States Fearful of Losing Revenues on State-of-the-Art Telephony
Landline phone use is down; wireless usage is up. The Federal Communications Commission’s low-reg stance on new communications technologies has been a fixture for the last several years, following the theory that limiting regulation of new technology will encourage innovation. Voice over Internet Protocol/VoIP technology, which allows users to make phone calls over the Internet, is one of the unregulated new technologies that grew up in the 1990s. As VoIP has become more sophisticated and more stable, providers have begun offering service more widely, sometimes at half the cost of regular landline service. What seems to be good news for consumers has states worrying about revenue shortfalls, however, according to this month’s Knowledge at Wharton Newsletter. ...
Guide Helps Managers Increase Warehouse Quality and Productivity
Imagine if you could improve -- even double -- workforce productivity in the warehouse or distribution center. Wouldn't that be sweet? In their new book, "Warehouse Productivity," authors Ron Hounsell and Pat Kelley present a blue-collar incentive plan that is designed to do just that. Their idea is to bring the corporate practice, common among many executives, of tying compensation to performance, down to all employee ranks. Their message: Extra pay is a reward for those who perform at high levels. ...
Guide Helps Managers Increase Warehouse Quality and Productivity
Imagine if you could improve -- even double -- workforce productivity in the warehouse or distribution center. Wouldn't that be sweet? In their new book, "Warehouse Productivity," authors Ron Hounsell and Pat Kelley present a blue-collar incentive plan that is designed to do just that. Their idea is to bring the corporate practice, common among many executives, of tying compensation to performance, down to all employee ranks. Their message: Extra pay is a reward for those who perform at high levels....
Breaking Down the Balkanized Markets of America
Although a common belief is that mass media has led to a homogenization of culture and markets, New York-based research company Simmons believes the opposite is true: The breakup of the mass market has turned American society into balkanized population segments that defy easy categorization. While Simmons' flagship survey, the Simmons National Consumer Study (NCS), draws on a database of over 27,000 respondents nationwide to unlock the secrets of American marketplace behavior, the company now breaks that study down into SimmonsLOCAL. Drawing on the NCS database, SimmonsLOCAL provides hometown versions of consumer media and purchasing behavior in each of the nation's 210 DMAs (Designated Market Areas). Simmons says that all companies, from small-scale shops to global corporations, can now pinpoint the customers for their products and services. ...
How to Take Advantage of Your Midsize Operation’s Flexibility
By direct marketing standards, most of the companies dubbed “midsize” in AberdeenGroup’s recent report on mid-market firms’ fulfillment strategies would be classified as huge. The report, a survey of 144 companies from the U.S., U.K., Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region, focuses on businesses with revenue of $50 million to $999 million. By virtue of their “smaller” size, these enterprises are apparently blessed with more flexible and agile warehousing and transport networks—a major advantage over the large but lumbering competition....
Online Strategy: Why E-Commerce Worked Last Year
It’s always good to know just why something happened, because, in theory at least, you can replicate those conditions and expect to end up with the same result. Aided by consumers, online merchants did enough of the right things in 2004 that they ended up with the best sales since the heyday of the dot-com era--$136.6 billion for the year, according to a report from Forrester Research Inc. And here’s why, says Forrester analyst Carrie Johnson:...
Survey Shows Rise in DM Spending -- But Lack of Understanding
A recent survey conducted on both sides of the Atlantic by international database solutions provider Alterian (Bristol, England), shows that while most respondents expect their direct marketing expenditures to increase over the next 12 months, there are real concerns about marketing service providers' ability to understand a client's business. The survey examined attitudes of almost 600 marketers and marketing service providers (MSPs) in both the UK and North American direct marketing industries....
Life is Good at the Top of the Supply Chain
AMR Research has weighed in with a report that names the top 25 companies embracing supply chain best practices and technologies. The AMR Research Supply Chain Top 25 and the New Trillion-Dollar Opportunity identifies Dell Computer as the best, calling its growth of 17% in the PC business on a $40 billion revenue base "phenomenal." Boston-based AMR used financial metrics such as return on assets, inventory turns and trailing 12 months growth, combining those with its analysts' opinion of each company's supply chain performance based on field research and case studies, to arrive at a composite ranking score. Dell's composite score of 20.75 was far ahead of second-place Nokia's 13.31, though the cell phone manufacturer was said to have supply chain best practices that "turn ideas into profitable businesses." Coming in at number three was consumer products powerhouse Procter & Gamble, with IBM fourth and Wal-Mart fifth. ...
Customer Satisfaction Slumps, Time to Make Lemonade
In 1994, the University of Michigan Business School, the American Society for Quality, and the CFI Group teamed to create the American Customer Satisfaction Index to measure the quality of the “household consumption experience.” The news from the national ACSI for Q4 2004 is not happy for retailers: Compared to last year, consumer satisfaction is down in categories across the board in e-commerce (-2.7%) generally, and in subcategories such as retail (-4.8%) and auctions (-1.4%), while retail trade shows an overall decline of –3.2%, with department and discount stores at –2.6% and specialty retail stores with a slight gain, up 1.4% from 2003. But what if you were to make the lemon of customer dissatisfaction into lemonade? Debra Ellis of Wilson Ellis Consulting offers an interpretation of these statistics in her current newsletter, along with a plan for e-commerce companies whose customers may not be as happy this year as they were the year before. ...
Book Review: Strategic Planning and Performance Management
A new book from Elsevier, Strategic Planning and Performance Management (Elsevier, 2005), by Australian Graham Kenny, CEO of consultancy Strategic Factors, posits that successful businesses must view their own performance from the point of view of stakeholders. ...
Spend More, Pay Less: Procurement Technology Streamlines World-Class Ops
What’s the differentiating characteristic that separates world-class procurement operations from their less sizable and comparatively successful competitors? Money spent on technology, according to recent research from business process advisory firm The Hackett Group. ...
Ludwig Offers Tips to Enter "Supercharged Selling State"
George Ludwig, a nationally known keynote speaker, has more than 25 years of sales, sales management, and sales training experience, including five years of presenting his sales success seminar all over the country. As sales trainer, coach, and corporate consultant, Ludwig trains over 10,000 people per year from various corporations and associations. Yet even Ludwig says, "Selling is scary. If you doubt it, you've never stood before a dour-faced prospect, stomach churning and palms sweating, images from recent rejections swirling in your mind like some tornado of self-loathing." Of course, he's not talking about himself; he's talking about you. But in his new book, Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code (Dearborn Trade Publishing, 2004, ISBN: 0-7931-8571-8, $19.95), Ludwig offers some tips to help "Supercharge Your Selling Skills" and overcome the fear that, he says, is all in your mind. ...
Extra! Extra! Innovative eMerchants Focus on Effective Sales Tactics!
Okay, maybe it’s not really breaking news, but it apparently is to some online retailers. Conclusions derived from the e-tailing group’s 7th Annual Mystery Shopping Study revealed that, from a merchandising perspective, the most innovative merchants are focused on tactics to more effectively sell products. And, observed e-tailing group president Lauren Freedman, "Among the 100 sites that we shopped it is becoming a case of the haves and have-nots. While some sites continue to innovate, others show few changes year-to-year. This is cause for concern, as customers will gravitate to those who consistently improve the shopping experience across all channels.” Freedman’s advice: “We encourage merchants to review the findings from this study and prioritize tactics, adding the most relevant merchandising features and functionality to their sites."...
Executives Around the World Look Forward to 2005 Growth
The London office of the Economist Intelligence Unit has issued a "CEO Briefing" that indicates a widely hopeful attitude toward the possibilities for growth in 2005, with 88% of the companies surveyed predicting growth of some sort over the next three years. Improved customer service, cost efficiency, and innovation are credited for the positive outlook. In fact, 34% of respondents expect robust growth. ...
Companies Ill Prepared to Make Sourcing Shift to China, India, Survey Finds
Management consulting firm A.T. Kearney has released its study "2004 Assessment of Excellence in Procurement," which tabulates results from procurement and supply chain executives in 275 companies across 25 industries. Overall results show that the trend toward a rising level of sourcing from "low-cost" countries has continued for the last ten years, and respondents to the study indicate that this trend will probably continue for several more years into the future....
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