Sunday, September 19, 1999
TIPSHEET
Most firms not serious about Web
For all the promise, hoopla and hype surrounding the World Wide Web, most companies apparently still see it as little more than a glorified telephone or, at best, a cybernetic memo pad and library.
A study from Cutter Consortium, an Arlington, Mass., consulting group for information technology with 20,000 clients worldwide, found that by far, most companies use the Internet for external or internal communications — 86 percent and 74 percent, respectively. Those are the firms that see it as a Jetsons telephone or memo pad.
Only 38 percent of the companies use the Web to deliver products, while about one in four sell something on the Web. Of course, there may be a worldwide-sized hole in this survey. Its 154 responses were obtained via the Internet — and if a company was not online, well, it couldn't respond.
— John Eckberg
Couriers hike it
Next time you follow a lumbering delivery truck through your neighborhood or get stuck behind a double-parked courier on a busy downtown street, consider this: They could be walking.
DHL Worldwide Express queried its couriers around the world to determine who covered the most ground on foot. The winners are the deliverers in Cairo, Egypt, who hoof 11 miles a day on a single route. Why? Parking delivery vans downtown is forbidden, and regular calls for prayer demand flexibility.
New York topped the “Mileage of Business” chart for North America, where it takes two couriers to serve customers on the 400-plus floors that make up the World Trade Center. Even with the help of elevators, Manhattan couriers clock an average of almost six miles per route.
— Amy Higgins
P&G scores green points
Procter & Gamble, one of the world's largest paper products manufacturers, has taken steps to make nature groups smile and help consumers aid the environment.
The Cincinnati consumer-goods maker has become the latest Fortune 500 company to join the national 100 percent Recycled Paperboard Alliance, and began Aug. 16 to package its Puffs tissue products in recycled paperboard.
“Puffs packaging is using the 100 percent recycled paperboard symbol to let consumers know that P&G is committed to conserving natural resources,” said Roger Vandersnick, Puffs' brand manager.
P&G may be encouraging consumers to buy reuseable products out of concern for the environment, but there could be an underlying concern for sales as well.
The company said recent nationwide opinion surveys show that 87 percent of consumers would like to see the 100 percent recycled paperboard symbol on packaged paper products.
— Randy Tucker
A new world for paper
Move over, paper media — electronic information is the way of the future.
A new study by the Boston Consulting Group found newsprint will be among biggest losers by the 2003. But it won't be completely over for the pulp and paper industry. Office and home printers will be working overtime, and the study predicts that the amount of paper used at home will double 1996 consumption levels by 2003.
Overall, worldwide paper use will continue to rise, with growth in most sectors offsetting losses from the switch to electronic media.
— The Associated Press
Hello? Are you saving?
Baby boomers could be headed for big trouble. A survey by the American Health Care Association found the generation cozying up to the stock market and planning a comfortable retirement — but as many as 68 percent are not financially prepared for long-term care. Fifty percent admitted not having given any thought to how to pay post-retirement costs.
The study suggests those in their 30s and 40s who don't start saving from their paychecks now may one day wake up in a nursing home — where Medicaid picks up the tab, but only after the senior has spent nearly all his or her life savings.
— The Associated Press
Items for Tipsheet are gathered by Enquirer business reporters and compiled by Lisa Biank Fasig of the business staff.
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