Holiday Shoppers Get in the Spirit

FROM THE DAILY NEWS

Promotions, Profits

Tony Gao, a marketing professor from the business school at Northeastern University, said that retailers must balance promotions with profits.“The negative news and anticipation for a slow holiday business season actually propel retailers to offer more and larger sales as a way to lure consumers into the store,” Gao said. “The competition among retailers in offering sales will drive down the profit margin for the retailers but actually benefit the consumers.”

To read this entire story, visit: http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/Holidayshoppers.htm

Reebok's win-win relationship with business school

Recently, five teams of MBA students at the College of Business Administration at Northeastern University conducted extensive marketing studies for Reebok on different aspects of marketing in the digital age. This research and analysis was performed as part of a term-long project in an elective marketing class entitled “Digital Marketing,” taught by Prof. Fareena Sultan.

Students examined such cutting edge new media phenomenon as:
· Mobile Marketing
· Second Life
· Marketing Options in Video Games
· You Tube
· Online social networks (MySpace, Facebook etc.)

They examined trends, opportunities for marketing, and presented examples of best practices of using these trends for marketing purposes. Students also made specific recommendations to Reebok as to how they could take advantage of these new digital marketing trends. They wrote extensive reports and made oral presentations to senior executives from Reebok.
The fact that MBA students were conducting market research and analysis for a Global 500 company is not unique. What is? The fact that the very people conducting the in-depth analysis and research make up the very audience companies like Reebok are trying to target through expanded digital marketing efforts.

For Reebok this was an ideal collaboration situation. “We are dedicating an increasing percentage of our marketing dollars to reaching young consumers where they live: on mobile devices, video games and on the Internet. Digital marketing is a relatively new discipline, and , we are constantly striving to uncover the most effective ways to communicate with consumers via these new media that is relevant to our brand,” said Catherine Thomason, Director, Global E-Commerce & CRM in Digital marketing at Reebok. “Working with bright MBA students studying the latest techniques in digital marketing to analyze our existing efforts and recommend improvements enables us to get direct feedback from the audience most affected by these new marketing tools and techniques.”

“In addition to the research they conducted for Reebok, students in my digital marketing class also benefited from studying new business cases addressing hot topics, such as Addidas’ ‘Brand in the Hand’ mobile marketing campaign.” says Prof. Sultan. “Our aim is to provide students content on the latest trends in marketing as well as to train them in skills necessary for marketing in today’s competitive environment,” she adds.

In Prof. Sultan’s view, marketing students at Northeastern reap the unique benefits of working with, and learning directly from, corporate marketing executives via collaboration such as the one with Reebok. Additionally, Reebok is a member of the newly formed Marketing Track Advisory Board in the MBA program at the CBA.

“Our Marketing Track Advisory Board is made up of senior marketing executives from companies such as Reebok, Blue Cross Blue Shield, EMC, Intel and Coca-Cola, among others” Prof. Sultan adds. She is the chair of the Marketing Career Track in the College of Business Administration.

“Our heritage at Northeastern has been one of close collaboration with the corporations that hire our students, and the retooled MBA we launched last Fall has only sharpened that focus,” Prof. Sultan points out. “We have met with the Board, asking them specifics about the skill-sets they are looking for in MBA graduates. We review our marketing curriculum with them to fine-tune it and make sure these skills are being taught and developed in all of our marketing students.” she adds.

MBA marketing students benefit from this close collaboration between the CBA and senior corporate marketing executives in terms of ideas for new courses and emphasis in these courses on marketing skills that will be needed in the workplace.

Top of Mind: Strengthening Turnaround Tactics

FROM BUSINESS FINANCE

... hedge funds and private-equity firms that took big positions in cash-poor companies are leading the pack in the effort to ward off financial woes as they seek to boost performance at the first sign of trouble. According to the Lipper HedgeWorld & Schwartz Cooper 2007 insolvency survey, nearly one in three hedge funds has consulted a turnaround or workout professional regarding positions in its portfolio.

And in turnaround situations, timing is critical. "The key is getting the turnaround firm in early," says Harlan Platt, a professor at the College of Business Administration, Northeastern University. "When a person is sick, they need to get to the doctor's office or hospital quickly. What holds them back is either the feeling that things will get better on their own or that other firms in the same industry are facing similar problems, so they must be doing OK."

To read the entire article, please visit: http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/topof.htm

What's next at Fidelity?

FROM THE BOSTON GLOBE

While few other companies identify successors to their leaders, Fidelity is an unusual case because of Johnson's age and the fact the family holds 49 percent of its stock, giving the Johnsons effective control of a business that manages the retirement accounts of millions of clients.

Generally speaking, any firm in such a situation can expect questions about its intentions, said Carlos Rivero, a senior partner at the Delta Organization & Leadership unit of Oliver Wyman in New York.

"Succession becomes a legitimate issue for stakeholders because of issues like the movement of talent out of the company or the age of the CEO," he said.

Ted Clark, head of Northeastern University's Center for Family Business, said the various scenarios outlined in the published report are typical of a company struggling to settle on a succession acceptable to all family members.

The best plans, Clark said, "find a way to give the current leadership generation an opportunity to remain vital within the business, while giving the next generation the power and authority they need to operate the business." As things stand, he said, Fidelity's uncertainty could pose a problem if competitors cite it to poach company executives.

If you'd like to read the rest of this story, please visit http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/whatsnextfidelity.htm

Clean Water Act: overall goal long way from being met

For those interested in the Clean Water Act, I thought I would share an overview of a chapter of a book looking at the sustainability of this 35-year old federal law. Bob Adler is an environmental legal expert and professor at the SJ Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. His bio follows the chapter excerpt.

The Clean Water Act (CWA) has been one of the Nation’s most successful environmental laws in cleaning up some of the most blatant discharges of pollution from factories and sewage treatment plants. Toxic chemical releases into surface waters have dropped dramatically, and water bodies that were once virtually dead are coming back to life. Nevertheless, the overall goal of the law to restore the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters is a long way from being met. The following facts (and sources) give just a few examples:

· Impaired waters. States are required to identify all water bodies that are impaired for one or more reasons. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) most recent national compilation of this information (2004), states reported almost 40,000 impaired water bodies throughout the country. Leading sources of impairment were pathogens, mercury, sediment, other metals, nutrients, oxygen depletion, pH, temperature, habitat alteration, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), turbidity, pesticides, and salinity.[i]

· Contaminated fish. The most recent complete EPA listing of fish advisories (for 2004) identifies 3,221 advisories covering more than one third of the nation’s lake acreage, and about one quarter of its river miles (over 14 million lake acres and about 840,000 river miles).[ii] Bioaccumulative contaminants include mercury, PCBs, chlordane, dioxins, and DDT. EPA detected mercury, PCBs, dioxins and related compounds, DDT, chlordane, and dieldrin in lake fish taken from 486 sites out of 500 lakes sampled from 2000 to 2003.[iii]

· Unhealthy aquatic ecosystems. In a comprehensive recent survey, EPA concluded that 42% of the nation’s stream length is in poor biological condition, 25% in fair condition, and only 28% in good biological condition (5% not assessed).[iv] The most significant causes of impairment were nutrients, riparian disturbance, streambed sediments, and loss or alteration of in-stream fish habitat and riparian vegetation.

Although some pollution from industrial and municipal sources remains, the leading unresolved cause of water pollution, and one that is poorly addressed by the Clean Water Act as written, is so-called “nonpoint source pollution,” or polluted runoff from farms and other intensive land uses such as urbanization, logging, and mining. Loss and degradation of aquatic and riparian (streamside) habitat also contributes significantly to the deteriorating health of aquatic ecosystems.

As the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and James I. Farr Chair in Law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, Robert Adler’s goal is “to stimulate more interdisciplinary work in this increasingly global world … [and] to prepare students for that world — an environment that changes almost continuously, and which demands skills that go far beyond what has been traditionally taught in law schools.” As a scholar, Adler urges a broader, more holistic approach to the restoration and protection of aquatic and other ecosystems than is used in traditional environmental laws alone, which focus on discrete kinds of environmental harm. After completing a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University (1977) and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center (1980 cum laude), Adler practiced environmental law for 15 years. He has published dozens of articles and reports in law, policy and science journals including Vanderbilt Law Review, Harvard Environmental Law Review, Utah Law Review, and George Washington Law Review, and a book on the history and impact of the Clean Water Act. He will publish two books in 2007 — Environmental Law: A Conceptual and Pragmatic Approach (with David Driesen, Aspen Publishers) and Restoring Colorado River Ecosystems: A Troubled Sense of Immensity (Island Press). He regularly teaches courses in civil procedure and environmental law, and is currently co-designing an interdisciplinary course called “Environmental Law and Engineering,” in which law students and environmental engineering graduate students will work together on real-world environmental problems in Utah. Adler loves to spend time in Utah’s outdoors, and in 2005 completed the Wasatch Front 100-mile trail race through Utah’s beautiful Wasatch Mountains.
[i] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2004 National Assessment Database, available at http://www.epa.gov/waters/305b/index_2004.html (visited June 6, 2007).
[ii] Id.
[iii] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Water, Fact Sheet: 2005 Update, The National Study of Chemical Residues in Lake Fish Tissue, EPA-823-F-05-012 (2005).
[iv] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Wadeable Streams Assessment, A Collaborative Survey of the Nation’s Streams, EPA 841-B-06-002, at ES-5 (2006).

Spy school: FBI teams up with Northeastern University to train agents

FROM THE BOSTON BUSINESS JOURNAL

Even good sleuths need lessons on management. A case in point is being illustrated at Northeastern University's College of Business Administration, which recently tailor-made a workshop for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The course, titled Emerging Executive, takes place at the Warren Conference Center & Inn in Ashland, where 50 unit chiefs from the FBI gathered for three days in September to engage in role playing, case studies and managerial instruction. The workshop, which takes its cues more from the world of business than the realm of crime fighting, continues Nov. 14 with 50 more FBI managers. Another 450 agents will take the course by year's end.

To read the entire story, please visit http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/spyschool.htm

Scramble Hits Wall Street

FROM THE NEW YORK SUN

"The full impact of layoffs stemming from the subprime fallout has yet to be felt," the chief economist at Moody's Investors Service, John Lonski, said. "You will see layoffs begin to pick up toward year end and continue through the first quarter of next year."

During the last recession, financial industry employment in New York peaked in the third quarter of 1987 with 262,000 jobs. It reached its nadir three years later, with 209,000 jobs — a drop of 20%, according to Mr. Lonski. This means that in the last downturn, one out of every five jobs on Wall Street was lost. It took more than five years before the financial sector regained its pre-recession hiring levels.

"If the damage is broader than we anticipated, we could see 20% job cuts again," a professor of finance at the College of Business Administration at Northeastern University, Harlan Platt, said. "The simplest way to cut costs is to let people go."

October's national jobless rate was 4.7%, the same as September, besting Wall Street estimates. Still, this number is actually 0.3 percentage points higher than last year — the steepest yearly gain since October 2003, according to Mr. Lonski. In addition, October's three-month ratio of employment to the working-age population was down 0.4%. Since 1969, each time this number dropped by 0.5%, a recession occurred, he said.

To read this entire story, please visit: http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/scramblehits.htm

Holiday Fashion

I thought you might be interested in the thoughts of Danika Quinones, fashion expert and associate publisher for LuxeMont, owners of JustLuxe and LuxeVegas (www.justluxe.com) & (www.luxevegas.com). Danika’s personal and professional ambition is founded in fashion and publishing. With a Bachelor of Arts in Communication, Danika has held a number of key marketing and product development positions for several fashion industry leaders, including Nordstrom, Louis Vuitton and Gucci. Danika brings on-air radio broadcast experience as well as extensive background in publishing and an exceptional eye for fashion to LuxeMont. In her role as Associate Publisher, Danika is involved in the day-to-day trend analysis and production of all fashion consumer and industry related content.

Here are some of her thoughts:

A nice way to wear a shawl or a wrap is to style it like a cape or a poncho. By draping it over your shoulders and arms you can then keep it in place by pinning a embellished pin or a vintage pin in the corner. Pins are a great and unique way to keep a wrap secured around your shoulders!

Pashminas are cashmere wraps that come in an array of bright colors. and are great to use as a wrap, a chic blanket at the airport, or a scarf. They are soft, light weight, and very comfortable. Cashmere and wool scarf's are perfect when paired with jeans, a pair of heels, and a T-shirt. You can add instant glamour to a basic outfit with a bright colored scarf.

If you are going to be wearing formal attire, Silk wraps are best, or if it is cold, stick with a cashmere blend. A blend of silk and cashmere always works best. Try to stay away from 100% wool and other heavy fabrics. Heavy fabrics bulge, and look unflattering when paired with evening or cocktail dresses. If your dress has a pattern to it, stick with a solid color wrap. If the dress is a solid basic color you could get away with a multi-colored wrap. Keep in mind your wrap/shawl should compliment your dress. Choose a color that will match nicely, and don't pair a dark colored shawl with a light colored dress... If you're in doubt wear a black wrap with dark colored dresses, and a cream/champagne color wrap with light dresses. Don't wear a white shawl- you will look like a bride.

If you are wearing a dress the best size to get would be considered a "wrap" or a "stole". A wrap is usually about 28" x 80" for a rectangular version, or 55" x 55" for a square.

My favorite wrap that can be paired with jeans or a cocktail dress is the Monogram Shawl by Louis Vuitton : http://www.eluxury.com/estore/browse/product_detail.jsp?id=10149490

Industrial Evolution

FROM ENTREPRENEUR MAGAZINE

Don't limit your customer base; explore all the industries that could possibly use your product or service. That's exactly what Neil Wadhawan did when he co-founded Heartwood Studios with Raj Raheja. Wadhawan, 25, was a student at Northeastern University when he met Raheja, 32, through a family connection. Together they developed a company to produce 3-D renderings and animations for architects and designers. "We knew [3-D animation] was a necessary tool. Being able to visualize something before it's built is powerful," says Wadhawan.

After starting the business in 2002, Wadhawan and Raheja realized that their 3-D animations could be vital to more than just architects and started looking for other industries in which they could put their services to use. They began serving clients in the defense and aerospace industries, and they've even branched out into the sports world with stadium animations for the Dallas Cowboys and New Jersey Nets.

Marketing to each specialized industry takes serious preparation--Wadhawan says they develop a different marketing approach and talking points for each one. But he points out that sharing projects from one industry with clients from another can help make the sale. "Often, somebody in the sports world, for example, will love to see something from the defense world," says Wadhawan. "It helps them understand that this digital technology can be used [to do anything]."

To read more, please visit: http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/industrialevolution.htm

What a Weak Dollar Means for U.S. Shoppers

FROM SMART MONEY

If there's good news, it's that the dollar's recent decline represents a relatively small slide in a six-year plunge, which has seen its value decline by about 30% against the Fed's trade-weighted index of major world currencies. "The dollar has been weakening against the major currencies for several years, so the bulk of price changes have already taken place," says Tony Gao, assistant professor of marketing at Northeastern University. "The question is really how much further."

If you'd like to read the entire article, please visit: http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/whataweak.htm

New protection from top 20 internet security attack targets

As you may know, October was Cyber Security Awareness Month. Although over 70% of network attacks are Web-based, most businesses either think they have adequate firewall security, or fear that the steps they would need to take to make their networks truly impenetrable are far too costly.

In the coming weeks, Port80 Software ( www.port80software.com ), a leading developer of enhancements for Microsoft IIS Web servers, will be releasing ServerDefender VP (Vulnerability Protection), a new Web application firewall which protects the application layer (ASPX, PHP, CFM, JSP, etc.) and databases from Web-based attacks, protecting a company’s network.

"Companies pay way too much for services to get comprehensive network security, or for a security solution that does not get the full HTTP/HTTPS picture that only a Web server can see, and thus are not as effective," says Chris Neppes of Port80 Software.

ServerDefender addresses attacks such as SQL Injection, cross-site scripting (XSS) and request forgery (CSRF), directory traversal, zero-day, brute force, denial of service, privilege escalation and other serious Web applications network assaults. In fact, ServerDefender protects networks from the top 20 Internet Security Attack targets listed by SANS: http://www.sans.org/top20/

Some of unique benefit of ServerDefender VP are:

· There is no reliance on signatures; instead, it applies best practices to sanitize inputs to a site and to capture error responses from the application layer.

· This new product offers both audit survivability and adherence to the PCI government data requirements.

· Finally, this product is an entry-level server security product (~$350 per server), enabling companies to avoid having to pay thousands of dollars to security consultants by incorporating security best practices automatically.

Study: Audit Committees Rubber-Stamp Management

FROM CFO

While audit committees have become much smarter and more active since passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, they are still feeling out their new authority. Even though they wield more influence than ever over the hiring and firing of auditors, for example, management continues to hold greater sway. And despite their new responsibility for resolving management-auditor disputes, many audit committees are still reluctant to do so.
Those are some of the findings of a new study by accounting professors at Boston College and Northeastern University, "Auditor Experiences of Corporate Governance in the Post Sarbanes-Oxley Era." The study follows up on a similar report by the same authors, which was based on a 2000 auditor survey.

To see this entire story, visit http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/rubberstamp.htm

Redefining the MBA

FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

The arrival of Larson, Schmittlein, and Magid hastens a leadership turnover at Greater Boston business schools after a long period of stability. Jay O. Light took the reins at Harvard Business School last year. Andrew Boynton became dean of Boston College's Carroll School of Management in 2005, and Thomas Moore dean of Northeastern University's College of Business Administration in 2004.

Business-oriented Babson College in Wellesley, which emphasizes entrepreneurship, is expected to name a new president some time next year. Bentley, meanwhile, is interviewing candidates to be the new dean of business under Larson.

The changes at the top have been accompanied by a reassessment and, in some cases, a tweaking of what marketers call the business schools' "brands" at a time when all are vying for students, faculty members, recruiters, and relevancy. Northeastern, for example, has sought to differentiate itself with an emphasis on practical studies like supply chain management. BC has been building its business program around ethical values, while Harvard has been pushing to extend its leadership brand into emerging fields like healthcare.

To see this entire article, visit: http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/redefiningMBA.htm

Unique financial model for migrating from enterprise to SaaS

Many enterprise software companies, particularly publicly-traded ones, have struggled/continued to struggle with combating the advantages of SaaS. Making this transformation would mean a dramatic revenue shift, from a lump-sum up front payment and perpetual licensing fees, to a distributed cost model. One company has found a unique way to help Lawson address this dilemma.

Velocity Technology Solutions (www.velocityus.com) is a premier provider of Lawson consulting and hosting services. Leveraging decades of consulting know-how related to Lawson systems, and coupled with a hosting partnership with Verizon, Velocity is able to design, build, implement and run Lawson solutions using a top-tier infrastructure, including multiple hardened facilities and a global footprint. By offering a “one-stop-shop” for designing, implementing and running solutions based on Lawson, Velocity can offer something very unique: financing which distributes or flattens the cost of software implementation.

“We offer financing through our partnership with Verizon. If a company comes to us to build, implement and run a Lawson-based solution, Verizon helps us pay the upfront cost to Lawson, which they love (as a publicly traded company), and we can flatten the operational cost for our customer over a manageable period of time,” says Greg Benton, senior director of alliances and marketing at Velocity. “In essence we offer a hybrid-SaaS model, by offering the power of a tier-one hosted solution similar to investment in an enterprise license, with the risk reduction and flattened cost structure of an SaaS model. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.”

For more about their premier relationship with Lawson, visit: http://www.velocityus.com/subpage.cfm?tbl=2&sct=0