High levels of technical and market uncertainties, rapidly declining prices, collapsing markets, and shortening product life cycles characterize High Tech Marketing. Conventional strategic analysis tools are inadequate for effective analysis in developing high tech marketing strategy. This paper reviews a portfolio of cotemporary strategic analysis tools that have been used effectively in developing high tech marketing strategies and case analyses. These include the Boston Consulting Group's (BCG) Portfolio Matrix, The Technology Adoption Life Cycle, The Whole Product Concept, and Disruptive Technologies Mapping. Some of these tools have been effective in alleviating the Engineering - Marketing interface issues in high tech start-up companies. The implicit relationships between these tools are also explored.

Your inventory is one of the biggest, if not the largest investment you have in your company. The only thing that comes close to it is your people. Furthermore, inventory acts as a buffer between unmatched supply and demand. It hides problems. This article offers valuable tips for maintaining an accurate inventory.

In today's flatter, knowledge-based organizations, networks of informal relationships are often more critical to performance and innovation than those of formal divisions and units. The networks also have a lot to do with personal productivity, learning, and career success. Helping employees build vibrant networks can have tremendous payoff for managers in terms of both individual and departmental productivity. The paper examines this issue in detail.

Some executives approach change management much as a civil engineer would tackle a construction project: they assess the need, build something new, and move on. This essay's author-a mechanical engineer by training-disagrees with that approach. Companies, he notes, aren't static; they are dynamic systems that continually fall out of alignment and require constant tuning to maintain their balance and momentum.

How much is the Coca-Cola brand or trademark worth? $50 billion? $ 100 billion? In August 2003, in an article in BusinessWeek, Interbrand included it in their table of "The 100 Top Brands" at a value of $70.45 billion. How would you check whether you agreed with their assessment?

In this article, Caroline Woodward-of PricewaterhouseCoopers' Valuation & Strategy practice-offers some interesting answers to these, and other key IP valuation questions.

On crisis, facts, and fear.

After boards of directors were blamed by many for not nipping the Enron, WorldCom and other corporate scandals in the bud, new rules were set up requiring that at least one member of a board's audit committee be financially sophisticated. "The idea was that somehow this would make the board better able to monitor and detect potential fraud," says Wharton finance professor Geoffrey Tate. Yet in a new research paper titled, "The Impact of Boards with Financial Expertise on Corporate Policies," Tate and two co-authors study the role of company directors who are commercial or investment bankers and conclude that "financial experts on corporate boards do not necessarily improve shareholder value."

Ground-breaking research from Cranfield School of Management has revealed that cognitive psychology can help explain financial performance in entrepreneurial businesses. The findings support the established view that risk-takers are likely to achieve the highest sales growth. The real news, however, is that they also demonstrate that owner-managers' over-confidence in their own ability or judgment correlates with poor profit performance in their businesses. Conversely, owner-managers who display caution in using their judgment outside areas of specialist knowledge show a superior growth in their firms' profits.

When the shouting is over, one fact is clear: what differentiates perennially great companies from others is the products they sell. Some companies generate a never-ending stream of products that are appealing to customers and profitable to produce. Other companies achieve product innovation in fits and starts. Yet others launch many failed products, unprofitable products, or "me too" products. This article examines the opportunities to compete through products.

Performance plans are essential for the success of an organization. The paper illustrates how performance plans differ from stock options and restricted stock. The advantages and disadvantages of the same are also examined. The paper discusses the analytic tools used for long-term incentive plan design. Finally, the paper looks at the subjective factors, which need to be considered while designing a performance-based plan. [BNET Annotation]

Corruption happens. When corruption occurs, either in an organization's home (domestic) environment, or in a foreign country, it raises a number of questions and issues for managers and professionals. The questions relate to what forms corruption takes, who is involved, and why it exists. The issues relate to how we cope and deal with corruption in general and within specific cultural and national contexts. The first three questions deal with understanding the underlying causes of the corruption and its manifestation in different national cultures. The last issue-how we cope and deal with corruption-seeks to identify the appropriate strategic (and ethical) response by the organization to the corruption.

Here are a number of the key components of an effective sales operations infrastructure. If your company is not tuned up and ready for action, you'll be left exposed, under-supported or left to waste your precious time on unproductive activities.

The World Bank (at least since 1991) has used NPV and IRR to study the environmental impact of its decisions. While finding the true cost and benefit of environmental questions is notoriously difficult, it is something that must be done. [FinanceProfessor Annotation]

A.T. Kearney's 2004 Assessment of Excellence in Procurement global research study of more than 300 companies confirms that senior executives expect procurement to go well beyond its traditional role. Rather than focusing solely on cost reduction, today's business leaders see procurement's greatest challenge as capturing value beyond cost from the supply market.

Employees who aren't engaged in their jobs are more likely to be unhappy in their personal lives too, according to a new Gallup study.

In the 1990s, companies responded to shifting labor markets by launching a "war for talent". However, even the best recruitment tactics will not suffice in the struggle ahead. Instead, a more thoughtful response is required - one that lures critical talent, but more importantly engages them in ways that promote the flexibility and productivity you need to compete. Highly talented people vie for the limited spots these companies offer. In a compelling fashion, this report frames the scope and range of the emerging talent crisis and provides an alternative model for addressing the issues. [BNET Annotation]

Editor's Note: introduces the Develop-Deploy-Connect model

An organization's ability to learn, grow and refresh itself is critical to high performance. Fostering and managing continuous renewal are most effective at the project and initiative levels. Here are five contrarian principles for making it happen.

Whether for strategic, financial, or technological reasons, companies today are increasingly finding that they must completely transform critical elements of their businesses. As a result, the ability to manage such efforts quickly, effectively, and confidently has become an important source of competitive advantage and shareholder value. The problem, however,is that transformation, by its very nature, severely stretches organizations-often pushing skills, resources, and comfort levels to their limits.

Success or failure ultimately comes down to a combination of the following: The duration of the project or the time between major review milestones, the performance integrity of the project team, the organizational commitment to change, specifically that of senior managers and local-area staff, the additional organizational effort required for implementation above and beyond usual work requirements. This is the DICE model of BCG.

Facing an online extortion threat, Mickey Richardson bet his Web-based business on a networking whiz from Sacramento who first beat back the bad guys, then helped the cops nab them. If you collect revenue online, you'd better read this.

This guide was designed by CIDEM as a tool aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to help them assess their capacity for innovation. It is intended as a first step towards setting in motion a broader reflection within the SME community. As a result, its aim is not so much to obtain the right answers as to allow companies to identify the basic issues at work in the improvement of their capacity for innovation.

To ensure that IT investments have the greatest impact, CIOs must involve business-unit leaders and concentrate on the big picture.

"Valuable, hard-to-find data about demographic trends, marketer spending, Hispanic media and leading Hispanic agencies." Includes data about top advertisers and brands, leading radio formats and television markets, and demographics.

Business people need to know how to recognize the signs should a deflationary spiral begin and how to prepare ahead of time with practical relevant business plans and strategic initiatives.

Seven practices characterize highly productive companies turning them into 'digital organizations.' IT is the catalyst, but organizational capital provides the context.

Fourteen things every entrepreneur should know about the capitalist explosion heading our way. But don't assume that conceding China's rise means conceding to China.