Back to the video itself, embedded inside: thought-provoking presentation on (buzzword alert!) “information shadows”, “the sensor web”, cloud computing, data collection, processing and presentation/ visualization, local marketing + micropayments, P2P credit-card payments, social network risk evaluation… and how all this is coming together to create new products and services that feed on the cloud and/or organize it. It’s still impossible to tell just how practical this is and who will make money from this, but it’s nice food for thought.

Here’s the video (it seems a little slower to load than average, though):

That’s because it assesses the competitive strategy framework from a specific industry’s standpoint (always better than ‘generic speeches’) and it was useful for thinking about other industries as well.

The book was generated from the course Strategic Management of Media @ Columbia.

This article shares Mr. Greenwald’s view on media. We don’t necessarily agree with his view on the future of media, but it’s good food for thought and discussion.

This NY Times article tells a great story: In 1952, Bell Telephone leaders felt that they needed “more employees capable of guiding the company rather than simply following instructions or responding to obvious crises.” They asked the University of Pennsylvania to elaborate a course for their “rising stars”, and Humanistic studies were heavy in the program so that the technical-minded execs could be exposed to different, mind-opening experiences – which culminated in the reading and discussing of the James Joyce book “Ulysses”.

This concern was new in 1952 and it’s “common sense” today, but the author says that we need leaders who can think for themselves now more than ever. Without talk of incentives this is more a homage to the benefits of a diverse and continuous education than it is a valid “diagnosis” of today’s leaders’ conduct. Still, that is a worthy enough point.

But let’s go back to the article and the program devised for the Learning Knights of Bell Telephone Co. After the program ended, one of the graduates said that “before the program he had been ‘like a straw floating with the current down the stream’(…)”. It’s a way to say that after the program he felt like someone in control of his career, or at least aware of much more than before (which in the 50′s had a different consequence than one would have imagined). The graduates’ knowledge and analytical boundaries had been pushed, pulled and “stressed” and, as a consequence, expanded.

The NY Times Op-Ed contributor, Wes Davis, closes the article with this paragraph “As the worst economic crisis since the Depression continues and the deepening rift in the nation’s political fabric threatens to forestall economic reform, the values the program instilled would certainly come in handy today. We need fewer drifting straws on the stream of American business, and more discontented thinkers who listen thoughtfully to both sides of our national debates. Reading “Ulysses” this Bloomsday may be more than just a literary observance. Think of it as an act of fiscal responsibility.”

Foreign investors are starting to catch on. At the latest Value Investing Congress – West, one presenter had AB-Inbev as his long case and said: “Amazing how unfamiliar the market is with the management story behind AB-InBev; like Rose Blumkin at Nebraska Furniture Mart.”

This is another example of looking at companies “globally”. From just this angle, that of the “local” investor: How could an US investor really understand Anheuser-Busch’s competitive environment if he ignored that such a revolution was going on in Europe? It was “common sense” in the US that Anheuser-Busch was “very efficient”, yet a closer look at what the InBev people understood as “efficient” would have made them reconsider. And the inverse is also true: how can a brazilian investor really understand a local company’s challenges if he ignores what’s going on in the world, best practices, trends and so on?

The payoff has always been clear to us, even before the authorization for local funds to invest abroad up to a certain percentage of the portfolio.

OTHER LINKS:

Luiz Fernando Edmond goes public, sort of – St. Louis Journal – April 28th, 2010

St. Louis Journal profiles Edmond and other key managers – April 24th, 2009

Back to Nielsen/ VNU: the controlling group is surveying the markets for an IPO valuing the company’s EV in the $17 to $21 billion range, compared to the $10 bi LBO in 2006. That said, the company is set to earn a respectful $1.6Bi in Ebitda in 2010 (in this case not that many fixed assets, but we’d still prefer to see the free cash flow figures). The debt is $8.6Bi and the annual interest is approx. $500 million, but at least some of the proceeds would likely go towards reducing this debt.

Highlights:

(i) kids are spending more time on books than 10 years ago, but much less on magazines and newspapers.

(ii) iPod/MP3 penetration went from 18% in 2004 to 76% in 2009 – no wonder growth rates have stagnated.

(iii) handheld video games rose more than twofold in usage since 2004.

(iv) Black and Hispanic kids spend much more time than White kids consuming media each day, to the tune of 4.5 additional hours each day.

(v) more media consumption is correlated with lower grades.

Links:

1) 27-page Presentation about the report – lighter reading than the full, 85-page report.

2) Webcast of the presentation

Documentary: Yes, there’s even a documentary:

The company is a $10 billion enterprise that caters mainly to the life sciences (drug development) and industrial markets. Thermo is not dear to us for its state-of-the-art technology (albeit it does sport a couple of interesting high-end divisions in mass spectrometry and specialty diagnostics), nor for its powerful distribution channel drawn from the Fisher acquisition in 2006 – it’s for the combination of both strengths (the acquisition was largely misinterpreted by the markets at the time).

The article talks about the company’s definitive entry into the Brazilian market with sales force of its own and technical support staff, aiming at customers in mining, steel, oil & gas. This is an extension of Thermo’s global distribution network and a good opportunity for the company in high-growth emerging markets. The possibility of a future domestic manufacturing operation was also discussed. This could mean a great move on a country with such high import barriers for high-priced goods.

Links:

We’ve mentioned Thermo quite briefly here on Buysiders as it was one of the “picks and shovels” ways to play the increased healthcare spending trend.

Quick highlights from the executive summary:

- E-commerce grew 30% to R$ 10.6 Bi and average ticket of R$ 335 (up just 2.1%);

- 17.6mm people purchased something online in 2009, up 33%;

- Within that group, 77% did at least one purchase in the last 3 months of the survey;

- Quality logistics is the key for keeping delivery dates, which is a determining factor in customer satisfaction. (Easier said than done!)