Knowledge at Wharton

In Wharton marketing professor George Day’s world the term ”peripheral vision” means the ability of companies to detect interpret and act on distant signals whether a rumor heard about a new rival a newspaper article about a new medical device or the popularity of a blog started by a dissatisfied customer. Day and co-author Paul Schoemaker have written a book entitled appropriately enough Peripheral Vision: Detecting the Weak Signals That Will Make or Break Your Company designed to help firms avoid being blindsided by unexpected events. According to the authors only 20% of companies have succeeded in developing peripheral vision well enough to stay ahead of their competitors. Day talked with Knowledge at Wharton’s Mukul Pandya and Robbie Shell about his book.

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As CBS News put it ”When the Fed Chairman Speaks Everyone Freaks.” What that hyperbolic headline refers to is the sell-off in stocks and rise in bond yields this week after Ben Bernanke the Federal Reserve chairman reportedly told a CNBC reporter that markets had misread his testimony before Congress last week during which he had seemed to hint that the Fed might pause in raising interest rates. Stocks and bonds rallied in response. But after suggesting at a Washington correspondents’ dinner over the weekend that the markets had ”misunderstood” him the sell-off began. What exactly is the Fed likely to do on May 10? And what will that mean for investors? Jeremy Siegel a professor of finance at Wharton and author of the book The Future for Investors spoke with Knowledge at Wharton’s Mukul Pandya and Robbie Shell about interest rates oil prices the commodities markets Bernanke’s learning curve and President Bush’s approval ratings among other topics.

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Rising prices for crude oil and gasoline have alarmed many consumers and put President Bush and other U.S. politicians in a position where they feel they have to do something -- anything -- in response especially in an election year. But members of Wharton’s finance department and private-sector economists say it’s a good time to look rationally at the reasons for the price hikes and their likely effect on the economy and on energy policy. They also say that as long as the United States continues to rely on oil producers in other parts of the world high prices and price volatility will be the norm. Bolivian President Evo Morales’s decision announced this week to nationalize the country’s natural gas sector only underscores that point.

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When Lawton Robert Burns Wharton professor of health care systems began teaching healthcare management he found a hole in the academic literature. There was plenty of material on physicians hospitals government regulations and insurance. But there was no single source of good information on a key component of the industry -- the producers of healthcare products. Burns aims to fill that gap with his new book The Business of Healthcare Innovation. The book focuses on four sectors -- pharmaceuticals biotechnology medical devices and information technology -- and looks at the internal and external factors at work in determining whether a new pill or new pacemaker ends up in the hands of patients and doctors.

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NutriSystem -- the Horsham Pa.-based online weight-loss company -- has bulked up. Its first-quarter 2006 revenues grew 292% to $146.8 million and net income rose 592% with analysts predicting continued sharp increases in 2006. Memories of its bankruptcy filing and litigation woes under previous owners have all but been erased even as the company plans to target new customer segments and expand internationally. And yet according to CEO Michael Hagan and president George Jankovic both of whom spoke at Wharton last month there has been as much luck and grit as glamour and glitz in the company’s rise from the ashes. ”Sometimes you learn more from your mistakes than from your successes ” says Jankovic.

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Popular social network sites including MySpace and Facebook are changing the human fabric of the Internet and have the potential to pay off big for investors but -- given their youthful user base -- they are unusually vulnerable to the next new fad. As quickly as users flock to one trendy Internet site they can just as quickly move on to another with no advance warning according to Wharton faculty and Internet analysts who offer some ideas on how these new sites can both increase user loyalty and generate revenues.

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The 2006 Venture Finals of Wharton’s Business Plan Competition offered participants judges and the audience an opportunity to peer into the future by surveying potential startups. It was a chance to see what aspiring ambitious entrepreneurs believe will be the next hot discovery. At this year’s competition healthcare companies -- ranging from medical-device makers to a creator of artificial muscles -- grabbed five of the eight finalist slots. The other three finalists included a virtual call center an online mortgage broker and a company that would replace credit cards with fingerprints. Read on and see if you have a nose for the next ”new new thing.”

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When a well-known compensation consulting firm predicted in early April that new accounting rules wouldn’t have any impact on the use of options as compensation for corporate executives Wharton accounting professor Mary Ellen Carter was ready to disagree. ”That’s just not true ” she says. ”Options will be cut and directors will be switching to restricted stock for executive compensation.” Carter’s response is the result of her research into the role of accounting in the design of CEO equity compensation which is also the title of a new paper written by her Luann J. Lynch from Darden and Wharton accounting professor Irem Tuna. Their study coincides with a ruling implemented this year by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) that requires all firms to expense the value of employee stock options.

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The recent resignation of Scott McNealy as CEO of Sun Microsystems the company he founded 22 years ago is another milestone in the succession process of a large technology company. But tech companies often pose unique succession issues in part because of their unusually fast growth and young founders according to Wharton faculty and technology experts. The challenges are especially critical when the entrepreneurs are celebrities and when the company has grown large enough that broad-based management skills become as crucial as entrepreneurial passion.

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When companies talk about marketing these days they are talking about things like promotional strategy advertising and distribution; customer perception; market share; competitors’ power; margins and pricing; products and portfolios; customer profitability; and sales forces and channels. How does a company measure the effectiveness of the various components of its marketing strategy? What metrics are most effective and how can these help maximize profits? A new book out from Wharton School Publishing titled Marketing Metrics: 50 + Metrics Every Executive Should Master identifies the pros cons and tradeoffs associated with each metric. The book is by Paul Farris Neil Bendle Phillip Pfeifer and Dave Reibstein. Reibstein a marketing professor at Wharton agreed to talk with Mukul Pandya editor in chief of Knowledge at Wharton and Robbie Shell editorial director about this new book.

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