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At Sebastiani Vineyards, a 7,000‐year‐old wine‐making tradition joins the information age.

The fusion of disparate information systems is creating new clarity for companies, their suppliers, and their customers.

By all outward appearances, things were looking up for Internet visionary Spyglass Inc. at the end of last year. The software developer had seen its 11th straight profitable quarter, and its freshly minted stock was soaring to a high of more than $34 a share.

High‐tech, low‐tech, and no‐tech, there are ways business travelers can stay connected without cramming the whole office into carry‐on luggage.

The word “zoran” means silicon in Hebrew, which is exactly what Levy Gerzberg wanted to convey when he founded Santa Clara, Calif., microchip manufacturer Zoran Corp. in 1981. As the company grew, he discovered that zoran also meant “outstanding” in Mandarin and “happy boy” in Greek.

Proximity, historic ties, government support, and far‐sighted strategy put German business ahead of the pack in Eastern Europe.

Suggests guidelines to aid logistics management in manufacturing, and describes a systems approach to logistics within the pharmaceutical industry, where the materials flow path through the company provides a logical connection for all the logistics activities. Decided to examine interactions within the manufacturers' organisation of one industry, and by doing so it should be possible to investigate in depth the effects to the whole company. Reports on the research work undertaken in the development of a decision‐making approach for logistics management – the pharmaceutical industry was selected for study. Uses tables and figures for explanation and emphasis. Proposes that the research study represents a step towards the formulation of a hypothesis for selecting only those interactions, or trade‐offs, of particular importance to any logistics analysis.

The first part of this chapter addresses the history and development of the International Study Association of Teachers and Teaching (ISATT) and its engagement with the global educational community. We provide an account of the context and background against which ISATT developed as well as information about the founders’ orientations and the actions that led to ISATT’s birth. The second part of the chapter uses patterns of topic focus as graphic indicators of the evolution of ISATT’s research interests expressed through publication titles.

Introduction This paper attempts to define and illustrate an approach to marketing analysis which reflects the needs, capabilities and resources of decision makers in organisations where no sophisticated, explicit marketing information systems exist, and where no advanced marketing research or model‐building is feasible. Typically, this is likely to include small and medium sized manufacturers operating in national and export marketing, rather than the large public corporations and multi‐national marketing companies. This is described as an alternative technology, an analogy drawn from popular usage, where the “technology” and sophistication of marketing research methods used, and the complexity of results produced, should be matched not only with the decision maker's needs for information, but also his resources and ability to handle information. The argument put forward is that we can distinguish between companies in terms of their economic development, in a similar way to the more familiar distinctions made between countries, and that this differentiation has important implications for the “technology” of marketing management information which is most appropriate. This viewpoint is justified in the first part of the paper, in terms of its relationship with marketing theory and management practice. Once the rationale of the alternative technology approach has been established, we can continue by looking at some of the practical applications of the concept. The approach is illustrated firstly, by looking at the use of basic sales data and some of the possibilities for creative analysis to isolate trends and to understand changes in the components making up total sales performance. Secondly, the alternative technology concept is illustrated by examining some of the qualitative and semi‐qualitative methods available for development to provide data on markets and their structure and trends, and the potential for co‐operative research in some markets. It is stressed throughout that these approaches can offer the decision maker useful data, but that it is important to validate these data before they are used. While this paper examines some of the main issues briefly, it is hoped that it will be seen as part of moves to give more rigorous attention to the marketing analysis and research needs of the less sophisticated firm and its marketing information system, which may be quite different in the real world to the needs of the larger organisation.

Reports the findings of research conducted for the Library Action Committee of the Book and Periodical Council, Canada, into the importance of public libraries to library users, suppliers, publishers, retailers and other businesses; as well as to Canadian culture. Analyses the effects of reduced funding to public libraries on the economy and society at large.