Product Development - 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 →

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

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 →

Ethics, Food, Silicon Valley, Product Development, Innovation

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

Disney Switches from Rereleasing to Reimagining

April 18, 2015

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For years Walt Disney Studios thrived by strategically reissuing its catalogue of animated classics on home video. Starting out on VHS and continuing with DVD and Blu-ray, the company rereleased a movie every seven years, updating the special features and packaging into something new for consumers to purchase. With digital downloads rising and DVD sales on the downturn, however, Disney’s longtime cash cow is starting to run dry. As a result, the Mouse has switched focus to reimagining its past Continue reading →

Marketing, Product Development, Entertainment, Disney, Product Distribution

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Chapter 16: Place and Promotion

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 →

Marketing, Product Development, Innovation, 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 →

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

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

Lumber Liquidators Comes up Short

April 2, 2015

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To many amateur investors, a company that brings in more than $1 billion in annual sales would seem like a pretty safe bet. But these numbers didn’t impress Wall Street hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson when he noticed them in a report about Lumber Liquidators. From his professional perspective, this small flooring retailer should not have been enjoying such large profit margins. Suspecting that the company was cutting corners in some way, he advised his clients to sell the company Continue reading →

Ethics, Manufacturing, Product Development, Finance, Regulation, Product Distribution, Lumber Liquidators

Chapter 3: Globalization, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 9: Production and Operations Management, Bonus Chapter A: Business Law

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 →

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

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 →

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

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 →

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

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 →

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

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