Vintage Filings Business Blog

The Internet continues to grow its dominant position as the “go to” source for investors and financial advisers, according to a new online survey by Forbes.com.  The survey of individual investors revealed that:

● 65% of respondents consider the Internet their most important source of investing information. This number has increased from 52% in 2005.

● 47% of these investors spend 20 or more hours per week on the Internet, excluding e-mail (both at work and non-work sessions).

● Over half (54%) reported spending more time on the Web (not including e-mail) in 2008.

● 29% spent less time reading daily newspapers, 37% spent less time watching television, and 32% spent less time listening to the radio, as compared to only 3% who spent less time on the Internet.

● Newspapers were cited by 17% of respondents as the most important source of investing information, down from 20% in 2005.

The financial advisor survey showed that:

● 68% of respondents consider the Internet as their most important source of investing information.

● 50% reported spending more time on the Internet (not including e-mail) this year.

● 39% of these advisors spend 20 or more hours per week on the Internet excluding e-mail, (both at work and non-work sessions).

● Only 1% spent less time on the Internet compared to 39% who spent less time reading daily newspapers, 28% who spent less time watching television and 24% who spent less time listening to the radio.

“Companies embracing increased productivity through technology will drive the world’s economic recovery.” Ray O’Connor, president and CEO of Topcon Positioning Systems (TPS), said the statement above is what drives top-ranked technology companies to continue to support strong research and product development efforts.

“The current economic recession provides an incredible window of opportunity for forward-thinking companies in the construction, survey, civil engineering and agriculture markets,” O’Connor said.

“In tough times, increasing productivity through the acceptance of technological breakthroughs will be the difference in success and failure, the difference in being competitive and trailing the competition.

“The economic turnaround will be technology-fueled, driven by the products of forward-thinking companies and the forward-thinking businesses that buy the products that increase productivity,” he said.

The key to any successful business “is managing time to optimize results. If you can save time on every phase of every job, you put more money in your pocket. If you find a technology that will make your machines and people more productive, you become more competitive. And, if you look at what technological breakthroughs can do to not only help you make it during the tough times, but exceed, or even double, the industry averages, you will be in the driver’s seat when business turns around.”

History, he said, “shows us this is true. The companies that emerged from the Great Depression in the 1930s strong and viable adopted emerging technologies when times were tough. They made investments in technology to maximize productivity in every phase of their operation.

“The same opportunities exist today.”

Beyond.com announced today that it is offering one free job posting to each employer across the nation through February 28, 2009 in an effort to promote business growth and help stimulate the economy in the New Year.

As a result of the weakened U.S. economy and high unemployment rate, the number of qualified candidates available in the job market has increased dramatically, creating unique hiring opportunities for employers. In December 2008, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the national unemployment rate has hit a record high of 7.2 percent and nearly 2.6 million people have lost their jobs over the past year. The economic recession has created one of the most talented pools of candidates in years, consisting of a greater number of highly educated and experienced professionals than typically available under normal economic conditions.

Beyond.com’s free job posting offer allows employers to take advantage of the opportunity to attract high quality talent and add depth to their employee base by leveraging the power of targeted, niche recruitment. Employers can reduce one component of hiring costs and engage with seasoned talent who will position their company for future growth. The ultimate goal is to foster new opportunities and revitalize the economy in 2009.

“In tough economic times, it’s not all about downsizing,” said Rich Milgram, CEO of Beyond.com. “Businesses should take a close look at all aspects of their business and take advantage of opportunities that present themselves and provide for long-term gains. By offering a free job posting, we are making it easier for employers to find and acquire quality talent, build a stronger business and play a vital role in stimulating the economy.”

The U.S. economy has entered the third stage of its unprecedented transformation and will be characterized by shoppers permanently changing several of their most important rituals involved in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) products they select, purchase and use. With volatile and uncertain conditions ahead, consumers are spending with caution—continuing to define what is truly essential. Despite relief from record breaking fuel prices in late Q3, increases in food prices still have shoppers spending more on groceries and getting less. It remains a challenging time for manufacturers who must reinforce the value proposition of their brands without selling out their equity. For retailers, private label continues to be a survival strategy for many consumers, and private label brands continue to evolve in their sophistication, quality and availability.

This is one of the findings in the just released “Transforming Economy 3.0: The Search for Affordable Solutions,” created by Information Resources.

“While the recession is far from over, our new research reveals that we are entering a third phase,” notes IRI Consulting and Innovation President Thom Blischok. “The first phase “Shocking the System,” was characterized by rapidly rising energy and food prices, and a dramatic weakening of the home mortgage market starting in late 2007.”

“This phase was followed by stage two, “A Refocus on Impact,” during which consumers reacted radically to their imperiled financial situation by extreme belt tightening, even while prices were beginning to stabilize. In the third phase of “The Lasting Reality,” prices are continuing to level off, financial markets have halted their downward spiral, and many shoppers are backing off their most extreme belt-tightening behaviors.”

Shoppers Continue to Struggle

Shoppers remain significantly concerned about how economic conditions are affecting their financial situation. For example, 84 percent of surveyed consumers with annual incomes of $35,000 or less point to rising food costs as affecting their financial condition in Q3 2008, although this figure is down slightly from 87 percent in Q2.

Concurrently, surveyed shoppers report they are spending more but purchasing less. In Q3, shoppers paid on average 3.7 percent more, but purchased 2.0 percent fewer units.

Many shoppers are settling into self-reliance strategies to save money. For example, 45 percent of shoppers earning $35,000 to $54,000 agree with the statement, “I go to hair salons or spas less often.” This is a slight decrease when compared to the previous quarter, reflecting a slight retreat from earlier, more extreme behavior.

“Lower-income consumers began savings strategies the earliest and practiced them most aggressively as compared to other income groups,” adds Blischok. “While other groups are beginning to retreat from aggressive savings strategies, lower-income consumers are either not pulling back at all or doing so more slowly.”

Private Label Popularity Based on More Than Price

Private label products continue to be popular with consumers, with dollar share increasing 1 percent and 0.9 percent in Q2 and Q3 2008, respectively. However, the attraction of private label results from a combination of quality, variety and convenience, not simply lower prices. Private label purchases grew most rapidly among shoppers earning more than $100,000 annually during Q3.

“The private label phenomenon will continue to be a bright spot for innovative retailers that invest in providing a high-quality, convenient, affordable alternative to shoppers,” Blischok continues. “It is also a call to manufacturers to rewire the value proposition they offer shoppers and ensure that all product development, merchandising, pricing and related strategies are closely tied to a well articulated, shopper-centric strategy.”

MUTUALdecision announced it has launched the Judging Fund Managers Model – the site’s third online tool enabling investors and financial advisors to rank U.S. mutual funds based on leading academic research.

The Judging Fund Managers Model is based on a highly respected academic paper that finds fund managers who use similar techniques are likely to make similar investment decisions and deliver similar performance in the future. The risk-adjusted returns of top decile funds in this model outperform the bottom decile by at least 5.9 percent. By utilizing MUTUALdecision’s easy-to-use online tool, investors and professional advisors can rate mutual funds based on this powerful and predictive academic model.

“On the heels of 2008’s market performance – where no mutual fund category was spared from significant, across the board percentage declines – traditional methods for evaluating top funds based on past performance become less reliable,” said George Comer, chief academic officer at MUTUALdecision and Associate Professor of Finance, Georgetown University. “The Judging Fund Managers Model is unique in that it evaluates each fund manager’s skill by the extent to which his or her investment decisions resemble those of other managers with distinguished past performance records, arming investors with predictive information about future fund returns.”

Judging Fund Managers by the Company they Keep, published in the Journal of Finance and authored by Randolph Cohen (Harvard Business School), Joshua Coval (Harvard Business School), and Lubos Pastor (University of Chicago), introduces two new performance evaluation measures to judge a fund manager’s skill compared to top performing funds: 1) the extent to which a manager’s portfolio holdings overlap with holdings of other managers, and 2) the overlap of changes to portfolio holdings.

“MUTUALdecision places the power of leading mutual fund academic research in the hands of investors so that they can make superior investment decisions, and the launch of the site’s third model builds upon that mission,” added William G. Byrnes, founder and chief executive officer at MUTUALdecision.

In November 2008, MUTUALdecision launched the Return Gap Model and the Active Share Model. The Return Gap Model analyzes the difference between a fund’s actual return and the return it would have earned by following a buy and hold strategy. The Active Share Model measures the extent to which a mutual fund’s portfolio holdings differ from the portfolio’s benchmark index.

In response to the weakening global economy, organizations know that they must optimize their workforce, but lack the consistent, objective tools and processes necessary to succeed, according to a major new study by SuccessFactors. Seventy six per cent of companies are not ready to deal with major changes in their workforce, such as staff reductions, realignment of resources and optimization of employees – the very kind of changes that companies often need to make within an uncertain economic time or downturn.

The SuccessFactors study, entitled ‘Workforce Optimization’, which surveyed 277 business in the UK and Ireland, gauged how, if at all, organizations are ready and able to optimize their workforce when faced with issues such as declining revenues, and how to ensure their workforce is contributing to the bottom line by identifying its top performers and cultivating that talent to help develop the right competencies to achieve strategic organizational goals.

SuccessFactors also asked respondents how the weakening economy has affected their business. The answer revealed that companies are scrambling to keep morale and employee performance up. Sixty per cent listed staff morale as the top area of performance affected by the downturn and furthermore, over a third said that the performance of individual employees has been affected.

“Clearly organizations are feeling the effects of the downturn and should be thinking about optimizing their workforce,” said Andy Leaver, Vice President of EMEA Sales for SuccessFactors. “Now more than ever companies need a consistent way to look across their organization and make the tough calls that will allow them to compete and exploit any opportunities that become available.”

“The real power of a talent and performance management system lies within the richness of its data, which enables businesses to look at people-related data across an entire company,” said Erik Berggren, Senior Director of Global Research at SuccessFactors. “When the dust settles and the economy begins to flourish again, companies with the right resources and processes in place will be poised to succeed. Workforce optimization is critical to emerging from the economic environment in a position of strength.”

Substantial growth in user generated content has opened new opportunities for Internet security threats, according to a new report by Commtouch. The fourth quarter 2008 Internet Threats Trend Report, released today, is based on the automated analysis of billions of email messages and Web sites in real-time at Commtouch’s Global Detection Centers.

Highlights from the report:

• Streaming media and downloads are among the top 10 website categories infected with malware and/or manipulated by phishing. These are two of the most popular categories within user generated content sites.
• McColo, one of the largest hosts of cyber-criminal gangs, was effectively shut down in November 2008, causing spam levels to drop to one-third their usual level for several weeks.
• Spam levels averaged 72% of all email traffic throughout the quarter, falling briefly to 59% following the McColo closing in November.
• An average of 301,000 zombies were newly activated each day for the purpose of malicious activity.
• Brazil led in zombie computer activity, producing 14.6% of zombies at the end of the quarter.
• Spammers continue to exploit legitimate sites like Google docs to bypass content filtering systems.

“With user generated content on blogs, file sharing platforms and social networks having experienced huge growth over the last few years, spammers and malicious script writers are finding new ways to engage users,” said Amir Lev, chief technology officer of Commtouch. “An increasing number of blended threats have emerged as new opportunities to infect users’ machines have arisen. These kinds of sites have become targets for new, more elaborative schemes, and users, vendors and service providers must beware and employ protection measures.”

According to a survey of U.S. consumers commissioned by NCR Corporation, unprecedented price wars and product promotions by retailers may be saving consumers money, but also costing them more in terms of personal time.

The research reveals that bargain conscious American consumers are spending more time evaluating less familiar brands, switching among stores to capitalize on deals, and also scheduling their shopping trips to coincide with the arrival of paychecks.

As a result, retailers stand the best chance of winning consumers’ business if they can make things faster and easier through more in-store help from staff, faster checkout, and seamless integration of store offerings with Internet and mobile technologies.

The research findings, unveiled at this year’s National Retail Federation (NRF) show, reveal that the efforts by retailers to drive sales through discount and promotions are having a major effect on shoppers’ purchasing decisions and behavior.

• 53 percent are using the Internet more frequently to research products and prices.
• 46 percent want to receive price comparisons, product reviews, coupons, promotions and store sales information online or via email.
• Almost half, 49 percent, are switching between retailers, ‘shop hopping’, to get better value.

‘Shop hopping’ also takes the form of more ‘just in time’ trips in order take advantage of deals and manage their cash flow.

• 80 percent said that they are buying discount or sale items.
• Over a quarter, 26 percent, are making more frequent shopping trips to take advantage of promotions.
• 21 percent are shopping at stores with more flexible hours and 17 percent are increasing trips in line with pay day.

The economic downturn is affecting decisions made in store as consumers switch to more unfamiliar products. While people are spending more time in store making decisions, they also want to get out of the store faster.

• 63 percent are trading down to ‘own or store brand’ or generic products rather than ‘branded goods’.
• 44 percent are preparing meals for special occasions, rather than eating out.
• 43 percent are buying ingredients from scratch, rather than ready meals.
• 33 percent believe the tendency of other people to spend more time shopping is making stores busier.
• 44 percent report and increased desires to pay for shopping more quickly.

With in-store shopping patterns changing, a large majority of shoppers expect staff to help them in store.

• 73 percent believe that it is important that store employees are available to help locate products.
• 55 percent believe it is important that employees ensure discounted items are not out of stock.
• 48 percent believe staff advice on discount and promotions is important.

Critically, the research reveals that shoppers believe that a range of multi-channel and in-store self-service technologies play a vital role in meeting service needs and they will differentiate between retailers that offer these technologies and ones that do not.

• 72 percent said they are more likely to shop with a retailer that gives consumers the flexibility to interact easily via online, mobile and kiosk self-service channels versus a retailer that does not.
• Around half, 49 percent, believe that kiosks that show them where to find products in stores would be convenient.
• 43 percent believe receiving discount offerings and product information on large screens in store would be convenient, while 39 percent want self-return solutions for processing returns quickly.

As organizations prepare for annual employee goal setting sessions at the start of the New Year, SumTotal Systems released the top 10 tips HR managers can use to drive better organizational alignment for improved performance across their company. Implementing sound, universally accepted goal setting processes, coupled with the use of an effective system for managing and tracking these processes is one of the best ways HR can contribute to an organization’s bottom line.

1. Know the goals – HR should be involved with executives and senior management as they plan organizational goals for the year ahead to grasp the business issues and challenges which are driving the goals.
2. Get buy-in – The executive team should support HR’s efforts to align goals and help communicate the importance of the program so employees understand the executive team stands behind it.
3. Cascade goals – Once the goals are set at the top of the organization, they should work their way down in the organization.
4. Ensure consistency – As goals are being established further down in the organization, HR can assist by creating standards for goals and then monitoring for consistency.
5. Hold everyone accountable – A manager needs to make sure goals are measurable with specific deadlines and then hold employees to those dates and deliverables.
6. Reinforce through development – Ensure that employees have the skills and tools in place to actually reach the established goals – the best way to do this is through development plans, which HR can monitor.
7. Work the gaps – While managers can work with employees individually, HR should run company reports to monitor where the organization is falling short at a high level. Address those needs proactively by working with the Learning team.
8. Encourage year-long communication – It is easy for the manager and employee to set up the initial goals and then not touch them again. HR can leverage system technology to send reminders to employees to update their goals and work toward instilling a culture of frequent manager/employee communication.
9. Monitor compliance – Managers should be monitoring completion and updates of employee goals, but HR should monitor overall progress and provide reports to executives and department heads.
10. Measure twice, cut once – Goals should be a major component of a company’s annual performance appraisal where employees are measured and ultimately held accountable.

Research among international financial services organizations undertaken by Norkom Technologies reveals that those who have adopted an enterprise-wide approach to the management of money laundering and fraud are achieving substantial cost savings and performance benefits. 64% of organizations that have consolidated crime fighting operations technologies have achieved cost savings of up to 34%. 68% have improved their crime detection performance by up to 40%.

“This evidence could not have come at a better time,” says Norkom’s Managing Director of Global Solutions, David Dixon. “In the recessionary aftermath of the credit crunch, the pressure is on for financial services organizations to demonstrate operational effectiveness and economic efficiency in every area of their business. Savings of the magnitude observed in this report will make a significant contribution to organizations’ bottom line.”

Norkom’s research reveals increasing levels of crime with 60% of respondents reporting increased fraud attacks in the past 12 months. Norkom believes this, coupled with increasing regulatory scrutiny, is driving financial crime management up the corporate agenda. More than half (56%) of organizations now view financial crime and compliance as part of an overall operational risk challenge and manage it accordingly under a single governance model. 50% of respondents now have fully articulated three-to-five year strategic plans to develop their financial crime fighting capability and, in 79% of cases, those plans embrace the entire enterprise.

The research also reveals that regulators, previously interested only in AML, are turning their attention to other areas of financial crime. 40% of respondents note increased regulatory interest in their fraud management activities and are using disciplines developed in AML environments, including ‘Know Your Customer’ (KYC) and ‘Customer Due Diligence’ (CDD) to combat fraud.