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In addition to making purchasing processes more mobile-friendly and intuitive, remember that business clients expect the red-carpet treatment. The last thing a wine and beer distributor wants to see on your website is offers for distilled spirits she never purchases. Buyers expect catalogs, pricing and product selection to be curated for their purchases and organized according to their specific needs. For complex B2B businesses that offer many product lines, have large catalogs and serve many different sectors, individualization can significantly affect online revenue.
One of the most tangible ways to deliver personalization is through customized and dynamic pricing. According to research firm Gartner, 2018 will see around 40% of B2B commerce sites using price optimization algorithms to deliver dynamic pricing. In practical terms, that means sophisticated personalization, taking into account such parameters as purchasing volume, frequency and long-term relationship value. A procurement agent who purchases millions of dollars of running shoes every year should expect a more attractive set of pricing incentives than a buyer who purchases footwear on an ad-hoc basis.
It is also important for online merchants to map the customer journey and to understand places where interactions are disjointed or too impersonal. Identifying areas where the destination feels unknown will help you create a seamless experience across all channels of purchase and interaction. Companies that create personalized customer experiences will be the ones that win in 2018 and beyond.
To deliver efficient and customized service, merchants will increasingly need to integrate their e-commerce systems with other core platforms, from large back-end supply chain software to customer relationship management systems. For their own survival, companies and their executives could benefit from access to a unified global view of all channel-selling activities.
A system that seamlessly combines e-commerce data with detailed customer interaction history gives every team member access to the same holistic overview. This type of fully integrated solution knocks down functional silos, giving sales, marketing and customer service teams the ability to cooperate efficiently. Tomorrow’s B2B winners will be the companies that can integrate disparate technology platforms and make them work together in a way that maximizes their utility to all members of an organization.
Investment in your company’s technology infrastructure and business systems can seem daunting, but these platforms will help build a foundation to transform your business’ digital future. If you embrace the key trends that are reshaping business-to-business e-commerce, your customers will not only become loyal brand advocates, they will see you as leaders in the industry.
NEW YORK — The promoter of a failed music festival in the Bahamas who is awaiting sentencing on fraud charges was arrested on new fraud charges Tuesday, leading a judge to order his detention.
His lawyer, Randall Jackson, argued Tuesday that McFarland had proven he was no risk to flee by surrendering when he learned FBI agents were looking for him. He also said one of McFarland’s colleagues, co-operating with prosecutors, was framing him.
Jackson said his client has been co-operative with the government and was ready to answer any questions.
Gorenstein, noting that McFarland would likely face an additional two years or so in prison if he is convicted in the new case, said that if he is freed on bail in the Fyre Festival case, he’ll face a $1 million bail on the new charges.
Last month, the much celebrated Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) replaced Alcoa, Bank of America, and Hewlett Packard with Nike, Goldman Sachs, and Visa. Although the Dow Jones Index Committee sold the changes as an improvement, the Dow's adjustments were purely cosmetic and now put the benchmark at risk of a higher level of volatility, as we're already seeing.
Today, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) slid around 2.6% after reporting a year-over-year revenue decline and IBM (NYSE:IBM) fell 6.5% after it missed third quarter revenue estimates. Both stocks are the second and third highest weighted companies within the Dow Industrials. Why does it matter?
Unlike the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY), a market cap weighted index, the Dow weights companies by their share price. (Also, see Is the New Look Dow an Upgrade or Downgrade?) In other words, stocks with the highest share price have the greatest influence on the Dow's performance. Not only is this a badly outdated way to construct an equity benchmark, but it's a serious flaw.
"In what likely will turn out to be an obvious case of returns chasing, an additional sign of a market topping, as well as another situation where calculations and formulas are manipulated for a purpose of covering up fundamentals, the Dow Committee is trying to piggyback off of the continued price gains in Goldman Sachs, Visa, and to a lesser degree Nike. Extra return does not come without increased risks, and the committee has also now set the Dow up for significantly more downside risk. With euphoria running sky high, no doubt the committee ignored this potential downside risk in order to gamble on a continued run in the prices of Visa, Goldman, and Nike, and that makes the Dow now even more vulnerable to a significant market decline, unintended or not."
Figure 4 below illustrates the mathematical impact of a hypothetical 40% decline in the three newest Dow components. This hypothetical decline, it should be noted, is similar in magnitude to the 2008-09 crash. And as our table illustrates, the three newest Dow components would take down the Dow by approximately 7.1% in a bear market environment. That compares with just a 0.9% decline in the Dow, assuming the same 40% magnitude fall in the previous Dow companies - Alcoa, Bank of America, and Hewlett Packard.
By holding just 30 stocks, the Dow Industrials (NYSEARCA:DIA) also lacks the sector diversification or depth of even broader stock benchmarks like the Russell 1000 (NYSEARCA:IWB) or Dow Jones U.S. Broad Market Index (NYSEARCA:SCHB). Translation: The Dow Industrials, along with its tracking ETF, is a poor choice for investors that want a core or long-term holding to the U.S. stock market. Time and price will tell us if this benchmark shuffle turns out to be one of the worst timed Dow moves in history. Thus far, it's not looking good.
In 2012, a small team of Google Inc engineers and business staffers met with several of the world’s largest car makers, to discuss partnerships to build self-driving cars.
In one meeting, both sides were enthusiastic about the futuristic technology, yet it soon became clear that they would not be working together. The Internet search company and the automaker disagreed on almost every point, from car capabilities and time needed to get it to market to extent of collaboration.
It was as if the two were "talking a different language," recalls one person who was present.
As Google expands beyond Web search and seeks a foothold in the automotive market, the company's eagerness has begun to reek of arrogance to some in Detroit, who see danger as well as promise in Silicon Valley.
For now Google is moving forward on its own, building prototypes of fully autonomous vehicles that reject car makers' plans to gradually enhance existing cars with self-driving features. But Google's hopes of making autonomous cars a reality may eventually require working with Detroit, even the California company acknowledges. The alternative is to spend potentially billions of dollars to try to break into a century-old industry in which it has no experience.
"The auto companies are watching Google closely and trying to understand what its intentions and ambitions are," said one person familiar with the auto industry, who asked to remain anonymous because of sensitive business relationships.
"Automakers are not sure if Google is their friend or their enemy, but they have a sneaking suspicion that whatever Google’s going to do is going to cause upheaval in the industry."
Analysts estimate Google has invested tens of millions of dollars in an effort that's ultimately a side project. But car companies, all too familiar with the devastating financial and brand damage of recalls, would see any hiccups with the self-driving car as a threat to their main business.
Nowhere is the disconnect more evident than in Google's latest prototype. Two people sit abreast in the tiny pod-shaped car, which has a flexible windshield for safety and is topped by a spinning cone that helps navigation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqSDWoAhvLU. The electric vehicles, unveiled in May, are limited to a maximum speed of 25 miles per hour and do away with several decades-long constants in motoring: the steering wheel, brake pedal and accelerator pedal.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin has described self-driving cars as an on-demand service that consumers summon when needed. That would represent a seismic shift from a longstanding model based on individual ownership, an annual $375 billion U.S. market according to J.D. Power.
Moreover, a study by consulting firm KPMG last year found that American consumers would trust brands like Google and Apple more for self-driving cars than they would automakers.
Chris Urmson, director of Google's self-driving car group, would not discuss any negotiations with automakers but argues that self-driving cars will benefit car companies and consumers by expanding the number of car users.
"I'm confident that when there is technology that makes sense, and when there is a business model that makes sense, that there will be interest and partnerships" with car makers, Urmson told Reuters in an interview.
Self-driving cars can free people to do more of the things that earn Google money, such as Web search. But Urmson said Google is still figuring out how to make a profit from the technology.
"I would imagine that this is probably different than just making more time for people to click on web sites," he said.
Car makers such as GM, Mercedes and Volvo have been developing their own autonomous vehicle technology for years.
But most favor an incremental approach to self-driving cars, in which features such as lane centering and parking assistance are gradually integrated into vehicles. Car makers are also hesitant to invest in new features until they are certain there is enough demand to pay for them.
That approach and car makers' long development process are at odds with Google’s ambition to create a fully autonomous car in one swoop. The Internet company seemed to have little patience for Detroit, according to people involved in the 2012 talks with automakers.
“There was a certain amount of arrogance on the Google side, in the sense of ‘We know what we’re doing, you just help us,’” said a second person, representing a major car maker, who was involved in discussions with Google.
Another potential sticking point is maps developed by Google and essential for its robo-cars to operate, says Sven Strohband, a robotics expert who worked at Volkswagen until 2006 and was not involved in the discussions. That data, compiled by Google, can be extraordinarily detailed, down to the height of curbs or location of signs.
“The question is who owns the data,” he said. "You need to have frequent map updates and your car can only go where you have really accurate map data."
Without a driver to blame when accidents happen, the vehicles could bring greater liability for car makers.
Google's assurances to one car maker that it would take responsibility for accidents due to its technology, and that the data collected by the cars makes it easy to pinpoint fault, was dismissed, according to the first person involved in the 2012 discussions.
Whether Google opts to license its technology or seeks to build cars to its specifications, Google will need Detroit for the last mile, say industry experts and insiders.
Google has made headway in less sensitive areas such as entertainment and navigation. In January, Google teamed up with GM, Audi, Honda and Hyundai to form the Open Automotive Alliance to incorporate its Android operating system, the software for mobile phones and tablets, into cars.
And it has taken steps to understand regulations better, hiring Ron Medford, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s former Deputy Director, in November 2012.
“My view on this is both parties probably need each other,” said Strohband, now Chief Technology Officer at venture capital firm Khosla Ventures.
A source at one automaker said the company talks to Google on a weekly basis about auto matters, though they have not partnered on self-driving cars.
Some in the industry predict fully automated cars will be available as soon as 2020, though research firm IHS Automotive does not expect the cars to be widely available until 2035. For now, Google is starting small with 100 to 200 prototype cars. It wouldn't identify manufacturing partners, though industry reports pinpoint Michigan-based Roush Enterprises, which assembles small volumes of custom vehicles such as race cars. Roush declined comment.
To build anything more than a couple thousand cars would likely require an automaker partner. Industry insiders point to critical systems such as steering and suspension, the intricacies of working with hundreds of suppliers and high-volume production at consistent levels of reliability as skills that cannot be learned overnight.
While Tesla Motors offers an example of an outsider breaking into the business, the electric car maker has benefited from a hefty government loan and from having access to the shuttered GM-Toyota NUMMI car manufacturing plant in Fremont, California.
The cost to launch a new car model, including costs of developing and tooling, is generally $1 billion to $1.5 billion. For a company starting from scratch, such as Google, that cost would likely be higher, say auto industry experts.
Some industry observers have suggested that Google should pair up with Tesla, which is also developing self-driving technology and which shares Google's Silicon Valley mindset. With roughly $60 billion in cash, Google could also acquire a smaller auto company, some speculate, though they note that such a move would involve more ongoing costs, liabilities and cultural challenges then Google may be willing to accept.
"Google is the 800-pound gorilla in the room and nobody wants to miss the boat," said Edwin Olson, assistant professor of computer science at the University of Michigan, who works with Ford on an automated vehicle project. "But at the same time I don’t think automakers want Google to be dictating terms if the time comes and Google is the only game in town."
England (99 all out) lost to Stanford Superstars 101-0 (off 12.4 overs) by 10 wickets.
England lost the most lucrative cricket match ever played - the Twenty20 for $20m - to a Stanford Superstars team that played with some of the panache and passion of the great West Indians of old, to mass enthusiasm.
The England cricketers played as if infected by the official diffidence during the week. Should England be here, and is it vulgar to play solely for money? England batted with less than total commitment and were dismissed for only 99 with one ball of their 20 overs left unused, whereupon their bowling was soundly trashed.
There was nothing half-hearted about the home side. They missed one catch - offered by Samit Patel, who went on to top-score with a modest 22 - but their fielding had an exuberant skill which went out of the West Indian Test side in the 1990s, while their bowling contained some serious pace and bounce from Daren Powell who did more than anyone to unsettle England.
Speculation had been rife that Chris Gayle would miss the match after he had stood down from a practice game with “personal problems.” But Sir Allen Stanford gave Gayle a friendly pat on the back before the start and Gayle went on to lead quite brilliantly from the front, even though he lost the toss, exerting a soothing influence on his team and containing England to 43 for four at halfway by using his three fastest men for the first ten overs.
England missed Marcus Trescothick badly, as usual, and built no partnership. Ian Bell edged a yorker into his stumps, Matt Prior and Kevin Pietersen were bowled behind their legs when they walked across their stumps, and Owais Shah was brilliantly caught off a top-edged pull. Paul Collingwood slog-swept to deep mid-wicket and Luke Wright lofted rather artlessly to long-on as the left-armer Sulieman Benn and Kieron Pollard, with his offcutters, exposed the lack of power in England's strokeplay.
No such lack of power in the Superstars' opening pair of Gayle and Andre Fletcher. England had based their bowling plan on short-of-a-length pace, and it worked, but only for about one ball. Fletcher then clubbed the short balls straight with a baseball shot, while Gayle turned into a whirlwind, driving Harmison's yorker and pulling his short ball for six. Maybe Twenty20 can be the vehicle for West Indian regeneration.
Another 'first' last night was the first referral of a leg-before-wicket appeal to the television umpire by an on-field umpire. The system seemed to work too in that justice was done when Gayle was given not out. The ball, the centre of it, had pitched outside legstump.
The Princeton men’s lacrosse team (2-6, 0-3 Ivy League) came into this weekend’s game against nationally third-ranked Brown (8-0, 3-0) after a tough 11-10 loss to first overall Yale the weekend before. After going into halftime down 11-6, the Tigers came out flat in the third quarter, falling to a deficit of 16-8 before the fourth quarter began. When it was all said and done, the Tigers would allow three more goals, falling 19-8 and to 2-6 on the year.
The most critical portion of the season has begun for the Princeton softball team: Ivy League play. Defending their home field against visiting rivals, the Tigers split their weekend games against Dartmouth and fell in both of their matches against Harvard.
Just last year, Princeton baseball (11-10 overall, 4-0 Ivy League) could be found at the bottom of the Ivy League rankings. However, with sweeps over both Harvard (7-14, 0-4) and Dartmouth (5-16, 0-2) this weekend, Princeton sits atop the conference standings this year, currently the only team in the Ivy League with a winning record. These wins also extend Princeton’s win streak as of late to five victories, all of which have been at home.
Returning from a two-week hiatus, the men’s tennis team opened their Ivy League campaign this past weekend with a pair of home matches against Brown and Yale. Despite the break, the Tigers quickly found their rhythm in order to claim wins in both their Ivy League encounters. Princeton beat both Brown and Yale 4-1.
The Princeton men’s and women’s crew teams were all in action this weekend as they approach the heart of their dual meet season. With three of the four teams on the road, the Tigers had mixed results against a slate of highly-regarded opponents, as the women’s open crew team and the men’s heavyweight squad scored big victories, while both the lightweight teams lost to top-ranked opponents.
Over fifty men on Princeton’s track and field team traveled across the nation this weekend. The competitions included the highly competitive Texas Relays, Florida Relays, Stanford Invitational and Muhlenberg Invitational. Out of these competitions, Princeton emerged with a new set of personal records and experiences for the Heptagonals.
This Friday and Saturday, the men’s volleyball team hosted conference rivals Penn State and St. Francis. The back-to-back match ups marked the last two home games of the season for the Tigers as they sought to break their recent losing streak. Despite notable performances and a strong effort from the Orange and Black, the Princeton squad fell to both their opponents, losing 1-3 to the Nittany Lions and 2-3 against the St. Francis Red Flash.
This Friday and Saturday, the women’s track and field team participated in the Stanford and Muhlenberg Invitationals. The Princeton squad continued its strong performance, showing a seamless transition from the indoor season.
Bad weather resulted in a delayed start to the Black & Gold Challenge at the University of Central Florida in Orlando two Saturdays ago for men and women’s track and field teams. The Tigers nonetheless pulled out an impressive performance. Sophomore Kennedy O’Dell and senior Brielle Rowe earned the first and second place titles in flight one of the discus and finished eighth and ninth overall.
The Princeton men’s tennis team begins Ivy League play this weekend with matches against Brown on Saturday and Yale on Sunday. With a strong and now seasoned starting cast, the team is poised to capture its first Ivy League Championship since the 1988 season.
We’re already well into the season for the baseball teams of the Ivy League. With league play just around the corner, we take a look at how teams across the Ancient 8 have positioned themselves so far in the standings.
The Princeton Women’s Lacrosse team (5-2, 2-0 Ivy League) played in a thrilling match against Ivy League rival the Harvard Crimson (5-3, 1-1 Ivy League) in Cambridge, Mass on Saturday.
The Princeton Tigers (2-5, 0-2 Ivy League) played like an entirely different team from the one that suffered a 20-10 drubbing at the hands of Penn. They nevertheless fell short against No. 3-ranked Yale by a heartbreaking score of 11-10.
The Princeton women’s tennis team (9-7 overall, 1-0 Ivy League) ushered in Ivy League play with a 5-2 victory against Penn (7-6, 0-1) on Saturday. The win extends the Tigers’ streak to three consecutive victories and sets an optimistic precedent for the six remaining games against each of the Ivy League teams.
The Princeton men’s and women’s fencing teams capped their seasons with impressive performances in this weekend’s NCAA championships at Brandeis University. For the sixth year in a row, Princeton placed in the top four in the tournament, taking home an NCAA trophy. After a weekend of tenacious competition, the Tigers clawed their way up to a third-place finish, just outperforming St. John’s University. Ohio State University narrowly finished ahead of the Tigers with a score of 167-160, while the Columbia Lions won their second straight title with 174 points.
This past weekend, the Princeton men’s baseball team (6-10 overall, 0-0 Ivy League) traveled to Annapolis to take on the United States Naval Academy (18-6-1) in a four-game series. The Tigers dropped two back-to-back games in their first doubleheader against the Midshipmen on Saturday before splitting a pair of games on Sunday to finish the overall contest with a 1-3 record.
The Princeton softball team (5-17 overall) can breathe a sigh of relief, having finally winning a game in the month of March. The Tigers claimed their season home opener with two victories over Colgate (3-14 overall) on Saturday, winning the first by a score of 7-4 and the second, 9-6.
After months of buildup, Princeton’s men's and women's crew teams finally had a chance to test their mettle on the water this weekend at the opening of the dual meet season. Both the heavy- and lightweight men’s teams were victorious against strong opponents whom they were nevertheless expected to beat, while each of the women’s teams fell to some of the toughest competition they will face all year.
After a heart-breaking loss at home earlier in the week, the men’s volleyball team traveled to Newark to close their home-and-home series against the New Jersey Institute of Technology. While the Tigers managed to clinch a tight first set, 25-23, the Highlanders found their rhythm and won the match with 25-20, 25-29 and 25-21 wins.
Nobody quite saw it coming. Following a shaky start to the season, the stage was set for the Tigers (2-4 overall, 0-1 Ivy League) to claw their way back into contention with an early conference win on their home field. That script would not play out. On the opening day of Ivy League play, the Penn Quakers (4-2, 1-0) routed men’s lacrosse by a score of 20-10. Saturday’s contest saw eight members of the visiting team score, four of whom tallied hat tricks.
In August 2000, Satara, a sleepy district town on the Mumbai-Bangalore highway, 270 km from the country's commercial capital Mumbai, woke from its slumber. Two rival groups were camping there, distributing proxy forms in a no-holds-barred campaign.
No, it wasn't election time in Satara. Nor was the chairman's post at the local municipal corporation up for grabs. In the eye of the storm was the old private sector United Western Bank set up in 1936 by a middle class lawyer and social worker.
Sicom, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Maharashtra government and the Makharias of the Emtex group, which together held close to 24 per cent in the bank, wanted four representatives on its board.
On the other side of the fence were nine professional directors. The banker-chartered accountant-company secretary-industrialist-doctor-advocate combine on the board took a vow not to buckle under the pressure of the minority shareholders.
Three resolutions at an extraordinary general meeting at Satara's Kanishka Hall on August 7 -- doubling the authorised capital of the bank from Rs 50 crore (Rs 500 million) to Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion), a 1:5 bonus issue, and capitalisation of reserves -- were passed but the management could not push through the proposed 1:2 rights issue.
Armed with proxy forms, the representatives of Sicom and a few industrialists put up stiff resistance. The management did not dare to put the resolution to vote and simply withdrew it. A parallel meeting was held at Monarch Hotel by agitated shareholders and a decision was taken to move the Company Law Board.
These meetings sowed the seeds of the collapse of United Western which was put under moratorium by the Reserve Bank of India on September 2, freezing all normal banking activities barring withdrawal of deposits up to a limit. This week the Reserve Bank announced its intention to hand over the troubled United Western Bank to the Industrial Development Bank of India.
It is ironic that three years before the infighting broke out, the Reserve Bank had been in favour of United Western taking the leadership in banking consolidation in western India.
In August 1997, the Reserve Bank's executive director, G Muniappan, called United Western Bank's CEO, P N Joshi, and two directors each from Ganesh Bank of Kurundwad, Sangli Bank and Ratnakar Bank to explore the possibility of merging all three with United Western.
The idea was to have one bank in three contiguous districts -- Satara, Kolhapur and Sangli -- within a 100 km radius in western Maharashtra. Joshi was willing to take the lead; he even dreamt of merging Sicom with itself and making a United Western Bank of Maharashtra.
The proposal died a premature death as the three boards were not comfortable with the idea of losing their identities. Nobody imagined at that time that United Western would come to such a pass.
A fight for a controlling stake is hardly news among old private sector banks. With their low capital base, they offer easy pickings. The Bangurs and the Tayals fought tooth and nail for the Bank of Rajasthan with the Tayals walking off with the prize.
Takeover tycoon Rajarathinam made an abortive attempt to gobble up the Benaras State Bank, and both Tamilnadu Mercantile Bank as well as Catholic Syrian Bank were targeted by non-resident Indians. Even Sangli Bank, United Western Bank's close neighbour, was once targeted by the Mittals of Kolkata. In fact, the directors of the bank purchased the Mittals' stake to ward off the takeover bid.
However, none of these skirmishes was as intense and as long as United Western Bank's. Ashvin Parekh of Ernst & Young blames "litigating shareholders" for the fate of the bank. He was the advisor to the Bangalore-based Canara Bank which made an unsuccessful bid for United Western.
United Western was possibly the first old private bank to apply for an initial public float in 1994, the year the State Bank of India tapped the capital market. With its assets growing, it wanted to infuse more capital through a rights issue when the infighting came to the fore.
Till then, nobody in the bank even knew how much stake the Makharias held in the bank. Even now, the Bombay Stock Exchange record features only two Makharias who own more than 1 per cent of total shares -- Rekha Makharia (1.68 per cent) and Maliram Makharia Finstock Pvt Ltd (1.39 per cent).
When the Makharias and Sicom staked a claim to four seats on the board on the strength of the almost 24 per cent stake held by them (about 14.5 per cent by the Makharias and their associates and the rest by Sicom), the bank retaliated by filing a winding up petition in Bombay High Court against the Makharia-owned Emtex Industries for defaulting on loan repayment.
It was, however, willing to concede the demand of the state industrial finance agency with which it had a strategic alliance. The bank also sought the Reserve Bank of India's intervention to freeze the voting rights of the Makharia group as it did not seek the regulator's approval for holding more than 5 per cent share of the bank.
Under the norms of the Banking Regulation Act, any entity holding over 5 per cent in a bank must seek the Reserve Bank's approval.
Finally, the board also decided to offer stocks to the employees to fight the takeover threat. It extended over Rs 12 crore (Rs 120 million) by way of loan to the the bank's employees equity trust to purchase about 24.32 lakh shares, representing 8.41 per cent of the bank's capital, from the secondary market.
"The war continued for two years till end 2002 when the bank signed a memorandum of understanding with the Makharia group accepting its demand to appoint two directors. With this, the Makharias, Sicom and the employees trust ended up having two directors each on the board," says a bank insider.
That drew the curtains on the pitched battles at the Company Law Board, the high courts and the board room of the bank, but it was too late to undo the damage done by the series of litigations.

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