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Insights
To assist corporate privacy authorities in their new responsibilities, this study walks them through five steps on how to assess privacy issues, prioritize them, and avoid costly and embarrassing privacy infractions through preventive measures. This task is not easy. Not only are privacy professionals responsible for adjusting company culture to a new business environment of enhanced privacy awareness, but also they must navigate the organization through a complicated web of budding privacy legislation worldwide. Numerous firms face learning to juggle three spheres of privacy issues: security, compliance, and trust. Any dropped spheres will affect the other two. Only by understanding the potential risks, impacts, and uncertainties surrounding the three privacy spheres will a privacy authority create a comprehensive approach to keeping them in the air. The risks of failure are too great to ignore these vital issues. Author: Paula Lubreski. 14 pages. Index Keywords: Computer Security; Data Management; Internet; Risk Management; Strategic Planning.
People appreciate products and services that meet their needs. Generally, the better a product fits a person's needs, the better the chance that the person will repurchase. Customization can help customers believe that a product is a good fit for them. This study examines a variety of customization strategies that companies use currently and identifies new opportunities for customization that are emerging with the increasing popularity of the Internet. To satisfy customers best, companies must determine who their current customers are and what motivates them to buy a company's product or service. SRI Consulting Business Intelligence's VALS» Program provides insight about consumer behavior, aiding a company in determining the customer's needs and wants. The VALS consumer psychographic segmentation system focuses on consumers' motivations for buying products, using media, and engaging in other activities. Using VALS information about consumer behavior from a variety of sources--focus groups, the Internet, customer interviews, and surveys--companies can ascertain to whom they should target their products. The decisions about how the customization occurs depend on both the customer and the type of product. Companies need to understand which product benefits appeal to which consumers. By tying together customers, data, customization processes, and products, companies can more skillfully reach and please their customers. Author: Carolyn E. Sleeth. 8 pages. Index Keywords: Advertising; Consumer Behavior; Internet; Marketing; Retail Trade.
Increasing demand for energy, combined with current high fuel prices and energy shortages, has given developed countries a chilling reminder of the 1974 energy crunch. Short supplies of nonrenewable fossil fuels, environmental concerns, and government's two-sided coin--regulation and deregulation--are prompting companies to reevaluate their energy policies. Instead of finding cause for concern, forward-thinking businesses can use this opportunity to prepare for an uncertain energy future. Near-term preparation includes anticipating upheaval, securing reliable energy, using cost-saving technology, and improving consumer relations. Corporations with an eye on the longer term and their own sustainability will also develop plans in anticipation of government regulation by investing in new technology and developing new business models. Public perception, technology, regulation, and deregulation are transforming the energy industry. The information-technology economy and its need for reliable, premium power is a driver of energy-industry evolution. Companies are increasingly securing reliable energy sources such as on-site microturbine power generators, fuel-cell systems, or photovoltaic systems and eliminating energy inefficiencies through building and equipment design. Distributed power-generation systems are also an attractive alternative in developing countries that lack power-transmission-line infrastructure and old-money barriers to new energy technology. Long-term strategies for corporations preparing for an uncertain energy future include anticipating regulation, investing in new technologies (for example, fuel cells, photovoltaic technology, microturbines, and biomass), and developing new business models that capitalize on opportunities created by energy uncertainty. The public increasingly views climate change as real and a threat to society. In the United States, citizens support environmental progress and reforms but continue to resist paying for them. Public perception and consumers' purchasing trends with regard to environmental concerns are important but unpredictable parts of the energy environment's uncertainty. Authors: Shane Cross and Janessa Gans. 12 pages. Index Keywords: Alternative Fuels; Energy; Electric Power.
Transplantation medicine is facing its largest crisis ever, as the number of patients awaiting transplant increases rapidly and the growth in available organs stagnates. In the United States alone, upward of 6000 people die each year while waiting for organs, and that number is increasing. Xenotransplantation (cross-species transplant of cells, tissues, or organs) has the potential to ameliorate the organ shortage problem, as well as treat a variety of neurodegenerative and autoimmune diseases. However, xenotransplantation faces formidable scientific and ethical barriers to introduction. Cellular xenotransplantation research and development has accelerated faster than whole-organ transplantation because immunological barriers are easier to overcome, the procedure is less invasive, and cells are easier to manipulate genetically. Clinical trials using cellular xenotransplantation to treat Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, and chronic intractable pain are already under way in the United States. Whole-organ xenotransplantation is making strides to overcome organ-rejection issues. Other barriers to introduction include the possible spread of porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs) and ethical issues of xenotransplantation. Because the risk for cross-species transmission of PERVs is unknown, it poses a collective risk to society as a whole (the possibility of an unknown disease epidemic) on top of the individual risks of transplantation to the organ recipient. Further, if xenotransplantation becomes viable, we will face a cultural challenge and debate either to hold fast or to draw new lines of acceptable ethics concerning biotechnology, genetics, and animal uses. If public opinion deems xenotransplantation acceptable, the decision will change the face and direction of ethical approaches to science and also change societal and human relationships with nature. Author: Shane Cross. 18 pages. Index Keywords: Biotechnology; Genetic Engineering; Health Care; Medical Research.
This study focuses on companies' growing use of experience in the marketing mix. It highlights various types of experience that companies are providing to attract consumers and build brand. The study looks at companies' use of sensory (smell, for example), virtual (3-D body scanning), and destinational experiences. Retailers such as NikeTown are providing interactive experiences, whereas manufacturers such as U.K. confectionery supplier Cadbury Schweppes are creating destinational experiences--Cafe Cadbury--for a brand. Experiential marketing forms part of the much wider experience industry. SRI Consulting Business Intelligence first explored the experience industry in 1985 and has continued to monitor its progress. Consumers are increasingly seeking fulfillment beyond the mere purchase of commodity goods, indicating that an opportunity exists to exploit the potential for surrounding a product with an experience. Advances in technology--extending the range of available experiences--have increased this potential. The implications for companies of providing a sensory, virtual, or destinational experience--such as increased opportunity for brand loyalty and opportunity to build a customer relationship through shared experience--indicate that experiential marketing is a serious development. Author: Samantha Blighe. 10 pages. Index Keywords: Advertising; Consumer Behavior; Internet; Marketing; Retail Trade; Virtual Reality. Scan
Copyright holders are flexing their commercial and legal muscle in the digital world to prevent the information-for-free tendencies of the Internet and the World Wide Web. The ultimate outcome of the battle, however, may be much more than a return to the status quo that existed before the emergence of the Internet. Instead, overly restrictive digital-rights-management schemes may limit information and entertainment access to an extent well beyond what society was accustomed to. Digital technology may allow the copyright pendulum to swing past the status quo ante and into an area that significantly restricts the free flow of information in many important domains. News B-I-P 2001 Index The Index of publications for the Business Intelligence Program is now available. This Index includes a one-page graphical description of the Business Intelligence Program process and the deliverables available to each client. The summaries below describe current activities and programs not included in the B-I-P membership but of potential interest to members. Nanotechnology: New to Explorer Nanotechnology is the latest addition to the 39 technologies that SRI Consulting Business Intelligence's (SRIC-BI's) Explorer service currently covers. This Technology Map looks at materials and systems whose structures and components exhibit novel and significantly improved physical, chemical, and biological properties, phenomena, and processes because of their nanoscale size. It includes analysis of the parameters affecting the commercial development of nanotechnology, the specific areas that will have high impact on business, and the implications of these technologies for different commercial sectors, defining key application areas, and major players. For more information about the Explorer service, telephone: +1 650 859 4600; e-mail: info@sric-bi.com. Consumer Financial Decisions The Boomers will be the first generation to realize that they have a significant number of years left to live when they "retire" at 65. Just as the egocentric Boomers have redefined the world in their own image during every stage of their lives, they will redefine retirement, according to Redefining Retirement, a new report from the Consumer Financial Decisions (CFD) program at SRIC-BI. For more information about CFD, telephone: +1 650 734 2048; e-mail: info@sric-bi.com. |
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