by bgetch.

Overview: Fortune’s cover shouts, “Business is Back” featuring a giant fist punching through a veneer.  The story details data of business’ respectability increasing and a rise in CEO outspokenness on broad issues like employee benefits, security and the environment.

The next day, a front-page feature in the Wall Street Journal describes a quiet revolt in which new leadership at Boeing (Jim McNereny), H-P (Mark Hurd), and AIG (Martin Sullivan) are more effective but also “more beholden to their boards of directors and more susceptible to the influence of a broad range of outsiders — regulators, accountants, attorneys general, hedge fund managers, union bosses, proxy advisory services, trial lawyers, public pension funds and nonprofit activists.”

So, which is it?  Are chief executives boldy speaking out again and retaking the throne of the imperial CEO?  Or, following Sarbanes-Oxley, are boards looking for consensus CEOs who keep their heads down and noses clean?

The answer is neither.  The answer is that CEOs and organizations are appreciating the power and influence of stakeholders and are engaging them.  The modern CEO is now a CSO…Chief Stakeholder Officer.

Research Issues:

1. Weakened Public Companies?  Executives still have to be executives.  That means gathing information and making decisions, even if you’re broadening the information sources.

2. Drawing a line.  An executive can spend a lifetime running around and gathering opinions from stakeholders who may or may not influence and affect a corporation.  How can stakeholders be prioritized and the wheat separated from the chaff in terms of whose opinions should be weighed more heavily?

Posted in Stakeholders, Companies Tracked | Print | No Comments »

by bgetch.

If you had Al Gore on your Board of Directors, you might think you’d get a pass with environmentalists.  Not so.  Apple is stung by a series of stories on groups saying the company does a poor job using and handling toxic materials in the manufacture of its computers.

Steve Jobs heard the criticism of a Greenpeace annual ranking of responsible computer makers (again, the power of original research).   Greenpeace is no doubt embolden by their lobbying tactics.  The below is from the Atlanta-Journal Constitution:

The environmental group Greenpeace greeted Apple’s announcement as “tasty news,” and said it shows that thousands of letters and e-mails its supporters have written the company to change its policies are starting to pay off.

But in a statement, Greenpeace also said it’s only a start for the computer maker with the worst environmental record, and that Apple should aspire to be “green to the core,” not just on the surface.

In an annual Greenpeace ranking of computer and electronics companies last month, Apple ranked dead last. Lenovo, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Dell and Samsung topped the list.

Without naming names, Jobs, in his memo, jabbed at environmentalists who have faulted the company, indicating that some of their rankings are flawed. He also wrote that the company doesn’t get the credit it deserves for making environmentally friendly computer design changes, most notably for eliminating the use of lead-containing cathode-ray tube monitors last year. Other computer makers still ship CRT monitors.

If Apple has fallen down anywhere, Jobs wrote, it has been in promoting and communicating its environmental efforts. (emphasis added) “Whatever other improvements we need to make, it is certainly clear that we have failed to communicate the things that we are doing well,” he wrote.

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by bgetch.

As stakeholders, employees are a well-defined group, as are shareholders.  But there’s a new class of stakeholders for consideration: litigious employee shareholders…From the Atlanta-Journal Constitution:

Atlanta-based Beazer Homes is now facing questions from the Securities and Exchange Commission about its business practices as well as a new lawsuit from participants in its pension plan.

In an SEC filing Thursday, Beazer disclosed the SEC’s “informal inquiry to determine whether any person or entity related to Beazer Homes has violated federal securities laws.”

A spokesman for the SEC in Washington declined to comment.

The same filing also discloses that a group of current and former Beazer employees is seeking class-action certification in a suit against the company over failure to share important information about Beazer while their 401(k) money was invested in the company. more

Posted in Beazer Homes | Print | No Comments »

by bgetch.

OVERVIEW: Current slump nothwithstanding, the explosion of home ownership, residential construction and home values have turned builders into brands. Centex, Toll Brothers, Pulte are climbing the brand equity chart.

Recently, another large builder, BeazerHomes, was the subject of stories in North Carolina related to minority-lending practices and foreclosures. There were other questions about loan originations. The FBI subsequently began an inquiry. The company steadfastly denies any wrongdoing as the CEO also talked about doing business in a “very difficult operating environment.”

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

1. Have the major home builders crossed the threshold into consumer brands with distinctive attributes in the minds of prospects?
2. Do homebuyers make distinctions or value purchasing judgments beyond location, price and quality? If so, how might the Beazer news affect prospective new home buyers?

Posted in Beazer Homes, Companies Tracked | Print | No Comments »

by bgetch.

OVERVIEW: Fascinating developments at Siemens in terms of brand, reputation and timing. The conglomerate was set to begin a national print advertising campaign highlighting its contributions to American life. With its CEO resigning and the bribe scandal still percolating in Europe, does it make sense to begin a broad, U.S.-centered brand and reputation campaign?

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
1. Will target groups make distinctions relative to a brand/reputation campaign in one corner of the world (U.S.) while another is under fire (EU/Germany)?
2. The power of stakeholders: Siemens is attributing much of its troubles to German unions, specifically the resignation of its CEO. How can one group wield so much power?

P.S. Jack Bergen (my old boss at GCI in NY when I was a mere cub) is Siemens SVP of external comm and marketing. Interesting that he is attributing much of Siemens trouble to German unions and separating U.S. operations from the bribe issue. I left GCI to take a speechwriting job with Grumman. Jack was Cap Weinberger’s speechwriter.

Posted in Siemens | Print | No Comments »

by bgetch.

OVERVIEW: Siemens is a financially stong, diversified company that makes everything from car navigation systems to locomotives to dishwashers: $28 billion in revenue and close to a half-million employees. However, charges of $570 million worth of bribes in late 2006 has led to investigations that continue and recently forced out two top executives.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

1. Are people making value calls about the company as a whole or relegating these as isolated incidents from a couple of bad actors?
2. Are Siemens’ consumer brands affected at all?  More adversely due to awareness?  Or is this islotated to those businesses where the alleged bribes took place?
3. What’s the stakeholder impact, particularly government officials, employees and shareholders?  more

Posted in Siemens, Companies Tracked | Print | No Comments »