Archives posted in: Corporate
Declining profits and hammered by investors, Best Buy and J.C. Penney are having a tough go. Some seem to believe traditional brick and mortar retailers are circling the drain as US consumers switch to online channels. But take a deeper look, and you will find that both show promise.
More Do we have the “Seinfeld syndrome,” generating interest from hard-nosed investors in a business concept about nothing? A look at Facebook’s IPO
More What secrets can we gain from Bezos, Jobs, Zuckerberg, Mackey, Kelleher, and Walton? Examine Fortune’s 12 greatest entrepreneurs of our time.
More Renault’s small car segment is led by Arnaud Deboeuf is earning above 6% profit margins on €7,700 cars. GM’s Opel loses $630 on every car sold in Europe. How does Renault do this and why can’t Opel?
More Over the past few years, I discover more and more senior level executives who do not have a full grasp of primary business strategy drivers that drive revenue and profits. I’ve met with Chief Executive Officers (CEO) who just dismissed their Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and asked “Why did you remove this person and what change in business activities do you seek in your next CMO?” Amazingly most can’t answer this basic question with a well thought out and rational answer. Part of the problem starts here.
More Starting with the dot.com bubble of a few years ago, marketers have been intrigued by the new Internet technologies and their profit-making potential. Huge amounts of investment capital have flowed into these ventures and most quickly collapsed victimizing both employees and investors. Now, we find ourselves in the midst of another round of promising schemes based on the “social networking” movement. One of stars of this movement is “Twitter.” The problem is how is this concept going to make money?
More Appreciating Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” contributions to market coordination based on supply, demand, and price, and understanding his argument of allowing markets to allocate goods and resources based on individual incentives, I pose the question, “How much value is created by managerial competency and organized business entities?” In other words, why do firms exist?
More Why do firms exist? Why should society allow corporations to exist? What moral reason should we, as a society, allow firms to exist? At the most fundamental level, the Occupy movement is asking this question. Shouldn’t we be addressing this?
More A number of years ago, I was contacted by an attorney who was representing an inventor. It seemed that inventor had created a universal cap for an automotive water heater. This cap could work as a replacement for any water heater.Like most inventors, this one happened to be mentally long on technical expertise and mentally short on the realities of the marketplace. Also, like many investors he was working on a shoe-string.
More As the global economy continues to be stressed and prices for all kinds of raw materials continue to rise, manufacturers are looking for ways to preserve profits. Although manufacturers are substituting materials where they can and locking in long-term contracts to protect themselves from price hikes, they may ultimately face the conundrum of passing along rising costs in the form of price increases to their customers. Will it work? Mixed results.
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