Featured Article

IDEX Pricing Spineometer: 2 of 5 Vertebrae

By Tim J. Smith, PhD January 9, 2025

IDEX, a global applied solutions provider, had a mixed Q3 2024. Revenue rose 0.6% to $798 million while earnings before interest and taxes fell 6.1 % to $168 million over the same period last year. A review of IDEX’s 30 October 2024 earnings call and associated financial reports provided insight regarding the importance of pricing on performance. IDEX is a diverse and complex business. It has three reporting units, Fluid & Metering…

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In This Issue

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The Rewards of Trying to Be Different

By James T. Berger November 6, 2010

In my research, what I learned was that despite the fact that most companies are committed to the concept of differentiation, at any given moment they are also intensely aware of what their competitors are doing, and it is this competitive vigilance that ultimately pushed them down a path of conformity.” Youngme Moon, HBS Professor and author of “Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd”

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Top 6 – November 2010

By Tim J. Smith, PhD November 6, 2010

“There are three potentially successful generic strategic approaches to outperforming other firms in an industry: 1 Overall Cost Leadership; 2. Differentiation; 3…

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Intel Lends Support to Achronix Against Xilinx and Altera in the FPGA Industry. Excess Competition or the Rule of 3?

By Tim J. Smith, PhD November 6, 2010

In October of 2010, Intel Corp. took an unexpected move by granting Achronix Semiconductor Corp. access to its most advanced foundry to produce field programmable gate array (FPGA) chips.  Xilinx Inc. and Altera Corp. currently dominate the FPGA industry.  How serious of a threat is Intel’s move to the historic industry cohorts?  More specifically, will this move harm industry profits as competition heats up?  And, how should executives and investors react?

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Rethinking Cost and Price

By Tim J. Smith, PhD November 6, 2010

Most of us accept that if we go to a convenience store to buy groceries late at night, the price of many of the items will be more than if we bought them at a major grocery chain during regular hours. Yet when it comes to operating our businesses, many of us are not convinced that cost has no bearing on price.

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