Featured White Papers:

• Innovating Customer Service: Retail Banking's New Frontier
  As more U.S. banks reach the federally mandated limit for deposits, they'll have to find a new way to grow.
  
  (12/22/2006)
• China's State Owned Enterprises: Reform From the Outside In
  Beijing is selling off ownership stakes in its state-owned companies. The goal isn’t capital; it’s transparency.
  
  (8/8/2006)
• Reining in Outsourcing Risk
  Exporting business processes raises the potential for trouble, but companies can do much to reduce the threats.
  
  (11/30/2005)
• Can a National Healthcare Information Network Work?
  Support for a national healthcare information network is gaining momentum in the U.S. A centralized, digitized database promises to cut healthcare costs and increase patient safety, but there are many hurdles to making the network a reality.
  
  (06/15/2005)
• How Companies Turn Customers' Big Ideas into Innovations
  The most effective product development and commercialization processes encourage dynamic communication and idea sharing among engineers, marketers, and customers.
  
  (01/12/2005)
• The Challenge of Customization: Bringing Operations and Marketing Together
  Today's companies are under greater pressure than ever to be "all things to all customers"- to produce increasing variety and customization of products and services, and keep their costs under control so they can deliver at competitive prices.
  
  (06/16/2004)
• When Art Meets Science: The Challenge of ROI Marketing
  It's a question as old as business itself: How can a company be sure it's spending the right amount of money on the right kind of marketing so that it can sell more products or services to increase profitability and, ultimately, enhance shareholder value?
  
  (12/16/2003)
• Consumers Take Charge: Defined-Contribution Health Plans
  Complaints about America's health-care system are many and familiar to employees and employers alike. After twenty rocky years, more and more people - employers, physicians, patients, and politicians - are showing their frustration with the managed care system. Medical costs and insurance premiums keep rising. The doctor-patient relationship seems to have become as impersonal as an ATM transaction. And no one seems to have solutions.
  
  (5/23/2003)
• The Customer Profitability Conundrum: When to Love 'Em or Leave 'Em
  The customer may always be right, according to the old adage. But here is a not-so-old adage that is just as true: The customer may not always be profitable. That is why increasing numbers of companies are beginning to look more closely at their customers to determine which of them are worth serving and which should take their business elsewhere. Put simply, it is sometimes necessary to identify and get rid of your worst customers -- preferably by encouraging such customers gently but firmly to migrate to your competitors.
  
  (12/04/2002)
The Changing Face of Strategic Alliances in Latin America
Strategic alliances are more important than ever for Latin American companies that wish to grow and compete in a global marketplace. At the same time, multinational corporations from outside the region in search of their own growth opportunities continue to forge alliances and acquire companies to gain entry into Latin America and other parts of the world.

(9/11/2002)