Filed under: Products and services, Management, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, General Motors (GM), Marketing and advertising, Toyota Motor Corp. (TM)

Despite a weak economic environment, Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) is continuing its strong competition with rival General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) for the title of the world’s largest automaker. The auto industry competition has become even stronger as new rivals appear in China, Russia, South America and other regions. In its attempt to claim sole dominance of the auto world, Toyota plans to gain ground in new markets by focusing on finding more efficient methods to build its cars.

One example of Toyota trying to think “outside the box,” can be illustrated by a training practice put in place at the automaker’s training center located inside its Motomachi assembly complex. The company has been having some workers using golf balls in order to exercise and make their fingers more flexible. A part of the training involves workers using their concentration to make two balls they hold in each hand roll in opposite directions. Sounds a little crazy, but the practice is designed to improve their skills on tasks regarding the assembly line of automobiles they build.

This is all aimed at accomplishing Toyota’s plan of global domination. One thing that Toyota is aware of, and trying to improve upon, is its ability to run efficient operations in countries outside of Japan. Think about this… Toyota currently operates plants in 27 countries, with plans to build in even more locations. Where the potential trouble comes into play is the fact that key management jobs in each country are held entirely by Japanese executives who decide all the company’s major operations and strategic plans.

Katsuaki Watanabe, Toyota’s president, believes that it is “extremely important to have the same common Toyota Way infiltrated to employees in all corners of the world.” However, he sees it imperative that those plans should have their own independence as “each corner of the world, in each region, there are inherent characteristics that need to be respected.”

Toyota announced last year it plans to hit a target of 9.85 million vehicles sales worldwide in 2008, up 5% from last year, but is smart enough to realize that their possible weakness could be maximizing potential from its foreign managers.

Under this context, the Japanese automaker wants to extend the company’s success and operating principles in other countries and grant more leadership control to these factories at the same time. Foreign managers were asked by Watanabe to estimate which tasks they have the ability to deal with on their own, which they have the ability to accomplish with help from Japan’s executive, and which areas are still needed to be kept under observation by Japanese officials.

This month many workers from different Toyota plants took part in training required for jobs. Helped by interpreters and videos, the workers learned, for example, how to bend their knees and spray a water gun across a clear panel of Plexiglas during their work jobs in a plant’s paint shop.

Watanabe stated that the company’s experience in the United Says showed that Toyota could not simply force workers in other countries to embrace Japanese practices. Time was also a key improvement in Toyota’s strategy as “what took us 20 years is now concentrated down to five years.”

Earnings results for the past few months showed an improved performance in the company’s products. With this new strategy and its ambitious plans to defeat competition, it looks to be just a matter of time before Toyota beats GM to become the biggest automaker in global sales.

Eliza Popescu is a financial writer for the on the internet investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

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Filed under: Launches, Google (GOOG), Marketing and advertising

Already dominating life here on earth, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is now making plans to conquer outer space too.

Google announced the Google Lunar X Prize yesterday at its headquarters in Mountain View, California. The competition offers $30 million in prizes to anyone who can get a robot to the moon and send back pictures and other data.

According to an article in Friday’s New York Times, 10 teams have joined the competition. The teams include robotic experts from American universities, an Italian aerospace company, the Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association, and a group of engineers who will work together on the internet.

It’s hard not to admire Google for doing this. Sergey Brin compared Google’s support of space exploration to other companies’ support of yacht racing — the large difference being that space exploration develops interesting new technologies and expands human capacities while yacht racing simply provides entertainment for the super rich. And at a time when the American government is led by incompetent simpletons, it’s good to see someone picking up the slack in terms of technical investment and development. On the other hand, some people might worry that the commercialization of space is the last thing we need. I certainly hope that the lunar surface remains free of advertising, though I suspect that it won’t be too long before we begin seeing corporate logos painted onto moon rock.

For those of you who are considering entering the competition, here are the basic rules from the Lunar X Prize web site:

The Google Lunar X PRIZE is a $30 million international competition to safely land a robot on the surface of the Moon, travel 500 meters over the lunar surface, and send images and data back to the Earth. Teams must be at least 90% privately funded and must be registered to compete by December 31, 2010. The first team to land on the Moon and complete the mission objectives will be awarded $20 million; the full first prize is available until December 31, 2012. After that date, the first prize will drop to $15 million. The second team to do so will be awarded $5 million. Another $5 million will awarded in bonus prizes. The final deadline for winning the prize is December 31, 2014.

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Surgeon and nurse volunteer for work in Nepal
Bucks Herald - Miss French received a cheque last week from a group called BAHA (bone anchored hearing aids) which raised the money with a soup kitchen. She said:

MarkWest Energy Partners unaffected by approved merger - S&P
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UPDATE 1-Penn West profit up before Canetic deal kicks in
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MSN MoneyCentral - TOKYO (AP) - Lawyers for a disgraced World wide web mogul insisted on his innocence Friday at the start of a court appeal of his securities fraud conviction in a scandal that destroyed one of Japan’s highest-flying Internet startups. Takafumi Horie, former

Aurukun crime-fighting money went unspent
News.com.au - THE Queensland Government was warned three years ago that its failure to provide services for Aboriginal communities represented a serious breach of its statutory duties. An internal Department of Communities report which looked specifically at

Lloyds TSB Profit Rises 10%, Helped by Consumer Loans (Update3)
Bloomberg - This is a steady commercial bank,” said Simon Maughan , a London-based analyst at MF Global Securities Ltd. “They have taken some hits on their subprime exposure, but overall this should be a place where you want to put your money,” said Maughan

Russia wealth funds investment list is “technical”
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Court Won’t Reinstate Insurance Lawsuit
Forbes - The Lynches’ attorney, Christopher Jerram, stated the ruling will create an incentive for insurance companies to delay paying medical claims in the hope that their policyholders will collect money from someone else.

CORRECTED: Carlyle Capital Corporation Schedules Year-End 2007
MSN MoneyCentral - Due to an unforeseen scheduling conflict of one of its executives, Carlyle Capital Corporation Limited (Amsterdam: CCC)(ISIN: GG00B1VYV826) (the “Company”) has moved a conference call to discuss the Company’s year-end results to Monday, March 3, 2008

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Filed under: Products and services, Management, Industry, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, eBay (EBAY), Marketing and advertising, Small business

For the past several years, eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) has pretty much cornered the market for on the internet auctions. It has created such big barriers of entry, that smaller sites have difficulty breaking into the market. But this week’s seller boycott on eBay has opened the door for some smaller companies.

We took a look earlier this week at the reasons behind the current eBay strike. We made note at that time, that some of your more massive name competitors, such as Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) were going to be capitalizing on the sellers’ strike, but now we’re also starting to hear about gains made in some smaller companies that you might have never heard of before.

In a current article from Seattle Post-Intelligencer, two Washington-based companies said they have been loving all the negative attention that eBay has been receiving as of late.

The first company that the article mentions is CozyBug.com. Never heard of it? Don’t worry, most people have not. This small on the internet site is very similar to eBay, but it focuses on selling items that are too large to ship, or items that people usually want to see first hand before making their purchase. The site, while being nationwide in its reach, has been trying to establish itself as the web’s “local on the web flea market and garage sale”.

Sounds like a great concept, but there has been one problem… luring in eBay users and convincing them to switch to CozyBug. Well, this week eBay’s new policies have become CozyBug’s ideal marketing campaign ever.

Just how much of a difference can a week make? The numbers don’t lie. Before this week, CozyBug has been getting about 10,000 visitors per month. This week traffic has ballooned. Its per day traffic has jumped to 15,000 visitors! In case you were wondering, that is more than a 4,400% daily increase. Not too shabby.

According to the company’s founder and CEO, David Cantu, “EBay is too big… this was bound to happen…” But how has the increased site traffic translated into members? The site has gained 100 newly registered members so far. OK, I know what you’re thinking, 100 new members doesn’t sound like such a large change. Fair enough, but consider that in the previous 10 months that the site has been up and running it had gained a total of 700 members, so this week has seen over a 14% jump in members. Yes, that’s a material increase for the site to state the least.

Enough about CozyBug, let’s take a look at the next company, MommyAuctions.com. The eBay strike has boosted the number of items listed for sale on the site from 2,500 to 4,000 this week alone. As far as traffic, the site has seen an increase from 3,630 average visitors in January to a current average of 4,650, a 28% increase.

The real question is, what is going to happen next week? Will eBay users go back to what they know best, or can we expect to see some of these migrating sellers staying away from eBay permanently?

If you are an eBay seller that is currently involved in this week’s boycott, I would love to hear your thoughts on this matter. Are you basically planning to just boycott the site this week, and return to business as usual next Monday? What options have you been exploring this week for the selling of your goods, or have you basically just taken the week off and not selling on other sites?

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

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Filed under: Law, Marketing and advertising, Anheuser-Busch Cos (BUD)

Back in August, I wrote about the 23 say attorneys general that were taking a look at alcoholic energy drinks, concerned that consumers weren’t being warned about the dangers of mixing caffeine with beer. Studies have shown that caffeine can lead intoxicated individuals to believe that they are well enough to drive, and can also mask some of the symptoms, fooling those around them as well.

Now Anheuser-Busch (NYSE: BUD) has received subpoenas from New York, Maine, Maryland, Arizona, and Iowa while SABMiller Plc. has received subpoenas for documents from Illinois, New York, Iowa, Maine, and Maryland.

In one of the more idiotic defenses I’ve seen in a while, Anheuser-Busch released a statement saying that “If the Attorneys General truly believe that, despite the state and federal regulatory approvals, alcohol and caffeine should not be blended, then they should use their powers to persuade these authorities to regulate or ban all such beverages, not just the lower-alcohol, prepackaged ones,”

What? Isn’t that kind of like saying that the police shouldn’t crack down on people selling crystal meth because you can purchase all the products you need at the grocery store? Not that I would know … but if Anheuser-Busch is marketing a product that contains a chemical combination that’s more dangerous than the sum of the parts and consumers aren’t aware of that, it’s worth investigating.

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Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Marketing and advertising

The market is looking to extend yesterday’s rally, and shares of department store retailer J.C. Penney Inc. (NYSE: JCP) are also moving higher. Today’s price move comes in reaction to estimate beating numbers, despite posting a decline in fourth-quarter.

For the quarter, the retailer said that its profit slipped 10% to $430 million, but the decline was smaller than expected as the company’s costs control offset lower sales from the weak consumer spending environment. J.C. Penney posted quarterly earnings of $1.93 per share, topping analysts’ predictions for earnings of $1.77 per share. These numbers were down from $477 million, or $2.09 per share reported in the same period a year ago, but in the current market environment is being viewed as a victory by Wall Street.

The company did post a decline its fourth-quarter revenue which slipped 4% to $6.39 billion, down from $6.66 billion a year earlier. The drop in revenue came as the retailer had to face a weal consumer environment brought by the U.S. housing market slowdown, higher food and fuel prices.

Consumers’ fear over a possible recession put a curb on their spending and the results came with lower same-store sales during the months of December and January. Analysts had been expecting J.C. Penney to show revenue of $6.39 billion in the quarter, according to Thomson Financial.

Looking ahead, the retailer expects to see an improvement in its first-quarter total sales. Full-year total sales are also expected to rise in the low-single digit range. With “no clear indication that the consumer environment will improve during 2008,” J.C. Penney forecast first-quarter earnings in a range between 75 cents and 80 cents per share, and full-year earnings between $3.75 and $4.00 per share. This comes below analysts’ predictions for first-quarter earnings of 81 cents per share and full-year earnings of $4.02.

The department store retailer had a pretty difficult 2007, as the company had to face continued fears over a possible recession. The slumping housing market and credit crises brought a slowdown in consumer spending whose effects are reflected in the company’s earnings. Regardless, J.C. Penney’’s positive earnings results and its optimism over further gains seem to be enough to enthusiasm investors who pull shares up over 2% in early trading.

Eliza Popescu is a financial writer for the on the internet investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

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Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Marketing and advertising, AT and T (T), Sprint Nextel Corp (S), Verizon Communications (VZ)

Tom Taulli wrote Tuesday about Verizon (NYSE: VZ)’s unlimited wireless calling plan, and competitors AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T) and T-Mobile (part of Germany’s Deutsche Telekom) followed suit with unlimited wireless calling plans for U.S. customers. This is a first in the wireless industry for the major carriers, but it’s a welcome one for many consumers. Both AT&T and T-Mobile will offer unlimited calling starting by the end of this week — T-Mobile starting this day and AT&T starting tomorrow.

Where is Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S), you may ask? The carrier also announced unlimited calling plans two weeks ago, but just in a few select markets — and starting at $119.99 per month. Although the unlimited calling plans vary from carrier to carrier, generally, there is a $99.99 per month price of admission with all of them. T-Mobile offers the ideal value, with all call minutes and unlimited text messages included. Why did all the carriers — except Sprint — unveil unlimited calling within just a few days of each other?

Something has to keep growth churning along in the wireless industry. With 85% of Americans now owning a cellphone, wireless is heading for commodity status (it might already be there), where price wars will begin erupting and “me too” marketing campaigns following shortly thereafter. The Personal computer industry knows all about this. But price wars only help the consumer — not the wireless carrier. Yes, many of us heavy wireless users might soon have lower bills, but the carriers might have lower bottom lines as well. What wireless company stocks do you’ve in your portfolio? Will this cause more customers to abandon landline telephones and switch to unlimited-minutes wireless only, pumping in growth into the wireless sector for the time being? Food for thought.

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