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Published on July 27, 2012

Posted by Paul Christ

Small Generic Drug Firms Need Niches to Survive Looming Price War (Reuters)

Marketing is considered a relatively fluid discipline. While many other areas of business are slow to embrace change (e.g., changing a company’s technology infrastructure) or tend to follow a fairly consistent routine (e.g., Accounting department), marketing constantly requires the cultivation of new ideas that lead to adjustments to its strategy.

While marketing decisions often are built around the idea of something new, many of the basic concepts of marketing have not changed much since the modern marketing era began in the 1950s. For instance, the key cornerstone of marketing remains the Marketing Concept, which says marketers must engage in efforts to identify customers’ needs before committing significant resources to various marketing decisions.

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Published on July 14, 2012

Posted by Paul Christ

The 10 Fastest-Growing Retailers in America (Time)

The National Retail Federation (NRF) is a trade association that supports all things retailing. The association offers a number of resources ranging from educational conferences to training services to political lobbying. Additionally, it publishes excellent industry reports. While access to some reports is restricted to association members, NRF does provide access to many others for free. One of the association’s key reports is its annual tally of top retailers, which is widely perceived as being a valuable measure of the state of retailing. Included in this report is information on retailer sales and number of stores operated. This report is available through the NRF’s Stores trade publication.

Time magazine has done a nice job analyzing this information. By sorting the Sales Growth column (all columns can be sorted), an interesting list of the top 10 fastest growing U.S. retailers emerges. The top spots are dominated by technology retailers, which is particularly reflective of how the retail industry is changing. At the top of the list are mostly non-store based, e-commerce sites including Amazon and Apple iTunes. But technology retailing is not confined to online. The rapid growth of mobile technology has resulted in Verizon and AT&T emerging as leading retailers.

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Published on July 02, 2012

Posted by Paul Christ

10 Ways Walmart Changed the World (Time)

Fifty years ago today the business world changed when Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store in Arkansas. What has transpired since that first store is nothing short of astounding. Today, the company is a behemoth that dominates retailing. For instance, Walmart’s sales exceed $1.2 billion per day. In the U.S., more than 140 million customers shop at Walmart each week. And if those statistics were not amazing, then consider that Walmart employs over 2 million workers making it the world’s largest private employer.

But leading in retail sales volume, customer counts and payroll size are not the only significant achievements for Walmart. As discussed in this story, the company’s influence on other business functions is also impressive. For instance, Walmart often is credited with changing the relationship between suppliers and retailers. Their requirement that suppliers become more involved in managing their product’s inventory, is a key reason supply chain management has evolved into a critical business function. Walmart also is credited with helping heighten the retailing industry’s awareness of the environmental impact of the products they use and also the products they sell.