Industrial Fiberglass Doors

INDUSTRIAL FIBERGLASS DOORS
INDUSTRY NEWS: August 2009
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The difference between 'winners' and 'losers' is the ability to view obstacles as opportunities. ~~~

Marketing Accountability

According to Michael Dunn (author of “The Marketing Accountability Imperative”), "The vast majority of companies cannot actually calculate the ROI of their marketing spending programs to uncover the hard truth about their performance."

Dunn, who is CEO of Prophet, a marketing resource service provider, says that a survey done by his company "suggests that as few as 19 percent of companies can consistently and accurately determine what they are getting — if anything — from untold millions in marketing spending."

Dunn asserts that unlike marketing, “other complex business functions, such as R&D or IT, are characterized by learned skills that smart executives could theoretically master if they put their minds to it. But this is not the case with marketing.”

This distinction, says Dunn, is because marketing “balances learned skills and hard-to-define intrinsic skills” which are reliant “on art as well as science.”

Marketing, says Dunn, requires a long-term investment in brand building which must continue with consistency during periods of earning shortfalls and requires other divisions of the company (sales, R&D, customer service, etc.) to recognize that:

(1) They must invest more in R&D, physical plant infrastructure and civic outreach to create new sources of customer value (such as financing, partnering, and service) so that marketing has something tangible to promote;

(2) Earnings shortfalls tend to (unjustifiably) increase expectations placed on marketing performance, whereas marketing's actual performance may or may not have changed at all and may or may not be a provocateur of the downturn.

Marketing accountability is a long-term proposition, says Dunn, which requires leadership with both the vision and the executive mandate to implement a multiyear corporate journey during which “accountability without authority” is not an option.

Citing a senior marketer survey conducted by the Marketing Leadership Council, Dunn points out the typical downfall of the majority of marketing efforts: That the chief marketing officer does not control many of the various elements that contribute to market-share success such as pricing, sales force training, R&D and customer service.

Another critical flaw is not allowing brand-building programs to run their full multi-year course as initially envisioned and line-itemed. Abrupt changes cloud data and make legitimate ROI evaluation of effectiveness impossible. ~~~

Self-Healing Polymers

Self-healing Polymers: Not Science Fiction

The race to commercialize self-repairing polymers is heating up R&D programs at the University of Southern Mississippi, the University of Warwick in the UK, and the University of Illinois which of the three is reportedly closest to making the technology commercially available.

Requiring no external intervention to initiate mending, embedded microcapsules rip open when the self-repairing polymer coating is scratched, releasing silica-based nanoparticles that trigger self-repair by simple exposure to ultraviolet light. ~~~

What Are Composites?

How many types of composites are there, how are they made, what are synthetic polymer resins, what are engineered composites, what are fiber-reinforced polymers and what effect are super-composites having on society? Find answers to these questions and more in UniPul's Guide to Understanding Composites.

Invisibility Cloaking

Researchers at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona have recently designed a peculiar material — called a dc metamaterial — that has the property of making objects wrapped in it undetectable to magnetic and very low-frequency electromagnetic fields. The breakthrough brings the dream of "invisibility cloaking" closer to reality and could have important repercussions in both the military and medical fields. ~gizmag

21st Century Suffragettes?

According to The Washington Post, the "sexy new discussion in policy circles around the world, thanks to the recession, is whether a significant shift of power from men to women is underway -- or whether it should be."

The numbers make a compelling case: Companies with more women in senior management roles make more money.

At least half a dozen studies, from a broad spectrum of organizations such as Columbia University, McKinsey & Co., Goldman Sachs, Ernst & Young, and Pepperdine University, document a clear relationship between women in senior management and corporate financial success. By all measures, more women means better performance.

Companies with women at the top were 18 to 69 percent more profitable than the median companies in their industries. Companies with three or more women in senior management positions score higher in overall organizational excellence and those with three or more women on their boards outperformed the competition on all measures by at least 40 percent.

While gender stereotypes are neither politically correct nor factually accurate, the research broadly finds that males tend to be genetically more competitive and risk-taking. Females, on the other hand, seem to be wired for collaboration, rely on long-term strategies and aim for measurable long-term results.

The "diversity prediction theorem" is part of the most cutting-edge thinking about best business practices. Scott Page, an economist at the University of Michigan, uses mathematical models to demonstrate that a diverse group will solve a complicated business problem better than a homogeneous group. In fact, diversity is even more important than expertise. In other words, "a bunch of white male brainiacs" won't usually reach the best conclusions.

That's why companies such as Wal-Mart, Capital One, Best Buy, Sun Microsystems and Sara Lee, to name just a few, say they've discovered that allowing people to work the way they want -- from home; at night; from the sidelines of the soccer field -- actually increases productivity by an average of 40 percent.

Bottom line, all those right-brain skills disparaged as soft in the roaring '90s are suddenly 21st-century-hot, while cocky is experiencing a slow fizzle. ~~~

MORE INFO: Christine Beems, Communications Director, Universal Pultrusions LLC, 100 Tillco Dr., POBox 1289, Marshall, AR 72650, 870-448-4406 and Metalogic Inc, 154 MC 7047, Flippin, AR 72634, 870-453-7110. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE Thanks!!! ~Christine