Subscribe to this Blog


Blog Archive

Subscribe Via Email

Enter your email address:

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Truck Tonnage Rates Worst Since Last Recession

ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello stated in a press release that he had tracked November 2006 Truck tonnage for for-hire transportation and had identified a decrease of year over year rates contracting by 8.8 percent.  This contraction marked the worst single month contraction since the last recession.

Year to Year comparisons of monthly figures are difficult to compare however the decrease from October 06 to November 06 and the Year to Year decreases both provide potentially troubling mile markers regarding the over all health of the economy.

Costello indicated in Logistics Management that if the decline trend were to continue into 2007 then overall expectations for 2007 performance could be weaker especially for the first half of the year.

 

Dental Care

* Sponsored Article *

This week we are welcoming the addition of a new sponsor to our publication that has recently provided this release.

Hayfield Dental Care serves Alexandria Virginia with many dentists covering almost every advanced or specialized area that might be necessary so that their patients do not need to seek referrals to other practices.

charles brown dds pc has served Hayfield Dental Care for over a decade with an excellent record and no complaints. He has received multiple awards over his tenure and is listed as one of Washington's top dentists by the Washington Area Consumer Council. He is also a member of the ADA.  He has performed thousands of surgical procedures, root canals and crowns and Hayfield Dental Care hopes Washington residents will consider their services in the future.

Did You Loose Contact with Your Supplier This Week?

Following a 7.0 earthquake off the coast of Taiwan this week, much of China and Southeast Asia fell off the map this week.  The earthquake resulted in telecommunications lines being severed in the ocean and many firms did not realize they had lost connection with the rest of the world until the next morning as the quake occurred around midnight local time.

The episode has identified a number of areas of concern for risk planners.  The break was not identified to most people for almost a dozen hours and many firms and people still did not realize the severity of the problem until over a day later.

The slow response from Hong Kong to publicize the problem and then to fix it also increased the perception of risk.  In actuality a break in lines under the ocean can take upwards of seven days to repair under ideal circumstances, but after this earthquake there were many lingering problems including aftershocks that delayed the repair more.

Plus, the rerouting contingency plans proved to be insufficient to handle the demand and many companies were left without access to internet websites outside of their geographic region.  Many more were unable to utilize their VOIP telephone systems and service in Taiwan is still struggling to get back up.

A deal was brokered last week to install a new fiber optic line directly from the US to China, but it will not be ready for another year almost.

This leaves many companies reassessing their risk management plans wondering how they can better protect their supply chain and stay connected through natural disasters whether they strike in Asia or in California or somewhere in between.

 

Monday, December 25, 2006

Retailers Now Believe in Santa Claus

Santa Claus came to retailers this year two days before Christmas and stuck around until Christmas Eve as last minute shoppers hit the malls and stores around the United States to make the December 23rd the second biggest shopping day of the year.  The day after Thanksgiving was still number one with $8.96 billion. 

December 23rd racked up $8.72 billion dollars in sales not counting Wal-Mart.  Santa came and spent lots of cash and charged up his credit card buying lots of presents for good boys and girls and lots more gift cards.

This years sales are expected to top last years sales by about 5%.  That growth is 1.1% less than the growth seen last year however.  Shoppers had an extra week to shop this year with Christmas falling on a Monday, but after Christmas sales may not be as strong with many people returning to work on December 26th.

That could be good for decreasing early returns, but if the returns still come but lag into January and February with procrastinators and gift card sales of actual products come late it could cause retailers, distributors and manufacturers some resetting problems this Easter.

Friday, December 22, 2006

Wikipedia Founder to Speak at Capella University

Sponsored Article

Our Sponsor Capella University provided a release about their online programs.  Capella University was founded in 1993 and provides 76 graduate and undergraduate programs.  They even offer an online phd program.

Capella University will host Jimmy Wales, the founder of the world wide online encyclopedia Wikipedia to speak to attendees, the general public at its Orlando colloquium on December 28th at the Wyndham Orlando Resort.

Wales has been quoted as saying, "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."

Combining the power of knowledge accumulation on an open source platform with knowledge distribution in an online platform could prove to illustrate a unique combination.

Buzz Begins for Rowlings Final Book Distribution

Author J.K. Rowlings has taken an additional step in generating buzz for the release of her final book in the Harry Potter series.  The seventh and final book will be titled Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. 

Rowlings has indicated that she is still writing the book and no release date has been provided for the final novel.  The Harry Potter series has become a pristine example of how to generate buzz, market, distribute and sell books.  The book industry has not found a potential successor to the Rowlings throne of success.

Xbox 360-The Warranty that Keeps on Giving is Extended

Microsoft extended its Xbox 360 warranty just in time for Christmas.  Previously Microsoft had offered a 90 day warranty out of the box on the Xbox360.  The company extended this warranty to a full year.

Microsoft didn't stop the Santa routine with the extension, as they also took measures to protect existing customers.  Any customers that had their 360 repaired after the 90 day period will be issued an automatic refund.  The warranty is based on Purchase date and not manufacturing date

No public information has yet been provided to detail how distributors and Retailers will be protected as a result of the change in policy.  Many retailers replace defective products with replacements off the shelf and then ship the defective units back to either the distributor or manufacturer.  Some also take a defective fee calculated based on historical returns and the value of warranty programs.  A recalculation may be in order.

A Golden Mention for Our Sponsor

Sponsored Article

The Monex Deposit Company (MDC) recently provided a press release describing the historical options associated with investing in gold.  MDC provides sales and storage options for gold and other precious metals and they also provide artistically rendered items created and molded in gold.

Our modern day economic system is no longer backed by a gold standard, currencies typically float on their own value.  In times of turmoil many people buy gold as a hedge against other pressures whether those are inflationary, political or energy related.Many collectors and investors over the millennia have relied on Gold and this is unlikely to change as this precious metal still commands an intrinsic emotional value that surpasses its value as an economic or engineering commodity. 

Distributing People for the Holidays

Its one thing to move widgets all around the world up and down and sideways through channels across borders in and out of containers and warehouses, down the road, in the store on the shelf and out the door, but many companies distribute people.  Experiencing a backlog in widgets may upset your customers, it might even push them to buy something else.  When Airline carriers experience a backlog during the holiday season it resonates with their customers for a long long time.

Target will look at your yearly and quarterly performance reports, but they might be a little less likely to remember how a shipment was late in December or November in 1994 and again in 1997.  Airline passengers though imprint memories of holiday delays for a lifetime.

This Christmas appears to be one of those seasons with fog delays out of Heathrow and winter storm delays in Denver. 

The Airlines have not given themselves much room to digg out either.  For many months airlines have been increasingly overbooking flights causing greater delays even on a perfect day, but with major snarls at major hubs around the world, the accordion effect of a delay is leaving Airlines to make statements like "we're anticipating it could take us several days to get all customers whose flights were canceled to their destination" that one from Megan McCarthy a spokeswoman for United Airlines.

With thousands of people stranded and thousands of canceled flights that is also a large number of last minute shoppers that will not be able to make it to the stores before the big day.  For the many retailers that did not find Santa Claus this year, last minute shoppers may not make it home in time for the holidays.

Friday, December 15, 2006

Pacific BulletProof Company Serving up Accessories and Parts for Bullet Proof Construction

The Pacific BulletPoof Company offers a full product catalogue of materials and products that can enable you to rapidly find, price and purchase the items you need to protect your store, warehouse or multiple other areas of operation.

They offer various forms of Bullet Resistant Glass, along with the accessories that go with bullet resistant glass like voice transmission hardware, package receivers and transaction drawers.

They also provide Bullet Resistant Doors and many other fabricated systems designed to suit your needs.  They will install products on your schedule and their lead time is 1-4 weeks compared to competitors with 6+ weeks of lead time.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

When a F5 strikes Your Business

Sponsored Article

I grew up in a small town in Illinois called Metamora just outside of Peoria and famous for having a court house where Lincoln practiced.  A few years back a local company was hit by an F5 tornado.  The massive complex was devastated and fortunately over 100 employees were spared as they all crammed together inside of two restrooms as emergency shelter in the building.

They were lucky to walk out with their lives, but it took the company a long time to rebuild.  Businesses need to insure that they have adequate protection for their employees during natural disasters.  FamilySafeShelterms.com recently provided a press release describing how they have been working for many years to provide some of the best storm shelters made out of steal construction.  In a tornado, the main thing needed is a place to go for emergency shelter

FamilySafeShelterms.com's  goal is not to provide the lowest price at any cost but to provide the safest product and protection. 

Causes of Excess Inventory

Furniture World offers a very good article by Tom Craig titled "Are You Inventory Rich and Cash Poor?"

The article offers up a good list of the causes of excess inventory and the actions that can be taken to address it.

Some of the causes:

  1. Business fear losing sales from not having product.
  2. Companies take good deals and stock up with more inventory than is needed.
  3. Companies do not write off value through out the year for fear of hurting profit margins only to be left with inventory that cannot sell at all.
  4. Demand management planning techniques are not used to determine need.
  5. Companies build in longer delivery time allowances for suppliers that fail to perform increasing the inventory holding time between shipment and late shipment.
  6. Companies that have no process for ordering inventory are more likely to cushion their operations with too much inventory to keep their customers happy and avoid their own delays.
  7. Companies might use the same process for inventory management on product types that are not homogenous and do not share similar turn or sales characteristics.

 

TNT India Strays from the Pack

TNT India has decided to stray from the pack of DHL, UPS and FEDES.  Instead of providing both express services and third party logistics business services as their competitors have chosen, TNT India will quit the third party logistics service arena to focus entirely on their express business.

TNT India sees third party logistics as a distraction compared to the express business which has seen margins rise 6.1% in the last 5 years.  They hope to refocus their energies so that they might be able to control the 65,000 kilometers of India Highway.  They will no longer dedicate their trucks or warehouses to individual companies.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Chartplotting Devices for Marine Vessels

Sponsored Article

Northeast Marine just provided a press release from  describing their product line of chartplotters available for use in Marine vessels.  Chartplotters are the marine equivalent of a GPS system and route optimization tool packed into one device. 

Northeast Marine offers chartplotters of multiple varieties with prices starting at $499 and going up to approximately $1600 in price.  They offer brand names such as Cobra and Standard Horizon units with color screens and some devices with internal or external antennas.

They offer a wide assortment of other Marine devices from fish finders, to GPS systems to depth finders, binoculars, batteries and accessories, radar systems  and compasses.

 

TourSolver Version 4 Launched by Magellan

Magellan Ingenierie announced the launch of their latest version of fleet-management software.  The new software provides faster processing gain greater efficencies and reduce cost.

The software is a route-optimization solution utilized by many industries including publishers, healthcare organizations, automatic distribution, and more.

The optimization planning systems can reduce mileage and fuel costs on fleet vehicles by optimizing routes and by avoiding traffic congestion.

Carrier Transicold on Par with Refrigerated Trailer Tracking System

Carrier Transicold and Par Logistics Management Systems today anounced an agreement that will allow Carrier to utilize Par's Refrigerated Trailer Tracking System.

The system provides refrigerated trailer status information on:

  • location
  • temperature
  • fuel levels (of the trailer)
  • battery
  • history

The system enables communication between PAR and Carrier's transportation systems, providing users with real-time information and metrics promoting greater efficiencies and asset tracking and planning capabilities.

Collectible Swords

Sponsored Article

KarateDepot recently provided a web release about their extensive supply of swords ranging from Samurai swords, to Kung Fu swords to Kendo weapons and Tai Chi Swords.  Some of their products are intended for collectible purpose and some are intended for martial arts training.

Time is running out to place orders and receive shipments in time for the holidays. Today, December 13th is also the last day to order from Karate Depot and receive their discounted holiday shipping of $2.95.  All of their swords are elegant and high quality made in Japan and Asia.  They carry close to 100 different swords and sets and products to help you maintain and care for the blades of these weapons.

Logistics Company Prosecuted For Wire Fraud and Tax Evasion Relating to Factoring Scheme

Pacific States Logistics Management Inc's owner, William Martindale was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison to be followed by 36 months of supervised release after being convicted of wire fraud and tax evasion in US Courts in Los Angeles, CA.

He was also ordered to repay Celtic Capital Corporation over $900k in restitution as a result of a fraudulent accounts receivable loan scheme.

The scheme was based on an arrangement whereby Celtic agreed to loan money to Martindale's company based on the verification of sales and the transfer of the resulting receivable to Celtic from Martindale.  The receivables were essentially factored, assigned and held as collateral by Celtic.

Martindale's company however proceeded to create fraudulent documentation and sent it to Celtic to show evidence of sales and shipping transactions that never took place.  Martindale's company later defaulted on some of the loans.  Martindale also was shown to have diverted some of the proceeds for his personal bank account and to another company under his control for which he did not claim any income on his taxes.

The indictment indicates that other people known and unknown to the government may have been involved.  Bank fraud schemes and money laundering schemes typically involve more than one person.  In this case the owner of the company was found to be accountable, however it is possible in this case that many of the individuals or groups involved were located offshore in a foreign jurisdiction where US authorities and courts could not touch them.

Diversion of funds by bank wire transfer makes it readily possible for this type of fraud to occur depositing funds to foreign accounts and leaving only a paper trail and US owner or part owner left holding the bag.

The scheme is so basic that it has even been described in movies such as 'Goodfellas' where a restaurant owner is forced to hand over control to organized criminals that proceed to force the legal owner to take out loans against the company, which are then diverted in cash to criminals.  Lest that plot sound to far fetched for business today, it should be noted that some of Martindale's diverted money was spent on gambling according to the presiding Judge in the case.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Take Me to InternTown

For years companies have been putting interns to work and helping to provide college students with exposure to the real world while at the same time benefiting from reduced costs relating to labor.  Interns also can provide an excellent source of insight into a company with a few fresh ideas and new perspectives plus maybe some more recent technical skills.  Well internships are starting to experience the effect that is the flattening of the business world and internships are becoming a global business.

Enter InternTown a UK based website that works as a global marketplace for interns.  They list internships with companies from all around the world bringing together business not only with interns but interns with a more international perspective.  Not only can interns bring more perspectie because they are still in University, but also because they might come from a different country and bring an even greater level of diversity, culture and the added benefit of bringing in interns that speak multiple languages.

Employers can perform an intern search at InternTown, specifying their search based on the start and end date of the internship and list their Country of Nationality along with 1st and 2nd language requirements.

Geico releases 'Teens and Trucks

A note from our sponsor

A recent press release announced GEICO's release of a new report titled "Teens and Trucks" to its online library of safe driving materials for teens. CarInsruance.com announced that the report offers many tips to help teens drive on the road without putting themselves, large distribution trucks and other drivers at danger. Such as:

  1. Stay out of a truck's blind spot when driving
  2. Do not suddenly swerve in front of a truck or cut it off
  3. Do not make sudden stops in front of a large truck
  4. Pay attention to the space a truck requires to make a turn and do not get caught in between a truck and curb or other cars

CarInsurance.com can provide a car insurance quote to all drivers even mutliple quotes in most states as they work to serve both insurance companies and drivers alike. In some state you can even purchase insurance instantly online.

For more information on the GEICO report see geico.com/auto/safety .

Johnson & Johnson subsidiary halts trial due to trial distribution issues

Centocor Inc., a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson anounced that it had halted the distribution of an experimental trial drug for arthritis.  Distribution problems getting the product to trial test sites were cited as the reason behind the temporary halt.

A Centocor spokesman, Michael Parks, took the action after Centocor's distributor was not able to distribute the product, currently named golimumab, to approximately 15% of locations designated for the trial.  This is supposed to be a temporary halt resulting from a "temporary" distribution issue.  The Centocor distributor has not been identified as of yet.

Note. This test area was identified as being in the United States.  Schering Canada, Inc. is the Centocor distributor in Canada.

Microsoft Increases Distributors to Drop a Distributor-The Weakest Link

Microsoft made some significant changes in its UK channel structure and temporarily taking the number of its UK distributors up from six to 10 back in October.  The overall change was not permanent by a long shot.

Bell Microproducts, C2K and Ingram Micro are in a competition of sorts to remain in the mix.  Their metrics and sales targets will be evaluated towards the end of April to determine which distributor will be dropped from the Microsoft product line up.

The Christmas season is largely over already for distributors.  The next question they must deal with is a question of how much product might be returned or turn up defective post holiday and then how much of a boost can they push out from new products in January.

The good news is that if they have bad news, they have about 3 months to figure out how to pull out a miracle.

Current UK Distributors

  1. Ingram Micro
  2. C2K
  3. Westcoast
  4. VIP
  5. MicroP
  6. Blue Solutions
  7. Actebis
  8. Ideal Hardware
  9. Northamber
  10. Enta

 

Technorati tags:
Monday, December 11, 2006

Belisi Fashions Product Line Marketing Efforts

Peter Belisi started building his design and fashion empire as a bartender in Palm Beach serving Palm Beach old money.  Overtime he developed a reputation with his friends, coworkers and customers by simply creating and accumulating a tie collection.  He paid for this with his extra earnings.  Never wearing the same tie twice, his reputation grew.

Peter Belisi launched Belisi Fashions a clothing accessory line and recently released the creation of a company blog to help push out the Web 2.0 Marketing buzz about his products.  Belisi Fashions targeted sophisticated customers, providing the service of tie-ing one on with fabrics of richer quality than a bar towel.  His clients didn't loosen up as much as they used to and even came out of the experience looking a little more polished with Belisi Fashions than they had when they began. 

Sponsored Article

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Arrow Electronics Purchases InTechnology Distribution

Arrow Electronics Inc announced the completion of an agreement to purchase InTechnology Distribution currently headquartered in Harrowgate, England.

InTechnology Distribution provides storage and security to resellers and their business expects revenues of $400 million in 2006.  The company has approximately 200 employees.  They specialize in hardware sales to key clients that include HP, IBM, NetApp, Symantec, Check Point and Nokia. 

The move by Arrow enables it to combine this DNS business with its existing European DNS business and gain access to the British market.

The sale should close within thirty days of the recent announcement on December 7, 2006.  The InTechnology fiscal year ends on March 31, 2007.

Analyst had previously speculated on bidders that included Ingram Micro and Tech Data.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Corporate Train Wreck on You Tube or end of Zany Morale Boosters?

Over the years I have had some great bosses and a few really bad ones.  One thing that was often a universal is that eventually a leader will do something a little strange to make a point, motivate the troops, or just because its the company picnic or christmas party or something.

In this day and age of video recorders everywhere, executives, leaders, managers and supervisors all have to ask themselves if they should let their guard down and throw caution to the wind.  They need to understand how the rest of the world will react to their goofy motivational speech.

That is exactly what Ethan Chandler did not do.  He and a fellow employee Jim Debois wrote a song called "One Bank" based on the U2 Song One.

Ethan then proceeded to Bring It.  Great for his fellow employees at the time.  Great even for people around the company that weren't there for the live performance as the company made a video and provided it on the intranet.

In the age of YouTube however, that video was taken and distributed on YouTube and other viral video sharing sites and now Mr. Chandler has been spread around the internet like a Jim Carrie character. Gaining him and BankOne the wrong type of notoriety. So leaders now have to ask themselves if their potentially morale boosting antics will play well in front of the world, shareholders or future interviewers.

Bill Amelio Spreading Lenovo Love

Bill Amelio is attempting to create a miracle with a little love.  He has an unenviable task of spreading the love around the world to convince business users to purchase Lenovo computers from his Chinese Company. 

There was a time when corporate customers could not get enough of these computers.  That time was back when the computers sported the big blue brand of IBM.  Those days are gone, rapidly left the building when Lenovo took over the laptop business from IBM.

Since then the brand name prestige and especially the perception of customer support has rapidly evaporated at least to the point where most corporate consumers still feel that the glass sure isn't as full as it used to be.

So Bill Amelio is on a full court press around the world to spread the love.  It would not surprise many people if he sent his major customers's Valentine's day flowers one gift basket to every buyer.  He definitely has his work cut out for him and he's not the only CEO that suffers from the China syndrome.  Wal-Mart's CEO has been engaged in a similar full court press not from the direct perception of running a Chinese company but from all of the tangential issues that relate to cut costs through cheaper Chinese labor.

Barbie fights off Bratz Industrial Espionage

Mattel Inc, maker of the Barbie doll, has made claims that it has legal claim to the Bratz line of fashion dolls owned by its competitor MGA Entertainment.

Mattel claims that the designer of the Bratz was employed by Mattel at the time he drew the original concept drawings.  Mattel has secretly applied for a copyright of the dolls with that intellectual property and now claimed that they own the rights to MGA's product line which has dented Mattel sales for the last five years.

Mattel also claims that MGA hired away key employees throughout Mexico, the United States, and Canada and those employees are accused of steeling information from sales information, to documents, plans and other secrets.

UK Consumers Wising Up about Credit-What Happens if US Consumers follow Suit

UK consumers are shrinking their debt burdens but not by paying off their bills.  They are taking advantage of laws established to help people avoid bankruptcy.

It allows debtors to pay as little as 25% of their monthly bill.  If the creditors that hold 75% of their debt agreed to a debt reduction as well, then the remaining debtors holding the other 25% must follow suit.

So United Kingdoms are reducing their debt through forgiveness.  In the United States the outgoing Republican controlled Congress passed tougher bankruptcy laws just over a year ago.  US consumers are still racking up the debt quickly, but they do not have the UK style of programs to get out of debt.

The real estate market is dropping in multiple areas of the country but not in all, energy prices are still high even though they are off their peaks.  A US consumer backlash against their debt could spell trouble not only for banks but for the economy as well.  If consumers lose spending power from their credit card after a repeal of the bankruptcy legislation, businesses stand to lose as much as the banks might lose.

However, losing a a lot of money to reorganizing consumer debt, might be the lessor of two evils faced with mass defaults by borrowers if the real estate decline gets worse approaching something along the lines of the real estate bust of the early 80's say.  Several industries have been bailed out over recent years from energy to airlines, the US might be confronted with the need for a consumer debt bail out before the decade is out.

Web Marketing 2.0

Last week one of our related publishing sites, Maven Mapper's Information covered a simple run down on the Web Marketing 2.0 industry.

The article covered the value plays in the industry, but didn't focus as much on the appropriate times to apply different strategies.

US Web offers many different options and services that can help companies increase link popularity to their primary website's home page or even to individual product or service pages within that site.

US Web's services are excellent at helping sites build valuable and contextual links back to their site.  Many companies employee marketing strategies that include the occasional press release.  One of US Web's tools works to insure that a companies press releases get spread to cover the internet and at the same time provide links back to the companies site.  This fulfills to simple needs, the creation of greater buzz about that particular press release and the companies good name and it increases the number of links to the companies websites. 

Increasing links to a companies website is vital for a company to reap the rewards of Google Searches.  This can be viewed as free advertising, like a listing in a phone books white pages is free.  Some companies even pay Google to Advertise their sites, like listing a company in the yellow pages, but US Web's services help enable people performing a Google Search to find their website based on keywords and this drives people to their site where the company's web team can work to land a customer or pull in more leads.

Its like having the operator recommend to your customers your phone number as opposed to your competitors when they call for directory assistance and you can take steps to insure this happens for you and your company!

Will Kohl's and JC Penney's Chase Target and Wal-Mart into Movie Sales

Most people do not think of JC Penney's and Kohl's when they think of stores to buy movies.  Both stores are growing and expanding well and are pulling in shoppers for clothing purchases like crazy.  With the mystique often afforded Filene's, they bring in shoppers looking for a value buy on clothing.

Its a similar model that Target employees to stave off Wal-Mart in all their products. 

Both JC Penney's and Kohl's offer a great deal of impulse buy products in their stores that hit the mark a little more effectively than most.  It may be fun for their customer's to shop for clothes but picking up something on impulse to add just a little more zing to life seems to fit their models nicely.

Enter Movie Sales

Target has engaged in a battle against movie studios as their DVD market which holds double digit market share is being threatened by lower priced download options.  Target things this is unfair pricing and has threatened to yank movies and remove a valuable chunk of advertising real estate for the movie industry.

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart has begun to engage in movie download options for its customers.  Last week they started by offering a download version of Superman Returns if the customer purchased the DVD version first.

Question for Kohl's and JC Penney

It would appear that these stores could tack behind Wal-Mart's download model and offer on demand movie download sales options from their sites or a even at the time of check out.  This would add a new dimension of impulse buy options for their customers and add an entirely new segment to their sales.  They cater to a similar demographic as compared to Target and could potentially make movie download sales sexy for their customer base.

Friday, December 01, 2006

Language lessons and Translation Services for Businesses

Business has been global for at least several hundred years.  Fortunately in the age of the internet we now have access to firms and companies that can assist businesses get up to speed with foreign languages more easily such as SGI (http://www.sgibusinesslanguages.co.uk) Saint George International.

SGI (http://www.sgibusinesslanguages.co.uk) not only provides training and tutors in foreign languages, but they can provide your company with translation services as well.  SGI (http://www.sgibusinesslanguages.co.uk) is based in the United Kingdom founded in London in 1962.  They pride themselves in flexibility and utilizing language trainers that are native speakers of the language that they provide instruction.

Dick's Sporting Goods Expands Plainfield Distribution Center

Dick's Sporting Goods announced the expansion of their Plainfield Distribution Center.  They plan on investing approximately $35 million to expand their Midwest regional center in Plainfield, Illinois.

Plans call for the addition of 90 workers over the next twelve months.  This will peg the total force at the Plainfield distribution center at four hundred employees.

The future expansion will allow the distribution center to service up to 230 Dick's Sporting Goods stores an increase that will more than double the current capacity.

The current distribution center was acquired by Dick's with the acquisition of Galyan's in 2004.

Direct Marketing Solutions

Red Clay Media provides Direct Marketing Solutions for many different types of businesses.  Red Clay (http://www.redclaymedia.com) specializes in Direct Mail offerings to contact potential customers.

Red Clay (http://www.redclaymedia.com) also offers Opt In Email marketing services in compliance with the Canned Spam legislation to get your message across to people in a responsible manner and not upset prospective customers.

Red Clay (http://www.redclaymedia.com) can provide your company with access to over 1 billion consumer, homeowner and business mailing addresses through their broker list generation tools.  This resource can provide your marketing campaign with a solid source of lead generation and conversion potential or even provide you with ready access to marketing information gathering tools.

Golden State Buys Distribution Center to Grow McDonald's Business Opportunities

Following the exit Perlman-Roque from the McDonalds distribution supply chain, Perlman-Roque put four distribution centers up for sale.

Golden State Foods, the largest liquid supplier and third largest beef supplier for McDonalds, has announced that they will purchase two facilities from Perlman-Roque.

The facilities are located in Lemont, Illinois and Whitewater, Wisconsin. Once the purchase is complete Golden State Foods will own a total of 12 distribution centers. Golden State Foods hopes that the acquisition will increase their revenue from $3 billion to $3.5 billion as a result of the added capacity. McDonalds currently makes up about seventy percent of Golden State Foods Business.

Great Source for Truck Accessories

BuyAutoTruckAccessories.com offers terrific deals on Tonneau Truck Covers. These truck tonneau covers are offered in multiple types from hinged covers to leather tarps that snap, or Velcro or roll on.  They also offer some great deals on racks and tool boxes for trucks and work vans.

BuyAutoTruckAccessories.com is also an excellent online source for car and truck accessories.  They can help you find the right accessories for any model of car or truck. Their prices are very good and they offer many products discounted some as much as fifty percent off!

Please stop on by BuyAutoTruckAccessories.com and review their accessories and great prices let us know if you find a great deal. 

Sponsored Article

Merger Planners Failed to Plan for Departure of Customers

One of the more tragic mergers of recent years has been the combination of Sprint and Nextel two wireless carriers that couldn't have provided more divergent services to more divergent customers.  The merger brought together Sprints very large customer base of mostly bargain hunting customers with Nextel's much smaller but high paying customer base of business customers and contractors.

The result was a combination that drove away key executives and talent and even worse drove away customers that were no longer served by the combined company that had less synergy as an added up whole than the two parts had separately.  Usually when companies merge they hope to save costs and gain market share and in a best case scenario provide more than they could have separately.

This could have been the case had the merger planners looked more closely at both the cultures of the management and the cultures of the customer base.  The failure to put two and two together to come up with at least four has resulted in Sprint Nextel's rapid decline in Net Subscriber additions since the merger.  The combined companies have seen their growth drop from two million subscribers a quarter down to a paltry half million per quarter while competitors such as Verizon and Cingular have held steady during the same periods.

This merger seems to have reaped all of the problems and shun all of the benefits and will probably serve as a text book lesson of why some mergers should not be attempted.

To Ease or Not to Ease, Not an Easy Question

US Manufacturing contracted according to the Institute for Supply Management's index of National Factory Activity.  This came as a gut check surprise to the stock market today.  The markets were not expecting a contraction in the index which has not contracted in November for the last three and a half years.

The bond markets loved the idea as the contraction reduced the index below the 50 mark.  In the past any time this index has dropped below 50 it has signaled an interest rate reduction by the Fed within about 3 months.  Many think that this reduction couple with weakness in the housing market will surely push the fed to lower interest rates.

However it might not be that easy as many contrarians believe that the factory reduction stemmed from the automobile industry and that industries outside of housing and automobiles are not contracting.

Epocrates Continues to Push Distribution of Online Services

Epocrates is continuing to make strides to move its successful PDA information services online shifting to a web based model.

Epocrates has long provided excellent services to medical care personnel around the world in the form of a software index that helps doctors and nurses make more accurate decisions about prescriptions, drug interactions, and appropriate dosage of medicines.  As an example if a doctor wanted to know more information about the Drug Plavix they could rapidly pull up information that specifically addresses many common concerns such as should the drug be taken with food or milk, or swallowed whole or what are possible side effects to beware of and what are serious side effects that would trigger a patient to seek medical attention or cease taking the drug.

Epocrates like many companies is now working to make this useful content and data available in an online format to extend the availability of their brand, services and products.

This is just one more example of how many companies are finding ways to make their knowledge available and marketed as a useful service for people in their industry.  Many companies are working to gain additional attention for their products and services and find ways to turn that knowledge into an additional revenue stream.

Technorati tags: , ,

Quick Run Down of Movie Distribution Services via Download

Wal-mart recently joined the fray in the Movie Download business and Target has taken the Movie industry to task over the fairness in pricing of Movie Downloads so we're providing a quick list of some of the other movers in this Space.

  1. Wal-Mart's movie download just launched this week with the release of Superman returns available in DVD and download from Wal-Mart
  2. Amazon Unbox service will allow downloads of about 1 hour of programming.
  3. Apple iTunes has been at this for quite sometime and can provide downloads of everything from a video podcast to a two hour movie.
  4. CinemaNow provides full feature movie download services.
  5. Movielink has been around for quite some time and is possibly one of the oldest of the movie download services, offering downloads for purchase and for rental.
  6. Guba works with Windows media player or RealPlayer and features full feature movie downloads.

There are many more in the short film or amateur film category, which also might take a swing at the big leagues before long and services from Blockbuster, Hollywood video and Netflix are all expected soon.

Making Solar Energy Sheets by the FootBall Field

Many visionaries do not realize their potential immediately and so it is and was with Stan Ovshinsky.  Mr. Ovshinsky is 84 and finally running a photovoltaic plant at capacity with a machine that prints photovotaic film.  The machine is almost as long as a football field, and many critics lampooned the idea of producing so much solar power generating material but those critics missed a few beats.

Solar Energy has not yet come into its own, but as oil prices hit $70 a barrell and more many people took a fresh look with renewed vigor at the potential of Solar Energy.

Stan's company is Energy Conversion Devices Inc is the largest US owned producer of photovoltaic materials.  These sheets can be used not only to harness the power of sunlight in conventional contraptions attached to the roof of a house, but they can also now serve as the roofing material itself.  Office buildings are even considering outfitting photovoltaic materials on the exterior of their buildings right over the windows to gather powre and filter out a little sunlight like a window shade.

Some of Ovshinky's unconventional views were recently covered by the WSJ in their article "After Decades a Solar Pioneer Sees Spark in Sales".  Its a great article but features the struggle that many visionaries work to overcome.  Losing money to achieve progress.  Stan is still losing money in his business today, but he's in the right spot at the right time.

If Einstein's theory of relativity is applied where Power and time are considered maybe the matter of money will eventually come into balance.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

The Aura of Aurora Real Estate

Real estate in Illinois continues to grow and prosper. Notoriously hot markets such as California, Boston, and South Florida are experiencing ripples of trouble resulting from a likely over zealous Mortgage industry promoting home sales to buyers that cannot afford the homes they have taken on backed with credit. However, in markets where the real estate is still growing for fundamentally sound reasons home buyers are going to make out like bandits.

I visited Illinois over the recent holidays and I can see the real estate movement there starting to hit with a targeted precision that has been refined in some of the other markets I mentioned. They are filling in the farm land rapidly with some great developments.

There was a report on Aurora Real Estate that helped give me some additional perspective and I'm becoming more and more convinced that real estate in Illinois is still increasing. The safe money is in the immediate burbs around Chicago, but I suspect that those burbs are going to grow down to Peoria and Bloomington and Champagne and Springfield and connect with the burbs moving Northward from St Louis.

It is a very good time to invest in real estate in this particular market. Things may be tanking in California but California does not drive real estate markets in the Midwest, especially markets supported by Chicago and St Louis, which make especially comforting hedges. With population growth estimates of 100 million more people in the US over the next 15-25 years the midwest is a safe bet for steady growth especially in between population centers like Chicago and St Louis.

Wal-Mart Distributing Movie's via Download

Wal-Mart announced that it will start distributing movies via a new download service.

Initially Wal-Mart will build awareness of the new service by providing consumers with the option to pay a few extra dollars when they by a DVD in order to acquire the rights to download the same movie to a PC or to a portable media device.

They are starting this launch with a bundled DVD / download of Superman Returns. It will sell for $14.87 as a DVD and consumers can pay an additional $1.97 to download it to a personal device or $3.97 to download it to their personal computer.

Sony Deals Self a Cyber-Shot in the Foot

Sony announced yet another quality issue in one of their products.  This time its not laptop batteries a problem that has led to a recall of over 9 million battery packs. 

That recall started with Apple laptops and later spread after a Dell laptop caught fire at a conference, which was caught on video.  The Dell incident was followed shortly thereafter by a spectacular fire at LAX involving an IBM laptop.  Shortly after each incident, Sony increased the scope and range of their recall.

This time Sony has announced quality issues with Sony digital cameras.  They have specifically called out issues that result in liquid crystal display screens that fail to display their images correctly and compounded by images that are saved with distortion and hints of some cameras that might not take pictures in the first place.

The Cyber-shot camera line has been specifically mentioned and indications are that the problem could impact up to 8 models.  A million units of these were shipped within Japan.  More were shipped overseas, but reminiscent of the battery recall, Sony has not yet provided numbers as to how many were shipped overseas and how many went to specific countries.

Model Numbers

The BBC identified on November 24, 2006 in an article titled 'Sony recalls cameras over glitch' shortly after the Sony Press Release the following models impacted by the problems:

  1. DSC-F88
  2. DSC-M1
  3. DSC-T1
  4. DSC-T11
  5. DSC-T3
  6. DSC-T33
  7. DSC-U40
  8. DSC-U50
Not a Logistical Recall; Just Offers of Repair

As yet they are not replacing units, but only offering to repair them.  Sony has not provided any return information to address these models specifically yet.  These models had been shipped between September 2003 and January 2005 according to the BBC.  That indicates that the product line was compromised most likely from the the beginning to the end of the product life cycle, approximately a year and a half. 

This is not the first time Sony has had problems with their cameras nor is it the first time they have seen these types of problems.  Similar problems came to light a year ago in October impacting almost two dozen models.  There is no indication that Sony new of the problems with these models last year, nor any reason that identifies why the problems are surfacing almost two years after the last shipment.

The reality of the situation is that many products life cycle far out strips that as measured by the manufacture that ships the products.  The products continue to live on un-consumed in warehouses, distribution points, and retailer shelves for many months and sometimes for years after the fact.  Many companies amortize the warranty risk of products based on historical trends for those lines and utilizing conservative measurements to expense the risk off in an appropriate amount of time balancing this with the need to keep reserves on the balance sheet clean.

Anatomy of Warranty Reserves

A product that began shipping in September of 2003 and stopped shipping in January 2005 may no longer hold a warranty reserve on the Sony balance sheet.  If for example Sony amortized the warranty reserve over a 12 month period, which is typical for consumer electronic goods with a 1 year manufacturers warranty, the early shipments reserves would have been entirely consumed as of September 2004.  All of the reserves would have been exhausted by January of 2006.

If we consider that Sony may have staggered its warranty amortization to 18 months to allow 6 months for the life of the product in the channel after leaving the manufacturing line or even 24 months allowing a 12 month channel life that would still leave the reserve with only 2 months of funding remaining.

Funding Remaining on 24 month amortization

So far 1 million units have been identified for Japan.  If the total scale of this recall follows a lesser trajectory than that of the battery recall, maybe 5 million units in total will have shipped during the time period.  Thus far according to The Wall Street Journal article Sony Cameras Bring Latest Quality Problem by Arran Scott and Yoshio Takahashi only 0.4% of the products shipped have been reported to be affected by this issue.

Now that Sony has gone public with the problem, it is likely that the increased awareness will push consumers to check their devices and take action.  If that reporting rate were to increase to 5%, then Sony could receive a repair bill for (5,000,000 x 0.05) 250,000 units.

If we run some rough numbers and make the initial assumption that these cameras retailed for $200 and that Sony sold them for $132 each indicating a typical retail margin.  Sony might have planned for a return rate of say 3%, which would translate to about $19.8 million initially in reserve on unit sales of 5 million units(about $660 million total revenue).

If we straight line the sales over the 17 month period(Sep 03 to Jan 05), that would be an average of $1.16 million in reserves booked each month.  Those reserves would have been consumed by actual returns and repairs, and if those returns and repairs failed to materialize at the time, the reserve balance could have been justifiably reduced 24 months after the initial sales date, or at the rate of $1.16 million per month if no actual expenses were incurred.

Putting it a different way if we assume that absolutely no returns or repairs have ever occurred with these products, which would included retailer returns and refusals-an unlikely situation at best, this would only leave $2.3 - $3.4 million dollars in the reserve as of the Sony press release to cover these expenses.

If an average return costs Sony $100

  • $25 service and support to set up the return - Customer Service Line
  • $10 in Parts
  • $25 in labor
  • $20 in Freight
  • $20 in indirect including legal expenses, accounting and everything else resulting from a Returns Fire Drill

Then Sony's 250,000 units x $100 per unit could cost the company about $25 million less a residual reserve of $3.4 million.  The return expense will net out at only $22 million.  No large amount for Sony, initially, but definitely something that would show that their historical returns rate in this case was double their expectations.

The Real Hit to the Sony Financials

Managing these expectations is where this recall and the battery recall may impact the Sony bottom line the most.  If for example Sony has to increase their Warranty reserve 2x on outgoing shipments this year that's a 3% (using our estimated numbers) increase in product expenses and likely to be even higher for laptop batteries.

The increase in rate might also be matched by an increase in amortization time required to spend the reserves.  Sony's accountants might be forced to increase the period from 12 to 24 to 36 or even 60 months, delaying the potential bring back of profits after increasing the cost of Sales up front.  As a public company this is where Sony feels the pain the most as an increase in this type of expense makes Sony even less price competitive at retail compared to competitors that may have pegged their warranty reserve rate correctly and held quality in check at the same time.

Benefit of the Doubt - Insult to Injury

That's giving Sony a significant benefit of doubt.  If that return rate increases, if the number of models increases, if Sony can't repair for less than what they sold the units ($132 v. $100 repair) or if the reserve was exhausted a year ago, then this dynamic could change substantially.

Brand Impact

The actual recall expenses above neglect to account for the cost or true impact on the Sony brand.  It will take many months and years before the true impact on the Sony brand can be assessed in marketing studies.  But it appears that Sony, long recognized as a market leader in product quality, appears to be rapidly spending that hard earned brand capital by bringing defective products to market and failing to rapidly address the issues as they come to light.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Gifting Flowers to Your Clients for the Holidays

There is a very simple and easy way to get on your customer's good side.  Send them some flowers for their office.

Good flowers can last a week or longer and will help cheer up your customers and the key people you interface with during the week.  Plus, it never hurts to have a little personal buzz floating around the office even if the accountant (who cuts your check) and the receptionist(that gets it in the mail on time) have a nice little discussion about the great flowers in the office that your company sent!

There's a great little website that offers flowers and gift baskets online.  You can find some great flowers for the holidays or for any occasional  www.dotflowers.com . 

Let's be practical, it is always a good time to keep your customers happy and positive.  You can continue to build great solutions and deliver on time and many other things, but a little personal touch can go a long way, especially with some of the intangible things like getting your check on time!

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Hopping Across the Pond Overnight

While we celebrate the Thanksgiving holidays in the Americas this week, we wanted to cover a useful travel tip for visiting London.

LondonNights.com offers a great portal for finding nightly hotel rooms throughout London with rates from £39 up to £110 per night.

LondonNights.com offers some terrific discounted rates and all of LondonNights rates include VAT, which is pegged at about 17.5% these days.  If you are looking at a longer working trip to London and require an apartment they also offer short stay apartment options as well.

Turkey Distribution

This year the Thanksgiving holiday comes on the twenty third and many people all around the country are getting into the Distribution business, the Turkey Distribution business.  During the holidays many people step up their efforts to help local homeless shelters and food kitchens to provide meals for those in need.

While many families are planning cook times and preparation schedules for 10-20 pounds of turkey, Brian Rice of New Jersey plans on distributing over 85,000 pounds of turkey this year more than double last years effort.  That's a lot of bird to move around.  This year he's even gotten some nice people from a little known football team called the New York Giants to help.

In Connecticut, the Salvation Army offers up a different type of Turkey Distribution.  They are providing a bag of groceries and a ticket for a turkey for each family that qualifies.  Cooking a turkey need not be an elaborate affair.  While some people may buy special roasters or deep fry the bird or many other possibilities, there are some very good and cost effective ways to turn that turkey into a feast.  A simple cooking bag can really bring out the flavor of a turkey and all of the food for the dinner. The birds in Connecticut are a little small this year, but a turkey is a turkey.

Many more people all around the country will be volunteering, delivering meals and much much more to distribute a little bit of holiday cheer.  Please consider helping yourself or donating to a local charity to make this a special holiday for the people in your community.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Cross Functional Degrees takes Cross Training to the Next Level

It is extremely important for different job functions to cross train within an organization.  Cross training strengthens an organization in many ways.

  1. It allows team members from different departments to bond and develop working relationships that can benefit their current day to day work.
  2. It allows team members to learn how to strengthen and improve their communications both generating better requests and providing more accurate detailed responses as the two sides learn more completely the needs of their counter parts.
  3. It allows both sides to understand more fully the capability of the other side and find information and help where they did not know that it existed before.
  4. Cross training provides the ability to provide more back up potential if a team member is suddenly removed from the team due to an emergency or realignment.
  5. Cross training even helps the rest of the team learn the job duties and requirements which will help when it comes time to perform team interviews to back fill these or related positions.

Sometimes cross training can be taken to an entirely different level.  Businesses often find that team members with a cross section of fundamental education and background can bring new levels of insight into company problems.  Many different cross sections arise when say an Engineer starts to get involved in product marketing and can design better products after learning how to connect with the product design requirements that are verbalized by consumers to the marketing department.  Similar combinations between Sales and Engineering, Accounting and Engineering, Accounting and legal, Marketing and Customer Support, Marketing and IT, Accounting and IT, and Sales and IT are all great examples.

So What do you do if your company doesn't have the time to promote a cross training program?

Well you can target gaps in the organization and seek additional education for yourself.  You might even be able to utilize a companies educational programs to seek a second degree or possibly an advanced degree in a new field that  will support or develop your skills in a new area. 

Maybe you have a background in Customer Support and realize that if your company could get the message out to consumers more effectively, the customer support process could be dramatically improved.  So you might consider a marketing degree as a means of learning what it takes and how it might be done to get things started. 

A Few of the Benefits

  1. A bachelor's degree is cheaper than a Master's degree.  
  2. A Bachelor's degree can provide you the fundamental education in that field that might benefit you more than trying to obtain an advanced degree that cross trains you in the field. 
  3. Depending on your existing credit hours, you might only need to take a couple semesters of work to complete an additional degree.
  4. You might be able to audit the courses and get a great deal of benefit from participation and study while making the determination of whether or not this path will truly be a good fit. 

Sometimes testing the water can be very practical before jumping in all together.  Why get an advanced degree focused on Marketing when you don't know the first thing about marketing to begin with?  You have to learn to crawl before you can run and a bachelor's degree costs significantly less and has easier demands as far as time is concerned.  This could therefore make it easier to complete a program online and still get a significant amount of return on your investment.

Callaway Direct to Consumers Like No Other

Retailer Friendly E-Commerce Platform

Callaway Golf Company has announced a new e-commerce platform that attempts to transcend channel conflict with its retailers.  Callaway is going to sell direct to consumers, which would typically create direct competition with its own established retail customers.

Callaway hopes to transcend that conflict with good customers that have helped Callaway grow their brand out not to mention providing on the floor services from sales, training, fittings and even lessons.  Callaway fields the customer in through their websites landing.  When the customer places an order, the order is electronically routed through the web and notified the retailers that might service the order the best.

Callaway uses an algorithm that includes criteria such as inventory, proximity to the consumer and the ability to be able to ship within 24 hours.  The retailers receive the notification of the order and respond if they are interested.  Callaway's system makes the judgement call provides the winning retailer notification.  The product ships within 24 hours and the consumer gets their golf club fast and efficiently.

Benefits

In addition to working with their retail customers as opposed to competing with their customers, Callaway's web site provides additional benefits.  It allows the company to market the widest possible range of their product directly on the internet.  Not all of their existing retail customers can carry all of their products and accessories.  This provides the consumer with the best chance of finding exactly what they are looking to purchase and reduces the potential of a customer walking into a retail store looking for a Callaway product and getting diverted to a competitor product or accessory.

History

Callaway has suffered from deep discounting that has taken place in their channel over the past years.  Channel conflict, excess inventory, and stock balancing have taken a toll on the company.  They have had to resort to several extreme stop gap measures in an attempt to stem the bleeding.

Lessons

This move signals a build out playing to Callaway's strengths as a brand name.  It shows initiative and the ability to come to terms with their customers, over 270 retailers have signed up!  It also shows a recognition of the holistic issues that plagued their channels and a move to make holistic repairs and restructure the foundation of the channel to insure its future survival.  Among other benefits this more streamlined approach should help the entire channel remain healthy, reducing inefficiencies that lead to supply chain misses and compounded later by a rush to build out creating excess inventory and a vicious cycle of discounts, fire sales and sales of products in exchange for media spending funds.

 

Friday, November 17, 2006

Unique Distribution for a Unique Marketplace

Many people in the distribution business face challenges and require a heightened sense of security.  Imagine never being able to use the cheapest freight possible.  Imagine having to hire and train three person teams to deliver your goods together.  Then perform FBI background checks on them to make sure they are not security risks themselves.

Imagine arming these people with handguns and rifles and giving them a bullet proof vehicle to transport your shipments.  Now imagine that you constantly ship product in to your 'warehouse' but you rarely ship product out.  You are not able to use third party warehouse systems and your warehouse has to be as secure if not more so than Ft Knox.

Brinks provides this service all the time, distributing everything from cash to gold bullion for exchanges like BullionVault.  If you are looking to store gold BullionVault uses Brinks like many distribution companies use FedEx or UPS, the difference being that the parcels weigh a lot more and the delivery guys are carry weapons.  Brinks has been securing its customers against losses for almost one hundred and fifty years (143 years to be exact). 

BullionVault takes gold bullion into its 'third party warehouse' owned and controlled by BrinksVault, which they refer to as a vault and then allow the owners to trade the precious metals on exchanges all the while maintaining performing a daily audit of the goods in storage available to its customers from the web.  They provide insurance of course on everything stored in their vaults.  Brinks must get good rates on their insurance as nothing has been lost from their vaults in 143 years.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

RFID 101 Video

If you are looking to catch up on the concept of RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification ), here is a fairly straight forward rfid training video from RFIDent.org.

This is a fairly good video that will give you a little bit of the history as well as some perspective on how the technology can be used and how it might be deployed, even how it can be

applied to improve upon existing systems and processes in your supply chain and warehouses.

 

These little wafer sized chips can be taped inside a book, inside a package, even sewn into your clothing.  My local library already uses RFID to scan and checkout books.

Technorati tags:
Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Have a New Corporate Initiative or Product? Don't Forget to Register the Domain Name

Companies these days need to pay a little more attention to the internet.  That may sound like an overstatement of the obvious, however Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer and no online laggard, recently missed the boat.

Wal-Mart has been working to overcome negative perceptions about their worker health care plans.  After many lawsuits from employees over cases of sexual discrimination and failure to pay overtime, Wal-Mart has also come under fire for paying wages so low that many employees cannot afford health care and even end up on welfare, while working for Wal-Mart. 

So Wal-Mart hired a PR firm to draft a strategy to change public and employee perception.  Almost a year ago they launched the initiative titled "Working Families for Wal-Mart."  Despite hiring a PR firm, Wal-Mart slipped up on the internet.  They neglected to register the domain name http://workingfamiliesforwalmart.com .

The result is that the website has been registered by an anti-Wal-Mart group, Wal-MartWatch.  The site is now being used to provide information about how Wal-Mart is falling down on the job, even laced with a bit of satire.  Wal-Mart failed to protect its marketing flank.  They should have registered domains for

Registering a domain costs about $6.50 for the first year and can be registered for multiple years at a time.  For less than a $100.00 Wal-Mart could have registered all of those domains for multiple years and avoided the embarrassment and degradation of what may have otherwise been a solid PR plan.

Ipower Domains

There are many different companies that offer domain registration services.  Frankly, its amazing that Wal-Mart hasn't started selling their own domain registration service whereby they could by domains at wholesale and save another 30-50 cents.  There's a time when cost conscience and practical don't meet half way and it would appear that Wal-Mart's two ships may have passed in the night with out passing a signal.