Freelance Consultant's Diary

It is pretty obvious that Merck management is getting ready for winding up the firm's operations. That does not come as a surprise. Most analysts (and media headlines) have been questioning if Merck will survive the Vioxx recall mess. It could have survived if the management was willing to take a more conciliatory approach. In the opinion of iProceed , there are several fundamental flaws with Merck's approach to handing recall of Vioxx: No matter what, you never antagonize your customers (which in this case are patients, and not healthcare companies as Merck might like to believe). By taking a very hostile approach and telling Vioxx customers that something was wrong with them rather than Vioxx, Merck is essentially telling its customers that it doesn't care. As the cases go to trial, a lot of ugly details will come out that will show that Merck knew as early as 2000 that Vioxx was a problematic drug but it continued to aggressively advertise it to consumers, rather than de...

Yesterday we had discussed the success story of the Vioxx recall blog. We were very delighted to report that based on pure hard work and high-quality content development, we were able to get premium ranking in organic search results on Yahoo. But it looks like a lot of crooks out there do not like this. Sometimes when we go to Yahoo to check how we are doing, the search results can be different even in the course of a day. The reason is that crooks are trying to manipulate results by using tricks. Several websites pop up on page one and when you click on them you end up on just one website that is apparently owned by two law firms: Waters and Kraus, LLC and The Peterson Firm. We would not expect a law firm to engage in such dirty tricks unless someone is doing it without their knowledge. In any case, this is our advice to those of you who want to get higher ranking in organic search results: It is much better to develop good content than to use dirty tricks. We did not spend a million ...

You are probably looking at how the Vioxx recall controversy has evolved over last couple of weeks and wondering what a bunch of morons run Merck. Do not forget, however, that Merck used to be a great company and as recently as last month was ranked among the best for innovation. So what happened? Rather than going outside to find out what is wrong with other corporations, just walk to the product development group in your company and chat with some of the engineers. American corporations have always been known for making defective, poorly designed products. Since speed has always been more important to us than quality, we often commercialize products that have not been fully designed. We don't want to wait till we perfect the product. No wonder customers have so many problems with products made in the United States. We are good at R&D but horrible at commercializing them and whether we want to admit it or not, this is the way of life in most American corporations. This is not ...

Just last week we were discussing in the ebusiness blog how content is being leveraged for lead generation by the law firms. It was around that time that we ourselves decided to jump into a new area for us: commentary on a very hot topic as it was developing. Or in other words, we decided to create content on the Vioxx recall controversy. We have addressed the issue of what was the right format for discussing Vioxx recall (Related article: Website or blog ?) and in the case of Vioxx, since things were happening in real time, there was no better way than to launch a blog. The success has been remarkable. Of course, we worked extremely hard to keep up with the developments and tried to bring news and analysis in a way that it makes sense to a victim of Vioxx. Vioxx recall blog has already reached very high in organic search results in Yahoo and MSN and we are working hard to get a good ranking in Google . What did we learn from developing content related to Vioxx? Move fast when you see...

While iProceed is saying that we typically do not support mergers and acquisitions, and definitely not of this magnitude. The reason: Study after study has suggested that mergers simply destroy value most of the time. AT Kearney has found that 58% of mergers and acquisitions did not result in a stock exchange price increase. Robert W. Holthausen, a Professor of Accounting and Finance and Management, says, "Various studies have shown that mergers have failure rates of more than 50 percent. One recent study found that 83 percent of all mergers fail to create value and half actually destroy value. This is an abysmal record. What is particularly amazing is that in polling the boards of the companies involved in those same mergers, over 80% of the board members thought their acquisitions had created value." Why Sears and KMart marriage might work? When two desperate companies come together they might work harder to make it work. Bain & Company’s survey of 250 global executives...

The American economy has been a victim of anemic economic growth despite massive tax cuts (that may have caused irreparable damage to long-term health of the country, despite the argument that we would be in worse shape if taxes were not cut). It is, therefore, interesting to hear secretary Snow observing that solving America's problem is also somehow the responsibility of other nations, particularly those in Europe. It was not too long that we blamed Japan (and there were few voices blaming China) for our economic ills. iProceed approach to driving growth in America Stop blaming other nations. While we need to collaborate with other nations to make the world a better place for trade and business, other nations will act in their self-interest and we need to do the same. What that means is that we will have to get our own house in order to see meaningful growth. As France, Germany, Japan, and many other tigers of the past like Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, etc. already k...

The role of content goes beyond pushing e-business in the traditional sense. Yes, rich content is an excellent vehicle to increase your ebusiness review but many businesses that are not in the retail business are also leveraging content for lead generation or for small e-business sales. In this article we will discuss how law firms are leveraging content to attract new clients. As everyone knows most people first hit Google or Yahoo or any of the other search engines when they have a question. This is even more true for immigration related issues where the person may not even be present in the United States but is interested in immigrating to the US. So it is encouraging to see that law firms of Alan Heckler and Sheela Murthy maintain websites that are updated almost daily. They also answer questions in chats or through an instant messenger or email (generally for free). Of course, they have bulletin boards that are used by potential clients to talk about their cases and ask related q...

China and Brazil, members of the so-called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) group, have strengthened their relationship this week and that will lead to greater trade among the two nations. As iProceed research has shown, there is no likelihood that the United States will stop being the world's largest economy any time soon (after all with all the sad stories coming out of Japan for almost 20 years now, it is still the world's second largest economy), the growth opportunities are clearly elsewhere. And China is one of the most exciting markets right now. (Related article: Growth pendulum shifting out of the US ) But mind you, while iProceed is bullish about growth prospects and opportunities in the BRIC group, these are not the easiest countries to do business in. In the Transparency International's report on corruption perceptions, all four countries are literally at the bottom of the pack. On a scale of 1 to 10, none of them scores even a 4. Recommended article: ...

Today's announcement by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) that it will use radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to combat counterfeiting of drugs is great news for the technology and companies that have been diligently working for years to make this technology more widely available by reducing the cost of manufacturing and deployment. According to the FDA, it is committed to the use of RFID by the U.S. drug supply chain by 2007. As many of you know, RFID technology has been around for many years but only after aggressive efforts of Wal-Mart and consumer packaged goods companies like Gillette, P&G, and others, it has been relatively recently deployed on a big scale. The main barrier was its cost which is starting to come down now. Many experts believe that RFID tags will eventually displace bar codes. While you may not be in the pharmaceutical or consumer packaged goods business but that does not mean that you will be untouched by RFID technology. Hence, it is...

A key question before a publisher that derives bulk of its income from pushing ebusiness is to determine the focus of the content for highest ROI. Of course, mesothelioma and Vioxx would be great places to start, but these are niche opportunities. There are not just enough individuals seeking such information. In that context, a study by PWC and IAB comes to the help of nano-publishers and content managers. The study has identified how the online advertising dollars were spent in the second quarter of 2004. This is what the split looks like: Consumer 49% Computing 18% Financial Services 17% Media 10% Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare 5% Messages from the study This study is in line with our experience. Consumer products generate highest number of searches and produce the bulk of the traffic on the Intern...

In a previous post on iProceed blog , we had mentioned that there are several encouraging indicators for the 2004 holiday season . iProceed has, however, not yet lifted its warning on a recession in 2005 . It was, therefore, encouraging to read a relatively positive statement from the Fed . In simple words, this is what Fed is saying: Everything is in place for moderate economic growth in the future. There is only moderate risk that higher economic growth may lead to inflation. Fed will act as and when economic conditions change. Implications of monetary policy Since only moderate growth is expected, expect only a modest, but gradual, increase in interest rates during next 12 months. If Fed's monetary policy leads to low inflation, it is good for everyone, particularly in light of rather unusually high energy prices and expectations that taxes will go up in 2005 . Assess the impact of higher interest rates on your business and develop a strategy accordingly.

During the first half of 2004, online ad spending was just close to $5 billion and 40% of it was in search engine marketing. That's pretty significant number and that is why the search marketing space is getting over-crowded. Apart from the usual suspects in search engine advertising, Google , Overture , and FindWhat , there is a whole new group of companies entering this space and we saw a few of them ( Findology , GenieKnows , Kanoodle , etc.) at AdTech 2004 in New York City. But let us review how things are heating up at the top. Google, the king of search engines, is now being challenged by Yahoo Search and MSN Search . Of course size is everything in search and that is why only yesterday Google claimed that its index is now over 8 billion pages and MSN has launched its beta website claiming to have 5 billion pages. Here are a few thoughts that iProceed has on the current battle in search engine marketing: Why are they all trying to be the same? Both Yahoo and MSN have launched...

We are very excited to be documenting the success of MYNIPPON and its sister website in the eCreativa network of online media . We were even more encouraged by our trip to AdTech 2004 which made us better understand the strong growth forecast for ebusiness, online advertising, and nanopublishing . In this article, let us address some of the issues related to maturing of the US online advertising market in the not-so-far future. As everyone knows the online advertising has exploded in 2003 and 2004. In the second quarter of 2004, online ad spending soared 43% and no one believes that this rate will continue. But guess what we heard at AdTech 2004: How much is your traffic is from the US? Fortunately for MYNIPPON , LuvCube , eCreativa , and iProceed , out traffic from the United States is in the neighborhood of 80-90%. On the other hand, for Lindisima , that number is less than 50% which we are trying to improve by developing an English version of the website through Lindisima: Latinas o...

The 2004 Open Doors report should not have surprised anyone since it only documents what has been known for a while. Not only was it difficult for foreign students to come to the US, it was also no longer an attractive place to be. "The action is not here anymore," as one expert, who recently traveled to both China and India, and we spoke to recently describes it. Not only are multinational companies setting up shops there for high-end R&D, back-end support services, and even sales/marketing for emerging markets, the venture capitalists and investors are scouting for talent at university campuses there so that they can work with them to set up new companies. Interestingly enough, the drop in the number of students by country of origin is directly related to how hot the economy there is. China is on top followed by India. Talking to many of my personal friends in Japan, which is third, I have learned that after 9/11 Japanese students are no longer confident that the US is ...

That is the message we received from attending the AdTech 2004 conference in New York City. After attending a dozen or so very depressing Internet-related shows during last three years, we finally ended up at a show that was packed to capacity. You couldn't walk. You could feel the energy of the boom years. Here are some key messages for ebusiness companies: Online advertising now offers many options for you to reach out to potential customers and acquire them. The two that we think are most effective are search marketing and contextual advertising. Google is king. There are other programs being offered but you absolutely must advertise on Google. The reach that Google offers is incredible. If you are wasting your dollars on television and print advertising or even more naive enough to send direct mail, it is time that you reviewed your channel strategy and reallocated your ad budget. Online advertising has a much higher ROI, particularly if you embrace performance-based advertisin...

Spent yesterday at the Ad:TECH 2004 in New York City. Wow! It was as if the good old days of the Dot-Com era are back. Since 2001, this is the first show that we have been to where you literally could not walk. There were an incredible number of people at the show and it seems that the organizers failed to anticipate the number of attendees and the advertisers because the aisles were too narrow for so many people to walk and there were booths even in hallways. The following are iProceed 's takeaways from AD:TECH - The Event for Interactive Marketing: Online advertising is hot. There were more advertisers than publishers and agencies at the conference. New companies are entering the online advertising space at a fast pace. Google is still the 800-pound gorilla while Overture , FindWhat , Mamma , and Advertising.com are the 100-pound dogs. There were dozens of others companies that are copying the Google business model or coming up with slight variations on it, but none impress...

Two relatively unrelated news caught the attention of iProceed . General Electric ( GE ) has sold a majority stake in its Indian outsourcing arm for $500 million to two private equity firms to have unrestricted access to the world market for BPO services. What this means is that India is now clearly the world leader in BPO services and there is nothing that can stop it from becoming a center of excellence. India and the European Union have launched a 'strategic partnership' deal which will culminate in India having the same relations with the EU as the US, Canada, China and Russia. These are two very important developments since they indicate how India, that was so closely allied with Soviet Union and Non-aligned Movement, is quickly embracing more free-market and capitalist business principles. Why is this a good news for the family of elite nations? No matter what the short-term consequences of offshoring are, the basic idea behind offshoring is still a sound one - let everyo...

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have exposed the limitations of the state-of-the-art in the military and provide some indications on what technology companies can do to fill the gaps that exist today. There are some interesting business opportunities that are emerging and we will get to those momentarily but let us review some background first. If we look at the accomplishments of the two wars that the US has fought in last four years, here are a few broad observations that can be made: Eliminating the existing authority in a country may be easy but to establish complete control is probably impossible. It is a big challenge to create a replacement authority that can be a strategic partner in accomplishing the ultimate goals. Intelligence is easy to gather when large-scale movement of hardware is involved; it is far more difficult to track half-a-dozen suicidal fighters with crude weapons. An intelligence war may be more effective in eliminating terrorists than an all-out conventional ...

A brief background first for those who have not kept up with the details. Vioxx (rofecoxib) is a prescription drug for arthritis and acute pain. Merck, the drug manufacturer, had to recall the drug after learning that there was an increased relative risk for confirmed cardiovascular events, such as heart attack and stroke, beginning after 18 months of treatment. This would not have been such a big problem if it had not hidden this piece of news for years. FDA attributes as many as 27,000 deaths to Vioxx in the US and both FDA and Merck are being accused of negligence. Merck's stock continues to slide and estimates for Merck's liability in this case are around $18 billions. So what can business leaders learn from the Vioxx fiasco? Be honest. There is no point in hiding such an important piece of news and wishing that it will just go away. Get it out as soon as you know particularly when human lives/health are involved. Risk management does not mean doing illegal activities. Ye...

Two pieces of economic data from today are prompting iProceed to ask businesses to push caution aside and prepare for a good holiday season. The payroll data is very encouraging as we enter a month in which consumers start to contemplate holiday shopping. The consumer credit data, while it shows that consumers are borrowing more (to spend it), can be interpreted in two ways. One, consumers may be feeling more confident about the future and might expect a gain in their income. On the other hand, lower savings rate, falling wages, and unemployment/under-employment are still real issues and it would not be surprising if the credit is a desperate measure to keep up with the rising cost of healthcare, gasoline, and state/local taxes. Consumer credit, in our opinion, is rising at alarming levels, and may be a cause for concern. Here is what businesses need to do for exploiting the opportunity during the holiday season? Segment the market based on income levels. Several indicators (particula...

Since ebusiness is increasingly a part of any direct marketer, we skim through a paper publication DM News that is like the journal of the direct marketing industry. We would not recommend that you spend much time reading it since there are hardly any valuable articles. One article recently caught our attention, not because it was great but because it could cause a lot of damage to a direct marketer's business if it were to follow the advice provided in the article. Robert W. Bly, the author of the article, writes in an article "Can blogging help market your product?" that "..most blogs seem to be private, idiosyncratic musings of an individual, without censure or editing of any kind...I have yet to find a single marketer who says that a business blog has gotten him a positive return on investment" We are just wondering if Bly lives under a stone. Bly has even more errors in article since he has not spent enough time researching the world of blogging prior to wr...

While the problems with Vioxx might be scaring the CEOs of pharmaceutical companies, they have some reason to celebrate - the regulatory agencies and public policy for next four years is likely to be friendlier to the industry. iProceed's situation assessment, however, shows that the pharmaceutical industry still needs a business model transformation. Any industry that relies on regulation as its savior (e.g. steel is a great example) does not have a very bright future unless the government starts to offer subsidies to it (the way we give subsidies to our farmers). Here are several interesting issues that we have identified with respect to the pharma sector: Drug pricing has now become an issue that even a grandma in Oklahoma understands. Which means that there will be more pressure on the regulatory agencies and the government to do something about it. Several experts predict that some drug importation from Canada may be allowed but iProceed is still skeptical that it is going to ...

That is a question a lot of readers have asked us. Does MYNIPPON and its network of websites use email marketing? The answer is yes and no. When MYNIPPON was first launched in 1999 (the good old days when people actually sent us messages asking us to tell them when a new article appeared), we started a fan club and would send out a email newsletter about once a week. It was helpful since it brought back the visitors, strengthened brand image, and emails were often forwarded to friends (creating a more positive image about us - after all a referral from someone you know is more powerful). Some time in 2001, our email list was too large (over 25,000 members) but at the same time there were problems with the email list. Many members who had initially opted in to receive emails did not like any email communication since SPAM was becoming a big nuisance. Spammers were also using our email address to send out spam and that made many email list members block our address. Many members requeste...

An election is a great way to understand macro-trends since you have access to a very large sample size. From the preliminary results that have emerged so far, here are a few business and growth opportunities that iProceed has identified: Oil/energy prices will continue to be high. A Republican presidency means that chaos in Iraq will continue and it is very likely that Iran and/or other countries may be attacked by the United States further disturbing global peace. Great time to enter/strengthen oil/energy and security/defense related businesses. iProceed's analysis also shows a recession in 2005 and it is a good idea to enter into businesses that benefit from recessions (e.g. lower priced consumer products, used goods, etc.). (Related article: iProceed analysis on recession in 2005 ) Taxes will go up as government revenue remains stable or drops slightly. We expect only a modest increase in taxes. Again, as disposable incomes drop, opportunity for lower priced goods. (Related art...