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October
2010
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Monthly
Newsletter
Quick Links:
Video Index
Abstract Index
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VIDEO INDEX
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• Where Great Ideas Come From
• Ads Disguised as Viral Videos
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ABSTRACT INDEX
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Buying Houses for Employees
Temps Becoming Temporarily Permanent
In-House Innovation
7-11: A Family Company?
Saving Jobs in Germany
Japanese CEOs Happy with Sensible Salaries
Too Much of a Good Product
Decoding Trader Joe’s
Adventures in Alcohol Packaging
Making Children’s Food Healthier w/ Mandates
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Building Houses
for Employees
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• Studies show that helping employees purchase
a home improves productivity and employee
retention.
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• CVS counsels its employees on house hunting
and even gives them money for down
payments and moving costs.
• Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee provides its
employees with a forgivable $3,000 loan if they
buy a house in the city.
Article index
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What do you think?
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• Do home incentive programs offer economic
benefits to companies?
• Why is employee
retention so
valuable to
companies?
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Video index
Temps Becoming
Temporarily Permanent
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• Increased hiring of temporary workers is typical
in the early stages of economic recovery.
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• Traditionally temps are often converted into fulltime staffers after about six months of quality
work.
• Today, however, temporary workers are
typically remaining just that, leading some to
think that temp workers will be an integral part
of the economy’s “new normal.”
Article index
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What do you think?
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• What’s the major downside to the economy’s
new normal?
• Will this new normal
affect the motivation
of workers?
Article index
Video index
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In-House Innovation
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• The greatest, often untapped resource of
business innovation comes from a company’s
own employees.
• Structuring staff into management-lead
innovation communities gives new shape and
purpose to employees’ expertise.
• Managers must be sure to gather a broad
spectrum of viewpoints as well as be open to
every employee’s input.
Article index
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What do you think?
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• Would innovation communities work at notfor-profit and public institutions?
• What are key factors
to remember in
establishing
innovation
communities?
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7-11: A Family Company?
• When John Andikian opened his own
convenience store, his average monthly sales
of $70,000 were not enough to keep his
business going.
• Andikian converted his store into a 7-11,
ramping up sales to $160,000 within the first
month.
• 7-11 hopes that franchise conversions will
make up 60% of their total franchise growth in
2010.
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Article index
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What do you think?
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• What’s the key advantage of franchising to
aspiring businesspeople?
• What’s an important
lesson to learn from
this story?
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Saving Jobs in Germany
• Germany’s short-work policy allows companies
to cut employee hours while the government
foots up to 67 percent of the remaining payroll.
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• Officials credit the short-work policy with saving
half a million jobs, leading to Germany’s lowest
unemployment rate in 17 years.
• The policy prohibits widespread hiring,
however, which could lead to sluggish
economic growth.
Article index
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What do you think?
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• Should the United States
consider policies such as
“short-work” to help our
elevated unemployment
rate?
• Why do German unions
accept “short-work” and
work-time accounts?
Article index
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Japanese CEOs Happy
with Sensible Salaries
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• Japanese securities regulators recently ordered
companies that pay their executives more $1.1
million to disclose their salaries.
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• Fewer than 300 people working at Japan’s
3,813 public companies earned enough to
disclose their incomes.
• The biggest earners in Japanese business are
foreigners, such as Carlos Ghosen of Nissan
($10 million/year).
Article index
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What do you think?
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• Are stock options and bonuses reasonable
rewards for CEOs?
• Why do U.S. CEOs
earn considerably
more than their
foreign
counterparts?
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Too Much of a
Good Product
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• Companies often take a popular product and
create new variations of it that change the
product’s size, flavor or color.
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• Studies show that these bloated product lines
confuse consumers, harm supply chain
efficiency and sometimes lead to shortages.
• Companies are advised to structure their
products into tiers as well as offer some niche
products only to those who order them directly.
Article index
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What do you think?
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• What’s the advantage of deepening product
lines in popular brand categories?
• How far should a
brand extension
go?
Photo courtesy of Kevin McShane
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Video index
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Decoding Trader Joe’s
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• Food retailer Trader Joe’s is flourishing across
the nation with its line of premium, affordable
groceries.
• Trader Joe’s stocks only one brand of a
particular product, which normally sports the
name of the store on its packaging.
• The company offsets its lack of product variety
with customers’ trust in the quality of the Trader
Joe’s name.
Article index
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What do you think?
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• What does Trader Joe’s success say about
smaller retailers’ ability to compete against
giants?
• Will expansion
threaten the cultlike following the
company now
enjoys?
Photo courtesy of David Shankbone
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Adventures in
Alcohol Packaging
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• Scottish brewing company BrewDog released a
$765, 55% alcohol by volume beer that came
encased in a taxidermied rodent.
• This shocking beer was intended to challenge
public perception of beer packaging.
• In Pennsylvania, strict liquor laws have lead
retailers to install government-run wine vending
machines in grocery stores.
Article index
Video index
What do you think?
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• What would be the
consumer product
classification for
BrewDog’s beer?
• Does distributing
wine in vending
machines sound
like a good
marketing
option?
Photo courtesy of Dave Branfield of BrewDog
Article index
Video index
Making Children’s Food
Healthier with Mandates
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• For years the food industry has tried to stave off
government regulation over food marketed to
children through lax, self-generated standards.
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• New health guidelines from the FTC could
prevent companies from advertising unhealthy
foods toward kids.
• The guidelines have not been implemented
officially yet due to heavy lobbying from the
food industry.
Article index
Video index
What do you think?
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• Should strict nutritional
enforcement be
imposed on the food
industry?
• Do strict regulations
have much chance of
being enacted?
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Video index