In Europe last year, telecommunications and financial companies joined at a rate of one alliance a month. The trend will go global, because financial content is where the money is.

After researching firms that have transferred their B2B transactions from a physical marketplace to an Internet-based one, Garicano and Kaplan devised a framework for analyzing existing and potential B2B e-commerce strategies. This method works for B2B startups as well as established companies taking their B2B transactions online, and it helps businesspeople judge whether a strategy has measurable benefits for both the company and its customers-important concerns that often were discarded in the initial wave of excitement over e-commerce.

The framework identifies five ways in which B2B e-commerce potentially affects transaction costs: changing business processes, altering the nature of the marketplace, modifying decisions by buyers and sellers, altering the amount of information available to buyers and sellers, and changing the ability of buyers and sellers to go through with a transaction.

Interested in a market that constitutes one-fifth of all the people in the world? Consider China. Many Western companies already have, as the country's burgeoning economic growth tempts more and more executives to try to navigate the complexities of Chinese business and culture.

Ming-Jer Chen, founder/director of Wharton's Global Chinese Business Initiative and author of a new book entitled Inside Chinese Business: A Guide for Managers Worldwide (Harvard Business School Press, April 2001), recently talked with Knowledge@Wharton about the business climate that exists today in China and in Chinese communities throughout different parts of the world.

Growth economics has emerged because of the growing recognition that the economic models created in the Industrial Age dominated by commodity goods production no longer adequately explain growth in an economy powered by knowledge and innovation.

While Keynesian and supply-side economics focused in an almost Newtonian way on adjusting the demand or supply of capital and labor to keep the economy in equilibrium, growth economics is focused on a different set of questions related to how the New Economy creates wealth: are entrepreneurs taking risks to start new ventures; are workers getting skilled and are companies organizing production in ways that use those skills; are companies investing in technological breakthroughs and is government supporting the technology base (e.g., funding research, training scientists and engineers); are regional clusters of firms and other institutions fostering innovation; are we avoiding protecting companies against more innovative competitors; are research institutions transferring knowledge to companies; and are policies supporting the ubiquitous widespread adoption of the Internet and other advanced information technologies?

Under the old economic policy model, it was not clear that there was a role for government in economic policy beyond managing the business cycle and protecting intellectual property rights. Growth economics makes it clear that government policies can boost long-term income growth. It recognizes the conservative insight that free markets, competition, and innovation boost growth. But it also recognizes the liberal insight that government investments, particularly in science, technology, education, and skills, can provide a foundation upon which productivity growth depends. And finally, growth economics recognizes that fiscal discipline underlies all of this.

Companies hope that by linking Web sites and call centers, they'll improve customer loyalty, attract new business, and cut costs. Those are all compelling reasons. But another driver behind the Web call center is more persuasive: Customers want it.
A Web call center can improve customer service and retention by providing a variety of self-care applications online, then backing up that convenience with the ability to communicate with a person in the call center. Furthermore, handling contact with less-strategic customers via the Web and the Internet can free agents to provide costly hands-on care to a company's most profitable customers.

Article discusses the trends and issues involving distributing and/or outsourcing customer call centers.

Managing IT is as much about business as it is about technology, and the drive to E-business is attracting a variety of managers with a variety of skills - many of them outside traditional IT.

Is it time to slow down the pace of global marketing?

This interesting article looks at some issues with site traffic and the ramifications for e-commerce or advertising efforts. Specific attention is given to ComScore Networks' buying power index (BPI).

The goal of this paper is to explain some of the changes under way in online pricing and consider the implications for companies selling over the Internet. It will examine three areas:
- Pricing in multiple channels
- Global pricing
- Dynamic pricing

Procter & Gamble is wiring its products to track when items leave the shelves. It's part of the battle to cut inventory costs and revive earnings.

Article also provides some insight into P&G's operations and the importance of the supply chain in the consumer products industry. Also discusses collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment, or CPFR

Second System Syndrome is a business ailment first diagnosed by Frederick P. Brooks Jr. in his classic 1975 book The Mythical Man-Month. "An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean," Brooks wrote. "He knows he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with great restraint." But once the first system is done, the architect becomes overconfident, unaware of how much he still doesn't know. The second system is usually overengineered, full of unnecessary "frills and embellishments" - in short, a mess.

It is, Brooks wrote, "the most dangerous system a man ever designs."Many of the architects of the Internet Economy exhibit acute symptoms of Second System Syndrome. Worse, they seem to suffer from a particularly virulent strain. They are so eager to start building the second system - or product or company or fund - that they never get the first one working. While they are off trying to repeat their "success" and teach others how to do it, the first project languishes, misfires and runs out of gas.

Venture capitalist Mike Frank gives his "Ten Commandments of Fundraising" in an attempt to provide a primer for inexperienced entrepreneurs, and a helpful recap for seasoned entrepreneurs who want to go over the basics of the VC game.
1. Thou shalt focus, focus, focus thy plan.
2. Thou shalt weave a story.
3. Thou shalt understand thy audience.
4. Thou shalt arrive via referral.
5. Thou shalt be crisp in thy plan.
6. Thou shalt fine-tune thy presentation.
7. Thou shalt thoroughly research and evaluate current and prospective competition.
8. Thou shalt get real about financial projections.
9. Thou shalt not obsess on valuation.
10. Thou shalt understand potential exit strategies.

Intel averages 3 million email messages per day. That's enough to choke even the fastest-moving company. Here's a short course on how the Silicon Valley giant gets the most out of those messages.

Article examines stockholder rights plans, also called poison pills.

Can hundreds of research teams working together rewrite the way we manufacture? [A look at the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (IMS) - program]

Article examines the trend toward viewing the CEO as a superhero and putting him/her in a position to satisfy Wall Street or be fired.

A well-constructed customer survey can provide a wealth of vital consumer information. John Coldwell offers advice on the fine art of satisfaction polling.

Sector? Application? Philosophy? All of the above and yet none of the above, "customer relationship management," or CRM, is one of the past couple years' most talked about -- and most hazily defined -- concepts.

For a more detailed investigation of this topic, see:
http://www.mbadepot.com/links/links.php?ID=872

Given the ease and availability of online trading over the past several years, just how has the behavior of average investors changed? Are these individuals trading online more, and more frequently, or does their natural conservatism distance them from the lure of trading on the web? Finance professor Andrew Metrick and two colleagues from Harvard University find some answers in a recent research paper titled, "Does the Internet Increase Trading? Evidence from Investor Behavior in 401(K) Plans."

Article discusses problems associated with accounting for and valuing intangible assets (see related articles by Baruch Lev). Offers some refresher info for those who have forgotten (or yet to take) their accounting course(s).

Article discusses the reset security, also known as the "death-spiral convert" and sometimes as a "toxic" (privately held preferred stock or bonds that can be exchanged for shares of common stock. An investor will offer a company cash in exchange for a percentage of the company, but with a catch: The investor wants a guarantee that the investment's value won't fall (or won't fall much). If the stock does fall, the investor gets more shares - and a bigger stake in the company.)

Italy has worked hard to modernize its economy, but still lags in reforming labor markets, financial systems, and education. Will the nation push ahead, or hang on to the status quo?

Internet marketers made lots of big (and, in hindsight, dubious) promises about the power of the Web to give companies a uniquely powerful way to chart the performance of their ads. The folks at Avenue A aren't ready to give up on those promises -- even if lots of other people are.

"Think of pre-1990 as the Age of Sucking Up to the Hierarchy. The Age of the Promise 'Em Everything Pitch lasted from 1995 to 2000. The next five years will be the Age of No-Bull Performance. Which means that we're going to see leadership emerge as the most important element of business -- the attribute that is highest in demand and shortest in supply. And that means that over the next five years, we're going to have to reckon with a new, unorthodox, untested list of leadership qualities."

Some listed in this article include:
1. Leaders are important. But great managers are the bedrock of great organizations.
2. But then again, there are times when this cult-of-personality stuff actually works!
3. Leadership is confusing as hell. (The situation rules. Leader for all seasons? In your dreams!)
4. When it comes to talent, leadership doesn't income-average.
5. Leaders love the mess.
6. The leader is rarely -- possibly never? -- the best performer.
8. Leaders create their own destinies.
9. Leaders win through logistics.
10. Leaders understand the ultimate power of relationships.
11. Leaders multitask.
15. Leaders trust their guts.
17. Leaders are natural empowerment freaks.
18. Leaders are good at forgetting.
20. Leaders make mistakes -- and make no bones about it.
21. Leaders love to work with other leaders.
22. Leaders can laugh.
26. Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders.
28. Leaders don't fall prey to their own success.
30. You must execute consistently. But consistency = focus = blinders
31. Leaders honor the assassins in their own organizations.
32. Leaders love technology.
33. Leaders wear their passion on their sleeve.
34. Leaders know: Energy begets energy.
35. Leaders are community organizers.
36. Leaders give respect.
38. Leadership is a performance.
39. Leaders have great stories.
40. Leaders give everyone a cause.
43. Leaders always make time to work the phones.
44. Leaders listen intently.
45. Leaders revel in surrounding themselves with people who are smarter than they are.
46. Great leaders are great politicians.
48. Leaders learn.
50. Leaders know when to leave.