Tip Sheet Babcock Graduate School of Management Wake Forest University May 1997
1. Rambling wrecks no longer - The retail automobile industry in the U.S. is rapidly changing. As new car sales stabilize, sales of used cars rose 33 percent from 1985 to 1995. Auto superstores selling used cars with "no hassle" salespeople, video kiosks, and extended warranties are turning up around the country. In a marketing competition at Wake Forest University, teams of students from seven universities competed to create a viable marketing plan for the nation's newest entry into the used car superstore market, Driver's Mart Worldwide Inc. Ram Baliga, professor of management at the Babcock Graduate School of Management, worked with Tom Eggleston, president and CEO of Driver's Mart, to research and write the case study used in the competition.
2. A better bottom line? The accounting concept of economic value added isn't a new idea. Bern Beatty, associate professor of management, calls it "old wine in new bottles" as he describes why he believes using EVA can contribute to a better bottom line for a business or organization. Simply put, the concept involves calculating the cost of capital to determine true economic profit. Beatty suggests ten reasons why EVA can help improve the bottom line.
3. How should "world class" be defined? Barbara Bechler Flynn, visiting associate professor of management, and her colleagues are answering that question. With three grants from the National Science Foundation totaling more than $1 million, Flynn and her associates are compiling data on manufacturers in the United States and around the world with the goal of discovering what makes a company a "world class" organization among its global competitors. Two of the grants, dealing with fast product innovation and trade-offs between competitive priorities, are among the first to be offered jointly through the National Science Foundation and industry. "The grants evolved from a challenge by corporations to universities to teach quality and total quality management," Flynn said. "The CEOs realized the way to motivate faculty was to fund research." Ten companies contributed $600,000 each and the National Science Foundation added $2 million for a total of $8 million in grants. Flynn's partners on one grant include Texas Instruments, Unisys, Honeywell, and Medtronic. Her project with them involves quality and product innovation. "Traditionally people have felt the only way to create a new product quickly was to take shortcuts," she said. " That may not necessarily be true."
For information or to arrange interviews, call Patricia Divine or Sarah Hunter at 800/722-1622 or 910/759-5421. Visit our home page at http://www.mba.wfu.edu. See our source guide for the media on our homepage for a list of faculty who can provide expert comment on a variety of issues.
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