EARLIER THIS YEAR, SIRNA THERAPEUTICS ANNOUNCED it was moving its corporate headquarters from Boulder, Colo., to San Francisco — one more in the long line of biotechnology firms to put down roots in the region. From a real-estate perspective, homegrown and transplanted companies together have transformed the fabled Bay area into the largest biotech community in the country, occupying 16 million square feet. And demand for laboratory space, from San Francisco to Palo Alto, shows no sign of slowing, as the proximity of Genentech and first-rate universities beckons other research firms.
Category: Business
Wisconsin Low in Job Quality
Wisconsin’s overall job quality ranked 39th out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in 2003, based on the research released Thursday. The study used government data to define job quality by the average wages paid per industry and occupation.
Compared with the national mix of industries, Wisconsin had smaller shares of workers in fields such as information; finance and insurance; and professional, scientific and technical services, all of which pay higher-than-average wages nationwide, said Tom Rex, associate director of the research center at Arizona State’s W.P. Carey School of Business.
Globalization, It’s Not Just the Wages
Louis Uchitelle pens an interesting article on Whirlpool’s worldwide production system for washing machines. Quite interesting, particularily their comments on the very small labor cost component in the final product.
Northwest Airlines’ Fortress Midwest Strategy
Susan Carey writes about Northwests’ “catering to travelers between small and midsize cities in the Upper Midwest. This “heartland” gambit aims to keep fares higher and discourage discounters from flying there. …. Going one big step further, Northwest also has been expanding aggressively with nonstop flights between nonhub cities, so that more passengers don’t have to make connections through one of its hubs when flying to some domestic cities.”
This strategy has manifested itself with 50 seat jet non-stop flights between Madison and Washington’s Reagan National Airport (though at inconvenient middle of the day times) and a variety of non-stops from cities like Milwaukee and Indianapolis to New York, Washington and other east coast destinations. This is also an attempt – futile, I think to kill Midwest Airlines.
Northwest is largely betting that flyers will put up with the small, uncomfortable jets in an effort to grow frequent flyer miles (the hidden secret here is that frequent flyer miles are growing more difficult to use by the day, unless you use a lot of them…..)
On a related note, the Boyd Group has written about the declining utility and economics of 50 seat jets for some time. They recently mentioned growing demand for 100 seat planes. I think, unfortunately, it will be difficult for Madison to grow service with 100 seat aircraft – I hope I’m wrong on this. Microjets will likely be one popular alternative in places like Madison.
More on GM Janesville
Brian Bull on GM Janesville’s prospects in light of recent statements by CEO Rick Wagner that additional plants would be closed.
GM Janesville?
GM Chairman Rick Wagner mentioned additional plant closings & layoffs during today’s shareholder’s meeting in Wilmington, DE:
Going forward, in order to achieve full capacity utilization based on conservative volume planning scenarios, we expect to close additional assembly and component plants over the next few years, and to reduce our manufacturing employment levels in the U.S. by 25,000 or more people in the 2005 to 2008 period. We project that these capacity and employment actions will generate annual savings of approximately $2.5 billion.
10 Big Thinkers for Big Business
They work in vastly different fields, but the leaders profiled in the following pages are much alike—they have new takes on old business models, a knack for seeing around corners and an appetite for big risk. A case study of New Thinkers.
AJR on Lee Enterprises, Parent of the Wisconsin State Journal
At the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison, Bill Wineke, the books editor and a columnist, recalls a time in the early 1970s–he’s been there since ’63–when he wrote a column that was distributed to about 15 Lee papers.
After a number of weeks, the State Journal decided to syndicate the column and asked the papers to pay 50 cents each, for postage. Every one of them dropped it.
….
Ron Seely, science and environment reporter at the Wisconsin State Journal, said in late April that his paper was leaving two key jobs unfilled: a regional reporter position and an assistant city editor job. “That makes it harder on our already small staff,” he said. “That’s frustrating.”
Jason Shephard take a look at the local daily newspaper business in the June 2, 2005 Isthmus – available now. Shephard mentions Lee’s 20% profit margins along with a few local reporter’s comments.
Is Wharton Ruining American Business?
That is, anyway, the assertion of an increasingly influential batch of business-school professors, including noted iconoclasts like McGill University management guru Henry Mintzberg and Yale economist Robert Schiller (who wrote that MBA curriculums are “so devoid of moral content that the discussions of ethics must seem like a side order of some overcooked vegetable”). More reasoned types like the late Sumantra Ghoshal of the London Business School, whose posthumously published Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good Management Practices has roiled the business education world, agree. “Business schools do not need to do a great deal more to help prevent future Enrons,” Ghoshal wrote. “They need only to stop doing a lot they currently do.”
The Pleasures of Local Businesses
I’ve had several recent great experiences with local small businesses that are worth sharing:
- Harmony Valley Farm (Saturday morning Farmer’s Market) offers a 1LB bag of triple washed greens for $7.00. Great stuff and lasts a week.
- Ideal Body Shop performed some minor body work on an older car last summer. Unfortunately, paint on the repaired area recently began to chip. I drove the car back to Ideal and they replaced the part at no extra cost – no questions asked!
- I stopped at Sentry Hilldale to pickup some fruit recently. While looking over the strawberries, an employee stopped to make sure I chose those that did not have any mold. Refreshing!
- Flying recently, I’ve been very pleased with Midwest Airlines. Sign up for their periodic email promotions. I’ve flown to several east coast cities for $180 to $210 round trip (keep looking – Flying from Milwaukee rather than Madison saves you some money) on their “Signature Service” – the traditional Midwest configuration with comfortable domestic business class seating.
Shop local, it’s good for all of us.