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Copyright: © 2013 The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Imagine paying for your car only when it works. Or your television. Or even your high-end toaster. That might sound far-fetched but it could be the future model for purchases requiring service over time. According to research by two Wharton professors of operations and information management Morris Cohen and Serguei Netessine and doctoral student Sang-Hyun Kim this new approach to service supply chains is already reshaping customer-supplier relationships in defense and aerospace contracting under the name ”Performance-based Logistics” (PBL). It could have implications for certain retail sectors as well.
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Some media reports called it a Valentine’s Day gift to Wall Street. When Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke appeared before Congress on February 14 and 15 he gave an upbeat view of inflation and the economy setting off a strong rally in stocks. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 87 points to 12 741.86. Bernanke told Congress that the economy seems to be moving to a slower but more sustainable rate of growth which suggests that the Fed will hold short-term interest rates steady at 5.25% where they have been since last summer. Will stocks continue to perform strongly? Knowledge at Wharton talked to Wharton finance professor Jeremy Siegel who predicted in his last podcast that the Fed was unlikely to raise interest rates anytime soon.
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All companies from major multinationals to start-ups face a common challenge: how to keep growing. These firms find it difficult to sustain growth because they become risk averse opting for safer incremental product and service improvements instead of more rewarding but riskier major initiatives according to a study by Wharton marketing professor George S. Day. Companies Day says need to better understand the risks inherent in different levels of innovation and achieve a balance between BIG I innovation and small i innovation.
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Stephen A. Schwarzman CEO and co-founder of The Blackstone Group was doing sit-ups and watching CNBC when he suddenly heard his name mentioned on air. It was a signal to him that the private equity business had gone ”into a weird zone of visibility.” Schwarzman David A. Brandon chairman and CEO of Domino’s Pizza and Timothy Draper the Silicon Valley venture capitalist examined the recent explosion in private equity deals and discussed its impact on business and investors at the recent Wharton Private Equity and Venture Capital Conference.
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It’s a common occurrence in Corporate America: An entrepreneurial founder starts a successful business builds it to a certain size and hands it over to a CEO to run. But then when things don’t go well the founder steps back in to take direct control of the organization. That essentially is what happened last week when Michael Dell returned to become the CEO of Dell replacing Kevin Rollins. What will it take to turn Dell around? Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli is the director of the school’s Center for Human Resources. He spoke with Knowledge at Wharton about these issues.
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Last May Knowledge at Wharton spoke with John Paul MacDuffie a management professor at Wharton and co-director of the International Motor Vehicle Program about the state of the auto industry. It seems that not much has changed since then except maybe for the worse. 2006 was the first year since 1991 that Detroit’s Big Three were all in the red. Ford’s situation seems direr than ever; Chrysler which was profitable until mid 2006 is now preparing a restructuring plan to roll out this month; and Toyota has claimed the number-two spot in the U.S. auto market just behind GM. Knowledge at Wharton asked MacDuffie whether he expects any surprises or new strategies in 2007.
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When Mike McCue founded Tellme in 1999 its initial product was a voice-driven information service what might be termed a ”voice portal.” Today the company’s voice-recognition systems power directory assistance services from AT&T Verizon and Cingular along with automated 800-number customer help lines at companies like Merrill Lynch and Federal Express. But McCue still harbors dreams of a broader voice-driven web one which will provide consumers with new ways of using the phone to interact with the universe of information. He discussed this vision and others during a recent interview with Knowledge at Wharton in Tellme’s Mountain View Calif. offices.
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Microsoft’s Vista operating system should give the company a revenue stream that will run for years but experts at Wharton say the January 30 launch of the consumer versions of Microsoft’s flagship software may be among the last of its kind -- a product sold for a flat fee in a shrink-wrapped box. Indeed many wonder if the software business model that has made Microsoft so dominant may begin to fade as new software business models -- from open source to advertising supported -- gain increasing traction.
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This year’s convening of The World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland brought together approximately 2 400 corporate executives heads of government and leaders of organizations like the World Bank and Human Rights Watch to debate issues ranging from global warming to the rise of the Internet and the future of the Middle East. Michael Useem director of Wharton’s Center for Leadership and Change Management attended the five-day event. He offers his report on what he calls Davos’ ”culture of transcendent leadership ” which he defines as ”a willingness by those with company or country responsibilities to make decisions that benefit those far beyond the decision maker’s own organization or nation.”
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Every week one financial services firm or another releases findings of its latest retirement study: Americans aren’t saving enough. Americans are saving too much. The savings rate is abysmal. People are borrowing against their homes to pay for luxuries and so forth. Who’s right? It turns out not surprisingly that the future is hard to predict and that many calculators designed to make those predictions are flawed in their basic assumptions. Wharton experts try to help navigate the challenges of planning for retirement.
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