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"Panasonic tells how a typical Japanese multinational learned to restructure itself according to this flexible "American" approach while preserving some essential Japanese attributes. Panasonic is the main brand name for Matsushita Electric Industrial Company; author Francis McInerney consulted for Matsushita's American subsidiary in the late 1990s—when the firm's troubles became most apparent."
Verizon's big bet on fiber optics
Fortune.com, February 22, 2007
By Stephanie N. Mehta, Fortune senior writer
...FiOS is divided into fixed and variable capital expenditures. Verizon has told analysts it expects to spend about $850 per home this year on fixed items such as marketing costs, network gear needed to deliver data and video, and the thick cables of fiber that snake in and around neighborhoods. Then, each time it signs up a customer, the phone company says it will spend an additional $880 on items like pulling fiber directly to the user's house and installing special equipment.
Some analysts believe that Verizon will have trouble keeping those costs down; FiOS is, after all, a new and complex service that can't be switched on remotely the way phone service is: The carrier, for example, tells customers to reserve four to six hours for installation, but the process can take much longer.
Francis McInerney, a business strategist who has done consulting for Verizon, says it took three technicians two days to install his connection. (He was part of a field trial, to be sure.) "FiOS is a good service, better than anything you're going to find in this country today," he says. "But the cost of customer acquisition is very, very high."
