Global focus for the modern executive.

Ford: You’re Not Done Yet

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

287873_7837.jpgFORTUNE — Last week, Ford Motor Company announced their first-quarter performance. Snipping costs and trimming the fat by streamlining operations allowed the auto manufacturer to swing a profit and beat analysts predictions. But the road is long. An article from Fortune discusses some of the reasons why it may not be the moment to stop and celebrate:

Auto companies don’t turn around in one year or even two. They can get a nice bump by reducing operating expenses - there is always plenty of fat to trim and operations to streamline - but making improvements in the top line means introducing new models that require a minimum of four years to make it from the idea stage to the showroom. Mulally has been on the job for just 20 months and has plenty of hard work ahead of him.

Regardless of what’s ahead (and the negative tone of the article), Ford has given investors an impressive quarter for the American auto industry. Read article.

How To: Eliminate the Need for Customer Service

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

customer-service.jpgAuthors Bill Price and David Jaffe aim to flip the world of customer service with their new book, “The Best Service is No Service.”  An article from the LA Times writes:

If companies can get those things right in the first place, most customers neither want nor need so-called customer service.

Many executives may call the goal of eliminating the customer service department impossible; realistically, it is. The only saving grace that this book may provide a bit of insight comes from work experience. Price was the Vice President of Global Customer Services at Amazon.com. Read article.

The Science of Vegas

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

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Just like retail stores, the layout of a casino is nothing short of meticulous, designed for attracting customers to spend as much as possible and linger for hours, days, an entire week. Yet owners of retail stores may be able to use the same logic employed by these executives.

A recent article in d/visible discusses the evolution of the modern day casino. They quote Bill Friedman, an expert casino design consultant, as he writes:

Build a space that guides people easily around a large property to strategic spending points while inspiring a sense of curiosity. “First you want them to be curious, using curves walls and plants to obscure full view of the casino,” according to Friedman. “And once they’re where you want’ em, you want them to feel comfortable. So in the future, we can expect the hotel-casino to become a stylized reinvention of retail, entertainment, and classic casino style. Don’t get rid of the smoky male rooms with chandeliers yet, but get ready for more airy, entertaining retail-like venues with a more feminine touch to lead the market.

Theme parks, malls and other recreational consumer centers already use the concept of easily guiding people to spending points. How can you apply the same idea to your business?

How Apple Got Ahead

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

819414_29109461.jpgEven in its early years, Apple Inc avoided the corporate culture of revered firms like IBM and GE. Yet, this deviation allowed the Cupertino, CA-based company to show unparalleled progress compared to competitors and cause both executives and academics to reconsider formal guidelines in management (see yesterday’s post about Motorola).

Wired Magazine’s feature story for the month examines “Jobs & Co” and the CEO’s behavior in the company. They also list how Apple breaks business conventions and succeeds.

How Apple Defies 5 Core Business Principles:

  1. Don’t communicate with the press: Never leak product news until release
  2. Don’t play nice: Use hardball tactics to get ahead
  3. Forget about customers: Design products that YOU would want to use, not your customers
  4. Motivate employees through fear: Threaten them, withhold praise, and bring them to tears
  5. Lock customers into your product: People are willing to trade freedom for a great device.

These tactics completely clash with a post I made last week where Knowledge@Wharton showed how companies could increase profits by playing fair.

Motorola: Knowing When to Take a New Direction

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

6370_6997.jpgYesterday, Motorola announced they would split the company, leaving the struggling and unprofitable phone division to take a new course. According to an article in the International Herald Tribune:

The activist investor Carl Icahn, who has pressured Motorola to make such a move, said in a letter to its board that the announcement was “clearly a step in the right direction.” But he questioned Motorola’s commitment to moving quickly to solve its problems.

Gregory Brown, Motorola’s chief executive, conceded that the main problem facing the company was its inability to come up with new products to replace the highly successful Razr, which was once a must-have phone but has faded from the scene.

Motorola’s actions may cause executives to ask themselves when they should take struggling enterprises into new directions. Analysts cite the competition in the market, especially with Apple’s iPhone, as well as the need for a new chief executive to take control.

As with any business, consecutive months of declining sales or slow growth almost always require a change; knowing exactly what steps to take is another concern altogether.

Increasing Revenues in Movie Theaters

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

picture-2.pngCinemas, with the majority of their revenues coming from concession sales and pre-showing advertising, are investigating simple ways to increase their revenues. New York-based marketing firm Brand Experience Lab is working with cinemas across the United States and United Kingdom to introduce “AudienceGames.”

Immediately before movie showings, advertisers will encourage audience members to cooperate by playing interactive games. Motion-sensing cameras positioned in the front of the theater track members’ movements.

Volvo tested this technology and measured the audience’s response in this YouTube video. During a showing, moviegoers competed simultaneously with other theaters. Collectively, the audience had the task of driving a virtual car through an obstacle course on the cinema’s screen.

How To: Write a Pitch Letter

Posted by Alex under How To.

Bnet posted an article on how to persuade coworkers by drafting the perfect pitch letter. In addition to focusing on what to say, consider how to express your idea.

A few suggestions from the article:

  • The introduction should establish a problem or void that your suggestion will solve
  • Make the purpose clear and concise
  • Avoid stating personal or political opinions that do not belong in business
  • Validate your point by using research or surveys, and make sure the source is both relevant and available
  • At the end of the letter, the person should simply only have to give his or her approval to begin the process
  • In case the person does not agree, offer to set up a meeting

Recreating Starbucks

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

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Starbucks may need a sip of its own espresso. In the past year and a half, the company’s stock tumbled from almost touching 40 to falling short of 20. Chairman Howard Schultz may have accidentally caused shareholders to lose confidence in the company when his memo, criticizing the company’s “brand dilution” and “cookie-cutter” type store layouts, leaked onto the web. So what can this industry leader do to maintain its market share and growth?

Remember the Experience
Starbucks launched the idea of a “third-place,” saying people occasionally want to escape stress at home and work. Their coffee shops attempt to fill the void with flavorful aroma and an understated soundtrack. Starbucks’ alternations within their stores should remind customers of this experience that they used to enjoy.

Get Back to Basics
After experiencing tremendous success in coffee, Starbucks moved into manufacturing consumer products from espresso machines to coffee mugs and water bottles. They also released a line of alcoholic beverages, as well as distributing music albums and feature films. Perhaps this loss of focus, with an incredibly fast rate of expansion, contributed to the company’s dilution.

Yet even with the trouble Starbucks and its shareholders have seen during the past year, very few people have lost hope in Schultz’ guiding philosophy. He may be the Steve Jobs of designer drinks. Regardless of his strategy, the actions Starbucks makes from this point forward will live in textbooks as a case study for years.

How To: Get the Most Out of Your Ad Agency

Posted by Alex under How To.

911039_74609818.jpgWatching TV shows like Thirty Something or Mad Men gives a glimpse into the lives of advertisers and their agencies. Building a strong relationship between the client and the agency is crucial for the success of the brand and prevents clients from looking elsewhere when the economy begins to shake or sales begin to slip.

In an article for BusinessWeek:

It’s far better to make the marriage work. And just like real marriage, it’s less important to find the right partner than it is to be the right partner.”

Focus on forming a strong relationship between the client/agency. Doing so will provide more security in the future when the future does not look as prosperous.

The State of Corporate Philanthropy

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

feature_stof08.jpgMCKINSEY QUARTERLY — Corporate philanthropy can be an effective tool for companies that are trying to meet consumers’ rising expectations of the role businesses should play in society, say respondents to a McKinsey global survey. The survey also suggests, however, that companies aren’t using that tool as well as they could. Executives doubt that their philanthropy programs fully meet their social goals or stakeholders’ expectations for them. Read article.

Unconventional Decisions Pay Off

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

020608_us_lattnerd.jpgKNOWLEDGE @ WHARTON — Doug Lattner says his first rule of business leadership is “know yourself.” The CEO of fast-growing Deloitte Consulting applied that lesson to his own firm when he assumed the reins of the New York-based unit in 2003.

At the time, Deloitte Consulting, which offered expertise in such areas as strategy, technology and human resources, was serving more than 42 types of client groups. Lattner and his team grew the overall business even as they slashed that number by more than half, serving just 19 segments. “I said, ‘We’re not going to be all things to all people,’” Lattner stated during a recent Wharton Leadership Lecture. “We’re not going to out-Accenture Accenture, we’re not going to out-IBM IBM, and we’re not going to out-McKinsey McKinsey. We’re going to be very good at what we do.” Read article.

In the Game of Business, Playing Fair Can Lead to Greater Profits

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

maximumceo_935630_80992ab9b.jpgKNOWLEDGE @ WHARTON — Tune into “The Apprentice,” and you get an all-too-common view of business. Every week, all of the wannabe moguls try to impress Donald Trump by preening, cajoling and conniving. In this world, toughness is the measure of every CEO, and the boss glories in firing people and squeezing every penny out of suppliers.

Yet according to John Zhang and Jagmohan Raju, both Wharton marketing professors, and Tony Haitao Cui, a University of Minnesota marketing and logistics professor, many people aren’t purely mercenary in their business dealings. They care about fairness — and they should, the researchers say, because doing so can maximize their profits. Read article.

AOL is Open to Deal

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

12aol600.jpgTHE NEW YORK TIMES— AOL, the company that introduced millions of people to the Internet, has tried to reinvent itself many times. The latest effort, like those before it, does not seem to be going well.

On Tuesday, Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chief executive of Time Warner, AOL’s parent company, acknowledged weakness in the business and said he was open to combining AOL with another company — “whatever configuration makes it the strongest and the most valuable.”

But he may have been soft-pedaling what seems to be an increasingly troublesome situation at AOL, which has bet its future on a new strategy of selling advertising across the Internet and has spent more than $1 billion on related acquisitions. Read article.

Implementing the Plan

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

scaffolding_plans.jpgDESIGNINTELLIGENCE— All is not strategy. At some point in the life of a strategic plan, intentions must take wing, transforming word to deed.

Writing in the January/February issue of DesignIntelligence, Pearson Architects founder Melinda Pearson examines the process and tools of strategic plan implementation. She notes that before a plan can be fully realized, four supporting factors are necessary: marketing, operations, finance, and professional services. Lacking one or more of these elements, a firm’s performance will be marginalized.

Involve every employee in the implementation process, coaches Pearson. “Having the right staff in the right position with the right training is the fundamental key to successful implementation. If you do nothing else, this alone will keep your organization alive,” she notes. Read article.

Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

ff_free1_f.jpgWIRED— The idea that you can make money by giving something away is no longer radical. But until recently, practically everything “free” was really just the result of what economists would call a cross-subsidy: You’d get one thing free if you bought another, or you’d get a product free only if you paid for a service.

Once a marketing gimmick, free has emerged as a full-fledged economy. Offering free music proved successful for Radiohead, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, and a swarm of other bands on MySpace that grasped the audience-building merits of zero. The fastest-growing parts of the gaming industry are ad-supported casual games online and free-to-try massively multiplayer online games. Virtually everything Google does is free to consumers, from Gmail to Picasa to GOOG-411. Read article.

Microsoft and Yahoo: Does It Make Sense

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

2008-02-15t190409z_01_nootr_rtridsp_2_tech-yahoo-microsoft-dc.jpgKNOWLEDGE @ WHARTON— On Friday, February 1, Microsoft announced it was making an unsolicited bid to acquire Yahoo for $44.6 billion in cash and stock, a 62% premium over Yahoo’s stock price at the time. If the deal is completed, it would be the largest acquisition in Microsoft’s history and, the company hopes, would jumpstart its struggling Internet search and advertising businesses, as well as add to its online portfolio a number of popular web sites such as Flickr, Yahoo HotJobs and Yahoo Personals. Read article.

If Online Marketing Is the Future, Why Are Some CMOs Stuck in the Past?

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

MaximumCEOKNOWLEDGE@WHARTON— Americans spend an average of 14 hours a week online and 14 hours watching TV. But marketers spend 22% of their advertising dollars on TV and only 6% online, according to data compiled and analyzed by Google.

“Of all the advertising platforms, the Internet is one of the few on an upward trend,” says Wharton marketing professor Patti Williams. “But if you look in terms of the sheer amount of time most consumers are spending online and the amount of dollars being spent to reach them, it is still probably way under what it should be.” Read article.

Unilever and Emerging Economies

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

0508bb1.jpgECONOMIST— When a consumer-goods company casts around for the best growth prospects, rarely does anything look more promising than emerging economies. These markets are growing so rapidly that within just two years they will account for half of all the world’s consumer spending, estimates Harish Manwani, head of the Asian and African businesses of Unilever, a giant of the world’s consumer-goods industries. But even with more than a century of experience in some of these countries, Unilever tripped up.

Few companies have had the head start in places like Africa, China, India and Latin America that Unilever enjoyed. Yet despite the Anglo-Dutch giant’s formidable range of products and unprecedented depth of local knowledge, when rivals began to push harder its empire came under threat. Unilever was forced to re-examine its legacy and to act on what it found. Now the results are coming through. Read article.

The Super Bowl Economy

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

lede.jpgBUSINESSWEEK— Super Sunday generates major bucks for all involved, from its host network to snackmakers, HDTV sellers, and especially the game’s host city. For entrepreneur Steve Sodell, the Super Bowl started in late October. That’s when he and his staff of 12 began renting retail space in shopping malls and hotels across the Phoenix metro area—stuffing shelves with NFL-licensed T-shirts, hats, and other collectibles emblazoned with this year’s Super Bowl XLII logo. By the day of the big game on Feb. 3, his makeshift merchandise empire will comprise 24 stores and 42 employees. Ten days later, business shuts down and Sodell starts planning for next year’s Super Bowl in Tampa. “We have a very short window of opportunity to make our money,” he says. Read article.

Saving Sears Doesn’t Look Easy Anymore

Posted by Alex under Uncategorized.

27searsxlarge1.jpgTHE NEW YORK TIMES— By all accounts, Edward S. Lampert, the billionaire hedge fund manager whose investment savvy earned him renown as “the next Warren Buffett,” is a man not accustomed to rebukes.

But that is precisely what the stock market delivered in mid-January as Sears Holdings, the Kmart and Sears combination engineered by Mr. Lampert in 2005 and his hedge fund’s biggest holding, sank to $86.02 a share. It was a level last seen three years ago, just after the ballyhooed merger was announced, and far below the stock’s peak of $193 in April 2007. In the course of nine months, $14 billion in market value had evaporated. Read article.