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Article gives basic overview of the ASP (Application Service Provider) concept and model; offers some statistics, examples, analysis and an interview with Phil Wainewright, founder and managing editor of ASPnews.com

discussion of a new study titled "Store Choice and Shopping Behavior: How Price Format Works."; Research on retailing typically attributes the success of a store to its location. At the same time, marketing experts have focused a great deal of attention on the role of pricing in store performance, but without considering location. In this recent study, Bell, Ho and Tang provide managers with a new shopping framework that takes both criteria into account.

For a searchable repository of market data check out our Market Research Center

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This 58-page .pdf report from the Current Business Reports series of the Census Bureau offers a detailed summary of retail sales, purchases, accounts receivable, and inventory from January 1990 to December 1999 mostly in tabular form.

Short article talks about the types of security issues you should question potential ASPs about - use this as a boilerplate of sorts.

Vendors offer a variety of approaches to combining numerous offerings into one service

Businesses are harnessing the technology to spur sales and give workers an edge

ASPs and their customers still face challenges with pricing, performance, and training.

Strategy in digital business has become an increasingly significant component of Digital Business Service Provider (DBSP) offerings. Pure plays have and are becoming more experienced, and are serious competitors to the more traditional strategists. DBSP strategists take over where the traditional consultancy process lets go. They serve largely in the operational strategic role by taking the business idea to the step of design and architect to achieve deliverable capabilities. But they also do more.

As corporate America buys and sells more goods and services abroad, the number of company employees kidnapped for ransom in places like Mexico, Brazil, the Philippines and Chechnya has increased. Along with that increase have come escalating demands for ransom money, more expensive insurance policies and more sophisticated negotiation tactics on both sides of the table. Knowledge@Wharton looks at recent developments in the kidnap and ransom business.

Very little observational data are available on what management consultants actually do on an hour-to-hour basis. The purpose of the present research study is to gain insight into the work of management consultants by answering the following questions: (1) What are the characteristics of the management consultants' working days? (2) What are the characteristics of the management consultants' verbal interaction patterns during scheduled interactions? (3) Which intervention strategies are dominant during management consultants' scheduled interactions? (4) What are the main functions of unscheduled interactions? (5) What are the characteristics of the management consultants' desk work?

Trying to paint telecommunications in the Asia-Pacific region with a broad brush is unwise, according to a recent report from Gartner. Read on to get an overview of how countries including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea have taken a different approach to liberalizing the industry. Full report is also available for free download.

The Washington Post devotes a section to the struggling Telecom sector. Stories touch on the investments in the sector -- and their dubious payoffs. The lead story of the section, "A Hot Sector Burns Out", sets the stage for a discussion of the current shakeout in the industry and Wall Street's investments both past, present and future in the growth of telecom. Other stories touch on spectrum, workforce issues, policy, and wireless hardware and standards. Particular stories of note follow. The URL of the section is immediately below.
- A HOT SECTOR BURNS OUT
Issue: Telecommunications
http://www.washtech.com/news/telecom/7919-1.html

- BROADBAND'S NICE IF YOU CAN GET IT
Issue: Broadband/Digital Divide
http://www.washtech.com/news/telecom/7902-1.html

- VETERAN HANDS STILL IN DEMAND
Issue: Workforce/Economy
http://www.washtech.com/news/telecom/7908-1.html

- RIDING UP TO THE CHALLENGE
Issue: CLECS
http://www.washtech.com/news/telecom/7903-1.html

- A PUSH FOR MORE FREQUENCIES
Issue: Spectrum
http://www.washtech.com/news/telecom/7918-1.html

- BELLS, RIVALS GEAR UP FOR BATTLE
Issue: Broadband
http://www.washtech.com/news/telecom/7915-1.html

E-learning systems may not be easy to implement, but many companies see the potential for a broad business impact.

Units let retailers expand offerings and provide customers with more information.

The principles of high performance retail are the principles of high performance business. It's 'show time' all the time - the ultimate test and the moment of truth will always be your customers' experience of your enterprise at the point of sale.

Why are so many on-line banking ventures-start-ups and incumbents alike-foundering? Despite the presence of more than 2,500 Western European banking sites on the World Wide Web, only eight million people in the region use the channel to either check their accounts or make transactions. We studied 65 leading banks in ten European countries to determine why customers are adopting on-line banking at different rates.

The take-away
Our study confirmed that when it comes to bringing customers on-line, "push" factors (the efforts that banks make to attract customers to on-line operations) are almost as important as "pull" factors (the demand from Internet-savvy customers for electronic services).

Why do some retailers expanding abroad perform better than others? This article looks at some of the reasons why and introduces the concept of psychic distance in explaining performance variations.

Authors take a look at how money managers get compensated and whether these compensation schemes provide managers with the incentive to act in the investors' best interests. Their research concludes that certain money managers, due to the generally accepted method of compensation in the mutual fund industry, are likely to increase their portfolio's risk level in an effort to improve their chances of receiving higher bonuses.

A useful look at the healthcare industry including a history of its move toward vertical integration in the 1980's and its retrenchment in the 1990's, analyis of the issues involved and some predictions for the future.

As the once-fragmented banking industry continues the consolidation that began a decade and a half ago, what has been the impact of bank mergers on consumers? Are they finding higher fees and fewer free services, or lower interest rates and more service options? Some experts offer their opinions.

The market for lending equities is obscure and privately negotiated, but the benefits are substantial, according to Wharton finance professors Christopher Geczy and David Musto and Wharton doctoral student Adam Reed. In the article below, reprinted from the Financial Times' Mastering Investment series, the three authors discuss short-selling in equity lending, short selling of IPO stocks and the legal issues of shorting.

How are the cell carriers ever going to run a decent business with so many customers so irate?

20 years pass and one becomes two: that is, over time, the once-unified financial services industry split into two broad sectors. One is wholesale finance, where clients who have direct access to capital markets may receive financial services. The second is retail and regional finance, where clients do not have direct access but still receive services. Professors Ingo Walter and Roy Smith compare and contrast these two sectors, illustrating the impetus for each respective group members' actions.

"'The U.S. [cell phone] industry is a freak of nature, an artificial creation with more competitors than the economic reality justifies,' argues Scott Ford, president of Arkansas-based Alltel, the largest regional cell phone company. 'It's the biggest issue facing the industry. We are rapidly moving from wealth creation to wealth destruction.' What's needed is a wrenching, top-to-bottom consolidation - and it is coming soon, thanks to the unlikeliest of saviors: the FCC. By year-end the FCC is expected to eliminate, or at least loosen, restrictions that have effectively banned large-scale consolidation. The most important restriction is the cap on how much radio-wave spectrum a single cellular firm can control in a given city; another rule bans cross-ownership of certain types of cellular licenses. Together the regulations effectively guarantee fragmented, unprofitable markets."

Success will come to financial services companies that have the courage to dismantle outdated business paradigms and to successfully leverage the industry's new competitive dynamics. The need for new models to generate profitable growth is clear. This demands a strategy for building customer and shareholder value that takes into account the critical variables-like customer behavior and technology-that shape today's competitive environment.

The fundamental promise of e-commerce is to empower the customer. In transportation, logistics and other "behind the scenes" aspects of e-commerce, new services and capabilities are beginning to fulfill this promise, not just for Fortune 500 companies but for small and medium firms and for those with specialized requirements as well. This article outlines some of the latest developments in this fast-moving field, and provides some background and context to help companies better understand the alternatives available to them today.

Article takes a look at the underlying problems with today's investment banks' research analysts.

Investment pioneer Bill Hambrecht foresees an entirely new way for companies to go public. His vision amounts to nothing less than an IPO revolution -- for founders and investors alike.

See related article, 'A Better, More Honest IPO' at:
http://www.forbes.com/2002/10/17/1017ipo.html

The bad news: broadband's technology, infrastructure, and economics are still inadequate. The good news: broadcasters are far more secure from attack than they were at the dawn of the World Wide Web.

International bank regulators are currently drafting a new version of the historic 1988 Basel Capital Accord, which set minimum capital requirements for banks around the world. Far from being an esoteric banking issue, the new rules will have far-reaching implications for banks and borrowers alike. As currently written, however, proposals for the new accord threaten to put an undue and unintended capital burden on banks and won't encourage them to pursue more sophisticated credit-risk-management practices.

The take-away
Although the new proposals represent a step in the right direction, important modifications are still needed. This article suggests four key ones.