs 2019as well as achieving zero routine flaringon two of bp's major west of Shetland installations from October 2020 The plan has more deeply embedded emissions tracking in operations on and offshore and helped further improve working practices on flaring and energy efficiency in general.

Practice Improvement Projects in an Interdisciplinary Palliative Care Training Program

Context: Demand for palliative care (PC) continues to increase with an insufficient number of specialists to meet the need. This requires implementation of training curricula to expand the workforce of interdisciplinary clinicians who care for persons with serious illness. Objectives: To evaluate the impact of utilizing individual practice improvement projects (PIP) as part of a longitudinal PC curriculum, the Coleman Palliative Medicine Training Program (CPMTP-2). Methods: Participants developed their PIPs based on their institutional needs and through a mentor, and participated in monthly meetings and bi-annual conferences, thereby allowing for continued process improvement and feedback. Results: Thirty-seven interdisciplinary participants implemented 30 PIPs encompassing 7 themes: (1) staff education; (2) care quality and processes; (3) access to care; (4) documentation of care delivered; (5) new program development; (6) assessing gaps in care/patient needs; and (7) patient/family education. The majority of projects did achieve completion, with 16 of 30 projects reportedly being sustained several months after conclusion of the required training period. Qualitative feedback regarding mentors’ expertise and availability was uniformly positive. Conclusion: The CPMTP-2 demonstrates the positive impact of PIPs in the development of skills for interdisciplinary learners as part of a longitudinal training program in primary PC. Participation in a PIP with administrative support may lead to operational improvement within PC teams.

Analisis Kinerja SIMRS RSU Bhakti Husada Banyuwangi Menggunakan IT Balanced Scorecard dan Model for Mandatory Use of Software Technolgies

HMIS is a form of utilizing health technology to support the success of management and improvement of service quality in hospitals. The implementation of HMIS will be beneficial if its implementation is in accordance with the vision, mission, and goals of the hospital by establishing a business strategy and information technology system strategy. The purpose of this study was to analyze the performance of HMIS Bhakti Husada Hospital using the IT Balanced Scorecard and the Model for Mandatory Use of Software Technologies. This study uses a cross sectional quantitative approach with a sample of 45 respondents using HMIS. The data measured using the IT Balanced Scorecard assessment indicators were analyzed using SEM-PLS. The results showed that the HMIS performance was categorized as good. The HMIS performance achievement with the IT Balanced Scorecard with a future orientation perspective is 83.3% and an operational improvement perspective is 100%. All of the Model for Mandatory Use of Software Technologies variables have a significant influence of HMIS implementation, namely the information quality variable on information satisfaction, information satisfaction on ease of use, and ease of use on attitudes. Keywords: SIMRS, IT Balanced Scorecard, Model for Mandatory Use of Software Technologies

Introduction of Smart Circulating Sub in Offshore Abu Dhabi

The paper describes deployment phase of a smart circulating sub in offshore Abu Dhabi field as an effort to improve efficiency and flexibility in tackling operational drilling risk and minimize associated NPT. It will describe the pre-campaign technical assessment and preparation, the field operation summary, the detail activation record, and the trial statistics including the activation success ratio including also some reliability milestones that will beneficial to be reference in term of tool functionality and reliability. The smart sub offers practicality to select three different flow path mode on top of the isolation mode without any necessity to pull out of hole nor to disconnect the pipe at surface. Different from any other conventional tool, the command to change the flow path mode is fully achieved only by manipulating absolute pressure or pipe rotation speed. Thus, it will save time, lower the operational risk as well as increase flexibility. As part of new technology implementation, a set of factory test and field trial run were conducted to evaluate its operability, reliability, and also to define its technical limit. A total of 8 field trial runs with 38 activation in more than 800 running hours has proved the system's the reliability through the field trial. And through the paper, some feedback from the field trial runs that is aimed to raise a design and operational improvement towards a more robust tool functionality.

Lessons learned from an analysis of the Emergency Medical Services’ COVID-19 drive-through testing facilities in Israel

One strategy for the containment of a pandemic is mass testing. Magen David Adom (MDA), the Israeli National Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Organization undertook this mission by operating a nationwide series of drive-through testing complexes. The objective of this study is to learn lessons from an analysis of these centers. Data from 198 stationary and mobile drive-through complexes from March 20, 2020, through October 17, 2020, were analyzed for temporal and geographic factors, and cost. Also, an operational improvement program was implemented and analyzed. A total of 931,074 patients were sampled in the MDA drive-through system: 46.9% in stationary complexes, and 53.1% in mobile complexes. The optimized cost per patient of home testing was estimated at 74.5 USD compared to 6.55 USD in the drive-through centers. An operational improvement program lowered the total sampling time from 128 seconds per patient to 98 seconds and decreased the total cost per patient from 6.55 USD to 6.27 USD. The EMS led drive-through complexes were cost-effective and efficient in performing large numbers of viral tests, especially when compared to home testing. Established concepts in clinical operations should be implemented to increase the number of persons that can be tested and decrease cost.

Contract Lifecycle Management

Contract management depends on document-driven processes that, in a paper-based environment, can be laborious and inefficient. The time it takes to approve a contract can be as significant as the content preparation of the contract. Slow, manual contract processing reflects negatively on an organization's ability to provide excellent service. The contract lifecycle is defined differently from an organization to organization or even form department to another. The number of contracts and the associated documents are ramping up in this era of digital transformation. An automated, digital contract lifecycle management (CLM) can reduce the administrative burden on employees and allows legal, financial, sales, and other professionals to make better use of their expertise. This chapter shows how automation can change the organizations' behaviors to view contracts as opportunities for operational improvement and competitive advantage. It shows also how CLM can be integrated with business intelligence (BI) and data analytics systems to provide contract insights and dashboards.