Archive for the ‘Business’ Category
Our company was having problems with our Supply Chain. A Supply Chain is a complicated system of organizations, people or technology, activities, information and resources involved in the movement of products and services from a supplier to the customer. Our current supplier was not able to meet our company’s needs and demands, we found ourselves losing customers and clients, and we cannot afford that, so we have decided to look for another supplier. Our supplier officer was very specific on what supplier he wanted, he wanted a supplier that was good in Supply Chain Consultants and implementing software.
A friend that worked in another company suggested that we try 4SIGHT Supply Chain, is a Supply Chain Consultants and Systems Integration firm that specializes in consulting and implementing software, exactly what our supply officer wanted. We invited a representative from the 4SIGHT Supply Chain, to further explain their Supply Chain Consultants Services to us. The representative gave us detailed information on their services and products. Their CONSULTING Services focus on business process improvements and all the steps leading to the procurement of new software, whether if it’s for a long-term benefit or immediate project needs, they assured us of their help in solving many of Supply Chain needs.
In addition to agricultural products and manufactured goods, the United States is also a big exporter of services and retailing. In fact, it leads the world in services exports. Of the approximately $210 billion in annual service exports, over half comes from travel and tourism—money spent by foreign nationals visiting the United States. Tourism is the third largest industry in the United States, contributing $430 billion to its economy each year, and is responsible for creating more than $6 billion in travel and tourism-related jobs. With 102 million tourists per year, the United States ranks second only to China in visitors. By 2020, tourists will spend $2 trillion during their international travels.
Vacation marketers, intensifying their efforts to give tourists the largest variety of activities within the shortest time, have created a boom in theme parks and cruises. Over 40 new cruise vessels were put on the high seas in 2000, with the largest one capable of carrying 6,200 passengers. Theme parks under construction range from a replica of ancient Rome to central Florida’s Jungle Crocs of the world. Over 500 airline alliances have been created to make it easier for giobetrotters seeking undiscovered faraway destinations to reach them from the local airport. National tourism offices around the world are competing aggressively to capture shares of this growing industry.
The most profitable U.S. service exports are business and technical services, such as engineering, financial, computing, Jegal services, and entertainment. In a recent year, worldwide Internet services revenues grew an enormous 71 percent to almost $8 billion. Even more surprising is that the growth is expected to continue at a 60 percent annual rate, passing $78 billion by 2003. The United States is the largest market for Internet service providers.
The financial services industry is also going global via the cyberhighway. The rapid emergence of cross-border securities trading exemplifies how quickly the Internet is gaining acceptance among investors. Charles Schwab Europe has some 14,500 British clients who trade U.S. shares over the Internet. Ameritrade online system allows German and French investors to buy and sell U.S. equities. E*Trade has expanded services to Australia, France, and Sweden. A glance at the increasing number of foreign companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange illustrates the importance of global financial services. Figure 3.4 explains how companies listed on the exchange are changing our world, from drug companies’ research to find a cure for river blindness in Central and West Africa to the launch of a new space telescope for viewing distant galaxies.
Some service exporters are household names: American Express, AT&T, Citigroup, Walt Disney, Wal-Mart, Allstate Insurance, and Federal Express. Many earn a substantial percentage of their revenues from international sales. For instance, U.S. airlines earn 25 percent of their revenues from their international routes. Other service exporters are smaller companies, such as the many software firms that have found overseas markets receptive to their products. Hyperion Software, a Stamford, Connecticut, designer of financial reporting software for large business applications generates half its revenues from overseas sales. While Hyperion uses a direct sales force in North America, it sells through independent local distributors in foreign markets. San Diego—based StarGuide Digital Networks exports both goods (satellite communications equipment) and services (air time on satellites) to majorjapanese corporations.
The movie industry is another major service exporter. Europe and Australia have always been receptive to American films, partly due to the similarities in language and lifestyles. British actor Hugh Grant is as famous in Los Angeles or New York as American actor Robert Redford is in Paris or Sydney. But films traveling to Asia typically have little connection with Eastern culture. The language is different and the music is different. As a result, U.S. movie marketers attempt to develop ties with Asian audiences, a relatively untapped market that currently generates only 18 cents of every dollar spent abroad on nfovie tickets or video sales and rentals. So when Warner Bros. released Lethal Weapon 4 in Hong Kong, it hired local heavy-metal band Beyond to create a music video to be used for promotional purposes only. The band is highly popular in Asia, and the video received heavy airplay in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Even though the song was never a part of the movie itself, it sewed as a commercial for the movie each time it was played.
Retailers ranging from Victoria’s Secret, Foot Locker, and The Gap to Office Depot, Toys “51” Us, and PriceCostco warehouse clubs are opening stores around the world at rapid paces. U.S. retailers do especially well in Asia, where consumers like the convenience and wide selection of American-made products. They are also attracted to products associated with American lifestyles.
During the last three decades, U.S. fast-food franchises have been opening outlets at a phenomenal rate, as the opening story on Taco Bell demonstrates. McDonald’s currently operates over 6,000 outlets in 91 countries. Domino’s Pizza now serves its pies to customers in 1,200 outlets in 46 countries. Arby’s parent company, Florida-based Triarc Restaurant Group, operates over 3,000 outlets in the United States and has recently signed an agreement with Sybra Restaurants UK to take the roast-beef-sandwich chain to London. Over 100 Arby’s restaurants are expected to open during the next 10 years.
The leadership of corporate America is responding to a large number of important trends shaping business in the 21st century. Their decisions will influence and be influenced by changes in the competitive, political-legal, economic, technological, and social-cultural environments. Marketing ethics and social responsibility will continue to play important roles in business transactions in your hometown and around the globe.
The competitive environment will heat up in the next decade as more companies become veterans of the Web battle. Respondents to a recent survey report that competitive forces will come from every sector of business. A full third of these respondents believe the most serious competition will come from U.S. companies who are not yet a Fortune 500 company. Thirty percent expect foreign marketers to pose the most formidable competitive threat. By a larger than four-to-one majority most CEOs believe that expanding their markets is a more important priority than increasing their share of current markets.
Much of the competition will result from innovations in technology and scientific discoveries. Business in the 21st century will be propelled by information technologies and sustained by creativity and entrepreneurial activity. Biotechnology is an industry in its infancy that is expected to explode in the economy in the next decade. Scientists will be able to create materials atom by atom, replicating much that nature can do and more.
Indeed, the surge of innovation is fueling an expected 3 percent annual growth in the economy that experts predict will last for years to come. This age of prosperity is benefiting more people than just the established elite. By 2010, e-commerce could revolutionize all kinds of industries and account for 6 percent of the gross domestic product. In the 20th-century economy, industrial sectors included retail, financial services, and manufacturing. But today, those old sectors do not fit the networked economy. The idea of what it means to be a retail company will change in five years when a billion people are logged on to the Internet. The bundling of services on the Internet will bypass many of the financial services we take for granted today. For example, when a 14-year-old buys a digital CD off the Internet, digital cash is transferred from her hard drive to that of the recording artist, thereby eliminating the need for a bank or credit-card company. Money will eventually be relegated to encrypted numbers on disk drives and digital wallets.
Dynamic growth cannot be left entirely to self-regulation. Simultaneously, as the information age builds a wealth of information, it has the ability to rob individuals of their privacy. The next decade will produce a plethora of rules and regulations to control the marketing environments. Understandably, businesses are disturbed at having limitations placed on their operations. For example, a broad federal privacy protection law that forces data gatherers to inform consumers that they have collected information on them and explain how the information is being used could cost marketing researchers and businesses billions of dollars in redesigning database configurations to be in compliance with new standards
Consumers will feel the impact of environmental changes in every aspect of their lives. The new century is ushering in new generations of consumers who expect high-quality, low-cost products readily available on demand. Every company will be forced to build relationships to attract and retain loyal customers in order to succeed.
Underlying all the changes in the business environments and marketing mix elements is a requirement for companies to act ethically and in socially responsible ways. Marketers will have to go beyond what is legally right and wrong by integrating ethical behavior in all of their actions. Forward-looking companies will reap the benefits tomorrow of socially responsible behavior today.
Once your firm has made the leap to recruiting using the Net, you’ll find yourself asking the next logical question: “If the candidate is already on the Net, is it really necessary to import that person into the office every day, whether that person comes from across the city, the country or even the world?” Veriphone, “Cutting Costs Across Your Enterprise,” has no corporate headquarters. It is perhaps the first large-scale major company to be unshackled by the restraints of bricks and mortar.
If a person’s brain power can be harnessed from her home, then both company and employee can have a win/win situation. The candidate saves on commuting time, clothes, gasoline, and so on. The firm saves on office space, electricity, and a host of other “built-in” HR costs. The more cynical employer can also calculate the increased worker productivity, since that person won’t be hanging around the water cooler or grousing about the coffee in the cafeteria. Assuming that all workers don’t have to work together at the exact same time, you’ll find that time-shifting is another advantage. Some people work most efficiently in the morning, while others tend to be night owls. For single- or dual-income families with children, this ability to shift workload and place can mean an essential difference in their work lives.
Some would and do argue that this is no panacea for contract or freelance workers. Many will tell you they find themselves assuming higher overhead costs for essentially the same wage. From the company perspective, the downside is the lack of “face-time.” An offsite employee can be diminished in importance if he is never seen. “Out of sight, out of mind,” as the saying goes. A tendency to marginalize ollsite employees is difficult to notice and sometimes even more difficult to correct. This is, after all, a brave new HR world. Maybe a person can come to the office two days a week and use a space that is shared by other telecommuters on other days. Your firm may choose to go halfway and have that employee commute to a telecommuting center located near him. At these centers, there are office support services, such as industrial-strength copiers, videoconferencing capabilities, faster access to the Internet, and so on. Be aware of the differences between offsite contract (or freelance) employees and part-time telecommuters, even if they are using a specific te(ecommuting center contracted and paid for by your company. There are many legal benefits and compensations that must be clarified and met for each category of employee.
Another downside is that there are things that happen in a face-to-face encounter that just aren’t going to happen in an online encounter, even using teleconferencing or video feed. In many cases, there needs to be a certain spontaneity for inspiration to spawn. That may often only happen when your employees are in the same place at the same time, sharing the same experience.