Ross McDonald | Banker | Strategist | CFO

US green company rankings

Curious about the sustainability credentials of large US companies? Newsweek has just published its rankings of the top 500 Green Companies, based on a methodology supported by KLD Research and Analytics, Trucost and Corporate Register.

The top firms? Check out the article or rankings for details.

Brainstorming

Globalive, the Canadian telecoms firm that has grown like a rocket in the last few years, is a new entrant into the Canadian wireless telecoms industry that is currently dominated by dinosaur corporates with internationally uncompetitive services and policies that invoke rage with many consumers. As a insight into consumer attitude then Virgin Mobile, a recently launched virtual mobile operator, uses the rather odd phrase 'no rip-offs' as core to its marketing.

Having recently won, at cost of $442 million through government auction, a major slice of wireless spectrum then Globalive has announced a very clever, public brainstorming website - wirelesssoapbox.com. Though the website, Canadian citizens are encouraged to present ideas, voice opinions and provide feedback on their telecoms experience.

What a simply beautiful idea ...

Airline entrants

Transatlantic flights are lucrative for airlines. The London-New York route is estimated to be generate $1.4 billion annually. British Airways is the dominant incumbent (with 3,000 of total 7,000 seats per day). Virgin Atlantic is an established competitor, offering broadly similar service for a similar price. But several start-up airlines have emerged, with materially different value propositions ...

Micro payments

Consumers spending habits are changing. Payments once largely cash and cheques are increasingly transacted using credit cards and debit cards. In many countries, such payment technologies dominate spending on transactions over $40. But not for smaller, or 'micro', payments where costs outweigh benefits. Here the infrastructure banking network costs of processing the transaction (and therefore minimum merchant charges) are simply too high relative to the consumer benefit of convenience. But new, potentially disruptive technologies are emerging ...

Moneysupermarket.com

Websites that help consumers compare prices on consumer goods were created some years ago and are now commonplace. But websites that compare financial services products are more recent and less common, certainly within the UK. They are gaining increasing popularity and sophistication, harnessing various externalities, and claim to save the consumer considerable amounts of money. In the process, such websites are striving to alter the value chain for consumer financial services products. In doing so, they are creating market valuations - one firm, uSwitch, sold in 2006 for £210 million ($366 million). One large insurance company, Direct Line, is biting back against the emerging power of such price comparison websites ...

Apple WWDC 2007 - strategic innovation?

Apple [Computer] Inc has just hosted its 2007 WorldWide Developers Conference.

There are many internet sites that provide detailed commentary on the conference but the main themes  from the conference are greater commitment to games; new functions for October 2007 release of OS X Leopard; Safari web browser for Windows and on-schedule release of iPhone. All interesting stuff to Apple fans, of which there are lots, but it is the iPhone imminent release that is of particular to those interest in corporate strategy as this new product represents a major shift in strategic direction for Apple.

Citigroup buys Egg, a UK online bank

In January 2007, Citigroup purchased Egg - a UK online bank - from Prudential plc for £575 million ($1.1 billion). Why?

Expressing personal views, I can see four clear reasons.
(a) Egg operates in a growth market ... (b) in which Citigroup has proven expertise
(c) Egg resolves a Citigroup retail distribution weakness ... (d) at an opportunistic price

Strategy - Business, Corporate, Operational

A new blog, for me at least. So let's start with definitions.

The term 'strategy' can be used in many contexts for largely unrelated purposes. Principal contexts and their meaning.

- Corporate strategy  In what industries to operate?  How to allocate scarce resources?
- Business strategy  Within a given industry, how to achieve competitive advantage?
- Operational strategy  Optimal role of support services (e.g. marketing, finance, operations)?