Swedish auto maker Volvo has as a key component of its strategy to gain a competitive advantage by providing a car safer than its rivals' offerings. Volvo reckons people, at least the more affluent ones,will pay more for a car preserving their human capital. Differentiation improves markups. 

In Australia, Rob Taylor tells us in the wall street Journal, the Swedish firm is developing a technology that could help minimize car collisions with kangaroos, a perennial nuisance:

Will Airbus Give Up on the A380?

 Two strategic bets
When Boeing committed to the Dreamliner (AKA the B787), it made a very different strategic bet from Airbus which had made its own huge bet on the A380.  Both manufacturers forecast world traffic growth of near 5% per year over twenty years.  The demand for planes is a demand derived from air travel. Thus the straegic question:  How were the duopolists' customers–the world's airlines–going to meet a doubling of passenger miles/kilometers in less than two decades? 

Two different answers
Airbus decided they airlines would move more people through the key international hubs with a bigger jumbo jet that would increase those hubs' throughput capacity.  Their solution was the A380 which could both fly 8-10,000 nautical miles and hold up to 950 people. The massive size of the plane would also allow it to be marketed with a smaller seating capacity and hitherto undreamed of luxuries like an airborne gym, three cocktail lounges, and other amenities.

Boeing predicted that the world's airline would meet the growing demand with more point-to-point flights.  The Dreamliner would have a similar long range, but would hold only 250-350 passengers.  Boeing bet the airlines would try to attract their most lucrative customers with direct flights maximizing the time value of flying executives rather than the luxury that also required large numbers of the unwashed masses to meet load factors. Boeing also committed later than Airbus and may have gone to school on the European's putt.


With hindsight is there a winner?
So are the results in yet?  No, but there is preliminary evidence Boeing may have made the better bet.        
So far Airbus has failed to get a single new buyer this year.  And now in this video, Bloomberg's Benedikt Kammel suggests Airbus's might discontinue its A380 superjumbo as soon as 2018.  

Has Airbus misjudged the market? 


(Source: Bloomberg, Dec. 11)

Jet Blue Speaking Arabic?

FlyDubai Sets Out Stall with Boeing Binge

Boeing was a big hit at the Dubai Airshow, but it was not just 777s that it sold.  FlyDubai committed to buy up to 100 737 MAX 8 airplanes and 11 Next-Generation 737-800s (Boeing's single-aisle jets.)  Presumably much of these will be made here in Wichita by Spirit AeroSystems. Hubbed in Dubai like Emirates, FlyDubai's strategy is as a low cost, shorter haul flight airline as it tries to capture destinations (particularly in the Arab/Muslim world) currently not being served by Emirates Airline, the regional powerhouse. 

In this video, WSJ's Rory Jones looks at where the company is headed and what might be some of the challenges it faces:


Photo: Getty Images

Innovation Is Alive and Well at Milliken

Kodak, once a big U.S. innovators is in a terminal decline.  John Bussey in this 1/12/2012 Wall Street Journal video shows what textile maker Milliken & Co did right. 

Steve Jobs Resigns

Steve Jobs Through the Years 8/24/2011 7:54:17 PM

Steve Jobs has spent his career challenging conventions about personal computing. He's transformed an industry and changed the way we think about technology. A look back at the accomplishments of an American business icon.




Mossberg: Steve Jobs, a Historical Figure 8/24/2011 8:02:51 PM

Steve Jobs is "one of the two or three leading historical figures of the tech revolution," says WSJ personal technology columnist Walt Mossberg.



Julia Angwin on Steve Jobs's Charisma 8/24/2011 8:24:12 PM

Senior technology editor Julia Angwin discusses Steve Jobs's charisma and the intimidation factor when interviewing the Apple CEO. (Photo: AP Photo.)

Mark Hurd, CEO of Hewlett-Packard

Jun 3 2010 Mark Hurd, CEO of Hewlett-Packard, speaks to Richard Waters, FT West Coast editor, about acquiring Palm, moving into the smartphone market, vertical integration and the impact of the Foxconn suicides. (11m 24sec)


They discuss business models, vertical integration, and product innovation.

What a Difference a Year Makes: US TV networks

In this May 20 Video,Kenneth Li notes how TV networks are re-thinking business models. On and off screen, the media industry is returning to comfort zones disturbed in recent years by thousands of alternative sources of entertainment on the internet. Across the media sector, executives were eager to convince advertisers that television is as resilient as it was in the eras they are harking back to. (1m 54sec)

Ford is in the Black

Matthew Dolan and Jeff Bennett reported on January 29th in the Wall Street Journal "Ford Posts First Full-Year Profit Since 2005." Ford earned $2.7 billion in 2009. Any number greater than zero is a miracle in Detroit. This despite the fact that Ford is burdened with a much greater debt burden than Chrysler and GM for whom the federal government rolled its bondholders.


The easy interpretation is that is one for capitalism as opposed to socialism.  Any student of the decline of American car making will realize that Detroit's inward focused culture and its willingness to run to Washington when in trouble are better. A deeper analysis shows that Ford, by bringing in an outsider, Alan Mulally, they committed themselves to remedying the root problem: Detroit's culture.

AbeBooks Buys Christlands

AbeBooks is an interesting online book seller. Internet Retailer ranks them #70 among the top 500 online retailers. They have been quietly buying up players in the business:

"Gaining market share and widening the reach of its e-commerce technologies, AbeBooks Inc. has acquired Chrislands, a company that builds, hosts and maintains online bookstores for used booksellers around the world. Web-only retailer AbeBooks, which sells new, used and rare books from 13,500 registered booksellers, did not disclose terms of the acquisition."

The Internet Retailer tells us "This is the fourth acquisition by AbeBooks in as many years"

Chrysler Pulls out of the Clone Wars

Joseph B. White writes in today's Wall Street Journal that Detroit is rethinking the wisdom of selling three or four versions of the same car under three different brands. Why? "[I]n a market with more than 300 different models -- depending on how you count -- fielding two or three or even four of the same basic car can lead to some very thin slices of pie, especially when increasingly well-informed shoppers can figure out in two or three mouse clicks that a Saturn Outlook and a Buick Enclave and a GMC Acadia are just three different styling takes on the same large crossover wagon."

White continues, "Chrysler's senior management recently declared that it wants out of the clone game. The company, which has the advantage of being closely held and thus not as concerned about what outsiders think, has outlined plans to kill a flock of its slow-selling clones, and focus its efforts on selling more of each model that remains."

After all, "Customers don't care whether they buy a minivan from a Dodge dealer or the Chrysler dealer just down the street. They just want a good minivan. In these difficult times, Chrysler can't really afford the capital and marketing effort to promote two functionally similar versions of a three-row box on wheels."

Read "Send Out the clones."
l

If the Goliath Has the Distributors In His Pocket, It's Time For David's Sling

Craft brewers are small brewers who brew beer much more like homebrewers do and eschew the tricks of the mass marketed beers such as those of Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and Coors. Craft brewers have about 5% of the U.S. beer market; imported beers have about 11%. Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and Coors have over 80%. Read David Kesmodel’s article, "Small Brews Show They're Not Weak Beer: As Popularity Rises, Specialty Brewers Challenge Distributors" (Wall Street Journal, December 10, 2007; Page B1.) State beer distribution laws sound like one more "consumer protection" law that harms competition, consumer choice and consumer welfare.

Entering China and India

Professor Anil K. Gupta, Professor of Strategy at the Smith School (The University of Maryland), explains to the Wall Street Journal how to enter the markets of China and India: