Chapter 11 Update (FI82)

Tobacco Industry Litigation Reporter (HH48) Trade and Development Opportunities (GT50) For details on new services, enter READ PB99# or HELP followed by the service code. NewsNet's clipping service, NewsFlash, will automatically search all new editions of newsletters selected for monitoring. The hits will be sent to your mailbox, and be retained there for up to ten weeks besides the current week. Your selection of newsletters can be extended to include news stories from United Press International (UPI), Reuters News Reports, Associated Press, Business Wire, PR Newswire, and others. For some time, I clipped newsletters in the telecommunications group using the keywords 'Victoria' (an American communication project) and 'KDD' (the Japanese telecom giant). When I called NewsFlash to check, it typically reported: NEWSFLASH NOTIFICATION **************************************************************** 4 Total Newsflash hits. Use STOP to stop and delete all. New Hits = 4 Saved Items = 0 TE01 7/17/89 == VICTORIA == Headline #1 COOKE SELLS CABLE HOLDINGS TO 6-MEMBER GROUP FOR NEARLY $1.6 BILLION Jack Cooke's cable systems will be sold to 6-member consortium TE11 7/17/89 == VICTORIA == Headline #2 BOCs' PROGRESS TOWARD INTELLIGENT NETWORK ARCHITECTURE INTERTWINED WITH DIFFICULT INTERNETWORKING NEGOTIATIONS, PENDING DECREE COURT EC89 7/18/89 == KDD == Headline #3 KDD OPENS NY/LONDON OFFICES TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JUL 14 (NB) -- Kokusai Denshin Denwa (KDD), EC89 8/22/89 == KDD == Headline #4 FOREIGNERS CAN BUY INTO KDD TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 AUG 17 -- The Japanese government is planning Enter Headline numbers or ALL to read, MORE, AGAIN, SAVE, STOP, or HELP --> NewsNet's databases grow by more than 400 stories per day. Your search profiles may contain an almost unlimited number of subjects. Delivery of hits is concurrent. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Sprintmail's clipping service (U.S.A.) scans stories from more than 15 international newswires. FT Profile's E-mail Alert searches daily on that particular day's issue of the Financial Times. Dow Jones News/Retrieval has NewsScan (//CLIP). It can deliver by fax or email to a mailbox on another online service. On GEnie, use QuikNews Express, a personalized news clipping service that is integrated with the Quik-Comm System email service. Clarinet, a commercial news service available through Usenet, also has a clipping program. When clipping is impossible --------------------------- Many services do not offer clipping. Here, your alternative is various methods of regular selective reading. Many conferencing systems let you select messages by keywords. BIX has Keyword Indexer. It let you search public conferences after a key word or phrase and report hits. Then it offers you to review (or retrieve) messages of interest. CompuServe's forums have efficient 'read selective' and 'quick scan' commands. Another trick is to limit your reading to specific message sections. The high forum message volume is a special problem on this service. Old messages are regularly deleted to make room for new ones. (Often called "scroll rate.") Some popular forums do not keep messages for more than a couple of days before letting them go. You must visit often to get all new information. Many bulletin boards can be told to store unread messages about given topics in a compressed transportation file. This file can then be retrieved at high speed. Special communication programs (often called offline readers) and commands are available to automate this completely. Powerful scripts (see Chapter 12) can do automatic selection of news stories based on the occurrence of keywords (e.g., a company name) in headlines. I have developed such a system for selecting news from the Online Today magazine on CompuServe. Subscription services --------------------- It is useful to dig, dig, and dig for occurrences of the same search words, but digging is not enough. Unless you periodically scan "the horizon," you risk missing new trends, viewpoints and other important information. It can be difficult to find good sources of information that suits your needs. One trick is to watch the reports from your clipping services. Over time, you may discover that some sources bring more interesting stories than others. Take a closer look at these. Consider browsing their full index of stories regularly. If your company plans exportation to countries in Asia, check out MARKET: ASIA PACIFIC on NewsNet. The newsletter is published monthly by W-Two Publications, Ltd., 202 The Commons, Suite 401, Ithaca, NY 14850, U.S.A. (phone: +1-607-277-0934). Annual print subscription rate: US$279. The index itself may be a barometer of what goes on. Here is an example. Note the number of Words/Lines. Do these numbers tell a story? July 1, 1993 Head # Headline Words /Lines ------ ---------------------------------------------------- ------------ 1) THE PHILIPPINES IS AT A TURG POINT 616/78 2) CHINA AND KOREA WILL LEAD REGIONAL ECONOMIC BOOM 315/41 3) ASIAN COMPENSATION IS STILL LOW, BUT RISING QUICKLY 303/38 4) CONSUMER GOODS WON'T BE ALL THE CHINESE BUY 221/29 5) WOMEN BEAR THE BRUNT OF CAMBODIA'S TROUBLES 284/34 6) TAIWAN MAKES A MOVE TOWARD THE CASHLESS SOCIETY 243/29 7) TIPS ON MANAGING CULTURAL HARMONY IN ASIA 264/37 8) TAIWANESE BECOME MORE DISCERNING, HARDER TO REACH 217/27 9) DIRECT MARKETING HEADED FOR GROWTH IN SINGAPORE 205/27 10) TOURISM IN MALAYSIA WILL GROW 610/76 11) CHONGQING: FUTURE POWERHOUSE 2708/342 It is a good idea to visit NewsNet to gather intelligence. Review indexes of potentially interesting newsletters. Save them on your hard disk for future references. You never know when they may be of use. The newsletters within computers and electronics bring forecasts of market trends, evaluation of hardware and software, prices, information about IBM and other leading companies. You will find stories about technological developments of modems, robots, lasers, video players, graphics, and communications software. The Management section contains experts' evaluation of the economical climate with forecasts, information about foreign producers for importers, tips and experiences on personal efficiency, management of smaller companies, and office automation. Other sections are Advertising and Marketing, Aerospace and Aviation, Automotive, Biotechnology, Building and Construction, Chemical, Corporate Communications, Defense, Entertainment and Leisure, Education, Environment, Energy, Finance and Accounting, Food and Beverage, General Business, Insurance, Investment, Health and Hospitals, Law, Management, Manufacturing, Medicine, Office, Publishing and Broadcasting, Real Estate, Research and Development, Social Sciences, Telecommunications, Travel and Tourism, Transport and Shipping. Several newsletters focus on specific geographical areas: * MARKETING RESEARCH REVIEW (Analyzes and evaluates commercially available marketing research and technology assessment reports. Publisher: High-Tech Publishing Co., U.S.A.) * GERMAN BUSINESS SCOPE and THE WEEK IN GERMANY * NEWS FROM FRANCE * COUNTRY RISK GUIDE: EUROPE * EASTERN EUROPE FINANCE, and EASTERN EUROPEAN ENERGY REPORT * EUROPEAN COMMUNITY: BUSINESS FORECAST * INVESTEXT/EUROPEAN REGION * PRS FORECASTS: EASTERN EUROPE, and WESTERN EUROPE * AFRICA NEWS ON-LINE * PRS-FORECASTS: MID-EAST & NORTH AFRICA * PRS-FORECASTS: SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA * THE EXPORTER (Published by Trade Data Reports. Monthly reports on the business of exporting. Functionally divided into operations, markets, training resources, and world trade information.) * MID-EAST BUSINESS DIGEST * LATIN AMERICA OPPORTUNITY REPORT * COUNTRY RISK GUIDE: SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA * COUNTRY RISK GUIDE: ASIA & THE PACIFIC * PRS FORECASTS: ASIA & THE PACIFIC * PRS'S POLITICAL RISK LETTER * SALES PROSPECTOR (Monthly prospect research reports for sales representatives and other business people interested in commercial, and institutional expansion and relocation activity. Separate services grouped by geographic area in the United States and Canada.) Many newsletters are focusing on technology intelligence: Sensor Technology ----------------- Provides updates on research being conducted in this rapidly evolving technology. Besides analyzing advances in the field, it offers ideas on how this technology can improve products and services. Advanced Manufacturing Technology --------------------------------- Reports on desktop manufacturing, computer graphics, flexible automation, computer-integrated manufacturing, and other technological advances that help increase productivity. High Tech Materials Alert ------------------------- Reports on significant developments in high-performance materials, including alloys, metallic whiskers, ceramic and graphite fibers, and more. Concentrates on their fabrication, industrial applications, and potential markets. Futuretech ---------- Provides briefings on focused, strategic technologies that have been judged capable of making an impact on broad industrial fronts. Includes forecasts of marketable products and services resulting from the uncovered technology and its potential impact on industry segments. Advanced Coating & Surface Technology, Electronic Materials Technology News, Flame Retardancy News, High Tech Ceramics News, Innovator's Digest, Technology Access Report, Inside R&D, Japan Science Scan, New Technology Week, Optical Materials & Engineering News, Performance Materials, Surface Modification Technology News, Genetic Technology News, Battery & Ev Technology, and much more. Newsletters on CompuServe ------------------------- Many newsletters are being made available through forums' file libraries on CompuServe. Consequently, they are a little harder to locate. Some examples (1993): Abacus Online - Quarterly newsletter on executive computing. (In the Lotus Spreadsheet forum, Library 3.) Anime Stuff - News and reviews of Japanese animation software. (Comics/Animation Forum, Library 5.) Communique - The quarterly newsletter of the International Association of Business Communicators U.K. Chapter. (PR and Marketing Forum, Library 8.) Distance Education Newsletter - Analyzes the impact of elec- tronic communication on academic research. (Telecommunications Forum, Library 13.) Hint: To find newsletters in the IBM PC oriented forums, enter GO IBMFF to search. Select "Keyword" as search criteria, and enter "newsletter". Add further keywords to narrow the search to your areas of interest. CompuServe also has other file find services. Databases with an international orientation ------------------------------------------- Information Access provides reference databases to businesses. You can search 10 databases with full-text stories, abstracts, and indexes from international magazines. PROMPT (Overview of Markets and Technology) is the largest of them. It provides international coverage of companies, markets and technologies in all industries. The other databases cover areas like Aerospace and Defense, Advertising and Marketing, New Product Announcements, Industry Forecasts and Time Series. The Information Access' databases are available through online services like Dialog, Data Star, Financial Times Profile (England), Nikkei in Japan and on the Thomson Financial Networks. They are regularly published on CD-ROM. ZiffNet offers the Business Database Plus through CompuServe. Here, you can search in full-text stories from around 550 North American and international publications for industry and commerce (1993). The articles are about sales and marketing ideas, product news, industry trends and analysis, and provide company profiles in areas such as agriculture, manufacturing, retailing, telecommunications, and trade. This is a partial list of the database's magazines: Agra Europe, Agribusiness Worldwide, Air Cargo World, Belgium: Economic and Commercial Information, Beverage World, Beverage World Periscope Edition, British Plastics & Rubber, British Telecom World, Business Perspectives, CCI-Canmaking & Canning International, CD-ROM Librarian, Chain Store Age - General Merchandise Trends, Coal & Synfuels Technology, Communication World, Communications Daily, Communications International, Consultant, Cosmetic World News, Dairy Industries International, Direct Marketing, The Economist, Erdol und Kohle, Erdgas, Petrochemie: Hydrocarbon Technology, EuroBusiness, Euromoney, Europe 2000, European Cosmetic Markets, European Rubber Journal, Financial Market Trends, Financial World, Finnish Trade Review, Food Engineering International, Forest Industries, Gas World, Graphic Arts Monthly, The Printing Industry, High Technology Business, IDC Japan Report, Inc., International Trade Forum, Investment International, Israel Business, Japan Economic Newswire, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Marketing Research, Kyodo, Market Research Europe, Medical World News, MEED Middle East Economic Digest, Middle East Agribusiness, OECD Economic Outlook, The Oil and Gas Journal, Oilweek, Petroleum Economist, Plastics World, Purchasing World, Report on the Austrian Economy, Restaurant-Hotel Design International, Royal Bank of Scotland Review, Seafood International, Soviet Aerospace & Technology, Supermarket Business Magazine, swissBusiness, Training: the Magazine of Human Resources Development, World Economic Outlook, World Oil. Dialog's ASIA-PACIFIC DATABASE covers business and economics in Asia and the Pacific. It contains over 80,000 references from newspapers, magazines and other sources in North America and international. The Asia-Pasific Dun's Market Identifiers on Dialog is a directory listing of about 250,000 business establishments in 40 Asian and Pacific Rim countries. The Middle East News Network publishes daily news, analysis and comments from 19 countries in the Middle East produced by Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish and Persian press. You can read these news through Reuters (e.g., on NewsGrid/CompuServe), Down Jones News/Retrieval, and Information Access. The Jerusalem Institute for Western Defence provides a monthly newsletter with research of the Arab press. It has unedited quotes from around the Arab world. Write [email protected] to subscribe (Command: sub arab-press Firstname Lastname). The International Reports financial newsletter may be read and searched on NewsNet, Information Access, and Mead Data Central. NewsNet also has Brazil Service, Mexico Service, Country Risk Guides and Weekly International Market Alert. Use CompuServe's Consumer Report to spot trends in the consumer markets for appliances, automobiles, electronics/cameras, home. EventLine (IQuest, CompuServe) monitors international conferences, exhibitions, and congresses. The Boomer Report concentrates on the habits of the "the baby-boom generation." Affaersdata in Sweden offers the Swedish-language service "Export-Nytt," which brings short news stories about export/import from all over the world. Information providers are the Swedish Export Council, the Norwegian Export Council, and the Suomen Ulkomaankauppaliitto in Finland. Orbit has an English language database of Japanese technology. It contains abstracts of articles, patents and standards from more than 500 Japanese magazines. Dow Jones News/Retrieval brings full-text stories from the Japan Economic Newswire. The Business Dateline contains news from more than 150 regional business publications in the United States and Canada. The ABI/Inform business database (UMI/Data Courier) contains abstracts and full-text articles from 800 business magazines and trade journals. The sources include the Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Business Korea, and the World Bank Research Observer. Market research reports from Frost & Sullivan are available through Data-Star. It produces over 250 market reports each year, in 20 industrial sectors. These reports cover results of face-to- face interviews with manufacturers, buyers and trade association executives, supplemented by a search and summary of secondary sources. Glasnost in the former Soviet Union produced a long list of new online information sources, including: The Soviet Press Digest (stories from over 100 newspapers), The BizEkon Reports (financial news from 150 business and financial magazines), SovLegisLine (law), BizEdon Directory (detailed information about over 2,500 companies, who want to do business with foreign companies), Who's Who in the Soviet Union and The Soviet Public Association Directory. Some of these may have changed their names now. Contact Mead Data Central (Nexis/Lexis), Data-Star, FT Profile and Reuters for more information. DJNR also offers full text from the Paris-based International Herald Tribune, publications like the Guardian and others from the United Kingdom, and from sources in the former Soviet Union (like Soviet Press Digest, BizEkon News, Moscow News, and others.) E-EUROPE is an electronic communications network for doing business in Eastern Europe countries, including CIS. Its purpose is to help these countries in their transition to market economies. It links business persons in Western Europe-Asia-North America with those in Eastern Europe. Subscription is free and for anyone. To subscribe to E-EUROPE, send email [email protected] (or a LISTSERV closer to you) with the body the message containing this line SUB E-EUROPE YourFirstName YourLastName E-EUROPE also offers International Marketing Insights (IMI) for several countries in this region, including Russia, Hungary, Czech, Germany, Estonia, Poland, Bulgaria, and Lithuania. The IMI reports important developments that have implications for traders and investors. Typically brief and to-the-point, they are prepared by American Embassies and Consulates. The reports cover a wide range of subjects, such as new laws, policies and procedures, new trade regulations, changing dynamics in the marketplace, recent statements by influential parties and emerging trade opportunities. For a list of E-EUROPE IMI offerings, send the following commands to [email protected]: GET E-EUROPE IMI IMI update notices are not posted to E-EUROPE, but you can subscribe to updates to these files. The English-language newsletter "St. Petersburg Business News" is published in Russia by the Committee for foreign economic affairs of LECC. For information and subscription, send email to [email protected] . The Financial Izvestia weekly, the joint publication of London Financial Times and Moscow-based Izvestia, is available by email. The complete feed includes the full text of all articles published in the Russian language newspaper, and financial and statistical tables on the commodities and financial markets. Write Legpromsyrie at [email protected] for information. Several Russian newspapers, including Commersant Daily, Nega, and press services like Postfactum and Interfax, have digests or complete editions available for Relcom network subscribers, usually for a nominal fee. Interested in the European Common Market? ----------------------------------------- Pergamon Financial Data Services, NewsNet, and others, offer Dun & Bradstreet European Marketing Online. It contains company profiles of around two million European companies. Pergamon's ICC U.K. Company Databases contains data on over 140,000 British companies with up to ten years' financial history, addresses, key people, mother firms/subsidiaries, stock quotes. Its Comptex News Service brings daily business news from the European arena. The UK Company Library on CompuServe has financial information about more than 1.2 million British companies from sources like Extel Cards, ICC British Co. Directory and Kompass UK. Data-Star offers Tenders Electronic Daily, a database of European Community contract offers. Investext offers a series of bulletins authored by Europe Information Service (EIS): European Report (biweekly), Tech Report (Monthly), Transport Europe (monthly), Europe Environment (bimonthly), European Energy (bimonthly), European Social Policy (monthly), and Multinational Service (monthly). Investext is available through Data-Star, Lexis/Nexis, Dow Jones News/Retrieval, Dialog, NewsNet, and others. The German Company Library (on CompuServe) offers information about some 48,000 German companies from databases like Credit Reform and Hoppenstedt's Directory of German Companies. Its European Company Library contains information about over two million companies in the area. Nexis (Mead Data Central International) brings news and background information about companies and the different countries in Europe. Their Worldwide Companies database contains company profiles, balance sheets, income statements, and other financial data on the largest companies in 40 countries. Nexis also has Hoppenstedt German Trade Associations directory, four more newsletters from the Europe Information Service: Europe Energy, Europe Environment, Transport Europe and European Insight, a weekly brief on European Community-related happenings, and Notisur, a biweekly news and analysis report on South American and Caribbean political affairs. LEXIS (also Mead) has databases with information about English and French law, and other law material from Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland and North America. Their Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory has information on over 700,000 lawyers and law firms worldwide. The directory can be used for referrals, selection of associate counsel, and evaluation of competitive counsel. Check out KOMPASS EUROPE when planning exports to the EEC. Its database contains details about companies in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, United Kingdom, Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden and Norway. (On Dialog) ILINK has the EEC-I conference (Discussion about the European Common Marked). Profile offers full-text searches (and a clipping service) in stories from Financial Times. The database is being updated daily at 00:01. Those exporting to the EEC need to master German, French, Italian, and Spanish besides having a common knowledge of English. Conversation is the easy part. The problem is writing, and especially when the task is to translate technical expressions to the languages used within the Common Market. For help, check out the Eurodicautom online dictionary through ECHO (and others.) Start by selecting a source language (like English), and up to seven languages for simultaneous translation. The translation is word-for-word, but may be put in the correct context if required. ECHO also offers the European Commission's CORDIS database (Community Research and Development Information Service) containing information about research results within scientific and technical fields. Keywords: Race, Esprit, Delta, Aim, Fast, Brite, Comett, Climat, Eclair and Tedis. CONCISE (COsine Network's Central Information Service for Europe) is a pan-European information service to the COSINE scientific and industrial research community. COSINE (Cooperation for Open Systems Interconnection Networking in Europe) is part of the European Common Market's Eureka project. CONCISE brings information about the COSINE project, networks, conferences, networking products, special interest groups, projects databases, directories, email services and other networked services in Europe. It is intended for researchers in all fields, from astronomers through linguists and market researchers to zoologists. CONCISE is accessible by email through the Internet, by FTP, and interactively (telnet) over the European academic and research networks, over public data networks and over telephone links. (See ECHO in appendix 1 for more information.) The mailing list [email protected] is dedicated to discussion of the European Community, and is open to all interested persons. Subscribe by email to a LISTSERV close to where you live, or to [email protected]. Scandinavia ----------- Most countries have several local language news services. In Norway, Statens Datasentral lets you search stories from the NTB news agency. Aftenposten, a major newspaper, offers full-text stories from their A-TEKST database, from Dagens Naeringsliv (DNX), and the Kapital magazine. Before meeting with people from Norsk Hydro, go online to get recent news about these companies. It will only take a couple of minutes. What you find may be important for the success of your meeting. If you know the names of your most important competitors, use their names as keywords for information about recent contracts, joint venture agreements, products (and their features), and other important information. KOMPASS ONLINE offers information about over 180,000 companies and 34,000 products in Scandinavia, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, and Great Britain. The information is presented in the local language of the different countries. KOMPASS is used by easy menus. You can search by * company name * product or service (optionally using an industry classification code for companies or products) * number of employees, type of business, postal number, telephone area code, export area, year of incorporation, bank affiliation. The database is available through Affaersdata (Sweden). New users pay a one time fee of around US$85. Searching costs around US$3.00 per minute. The TYR database on the Finnish service VIEXPO (tel.: +358 67 235100) offers information about 2,500 companies in the Vaasa and Oulu regions with addresses, phone numbers, contact persons, main products, revenues, and SIC industry classification codes. We can go on like this. The list of available services is long in many countries. How to monitor your competitors ------------------------------- Sales managers need to know what competitors are doing. Lacking this knowledge, it is risky to maneuver in the market. Start by making a strategy for online market intelligence. Here are some practical hints: (1) Select online services that offer clipping of stories and information based on your search words or phrases. Examples: NewsFlash on NewsNet, //TRACK on Dow Jones News/Retrieval, The Executive News Service on CompuServe. Use these services for automatic monitoring of stock quotes and business news. (2) Read what investment analysts and advisors write about your competitors. Most markets are well covered by databases and other sources of information. (3) Read what competitors write about themselves. Their press releases are available from online databases in several countries. (4) Compare your competitors with your own company and industry. Items: stock prices, profits, revenue, etc. (5) Regularly monitor companies and their particular products. (6) Watch trend reports about your industry. Search for patterns and possible niches. (7) Save what you find on your hard disk for future references. Can you get everything through the online medium? Of course not! Don't expect to find production data, production formulas, detailed outlines of a company's pension plan, or the number of personal computers in a company. Such information rarely finds its way to public databases. Intelligence by fax ------------------- Financial Times' Profile has Fax Alert. Predefine your interests using search words. Stories will be cut and sent to your personal fax number whenever they appear. Price depends on the number of characters transmitted. Other online services offer similar services. The Bulletin Board as a sales tool ---------------------------------- Many companies - large and small - use bulletin board systems as a marketing instrument. Here is an example: The San Francisco-based Compact Disk Exchange (Tel.: +1-415-824- 7603) offers a database of used CD records. Members can call in to buy at very low prices. They can sell old CDs through the board or buy from other members. (1992) Marketing and sales by modem ---------------------------- The Americans have a gift for this. You meet them in online forums all over the world, in person or through agents, and especially in computer oriented conferences and clubs. Their main strategy is reference selling. Make key customers happy, and make sure they tell others. In Chapter 5, I told you what happened when a member wrote about his upgrade to a 425 megabytes hard disk in CompuServe's Toshiba forum. It made me place my order with his preferred seller. One common sales strategy is to be constantly present in relevant conferences, and spend a generous amount of time helping others. This takes time. By proving competence and willingness to help, you build a positive personal profile. This profile is the key to business, information about competitors and other benefits. To drop quickly into a conference to post an "advertisement," is a waste of time. The message may be read by some, but chances are that you will be criticized (in public) for having 'polluted their environment' with a commercial message. Besides, the volume of information in the best conferences for your marketing effort is probably too high to make traditional advertisements worth the while. Electronic mail --------------- Here is a list of other useful applications of electronic mail: * to distribute quickly lists of important prospects to your sales force, * to avoid lengthy telephone conversations, * to receive order information faster and more efficiently than by traditional mail or fax, * to distribute quickly reports and memos to key people all over the world, * to send new prices and product announcements to customers, * to exchange spread sheets and analyses between users of personal computers. If this isn't enough, ask for information from the International Business Network at [email protected] (or, at 70724,311 on CompuServe).