Innovation - McGraw-Hill Introduction to Business

Hershey Stays Sweet by Turning to Technology

April 26, 2015

As the largest chocolate manufacturer in North America, Hershey is always reshaping the way it does business in order to remain at the top. Technology especially helps the Pennsylvania-based company improve in a number of key areas. For instance, the prevalence of online shopping and self-checkout lines are hurting Hershey’s sales from impulse buyers. To encourage more “unplanned purchases,” the company plans to add small kiosks near self-checkout machines and curbside pickup stations that will give customers one last chance Continue reading →

Food, Data Mining, Manufacturing, 3D Printing, Hershey, Product Development, Marketing, Innovation

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 9: Production and Operations Management, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Chapter 16: Place and Promotion, Bonus Chapter A: Business Law

Silicon Valley Cooks up the Future of Food

April 21, 2015

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California’s Silicon Valley is known the world over as a hub of technological innovation. Along with established giants like Google and Facebook, the Bay Area suburb is home to countless startups hoping to launch the next big social network or app. But not every entrepreneur in the Valley is a code-focused Mark Zuckerburg-type. In one burgeoning industry, scientists at several startups are cooking up revolutionary ways to use plants as meat substitutes in food.

These aren’t like the bean Continue reading →

Silicon Valley, Product Development, Ethics, Innovation, Food

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Chapter 16: Place and Promotion, Bonus Chapter A: Business Law

Getting More with Less Pushy Apps

April 13, 2015

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Americans may differ from one another in innumerable ways, but there’s at least one thing that unites most of us: our phones. Ninety-one percent of adults in the U.S. used a mobile phone in 2013, including 77 percent of Americans older than 65. Furthermore, people from around the globe are just as attached to their phones as we are. All told, the estimated number of mobile subscribers worldwide hovers somewhere around 4.5 billion people. In fact, mobile penetration is Continue reading →

Product Development, Innovation, Marketing, Smartphones, Mobile, The North Face

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Chapter 16: Place and Promotion, Bonus Chapter A: Business Law, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

Costly Drug Development Could Curb Innovation

April 5, 2015

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Each year the pharmaceutical industry develops new drugs that go a long way towards fighting some of the world’s worst diseases. For instance, Bristol-Meyers Squibb recently received FDA (Food & Drug Administration) approval for Opdivo, a drug that significantly boosts the survival rate for sufferers of advanced melanoma. However, one major obstacle stands in the way of Opdivo’s ability to help patients: price. One year of treatment with the drug costs $150,000 per patient, an impossibly tall order for many Continue reading →

Product Development, Innovation, Regulation, Health, Pharmaceuticals, Ethics

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Bonus Chapter A: Business Law, Bonus Chapter D: Personal Finance

Airlines Make Business Class Even Classier

March 24, 2015

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Although business-class seats only take up a few rows on an airplane, the money they bring in accounts for 30 percent of global airline revenues. As a result, many upscale air carriers have upgraded their premium cabins with increasingly posh amenities. Emirates’ double decker Airbus, for instance, has a bar onboard where first-class passengers can meet and mingle. And on Singapore Airlines premium customers have a menu of more than 60 gourmet dinners available to choose from.

But while the Continue reading →

Product Development, Innovation, Transportation, Air Travel, Qantas, Benefits

Chapter 3: Globalization, Chapter 7: Management & Leadership, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price

Getting Drones Airborne for U.S. Companies

March 18, 2015

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Much of the American public has been familiar with unmanned aircraft for years due to the military’s continued and controversial use of drone strikes in the Middle East. However, just recently consumers have been introduced to drones that differ greatly from the grey behemoths that haunt the skies of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Sales of these small models have surged as everyone from filmmakers to farmers find a use for the flying machines. In fact, over the last two years the Continue reading →

Product Development, Innovation, Regulation, Drones, Global, Ethics

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Bonus Chapter A: Business Law

The Motor City’s Burgeoning Bike Business

March 17, 2015

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With Detroit officially out of bankruptcy, business leaders and entrepreneurs are looking to the city’s mighty manufacturing past as an example for its future. After all, Detroit is full of old factories that can be fixed up and rented out cheaply. But it’s not just carmakers who are flocking back to the Motor City: over the last several years at least seven bicycle manufacturers have set up shop in the area as well.

Some of these bike builders rent small Continue reading →

Product Development, Innovation, Cycling, Detroit, Entrepreneurship, Manufacturing

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 9: Production and Operations Management, Chapter 14: Product and Price

The Manufacturing Possibilities of 3D Printing

March 15, 2015

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As a metal products manufacturer for more than 125 years, Alcoa is constantly searching for new ways to improve its efficiency. After all, the New York-based industrial company makes enormous products that can sometimes take years to finish. For instance, Alcoa’s most in-demand items are gas turbines, or the gigantic engines that power planes for Boeing and Airbus. Able to withstand temperatures up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the turbines must be developed and tested for more than a year before Continue reading →

Product Development, Innovation, Alcoa, 3D Printing, Manufacturing

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 9: Production and Operations Management, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

Changing the Way Offices Use the Phone

March 12, 2015

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These days, any office must have a unified communications system in place in order to compete. Years ago this could have been accomplished by installing a series of linked landline phones with conference call capabilities. Now, however, services like Google Voice allow users to ditch their landlines and receive calls directly on their smartphones. Companies currently spend as much as $75 billion per year on Internet voice systems. This figure is expected to increase as disruptive startups take unified communications Continue reading →

Silicon Valley, Product Development, Innovation, Mobile, Management, Human Resources

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 7: Management & Leadership, Chapter 8: Organizational Culture and Structure, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

Vetting Potential Hires with Personality Tests

March 10, 2015

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For many companies recruiting new employees, a traditional one-on-one interview only tells part of a potential hire’s story. Some small businesses simply don’t have time to hold deep conversations with interviewees: one family-owned car wash in Kentucky said that it receives more than 1,000 applications each year.

In order to streamline its hiring process, Finish Line Car Wash turned to a personality assessment company called PeopleClues. The service’s 30-minute online test gives applicants a series of statements and then asks Continue reading →

Human Resources, Labor Relations, Innovation, Data Mining, Hiring

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 11: Human Resource Management, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media