2003 | The Wiglaf Journal

Why Is Adoption of AMR and Modern CIS Going So Slowly?

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | May 14, 2003

The business case for AMR, automated meter reading is solid. Though expensive to install, AMR systems lower operational costs of utilities and the potential to lower prices for end customers. Although AMR has been around for a decade, only 14% of the meters in the US can be read automatically. The other 86% of the…

Is It Time for Prepaid Gas and Electricity in the States?

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | May 14, 2003

Pre-paid metering and billing for gas and electricity is common in developing nations. South Africa boasts that it is the pre-paid capital of the world. But in developed nations, pre-paid billing for gas and electricity is an anathema. It may be time to change. Individuals from utility employees at Cinergy and Nevada Power that expressed…

Are CIS Vendors Missing a Market?

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | May 14, 2003

CIS, the customer information systems of utilities, merge meter reads, rates, customer data, accounting information, and service levels to produce bills. The CIS systems will manage millions of customers reliably, be the customer service focal point at call centers, alert workforce management systems of needs, and manage highly complex billing arrangements. Yet, somehow, they might…

CSA Explains… Security & Sabotage

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | May 14, 2003

Friday, May 2 at KPMG’s Chicago offices, sixteen individuals gathered to understand the legal, business, and technological implications of electronic sabotage. While many people would rather ignore the issue and treat it as a nuisance, the panel of speakers and moderator took data security and potential sabotage extremely serious for it directly affects their business…

Year 1 Growth: The Wiglaf Journal

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | May 14, 2003

Who ever said, time flies when you enjoy what you’re doing, was correct. The Wiglaf Journal staff can testify to time flying, and having fun from journalistic contributions to the business community it serves. The origin of the journal was May 2002, when Tim Smith, PhD, a then contributing author to The May Report, was…

Setting Prices

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | April 30, 2003

To an outsider, how a company sets prices for new-to-the-world products may resemble black magic coupled with company politics. However, sound pricing practices are rarely a matter of mysticism or bravado. Rather, like other managerial business decisions, appropriate pricing is accomplished through direct qualitative and quantitative approaches. And, in overcoming this sales and marketing challenge,…

Managing By Metrics

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | April 30, 2003 |

Introduction This article illustrates how metrics can be used proactively to manage all levels of a given company or organization. Metrics offer a perspective from an executive level of how a business is performing by gathering these measurements. This is similar to judging a baseball player’s performance by batting average, home runs, and runs batted…

AssureBuy’s Channel Approach

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | April 16, 2003

When hundreds of thousands of transactions per month are required in order to achieve a million dollars in revenue, businesses must embrace a low cost approach to reaching their market. One low cost approach is through channel distribution partners. In 1999, AssureBuy selected to embrace this approach. AssureBuy Organized in ’94, AssureBuy (www.assurebuy.com) initially approached…

Relationships, even eCRM ones, are a two-way street

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | April 16, 2003

Essentially communications works as follows: organizations emit information, and the information is carried to other organizations that sense and interpret it. Media is the thing outside of organizations, between them, that carries information. Books, movies, white papers, email, and purchase orders are all media. Media affects the information it carries. For example, communicating complex mathematics…

Five Steps to Planning for the Future

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | April 2, 2003

In the Industrial Age, public and private enterprises built their future by the expansion of present technology, internal assumptions, and day to day operations. In today’s rapidly changing environment based on global information, this strategy of merely building on the present is defunct. Worldwide markets and instant global communications are now multiplying all our opportunities.…