Knowledge at Wharton

The sports world went into overdrive this month when it was announced that soccer star David Beckham had signed a landmark five-year sports contract worth an estimated $250 million to play soccer with the Los Angeles Galaxy. But what many Wharton sports and marketing experts are wondering is whether Beckham can live up to the hype surrounding the deal and produce enough star power to not only boost the team’s revenue but also raise the profile of Major League Soccer in the U.S.

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There’s a saying in show business: Never follow an animal act. Yet that was the tough task facing Mitchell Caplan CEO of E*Trade Financial Corp. when he took the floor to deliver a speech at Wharton -- with the audience still laughing over a clip from a notorious E*Trade ad that aired during the 2000 Super Bowl. Caplan didn’t falter however and went on to discuss how he had helped rescue a company that four years ago seemed on the brink of extinction.

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Do your Hindu Sikh and Jain coworkers need a three-day weekend in November to celebrate Diwali? Have you ever asked Muslim employees to help design products destined for a Southeast Asian market? Did you know one colleague urging another to accept Christ as a personal savior is a legally protected act? In the world of corporate diversity and inclusion first there was race then gender and ethnicity then sexual orientation. Now religion is knocking at the door and according to some experts and practitioners it isn’t likely to go away anytime soon.

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Business has long been likened to warfare according to Wharton marketing professor Scott Armstrong so it is hardly surprising that companies strive to beat their competitors and wrest away as much market share as possible. But such efforts not only waste time and energy they can actually be detrimental to the firm’s profitability according to Armstrong. Based on new research and examples from today’s business environment Armstrong and co-author Kesten Green suggest that overemphasis on market share is the wrong approach.

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Announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show and Apple’s MacWorld conference both held earlier this month heralded the arrival of a number of products at the center of technology convergence trends. Among the most eagerly awaited are Apple’s iPhone -- which brings together the capabilities of a cell phone and an iPod music player along with other features associated with personal computers -- and Apple TV which allows users to play the movies and TV shows they download from iTunes on their big-screen TVs. But are computer companies like Apple hitting the right notes? Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader spoke with Knowledge at Wharton about whether iPhone Apple TV and other products are delivering features that consumers really want or if this is simply technology in search of a market.

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These days almost every company worth its balance sheet insists that it invests in ”innovation.” But does it make or lose money on these investments? That is the question that James Andrew and Harold Sirkin tackle in their new book titled Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation. According to the authors who are senior vice presidents and directors of The Boston Consulting Group a new idea is just an invention -- and not a true innovation -- unless it generates financial returns. In an interview with Knowledge at Wharton Sirkin discusses the challenges companies face as they seek to innovate and -- hopefully -- make a few bucks along the way.

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When Richard ”Dick” Fuld took charge of Lehman Brothers as CEO in 1994 the firm was famous on Wall Street for the bitter internal feud between traders and investment bankers that had cost Lehman its independence a decade earlier. Fuld who had sided with fellow traders in the battle knew he would have to make peace with the bankers and create a culture based on teamwork if the firm wanted to compete in a new era of integrated financial services. ”The early Lehman Brothers was a great example of how not to do it ” he said in a recent Wharton Leadership lecture.

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In her keynote address at the 28th Annual Wharton Women in Business Conference in Philadelphia Thia Breen president of Estee Lauder Americas and head of Global Business Development told the audience that she was nearly fired from her first job. ”That was the moment I started to understand: I am totally responsible for my own success ” said Breen whose first job out of college was unloading shipments of toys at Marshall Fields.

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After years of a declining stock price Home Depot announced the resignation of CEO Robert Nardelli on January 3. Wharton faculty members and other experts say Nardelli a talented former executive at General Electric who came within a hair’s breadth of replacing Jack Welch as head of the giant conglomerate brought the wrong toolbox to the job after he was recruited for Home Depot’s top spot in December 2000. With strategic missteps an outsized compensation contract and a knack for alienating employees and shareholders Nardelli turned out to be a star-crossed leader.

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Richard F. Syron chairman and CEO of mortgage-securities giant Freddie Mac says he remains ”bearish” on the housing market and sees a rising tide of mortgage defaults and foreclosures on the horizon. He doesn’t believe a rebound will happen until late summer 2007 when the nation’s housing inventory bloated from weak sales gets whittled down. Syron spoke with Knowledge at Wharton before delivering a Wharton leadership lecture.

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