Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Dec 7, 2009, 5:52 pm
Every time I think I’m done with this vertical integration obsession another example pops up. Rumours are flying around the news sites that the giant of online retailing Amazon might be bringin...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Dec 6, 2009, 10:59 pm
Hot on the heels of my recent posts discussing forward integration, Wall Street Journal is reporting an increase in the incidents of vertical integration. The article in question cites very prominent...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Dec 2, 2009, 9:37 pm
Yesterday’s post about Billabong’s forward integration into online retailing ended with a query about whether other such firms have pursued this strategy (and whether it has been a success...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Dec 2, 2009, 1:14 am
Last week, Aussie surfwear giant Billabong announced they had entered the online retail arena via the acquisition of California-based boardsports website Swell.com. Swell carries a wide range of bran...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Nov 27, 2009, 4:46 pm
Wednesday’s presentation from the Ben & Jerry’s founders was certainly a popular event (I guess free icecream trumps the pain for many of us standing for an hour+). They told some fantasti...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Nov 26, 2009, 10:06 pm
Hot on the heels of Woolworth’s announced entrance into the Australian hardware retailing space, it would seem that fellow grocery player Metcash wants to follow suit. Metcash, who run all the ...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Nov 23, 2009, 2:02 am
Back in February I suggested that an element of the “cost of advertising/building a brand” barrier to entry has been eroded considerably by the increasing ability to film and post advertis...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Nov 17, 2009, 3:51 pm
You may recall that a few months back I heralded the arrival of Ben & Jerry’s icecream to our shores. Next week (on my birthday no less) the founders of said icecream purveyors will be in my bui...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Nov 16, 2009, 1:07 am
It’s always fun to find examples of multinationals adapting their products for host markets. Such adaptation (a.k.a. local responsiveness) is one of the key choices such firms face (along with d...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Nov 12, 2009, 11:57 pm
It’s been a long time between book reviews on here.  Here’s a tome I picked up on my way home from the US earlier this year (and read from cover to cover on the flight from LA to Sydney...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Nov 10, 2009, 3:37 pm
Rumours abound that US clothing retailers, The Gap and Abercombie & Fitch, might be set to open stores down under. This sent me off to chat with an Honours student in our department who has spent the...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Oct 23, 2009, 12:26 am
The take-up speed of new technology or products is an important issue for any firm involved in innovation-driven industries. We typically argue in the early stage of industry or product life cycles f...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Oct 20, 2009, 9:58 pm
My recent post regarding Starbucks’ potentially damaging shift into the packaged coffee market (see it here), has got me thinking about such issues more generally. In particular, I have been co...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Oct 12, 2009, 9:08 pm
I’m a little swamped with teaching commitments (and a head cold) at the moment, so you haven’t been hearing much from me. I still have time to read an occasional blog however, and I was c...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Oct 6, 2009, 9:45 pm
I don’t use this blog enough to promote my research output.  So I thought I’d draw your attention to a book chapter/paper that recently hit the streets: Elizabeth Maitland & Andre Sammar...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Sep 30, 2009, 2:42 am
This story regarding Starbucks’ launch of an instant coffee brand (Via) is rather concerning. In particular, this quote regarding a ‘taste challenge’: “The initial commercial...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Sep 21, 2009, 7:33 am
This story from the New York Times piqued my interest and has got my pondering the international transferability of a potentially profitable business idea. The brainchild in question utilises social ...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Sep 17, 2009, 11:35 pm
Today’s announcement that the two big Aussie supermarkets can no longer negotiate exclusive or restrictive tenancy agreements with shopping centres is long overdue. So many shopping centres bei...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Sep 17, 2009, 12:33 am
One of the supposed strategic advantages of online retailers like Amazon and iTunes is their much larger stock of products. As Chris Anderson has described, if we look at the distribution of populari...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Sep 11, 2009, 10:36 pm
As I’ve been teaching around diversification strategies in one of my subjects this week, I was amused to see this short grab from satirical news site The Onion, conjuring up a quote from a CEO: ...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Sep 10, 2009, 7:39 am
This story from yesterday’s paper is a nice reminder of the considerable role that luck can play in firm success. It seems stalwart McLaren Vale wine producer d’Arenberg is experiencing a...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Sep 8, 2009, 3:42 am
Good strategic decisions rely on good data, or at least logical data. I can’t help but think the extrapolation in this article is misguided and overstated: …a survey by apps company Apps...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Aug 27, 2009, 3:45 am
Students from my Strategic Management classes (and those taught by my colleague Tom), will be familiar (if not sick of) the champagne example we use to illustrate and explore the Five Forces framework...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Aug 24, 2009, 8:53 pm
The executives at Wesfarmers, the parent company of Australia’s largest hardware retailer Bunnings, have a new headache as of today. A favourite of this blog – Woolworths – has anno...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Aug 21, 2009, 2:46 am
One concept students (and scholars) of strategic management sometimes struggle with is the warning from Michael Porter about being stuck in the middle.  So too do businesses. The idea is that firms ...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Aug 12, 2009, 10:55 pm
Out for one of my (very) occasional runs today, I got thinking about the training concept of fartlek.  For those of you who never giggled at this term during middle-distance or cross-country trainin...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Aug 7, 2009, 6:04 pm
Of note this week was an announcement that giant US ice-cream chain Ben & Jerry’s are set to launch in Australia. As discussed here multiple times, Australia is a massive under-achiever in attr...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Aug 6, 2009, 1:46 am
Given I’ve been teaching about Willingness-to-Pay and firms making decisions about the level of benefits they offer potential customers (a.k.a. The Value Proposition), it was intriguing to see t...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Jul 30, 2009, 4:19 am
A neat international business story caught my eye in this week’s Economist. It draws our attention to the efforts of Japanese toilet technology leader Toto and their efforts to convince internat...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Jul 25, 2009, 6:52 pm
Just a quick follow up on a post of mine from late May headed “The Fastest Start-up in History?”. Alas, as feared, the power of slightly later-starting entrant Threadless killed the busin...
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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Jul 24, 2009, 1:36 am

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Andre S. posted an article on International BS - Jul 15, 2009, 12:57 am
My recent US trip was principally motivated the big annual conference of international business scholars – the AIB. I spent five sunny days in San Diego presented, discussing and pondering the ...
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