Indeed, it is really hard to image there comes a time guanxi in China cannot be monetized. Here is the case.
Ms C and his busband were senior staff of two state-owned enterprise. Ms C retired a few years ago to take care of her daughter. Ms C got a very good guanxi with senior officials from Telecom authority and the cultural and broadcasting authority. With her guanxi, she even could build connection with Hong Kong Tycoons and elites.
Under her possession, she got licences in ICP, ISP, VoIP and etc, which are mouth-watering by foreigners. However, after years' effort in business sectors, she found herself ran out of energy with no profit and no prosperity.
What's going wrong here?
Is it merely a managerial problem? Yes, but just partial. Her basic target is to attract foreign investors to fund up her business. Her business never gets a long term planning and a roadmap. Everything in her business is just a mock-up and a logistic. Some products after being fully developed were never launched since she just wanted a showcase.
Honestly, it leaves the investors a lot of questions. Should we fund her up to build a real business? Would she be a good business owner? If you are a foreign investor, will you build your second home in China with her?
What is critical here?
It is a regulatory problem. Managerial problem can be easily overcome but not for regulatory problem. Thousands of rules keep foreign telecom related operator away. How to overcome this problem?
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Another AR example from IKEA
Again, as discussed before, something that is up and coming! Augmented Reality. This is the 2nd time I show you an example. Here is another example from IKEA.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
McKinsey advocating second home in China
Perhaps, you cannot hear that. But I do. I can sense a chant of “China, China, China” in global business arena even though there are a lot of downsides. Yes, not just me. McKinsey, the famous global business consultant, advocates an idea of taking China as second home for businesses.
Spurred on with its rapid evolution, China is now considered as the global battlefield for sectors, like consumer electronics, semiconductors, and electricity transmission equipment, on which global winners are determined. McKinsey describes the way of some multinational companies “side betting” by letting their rivals take risk on China’s booming and regulatory imperfect. McKinsey warns if multinational companies do not start building second home in China, they would not keep their success. In other words, multinational companies need to commit themselves to China and make long-term “guanxi” (a term which is more than relationship and connection) there.
McKinsey is striking up a discordant tune to the concerto playing by chambers of commerce from America and Europe. Indeed, RMB rate control, Google-China tension, new regulation on “indigenous innovation” and antimonopoly issue on Coca-cola acquisition of Huiyuen Juice, all those issues were discussed on the table by the chambers. Mainstream view is formed multinational companies are likely not welcome by China.
I think McKinsey’s argument is strong. It cites two examples, piano and auto markets in the China, to illustrate how attractive the markets are. However, what is the value proposition for a second home? Merely revenue?
I agreed with the point that it should not be a measure to gain revenue but a measure to survive in the market and not to be demolished by competitors.
There are five qualitative metrics to measure the success of second home in China:
1. Time spent in China
2. Visibility into China
3. Chinese representation in the senior team
4. Knowledge of Chinese customers and suppliers
5. Relationships with government leaders and regulators
傳統零售：電子商務係魔道？
人皆說中國網絡市場爆發力驚人，潛能無限載，人人著了魔一般！不過，對傳統零售業來說，這是魔道，不是人人願意入道的！
據統計，截至2010年5月底，2009年度連鎖百強企業中已有31家開展了網上零售業務，但是整體銷售額佔在國內網購市場仍不足1%，可見傳統零售仍然很有戒心，或者不願意改變商業的模式，去面對新的競爭。
從商業管理的角度去看，「誘因」扮演一個重要的角色。傳統零售商不願意改變現行的模式，因為現行的仍有錢賺，而相對電子商務來說，利潤比較薄。
有記者比對過國內一些傳統零售商和電子商務的價格，發現傳統零售就算有自己的網站，也不熱衷靈活的價值運用，目的是要保護現有的利潤。舉個例子說，同一款的電視機，傳統零售要統一網上和商舖的價和，售3100元，但電子商務網站只售2699。
這種價格的策略是可以理解的，但卻削弱了傳統零售在這個範疇的競爭力。傳統零售仍然有優勢，老實說，買一台電視，我會跑到商舖裡看看實物，才會下決定。當然，重點在那「決定」，我會選擇便宜一點的網上購買，還是即時下決定在商店裡完成購買行為。
這一年多以來，國內的網上購物起了很大的變化，網路賣家實名制、網站工商登記註冊等新規定，再加上七月一日起《網路商品交易及有關服務行為管理暫行辦法》實施，中國政府有意識地邁向更嚴格的規管，且有稅收的意味，讓國內電子商務百花齊放的日子，很快會成為過去。
將來會如何？在英美兩地，排列網上購物網站的前十位的，大都是傳統零售轉身而成的網上商店，這勢將成為中的新趨勢，連鎖百強中蘇甯、國美、歐尚、翠微大廈等可能會跑出。只是在政策的協助下，讓這些百強繞過真正的競爭而跑出，對消費者未必有利。
不過，話說回頭，網上商城不算小規模的投資，以一個全國性的網站計，初步的投資要3000萬人民幣，以後還要繼續投入。但同一筆的投資，放在實體的商舖上，兩三年可以回本，難怪連鎖百強仍只是集中實體的業務。
據統計，截至2010年5月底，2009年度連鎖百強企業中已有31家開展了網上零售業務，但是整體銷售額佔在國內網購市場仍不足1%，可見傳統零售仍然很有戒心，或者不願意改變商業的模式，去面對新的競爭。
從商業管理的角度去看，「誘因」扮演一個重要的角色。傳統零售商不願意改變現行的模式，因為現行的仍有錢賺，而相對電子商務來說，利潤比較薄。
有記者比對過國內一些傳統零售商和電子商務的價格，發現傳統零售就算有自己的網站，也不熱衷靈活的價值運用，目的是要保護現有的利潤。舉個例子說，同一款的電視機，傳統零售要統一網上和商舖的價和，售3100元，但電子商務網站只售2699。
這種價格的策略是可以理解的，但卻削弱了傳統零售在這個範疇的競爭力。傳統零售仍然有優勢，老實說，買一台電視，我會跑到商舖裡看看實物，才會下決定。當然，重點在那「決定」，我會選擇便宜一點的網上購買，還是即時下決定在商店裡完成購買行為。
這一年多以來，國內的網上購物起了很大的變化，網路賣家實名制、網站工商登記註冊等新規定，再加上七月一日起《網路商品交易及有關服務行為管理暫行辦法》實施，中國政府有意識地邁向更嚴格的規管，且有稅收的意味，讓國內電子商務百花齊放的日子，很快會成為過去。
將來會如何？在英美兩地，排列網上購物網站的前十位的，大都是傳統零售轉身而成的網上商店，這勢將成為中的新趨勢，連鎖百強中蘇甯、國美、歐尚、翠微大廈等可能會跑出。只是在政策的協助下，讓這些百強繞過真正的競爭而跑出，對消費者未必有利。
不過，話說回頭，網上商城不算小規模的投資，以一個全國性的網站計，初步的投資要3000萬人民幣，以後還要繼續投入。但同一筆的投資，放在實體的商舖上，兩三年可以回本，難怪連鎖百強仍只是集中實體的業務。
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
賤價必勝?!愛揮劍自宮的中國B2C電務市場
記得在UC Berkeley 一個課程進修時，Professor Ho給我們在價格戰上上了一個課，在價格戰線上，貨品價物長遠只有向下，沒有向上。這給我一個當頭棒喝，避免價格戰，是教授的忠告。
可惜，中國市場就是一個殺戮戰場，不論你是B2C、B2B、傳統企業，或者電子商務，價格血戰連場，那陣血腥味，中人欲嘔。
無怪的，在一項最新調查顯示，中國2010年度單是網絡市場交易總額就已經突破了一千億元人民幣。要搶奪市場，傳統智慧就是打價格戰，以本傷人，看誰人能最後站在戰場上不倒下來。有誰會細想，留下殘障的身體仍有力持久下去嗎？
最新有一個報導各映這個事實：
針對低價競爭的情況，某國內資深電商從業者感慨到，“不僅電子商務領域是這樣，其他領域也一樣，如中國手機，一通價格血戰下來，不管是戰鬥機還是轟炸機，都失去了應得的先機。還有大家熟悉的三鹿奶粉，一度因價格便宜受到消費者歡迎，最後吃出了三聚氰胺，大家又開始花10倍價錢去買國外的進口奶粉。這些鮮活的例子告訴我們，一味的價格戰只能遭到市場的質疑，最終使企業走向黑洞。”某國外專家在一次論壇中則講到：“目前中國企業中有很多都在採用價格戰來增強用戶的粘稠度，尤其是電子商務企業，競爭的方式過於單一，僅停留在價格戰的階段，而忽視了貨品品質、物流、服務在提升競爭力方面的重要作用。”
誠然，價格是最即時見成效的武器，就像核彈一樣，推倒整個市場。問題在於能持久嗎？
其實，貨品最終的決戰在於自己的質素和服務，這才是商界正道。可惜「葵花寶典」就在眼前，又有那個能抵擋魔力，不揮劍自宮，以捷徑稱霸江湖呢？
可惜，中國市場就是一個殺戮戰場，不論你是B2C、B2B、傳統企業，或者電子商務，價格血戰連場，那陣血腥味，中人欲嘔。
無怪的，在一項最新調查顯示，中國2010年度單是網絡市場交易總額就已經突破了一千億元人民幣。要搶奪市場，傳統智慧就是打價格戰，以本傷人，看誰人能最後站在戰場上不倒下來。有誰會細想，留下殘障的身體仍有力持久下去嗎？
最新有一個報導各映這個事實：
針對低價競爭的情況，某國內資深電商從業者感慨到，“不僅電子商務領域是這樣，其他領域也一樣，如中國手機，一通價格血戰下來，不管是戰鬥機還是轟炸機，都失去了應得的先機。還有大家熟悉的三鹿奶粉，一度因價格便宜受到消費者歡迎，最後吃出了三聚氰胺，大家又開始花10倍價錢去買國外的進口奶粉。這些鮮活的例子告訴我們，一味的價格戰只能遭到市場的質疑，最終使企業走向黑洞。”某國外專家在一次論壇中則講到：“目前中國企業中有很多都在採用價格戰來增強用戶的粘稠度，尤其是電子商務企業，競爭的方式過於單一，僅停留在價格戰的階段，而忽視了貨品品質、物流、服務在提升競爭力方面的重要作用。”
誠然，價格是最即時見成效的武器，就像核彈一樣，推倒整個市場。問題在於能持久嗎？
其實，貨品最終的決戰在於自己的質素和服務，這才是商界正道。可惜「葵花寶典」就在眼前，又有那個能抵擋魔力，不揮劍自宮，以捷徑稱霸江湖呢？
Facebook遊戲注定失敗?! 遊戲商要小心自己的投資
朋友S寄來Facebook(FB)遊戲，希望取一點意見。多年來，朋友S專注國內遊戲市場，由C++開始，澳門起飛時，曾經在賭博遊戲上下過功夫，但經過多年，始終未能闖開新世界。FB可會是新希望？嗯，我的看法是危機四伏…
遠的不看，先看最新消息。Yahoo將於今天與虛擬遊戲商Offerpal宣布合作，作為Yahoo向遊戲業進軍的重要一步。早在今年五月，FB與FarmVille的開發商Zynga鬧翻後，Yahoo立即拉攏FarmVille加盟Yahoo Game，Yahoo的意圖已經後明顯，希望糾正過去的錯誤。不過，目前Yahoo要對FB造成威脅，尚有一段距離。
FB以火燒的速度，成為網上遊戲業的巨擘，這是不爭的事實。問題在於FB對於遊戲業的投入度，一直盛傳FB的CEO Mark Zuckerberg對遊戲業務不感興趣，讓遊戲業務不獲重視，這是對遊戲商一大重擊。
業界普遍認為，FB作為社交網的龍頭，正重蹈Yahoo Game當年的錯誤，沒把遊戲業務當作一回事，結果被Real Networks和BigFish等坐大。Hi5 總裁Alex St.John直言，FB的失敗是無可避免的。據網流監察機構comScore的統計，Zynga去年的流量已經超越了Yahoo Game。
問題真正在於FB的遊戲業務，是否有前景，因為公司不專注在這業務上，只在發展FB平台為一個多用途的社交網。
當然，我不排除很多同業心感酸溜溜，乘機踏FB幾腳。有人話，FB遊戲勢將宣布全面失敗。我就覺得太誇張，忽略FB對網民心理上engagement的元素。FB遊戲有多差勁，也不致於如Yahoo Game咁，只餘下公公婆婆在玩。
遠的不看，先看最新消息。Yahoo將於今天與虛擬遊戲商Offerpal宣布合作，作為Yahoo向遊戲業進軍的重要一步。早在今年五月，FB與FarmVille的開發商Zynga鬧翻後，Yahoo立即拉攏FarmVille加盟Yahoo Game，Yahoo的意圖已經後明顯，希望糾正過去的錯誤。不過，目前Yahoo要對FB造成威脅，尚有一段距離。
FB以火燒的速度，成為網上遊戲業的巨擘，這是不爭的事實。問題在於FB對於遊戲業的投入度，一直盛傳FB的CEO Mark Zuckerberg對遊戲業務不感興趣，讓遊戲業務不獲重視，這是對遊戲商一大重擊。
業界普遍認為，FB作為社交網的龍頭，正重蹈Yahoo Game當年的錯誤，沒把遊戲業務當作一回事，結果被Real Networks和BigFish等坐大。Hi5 總裁Alex St.John直言，FB的失敗是無可避免的。據網流監察機構comScore的統計，Zynga去年的流量已經超越了Yahoo Game。
問題真正在於FB的遊戲業務，是否有前景，因為公司不專注在這業務上，只在發展FB平台為一個多用途的社交網。
當然，我不排除很多同業心感酸溜溜，乘機踏FB幾腳。有人話，FB遊戲勢將宣布全面失敗。我就覺得太誇張，忽略FB對網民心理上engagement的元素。FB遊戲有多差勁，也不致於如Yahoo Game咁，只餘下公公婆婆在玩。
Friday, July 2, 2010
No software giants should make handset other than Apple?! What a suggestion!
A friend from Google showed me his Nexus One (almost a year old). His mobile's Android OS version is still 2.0. Asking why he didn't upgrade his OS to the latest, I got a wierd answer that he didn't get time to read all the email from Google. There are too many initiatives in his company. Ha ha ...
Perhaps, Nexus One may be the last Google branded mobile. It is true. Google is not a good handset maker according to my friend. In the deal with HTC in Nexus One, what Google is pursuing is a perfect mobile. You may check it out from Nexus One. It gets a perfect shell which HTC said they would not produce any products in that manner. It is too expensive.
Recently, I read an article which is close to what I am thinking of.
Why software giants—except Apple—should not be making handsets
While both Microsoft and Google excel in their own spheres, the one thing they should steer clear from are screws and screens.
Sales of Apple’s iPad and iPhone 4 have been robust as expected, but Google’s Nexus One failed to meet expectations and Microsoft is raising the white flag on its teen-targeted Kin less than two months after its heavily marketed launch. Perhaps the lesson is stick to your knitting, and in the case of Google and Microsoft, it may behoove them to promote their respective operating systems—and continue to grow their mobile search and mobile advertising revenues—rather than try to be handset manufacturers.
“Certainly one issue Apple doesn’t face that Google and Microsoft do face is that Apple is not looking to license its operating system, so there is no conflict between its needs and licensees’ needs, while both Google and Microsoft do have that conflict,” said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at the NPD Group, Port Washington, NY.
“Both decided to stay out of the way to a certain extent—Google decided to pursue direct distribution and avoided carrier deals, and the Nexus One sales suffered due to not having access to those strong sales channels,” he said. “The Kin had a specific target user, teens and twenty-somethings, as opposed to Windows Phone 7 devices, which should have a broader target and access to an app store.
“Microsoft and Google had some mixed motivation in terms of not wanting to compete directly with licensees of the operating systems that they promote.”
The iPhone outshines Nexus One, Kin
While its Android operating system is an undisputed success, direct sales of Google’s Nexus One have not met expectations—a sign that round one of the handset distribution battle has gone to the carriers.
With both Sprint and Verizon Wireless refusing to offer the Nexus One at a subsidized price, Google has had to rely on its direct-to-consumer ecommerce portal—selling the smartphone at $529 a pop—and on distribution through T-Mobile USA, the No. 4 carrier nationwide. That strategy has not enabled the Nexus One to live up to the hype (see story).
Nexus One sales are said to be poor.
Reports indicate that Google sold roughly 135,000 Nexus One phones in their first 74 days on the market. In comparison, Motorola sold 1.05 million Droids in the same timeframe.
Kin sales have not met expectations either.
The Yankee Group estimated that Kin sales were above 1,000 units but did not surpass 10,000 units over the two-month period since its launch. Other sources speculate that sales could have been as low as 500.
In comparison, Apple sold 1.7 million iPhone 4 units within three days of the device's launch. Since this number included pre-orders, sales have slowed down since then.
On the other hand, sales of the iPad are accelerating and have now hit the 2-million mark. It took Apple more than 28 days to sell its first million, but only 22 days to go from 2-3 million.
Different core competencies
One of the truisms of marketing is that you get your best business from existing customers, that is, from repeat business. The 80-20 rule states that 80 percent of your business comes from 20 percent of your customers.
Apple’s ability to create buzz around product launches and the magnetic hold that it has over its customer base are currently unrivaled.
“Apple has been successful thanks to an intuitive user interface, smart marketing and to some extent a strong brand halo effect,” said Dmitriy Molchanov, analyst at Yankee Group, Boston. “Apple's specialty is in building reliable, stable and intuitive user-interfaces.
“Google specializes in cloud-based services,” he said. “It wants to get consumers more familiar with interacting with the cloud.
“With the Kin, and now Windows Mobile 7, Microsoft seems to be building a mobile offering that focuses on social networks and quick, easy interactions with friends.”
With Google’s acquisition of AdMob and Apple’s acquisition of Quattro Wireless and the launch of the iAd network, all three companies are going head to head in the mobile advertising space.
While Google is still the leader in search, Microsoft is showing progress with its Bing search engine, both online and mobile, including a deal with Verizon Wireless. Mobile search is one area where Apple does not have a presence.
Each company has its own core competencies, and there is a fine line between branching out and spreading one’s self too thin.
Google and Microsoft have plenty going for them. In the face of Apple dominating smartphone manufacturing, and now tablet manufacturing, maybe Google and Microsoft should say, “So what?” and continue with their bread-and-butter businesses.
“Apple’s strengths are the vertical integration of hardware software and services, clearly very strong design capabilities, its franchise in digital music and it has perhaps the strongest brand of the three companies,” Mr. Rubin said. “It also has a direct retail channel, so customers can get hands-on and look at how the phone fits into the rest of the Apple ecosystem.
“Microsoft has strong ties with third-party developers—it is sort of in the middle between Apple and Google in terms of the openness of its platform and the extent to which it will allow customization,” he said. “It also has the strongest ties of the three to game developer community.”
In addition, Microsoft has a strong suite of Web services—Windows Live, the Zune music service, Bing and Xbox Live—as does Google.
“Google is the most open of the three, and it has a huge advantage in that it gives away the OS for free,” Mr. Rubin said. “It also has an aggressive release schedule, with two to three major releases per year.
“Its suite of Web services has a somewhat different focus than Microsoft,” he said. “Google is also allowing carriers and OEMs a good degree of leeway in terms of customization, creating a good amount differentiation in the marketplace.”
Not-so-secret strategy
While sales of the Nexus One have been nothing to write home about, there is evidence that it has furthered Google’s agenda anyway.
“Google may have been more successful than critics think,” Mr. Molchanov said. “The majority of Google's revenues come from Google ads, and Google benefits whenever it can get more consumers online.
“It designs products like Android and Chrome OS to get consumers online and to give them the fastest browsing speeds possible while they're there,” he said. “Google's goal with the Nexus One was less about selling devices, and more about getting consumers familiar with mobile browsing and with the Android OS.”
To some extent, Google has been successful executing that strategy.
Android now has 5 percent worldwide market share, which means sales of roughly 14 million units, according to Yankee Group.
To put that number in perspective, iPhone has roughly 15 percent worldwide market share.
“Android's success is far more important to Google than the success of the Nexus One,” Mr. Molchanov said. “A few months ago, Google told Verizon shoppers to buy the HTC Incredible, an Android phone, instead of a Nexus One.
“In Microsoft's case, the Kin's failure should have been foreseen,” he said. “The Kin phone was a by-product of their purchase of Danger, which manufactured T-Mobile's successful Sidekick phones.
“Forcing the Sidekick phone to run a version of Windows CE, pricing the phone like a smartphone and giving it a data plan despite its lack of apps and games was 'akin' to shooting it in the foot.”
Handset or hand-wriging?
So will Google and Microsoft give it another go as an original equipment manufacturer? Will there be a Nexus Two? Will Microsoft to rebound with handsets based on its soon-to-launch Windows Phone 7 OS?
“Google is a software company, not a hardware company,” Mr. Molchanov said. “For that reason, I think Google's future in mobile rests largely on the success of Android.
“Microsoft has invested a substantial sum in Windows Mobile 7 and early looks at Mobile World Congress do look impressive,” he said. “However, at this point, Microsoft is playing catch-up and the advanced OS is several development cycles behind its competitors.
“The launch later this year does look to be a make-or-break moment for Microsoft in the mobile phone space.”
There has been some speculation that Microsoft might come out with a slate tablet based on its new OS.
That might be a better play, because in the smartphone market, it must contend with not just the iPhone and Android devices, but also Research In Motion’s BlackBerry.
“Microsoft now has to compete with two companies that have perfectly wonderful products and operating systems that seem to meet everyone’s needs and even seem to be sufficiently able to address the corporate market,” said Oren Michaels, cofounder/CEO of Mashery, San Francisco. “And there’s a third competitor—RIM.
“Microsoft has typically provided its PC OS to corporate customers and Apple has not, and RIM has typically provided its mobile OS to corporate customers and Apple has not, but Apple is making inroads [into the enterprise market],” he said. “I don’t see Microsoft having an easy time beating Apple or Andorid with the cool factor, so really the company that Microsoft will have to be competing with is RIM.
“At this point RIM owns mobile exchange, so can Microsoft take back control of their own email product? It got supplanted on mobile by RIM.”
Perhaps, Nexus One may be the last Google branded mobile. It is true. Google is not a good handset maker according to my friend. In the deal with HTC in Nexus One, what Google is pursuing is a perfect mobile. You may check it out from Nexus One. It gets a perfect shell which HTC said they would not produce any products in that manner. It is too expensive.
Recently, I read an article which is close to what I am thinking of.
Why software giants—except Apple—should not be making handsets
While both Microsoft and Google excel in their own spheres, the one thing they should steer clear from are screws and screens.
Sales of Apple’s iPad and iPhone 4 have been robust as expected, but Google’s Nexus One failed to meet expectations and Microsoft is raising the white flag on its teen-targeted Kin less than two months after its heavily marketed launch. Perhaps the lesson is stick to your knitting, and in the case of Google and Microsoft, it may behoove them to promote their respective operating systems—and continue to grow their mobile search and mobile advertising revenues—rather than try to be handset manufacturers.
“Certainly one issue Apple doesn’t face that Google and Microsoft do face is that Apple is not looking to license its operating system, so there is no conflict between its needs and licensees’ needs, while both Google and Microsoft do have that conflict,” said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at the NPD Group, Port Washington, NY.
“Both decided to stay out of the way to a certain extent—Google decided to pursue direct distribution and avoided carrier deals, and the Nexus One sales suffered due to not having access to those strong sales channels,” he said. “The Kin had a specific target user, teens and twenty-somethings, as opposed to Windows Phone 7 devices, which should have a broader target and access to an app store.
“Microsoft and Google had some mixed motivation in terms of not wanting to compete directly with licensees of the operating systems that they promote.”
The iPhone outshines Nexus One, Kin
While its Android operating system is an undisputed success, direct sales of Google’s Nexus One have not met expectations—a sign that round one of the handset distribution battle has gone to the carriers.
With both Sprint and Verizon Wireless refusing to offer the Nexus One at a subsidized price, Google has had to rely on its direct-to-consumer ecommerce portal—selling the smartphone at $529 a pop—and on distribution through T-Mobile USA, the No. 4 carrier nationwide. That strategy has not enabled the Nexus One to live up to the hype (see story).
Nexus One sales are said to be poor.
Reports indicate that Google sold roughly 135,000 Nexus One phones in their first 74 days on the market. In comparison, Motorola sold 1.05 million Droids in the same timeframe.
Kin sales have not met expectations either.
The Yankee Group estimated that Kin sales were above 1,000 units but did not surpass 10,000 units over the two-month period since its launch. Other sources speculate that sales could have been as low as 500.
In comparison, Apple sold 1.7 million iPhone 4 units within three days of the device's launch. Since this number included pre-orders, sales have slowed down since then.
On the other hand, sales of the iPad are accelerating and have now hit the 2-million mark. It took Apple more than 28 days to sell its first million, but only 22 days to go from 2-3 million.
Different core competencies
One of the truisms of marketing is that you get your best business from existing customers, that is, from repeat business. The 80-20 rule states that 80 percent of your business comes from 20 percent of your customers.
Apple’s ability to create buzz around product launches and the magnetic hold that it has over its customer base are currently unrivaled.
“Apple has been successful thanks to an intuitive user interface, smart marketing and to some extent a strong brand halo effect,” said Dmitriy Molchanov, analyst at Yankee Group, Boston. “Apple's specialty is in building reliable, stable and intuitive user-interfaces.
“Google specializes in cloud-based services,” he said. “It wants to get consumers more familiar with interacting with the cloud.
“With the Kin, and now Windows Mobile 7, Microsoft seems to be building a mobile offering that focuses on social networks and quick, easy interactions with friends.”
With Google’s acquisition of AdMob and Apple’s acquisition of Quattro Wireless and the launch of the iAd network, all three companies are going head to head in the mobile advertising space.
While Google is still the leader in search, Microsoft is showing progress with its Bing search engine, both online and mobile, including a deal with Verizon Wireless. Mobile search is one area where Apple does not have a presence.
Each company has its own core competencies, and there is a fine line between branching out and spreading one’s self too thin.
Google and Microsoft have plenty going for them. In the face of Apple dominating smartphone manufacturing, and now tablet manufacturing, maybe Google and Microsoft should say, “So what?” and continue with their bread-and-butter businesses.
“Apple’s strengths are the vertical integration of hardware software and services, clearly very strong design capabilities, its franchise in digital music and it has perhaps the strongest brand of the three companies,” Mr. Rubin said. “It also has a direct retail channel, so customers can get hands-on and look at how the phone fits into the rest of the Apple ecosystem.
“Microsoft has strong ties with third-party developers—it is sort of in the middle between Apple and Google in terms of the openness of its platform and the extent to which it will allow customization,” he said. “It also has the strongest ties of the three to game developer community.”
In addition, Microsoft has a strong suite of Web services—Windows Live, the Zune music service, Bing and Xbox Live—as does Google.
“Google is the most open of the three, and it has a huge advantage in that it gives away the OS for free,” Mr. Rubin said. “It also has an aggressive release schedule, with two to three major releases per year.
“Its suite of Web services has a somewhat different focus than Microsoft,” he said. “Google is also allowing carriers and OEMs a good degree of leeway in terms of customization, creating a good amount differentiation in the marketplace.”
Not-so-secret strategy
While sales of the Nexus One have been nothing to write home about, there is evidence that it has furthered Google’s agenda anyway.
“Google may have been more successful than critics think,” Mr. Molchanov said. “The majority of Google's revenues come from Google ads, and Google benefits whenever it can get more consumers online.
“It designs products like Android and Chrome OS to get consumers online and to give them the fastest browsing speeds possible while they're there,” he said. “Google's goal with the Nexus One was less about selling devices, and more about getting consumers familiar with mobile browsing and with the Android OS.”
To some extent, Google has been successful executing that strategy.
Android now has 5 percent worldwide market share, which means sales of roughly 14 million units, according to Yankee Group.
To put that number in perspective, iPhone has roughly 15 percent worldwide market share.
“Android's success is far more important to Google than the success of the Nexus One,” Mr. Molchanov said. “A few months ago, Google told Verizon shoppers to buy the HTC Incredible, an Android phone, instead of a Nexus One.
“In Microsoft's case, the Kin's failure should have been foreseen,” he said. “The Kin phone was a by-product of their purchase of Danger, which manufactured T-Mobile's successful Sidekick phones.
“Forcing the Sidekick phone to run a version of Windows CE, pricing the phone like a smartphone and giving it a data plan despite its lack of apps and games was 'akin' to shooting it in the foot.”
Handset or hand-wriging?
So will Google and Microsoft give it another go as an original equipment manufacturer? Will there be a Nexus Two? Will Microsoft to rebound with handsets based on its soon-to-launch Windows Phone 7 OS?
“Google is a software company, not a hardware company,” Mr. Molchanov said. “For that reason, I think Google's future in mobile rests largely on the success of Android.
“Microsoft has invested a substantial sum in Windows Mobile 7 and early looks at Mobile World Congress do look impressive,” he said. “However, at this point, Microsoft is playing catch-up and the advanced OS is several development cycles behind its competitors.
“The launch later this year does look to be a make-or-break moment for Microsoft in the mobile phone space.”
There has been some speculation that Microsoft might come out with a slate tablet based on its new OS.
That might be a better play, because in the smartphone market, it must contend with not just the iPhone and Android devices, but also Research In Motion’s BlackBerry.
“Microsoft now has to compete with two companies that have perfectly wonderful products and operating systems that seem to meet everyone’s needs and even seem to be sufficiently able to address the corporate market,” said Oren Michaels, cofounder/CEO of Mashery, San Francisco. “And there’s a third competitor—RIM.
“Microsoft has typically provided its PC OS to corporate customers and Apple has not, and RIM has typically provided its mobile OS to corporate customers and Apple has not, but Apple is making inroads [into the enterprise market],” he said. “I don’t see Microsoft having an easy time beating Apple or Andorid with the cool factor, so really the company that Microsoft will have to be competing with is RIM.
“At this point RIM owns mobile exchange, so can Microsoft take back control of their own email product? It got supplanted on mobile by RIM.”
Thursday, July 1, 2010
SMS is still the best way to go!
You may think it is really funny to discuss about SMS in this Apps world.
No kidding. The two-way communication may help you. Don't miss it.
Another good article to share.
SMS opens a two-way dialogue between marketer and consumer: 360i
Text messaging is by far the most popular mobile activity after talking, and it is one of the most proven mobile marketing channels, according to digital marketing agency 360i.
SMS is the most universal, given that it is available on just about every mobile phone, from lower-end feature phones to the priciest smartphones. ComScore reports 65 percent of mobile subscribers send text messages, compared to about 30 percent using the browser and downloading applications.
“SMS is incredible in the sense that two-thirds of mobile users are using it,” said David Berkowitz, senior director of emerging media and innovation at 360i, New York. “It is so simple in format but the things you can do with it are amazing.
Text messaging is by far the most popular mobile activity after talking, and it is one of the most proven mobile marketing channels, according to digital marketing agency 360i.
SMS is the most universal, given that it is available on just about every mobile phone, from lower-end feature phones to the priciest smartphones. ComScore reports 65 percent of mobile subscribers send text messages, compared to about 30 percent using the browser and downloading applications.
“SMS is incredible in the sense that two-thirds of mobile users are using it,” said David Berkowitz, senior director of emerging media and innovation at 360i, New York. “It is so simple in format but the things you can do with it are amazing.
find a job for you
“It is the most integrated marketing channel because you can tie it to anything you are doing both online and offline,” he said.
Teenagers are especially drawn to SMS. Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that American teens 12-17 contact peers daily via texting (54 percent) more than any other communication channel, including calling on mobile phones (38 percent), talking face to face (33 percent), instant messaging (24 percent) and email (11 percent).
But SMS’ reach is by no means limited to just American teens. An April 2010 study by Merkle found that 63 percent of U.S. adults 30-39 text, as do 49 percent of adults 40-49.
According to 360i, there are several ways to engage in SMS marketing - branded short codes, shared short codes and in-SMS advertising.
Consumers can send a text message to either a shared or branded short code to get updates or engage with the marketer.
With either form of short code use, the biggest advantage is the integration potential.
SMS callouts can appear in out-of-home marketing, point-of-sale locations, TV, radio, print, online display, email and social marketing.
Marketers can also advertise on SMS ad networks by appending a brief message to content that consumers subscribe to, such as sports alerts from, say, NBC.
The ads can be used for a range of purposes, from building up the marketer’s own SMS opt-in list to driving traffic or engagement to the brand’s mobile Web site or application.
“SMS has the reach and if a marketer wants to do an ad campaign advertising can reach a lot of consumers via mobile and very quickly,” Mr. Berkowitz said.
“Building an opt-in list is key because it becomes a deeper discussion and can make it work for them on a long-term basis.
“Part of the power of SMS is getting consumers to opt-in to have an ongoing message,” he said. That’s where SMS takes a different turn.”
Marketers can use SMS to text content, such as product information, informative tips, polls or trivia questions to their opt-in list.
SMS communications can include links to mobile Web sites, maps for store locators and click-to-call links that lead consumers to retail stores or call centers.
A text message can also connect a consumer to a brand’s multimedia, such as images, videos or ringtones.
As of lately, many retailers – such as Walmart – have been using SMS to push coupons, driving consumers in-store for purchasing.
“SMS resembles email in terms of the potential for a two-way dialogue, providing for a deeper experience,” Mr. Berkowitz said.
No kidding. The two-way communication may help you. Don't miss it.
Another good article to share.
SMS opens a two-way dialogue between marketer and consumer: 360i
Text messaging is by far the most popular mobile activity after talking, and it is one of the most proven mobile marketing channels, according to digital marketing agency 360i.
SMS is the most universal, given that it is available on just about every mobile phone, from lower-end feature phones to the priciest smartphones. ComScore reports 65 percent of mobile subscribers send text messages, compared to about 30 percent using the browser and downloading applications.
“SMS is incredible in the sense that two-thirds of mobile users are using it,” said David Berkowitz, senior director of emerging media and innovation at 360i, New York. “It is so simple in format but the things you can do with it are amazing.
Text messaging is by far the most popular mobile activity after talking, and it is one of the most proven mobile marketing channels, according to digital marketing agency 360i.
SMS is the most universal, given that it is available on just about every mobile phone, from lower-end feature phones to the priciest smartphones. ComScore reports 65 percent of mobile subscribers send text messages, compared to about 30 percent using the browser and downloading applications.
“SMS is incredible in the sense that two-thirds of mobile users are using it,” said David Berkowitz, senior director of emerging media and innovation at 360i, New York. “It is so simple in format but the things you can do with it are amazing.
find a job for you
“It is the most integrated marketing channel because you can tie it to anything you are doing both online and offline,” he said.
Teenagers are especially drawn to SMS. Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that American teens 12-17 contact peers daily via texting (54 percent) more than any other communication channel, including calling on mobile phones (38 percent), talking face to face (33 percent), instant messaging (24 percent) and email (11 percent).
But SMS’ reach is by no means limited to just American teens. An April 2010 study by Merkle found that 63 percent of U.S. adults 30-39 text, as do 49 percent of adults 40-49.
According to 360i, there are several ways to engage in SMS marketing - branded short codes, shared short codes and in-SMS advertising.
Consumers can send a text message to either a shared or branded short code to get updates or engage with the marketer.
With either form of short code use, the biggest advantage is the integration potential.
SMS callouts can appear in out-of-home marketing, point-of-sale locations, TV, radio, print, online display, email and social marketing.
Marketers can also advertise on SMS ad networks by appending a brief message to content that consumers subscribe to, such as sports alerts from, say, NBC.
The ads can be used for a range of purposes, from building up the marketer’s own SMS opt-in list to driving traffic or engagement to the brand’s mobile Web site or application.
“SMS has the reach and if a marketer wants to do an ad campaign advertising can reach a lot of consumers via mobile and very quickly,” Mr. Berkowitz said.
“Building an opt-in list is key because it becomes a deeper discussion and can make it work for them on a long-term basis.
“Part of the power of SMS is getting consumers to opt-in to have an ongoing message,” he said. That’s where SMS takes a different turn.”
Marketers can use SMS to text content, such as product information, informative tips, polls or trivia questions to their opt-in list.
SMS communications can include links to mobile Web sites, maps for store locators and click-to-call links that lead consumers to retail stores or call centers.
A text message can also connect a consumer to a brand’s multimedia, such as images, videos or ringtones.
As of lately, many retailers – such as Walmart – have been using SMS to push coupons, driving consumers in-store for purchasing.
“SMS resembles email in terms of the potential for a two-way dialogue, providing for a deeper experience,” Mr. Berkowitz said.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Good article to share: The five types of successful acquisitions
I love this article merely because it really inspires intuitive thinking.
There is no magic formula to make acquisitions successful. Like any other business process, they are not inherently good or bad, just as marketing and R&D aren’t. Each deal must have its own strategic logic. In our experience, acquirers in the most successful deals have specific, well-articulated value creation ideas going in. For less successful deals, the strategic rationales—such as pursuing international scale, filling portfolio gaps, or building a third leg of the portfolio—tend to be vague.
Empirical analysis of specific acquisition strategies offers limited insight, largely because of the wide variety of types and sizes of acquisitions and the lack of an objective way to classify them by strategy. What’s more, the stated strategy may not even be the real one: companies typically talk up all kinds of strategic benefits from acquisitions that are really entirely about cost cutting. In the absence of empirical research, our suggestions for strategies that create value reflect our acquisitions work with companies.
In our experience, the strategic rationale for an acquisition that creates value typically conforms to at least one of the following five archetypes: improving the performance of the target company, removing excess capacity from an industry, creating market access for products, acquiring skills or technologies more quickly or at lower cost than they could be built in-house, and picking winners early and helping them develop their businesses. If an acquisition does not fit one or more of these archetypes, it’s unlikely to create value. Executives, of course, often justify acquisitions by choosing from a much broader menu of strategies, including roll-ups, consolidating to improve competitive behavior, transformational mergers, and buying cheap. While these strategies can create value, we find that they seldom do. Value-minded executives should view them with a gimlet eye.
Five archetypes
An acquisition’s strategic rationale should be a specific articulation of one of these archetypes, not a vague concept like growth or strategic positioning, which may be important but must be translated into something more tangible. Furthermore, even if your acquisition is based on one of the archetypes below, it won’t create value if you overpay.
Improve the target company’s performance
Improving the performance of the target company is one of the most common value-creating acquisition strategies. Put simply, you buy a company and radically reduce costs to improve margins and cash flows. In some cases, the acquirer may also take steps to accelerate revenue growth.
Pursuing this strategy is what the best private-equity firms do. Among successful private-equity acquisitions in which a target company was bought, improved, and sold, with no additional acquisitions along the way, operating-profit margins increased by an average of about 2.5 percentage points more than those at peer companies during the same period.1 This means that many of the transactions increased operating-profit margins even more.
Keep in mind that it is easier to improve the performance of a company with low margins and low returns on invested capital (ROIC) than that of a high-margin, high-ROIC company. Consider a target company with a 6 percent operating-profit margin. Reducing costs by three percentage points, to 91 percent of revenues, from 94 percent, increases the margin to 9 percent and could lead to a 50 percent increase in the company’s value. In contrast, if the operating-profit margin of a company is 30 percent, increasing its value by 50 percent requires increasing the margin to 45 percent. Costs would need to decline from 70 percent of revenues to 55 percent, a 21 percent reduction in the cost base. That might not be reasonable to expect.
Consolidate to remove excess capacity from industry
As industries mature, they typically develop excess capacity. In chemicals, for example, companies are constantly looking for ways to get more production out of their plants, while new competitors continue to enter the industry. For example, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), which began production in the mid-1980s, grew from 6.3 million metric tons of value-added commodities—such as chemicals, polymers, and fertilizers—in 1985 to 56 million tons in 2008. Now one of the world’s largest petrochemicals concerns, SABIC expects continued growth, estimating its annual production to reach 135 million tons by 2020.
The combination of higher production from existing capacity and new capacity from recent entrants often generates more supply than demand. It is in no individual competitor’s interest to shut a plant, however. Companies often find it easier to shut plants across the larger combined entity resulting from an acquisition than to shut their least productive plants without one and end up with a smaller company.
Reducing excess in an industry can also extend to less tangible forms of capacity. Consolidation in the pharmaceutical industry, for example, has significantly reduced the capacity of the sales force as the product portfolios of merged companies change and they rethink how to interact with doctors. Pharmaceutical companies have also significantly reduced their R&D capacity as they found more productive ways to conduct research and pruned their portfolios of development projects.
While there is substantial value to be created from removing excess capacity, as in most M&A activity the bulk of the value often accrues to the seller’s shareholders, not the buyer’s.
Accelerate market access for the target’s (or buyer’s) products
Often, relatively small companies with innovative products have difficulty reaching the entire potential market for their products. Small pharmaceutical companies, for example, typically lack the large sales forces required to cultivate relationships with the many doctors they need to promote their products. Bigger pharmaceutical companies sometimes purchase these smaller companies and use their own large-scale sales forces to accelerate the sales of the smaller companies’ products.
IBM, for instance, has pursued this strategy in its software business. From 2002 to 2009, it acquired 70 companies for about $14 billion. By pushing their products through a global sales force, IBM estimates it increased their revenues by almost 50 percent in the first two years after each acquisition and an average of more than 10 percent in the next three years.2
In some cases, the target can also help accelerate the acquirer’s revenue growth. In Procter & Gamble’s acquisition of Gillette, the combined company benefited because P&G had stronger sales in some emerging markets, Gillette in others. Working together, they introduced their products into new markets much more quickly.
Get skills or technologies faster or at lower cost than they can be built
Cisco Systems has used acquisitions to close gaps in its technologies, allowing it to assemble a broad line of networking products and to grow very quickly from a company with a single product line into the key player in Internet equipment. From 1993 to 2001, Cisco acquired 71 companies, at an average price of approximately $350 million. Cisco’s sales increased from $650 million in 1993 to $22 billion in 2001, with nearly 40 percent of its 2001 revenue coming directly from these acquisitions. By 2009, Cisco had more than $36 billion in revenues and a market cap of approximately $150 billion.
Pick winners early and help them develop their businesses
The final winning strategy involves making acquisitions early in the life cycle of a new industry or product line, long before most others recognize that it will grow significantly. Johnson & Johnson pursued this strategy in its early acquisitions of medical-device businesses. When J&J bought device manufacturer Cordis, in 1996, Cordis had $500 million in revenues. By 2007, its revenues had increased to $3.8 billion, reflecting a 20 percent annual growth rate. J&J purchased orthopedic-device manufacturer DePuy in 1998, when DePuy had $900 million in revenues. By 2007, they had grown to $4.6 billion, also at an annual growth rate of 20 percent.
This acquisition strategy requires a disciplined approach by management in three dimensions. First, you must be willing to make investments early, long before your competitors and the market see the industry’s or company’s potential. Second, you need to make multiple bets and to expect that some will fail. Third, you need the skills and patience to nurture the acquired businesses.
Harder strategies
Beyond the five main acquisition strategies we’ve explored, a handful of others can create value, though in our experience they do so relatively rarely.
Roll-up strategy
Roll-up strategies consolidate highly fragmented markets where the current competitors are too small to achieve scale economies. Beginning in the 1960s, Service Corporation International, for instance, grew from a single funeral home in Houston to more than 1,400 funeral homes and cemeteries in 2008. Similarly, Clear Channel Communications rolled up the US market for radio stations, eventually owning more than 900.
This strategy works when businesses as a group can realize substantial cost savings or achieve higher revenues than individual businesses can. Service Corporation’s funeral homes in a given city can share vehicles, purchasing, and back-office operations, for example. They can also coordinate advertising across a city to reduce costs and raise revenues.
Size per se is not what creates a successful roll-up; what matters is the right kind of size. For Service Corporation, multiple locations in individual cities have been more important than many branches spread over many cities, because the cost savings (such as sharing vehicles) can be realized only if the branches are near one another. Roll-up strategies are hard to disguise, so they invite copycats. As others tried to imitate Service Corporation’s strategy, prices for some funeral homes were eventually bid up to levels that made additional acquisitions uneconomic.
Consolidate to improve competitive behavior
Many executives in highly competitive industries hope consolidation will lead competitors to focus less on price competition, thereby improving the ROIC of the industry. The evidence shows, however, that unless it consolidates to just three or four companies and can keep out new entrants, pricing behavior doesn’t change: smaller businesses or new entrants often have an incentive to gain share through lower prices. So in an industry with, say, ten companies, lots of deals must be done before the basis of competition changes.
Enter into a transformational merger
A commonly mentioned reason for an acquisition or merger is the desire to transform one or both companies. Transformational mergers are rare, however, because the circumstances have to be just right, and the management team needs to execute the strategy well.
Transformational mergers can best be described by example. One of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies, Switzerland’s Novartis, was formed in 1996 by the $30 billion merger of Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz. But this merger was much more than a simple combination of businesses: under the leadership of the new CEO, Daniel Vasella, Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz were transformed into an entirely new company. Using the merger as a catalyst for change, Vasella and his management team not only captured $1.4 billion in cost synergies but also redefined the company’s mission, strategy, portfolio, and organization, as well as all key processes, from research to sales. In every area, there was no automatic choice for either the Ciba or the Sandoz way of doing things; instead, the organization made a systematic effort to find the best way.
Novartis shifted its strategic focus to innovation in its life sciences business (pharmaceuticals, nutrition, and products for agriculture) and spun off the $7 billion Ciba Specialty Chemicals business in 1997. Organizational changes included structuring R&D worldwide by therapeutic rather than geographic area, enabling Novartis to build a world-leading oncology franchise.
Across all departments and management layers, Novartis created a strong performance-oriented culture supported by shifting from a seniority- to a performance-based compensation system for managers.
Buy cheap
The final way to create value from an acquisition is to buy cheap—in other words, at a price below a company’s intrinsic value. In our experience, however, such opportunities are rare and relatively small. Nonetheless, though market values revert to intrinsic values over longer periods, there can be brief moments when the two fall out of alignment. Markets, for example, sometimes overreact to negative news, such as a criminal investigation of an executive or the failure of a single product in a portfolio with many strong ones.
Such moments are less rare in cyclical industries, where assets are often undervalued at the bottom of a cycle. Comparing actual market valuations with intrinsic values based on a “perfect foresight” model, we found that companies in cyclical industries could more than double their shareholder returns (relative to actual returns) if they acquired assets at the bottom of a cycle and sold at the top.3
While markets do throw up occasional opportunities for companies to buy targets at levels below their intrinsic value, we haven’t seen many cases. To gain control of a target, acquirers must pay its shareholders a premium over the current market value. Although premiums can vary widely, the average ones for corporate control have been fairly stable: almost 30 percent of the preannouncement price of the target’s equity. For targets pursued by multiple acquirers, the premium rises dramatically, creating the so-called winner’s curse. If several companies evaluate a given target and all identify roughly the same potential synergies, the pursuer that overestimates them most will offer the highest price. Since it is based on an overestimation of the value to be created, the winner pays too much—and is ultimately a loser.4
Since market values can sometimes deviate from intrinsic ones, management must also beware the possibility that markets may be overvaluing a potential acquisition. Consider the stock market bubble during the late 1990s. Companies that merged with or acquired technology, media, or telecommunications businesses saw their share prices plummet when the market reverted to earlier levels. The possibility that a company might pay too much when the market is inflated deserves serious consideration, because M&A activity seems to rise following periods of strong market performance. If (and when) prices are artificially high, large improvements are necessary to justify an acquisition, even when the target can be purchased at no premium to market value. Premiums for private deals tend to be smaller, although comprehensive evidence is difficult to collect because publicly available data are scarce. Private acquisitions often stem from the seller’s desire to get out rather than the buyer’s desire for a purchase.
There is no magic formula to make acquisitions successful. Like any other business process, they are not inherently good or bad, just as marketing and R&D aren’t. Each deal must have its own strategic logic. In our experience, acquirers in the most successful deals have specific, well-articulated value creation ideas going in. For less successful deals, the strategic rationales—such as pursuing international scale, filling portfolio gaps, or building a third leg of the portfolio—tend to be vague.
Empirical analysis of specific acquisition strategies offers limited insight, largely because of the wide variety of types and sizes of acquisitions and the lack of an objective way to classify them by strategy. What’s more, the stated strategy may not even be the real one: companies typically talk up all kinds of strategic benefits from acquisitions that are really entirely about cost cutting. In the absence of empirical research, our suggestions for strategies that create value reflect our acquisitions work with companies.
In our experience, the strategic rationale for an acquisition that creates value typically conforms to at least one of the following five archetypes: improving the performance of the target company, removing excess capacity from an industry, creating market access for products, acquiring skills or technologies more quickly or at lower cost than they could be built in-house, and picking winners early and helping them develop their businesses. If an acquisition does not fit one or more of these archetypes, it’s unlikely to create value. Executives, of course, often justify acquisitions by choosing from a much broader menu of strategies, including roll-ups, consolidating to improve competitive behavior, transformational mergers, and buying cheap. While these strategies can create value, we find that they seldom do. Value-minded executives should view them with a gimlet eye.
Five archetypes
An acquisition’s strategic rationale should be a specific articulation of one of these archetypes, not a vague concept like growth or strategic positioning, which may be important but must be translated into something more tangible. Furthermore, even if your acquisition is based on one of the archetypes below, it won’t create value if you overpay.
Improve the target company’s performance
Improving the performance of the target company is one of the most common value-creating acquisition strategies. Put simply, you buy a company and radically reduce costs to improve margins and cash flows. In some cases, the acquirer may also take steps to accelerate revenue growth.
Pursuing this strategy is what the best private-equity firms do. Among successful private-equity acquisitions in which a target company was bought, improved, and sold, with no additional acquisitions along the way, operating-profit margins increased by an average of about 2.5 percentage points more than those at peer companies during the same period.1 This means that many of the transactions increased operating-profit margins even more.
Keep in mind that it is easier to improve the performance of a company with low margins and low returns on invested capital (ROIC) than that of a high-margin, high-ROIC company. Consider a target company with a 6 percent operating-profit margin. Reducing costs by three percentage points, to 91 percent of revenues, from 94 percent, increases the margin to 9 percent and could lead to a 50 percent increase in the company’s value. In contrast, if the operating-profit margin of a company is 30 percent, increasing its value by 50 percent requires increasing the margin to 45 percent. Costs would need to decline from 70 percent of revenues to 55 percent, a 21 percent reduction in the cost base. That might not be reasonable to expect.
Consolidate to remove excess capacity from industry
As industries mature, they typically develop excess capacity. In chemicals, for example, companies are constantly looking for ways to get more production out of their plants, while new competitors continue to enter the industry. For example, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), which began production in the mid-1980s, grew from 6.3 million metric tons of value-added commodities—such as chemicals, polymers, and fertilizers—in 1985 to 56 million tons in 2008. Now one of the world’s largest petrochemicals concerns, SABIC expects continued growth, estimating its annual production to reach 135 million tons by 2020.
The combination of higher production from existing capacity and new capacity from recent entrants often generates more supply than demand. It is in no individual competitor’s interest to shut a plant, however. Companies often find it easier to shut plants across the larger combined entity resulting from an acquisition than to shut their least productive plants without one and end up with a smaller company.
Reducing excess in an industry can also extend to less tangible forms of capacity. Consolidation in the pharmaceutical industry, for example, has significantly reduced the capacity of the sales force as the product portfolios of merged companies change and they rethink how to interact with doctors. Pharmaceutical companies have also significantly reduced their R&D capacity as they found more productive ways to conduct research and pruned their portfolios of development projects.
While there is substantial value to be created from removing excess capacity, as in most M&A activity the bulk of the value often accrues to the seller’s shareholders, not the buyer’s.
Accelerate market access for the target’s (or buyer’s) products
Often, relatively small companies with innovative products have difficulty reaching the entire potential market for their products. Small pharmaceutical companies, for example, typically lack the large sales forces required to cultivate relationships with the many doctors they need to promote their products. Bigger pharmaceutical companies sometimes purchase these smaller companies and use their own large-scale sales forces to accelerate the sales of the smaller companies’ products.
IBM, for instance, has pursued this strategy in its software business. From 2002 to 2009, it acquired 70 companies for about $14 billion. By pushing their products through a global sales force, IBM estimates it increased their revenues by almost 50 percent in the first two years after each acquisition and an average of more than 10 percent in the next three years.2
In some cases, the target can also help accelerate the acquirer’s revenue growth. In Procter & Gamble’s acquisition of Gillette, the combined company benefited because P&G had stronger sales in some emerging markets, Gillette in others. Working together, they introduced their products into new markets much more quickly.
Get skills or technologies faster or at lower cost than they can be built
Cisco Systems has used acquisitions to close gaps in its technologies, allowing it to assemble a broad line of networking products and to grow very quickly from a company with a single product line into the key player in Internet equipment. From 1993 to 2001, Cisco acquired 71 companies, at an average price of approximately $350 million. Cisco’s sales increased from $650 million in 1993 to $22 billion in 2001, with nearly 40 percent of its 2001 revenue coming directly from these acquisitions. By 2009, Cisco had more than $36 billion in revenues and a market cap of approximately $150 billion.
Pick winners early and help them develop their businesses
The final winning strategy involves making acquisitions early in the life cycle of a new industry or product line, long before most others recognize that it will grow significantly. Johnson & Johnson pursued this strategy in its early acquisitions of medical-device businesses. When J&J bought device manufacturer Cordis, in 1996, Cordis had $500 million in revenues. By 2007, its revenues had increased to $3.8 billion, reflecting a 20 percent annual growth rate. J&J purchased orthopedic-device manufacturer DePuy in 1998, when DePuy had $900 million in revenues. By 2007, they had grown to $4.6 billion, also at an annual growth rate of 20 percent.
This acquisition strategy requires a disciplined approach by management in three dimensions. First, you must be willing to make investments early, long before your competitors and the market see the industry’s or company’s potential. Second, you need to make multiple bets and to expect that some will fail. Third, you need the skills and patience to nurture the acquired businesses.
Harder strategies
Beyond the five main acquisition strategies we’ve explored, a handful of others can create value, though in our experience they do so relatively rarely.
Roll-up strategy
Roll-up strategies consolidate highly fragmented markets where the current competitors are too small to achieve scale economies. Beginning in the 1960s, Service Corporation International, for instance, grew from a single funeral home in Houston to more than 1,400 funeral homes and cemeteries in 2008. Similarly, Clear Channel Communications rolled up the US market for radio stations, eventually owning more than 900.
This strategy works when businesses as a group can realize substantial cost savings or achieve higher revenues than individual businesses can. Service Corporation’s funeral homes in a given city can share vehicles, purchasing, and back-office operations, for example. They can also coordinate advertising across a city to reduce costs and raise revenues.
Size per se is not what creates a successful roll-up; what matters is the right kind of size. For Service Corporation, multiple locations in individual cities have been more important than many branches spread over many cities, because the cost savings (such as sharing vehicles) can be realized only if the branches are near one another. Roll-up strategies are hard to disguise, so they invite copycats. As others tried to imitate Service Corporation’s strategy, prices for some funeral homes were eventually bid up to levels that made additional acquisitions uneconomic.
Consolidate to improve competitive behavior
Many executives in highly competitive industries hope consolidation will lead competitors to focus less on price competition, thereby improving the ROIC of the industry. The evidence shows, however, that unless it consolidates to just three or four companies and can keep out new entrants, pricing behavior doesn’t change: smaller businesses or new entrants often have an incentive to gain share through lower prices. So in an industry with, say, ten companies, lots of deals must be done before the basis of competition changes.
Enter into a transformational merger
A commonly mentioned reason for an acquisition or merger is the desire to transform one or both companies. Transformational mergers are rare, however, because the circumstances have to be just right, and the management team needs to execute the strategy well.
Transformational mergers can best be described by example. One of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies, Switzerland’s Novartis, was formed in 1996 by the $30 billion merger of Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz. But this merger was much more than a simple combination of businesses: under the leadership of the new CEO, Daniel Vasella, Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz were transformed into an entirely new company. Using the merger as a catalyst for change, Vasella and his management team not only captured $1.4 billion in cost synergies but also redefined the company’s mission, strategy, portfolio, and organization, as well as all key processes, from research to sales. In every area, there was no automatic choice for either the Ciba or the Sandoz way of doing things; instead, the organization made a systematic effort to find the best way.
Novartis shifted its strategic focus to innovation in its life sciences business (pharmaceuticals, nutrition, and products for agriculture) and spun off the $7 billion Ciba Specialty Chemicals business in 1997. Organizational changes included structuring R&D worldwide by therapeutic rather than geographic area, enabling Novartis to build a world-leading oncology franchise.
Across all departments and management layers, Novartis created a strong performance-oriented culture supported by shifting from a seniority- to a performance-based compensation system for managers.
Buy cheap
The final way to create value from an acquisition is to buy cheap—in other words, at a price below a company’s intrinsic value. In our experience, however, such opportunities are rare and relatively small. Nonetheless, though market values revert to intrinsic values over longer periods, there can be brief moments when the two fall out of alignment. Markets, for example, sometimes overreact to negative news, such as a criminal investigation of an executive or the failure of a single product in a portfolio with many strong ones.
Such moments are less rare in cyclical industries, where assets are often undervalued at the bottom of a cycle. Comparing actual market valuations with intrinsic values based on a “perfect foresight” model, we found that companies in cyclical industries could more than double their shareholder returns (relative to actual returns) if they acquired assets at the bottom of a cycle and sold at the top.3
While markets do throw up occasional opportunities for companies to buy targets at levels below their intrinsic value, we haven’t seen many cases. To gain control of a target, acquirers must pay its shareholders a premium over the current market value. Although premiums can vary widely, the average ones for corporate control have been fairly stable: almost 30 percent of the preannouncement price of the target’s equity. For targets pursued by multiple acquirers, the premium rises dramatically, creating the so-called winner’s curse. If several companies evaluate a given target and all identify roughly the same potential synergies, the pursuer that overestimates them most will offer the highest price. Since it is based on an overestimation of the value to be created, the winner pays too much—and is ultimately a loser.4
Since market values can sometimes deviate from intrinsic ones, management must also beware the possibility that markets may be overvaluing a potential acquisition. Consider the stock market bubble during the late 1990s. Companies that merged with or acquired technology, media, or telecommunications businesses saw their share prices plummet when the market reverted to earlier levels. The possibility that a company might pay too much when the market is inflated deserves serious consideration, because M&A activity seems to rise following periods of strong market performance. If (and when) prices are artificially high, large improvements are necessary to justify an acquisition, even when the target can be purchased at no premium to market value. Premiums for private deals tend to be smaller, although comprehensive evidence is difficult to collect because publicly available data are scarce. Private acquisitions often stem from the seller’s desire to get out rather than the buyer’s desire for a purchase.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
iPhone 4 change the way of mobile commerce?!
Undeniably, iPhone changes the world. It heals the hearts of computer idiot. No kidding. It is really the value proposition of iPhone.
What brings along iPhone is a change of mobile usage habit and eventually an evolution of mobile commerce. What should we keep in mind? An article leads us the way.
Why iPhone 4 will change mobile commerce as we know it
Industry experts said that the new iPhone 4 is going to change the face of mobile commerce, and both brands and retailers need to adjust their strategies accordingly.
The technology behind the new device is based on the same operating system powering Apple’s iPad tablet, which has already reinvented the mobile commerce experience. With mobile commerce sales reaching $1.2 billion in 2009 and projected to almost double to $2.2 billion this year, retailers need to take advantage of the new iPhone and make their mobile experiences more gripping.
“There are two things that the iPhone 4 is going to do,” said Scott Dunlap, CEO of NearbyNow, Mountain View, CA. “First, this is an HD phone. The clarity of the screen, plus the ability to take high-resolution pictures and HD video, is going to raise the bar on the mobile visual experience.
“I think it is finally at a point that even the Rolexes and Tom Fords of the world will be pleased with how the quality of their products will be represented,” he said. “Second, the iAd network that comes with iOS 4 is about to change everything we know about mobile advertising, and in turn, mobile commerce.
“The ads themselves are as powerful as apps, and can be mini-networked games, video channels and location-based trivia contests. You could even make a purchase directly from an ad. It's the first mobile ad network to have both reach and rich ad units. Mobile banner ads will instantly become archaic, and all of us will have to rethink mobile engagement.”
HD display
Apple’s new Retina display is the highest resolution display ever built into a phone, resulting in super-crisp text, image and video.
In addition, iPhone 4 features a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, HD video recording, Apple’s A4 processor, a 3-axis gyro and up to 40 percent longer talk time — in a beautiful all-new design of glass and stainless steel that is the thinnest smartphone in the world.
IPhone 4 comes with iOS 4, the newest version of what is undoubtedly world’s most advanced mobile operating system, which includes more than 100 new features and 1500 new APIs for developers.
Creating buzz
As we all know, Apple is a master at creating buzz around its new devices.
Walking by SoHo’s Apple store on June 24 was absolutely impossible. There was a huge mob of people waiting to get in to pick up their phones.
Apple reports that it received 600,000 pre-orders for the device on just the first day alone. That is 10-times more than it did on the first day the iPhone 3GS became available for pre-order.
The slogan that Apple is using for the iPhone 4 is, “This changes everything. Again.” Most industry executives agree, especially in the case of mobile commerce.
“It’s not only the device that will alter mobile commerce, it is the underlying iAd platform which allows for in-app purchasing,” said Neil Strother, Kirkland, WA-based practice director at ABI Research. “Assuming this process is as seamless as promised, and consumers can easily make purchases within apps, then this could be an important step forward for mcommerce.
“Given Apple’s ability to deliver a high-quality user experience and attention to detail, it’s a good bet this will work well,” he said. “It’s important to remember too that this purchase capability will extend to other devices running iOS 4, such as iPads and iPod touch devices.
“So, mcommerce should not only get a boost from users of the latest iPhone version, but also from users of these other devices as well.”
iPhone-driven improvements
Marci Troutman, founder/CEO of Siteminis, Atlanta, said that three quick iPhone-driven commerce improvements will be:
1. Better quality social media interactivity, which will improve ad marketing revenue
2. More sophisticated OS and screen resolution, which will improve the gaming and entertainment experiences, leading to more revenue through download and content purchases
3. More APIs and developer tools, which will improve quality and the number of new applications available for downloads creating revenue through the download and use of iAds through the applications
“Longer term impacts are OS speed, ability to multi-task, battery life improvement, camera quality and higher screen resolution will lead to faster emergence and adoption of technologies such as augmented reality, bar code scanning and near field communications - which all create revenue streams,” Ms. Troutman said.
“Of course, the caveat is that this is all for just iPhone users,” she said.
Apple’s iPhone OS 4’s new multitasking feature offers users a new way to quickly move between applications. It provides developers seven new services to easily add multitasking features to their applications as well.
New services include background audio, so applications such as Pandora can play music in the background.
Additionally, the VoIP service lets applications receive a VoIP call even when the iPhone is asleep or the user is running other applications.
Not everyone's impressed
Gary Schwartz, founder/CEO of Impact Mobile, New York, feels that Apple is too focused on applications and that mobile commerce growth is going to depend on more than just apps.
“The iOS 4 continues to focus on app domination,” Mr. Schwartz said. “IOS 4 offers app productivity features such as app multitasking, which allows for services to run in the background while the shopper navigate secondary apps. No surprise Apple’s focus is still on 200,000-plus apps which are, in great part, Apple’s marketing communications strategy.
“Other players in-market are focusing on the super-app, the mobile browser, which, with HTML5 allows for rich app-like functionality,” he said. “Steve Jobs talks about apps and the HTML5 browser as two separate platforms – Apple continues to focus all of its energy on apps and in-app iAds.
“Commerce enhancements such as iOS 4’s peer-to-peer app gifting is a self-serving feature. Ultimately, Apple will have to let go of this smorgasbord approach to the phone-top and focus on centralized browser functionality for mcommerce.”
Mr. Schwartz said that shoppers need a one-stop impulse click.
“The shopper needs integrated SMS activation and retention hooks,” he said. “Focusing on the browser with integrating location APIs and rich media caching will enable the browser to behave more like a downloaded app and drive more commerce adoption long-term.
“HTML5 will ultimately be the demise of the app as a mainstream commerce medium. Apple knows this and is reticent to push in-browser functionality which would cannibalize its app-dom.”
Not everyone agrees.
Bringin' sexy back
Just as brands and marketers flocked to the App Store for the iPhone and its successor, the iPhone 3GS, the same will hold true for the new iPhone 4.
Let’s face it. There is something sexy about an iPhone application. And as the iPhone gets smarter, the whole application concept becomes ever-more appealing.
Retailers and brands recognize this, as already mobile commerce giant eBay has revamped its iPhone application for the new iPhone 4.
With a new look and feel, the eBay application is even more compelling.
“Apple's first iPhone was revolutionary to the smartphone market, and as it continues to release more sophisticated and user-friendly devices, mobile commerce will become more and more a part of consumers' every day routines,” said Nick Taylor, president of Usablenet, New York.
From a retail perspective, the iPhone 4 is a new opportunity to increase sales.
The phone will fuel smartphone adoption, which will drive mobile commerce activity.
“The new iPhone 4 provides more fuel for consumer smartphone adoption, at a time when distribution rate growth is already more than impressive,” said Kevin Ranford, director of Web marketing at 1800Flowers, Carle Place, NY.
“The iPhone 4's functionality specifically favorable to mcommerce is the multi-tasking functionality so that shoppers can make a purchase while still engaged with another app, and the sharp Retina display making merchandise images pop,” he said.
What brings along iPhone is a change of mobile usage habit and eventually an evolution of mobile commerce. What should we keep in mind? An article leads us the way.
Why iPhone 4 will change mobile commerce as we know it
Industry experts said that the new iPhone 4 is going to change the face of mobile commerce, and both brands and retailers need to adjust their strategies accordingly.
The technology behind the new device is based on the same operating system powering Apple’s iPad tablet, which has already reinvented the mobile commerce experience. With mobile commerce sales reaching $1.2 billion in 2009 and projected to almost double to $2.2 billion this year, retailers need to take advantage of the new iPhone and make their mobile experiences more gripping.
“There are two things that the iPhone 4 is going to do,” said Scott Dunlap, CEO of NearbyNow, Mountain View, CA. “First, this is an HD phone. The clarity of the screen, plus the ability to take high-resolution pictures and HD video, is going to raise the bar on the mobile visual experience.
“I think it is finally at a point that even the Rolexes and Tom Fords of the world will be pleased with how the quality of their products will be represented,” he said. “Second, the iAd network that comes with iOS 4 is about to change everything we know about mobile advertising, and in turn, mobile commerce.
“The ads themselves are as powerful as apps, and can be mini-networked games, video channels and location-based trivia contests. You could even make a purchase directly from an ad. It's the first mobile ad network to have both reach and rich ad units. Mobile banner ads will instantly become archaic, and all of us will have to rethink mobile engagement.”
HD display
Apple’s new Retina display is the highest resolution display ever built into a phone, resulting in super-crisp text, image and video.
In addition, iPhone 4 features a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, HD video recording, Apple’s A4 processor, a 3-axis gyro and up to 40 percent longer talk time — in a beautiful all-new design of glass and stainless steel that is the thinnest smartphone in the world.
IPhone 4 comes with iOS 4, the newest version of what is undoubtedly world’s most advanced mobile operating system, which includes more than 100 new features and 1500 new APIs for developers.
Creating buzz
As we all know, Apple is a master at creating buzz around its new devices.
Walking by SoHo’s Apple store on June 24 was absolutely impossible. There was a huge mob of people waiting to get in to pick up their phones.
Apple reports that it received 600,000 pre-orders for the device on just the first day alone. That is 10-times more than it did on the first day the iPhone 3GS became available for pre-order.
The slogan that Apple is using for the iPhone 4 is, “This changes everything. Again.” Most industry executives agree, especially in the case of mobile commerce.
“It’s not only the device that will alter mobile commerce, it is the underlying iAd platform which allows for in-app purchasing,” said Neil Strother, Kirkland, WA-based practice director at ABI Research. “Assuming this process is as seamless as promised, and consumers can easily make purchases within apps, then this could be an important step forward for mcommerce.
“Given Apple’s ability to deliver a high-quality user experience and attention to detail, it’s a good bet this will work well,” he said. “It’s important to remember too that this purchase capability will extend to other devices running iOS 4, such as iPads and iPod touch devices.
“So, mcommerce should not only get a boost from users of the latest iPhone version, but also from users of these other devices as well.”
iPhone-driven improvements
Marci Troutman, founder/CEO of Siteminis, Atlanta, said that three quick iPhone-driven commerce improvements will be:
1. Better quality social media interactivity, which will improve ad marketing revenue
2. More sophisticated OS and screen resolution, which will improve the gaming and entertainment experiences, leading to more revenue through download and content purchases
3. More APIs and developer tools, which will improve quality and the number of new applications available for downloads creating revenue through the download and use of iAds through the applications
“Longer term impacts are OS speed, ability to multi-task, battery life improvement, camera quality and higher screen resolution will lead to faster emergence and adoption of technologies such as augmented reality, bar code scanning and near field communications - which all create revenue streams,” Ms. Troutman said.
“Of course, the caveat is that this is all for just iPhone users,” she said.
Apple’s iPhone OS 4’s new multitasking feature offers users a new way to quickly move between applications. It provides developers seven new services to easily add multitasking features to their applications as well.
New services include background audio, so applications such as Pandora can play music in the background.
Additionally, the VoIP service lets applications receive a VoIP call even when the iPhone is asleep or the user is running other applications.
Not everyone's impressed
Gary Schwartz, founder/CEO of Impact Mobile, New York, feels that Apple is too focused on applications and that mobile commerce growth is going to depend on more than just apps.
“The iOS 4 continues to focus on app domination,” Mr. Schwartz said. “IOS 4 offers app productivity features such as app multitasking, which allows for services to run in the background while the shopper navigate secondary apps. No surprise Apple’s focus is still on 200,000-plus apps which are, in great part, Apple’s marketing communications strategy.
“Other players in-market are focusing on the super-app, the mobile browser, which, with HTML5 allows for rich app-like functionality,” he said. “Steve Jobs talks about apps and the HTML5 browser as two separate platforms – Apple continues to focus all of its energy on apps and in-app iAds.
“Commerce enhancements such as iOS 4’s peer-to-peer app gifting is a self-serving feature. Ultimately, Apple will have to let go of this smorgasbord approach to the phone-top and focus on centralized browser functionality for mcommerce.”
Mr. Schwartz said that shoppers need a one-stop impulse click.
“The shopper needs integrated SMS activation and retention hooks,” he said. “Focusing on the browser with integrating location APIs and rich media caching will enable the browser to behave more like a downloaded app and drive more commerce adoption long-term.
“HTML5 will ultimately be the demise of the app as a mainstream commerce medium. Apple knows this and is reticent to push in-browser functionality which would cannibalize its app-dom.”
Not everyone agrees.
Bringin' sexy back
Just as brands and marketers flocked to the App Store for the iPhone and its successor, the iPhone 3GS, the same will hold true for the new iPhone 4.
Let’s face it. There is something sexy about an iPhone application. And as the iPhone gets smarter, the whole application concept becomes ever-more appealing.
Retailers and brands recognize this, as already mobile commerce giant eBay has revamped its iPhone application for the new iPhone 4.
With a new look and feel, the eBay application is even more compelling.
“Apple's first iPhone was revolutionary to the smartphone market, and as it continues to release more sophisticated and user-friendly devices, mobile commerce will become more and more a part of consumers' every day routines,” said Nick Taylor, president of Usablenet, New York.
From a retail perspective, the iPhone 4 is a new opportunity to increase sales.
The phone will fuel smartphone adoption, which will drive mobile commerce activity.
“The new iPhone 4 provides more fuel for consumer smartphone adoption, at a time when distribution rate growth is already more than impressive,” said Kevin Ranford, director of Web marketing at 1800Flowers, Carle Place, NY.
“The iPhone 4's functionality specifically favorable to mcommerce is the multi-tasking functionality so that shoppers can make a purchase while still engaged with another app, and the sharp Retina display making merchandise images pop,” he said.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
收購合併好事嗎?
早前，為一間國際級機構香港及大中華區寫稿，跟多位香港區的高級見面詳談，由榮譽主席到分區經理皆有心人，希望可以保著公司的核心價值，不要被收購後遭受淹沒。各人說話裡，總帶點苦澀味，怕往後日子不好過。
說真的，我身同感受。因為我曾經在香港電訊工作，經歷香港歷史上最失敗的收購合併事件，最終成為電訊盈科人，受盡人家白眼。公司進入毫無管治的年代，自己以「落荒而逃」的敗局終結。
M&A，在我的經驗上，只有失敗的味道！史上，亦有很多很多M&A失敗的個案，為何還要做呢？
理論上，M&A有五大訴求：
1. improving the performance of the target company; 提高目標公司的效能
2. removing excess capacity from an industry; 從一個產業去除多餘的容量
3. creating market access for products; 為產品打開市場
4. acquiring skills or technologies more quickly or at lower cost than they could be built in-house; 更快速地或以較內部低的成本掌握技能或技術
5. picking winners early and helping them develop their businesses; 預早挑選優勝者和幫助他們發展業務
原來，回望前塵，當年電訊盈科的收購合併，並未符合任何一個法則，難怪全都失敗。
說真的，我身同感受。因為我曾經在香港電訊工作，經歷香港歷史上最失敗的收購合併事件，最終成為電訊盈科人，受盡人家白眼。公司進入毫無管治的年代，自己以「落荒而逃」的敗局終結。
M&A，在我的經驗上，只有失敗的味道！史上，亦有很多很多M&A失敗的個案，為何還要做呢？
理論上，M&A有五大訴求：
1. improving the performance of the target company; 提高目標公司的效能
2. removing excess capacity from an industry; 從一個產業去除多餘的容量
3. creating market access for products; 為產品打開市場
4. acquiring skills or technologies more quickly or at lower cost than they could be built in-house; 更快速地或以較內部低的成本掌握技能或技術
5. picking winners early and helping them develop their businesses; 預早挑選優勝者和幫助他們發展業務
原來，回望前塵，當年電訊盈科的收購合併，並未符合任何一個法則，難怪全都失敗。
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Steve Jobs嚴拒Flash的反響
謎，一直以來，蘋果的移動平台諸如iPhone、iPod、iPad都排斥世上最受歡迎的動畫系統--Adobe Flash，當中原因讓人百思不得其解。終於，Steve Jobs今天自己走出來，講了一大埋漂亮的說話。結果如何？加速兩大陣形的對疊，戰國時代合縱連橫之勢已成，市場將會變得更快更精彩。
究竟Jobs持著甚麼由？綜合如下：
1. 因為它有專利的。（噢，這是死罪！只有蘋果可以享有嗎？）
2. iPhone和iPod Touch等等都可以播絕大部分的網上影片。（咁點先，偏偏唔可以播Flash，當人死咩，好多人睇片用flash）
3. Flash保安做得不好...在移動平台上效能不好（好似係蘋果支援得唔好，話人家差勁）...影響電池壽命...只係為PC而設，不是為tuchoscreen做的。
這個問題帶出另一件事：為了滿足網民的要求，很多軟件發展商自行推出iPhone/iPad APP，以支援Flash的內容。不過，Jobs最近擺出極強硬的姿態，禁絕由Adobe所推iPhone app創作工具所產生的App，在蘋果網上商店出售。由於蘋果網上商店是唯一的APP出售平台，蘋果此舉即要趕盡殺絕。
iPhone興起，成為美國移動上網主流，已經改變了美國網上平台內容的生態，很多公司為了主援iPhone，被迫放棄原有的Flash內容，例如美國維珍航司就是一個好的例子。
強國的態度專橫，必定引來反響。再者，蘋果不是沒有敵人的，積極發展手機平台的Google便拉攏了Adobe，使其下手機和移動系統的瀏覽器Chrome內置支援了Flash。Google在這個星期，更對外放風，Android之後的下一代平台（傳聞中的名稱為Froyo）更會全面支援Adobe Flash。
在這一場爭霸戰中，蘋果當然暫佔上風，因為擁有龐大市場能力，但Google結合Flash是不容忽視的力量，新一代的孩子都是給Flash遊戲養大的，會否從後趕上，還看Jobs有多少創意收在家裡。
究竟Jobs持著甚麼由？綜合如下：
1. 因為它有專利的。（噢，這是死罪！只有蘋果可以享有嗎？）
2. iPhone和iPod Touch等等都可以播絕大部分的網上影片。（咁點先，偏偏唔可以播Flash，當人死咩，好多人睇片用flash）
3. Flash保安做得不好...在移動平台上效能不好（好似係蘋果支援得唔好，話人家差勁）...影響電池壽命...只係為PC而設，不是為tuchoscreen做的。
這個問題帶出另一件事：為了滿足網民的要求，很多軟件發展商自行推出iPhone/iPad APP，以支援Flash的內容。不過，Jobs最近擺出極強硬的姿態，禁絕由Adobe所推iPhone app創作工具所產生的App，在蘋果網上商店出售。由於蘋果網上商店是唯一的APP出售平台，蘋果此舉即要趕盡殺絕。
iPhone興起，成為美國移動上網主流，已經改變了美國網上平台內容的生態，很多公司為了主援iPhone，被迫放棄原有的Flash內容，例如美國維珍航司就是一個好的例子。
強國的態度專橫，必定引來反響。再者，蘋果不是沒有敵人的，積極發展手機平台的Google便拉攏了Adobe，使其下手機和移動系統的瀏覽器Chrome內置支援了Flash。Google在這個星期，更對外放風，Android之後的下一代平台（傳聞中的名稱為Froyo）更會全面支援Adobe Flash。
在這一場爭霸戰中，蘋果當然暫佔上風，因為擁有龐大市場能力，但Google結合Flash是不容忽視的力量，新一代的孩子都是給Flash遊戲養大的，會否從後趕上，還看Jobs有多少創意收在家裡。
Monday, April 19, 2010
叫「粉絲」太沉重，Facebook改叫「喜歡」
其實，始自Facebook紅起來開始，不少學者、市場開拓者都在研究Facebook的市場價值。可悲的是，Facebook跟很多SNS一樣，拿來做市場推廣的價值偏低，因為人在玩facebook時，都不愛click廣告。
舉個簡單例子，筆者推過一個Facebook Ad的活動，結果得到約四百萬個impressions，但只能成功轉1195個人click入，CTR (click through rate)只有0.029%，認真低。當然，其中有很多影響的因素，但反應欠佳是一個事實。其實，以Sony這些大品牌，在香港才得1萬多個粉絲，又是否有點過份呢?
連Facebook都覺得Facebook Page叫「fans」這個字，實在太沉重，在2010年4月19日宣告改名，由「fans」變為「Like」，更直言希望這個改變會為Page帶來更多的客戶。
有甚麼睇法？其實這卻會是一種變相減低客戶的價值，因為作為一個「粉絲」，我真的有事前想一想，才決定做一個「粉絲」，即是說某程度來說，我是die hard的。但我按「Like」時，會casual得多，亦即是說我的忠誠度比較低。
究研我拿著一班忠誠度高但人數少的客戶群好做事，還是拿一個忠誠度低但人數多的客戶群好做事呢？如果，我的量值標準以最終有action為基礎，我想我一定選擇精而忠心的人群，因為我可以做得更加個人花，而且相對容易提高忠誠度，有action的度數亦會高一點。
話說回頭，為何「Fans」和「Like」不可並存呢? 值得大家思考一下。
舉個簡單例子，筆者推過一個Facebook Ad的活動，結果得到約四百萬個impressions，但只能成功轉1195個人click入，CTR (click through rate)只有0.029%，認真低。當然，其中有很多影響的因素，但反應欠佳是一個事實。其實，以Sony這些大品牌，在香港才得1萬多個粉絲，又是否有點過份呢?
連Facebook都覺得Facebook Page叫「fans」這個字，實在太沉重，在2010年4月19日宣告改名，由「fans」變為「Like」，更直言希望這個改變會為Page帶來更多的客戶。
有甚麼睇法？其實這卻會是一種變相減低客戶的價值，因為作為一個「粉絲」，我真的有事前想一想，才決定做一個「粉絲」，即是說某程度來說，我是die hard的。但我按「Like」時，會casual得多，亦即是說我的忠誠度比較低。
究研我拿著一班忠誠度高但人數少的客戶群好做事，還是拿一個忠誠度低但人數多的客戶群好做事呢？如果，我的量值標準以最終有action為基礎，我想我一定選擇精而忠心的人群，因為我可以做得更加個人花，而且相對容易提高忠誠度，有action的度數亦會高一點。
話說回頭，為何「Fans」和「Like」不可並存呢? 值得大家思考一下。
Friday, April 9, 2010
iPhone推新系統，主攻Mulitasking，仍然無flash
蘋果又有新動作，宣布將會發表新一代iPhone系統4.0，最觸目的當然是multitasking。
iPhone一向最為人所病咎的，就是不支援Multitasking，即是每開一個新的App，便會自動關閉正在使用的App。
據蘋果發給程式發展商的Software Development Kit，一共有一千五百個API，其中約一百個新功能，將會在今夏讓iPhone和iPod用家使用。
不過，據統計，用家最想蘋果新增的功能是甚麼
iPhone一向最為人所病咎的，就是不支援Multitasking，即是每開一個新的App，便會自動關閉正在使用的App。
據蘋果發給程式發展商的Software Development Kit，一共有一千五百個API，其中約一百個新功能，將會在今夏讓iPhone和iPod用家使用。
不過，據統計，用家最想蘋果新增的功能是甚麼
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
iPad之後，蘋果全新炒作iAd?!
iPad新推出數天，好與壞，市場未得完全反應過來，蘋果又傳出下一輪的炒作--iAd。
這次炒作當然是趁iPad和iPhone當炒之勢，再向手機市場落手，蘋果將會於日內宣告iAd是專攻手機廣告市場系統。
要數當今手機廣告系統，當然是Google。早在去年初，筆者與Google朋友飯宴時，朋友已經言明，Google主打廣告市場，特別是手機App的廣告。當時，網上廣告市場，仍以Pay-per-click的搜尋廣告為主，但朋友當時已經預告，Google看好的不是與搜尋關鍵字相關的文字廣告，而是附隨手機App的banner ad。可見Google很有先見之明，而當然Google才剛推出G1手機。
行內人指出，手機的banner ad發展已有一段的時間，但迄今還沒有公認的規格，也未讓市場人士感到驚喜，這次蘋果進攻這個市場，希望會燃起的新火頭。
以iPad一出，便售出了七十萬台，再加上iPhone，筆者很熱熾期待蘋果宣告的iAd細節。
這次炒作當然是趁iPad和iPhone當炒之勢，再向手機市場落手，蘋果將會於日內宣告iAd是專攻手機廣告市場系統。
要數當今手機廣告系統，當然是Google。早在去年初，筆者與Google朋友飯宴時，朋友已經言明，Google主打廣告市場，特別是手機App的廣告。當時，網上廣告市場，仍以Pay-per-click的搜尋廣告為主，但朋友當時已經預告，Google看好的不是與搜尋關鍵字相關的文字廣告，而是附隨手機App的banner ad。可見Google很有先見之明，而當然Google才剛推出G1手機。
行內人指出，手機的banner ad發展已有一段的時間，但迄今還沒有公認的規格，也未讓市場人士感到驚喜，這次蘋果進攻這個市場，希望會燃起的新火頭。
以iPad一出，便售出了七十萬台，再加上iPhone，筆者很熱熾期待蘋果宣告的iAd細節。
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
香港只有七成半網民上社交網 亞洲排第八
最近看新聞，才知道QQ有意向AOL收購ICQ業務，作價3億。ICQ！是的，大家沒有看錯，今天是2010年 ，講的是ICQ。不是早已消失世上嗎？原來口味各有不同，仍然有人喜愛的，俄羅斯就是其中之一，現仍有500萬用戶。
話說到底，所謂地球村、全球化，仍然敵不過民族的喜好和統治者的手段。政治行為擾亂喜好的例子多的是，如Twitter和微博、Facebook和人人網等。但民族性的喜好亦不能忽視。
專門做數碼研究的comScore最近發表一份報告，指亞洲區社交網Social Networking Service浸透率原來並不很高，整體上只達百分之五十。最勁的國家菲律賓，達百分之九十，最弱的國家竟然是日本，只有百分之四十二。換句話說，日本人最不愛上Facebook。至於香港，則達百分之七十五，排在第八位，在台灣之後。
不過，上社交網的口味亦有不同之處，香港和大部分亞洲地區一樣，主要用Facebook，而台灣則用Wretch.cc（一個以博客為主的網站），印度用Orkut，韓國用CyWorld，而日本則用mixi.jp。
中國又如何？可能基於國情因素，comScore沒有把中國列入「亞洲」的系列中…
話說到底，所謂地球村、全球化，仍然敵不過民族的喜好和統治者的手段。政治行為擾亂喜好的例子多的是，如Twitter和微博、Facebook和人人網等。但民族性的喜好亦不能忽視。
專門做數碼研究的comScore最近發表一份報告，指亞洲區社交網Social Networking Service浸透率原來並不很高，整體上只達百分之五十。最勁的國家菲律賓，達百分之九十，最弱的國家竟然是日本，只有百分之四十二。換句話說，日本人最不愛上Facebook。至於香港，則達百分之七十五，排在第八位，在台灣之後。
不過，上社交網的口味亦有不同之處，香港和大部分亞洲地區一樣，主要用Facebook，而台灣則用Wretch.cc（一個以博客為主的網站），印度用Orkut，韓國用CyWorld，而日本則用mixi.jp。
中國又如何？可能基於國情因素，comScore沒有把中國列入「亞洲」的系列中…
Thursday, April 1, 2010
短訊：comScore在泛亞推出在線視頻測量服務
comScore宣布，在澳洲，中國，香港，日本，馬來西亞和新加坡推出線視頻測量服務.土豆和優酷兩個國產牌youtube亦都受惠，在測量的範圍內。
comScore的副行政主席Will Hodgman說，在亞洲來說，收看在線視訊是最重要的數碼體驗，約4/5的網民每個月都會觀看在線視訊。comScore的Video Metrix給與出版者、廣告客戶和廣告公司當中具競爭性的情報，並深入分析客戶的相關行為。
Video Overview by Market
January 2010
Total Audience, Age 15+ - Home & Work Locations*
Source: comScore Video Metrix
comScore的副行政主席Will Hodgman說，在亞洲來說，收看在線視訊是最重要的數碼體驗，約4/5的網民每個月都會觀看在線視訊。comScore的Video Metrix給與出版者、廣告客戶和廣告公司當中具競爭性的情報，並深入分析客戶的相關行為。
Video Overview by Market
January 2010
Total Audience, Age 15+ - Home & Work Locations*
Source: comScore Video Metrix
|
| Total Unique Viewers (000) | % Reach Web Population | Videos (000) | Minutes per Viewer |
| China | 198,849 | 81.6 | 10,288,986 | 441.2 |
| Japan | 60,365 | 84.9 | 8,420,530 | 753.1 |
| Australia | 10,670 | 81.5 | 933,862 | 389.7 |
| Malaysia | 7,662 | 81.5 | 487,533 | 238.8 |
| Hong Kong | 3,526 | 87.4 | 414,662 | 613.2 |
| Singapore | 2,453 | 87.6 | 339,648 | 649.8 |
*Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.
新世代零售品牌營銷三寶？!
那三寶？就是「自願選入數據庫」、「移動優惠券」和「忠誠計劃」，這是根據一間名為IHOP的餐飲專營公司的報告。
在一個營銷網絡研討會上，IHOP給與會者做了一個個案研究，顯示出SMS和移動優惠券對零售業務所帶來的力量、接觸力和機遇。
IHOP其中一間專營公司的負責人Ever Santana表示，SMS給我們以新的途徑接觸客戶，我們測試過它的投資回報率，發現它不但是一個偉大的銷售途徑，更是溝通的好渠道。我們正考慮用於其他的品牌，以增加客戶的忠誠度。在客戶年齡組別方面，它亦不單帶來了年輕客戶，更有小孩和長者。使用移動優惠券的，亦很多都不是我們的會員。
IHOP對移動優惠券的預期十分樂觀，表示相信他們行使率會達至百分之十。
在一個營銷網絡研討會上，IHOP給與會者做了一個個案研究，顯示出SMS和移動優惠券對零售業務所帶來的力量、接觸力和機遇。
IHOP其中一間專營公司的負責人Ever Santana表示，SMS給我們以新的途徑接觸客戶，我們測試過它的投資回報率，發現它不但是一個偉大的銷售途徑，更是溝通的好渠道。我們正考慮用於其他的品牌，以增加客戶的忠誠度。在客戶年齡組別方面，它亦不單帶來了年輕客戶，更有小孩和長者。使用移動優惠券的，亦很多都不是我們的會員。
IHOP對移動優惠券的預期十分樂觀，表示相信他們行使率會達至百分之十。
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
話口未完，Pizzla Hut 推出Augmented Reality 應用
才講了兩天的時間，話下一浪可能是Augmented Reality(AR)，立即有商家推出AR應用，為客戶帶來方便．
是甚麼？唔講咁多，去片先：
睇完知唔知係乜？
其實是一個iPhone App，客戶只要下載及開啟程式，然後用iPhone鏡頭影下街境，就會指示出最近一間的Pizzla Hut係邊，你還可以立即落order，由iPhone送出去，在等候的期間還可以玩pizzla遊戲．
仲未明白究竟AR乜？其實內裡的技術就是一併採用iPhone的GPS、相機、指南針，在相機上的真實環境中，顯示與實境相關的訊息，如Pizzla Hut的方向位置等．
唔好以為咁開心，你又去用iPhone試下，這個App只適用於澳洲的！
技術由澳洲公司Insqribe開拓的，該公司正致力發展手機推廣平台，而這個App只應用於3GS．客戶使用時，需要走出家門，到可以用GPS的地方，拍一下門前的景像，才會顯示到相關訊息，當中包括了方向和距離．當然，客戶還可以按自己的口味，挑選薄餅上的口味．
好唔好玩？嗯，我都不愛吃薄餅的...
是甚麼？唔講咁多，去片先：
睇完知唔知係乜？
其實是一個iPhone App，客戶只要下載及開啟程式，然後用iPhone鏡頭影下街境，就會指示出最近一間的Pizzla Hut係邊，你還可以立即落order，由iPhone送出去，在等候的期間還可以玩pizzla遊戲．
仲未明白究竟AR乜？其實內裡的技術就是一併採用iPhone的GPS、相機、指南針，在相機上的真實環境中，顯示與實境相關的訊息，如Pizzla Hut的方向位置等．
唔好以為咁開心，你又去用iPhone試下，這個App只適用於澳洲的！
技術由澳洲公司Insqribe開拓的，該公司正致力發展手機推廣平台，而這個App只應用於3GS．客戶使用時，需要走出家門，到可以用GPS的地方，拍一下門前的景像，才會顯示到相關訊息，當中包括了方向和距離．當然，客戶還可以按自己的口味，挑選薄餅上的口味．
好唔好玩？嗯，我都不愛吃薄餅的...
Mobile Payment ：Starbucks好努力
Starbucks正式宣布，在全美一千零二十間Target和Starbucks店，都可以用Starbucks Card mobile app來支付．
其實，有關的App早在去年十一月推出市場，當時用戶可以App查閱Starbucks Card的餘額和記錄．現時可以進一步在店舖內，用iPhone或者iPod Touch來付費．早前，Starbucks已經在西雅圖等十六個分店做試點，效果令人滿意．
由現時開始，用你的iPhone上網來Starbucks登記，可以享用免費咖啡！嘩，有著數！不過，只限美國，亞洲區無份．
唔知我張Starbucks Card在美國用唔用到呢？
其實，有關的App早在去年十一月推出市場，當時用戶可以App查閱Starbucks Card的餘額和記錄．現時可以進一步在店舖內，用iPhone或者iPod Touch來付費．早前，Starbucks已經在西雅圖等十六個分店做試點，效果令人滿意．
由現時開始，用你的iPhone上網來Starbucks登記，可以享用免費咖啡！嘩，有著數！不過，只限美國，亞洲區無份．
唔知我張Starbucks Card在美國用唔用到呢？
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
如果俾我搞動新聞，我會...
當我想這問題時，我想起了太約一年前讀McKinsey一篇文章，Production可以放出去嗎？
台蘋請數百人做動新聞，這符合媒體創作的做法，但這讓我很震驚，因為這違反了互聯網的共創(cocreation)和參與(engagment)的原則，那是危險的... 在整個製作的過程中，那數百人只是參照著蘋果的內容，加工成為新的產品，基本上沒有創意的溶入，所加的不外乎血腥、色情和暴力，沒有集體創作走出新路的方向。就正如把多拉A夢由漫畫，改為3D動漫一樣，本質並未改變，仍是大體上一樣的製作流程。但動新聞的加工費很高，全人手製作，甚至較原來一篇稿一個記者一個編輯的人手還要多，這些內容卻很難收費，一開始便呈現敗局。要紅了才收費？那時會大量流失客戶。一開始便收費？一定紅不起來...這個結果就是動新聞的製作費，變相加到原來的製作流程中，導至成本大幅上升，所以說是敗局。
情況就如TVB.com一樣，叫好叫座但卻不賺錢，據TVB中人說，六嬸很不滿意，認為投資大，效益卻不彰，不及TVB賤價請藝員拍電影，來得容易賺錢．
我想如果讓我今天參與管理動新聞這項目，我會把重點放在兩個投資上，一是創作平台標準化，二是市場推廣和廣告系統，參與製作內容的人手應該盡量減少。
我的意思是把動新聞的創作由外判或讀者來負擔，蘋果只負責把平台標準化，經過一定的規則，把動新聞由網民或外判商製作起來，然後由蘋果負責監管內容是否合乎規則，並且擁有是否讓動新聞出街。當然，這種做法要經相當的日子才能發展成熟，但卻可以很容易透過現有的viral途徑，火速把動新聞紅起來。
當然，更進一步的，可以與讀者一起分享動新聞的廣告收入，讓讀者自己推廣自己的動新聞，這似乎才合乎新世代的創作要求。把廣告溶入動新聞內，虛擬的環境有真實的廣告，也應該是一條財路．
當中還有很多的配合，但這個想法可能真的可以放於其他的傳媒創作，可以再想想...
這一刻我想到的是AR－－Augemented Reality，只要客戶走出家門前，用GPS手機對著家門外的地方拍照，便會顯示最就近你家門外的新聞，按一按便可以取讀動新聞．這個動新聞平台當然和要廣告系統結合，日後客戶出街幫襯商號前，可在門前用AR，便可以找到相關新聞、網民評價、最近的相類競爭者等，不是一個更好的想法嗎？蘋果要想多一想．
台蘋請數百人做動新聞，這符合媒體創作的做法，但這讓我很震驚，因為這違反了互聯網的共創(cocreation)和參與(engagment)的原則，那是危險的... 在整個製作的過程中，那數百人只是參照著蘋果的內容，加工成為新的產品，基本上沒有創意的溶入，所加的不外乎血腥、色情和暴力，沒有集體創作走出新路的方向。就正如把多拉A夢由漫畫，改為3D動漫一樣，本質並未改變，仍是大體上一樣的製作流程。但動新聞的加工費很高，全人手製作，甚至較原來一篇稿一個記者一個編輯的人手還要多，這些內容卻很難收費，一開始便呈現敗局。要紅了才收費？那時會大量流失客戶。一開始便收費？一定紅不起來...這個結果就是動新聞的製作費，變相加到原來的製作流程中，導至成本大幅上升，所以說是敗局。
情況就如TVB.com一樣，叫好叫座但卻不賺錢，據TVB中人說，六嬸很不滿意，認為投資大，效益卻不彰，不及TVB賤價請藝員拍電影，來得容易賺錢．
我想如果讓我今天參與管理動新聞這項目，我會把重點放在兩個投資上，一是創作平台標準化，二是市場推廣和廣告系統，參與製作內容的人手應該盡量減少。
我的意思是把動新聞的創作由外判或讀者來負擔，蘋果只負責把平台標準化，經過一定的規則，把動新聞由網民或外判商製作起來，然後由蘋果負責監管內容是否合乎規則，並且擁有是否讓動新聞出街。當然，這種做法要經相當的日子才能發展成熟，但卻可以很容易透過現有的viral途徑，火速把動新聞紅起來。
當然，更進一步的，可以與讀者一起分享動新聞的廣告收入，讓讀者自己推廣自己的動新聞，這似乎才合乎新世代的創作要求。把廣告溶入動新聞內，虛擬的環境有真實的廣告，也應該是一條財路．
當中還有很多的配合，但這個想法可能真的可以放於其他的傳媒創作，可以再想想...
這一刻我想到的是AR－－Augemented Reality，只要客戶走出家門前，用GPS手機對著家門外的地方拍照，便會顯示最就近你家門外的新聞，按一按便可以取讀動新聞．這個動新聞平台當然和要廣告系統結合，日後客戶出街幫襯商號前，可在門前用AR，便可以找到相關新聞、網民評價、最近的相類競爭者等，不是一個更好的想法嗎？蘋果要想多一想．
Mobile 2D Barcode Payment System起革命？嗯... 搞慈善可以翻身嗎？
近日去台灣探望朋友，跟台灣傳的朋友談起，傳媒面對新媒體的競爭，很多時會流於不理性和衝動。就以台灣蘋果日報為例，據說單單是搞動新聞都請了數百人（有說二百也有說五百），真的是一個天文數字。再看看香港，香港蘋果也有搞動新聞和壹斑碼，東仔也有搞它的網上on.cc，究竟這種模式是否有作為呢？據說，連壹傳媒自己內部都很人對壹斑碼有點懷疑...
不過，近日在外國就有一個市場推廣的事例，顯示2D Barcode還有發展空間，就是作為慈善用的捐款平台。原來根據外國的經驗，每逢有大災難發生，都有大批的人無法打通捐款熱線，被迫放棄捐款的念頭，而2D Barcode的好處就是無需要輸入太多的資料，捐款者就可以把指令送出，亦不用跟其他人迫爆捐款熱線。
作出這種突破的是加國the University of Ottawa Heart Institute ，他們在三月廿八日舉行一個號稱全球首次的2D Barcode捐款活動。大學與一間叫做MobioID的IT公司合作，在電視進行籌款活動，捐款者只需要用一個iPhone App，便可以掃瞄電視上的2D Barcode，再輸入信用卡號碼和捐款數目，便可以直接作出捐款。2D Barcode更可以透過Facebook、Twitter以viral式散播。
成效如果？我的感覺是噱頭是足夠了，但未必受歡迎，而局限性很大，還幫iPhone買廣告，係咪有點那過呢？
但我認同MobioID一點睇法，就是這種捐款的好處是有持久力，因為一旦2D barcode做好，便是只為這件事而做的，可以不設年期地做下去。問題是不設年期，人都會淡忘的。
有沒有更好的辦法？
1. 如果可以推廣到所有電話都用得就最好。
2. 不如印T-恤，叫義工通街叫人捐，又或者viral一點，叫人買T-shirt，自己去叫人捐。捐款好多時，都係人與人，Face to Face比較收效的...
不過，2D Barcode本身有很多制式，目前仍以日本的QR code最受歡迎，但各國各自發展，筆者便有朋友在大陸自己造了一套。單單是制式問題，已經讓2D barcode發展受制，我仍然都不太睇好。
真的好期待一套既簡單又快捷的手機支付模式面世！
雅虎露出獠牙 手機廣告市場反擊戰
雅虎一名高級行政人員近日向媒體放風，披露雅虎的移動廣告大計，重點資源將會投放在移動網絡、支付和廣告支援的廣用。
北美的雅虎移動副總裁戴維卡茨(Daivd Katz)表示，移動廣告在二零零九年已正式成為了主流，他預期會有更大的增長。但他補充，業界在去年都看到在收入上的大躍進，但還沒有破解正確手機和單元的密碼。
「一直以來，我們的說法都是，明年才是手機廣告之年，但今年度，我們的說法已是去年就是了，２００９年就是突破的一年。接下來的，應該就是越來越具創意的手機專用廣告經驗。」舉例說，雅虎正在推行一個手機行動的策略，把學院籃球比賽的粉絲，從雅虎的手機體育入門網，引導到快樂巨擘KFC或西南航空的手機網站。
「我們花了很多的功夫於跨平台購買上，而事實上我們所收到的request for proposal招標書中，都提到手機。」他說：「去年，我們的Fantasy Football App就是一個完全的跨平台之作，我們的廣告商如Subway、Toyota和Southwest Airlines都從我們的網上和手機裡獲益。」
「同樣，以我們最近的奧運移動網站為例，跨平台已肯定是一種趨勢。我們認為我們有一個相當大的優勢，因為在兩個平台上我們都擁有大量的網站流量。」他說：「我們已經調整了我們的銷售隊伍，他們在推銷雅虎的廣告時，亦同時可以推銷手機廣告。」
「我們也有一個移動的專家力量，幫助他們做到移動廣告， 但在線廣告客戶不必跟不同的人聯絡，如果他們也想購買手機廣告的話。」
上個月，微軟和雅虎獲美國司法部和歐洲委員會開綠燈，讓他們合作協議無條件下得到通過，他們正著手落實協議的細則。
卡茲說：「我們希望把重點放在客戶的搜尋體驗上，而跟微軟的合作主要在支援我們的搜尋入門網站的後端，供給我們傳統的連結。」
「現在我們不用擔心核心的管道，我們可以專注於提供娛樂、參與和有用的用戶體驗。」他說：「這些新的應用程序都是例子，突顯我們能提供的。」
在上週的2010年美國無線通信展，雅虎推出兩款 iPhone應用，Yahoo Sketch-a-search和Yahoo Search，目的為提高客戶在接收訊息時參與感。
「其他搜索應用程序使用GPS、城市名稱或郵政編碼來描述的位置，但這都不是人對位置的真正意思。」卡茲說。 「我們推出Sketch-a-Search(SaS)本地搜索體驗，就是要讓客戶可在一隻手指打圈的範圍內，修窄搜尋結果。」
「現時主要應用在搜尋飲食及酒店，但我們會在iPhone平台上，增加更多的本地信息和評價資料。」他說：「雅虎一直在本地業務一段時間，我們將利用這些內容為SaS搜索引擎，我們的主要搜索應用程序。 」
「這兩個應用程序是免費的，我們也沒有推出任何廣告， 但我將會稍後推出廣告，我們為移動本地搜尋廣告而興奮，而我們一直都擅於查詢中賺錢。”
本地和流動有一種天然的親和力。
「本地對於雅虎極為重要性」卡茨說：「對於SaS搜索引擎，我們問自己'你怎麼通過手機鏡頭去看待本地呢？”
「移動搜索結果應該是近於咫尺而你所關心的事。」他說：「當你靠近某一點時，那就會有很多機會使用位置，而一天之內，亦有很多機會需要配合位置的。
「我們今天已做了這方面的一些工作，但位置信息亦是不很精細，我們就會繼續做得更精細的。”
雖然這些新的應用，目前僅適用於 iPhone，雅虎計劃推出其他智能手機版本。
「在2009年，我們大部分的應用都給是 iPhone和Blackberry的；在2010年我們加入Android，很快大家便會看到Android的App。」卡茲說。
「雅虎是與「平台不可知」論者，客戶要去的地方，我們便去；如果智能手機平台大量激增會令客戶使用可上互聯網手機，這是一件好事。」他說。
除了標準的橫幅廣告，雅虎計劃把這個淘金工具推展至付費搜尋，並隨著時間的推移，再擴展至付費通話廣告、當地促銷、優惠券和其他優惠。
繙譯外電
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