According to a recent article in the New York Times (“Walmart to bring back layaway for the holidays,”), Walmart is bringing back their “layaway” payment program, where customers can set aside big purchases at the back of the store and pay for them in advance, over a period of several months. This is a pretty…

I travel a lot. In any given month, I’m on the road for 2 or 3 weeks. As a confirmed road warrior, I’m a longtime Marriott customer, and they’ve always taken good care of me. The other day I was getting ready to go give a talk at a conference in Des Moines, Iowa, and…

There was a great article in the Motley Fool (“Five Companies That Know Why They’re Great,” by Matt Koppenheffer) that mentioned five companies that have done a great job of identifying and capitalizing on their competitive advantages. This article offers several ideal examples of how these high-performing companies have honed in on what truly makes them…

The death of Steve Jobs was one of those singular events in the business world – no matter where you were or what industry you’re in, when you heard the news, it had an effect on you. It made you stop and think, and reflect on how much this person had meant to American (and…

I cannot help but continue to write about Netflix and their business decisions –  maybe that’s because Netflix keeps making extremely dubious decisions. First, Netflix angered its customers with an out-of-nowhere price hike that was clumsily communicated (and resulted in 1 million customers cancelling their subscriptions). Now, Netflix has decided to split itself up into two companies with…

I’ve never been a big fan of “The King” – and I don’t mean Elvis Presley, I mean the creepy-looking plastic-mask wearing “King” who has appeared in Burger King’s TV ads for the past several years. We’ve written before about how even though Burger King’s creative got a lot of publicity, it didn’t seem to…

America loves sports, right? Then why are so many pro sports teams struggling to sell tickets? According to a recent article in Slate (“Plenty of Good Seats Still Available,” Aug. 4, 2011), Major League Baseball, the NFL, NBA, and NHL have all witnessed declines in attendance during the past three years in a row. Many baseball…

Hewlett-Packard (HP) announced on Thursday, August 18 that it is taking its heavily-touted TouchPad tablet PC offer the market, only 2 months after it was launched, and that it plans to get out of the PC business altogether. (CNNMoney, “HP kills TouchPad, looks to exit PC business,” Aug. 18, 2011) This is a rather shocking, humbling…

Most of us have now become familiar with the popular slogan of ‘too big to fail’.  However, have you ever heard the phrase ‘too big to care’?    Thankfully Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider and home internet service provider, provides an exemplary case study in this new and often disheartening phenomenon. The success of Comcast’s…