
Are We Really Paying for the Brand?
Brands fulfill higher-order needs...Brands can substitute or complement human passions and desires. Brands have become the symbol of high quality. People assume brands can buy them status or esteem and are willing to pay a high price for them. Not surprisingly, more the price consumers pay for a brand, more they perceive being elevated in the society. Such is the magical spell modern marketing has cast on us. It is true that better quality products enjoy good reputation and c

Alcoa's Corporate Disaggregation
Alcoa (Aluminum Corporation of America) is a global leader in lightweight metals, engineering & manufacturing, Alcoa innovates multi-material solutions, and its technologies enhance transportation, from automotive and commercial transport to air and space travel, and improve industrial and consumer electronics products. Alcoa’s products enable smart buildings, sustainable food and beverage packaging, high-performance defense vehicles across air, land and sea, deeper oil and g

Google Restructuring into A Shoaling Formation
Google's recent restructuring of the entire corporation into a collection of companies under the holding company called Alphabet can be considered a Shoaling formation. The URL for the new company Alphabet is abc.xyz. Alphabet includes the following entities: A smaller company called Google, headed by CEO Sundar Pichai, that includes the company's core businesses. Those businesses: "search, ads, maps, apps, YouTube and Android and the related technical infrastructure." Other