Mel Duvall

Wal-Mart only began selling groceries in 1988. Now it sells $56 billion of foodstuffs and household goods in its supermarkets every year. That makes Larry Johnston an underdog. The alumnus of the fabled Jack Welch era of General Eelectric management aims to make Albertsons, with “Just” $36 billion in revenue, the nations greatest grocer. Hes […]

They know what they want. Theyll pay to get it. The secret of how one airplane service profits by catering to the needs, wants and whims of a well-heeled clientele. When billionaire investor Warren Buffett sinks into a plush leather chair aboard his privately chartered NetJets flight, he counts on finding a glass of Cherry […]

Bank of America now stretches from the West Coast to the Gulf Coast to the East Coast. But its information systems dont. Even five years after combining with Southern banking giant NationsBank for $67 billion, customers still cant easily transfer money between accounts from the banks East and West Coast operations. And now, Bank of […]

Renting software can be a quicker and less expensive way to get a system up and running, but it may not be suitable when a high degree of customization is required. Baseline created this downloadable calculator through research and interviews with industry experts. Download this Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet to calculate your savings or losses.

The past few years have been difficult for software companies, with one big exception: vendors of hosted sales and customer service applications. Companies such as Salesforce.com of San Francisco and UpShot Corp. of Mountain View, Calif., have experienced growth that is downright buoyant. Salesforce.com, for one, doubled revenue in 2002 to $50 million, and the […]

Shareholders nearly deify Warren Buffett for the way he manages his diverse holding company, Berkshire Hathaway of Omaha. Theres little doubt that hes squeaky clean in how he operates. But that doesnt necessarily mean that other companies can or should follow the way the avuncular champion of business ethics conducts his own affairs. His approach: […]

A salty-snack maker in Texas pioneered the use of wireless communications on delivery routes. Among the copycats: Pepsico, Pepsi bottling companies and such Pepsi subsidiaries as Quaker Oats and Tropicana. So how come all these Pepsi units invested in different wireless systems? After all, Pepsi owns Frito-lay, the company that showed the world how to […]

When an IBM subsidiary set out to refurbish computers storing data for clients, no one could have anticipated the drama that would follow when a pocket-sized, 30-gigabyte hard drive—valued at a little more than $100—was reported missing in January. At first, managers of the IBM business believed that the drive contained limited information on clients […]

When an IBM subsidiary set out to refurbish computers storing data for clients, no one could have anticipated the drama that would follow when a pocket-sized, 30-gigabyte hard drive—valued at a little more than $100—was reported missing in January. At first, managers of the IBM business believed that the drive contained limited information on clients […]

You could say Global Sports has an identity crisis. Is it a web hoster, an online retailer, a logistics and package delivery company, or an electronic commerce platform provider? The fact of the matter is, its all four, according to Michael Rubin, the firms energetic founder and CEO. In fact, Global Sports is probably the […]