We find that a 10% increase in the number of a firm's ads leads to a 0.76% increase in revenue, while the same increase in rival advertising leads to a 0.55% decrease in firm revenue. Results also indicate that a 10% increase in category advertising produces a 0.2% revenue increase for non-advertised drugs.
A Republican, Mr. Pyhrr said one of his wishes is that more government entities would embrace zero-based budgeting to make the kind of necessary changes that companies, such as Heinz, are making. “But that is a long discussion,” he added.
Other food and beverage companies are embracing 3G’s financial tool, in part out of fear that they, too, could become targets of activist investors or stronger rivals. Big packaged-food companies have been particularly appealing targets for zero-based budgeting.
[it] requires managers to plan each year’s budget as if no money existed the previous year, rather than using the typical method of adjusting prior-year spending. That forces them to justify the costs and benefits of each dollar every 12 months.
...zero-based budgeting is a symbol of the new reality for U.S. business: Activists are pressing at all sides, giving managements little room for slack or bloated budgets. This ethos has seeped into nearly every boardroom, prompting pre-emptive steps that emulate the activists themselves.
The effects of this change are improved shareholder returns and dividends. But on the flip side, it has made the work for employees more rigorous and, some would argue, more ruthless.
At Heinz, ... 3G quickly set out to make deeper changes, paring staff at its Pittsburgh headquarters and gutting individual offices in favor of open floor plans. It slashed Heinz’s overall head count by about 1,480, or 4% of the world-wide workforce, shut several factories and grounded corporate jets.
A German court on Wednesday banned Uber from running services using unlicensed cab drivers and set stiff fines for any violations of local transport laws by the pioneering online taxi firm.
Uber, worth an estimated $40 billion making it the world's most valuable venture-backed start-up, has set out to revolutionise local transport services worldwide, from taxis to carpools to fast-food delivery.
The latest case, brought in the Frankfurt regional court by German taxi operator group Taxi Deutschland against UberPOP, is one of more than a dozen lawsuits filed in countries across Europe in recent months against the San Francisco-based company.
Festool products are complex, with a high level of features and functions, and are aimed predominantly at professional users. Tooltechnic believed that provision of retail services such as pre-sales technical advice, product demonstrations, and “try-before-you-buy” arrangements, as well as post-sales services such as customer training and provision of consumables and accessories, would help to expand demand for the brand even if retail prices included a margin sufficient to fund those services.
However, retailers who provided these services were increasingly losing out to competitors who chose a simpler no-frills model, and the problem of free-riding was exacerbated by the increased accessibility of on-line sales. Tooltechnic chose RPM as a solution after judging that other approaches, such as imposing detailed contractual obligations on retailers, granting exclusive retailer territories, or restricting on-line sales permissions, would be unworkable or less effective as a means of boosting sales.
“Torah is the most important thing in the world,” Rabbi Amsellem said in an interview. But now more than 60 percent of ultra-Orthodox men in Israel do not work, compared with 15 percent in the general population, and he argued that full-time, state-financed study should be reserved for great scholars destined to become rabbis or religious judges.
“Those who are not that way inclined,” he said, “should go out and earn a living.”Because the subsidies are tied to the number of children each family has, the problem is likely to get bigger. Fertility rates among the ultra orthodox (7.6 children/woman) are several times higher than the general population.
...the only issue with that is that it bets the farm on a US consumer who, as the past three months of plunging retail sales and contracting consumer (and mostly credit card debt), and surging savings rate have shown, is once again fully tapped out.
South Korea ... currency fell 0.5% against the dollar and 0.7% versus the euro on the news.
Thailand’s decision to cut rates Wednesday also helps its exporters, who have been complaining recently about the baht currency’s relative strength.
No matter what the rhetoric is from central bankers, many of them are hoping that rate cuts help lower the value of their currencies versus those of their neighbors.
“They’re thinking of it in the context of currency wars,” said David Mann, chief economist in Asia at Standard Chartered Bank.
As the MBAOracle.com says: Use game theory to figure out where self interest is taking you; if you don’t like where that is, change the rules of the game.
