Hope Is Not A Strategy

(image reproduced from http://www.thewhir.com/)

A great piece on explaining cloud computing in simple clear terms. All credit to the writer.

You don’t like making your own cheeseburgers, so you hire a chef to make a cheeseburger for you. It’s a tasty cheeseburger, so you invite all your friends round the next day for a cheeseburger party. But the chef can’t make 100 cheeseburgers for your 100 friends, he’s too busy! Lots of your friends go hungry!

So, the next day you hire another 99 chefs, to make sure everyone can get a cheeseburger. However, that day, half your friends can’t come round, so 50 of the chefs make 50 cheeseburgers for the friends who did come round, and the other 50 chefs stand around doing nothing. But, you still have to pay them! So you’re wasting money.

Now, imagine the four other people living on your street are also having cheeseburger parties, and they are all having the same problem. Sometimes they have more chefs than guests, wasting money, and sometimes they have more guests than chefs, so people are going hungry. Nobody can hire the exact number of chefs because nobody knows exactly how many friends they are going to have round that day. Also, everybody has to build huge cheeseburger kitchens, taking up room in their house they could use for other things. And to be honest, it’s a hassle having all the chefs in your house. They’re grumpy and annoying. You don’t really care about keeping chefs happy, you just want to eat cheeseburgers.

So, someone comes along and builds a massive kitchen with 200 chefs, and all the people on your street get rid of their own chefs and kitchen, and instead pay that person to do cheeseburger deliveries for them. Some days you have 100 guests, so you use 100 of these chefs, while other people have only 25 guests and chefs each. Another day you might have only 10 guests and chefs, and your next door neighbour has 150 guests and 150 chefs. You each only pay for the number of chefs you use each night, even though that changes unpredictably. And you don’t have to use half your house for cheeseburger kitchens. You don’t even need to know or care how many chefs are employed by the kitchen. Because the cheeseburger kitchen has lots of customers effectively pooling their money together, you can each be pretty confident there will be enough chefs to go around, plus, you have one totally amazing kitchen instead of five kinda ok kitchens.

Investing in the Mobile Device Manufacturers: A Mixed Bag…

Cashing in on the booming mobile device market can be a lot trickier than first appears.  Stock performance of the big mobile device brands have been something of a mixed bag. Take Samsung (OTCMKTS:SSNLF) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) for example.

These stocks have only achieved 1.85% and -1.01% returns respectively while Nokia (NYSE:NOK) achieved a thumping 100.13% return. The difference between these can be explained, in part, by expectations.

Let us examine the comparison of Nokia with Apple for a second.

Nokia has been floundering for some time as it came late to the game to smartphones. Expectations have been low and with the signs that Microsoft’s investment has paid off, the stock has taken off. Whereas Apple, despite excellent consistent performance appears to be fundamentally unloved as expectations of AAPL’s continuing growth are unrealistic, despite it being one of the cheapest tech stocks on a forward P/E basis. 1

Component Manufacturer Growth Delivers Sector Beating Performance….

Taking Nokia aside, the woeful stock market performance of the big handset manufacturers belies the actual explosive growth in the sector. There is a way to invest in the success of these brands while being isolated from the headwinds of popular market sentiment that have embattled these stocks.

By investing in the component manufacturers themselves, it is possible to achieve significantly higher growth than investing in the finished, branded product.

$10,000 invested at the start of the year in the component manufacturers as opposed to the sellers of the assembled handsets and tablets, could now be worth $14,158 (41.58% growth YTD), vs. $9,893 and $10,185 for Apple and Samsung respectively 2. This would have also beat the return by investing in a Technology Tracker (e.g. XLK SPYDR) by $2,311 / 23.11%.

In addition to strong growth, other advantages of investing in the component manufacturers include the ability to diversify across a number of mobile devices thereby avoiding having all your eggs in one basket.

I have put together an analysis which is available for free; here (list of major suppliers) and here (analysis of their stock performance). The list is a quick, non-exhaustive summary of some of the key component suppliers and assemblers in the market.

This has been developed based on a cursory review of blogs that are focused on recent teardowns – tech-speak for dis-assembly and analysis of the components - of the iPhone 5s. This is predominately skewed to Apple, and I’d welcome additional thoughts in the comments.

How Your Investment Would Have Fared This Year…

If you were to have invested $10,000 in total across these names at the start of this year, you would have made $4,158, a 41.58% return in 11 months2. Here’s how the individual companies fared.

Interestingly, Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd) stock has dropped over this year, which suggests that as we go up the assembly value chain, stock performance becomes worse.

 (Enlarge Graphic)  

An investment in the technology sector would have earned you $1847, an 18% profit, which would have actually been lower than simply tracking the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) which has climbed 25.76% this year.

(Enlarge Graphic)

 (Enlarge Graphic)

  Footnotes

1 11.03 vs. 14.98 forward P/E as of 11/14 for the Technology Select Sector SPDR® Fund (NYSEARCA:XLK).

2 Excludes dividends

3 May also be in line to provide the hardened cover for the iWatch. I don't buy the rumors are that they may provide the screens for iPhone 6 as production costs are 10x and cannot be molded into curved surfaces

  Acknowledgements

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1839452-triquint-is-a-smartphone-play-you-would-regret-missing

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+5s+Teardown/17383

http://9to5mac.com/2013/11/13/the-retina-ipad-mini-teardown-reveals-cross-between-ipad-air-iphone-5s/

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/iphone-5s-teardown-parts-battery,24333.html

  Disclaimer

All data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. benjessel.com makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.

Some rough notes on the Bull vs. Bear Case for stocks. Mainly attributable to articles from BusinessInsider.com and RitzHolz.com

The Bull Case

• Valuations are no longer cheap, but they are still a long way from the peaks seen in previous cycles. U.S. stocks trade for around 2.5x book value and for 16.5x trailing earnings. Looking at the last three major market peaks - 1987, 2000 and 2007 - price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios were respectively 23, 30 and 17.5. The price-to-book ratio, meanwhile, peaked at close to 5 in 2000 and 3 in 2007. • On a relative basis, the earnings yield on stocks still compares favorably with the fixed income alternative. • Compared to bonds, which have been bid up through central bank intervention, stocks still look cheap. • Despite strong in-flows year to date, many investors are still underweight equities • The dependence on margins. One reason that stocks look reasonable is that, thanks to low interest rates and slow wage growth, margins are at historic highs. If rates or wages rise, margins will compress, driving earnings lower. This will make stocks look more expensive (this is why stocks look more expensive based on the Shiller P/E ratio , which implicitly assumes some mean reversion in margins ). • The extent to which low rates are propping up valuations . Low rates don't just support margins, they also support multiples. With bonds offering no competition, stock valuations are higher than they would typically be in a slow-growth world • Assuming deal (House still needs to pass whatever Senate sends over) , DC just bought itself another 3-4 months. • Celebrate the Yellen put which will likely be no different than the Bernanke and Greenspan one. • 2014 consensus eps is expected to rise 10.6% y/o/y putting the market multiple at a reasonable 14x 2014 estimate. • Interest rates have headed higher because the economy is getting better with ISM manufacturing at more than a two yr high, vehicle sales doing well, jobless claims are low, European economies stabilizing and with China hanging in. • If bonds keep selling off, we’ll see rotation into stocks. • Companies have record cash levels to buy back stock and increase dividends. • With interest rates still historically low, there is no other place but stocks. • This rally gets little respect.

The Bear Case • The speed of the rally:

While valuations are not at extremes, stocks rarely record the types of gains witnessed since the 2009 lows. 

Over the past 40 years, there have only been two other instances in which stocks have rallied this far this fast: the run-up to the 1987 crash and the late 1990s, as the figure below shows.

• Cyclically adjusted price-earnings ratio (current P/E is 25X vs. 15X average) • Market cap to revenue (current ratio of 1.6 vs. 1.0 average) • Market cap to GDP (double the pre-1990s norm) • Hussmann Funds suggests that it is plausible to expect the S&P 500 to lose 40-55% of its value over the completion of the present cycle • Confidence that there won't be a crash is at its highest level since early 2007, which was before the last stock market crash. • Citi's Panic / Euphoria model is closing in on 'euphoria,' which means investor complacency is very high. • The VIX is down 28% year-to-date. In other words, 'fear' has crashed, which is another sign of complacency. • Stocks are expensive relative to 10-year average earnings. This ratio, popularized by Robert Shiller, is above 24, which is much higher than the long-term average of 16. • Record high margin debt has accompanied the rally, meaning investors are increasingly betting with borrowed money. • Earnings growth expectations have only be coming down • Revenues have been falling short of expectations. In terms of revenues, 52% of companies have reported actual sales above estimated sales and 48% have reported actual sales below estimated sales. • Any strength in revenue has been artificially boosted by acquisitions:

Year/year revenue growth equaled just 1% in first-half 2013 but surged to 5% in 3Q

Just 20 companies accounted for 25% of aggregate sales but 50% of growth. 18 of the 20 firms completed acquisitions during the past year. The 20 stocks boosted 3Q sales by 13% versus just 2% for other firms.

Most M&A deals fail to achieve their original intended goals and many, in fact, actually destroy shareholder value. The M&A playbook is a tool which improves the reliability and speed at which organizations can divest or integrate.

Companies that use playbooks in a merger or divestment tend have greater success and ultimately achieve higher shareholder returns than those that do not. In this article, I outline the benefits and anatomy of a playbook.

  It is both a surprising and concerning fact that between 45%-60%1 of mergers fail to achieve their original intended goals. This can be for a variety of reasons, the root of which is either an unrealistic expectation of the organizations’ leaders concerning the value that a merger will bring - the ‘deal synergy assumptions’ - or due to flaws in the actual integration itself - ‘the execution’.  In this article I will focus on execution aspect.

Benefits of an M&A Playbook

An M&A playbook comprises a library of processes, tools and assets which, when followed, enables an organization to merge or divest in a standard, repeatable way. By employing a playbook, organizations are able to ‘industrialize’ their merger or divestment efforts; i.e. get faster to higher quality outcomes with more consistently, more efficiently.

Another benefit of the M&A playbook is that it enables adopters to take advantage of frameworks that represent industry leading practice as the assets have been built up based on what has worked well across thousands of previous integrations and divestments. Given the high stakes of an integration program, the ability to leverage previous experience is critical.

The Playbook As An Enabler For A String Of Pearls Acquisition Strategy

Acquisition has become a crucial way in which organizations achieve their growth strategy.  I have seen an increasing tendency in the market for large organizations (typically $1bn and larger) to adopt a ‘string of pearls’ approach to growth whereby they bolt on smaller companies onto their core Business operations over a number of years to expand their offerings and enter new market segments.

In this acquisition model, rapid, effective and low risk integration is critical to the ability of the organization to grow rapidly and maintain its competitive positioning. This is why organizations are turning to the playbooks as a way of achieving a level of industrialization to their merger and acquisition capabilities.

A good example of a ‘string of pearls’ acquisition model is in life sciences which is an industry characterized by high R&D expenditure and the long development timelines required to get new products to market.

The costs of and risks surrounding product development are staggering - the average cost of bringing a new drug to market is $1.3 billion and of 5000 compounds discovered in the pre-clinical stage, only about 5 will make it through the entire FDA approval process2.

As the patent cliff draws near with an unprecedented amount of patents due to expire3, many organizations are about to see their drug revenues suffer a dramatic decline as generics cannibalize their customer base.

These organizations are instead turning to acquiring a ‘string of pearls’. In this metaphor, the ‘pearls’ are small biotech startups that have passed most of the screening clinical hurdles. Here, the acquirers are seeking to integrate, in an industrialized manner, many small organizations that have a mature pipeline of highly developed drugs.  

To be successful, acquirers are moving from a model where they beat their competition through developing products through superior R&D capabilities to one where they win by effectively identifying, acquiring and rapidly integrating small organizations with advanced stage product (“molecule”) development.

The Anatomy of an M&A Playbook

At its highest level of abstraction, the playbook articulates the integration or divestment lifecycle as a series of high level phases; firstly establishment of the ‘Merger Integration Framework’, secondly planning for the integration or divestment, and finally the actual execution itself. Each of these phases are broken down into sub-phases with a set of standard operating procedures, designs and tools.

The establishment of the ‘Merger Integration Framework’ is a fundamental component that defines the structure of the integration/separation teams, and how they will work together to achieve the program goals and the overall design parameters of the program.  This includes tools such as kick-off presentations, guiding principles, governance design and well as Program Management Office tools such as dependency logs, issue and risk tracking tools.

The ‘Merger Integration Framework’ enables the integration or divestment team to hit the ground running. Organizations that do not employ a framework at this point tend to spend a greater amount of time in mobilizing and internally organizing themselves which given the typically short timescales between deal announcement and ‘day 1’ (the day of legal separation or integration), can place a significant limitation on the extent that the organizations can operate as respectively separate or combined entities.

The latter two phases comprise planning and execution across two or more key events ‘day 1’, and TSA exit; the point at which the parent organization will no longer provide an interim set of services to the divested entity.  The playbook then provides process flows, sample designs, tools and templates to enable the integration/separation team to work through each of these phases to deliver the necessary work products.

Conclusion

With the greater emphasis on growing Business capabilities and extending product lines through acquisition and divestment, organizations are turning to the M&A playbook as a tool to increase the change of merger success. By doing so, they are able to significantly increase their shareholder returns by minimizing the cost and risk involved in mergers and divestments.

Organizations that go it alone risk a myriad of issues and are unable to take advantage of lessons learned from thousands of previous mergers and integrations.

However, simply procuring a playbook, is an insufficient solution without a good understanding as how to use it effectively to drive good merger and divestment outcomes…

...In my next article, I share some of the key lessons learned from developing and employing a playbook.

1 Multiple sources including Booz-Allen & Hamilton 2001

2 Source http://www.fiercebiotech.com, PhRMA, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry's advocacy group (in 2005 dollars)

Effective technology integration is a critical success factor in Merger and Acquisition (M&A) that places a unique set of demands on technology professionals....

Stakes are high in a Merger & Acquisition; over 70% fail to achieve their intended benefits. Furthermore in a recent survey by of C-Level executives1, nearly 40 percent of respondents cited lack of effective IT integration as a primary cause of merger integration failures.

Technology transformation programs are inherently complex and infamously prone to delays.  Merger integrations tend to be even more complex owing to the scale of change that occurs simultaneously across the organization – most of which will have an IT consequence. Furthermore, the risk of delays in the IT integration program can result in failure of the overall economics of the deal or in the cancellation of the merger itself.

The “Five Biggest Technology Integration M&A Mistakes” is a the punch-list of the biggest common mistakes that I have seen IT integration professionals make during ten years of assisting Fortune 500 organizations in getting to grips with M&A integration programs.

1. Failure to conduct adequate due diligence

Increasingly, the economics of a merger relies heavily on IT assumptions; either the ability to drive savings or ‘synergies’ in consolidating IT operations or the degree to which IT will have enough capacity to deliver the technology changes required to roll out new Business capabilities in the timelines that leadership expects.

IT due diligence is an essential process for validating these assumptions. However, in many cases, time constraints allow for only cursory due diligence to take place before a deal is signed.  By which point, the deal has already been communicated to investors and in-effect, technology is locked into the commitment.

Organizations then compound this error by rushing into Day 1 planning without going back and performing a more thorough due diligence. By the time that IT has a full grasp on the true nature of the integration, which  tends to be  longer, more complex and costly than originally anticipated, the train has already left the station.

Top performing organizations understand that due diligence is an up-front investment that pays back many times over. To get due diligence right typically requires an intensive 8-10 week exercise, analyzing risk and synergy opportunities across all domains of the organization. Leading practice is to use involve external advisors who are able to accelerate the due diligence process through structured frameworks and accelerators. 

2. Inability to focus on multiple time horizons

M&A places a unique planning challenge on integration teams insofar as they must focus simultaneously on a number of very different types of planning activities.

For instance ‘Day 1 planning’ is a purely tactical activity based on a short time horizon (usually <6 months) and is typically driven off a check-list of prioritized activities where compliance and business continuity are the primary drivers. Whereas 100 day Post-Merger Integration planning involves an implementation time horizon of many years and is far more strategic in nature.

A common mistake made is to focus on Day 1 planning to the detriment of post-Day 1 planning resulting in a hiatus after Day 1 as the organization takes a collective ‘pause for breath’. The time lost in building up impetus again can sometimes never be regained. The inverse – focusing on 100 day planning at the expense of Day 1 can often be a deal-killer.

A dangerous tendency in an M&A IT integration program is to attempt to 'fix everything' or go for a strategic solution when an interim tactical solution would suffice. This leads to distractions and can derail the integration program.

Top performers subscribe to the  mantra of 'perfection is the enemy of good enough', leaving the optimization of technology platforms to a later phase.

3. Cost and complexity involved in the integration is underestimated

For many organizations, an IT M&A integration will be the largest and most complex undertaking that their IT organization has ever attempted.

This lack of experience and delivery maturity leads to a tendency to be overly ambitious in scope and integration time-frames and to underestimate costs. This is particularly acute in circumstances where little due diligence has been performed to adequately uncover and identify risks.

Frequently organizations will be under the incorrect assumption that they will be able to deliver the integration by simply scaling-up the workforce within their existing IT delivery operations, whereas what is really required is a step change to the maturity of  delivering IT. Often organizations discover this too late.

In many cases IT integration managers find themselves under intense pressure to meet integration budgets and timelines that have been established through flawed estimation during the planning phase. Resetting expectations can be challenging as the Business has usually communicated the integration timetable to investors and does not wish to risk credibility loss by announcing a change.

In once recent client engagement, I was able to support an IT director in making a case to the IT integration leadership that not only was the IT integration budget too low, but the real figure was larger than the entire budget set for the whole integration program across the Business. In this situation, this was caught at a point where the impact was reasonably low.

In many cases, initial estimates are unduly conditioned by the yardstick that technology costs tend to be between 1-5% of overall business cost. This  is not an effective metric in post merger integration environments where IT integration costs are typically 50 percent of the total merger integration budget.

Smaller organizations (<$1bn revenue)  tend to underestimate as they are not accustomed to the nature and scale of investment that larger organizations take for granted For example, larger organizations are  accustomed to paying for large ticket items such as external consultants. Large acquisitions can also result in a step change to software licensing, moving pricing into a more expensive enterprise  tier.

Top performers work with experienced advisers to develop an initial top down estimate prior to deal close and then work rapidly with their integration team to build a bottom-up estimate

4. The IT Integration program is not adequately resourced

Related to the tendency to be optimistic of integration costs and timelines, is an expectation that the IT integration can be delivered using the existing staff within the IT organization. Organizations are under unprecedented margin pressure and keeping headcount static is a major plank of this strategy. While hiring contractors can be an effective short term remedy, many integration managers see the cost as prohibitive.

This is a ‘penny wise, pound foolish’ proposition as the bubble-cost of hiring resources becomes insignificant when compared to impact of delay caused by resource constraints.  Top performing organizations address IT integration resourcing in three ways.

Firstly they appoint seasoned IT integration advisers that can guide them through the common pitfalls of an integration program and are also able to provide structure around the endeavor.

Secondly, they target and ring-fence key individuals in the IT organization that are vital for integration success and then free them from time consuming aspects of their existing roles through back-filling with temporary contract staff.

For example, a temporary experienced hire resource can take on time consuming ‘Business as Usual’ activities such as Release Management from an IT regional lead or temporarily take on the helm of one of the large programs in an IT Director’s portfolio.

Finally, they recruit a team of strong project managers that ensure that timelines, issues and risks are effectively managed, releasing decision makers from the high degree of communication and dependency management administration that IT M&A integration efforts involve.

5.   Lack of Business vision and failure to drive the Business to make decisions quickly 

A clear vision of the end state of the combined merged entity i.e. the "Business vision" is vital input into the IT integration planning. Without this, IT runs the risk of incorrectly second guessing  Business needs.

Driving out this Business vision requires a large degree of Business decision making involving many stakeholders across the organization. The more disparate the entities in a merger are, and the more closely the Business intends to integrate them, the greater the number and complexity of decisions that need to be made.

This becomes particularly onerous when integrating global operations of organizations with significantly different IT operating models.

This process can take so long that once a clear Business strategy and operating model emerges, there is insufficient integration time left for IT to deliver the necessary changes to enable it. 

Top performing organizations address this risk in two ways. 

Firstly, they employ proactive IT merger integration leaders who actively engage with the Business partners. These leaders are able to rapidly map out a timetable of decision making with the Business and what the IT implications are of delay.

Secondly, working with  IT integration leadership they use robust integration governance to enable IT and the Business to engage in a structured manner. Business decisioning progress is tracked through a formal status reporting process and reviewed at integration governance boards.

Conclusion

Top performing IT M&A integration managers employ a combination of strategies to ensure success in their integration efforts across the areas of planning and control.

Effective planning involves identifying and addressing issues and risks early and working with experienced advisers to build out realistic scope, timelines and costs. Top performers are able to simultaneously work across the time horizons of short term (Day 1) and long term (100 Day) planning,  effectively managing prioritization trade-offs between employ tactical and strategic solutions.

High performing IT M&A Integration managers control the integration effort effectively through proactive engagement with Business, and use effective governance as a mechanism to flag up where delayed Business decisioning needs to be accelerated or where IT needs more support to achieve its goals. 

  Ben Jessel is an M&A IT Integration Manager at Accenture.

A great punchlist that concisely describes the key success factors required to be successful in the world of e-commerce in this day in age. Some of my favorites include:

If it has a UPC, Amazon will beat you

Onlive is a service that enables users to play computer games online without having to have a physical version of the computer game installed. The value proposition is similar to the difference between buying physical movies on DVD and streaming; the convenience and the low price with the additional benefit of some titles being available the minute that they are released.

It is a "Cloud Enabled" model that has only become possible since the introduction of high speed internet connectivity.

Unfortunately the Achilles heel of this proposition is the reliance on consumers of the service having a high-speed reliable internet; computer are graphics data intense and a large pipe is required to ensure that the data is sent and received between the gamers computer and server quick enough.

Sadly, it appears that high speed internet is not yet ubiquitous and furthermore many of the users did report problems of jerkiness of the game-play due to their internet connection not being able to keep up. 

Furthermore, there are similar models from established gaming providers such as Steam.

A great article concerning Apple's potential T.V strategy - bypass cable providers by signing up content providers, controlling the interface (Apple t.v. and iPads), thereby reducing cable operators to providing the pipe.

In this article - http://tinyurl.com/8jta4xb - Business Insider provides a great example of just how fickle the world of consumer technology is.

It begs the question - is investing in the technology sector a worthwhile strategic long term investment?

With the pace of change in the consumer technology vertical being so relentless, today's high flying thriving brands can be tomorrow's dying has-beens in a matter of months.

The IPO fallout for Facebook continues. Unfortunately for Facebook, much of its IP strategy was predicated on the valuation of the company increasing or at least staying the same.

With the 40% drop in share price, Facebook has a number of challenges to consider:

1) How to fund the withholding tax bill on many of its Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), which will vest about 6 months after the IPO

2) How to deal with the downward pressure on the stock price as share owners sell once the  lock-out period expires for many existing shareholders

3) How to retain the best and the brightest at the organization now that the key lever of a share in the flotation no longer exists.

The firm has made contingency plans with lines of credit to many of the banks underwriting the IPO and can fund the withholding tax out of its own cash pile.

In this article by Vanity Fair, the authors explore a hypothesis that the root of many of Microsoft's current woes exists due to the fact that staff are force-ranked in their performance appraisals. The effect being that creativity is stifled. Force ranking, it argues favors staff who focus on short-term profitable initatives and are effectively able to network and build relationship with management and leadership. As a result, there is a tollerance towards creativity.

This is a compelling argument, but leaves some key questions unanswered;

How do you effectively ensure that the performance of your workforce is managed in a manner that focuses on long term value creation as opposed to short term profitability?

How should you manage the effectiveness of the creative staff of your organization?

In the previous article on this topic, we looked at two key pressures facing the CIO today - rising demand by users for I.T services, both in terms of volume and complexity, as well as pressures from the CFO to take cost out of I.T in a challenging economic climate.

A great article that highlights that after ceding much of its commodity industrial base to low-cost developing countries, North America is in the midst of a manufacturing revival.

Some notable statistics that this article highlights:

In the last decade, the United States alone lost roughly 5 million manufacturing jobs as industries uprooted entire value chains in this exodus

Hourly wages in the United States averaged nearly $26 in 2010, while China’s were $1.80 and India’s $2.70

Yet in spite of these economic fundamentals, the U.S is fighting back through a range of mechanisms, including employing better automation to close the labor gap.

Sector Watcher Strategy Update - Consumer Goods and Services

In this article, I explore how food manufacturers in the "Consumer Goods and Services" sector are pursuing new growth opportunities in emerging markets in the face of saturated markets and weak domestic demand.