Search Results

Loyalty programs must enhance the overall value of the product or service and motivate buyers to make their next purchase.

Electric utility companies will have to reinvent themselves to change from vertical to & #x201C;virtual” integration based on value networks segmented into six areas: generation, transmission, distribution, energy services, power markets, and IT products and services.

In a study of the predictors of success and failure in implementing technology, the author examines the introduction and use of profiling, an expert system intended to aid the insurance sales process at four insurance companies. Lutheran Brotherhood, National Mutual, Prudential, and Sun Alliance tried to get more than 5,000 field salespeople to implement Profiling. The study results indicate that in implementing a radically new technology, managers need to assemble "constellations" of actions, consider the political ramifications throughout the organization, manage the momentum of the project, and work to achieve economies of scale.

What lessons do IBM's failure in the 1980s and early 1990s and its apparent successful comeback have for other large corporations? In an extensive study of the company's history (only part of which is covered here), the author finds two factors that contributed to IBM's difficulties: it ignored its commitments to customers to provide effective, high-quality technology and service support, and it broke its implied promise to employees to provide job security. Large corporations will survive only if they can avoid some of the hazards that IBM has faced.

As original equipment manufacturers reevaluate whether to make or buy parts for their products under conditions of intense competition, small to medium-size manufacturers that specialize in producing well-defined types of products have a unique opportunity to become world-class competitors. The authors present a prescriptive approach for staying or becoming a successful parts supplier. They follow a printed circuit board manufacturer, Hadco Corporation, along the four different paths suggested by the strategic supplier typology they developed from a survey of 200 New Hampshire manufacturers.

\/-0

Are rebounding U.S. corporate profits causing managers to be complacent about the Japanese competitive challenge? Is the world market share of Japanese industry really shrinking? According to this author, it's too soon to count the Japanese out. Using company data, he has tracked changes in world market shares in various industries since the 1960s. The results of his survey suggest that the current U.S. response to the Japanese global challenge is inappropriate and that managers should reexamine their efforts to position their companies in world markets.

A survey of CEOs at Fortune 1,000 firms asked about their firms' hurdle rates and time horizons. Survey results suggest that most U.S. firms use hurdle rates that are higher than standard cost-of-capital analyses would suggest. The average discount rate applied to constant-dollar cash flows was 12.2 percent, distinctly higher than equity holders' average rates of return and much higher than the return on debt during the past half-century. At the time of the survey, the fall of 1990, U.S. CEOs believed that their firms had systematically shorter time horizons than their major competitors in Europe and (especially) Asia. U.S. CEOs also thought that government policy is a powerful agent affecting corporate planning horizons. They saw several policy reforms, including a cut in corporate tax rates, a permanent R&;D tax credit, a corporate tax deduction for dividend payments, and a credible commitment to a stable tax policy for the next decade, as policies that could lengthen planning horizons.

Is it time to reform the financial reporting regulations that were established in the early 1900s? Will new regulations improve the corporate disclosure process? The authors conducted a national survey of corporate managers, financial analysts, and portfolio managers to examine their options on disclosure regulation and how companies communicate with the capital markets. Their analysis indicates that, while all three groups think market functioning is imperfect, they do not see a need for increased financial reporting regulation. Rather, the authors' analysis suggests that companies can improve the processes of disclosure and communication by developing a strategy for corporate information disclosure, upgrading the role of the investor relations staff, and voluntarily reporting nonfinancial information. Such improvements would increase management credibility, analysts' understanding of the firm, investors' patience, and, potentially, share value.

Formerly adversarial relationships between retailers and their suppliers are giving way to cooperative partnerships in which both try to improve merchandise and information flow in the distribution channel system. By cooperating, retailers and suppliers can speed up the replenishment of inventories, improve customer service, reduce the need for markdowns, and cut the cost of bringing goods to the customer. The authors outline the key features of channel partnerships and discuss the reasons for their rapid formation during the 1990s. They describe the changes needed in traditional merchandising and distribution systems to gain the benefits of a partnership and the requirements for a successful channel partnership.