JPMorgan Chase

JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) is one of the oldest financial institutions in the United States. With a history dating back over 200 years, here's where they stand today:

• They are a leading global financial services firm with assets of $2.3 trillion.
• They operate in more than 60 countries.
• They have more than 240,000 employees.
• They serve millions of consumers, small businesses and many of the world's most prominent corporate, institutional and government clients.
• They are a leader in investment banking, financial services for consumers, small business and commercial banking, financial transaction processing, asset management and private equity.
• Their stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

  

Key Moments in J.P. Morgan History

2010:	J.P. Morgan Cazenove becomes a wholly-owned part of J.P. Morgan, having originally operated as a joint venture between J.P. Morgan and the U.K. investment bank Cazenove.
2008:	JPMorgan Chase & Co. acquires The Bear Stearns Companies Inc., strengthening its capabilities across a broad range of businesses, including prime brokerage, cash clearing and energy trading globally.
1996:	The firm jointly leads the first “century” bond for a sovereign borrower – a 100-year, $100 million issue for the People’s Republic of China.
1980:	Predecessor firm Hambrecht & Quist (H&Q) takes Apple Computer public.
1968:	The firm launches Euroclear, a system for the orderly settlement of transactions in Eurobonds.
1955:	Chase National Bank merges with The Bank of the Manhattan Company to form Chase Manhattan Bank.
1929:	Two Ohio institutions merge to form City National Bank & Trust, a predecessor of Bank One.
1915:	J.P. Morgan arranges the biggest foreign loan in history – a $500 million Anglo/French loan.
1906:	J.P. Morgan is central to the creation of U.S. Steel, GE and AT&T.
1895:	J. Pierpont Morgan, Sr. becomes senior partner. The New York firm is renamed J.P. Morgan & Co.
1893:	J.P. Morgan is primary financier of U.S. railroads.
1848:	The Waterbury Bank opens, a predecessor of the Chase Manhattan Bank.
1824:	The Chemical Bank is established.
1799:	The Manhattan Company, the firm’s earliest predecessor institution, is chartered.  J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Vision Statement: "At JPMorgan Chase, we want to be the best financial services company in the world. Because of our great heritage and excellent platform, we believe this is within our reach." J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., a Top Fortune 500 Company J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. appears in the 2011 Fortune 500 company listing. Every year Fortune the American business magazine compiles, ranks and publishes a list of the top 500 U.S. public corporations based on their gross revenue. The Top Fortune 500 Company list provides Fortune magazine readers with facts and information about the top companies and their contributions to the American economy. Companies eligible for inclusion in the Top Fortune 500 Company list are are those incorporated in the United States and whose revenues are publicly available. Awards & Recognition Email Print A track record that is recognized by the market 14 Share and 13 Quality Leader distinctions Greenwich Associates, 2012 Derivatives house of the year Equity derivatives house of the year Commodity and energy derivatives house of the year OTC clearing service of the year Bank risk manager of the year Credit portfolio manager of the year Risk, January 2012 #1 Overall in Risk’s Institutional Investor rankings 12 first-place finishes Risk, June 2011 #1 All-Europe Fixed-Income Research Team, 2012 #1 All-America Fixed-Income Research Team, 2011 #1 All-America Equity Research Team, 2011 #1 Latin America Equity Research Team Institutional Investor, 2012 and 2011 Best Global Commodities House Five awards in Americas Four Awards in Asia Pacific Six Awards in EMEA Euromoney, July 2011 Additional awards and recognition Best FX Prime Broker (fxweek, 2012) Best Investment Bank in Latin America, Chile, Colombia and Peru (Euromoney, 2012) Best M&A House in China and India (Euromoney, 2012) Best Debt House in Australia (Euromoney, 2012) U.S. Natural Gas, Emissions and Precious Metals House of the Year (EnergyRisk, 2012) Best use of Mobile for the Empire iPad application (FSTech,  2012) Investment Bank of the Year (Latin Finance, 2012) Best Investment Bank of the Year (Latin Finance, 2012) European Investment Bank of the Year (Financial News, December 2011) Equity Derivatives House of the Year (Asia Risk, October 2011) Most Innovative for Equity Linked and Most Innovative for Bank Capital (The Banker, October 2011) #1 All-America Equity Research Team (Institutional Investor, October 2011) Business Principle Their company was built with hard work over 200 years. They would like to create a company that all can be proud of, and we are confident that, working together, They will build the best financial services company in the world. Certain principles are so fundamental to our success that we would like to describe them in some detail. If we can adhere to these principles – and they are not in order of importance – we will reach our goal of becoming the best financial services company in the world. We also hope they will give you a roadmap on how and why we make our decisions.    Businesses The U.S. consumer and commercial banking businesses serve customers under the Chase brand. The consumer businesses include: Branch, ATM, telephone and online banking Credit cards Small business Home finance and home equity loans Auto finance Education finance Retirement & Investing Retail Checking The commercial banking businesses include: Middle Market Corporate Client Banking Commercial Real Estate Business Credit Equipment Finance Commercial Term Lending Community Development J.P. Morgan clients include the world's most prominent corporations, governments, wealthy individuals and institutional investors. These businesses use the J.P. Morgan brand: Investment Bank Asset Management Treasury Services Worldwide Securities Services Private Banking One Equity Partners J.P. Morgan help clients manage currency and market risk through our combined capabilities as a leading trading house, premiere investment bank and global custodian. Our size, scale and expertise translates into fast, competitive and consistent pricing for all execution services. Foreign Exchange J.P. Morgan is a FX trading volume leader, offering clients tight, market reflective prices and executing 7-10% of world's FX volume. Our foreign exchange services help clients manage regulatory risk and currency exposure and are customized to clients' unique business imperatives and risk profile. We offer a unique combination of comprehensive product expertise, time-zone support, superior liquidity, award-winning research and value-added strategies. Futures & Options J.P. Morgan, through its Futures & Options Group, offers institutional investors the ability to link exchange-traded derivatives execution, clearing and reporting with its custody service. Clients can profit from access to our comprehensive product base and can leverage the knowledge and capabilities derived from J.P. Morgan's size, strength and market position. Commission Recapture Offered in partnership with Capital Institutional Services (CAPIS), J.P. Morgan's commission recapture program helps institutional investors reduce their trading costs. By directing their investment managers or subadvisors to execute a portion of their trades through firms on CAPIS' extensive list of well-known brokers, clients qualify for a rebate on commission expenses. Transition Management J.P. Morgan is committed to helping institutional investors restructure their assets and achieve their desired portfolio exposure in a timely, risk controlled and cost effective manner. Our clients receive experienced transition management expertise for strategy development, planning, optimised trading, execution, operations and post trade analysis. The value we provide clients includes our combined analytics and execution capabilities as a premiere investment bank and our operational and administrative expertise as a leading global custodian. Organizational chart   Corporate Responsibility At JPMorgan Chase, corporate responsibility is about what we do every day in our businesses and how we do it. We are committed to managing our businesses to create value for our consumer and corporate clients as well as our shareholders, communities and employees and to being a responsible corporate citizen. Our commitment to corporate responsibility extends to every facet of our business – in both good economic times and bad. We are proactively assisting customers and clients as well as supporting efforts to achieve financial market stability throughout these unprecedented economic times. As we look to the future, we remain committed to doing business in a responsible way, to being responsible stewards of shareholder capital and to being a good corporate partner to our communities across the globe. These reports demonstrate our approach.

 

Social Responsibility

J.P. Morgan is committed to building vibrant communities, preserving our environment and promoting an inclusive culture across the globe that benefits people not only today, but for generations to come.
Globally, J.P. Morgan, through the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, provides grants to charities in three areas of focus: Education, Community Development and Arts & Culture. We prioritize our funding efforts to focus on responding to the deepening social need in the communities we serve. Across Sub-Saharan Africa our commitments include:

• SME Catalyst for Growth Program
• Rural Education Access Programme (REAP) 
• Shared Interest/Thembani 
• Technoserve

SME Catalyst for Growth Program
In South Africa, the SME sector has the potential to positively affect the high level of unemployment and the relatively low economic growth rate in the country. J.P. Morgan has learnt that while access to finance is a challenge for SMEs in South Africa, there are several pools of capital currently targeting the sector. A more pressing challenge is the lack of management capacity and skills in the start up and early growth phases of an SME and it is this support that the SME Catalyst for Growth program is targeting.
The program will support two high quality Business Development Services (BDS) providers in South Africa, Raizcorp and Aurik, to help them increase their reach to urban SMEs in the Gauteng province. Through their product suite of BDS, Aurik and Raizcorp will work with ten businesses each and help the selected entrepreneurs achieve real growth for their businesses. The program, through its partnership with Dalberg, a strategy consulting firm specializing in international development, will also establish the platform for transparency and standardization in the quality of BDS provision


 

Futures & Options

J.P. Morgan is one of the most dynamic market leaders in the futures and options brokerage business. We have been providing Research, Sales, Execution and Clearing services across fixed income, equity, foreign exchange and commodity asset classes since 1979. Today we clear more than 70 exchanges with electronic trading access to over 50 of them. 
Clients benefit from our commitment to delivering:

·         Research

·         Execution Services

·         Clearing Services

·         Client Solutions

Research
J.P. Morgan offers comprehensive, in-depth research on listed derivatives, OTC derivatives and their associated underlying cash markets.
J.P. Morgan's research teams are well known for quantitative analysis, focusing on value comparisons among listed futures and options, cash markets and various derivative instruments. Our derivatives research programs can be customized to help clients tailor their individual risk management and investment strategy needs. Analytical models, daily reports and interactive tools are available.
J.P. Morgan's sales and research teams work closely together, combining local market expertise and in-depth analysis to help clients create and execute effective trading, hedging and portfolio-management strategies.
Execution Services
J.P. Morgan has a comprehensive range of execution choices, offering centralized execution support and access to local specialists. A choice of electronic solutions provides access to our extensive global exchange network. The firm's presence in major financial centers around the world enables us to monitor transaction flows and market trends 24 hours a day.
Clearing Services
J.P. Morgan has been a pioneer of many of the practices and services that have become standard in the futures and options industry. The firm has built its client franchise by developing long-term relationships and delivering exceptional service. J.P. Morgan has a structured approach to client management with global client teams who are 24 hour, multi-lingual and dedicated to the futures and options product.
Over 99.95% of J.P. Morgan's business is conducted on exchanges where the firm maintains direct clearing memberships. Our core processing system operates in a global environment and is volume insensitive, processing in excess of four million contracts per day.
Client Solutions
Dedicated support, development and client teams are available to assist clients in choosing the trading and clearing solutions that best serve their requirements.  J.P. Morgan’s award winning MORCOM platform offers functionality designed to achieve straight-through-processing from execution through to clearing and settlement.
MORCOM eXtraTrade is a robust trading tool offering a choice of connectivity methods into J.P. Morgan’s extensive exchange network and is available across multiple asset classes. Pre-trade order validation is managed via our risk management product. Cutting edge capacity monitoring ensures a highly stable and resilient system supported by dedicated 24 hour technical and execution teams.
MORCOM provides a flexible and innovative clearing system to clients. Ongoing development is client driven and provides functionality such as, a real-time online trade reconciliation tracker, an expiry position tracker and automated splits and allocations. 
J.P. Morgan’s client education programs and online tutorials are well respected and can be customized to suit clients' requirements.

Three Monks

Three Monks 

Building a team runs in harmony is a work of art. Team building has always fascinated me because the element of 'team dynamics' comes into play and this creates a lot of behavioral changes in people when they work in a team. These changes that arise in the team, if channelized properly can build long lasting relationships and creates a WORKPLACE that you call HOME.  


The video here, a story of three monks from a Chinese fable captures the essence of team dynamics. So, watch the video first before you move on.

 

      Lets split the movie into three parts. We move on to a part from the other when a monk joins in.

The Lone Runner:

The first monk(lets call him Jing) comes in, he sees that the monastery is in bad health. A newbie, filled with enthusiasm, the monk takes all the burden on himself, for there is no one to fall back upon. He fetches two cans of water at a time and does it with glee. Jing runs a self sufficient system. But soon, fatigue sets in. The initial enthusiasm is lost but still life goes on.!

This model of overburdening a useful resource, might give very good returns in the initial stage. But as time passes by the returns will be diminishing and the motivation to work will be long gone.

 

 

Dream Team:

Getting back to the monk story, now comes the second monk(Bing). He is extended a very warm welcome by the Jing who is more than happy that there is some one to run the show along with him now. Once the real work starts, differences set in. Jing wants to establish his superiority and Bing does not cave in.

There is an instant cold war. 

Analyzing the root cause for their difference of opinion, we can understand that it is because no 'standards' are set to run the company. There is no higher authority nor is there a rule book for the Jing and Bing to follow. This is later sorted out when Jing draws a scale and makes a fair ruling.

This is again a lesson for any company. There should be rules and not rulers.!

Awesome threesome:

After a while comes Ling, our third monk. He is plump and drains all of the water. When the time comes to refill the water, he relents. Now the other two monks who have been doing their work religiously start fighting too and everything comes to a standstill. Harmony is lost, once and forever.

Such teams are quite common in organizations. It is upto the managers to sense this enmity in the air and weed it at the budding stages.

However, in the story, the "hand of god" does it for the monks. The monastery is set of fire by a mischievous rat and the monks are left running from pillar to post. In the spurt of the moment, they throw away all their differences and  put an "emergency system into place". Somehow they tune the fire down and sit back to think on devising a sustainable system and the rest is understood.

Major Takeaways:

• No five fingers are alike. Every team comprises of people with different attributes and quality. This difference has to be channelized for the greater good.
• Standards have to be set and rules should be laid. Otherwise things head towards a haywire. 
• Teams should have sustainable models. Any team is as strong as its weakest link.

 

                                                                                                                                                                          

Building blocks of success

Building blocks of success 

 

Let us consider four different scenarios for the tower building exercise.

Parameter	Index	I	II	III	IV
Historical Tower height achieved by team LOW	1	5	5	5	5
Historical Tower height achieved by team HIGH	2	18	20	21	23
Achievable Performance -(Estimate / Guess )	3	18	20	22	25
Goal proposed by the Manager	4	18	22	22	18
Goal proposed by the worker	5	12	12	12	20
Goal Mutually agreed for building the tower between worker and manager with the support of the manager	6	15	22	18	15
No. of cubes Tower manager and worker team could build / achieve at the end of the exercise	7	18	18	18	18

With respect to goal setting, an analysis of gaps reveals a lot about the types of managers in organizations as shown below:

Gaps	How to?	I	II	III	IV
Gap if any between Tower height Performance so far achieved and Achievable performance of tower	3-7	0	2	4	7
Gap if any between goal proposed by the manager and mutually agreed goal by team	4-6	3	0	4	3
Gap if any between goal proposed by the manager and the goal proposed  by the worker	4-5	6	10	10	-2
Gap if any between goal proposed by the worker and mutually agreed goal by team	5-6	-3	-10	-6	5
Gap if any between  performance achieved ( at the end of the exercise ) and  goal mutually agreed by manger and the worker	6-7	-3	4	0	-3
Gap if any between  performance achieved ( at the end of the exercise ) and  achievable goal	7-3	0	-2	-4	-7

Scenario I: 

This is the case where there is a manager with very high expectations and workers with low aspiration. What starts in a bad spirit, the team shapes up during the course of the task, to strike a middle ground, where the workers perform more than what they thought they could, but they do not meet the expectations of the manager.

Scenario 2:

Here we have a Steve Jobs, for a manager. He has very high dreams, and wants to break records and reach for the sky. The best part comes next.  He does achieve the records. Such managers in reality are rare.

Scenario 3:

Scenario III is perhaps the most interesting amongst all and offers powerful insights. Not just with respect to a realistic initial goal setting, but the manager has been successful in mutually agreeing to a goal with the worker which reflects a sense of motivation in the initial stages itself. The worker has raised the bar to 6 towers from his proposal of 12 while the manager has dropped the bar just enough to 4 towers to motivate the worker and make him realize his value. As a result, the goal achieved by the team has been in line with the mutually agreed goal. Certainly, in this case, the manager has taken a holistic view and not compromised either on the organizational goals or the feedback from the worker.

Scenario 4:

Scenario IV is a submissive case of a manager who has lowered the bars, wants his team to work lesser than what they think they could.!

Such scenarios in reality are very very rare. Such managers add no value to his team nor to the organization.

                                          Valley Crossing Exercise

valley crossing exercise

                                       

There is an important organizational lesson to be learnt in this. Organizations are meant to facilitate the impossible, unachievable. The recipe is simple: Believe that it can be achieved, plan and deliver.

Here the task is to cross a gap which can be between two tables, two roofs etc. The catch is that it needs to be done by 3 people as a team using a pole.  We were asked to give in the conditions in which the task be followed. The various possible options and their managerial implementation are

 Height and weight of the people will matter
These are general perceptions and are proved wrong by sheer grit, if you have that, height and weight will not matter. Similarly, whatever be the physical attributes of a person, they will not be a hindrance, if you have the desire to follow your dreams, and however big they might be.


Real-time communication
It is most necessary for the proper coordination between many players as it helps in the maintenance of “Unity of Command” principle.


Uniform gap-size
Gap between the individuals should be equal. This condition explains us that there should not be any discrimination in the organization and everyone should be equally-approachable.


Synchronous movement
It is also necessary to make sure that team does not falter in-between the task and it helps us in learning the “Unity of direction” principle.


Dynamic role definition for 3 people
This condition helps us in learning that in a team, everyone has to know how to do varied tasks for the over-all achievement of goals and more important than that all the people should get different roles leading to the growth of development of organisation.

The team must be told about these practices before they attempt the task and similarly management is supposed to inform the employees about what is expected from them and various aforementioned conditions which will help them in succeeding.

                 

Khan Academy

The Khan Academy is a  non profit educational organization, created in 2006 by Bangladeshi American educator  Salman Khan  , a graduate of  MIT  and  Harvard business school. The target of the organization is to reach  out  millions of students of all ages, across the globe with the sole purpose of making teaching more interactive and fun.  

The story of   Khan Academy is very interesting. He was remotely tutoring one of his cousins interactively using Yahoo Doodle images. Based on feedback from his cousin, additional cousins began to take advantage of the interactive, remote tutoring. In order to make better use of his and their time, Khan transitioned to making YouTube video tutorials. He then made his own portal and started adding more and more videos on a variety of topics.The mission of this portal is to educate as many people it can around the globe on a non profit basis. Slowly his portal became common among a lot of parents and teachers this was mostly due to the way things were explained and the infrastructure on the site. Students can watch, pause and re-watch as many times as they wish to; this gives them a better understanding of the subject. 

The information was always there in the book and on the internet but the intelligent assortment was definitely lacking previously, the way the matter has been brought up goes to show the clarity of the idea in the persons mind.  Here the innovation lies. Here the innovation has been used for a social purpose.The innovation at teaching level is minimal .It’s just how beautifully the time devoted to them has been increased is what is amazing .The knowledge has imparted and along with it a check has been carried out as to how much the student is holding on to, if not clear then a process is started to take care of the scenario, not only is the assessment taken but the data is also generated which can be very helpful when human efforts are made to guide the student.    

A picture from Khan Academy explaining heart disease and heart attacks

 Khan academy works with very simple and free technology like You-Tube, Wacom tablet etc. Its a sensational way of teaching.It is a live example which shows that imparting education is not necessarily business , but also an innovation   ..... And Khan academy is the proof.  It must be kept in mind that even the non profit organization when fully grown can have a high evaluation and could help the beneficiaries go a long way.