tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:49:50 +0000http://www.iproceed.com/blog/noreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)Blogger209125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111929816127238974Mon, 20 Jun 2005 19:46:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:11.866-05:00What is common (and of interest to businesspeople) among Brangelina (the relationship of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie), TomKat (the relationship of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes), Revenge of the Sith, Paris Hilton & Paris Latsis, and Carrie Underwood (the latest American Idol)? Well, these popular culture "events" can actually throw your business planning into chaos due to the enormity of their http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/06/take-advantage-of-unexpected-events.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111905580853003174Sat, 18 Jun 2005 00:39:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:11.783-05:00In terms of an effective product recall strategy, I have argued that there need to be two fundamental elements:Development of a strategy at the same time the product is launched so that in case of a problem, everyone knows what to do.Be proactive in recalling rather than dragging your feet.Guidant Corporation did neither of the two. When first report came out that that the company continued to http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/06/guidant-slow-in-recall-of-ventak-prizm.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111886038097634764Wed, 15 Jun 2005 18:18:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:11.659-05:00In March this year, I had a chance to have lunch with Sanjay Behl (at the conference on India and its neighbors at the Harvard Business School), the head of marketing at Nokia India. It was quite exciting to hear about the rapid growth of mobile phones in a poor country like India and how Nokia has been creative in customize its offering to the local situation. In other words, Nokia is an http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/06/how-to-grow-in-emerging-markets-nokia.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111877776489162805Tue, 14 Jun 2005 19:20:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:11.533-05:00When I had argued that our healthcare system is ready for structural changes (as a result of a collapse due to it being totally dysfunctional), I did not know that the problem was even worse. Apart from 45 million uninsured Americans (US is the richest country in the world), there are as many as 16 million adults that were underinsured in 2003, meaning they did not have enough financial http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/06/61-million-americans-seek-cheap.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111877202017218144Tue, 14 Jun 2005 17:46:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:11.409-05:00An unconfirmed report by The Wall Street Journal says that Procter & Gamble is sharply cutting its advance purchases of television commercials. My reaction was "So some advertising folks are finally getting it!" In fact what surprises me is that there are still so many ad executives who continue to spend their dollars on television advertising - what is clearly a very low ROI channel.The report http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/06/tv-advertising-about-to-decline.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111842988061569447Fri, 10 Jun 2005 18:42:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:10.843-05:00There will be occasions when your website might be thrown out of a search engine for no reason at all. Actually you may not even have done anything wrong at all and you may still be thrown out. Why would that be? If you follow standard web design practices and a substantial number of websites start to employ the same tricks, it is not uncommon for search engines to penalize all websites so that http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/06/is-your-website-blacklisted-by-search.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111834554894018112Thu, 09 Jun 2005 19:09:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:10.753-05:00For the longest time, I have been arguing that there are enormous business opportunities in the healthcare sector - more specifically, in providing healthcare services to the uninsured. During last couple of days, two more interesting pieces of data were made available that make the argument even stronger. Health insurance premiums will cost families and employers an extra $900 on average duringhttp://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/06/healthcare-sector-ready-for-major.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111826068022715739Wed, 08 Jun 2005 19:42:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:10.634-05:00When General Motors' Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner announced that it will reduce its manufacturing employment level in the U.S. by 25,000 or more people in the 2005 to 2008 period to generate annual savings of approximately $2.5 billion, my reaction was, "Too little, too late." When a business leader uses layoffs and plant shutdown as the only ways to create shareholder valuehttp://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/06/cost-cutting-by-gm-is-not-solution.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111816452958342252Tue, 07 Jun 2005 16:56:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:10.514-05:00On the heels of eBay's acquisition of Shopping.com, which I did not think was an excellent strategic move, comes the announcement by E.W. Scripps that it is acquiring Shopzilla.com. In my opinion, this acquisition makes perfect sense as does the acquisition of About.com by The New York Times. Why these acquisitions make sense? Steady decline in newspaper subscriptions.Loss of interest among 18-http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/06/scripps-acquires-perfect-candidate.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111774774975573516Thu, 02 Jun 2005 21:18:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:10.393-05:00I have been scratching my head all day today to figure out why eBay, a great company that I admire immensely, will acquire Shopping.com. Not that Shopping.com is not a good company, but somehow I do not see a business model fit between the two. eBay has been very successful in its niche and so has Shopping.com, but the two types of shoppers that they attract are so far apart in their approaches http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/06/poor-logic-for-ebay-acquisition-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111756706780772005Tue, 31 May 2005 19:04:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:10.302-05:00Pfizer is providing an excellent example on how not to deal with product problems and recalls. While the drug industry has some unique attributes, there are several learnings that are applicable to other sectors as well.I have written extensively on Pfizer's mishandling of the recall of Bextra, it seems that Pfizer has another situation to deal with - a somewhat likely recall of another http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/05/pfizer-mishandles-unlikely-viagra.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111713953157078116Thu, 26 May 2005 20:17:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:10.210-05:00You might have heard that The New York Times had to cut back its staff and it is planning to charge for its online content. There is no doubt that it is one of the best English language newspapers in the world that I have read, but I ended my hard-copy subscription more than two years ago. In fact I get most of my mainstream news from Google News, and to read perspectives and other interesting http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/05/bloggers-redefine-media-consumption.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111713100573376197Thu, 26 May 2005 17:53:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:10.110-05:00In this article I want to address the importance of mining of blogs and other online content by companies so that they can make sure that they know what is being said about them and accordingly respond to it. Your advertising and public relations efforts will be useless if there is a lot of negative content on the Internet about you.We live in a world where almost anyone with access to the http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/05/brand-management-on-internet.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111706467948627409Wed, 25 May 2005 23:35:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:07.065-05:00There is no doubt that you appreciate the power of networking. But networking is not something that happens only at professional events. You can successfully network at even at social gatherings. When I first went through sales training, my coach Chuck Steinke said, “All things being equal, you buy from a friend. All things not being equal, you still buy from a friend.” In other words, the more http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-network-at-social-events.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111705243340184718Wed, 25 May 2005 20:13:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:06.961-05:00The spa industry in the United States has steadily grown over the years and has become the fourth largest in the leisure sector. With as many as 15,000 locations in 2004 (iProceed estimate), it has become a leading destination for well-heeled consumers who visit day spas, spa resorts, fitness spas, destination spas, and more recently, the medical spas. I recently attended the Spa & Resort and http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/05/medical-spa-growth-opportunities.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111697389883142397Tue, 24 May 2005 22:11:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:06.867-05:00Advertisers now know that a lot of traditional advertising is not producing a desirable ROI while the cost of online advertising, while relatively more effective, is going up. For many startups and small businesses, a huge advertising budget is simply not an option. In other words, if they can not get creative, they may never be able to get their message across to the target market. (Related http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-leverage-public-relations-for.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111681154297016652Mon, 23 May 2005 01:25:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:06.778-05:00Just early last week, I was discussing Google's business model with a client. What we were wondering though was that despite having people like me abandon even our corporate email addresses (I still use my iProceed.com email address on my business card, but forward all my emails to Gmail.com), we still had no choice but to find another website like Yahoo to track my stock portfolio or to read my http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/05/yahoo-business-model-in-serious.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111661537591433849Fri, 20 May 2005 18:47:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:06.669-05:00Drug prices are among the highest in the United States. Of course, we are the richest nation in the world. Plus, due to the high cost of doing business here and the process of getting a drug through the approval can cost between $800 million to a billion dollars. All Americans understand that, but there is one more reason why the drug prices are high - we do not believe in a global market for http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/05/reasons-for-higher-drug-prices-in.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111655246189238744Fri, 20 May 2005 01:03:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:06.569-05:00The Guardian newspaper is reporting that scientists in Newcastle, England have successfully cloned a human embryo, a breakthrough that places them at the cutting edge of stem cell research. The clone was created as part of the group's research into new treatments for diabetes. At the same time, another group, lead by scientists in South Korea under the guidance of Woo Suk Hwang, also announced http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/05/america-lags-in-stem-cell-research.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111645279337403332Wed, 18 May 2005 21:35:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:06.476-05:00Now that the talk of the town is globalization, it was no surprise that I got to attend a panel discussion on "Creating a Global R&D Organization." And I must say that the panel members were pretty distinguished, as they like to describe them - Christopher de Souza of Novartis, Robert Gould of Merck, Vicki Sato of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Phil Vickers of Pfizer, and the moderator was Anil Khurana http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/05/global-research-and-development-for.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111635957497637633Tue, 17 May 2005 19:40:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:06.379-05:00Written with Jay Srinivasan, Director at Siemens. Before Siemens, Mr. Srinivasan was the Director of eBusiness Strategy at PricewaterHouse Coopers and Director of eCommerce at Compaq and Digital Equipment Corporation. A modified version of this article has also been published in the Global Finance Magazine.Recently we volunteered our time to help organize a conference for entrepreneurs. When we http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/05/end-of-b2b-marketplaces.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111635308631875763Tue, 17 May 2005 17:54:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:06.263-05:00The marketing of prescription drugs (almost always to those that have health insurance coverage) is a stupendous task. Just look at the advertising budget of pharmaceutical companies. In fact, the research-driven pharma sector actually spends more on marketing than on R&D. It is not easy to convince an over-medicated nation to buy even more drugs. For the same reason, pharma tries to use the http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/05/tips-on-marketing-to-uninsured.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111627624174800890Mon, 16 May 2005 20:24:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:06.167-05:00The travel firm Thomas Cook, not known much in the US, but a big player in many European and Asian countries, has announced that it will offer "sun and surgery" package deals to India for patients tired of waiting for operations in Britain's National Health System. The firm says that it is using Britain to test the market.Thomas Cook will offer deals that include flights, operations, http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/05/healthcare-offshoring-expected-to-grow.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111601523701306438Fri, 13 May 2005 20:02:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:06.055-05:00Much is being made of Wal-Mart missing its earnings while Target beating analyst expectations. First, it is important to note that these results are not yet indicative of a long-term trend. Two, Target did extremely well with its credit card operations (which I do not consider core to its business and should not be included in comparing Wal-Mart's performance, which does not issue its own http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/05/new-retail-sector-strategy.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7552002.post-111601020931253208Fri, 13 May 2005 18:39:00 +00002006-11-14T12:37:05.960-05:00I want to discuss an innovative company called July Systems (Santa Clara, CA) that enables mobile content retailers such as operators, portals, content providers and brand owners to retail mobile content. The reason I choose to discuss the company is that while I attended a presentation by its founder and CEO Ashok Narasimhan what struck me was the firm's strong focus on globalization.There is http://www.iproceed.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-globalize-your-business.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (eCreativa Media)