Freelance Consultant's Diary

While there was widespread criticism of Merck, Pfizer, and other pharmaceutical firms for direct-to-consumer advertising, it seems that many other institutions see advertising as a way to increase revenues. It seems that if we have to make healthcare an attractive sector to invest, a lot more ethics have to be poured in. (Related article: Advertising strategy for prescription drugs ) In a study published by Robin Larson, Lisa Schwartz, Steve Woloshin, and Gilbert Welch, the authors write, "Many academic medical centers have increased their use of advertising to attract patients. While the content of direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertisements (ads) has been studied, to our knowledge, advertising by academic medical centers has not." I often see ads in newspapers for local hospitals along with those for cosmetic surgeons, spas, and beauty salons. Most consumers have a hard time thinking of a hospital the same way they think of a beauty salon no matter how attractive the h...

With all the buzz about globalization during the last few years, you start to wonder if this is something new. It seems that we need a buzzword to keep us energized to run our businesses. The reality is that globalization is as old as business itself. I am sure that when Vasco da Gama returned to Portugal from his trip to India and established a new supply chain for spices, precious gems/metals, and silk, the business-people in Portugal and rest of Europe dealt with the same issues that we are dealing with right now. Maybe they did not use words like offshoring , outsourcing , supply chain, global competition , and business process outsourcing ( BPO ), but on a conceptual level, their challenges were like ours. Globalization is not an end by itself During last 50 years, we have talked about globalization in different forms and it has meant slightly different things at different points. So those who say that it is only now that we are seeing real globalization, should go back to read ...

One of the challenges of web design is to go back to old pages and put links to new articles. This is not a problem for a small website but if you have a website as large as MYNIPPON or Lindisima with thousands of pages, it can be a time-consuming exercise. But our recent experience and some research shows that adding links from old pages to new articles is extremely helpful since it makes sure that your new articles get indexed faster, get higher page ranks and visitors to old pages can follow the links to new articles. (Related article: Quality of traffic is key for success in online publishing ) During last couple of weeks we have been updating old pages on all of our websites and we have seen a significant improvement in number of visitors as well page views per visitors (resulting in higher overall page views , ad impressions, and income ). What if you have only a small website? While it is easy to keep the website well linked but you will have a disadvantage since you ca...

Coming up with a business idea is a big step by itself but the biggest challenge lies in translating what may only be a concept into a real business. Despite the fact that some entrepreneurs are really good at one or two things (think Bill Gates), most entrepreneurs simply tend to be idea-machines, great leaders, and excellent at getting things done (think Steve Jobs). In other words, if you want to develop a business model that creates shareholder value , you will need a lot of help from people with diverse sets of skills and backgrounds. Challenges of an entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki was recently asked about the greatest challenges that entrepreneurs face. According to him, “Seven (out of ten entrepreneurs) would say raising money. If you experience great difficulty in raising money, it's not because venture capitalists are idiots and cannot comprehend your curve-jumping, paradigm shifting, revolutionary product. It's because you either have a piece of crap or you are not effect...

In a world where most advertising has low ROI (except for text links clearly labeled as advertising), I have been a big proponent of embedded advertising . (Related article: General Motors embraces embedded advertising ) So I am always looking for good examples and I think one advertising model that I like is a television program "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and its sister programs like "Queer Eye for the Straight Girl." Embedded advertising takes product placement one step further. The product is part of the story and is clearly a topic of discussion. In many cases, the actors may even "recommend" the product rather than just "inform." While some may argue that these programs are like infomercials, I disagree. The reason is that these programs also include the other two Es of advertising -- educate and entertain. Consumers want to receive information/recommendation on what they can do to make their life better/simpler but television/radio ad...

As a management consultant , if I see strategic value (opportunities for networking with potential clients) at a conference, I attend it. The cost of attending it is simply something that the bean-counters in the office worry about. But recently I have learned something else -- all conferences are not the same. There are dozens of conferences that I have regretted attending after spending thousands of dollars. The food was horrible, the hotel was overpriced, the speakers simply tried to sell me something, and the attendees came on short vacations paid for by their employers rather than to engage in intellectual discourse on business models and competitive strategy . But then there are others that I have enjoyed attending and basically spent the price of a business lunch. This weekend I attended a conference at Harvard Business School that costs just $50. Not only did I learn how to develop a market entry strategy for India , I met some people who have actually done it. Yeah, they gave...