Antitrust Dust European antitrust officials have been busy, and their latest target is a large but declining giant called Coca Cola. The investigation might be about practices, but it cannot be about market share. Market share alone is a baffling approach. Google is a monopoly, but it must be doing something right because 80 percent of online researchers use it and like it. If Google were to be broken up would the resulting change in competition get us to Mars faster? Coca Cola has so many challenges. Its top product is labeled as empty calories that lead to obesity, sickness, and finally death. In blind taste tests, this product is easily matched by several competitors. The whole soft drink industry is under assault, most notably in Mexic...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.