The recent crash in oil prices will cause the oil market to rebalance in ways that challenge traditional thinking about the responsiveness of supply and demand, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its annual Medium-Term Oil Market Report (MTOMR) released today. Read the rest of this entry »
Marketers are boosting their precision, broadening their scope, moving more quickly, and telling better stories. Science has permeated marketing for decades. Fans of the television drama Mad Men saw a fictionalized encounter when an IBM System/360 mainframe computer physically displaced the creative department of a late-1960s advertising agency. In reality, though, the 1960s through the early 1990s witnessed a happy marriage of advertising and technology as marketers mastered both the medium of television and the science of Nielsen ratings. These years gave birth to iconic advertising messages in categories ranging from sparkling beverages (“I’d like to buy the world a Coke”) to credit cards (“American Express. Don’t leave home without it”) to air travel (“British Airways: the world’s favourite airline”). Read the rest of this entry »
BCG Research Predicts That by 2025, Adoption of Advanced Robots Will Boost Productivity by Up to 30 Percent in Many Industries and Lower Total Labor Costs by 18 Percent or More in Countries Such as South Korea, China, the U.S., Japan, and Germany. Read the rest of this entry »
Events of the last year have increased many of the long-term uncertainties facing the global energy sector, says the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) World Energy Outlook 2014 (WEO-2014). It warns against the risk that current events distract decision makers from recognising and tackling the longer-term signs of stress that are emerging in the energy system. Read the rest of this entry »
New data and better coordination can create value in the sales channel. The CEO of an auto manufacturer was puzzled that its market share had been slipping for three years. The quality of its products was high, and it had made big strides in operational efficiency. But as one director had chided at the previous board meeting, “the sides of our sandbox are starting to pinch.” Read the rest of this entry »