European Business Forum articles from December 2000

European Business Forum archives from December 2000

European consensus on trial.(Letter from the Editors)(Editorial)
December 22, 2000... In late November 2000 two stories appeared on different pages of the same European newspaper under the headlines 'European M & A slump hits banks' and 'Booming European deals lift PR fortunes'. The messages were contradictory, of course, but...

Should we control the urge to merge?(At the forum)(Cover Story)
December 22, 2000... Following the launch of the euro, the quickening pace of corporate restructuring, and the naggingly disruptive impact of the 'new' economy, the Mergers and Acquisitions industry has enjoyed another active and prosperous year. Yet for all the...

Will the internet encourage more responsible business?(Corporate responsibility revisited)
December 22, 2000... In the third issue of EBF (autumn 2000) we posed the question: Will the internet encourage more responsible business? The debate provoked interest not just because of the 'new' economy angle but because Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)...

Success factors in acquisitions: revenue synergies are key to value creating acquisitions.(In-depth: value creation)
December 22, 2000... Most acquisitions do not create value for the acquiring company's shareholders. Yet acquisitions represent a unique way of transforming corporate performance. Simply avoiding them is not an option. Academic and consulting advice on what...

How to become a successful market-driven organisation: from being a platitude to being a pre-requisite, being 'market driven' has been the secret behind many of the success stories--Shell, Dell, Honda, Intel, Boeing, Novartis, Merck, Cisco--of recent years.(In-depth: performance improvement)
December 22, 2000... First Direct was the world's leading telephone-only bank, and the fastest growing bank in Britain during the 1990s. It had overcome the notorious inertia of the retail customers of the four big high street banks to attract 925,000 affluent...

In my opinion ...(In-depth: performance improvement)
December 22, 2000... Professor George Day has identified, based on a decade's worth of research, that successful market-driven organisations combine three key elements in the areas of culture, firm capabilities and firm configuration. A series of business examples...

Lessons in alliance integration--the case of BP-Statoil: alliance can be very much a process of give and take, competitive pressures and personnel change. As this case study of the experiences of Statoil and BP demonstrates, any alliance conditions needs to be continually re-evaluated.(In-depth: alliance integration)
December 22, 2000... Researchers frequently point to post--merger integration as the key success factor in mergers and acquisitions. Unsuccessful integration, indeed, may even be a cause of failure in up to one third of all cases. My contention in this...

In my opinion ...(In-depth: alliance integration)
December 22, 2000... Home truths from a joint venture Lin Lerpold's research into the BP-Statoil alliance certainly rang some bells here at Factiva, a 50-50 joint venture between Dow Jones and Reuters in online business information which was launched in May,...

How 'atmospherics' can differentiate retail outlets: how a consumer is influenced by atmospheric factors--music, colours, smells--is the subject of much conjecture. What follows is a guide on how to monitor these effects and how some factors can influence spending patterns.(In-depth: retailing)
December 22, 2000... Over 40 years ago, psychologists like Abraham Maslow noted that people performed tasks better when asked to do them in aesthetically pleasing environments. During the 1960s researchers began manipulating the design and arrangement of the retail...

In my opinion ...(In-depth: retailing)(lighting makes difference in retail marketing )
December 22, 2000... Professor Turley's analysis of different 'retail atmospherics' certainly strikes a chord. We run a video and DVD sales and rental outlet in Knightsbridge, London, and I know from experience that music and lighting can make a big difference to...

Maintaining momentum in mergers.(In-depth: managing integration)
December 22, 2000... Whilst global mergers and acquisition are as popular as ever, critics increasingly point to the high failure rate of even the most high profile ones, with Daimler Chrysler the latest case in point. Based on first hand experience of many...

Climate change: BP at the corporate strategy frontier; Corporate strategy regarding climate change is becoming as much about performance and profitability as it is about improving the environment.(Sounding board)(British Petroleum Company PLC)
December 22, 2000... The World Economic Forum, meeting earlier this year in Davos, Switzerland, concluded that climate change is the biggest challenge facing the global business community at the beginning of the new century. More to the point, climate change is...

Mobile telephony: turn your business upside down; The buying of Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) licenses will not be the saviour of the companies who have parted with huge sums. But rather they should look at creating new business models to cater for a changing business environment.(Sounding board)
December 22, 2000... There is a cosy belief amongst the executives and followers of third generation 3G mobile telephony. It is a belief that paying vast sums to acquire hotly-contested UMTS licenses has somehow guaranteed entry into an elite of corporate new...

Building the 'last mile'--how to solve logistics conflicts in e-business: getting products to the consumer cheaply and effectively continues to be an uphill challenge for online retailers. In this article the authors put forward a radical proposal for co-operation between existing players.(Sounding board)
December 22, 2000... E-commerce is an exciting opportunity with tremendous promise. But many companies, notably internet retailers, severely underestimate the fulfillment challenge. Too many devote the bulk of their resources to developing the front-end--the look...

In my opinion ...(Sounding board)(e-commerce service development)
December 22, 2000... Kumar and Vollman have hit the nail on the head when they say that finding the right road for the last mile is the major challenge facing online grocery retail. As an international food provider operating in 24 countries on four continents with...

In my opinion ...(Sounding board)(Home Shopping market)
December 22, 2000... Kumar and Vollman are to be congratulated on confronting what is one of the fundamental problems inhibiting the growth of the Home Shopping market, which in the UK is forecast to double from [pounds sterling]10bn to [pounds sterling]20bn-25bn...

Learning in a time of chaos: e-business is reshaping what knowledge, skills and behaviours are needed within organisations.(Sounding board)
December 22, 2000... This summer we spent three months talking to clients, suppliers and informed experts about e-learning.* This article captures some of the key directions coming out of that research and concentrates on suggestions to help organisations...

What BMW's class of 97 learned from Thailand: as globalisation continues apace managers have to be equipped to deal with a whole range of intercultural niceties if an organisation is to adapt and flourish across national boundaries.(Sounding board)
December 22, 2000... Managers with intercultural skills are an increasingly visible feature of the global business landscape. A vital source of competitive advantage for companies operating across borders, they nevertheless present an important challenge for those...

David Azema, Eurostar Group.(View from the top)(Interview)
December 22, 2000... Ownership and management structures seldom get more complex than that of Eurostar Group, the company which determines the commercial direction, policy and service development of high speed trains between London, Brussels and Paris. The Group's...

Bruno Monteyne of Smarterwork.com.(View from the top)(Interview)
December 22, 2000... An on-line marketplace where clients buy everything from web design, translation, and software development to legal advice, business consulting and industry research, Smarterwork.com is a classic example of Europe's new B2B e-commerce...

Does humour travel?(Cartoon)
December 22, 2000... 'This merger will cut jobs 40%, reduce salaries 30% and increase the work hours 25%. Your job is to make this look like the best thing that ever happened to our employees.' PIERO TONIN, ITALY [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 'In case of...

Regulatory hurdles which frustrate cross border banks: many problems remain before Europe enjoys a single market in financial services. This article illustrates some of the practical difficulties by a leading player.(Window on Europe)
December 22, 2000... Significant progress is being made towards the integration of European financial markets which is stimulating the development of truly pan European financial groups providing services across borders. For a long time one of the major hurdles...

Analysts under the spotlight.(Book Review: The Super Analysts: Conversations With the World's Leading Stock Market Investors and Analysts)(Book Review)
December 22, 2000... Andrew Leeming, The Super Analysts--Conversations with the world's leading stock market investors and analysts John Wiley & Sons The Finance Director of one of the Dutch brewing companies is alleged, some years ago, to have been asked...

Means to an end.(Book Review: Building Cross-Cultural Competence: How to Create Wealth from Conflicting Values)(Book Review)
December 22, 2000... Charles Hampden-Turner and Fons Trompenaars Building Cross-cultural competence How to create wealth from conflicting values Wiley 'This is a book about culture', says the fly-leaf. 'Eighteen years of research has led to an...

Kondratieff upturn.(Book Review: The New Economy and New Capitalism)(Book Review)
December 22, 2000... Alain Minc, The new economy and new capitalism Grasset As a thinker, essayist and consultant--having achieved greater success in these roles than he did as a manager in De Benedetti's team at the time of his assault against Societe...

Could M & A undermine competition on the internet? Rather than encourage competition, the internet could see shrinking of market choice as competitors see the benefits in joining a mutual network.(Sideways look)(Mergers and acquisitions )
December 22, 2000... When Austrian wine-grower Josef Huber opened his web site to market his speciality, the Gruner Veltliner, he was initially in high spirits. The e-solution package he had bought, in conjunction with some rock-solid advice by a professional...

Movers and shapers: EBF is to follow the fortunes of four new businesses recently created by alumni of European management schools.(Entrepreneurs)(European Business Forum)(SamSari Education )(Squeaker.NET)(ExpertPlaza)(WordAppeal)
December 22, 2000... European start-up companies continue to flourish as the "new" economy and industry restructuring presents a range of new opportunities for would-be entrepreneurs. But what happens to these ventures once the initial excitement of their launch...

Swinging on the web: all the best sites for a quick round at the desk or on the green.(Web.europe)(Golf related websites)
December 22, 2000... European golf enthusiasts are well served by the web, although inevitably the US bias of the internet in general means that most of the available sites are more relevant to American golfers. Perhaps the pick of the bunch of golf information...

Both 'right'.(Did you know?)
December 22, 2000... In the Italian edition of Microsoft's Encarta, its CD-Rom encyclopedia, GuglieIno Marconi is credited as the inventor of the telephone instead of Scotland's Alexander Bell. Bell, however, gets the honour in the US version. Encarta says this is...

The Academic Olympics.(Did you know?)(Brief Article)
December 22, 2000... Two US professors said they won 'gold' with a study predicting Olympic medal totals for different countries based on economic rather than athletic models. Professors at the Yale and Dartmouth business schools had researched GDP and other data...

Accessible Art.(Did you know?)(Online art market)(Brief Article)
December 22, 2000... The Internet may finally be bringing some transparency to the art market. Notwithstanding a recent report by the French senator Yann Gaillard confirming the general impression that figures regarding art prices are rare, outdated and difficult...

Trading ring tones.(Did you know?)(Cellular telephone services)(Brief Article)
December 22, 2000... Mobile phone users are accessing a growing number of data services. Short message services (SMS), for example, are extremely popular, with Europeans sending two billion such messages a month. In Finland, 65 per cent of traffic over mobile...

Tone deaf.(Did you know?)(mobile ringitones )(Brief Article)
December 22, 2000... While recording their latest CD Call Me, the Finnish pop band Nylon Beat first released Syyton (Not Guilty) as a ringing tone. Finnish teenagers rushed to download the tune from the internet. At a recent concert the band paused in the middle of...

Global warning.(Did you know?)(Duke of York Islands in Papua New Guinea )(Brief Article)
December 22, 2000... Residents of the Duke of York Islands in Papua New Guinea are already experiencing the effects of global warming. The islands are just 12ft above sea level, are sinking at the rate of 11.8ins a year but resulting in up to 40,000 people...

Sharp contrasts in Governance.(Letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
December 22, 2000... Dear Sir I should like to congratulate EBF on launching through its pages the debate on the European management model that began in your launch issue and has been returned to in subsequent issues. Like Andrew Campbell (see his letter...

The internet and responsibility.(Letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
December 22, 2000... Dear Sir The internet in many ways puts more power into the hands of the consumers, the stakeholders in today's globalised corporations. Information about product flaws can be spread instantly on websites such as epinions, ciao or dooyoo....

PricewaterhouseCoopers is committed to understanding the implications for businesses of the key drivers that are changing Europe.(News from EBF founders)
December 22, 2000... The drivers of change operating across Europe and globally are unprecedented. Distinctive European, as well as global, issues are transforming the business environment within which companies operate. Together they pose strategic and operating...

CEMS is a strategic alliance of leading universities and international companies whose objective is to shape Europe's management education and research.(News from EBF founders)(Community of European Management Schools )
December 22, 2000... The CEMS Master's Degree already enjoys a reputation as the pan European standard of excellence in management education. In addition to a degree from their home school, over 2000 graduates from 34 different countries hold the CEMS Master's. ...