REVENUE STRATEGY - INTERNET VIDEOS

Celebrities are making quick, inexpensive videos that show off their range of talents on the internet because there's an opportunity for real revenue. Internet and TV companies are following close.
1. Sites such as ManiaTV pay the major celebrities who create content for their site, either directly or through an ad revenue-sharing agreement.
2. Sites such as FunnyorDie.com have yet to pull in profits, but their quickly growing audiences and celebrity-caliber content are grabbing the attention of advertisers.
3. The internet gives celebrities a way to access ad coffers more directly than they can on TV.
4. Yahoo has launched a host of branded channels featuring original online programming created by professionals and semi-professionals.
5. To stake their claim, traditional TV networks have brought original Web producers on staff to create original online content.
6. ABC hired celebrity video blogger Amanda Congdon, former host of Rocketboom, as a regular vlogger for its ABC News Now site
7. CBS acquired online finance show Wallstrip as well as online music community Last.fm.

The revenue rush on the internet takes exciting turns every day.

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SICK LEAVE

This is perhaps the second time I have ever been set back with a cold and respiratory tract infection in summer! The anti-biotic gives me a groggy head and a pain perhaps around the address of my liver

I groan and wonder whether the Fortune report of a couple of years ago still holds true about Bill Gates never ever having resorted to a sick leave during his entire working life!

And reportedly, he thrives on hamburgers. So should we actually reconsider our evangelical ham-burger bashing?

Sniff! Groan!
Cough! Cough! Groan!

REVENUE STRATEGY - TOM FORD

Designer Tom Ford aims to capitalize on rising global demand for luxury goods that has swelled the industry's annual revenue to about 160 billion euros ($214 billion), according to consulting firm Bain & Co.

1. Directly owned shops will open in London, Milan, Los Angeles and Hawaii starting next year.
2. Lane Crawford Joyce Group has agreed to open at least 87 franchised stores in Asia. The franchised stores will be located in places including Beijing, Moscow and Dubai.
3. He plans to start distributing his apparel through department stores such as luxury retailers Neiman Marcus Group Inc. in the U.S. and Harrods in London.
4. He has signed accords with Italian men's wear maker Ermenegildo Zegna SpA to produce clothing and with Estee Lauder Cos. for fragrances.

Reputation is the soul of revenue and more revenue

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EXPENDITURE STRATEGY - TWO-WHEELER MAKERS (INDIA)

State Bank of India and other lenders will charge borrowers more for auto loans. GE Money, the consumer finance division of General Electric Co., stopped advancing new loans for purchasing motorcycles and scooters as it wants to concentrate resources on high growth and high profitability businesses in India. And the monsoon months (June to September) slow two-wheeler sales.

So:
1. Hero Honda Motors Ltd lowered output this month.
2. Bajaj Auto Ltd. will reduce production by as much as 10 percent to reduce stocks at dealerships
3. TVS, which makes about 55,000 motorcycles a month, has cut motorcycle production by as much 5,000 units a month.

So is it a sign of over investment that:
1. Hero Honda and its affiliates are spending 22 billion rupees to build two new factories, in addition to the existing two, near New Delhi?
2. Bajaj started a new factory in April in the northern state of Uttarakhand?
3. TVS opened a facility in the northern Himachal Pradesh state?

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REVENUE STRATEGY - CELTEL

Mobile phones have proved very popular in Africa, where there is limited access to fixed-line telephones, especially in rural areas.

1. Celtel, Africa's third largest mobile phone company, has scrapped roaming charges for users in three more states Gabon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Congo in addition to Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.
2. Its One Network allows those subscribers to make calls at local rates and get incoming calls free.
3. It hopes to expand free roaming to its entire operations in 15 African states as soon as is practical.

Revenue derives from understanding the price elasticity of demand.
Will the scrapping of roaming charges be more than made up by volume?

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EXPENDITURE STRATEGY - NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR

1. National Semiconductor Corp., a maker of chips that manage power in electronic devices, announced an accelerated stock buyback valued at $1.5 billion as part of a program worth a total of $2 billion.
2. The company has an existing repurchase program valued at an additional $380 million.
3. The company also announced plans to sell $1 billion in bonds. The proceeds will be used to repay a bridge loan, which was taken out to help fund the share buybacks.

The name’s Bonds. Just Bonds.
They obviously lower expenses when Bond rates are lower than Bridge Loan rates and the return on investment.

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REVENUE STRATEGY - 3M

3M, once a leading innovator was stifling under the discipline of Six Sigma processes. While Six Sigma was invented as a way to improve quality, its main value to corporations now clearly is its ability to save time and money. Wharton School professor Mary Benner and Harvard Business School professor Michael L. Tushman, suggest that Six Sigma will lead to more predictable, incremental innovation at the expense of more blue-sky work. While process excellence demands precision, consistency, and repetition, innovation calls for variation, failure, and serendipity. 3M’s reputation as an innovator has been sliding.

So Now:
1. 3M has loosened the reins a bit by removing 3M research scientists' obligation to hew to Six Sigma objectives. These financially definitive outcomes were much more elusive in the context of a research lab.
2. It is opening the money spigot to help get the creative juices flowing - hiking spending on R&D, acquisitions, and capital expenditures. The overall R&D budget will grow 20% this year, to $1.5 billion.
3. Even more significant it is funneling cash into “core” areas of 3M technology, 45 in all, from abrasives to nanotechnology to flexible electronics.
4. In January, it sold its pharma business for $2 billion.
5. Its emphasis has shifted from profitability and process discipline to growth and innovation.

Premise 1: Invention is a disorderly process.
Premise 2: Disorder is the cradle of inefficiency and loss.
Inference: So invention begets loss.
WRONG!

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REVENUE STRATEGY - SALESFORCE & GOOGLE

Salesforce and Google are forging closer ties.
1. Salesforce will introduce a version of its customer relationship management software that lets small companies buy Google text ads to promote their businesses, then manage leads that result from the campaigns from within Salesforce's product.
2. Salesforce and Google will show the result of technology Salesforce got when it bought startup Kieden in August, 2006, which lets Salesforce.com users manage Google ad campaigns.
3. They have combined Salesforce.com with Google Maps to help sales staff find meetings.
4. Google's OneBox appliance server lets companies search data inside Salesforce's program.
5. Salesforce sells Google's Docs & Spreadsheets software through its AppExchange online store.

There's the potential for more collaboration, including the ability for large companies to manage Google ad campaigns using Salesforce products.

Salesforce alone has not stopped paddling:
1. It has made three small acquisitions, including Koral Technologies,
2. It has spent more on snaring new customers than buying companies.
3. It manages itself to break even or post a slim profit as Wall Street values Salesforce's revenue more than its earnings

Revenue helps those who help themselves, alone or with co-crusaders

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REVENUE STRATEGY - CARPHONE WAREHOUSE

1. Carphone Warehouse Plc, Europe's largest mobile-phone retailer, is bundling services with its wireless products
2. Last year it began offering free high-speed Internet access with its fixed-line phone service to lure new subscribers from BT Group Plc and Virgin Media Inc.
3. It plans to open 150 to 200 stores in the U.S. with Best Buy Co. over the next 18 months. It is opening kiosks or booths in U.S. Best Buy stores after a five-month trial.

You can find more revenue in bundling and partnerships

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REVENUE STRATEGY – TATA TELESERVICES

1. Tata Teleservices Ltd., the phone services arm of India's $22-billion Tata Group, plans to borrow $400 million overseas to extend its network in the world's fastest-growing mobile-phone market.
2. It hired seven banks to arrange the seven-year loan.
3. It will spend 35 billion rupees ($862 million) to develop high-speed services and build base stations, towers and purchase telecommunications equipment.

Globalization may be one of the secrets of exponential revenue growth

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REVENUE STRATEGY - KWG PROPERTY HOLDING

Guangzhou's property market is high-growth supported by wage growth. The average price of new housing surged 23 percent last year.

1. KWG Property Holding Ltd., a Chinese developer partly owned by a Morgan Stanley affiliate, accelerated property sales.
2. It has ten more projects under development, including landmark buildings such as Cosmos and International Finance Place.
3. Its hotels under development will help raise investment income to 15 percent of net income
4. It has bought land in Suzhou and Conghua. It may buy as much as 2 million square meters of land to support future growth.

Investment grants revenue, over investment does not.

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REVENUE STRATEGY - SANOFI-AVENTIS

Prostate cancer is the third-most-common cancer in the world and ranked sixth in cancers fatal to men

Sanofi-Aventis SA, the world's third- biggest drugmaker, developed Taxotere treatment for advanced prostate cancer. It had a 21 percent lower death risk than those on another treatment.

(Taxotere generated 449 million euros ($606 million) in sales for Sanofi in the three months ended March 31, 10 percent more than a year earlier)

Successful cutting edge R&D for our quest for survival will generate revenue.

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REVENUE STRATEGY - NIPPON MINING HOLDINGS

1. Nippon Mining Holdings Inc., Japan's biggest copper smelter and an oil refiner, may build a petrochemical plant in the country to produce the raw material used to make polyester for export to China. (China's economy expanded 11.1 percent in the first quarter of this year, spurring demand for plastics and polyester.)
2. It aims to increase investments in petrochemicals to offset slower gains in oil refining profits.
3. It plans to spend about 180 billion yen in the three years through March 2010, expanding chemicals and copper production.
4. It is conducting a feasibility study for a 100 billion yen production facility with an output about 150,000 metric tons of copper for the Caserones copper deposit in northern Chile
5. It will not bid at auctions for Peruvian copper deposits, citing several uncertainties

Revenue comes from growing markets and growing sectors, not from realms of uncertainties.

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REVENUE STRATEGY - BEST BUY

1. Best Buy Co. plans to win mobile-phone sales from the U.S. phone carriers that dominate the market by giving customers more choice and better service.
2. It teamed with Carphone Warehouse Plc, Europe's largest wireless retailer, after discovering U.S. shoppers were disgruntled (more than 80 percent of customers have trouble shopping for mobile phones). With Carphone Warehouse, Best Buy will be well positioned to draw customers from Circuit City Stores Inc. and RadioShack Corp. as well as the telephone companies themselves, AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless
3. Its push into wireless services should improve market share and profit with margins 11 percentage points higher than televisions and computers. Neimeth said.
4. Best Buy, with Carphone Warehouse, is opening “hundreds” of Best Buy Mobile outlets in the U.S. over the next four years that sell only handsets, accessories and calling plans. The stores average about 1,000 square feet.
5. It will expand wireless departments in its more than 800 U.S. stores, increasing phone selection by 25 percent to about 90, and giving salespeople four times more training.
6. For the first time, Best Buy's new stores and cell-phone departments will have chairs for customers, offering a place to sit while signing up for a calling plan.
7. Best Buy Mobile stores will sell plans by AT&T, Sprint Nextel Corp., Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc, and Amp'd Mobile.
8. It is expanding in China and focusing on profitable consumers rather than products.
9. Carphone Warehouse gives Best Buy expertise in selling mobile phones, while Carphone gets Best Buy's trademark customer service Geek Squad that goes to homes to install computers and solve electronics- related problems.

Resolving customer grouses = revenue

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REVENUE STRATEGY - THE THEORETICAL DIVIDE

One school of management professionals is managing the well understood parts of business with dazzlimng efficiency using algorithmic decision-making techniques and using highly sophisticated software.

Another school of management professionals is delving into the mysteries and heuristics of how products interact with their customers' lives in ways that a big quantitative, algorithmic survey never will. For example, how do teenagers think about their cell phones? And guess what? They don't think of them as phones!

Are both right? Are both wrong? If not, which is righter? Is their a middle path?

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EXPENDITURE STRATEGY - FLEXTRONICS

Flextronics International Ltd, maker mobile of phones for Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications and the Xbox 360 game console for Microsoft Corp, agreed to buy smaller rival Solectron Corp. for about $3.6 billio

1. Flextronics may eliminate as many as 1,500 jobs.
2. It has moved production to lower-cost countries such as India to improve profitability
3. It will close some factory space in North America and Western Europe.
4. The combination will generate at least $200 million in after-tax cost savings in 18 to 24 months.

This is the cost saving trend: cut jobs, close factories, move to cheaper locations

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REVENUE STRATEGY - FLEXTRONICS

1. Flextronics International Ltd, maker mobile of phones for Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications and the Xbox 360 game console for Microsoft Corp, agreed to buy smaller rival Solectron Corp. for about $3.6 billion to expand in the market for electronics manufacturing for companies such as mobile-phone makers.
2. The Solectron deal will add contracts with Cisco Systems Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc.
3. Flextronics has expanded its product range.
4. Solectron's strength in the high-end computing and telecom segments will be an invaluable addition.
5. The combined company will have more than $30 billion in annual sales and about 200,000 employees.

Big fish eat small fish and become bigger than their sum by synergy

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REVENUE STRATEGY - SUZLON ENERGY

Governments worldwide are turning to wind power for their energy needs to cut carbon emissions and reduce dependence on coal and crude oil.

1. Suzlon Energy Ltd., India's biggest wind-turbine maker, hired three banks ABN Amro Holding NV, ICICI Bank Ltd. and State Bank of India Ltd. to arrange a 1.3 billion euro ($1.75 billion) loan to buy a 25 percent stake in Germany's Repower Systems AG.
2. The loan will be used to refinance existing debt and to pay for the acquisition.
3. Suzlon took out a 450 million euro loan in March last year to buy wind-turbine gearbox maker Hansen transmissions International NV for 465 million euros.

How many ways can you get revenue from power without burning coal or oil?
One of the answers my friend is blowing in the wind.

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REVENUE STRATEGY - PEPSI

Indian villagers charged that PepsiCo—which has named India as a top strategic priority—consumes excessive groundwater in their parched communities. Even worse was the repeated claim that the snack and beverage company, along with rival Coca-Cola Co., were allowing pesticide residue from groundwater to get into locally made soda. Blasted with e-mail alerts from Centre for Science and Environment, journalists and bloggers worldwide leapt on the story, raising the specter of a global consumer reaction just when soda makers were coming under harsh scrutiny for contributing to obesity.

What did Pepsi do?
1. It held a rare joint press conference with Coke in New Delhi, offering data that contradicted CSE's and saying the company followed the same strict standards all around the world.
2. Pepsi executives joined CSE’s Sunita Narain at sometimes contentious meetings over the next two years aimed at helping the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) arrive at guidelines on pesticides, caffeine, and even PH levels in soda.
3. It met with editorial boards, presented its own data in press conferences, and ran TV commercials featuring its then-president in India, Rajeev Bakshi, walking through a gleaming laboratory.
4. It also stepped up efforts to reduce water usage in its plants. A bottling facility, in the city of Panipat, near New Delhi, has reduced water usage to 8.6 liters for every case of two dozen 8-oz. bottles, down from 35 liters at the start of 2005. Workers post Japanese-inspired kaizens, or suggested improvements, to reduce waste, illustrating the ideas with cartoons and stick figures for added clarity.
5. After Indra Nooyi became Pepsi CEO she visited India, spoke widely of Pepsi's initiatives to improve water and the environment and her own fond memories of growing up in the country. One of her main themes: "This is a company with a soul." Indian newspapers and television covered her tour lavishly and with praise. Soda sales improved, although they ended 2006 flat compared with rapid double-digit growth in China.
6. It may even invest in educating communities in how to farm better, collect water, and then work with industry to retrofit plants and recycle.

Reputation is the soul of revenue.....

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REVENUE STRATEGY - DELL

1. Dell has reinstated its founder Michael Dell to lead the firm out of its sagging fortunes replacing his successor Kevin Rollins, who leaves the firm with immediate effect.
2. It has been overhauling virtually every part of the company from the executive ranks to customer service.
3. It will bear new expenses of selling through 3000 Wal-Mart stores. It must assemble a large inventory of machines to keep in stock at each Wal-Mart store as well as manage costs associated with selling through an intermediary.
4. It is likely to continue to increase spending for customer service and technical support.
5. It may boost spending for design and engineering
6. It has started a comprehensive review of costs and plans to eliminate about 8,800 employees over the coming 12 months to deliver better value to customers.

Eliminating staff delivers better value to customers? Or shareholders?

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