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Preoccupations: Older, Unemployed, and Landing the Job

August 3, 2013 by

In 2011, I was an account executive with Scor Global Life Americas Reinsurance Company, in Plano, Tex., near where I live. When Scor acquired Transamerica Reinsurance, I was laid off along with several other people that October.

At that point I called Mike Pado, a former colleague at Scor who had left the company several months earlier for a job as president and C.E.O. of Aurigen USA Holdings. Aurigen is based in Bermuda, and Mike had been hired to look at starting a life reinsurance company in the United States.

Mike, who works out of Red Bank, N.J., was still in the planning stages for the new venture when I spoke to him. He said that at some point he’d need a person who knew the reinsurance industry and its top executives and could contact them for a snapshot of the United States market. He knew I fit that bill. But he was hoping that the person he hired would also be an actuary. I’m familiar with risk assessment and risk management in that field, but I’m not an actuary. So besides my age, I was worried about that.

I had done a good job at Scor for 12 years, and I was disappointed that I had been laid off. My level of anxiety was fairly high. The Aurigen venture sounded like a great opportunity if it worked out. But the business world often has certain misperceptions about workers 55 and older. Some people think we’re set in our ways, we don’t have the energy we used to have, or that we’ve lost our drive. They may worry about offering us a lower salary than we earned previously. I knew I’d have to address these concerns when job-hunting.

I told Mike I was interested in working for him, and we left it that we’d stay in touch while he continued to develop a business plan and consider a staff for the United States company. In the meantime, I sent out 300 résumés. I heard back from about a third of the companies and had about 12 or 15 interviews, but no luck.

By June 2012, eight months after Mike and I first talked, I still hadn’t found a job. Then Mike called and said he could offer me a three-month position as a marketing consultant, and that we’d see what happened after that. I was excited, but a consulting job was not ideal for me. I told him I would do the best job I could for him but would continue looking for a staff job with benefits, and he understood.

Consulting works well for people who like short-term projects and freedom, but I’ve always liked having a staff job. I like the feeling of belonging, and benefits are important.

I started talking to executives right away to gather the information Mike wanted and help him determine whether there was room for another entrant in the United States life reinsurance industry. I spoke to a vice chairman, 11 company presidents, 25 chief actuaries and 30 life underwriters and sent Aurigen’s annual report to customers and others, sometimes with a handwritten note.

My work helped Mike make a case to his board that another United States life reinsurance company could do well. In October I got the news that Mike’s proposal had been accepted. He was finally able to hire me as an account executive on staff for his new-business development team. I was able to stay in Texas for my new job at Aurigen.

Right after hiring me, Mike had me join him and the Aurigen pricing team at the October 2012 conference of the Society of Actuaries in Washington. Many industry executives attend, and I’d help sell prospective clients on the benefits of working with the new venture.

When word got out that I’d been hired, my former colleagues gave me a warm reception, which was nice. Several welcomed me back to the industry, and one asked about my sales territories. It felt great to know that I hadn’t been forgotten.

Rather than start a new company from scratch, Mike began looking at United States insurance companies to buy, choosing one that Aurigen closed on and renamed this past spring.

Some people might have no problem retiring after being laid off at 59. Maybe they tell themselves it’s not what they would have wanted, but they make the best of it. Or maybe they are ready to retire, so it turned out to be perfect timing. I’ll be 61 in September, but I want to keep working, so getting a chance at this job worked out well for me.

It’s easy to get depressed about being an older job seeker. You have to keep your eyes open, stay focused, and be open to possibilities. You never know when and how an opportunity may come along.

As told to Patricia R. Olsen.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/jobs/older-unemployed-and-landing-the-job.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

Fad-Loving Japan May Derail a Sony Smartphone

June 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The Xperia Z has not even hit the United States market yet: T-Mobile says the model will make its debut on its network in the coming weeks.

But it is already a has-been in Japan. DoCoMo has turned its attention to a new phone, the Sony Xperia A — a model with fewer features that has not won the stellar praise showered on the Z.

“It’s time for a new model,” said Mai Kariya, a DoCoMo representative in Tokyo. “We’re finished with the Xperia Z, and now focusing on the Xperia A.”

As Sony banks on smartphones to turn around its struggling electronics business, it faces an increasingly bothersome obstacle at home: the demands of Japan’s powerful cellphone carriers, which remain obsessed with constant model updates.

For years, Japan’s three largest mobile network companies have pressed phone makers here to update their handsets every three or four months, providing Japanese consumers a dazzling array of newfangled phones and features each season. Phones with digital TV broadcast receivers were once all the rage; a phone without it was never going to sell. Then it was thumbprint scans; you’d be hard pressed to find those on many phones today. The same is true of swiveling screens, and to a lesser extent, electronic wallets.

The fast-paced cycle is commonplace in Japanese marketing. Manufacturers deliver short runs of seasonal products to create buzz, analysts say. Pepsi Japan, for example, brings out limited-edition drinks each year: Salty Watermelon Pepsi or Pepsi Ice Cucumber. Nestle’s KitKat candy bar has cycled through an eye-popping array of limited editions in Japan: green tea, pumpkin, strawberry cheesecake, wasabi and soybean to name only a few.

Even Japan’s best-selling pop group, AKB48, rotates through a cast of 67 members and on New Year’s Day released 16 versions of new and repackaged records.

“This is the worst of Japanese companies’ excessive obsession with the new,” said Yuichi Kogure, an associate professor in information technology policy at Aomori Public University and the author of several books on Japan’s cellphone industry. “But now the mobile phone makers are exhausted.”

Sony’s Xperia Z got caught in this marketing buzz saw. DoCoMo started selling the Xperia Z in Japan on Feb. 9 as part of the carrier’s spring 2013 collection, replacing the Xperia AX of the winter 2012 collection. A month later, on March 15, DoCoMo announced its summer collection of 11 new phones, with the Xperia Z replaced by the Xperia A, which went on sale last month.

The constant feature roulette has helped carriers lure customers away from rival networks. But it taxes the research and development resources of Japan’s phone makers, who must meet the constant demands from carriers for new high-end features and frequent handset renewals.

Phone manufacturers here have found it impossible to achieve the economies of scale that would justify the high development costs and the slim profit margins. Because separate teams of designers at each handset maker race to build handsets from the ground up for each separate carrier, few phone makers have been able to develop a coherent global product strategy, analysts say.

The unique pace of the Japanese cellphone market largely cuts it off from the rest of the world, making it difficult for one manufacturer to make and market phones for both the Japanese and global markets, said Kenji E. Kushida, an expert on Japan’s information and communications technologies at Stanford.

“The Japanese market became somewhat like the Galápagos Islands. It had great biodiversity, but was so weak to outside species,” Mr. Kushida said.

He points to Vodafone, which moved into the Japanese cellphone market in the early 2000s. The British network operator tried to synchronize its Japanese product lineup to match its “global standard” handsets sold in other markets. But Japanese consumers were unimpressed by what struck them then as overly simple handsets that appeared to take a step back in functionality.

Vodafone’s Japanese market share started to slide, and in 2006, it sold its operations to SoftBank.

Not every maker succumbs to this whirligig and, not surprisingly, those that don’t aren’t Japanese. Apple has announced a new iPhone model roughly once a year. Its iPhone 5 came out in September, and the company is not expected to introduce a new model until the fall. Samsung Electronics is focusing its resources on its sleek Galaxy S4 smartphone, which went on sale in April, a full year after its predecessor the Galaxy S3.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/27/technology/japans-fad-loving-consumer-threatens-to-derail-sonys-phone-ambitions.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

G.M.’s Quarterly Profit Falls 14%

May 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment

G.M., the nation’s largest automaker, said global revenue dropped 2 percent during the quarter to $36.9 billion, despite a concerted effort to introduce new models in the United States and Europe.

The automaker’s core North American operations achieved a pretax profit of $1.4 billion during the quarter, a 14 percent decline from the same period a year ago. By comparison, the Ford Motor Company, G.M.’s smaller hometown rival, had pretax earnings of $2.4 billion in the region during the quarter. The earnings show that G.M. still trails Ford significantly on profits earned per vehicle sold in the thriving United States market.

G.M. has struggled to rebuild its business since the recession, when it needed a $49.5 billion government bailout and bankruptcy to survive. The automaker has since cut brands, models and thousands of jobs to bring costs more in line with production and sales.

The company’s chief executive, Daniel F. Akerson, said the decline in earnings and revenue did not reflect the progress G.M. is making with new models in the marketplace.

“The year is off to a strong start as we increased our global share with strong new products that are attracting customers around the world,” Mr. Akerson said in a statement.

G.M. lost market share in the United States last year to competitors like Chrysler and Toyota. Mr. Akerson has vowed to reverse that trend this year with vehicles like the new Cadillac ATS sedan and restyled versions of its big pickup trucks.

The company sold 902,000 vehicles in the United States in the first four months of this year, about a 10 percent gain over the same period in 2012. Sales for the overall industry have improved by about 7 percent.

G.M. narrowed its losses in Europe during the quarter. It said it had a pretax loss of $175 million in the region, compared to $294 million in the first quarter of last year.

In Asia, the company said pretax profits were about $495 million, slightly less than a year ago. Its South American operations had a pretax loss of $38 million, compared to income of $153 million last year.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/business/gms-quarterly-profit-falls-14.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

‘Once Upon a Car’: On the Road to Detroit’s Big Pileup

October 1, 2011 by Leave a Comment

DETROIT

“HI, Bill, it’s Rick Wagoner. You know, I think it’s really time we put our companies together.”

Bill Ford wasn’t sure he’d heard right. Mr. Wagoner, the chairman and chief executive of General Motors, wanted to talk about a merger between Ford and G.M.?

He did. Mr. Wagoner and his operating chief, Fritz Henderson, would come by to talk.

Mr. Ford was stunned. He knew G.M. was desperate. But even now, in July 2008, he had no idea it was this desperate. And he couldn’t snub Rick Wagoner. Sure, Mr. Ford said. Come on over, and bring Fritz.

The idea had been the subject of theoretical debate for years. What if G.M. and Ford joined forces? Even in their shrunken state, they would have a combined 38 percent share of the United States market, and a huge international presence. All that purchasing power, manufacturing muscle and technical skill under one roof. Thousands of overlapping jobs could be eliminated. Painful as that might be, it could save billions. Chrysler? Forget it. Instead of a Big Three, there would be a Big One.

But could it even be done? G.M. and Ford had competed head-on for decades. This was not just a rivalry. This was opposite sides of town, you-stay-on-yours-and-I’ll-stay-on-mine. So, as a practical matter, a merger had never been seriously considered — until now.

Bill Ford didn’t like the sound of it. G.M. must be in serious trouble if its executives were coming to Ford for help or answers. The idea of a merger nauseated him. The U.A.W. would go nuts.

Mr. Ford spoke with his C.E.O., Alan R. Mulally, and they agreed that they had to talk to G.M., if only to find out what was going on. Mr. Wagoner’s approach was out of character. Maybe G.M. was in even worse shape than it was letting on.

The meeting that followed would profoundly affect the course of both automakers. Mr. Wagoner and Mr. Henderson arrived with Ray Young, G.M.’s chief financial officer. Don Leclair, Ford’s C.F.O., joined, too.

Mr. Wagoner began. G.M. and Ford should merge, he said. The synergies would be phenomenal. Savings would be huge. The possibilities were endless.

Bill Ford was shocked. G.M. was serious. Who, he asked, would run this new company? As bad as Ford’s stock price was, Ford still had a higher market value than G.M.

Mr. Wagoner noted that G.M. was bigger in terms of sales. So, by all rights, it should probably be in charge. But maybe they could share management, or discuss it later, he suggested.

Mr. Mulally mostly listened. He wanted to know more about G.M.’s true state. He surely didn’t want any part of any merger. As far as he was concerned, G.M. was a roaring five-alarm fire. Why, he asked, was it coming to Ford now?

Mr. Wagoner and Mr. Henderson explained that G.M. was running low on cash and was having trouble borrowing money. By merging with Ford, it could go back to Wall Street.

So that’s what this is about. G.M. is going broke, Bill Ford realized. Ford had $30 billion in the bank, and that’s what G.M. really wanted. It wasn’t about Ford at all. It was about saving G.M. Mr. Ford didn’t need to hear any more. “No thanks,” he said. “This would never work out. “

Mr. Henderson jumped in, reiterating how good a marriage could be. “Don and I did a lot of work on this earlier,” he said. “I know G.M. inside and out, and Don knows Ford inside and out. Between the two of us we could figure it out pretty quickly.”

Mr. Leclair kept his mouth shut. Mr. Ford was doing the talking.

“No,” Mr. Ford said. “No, thanks.”

Mr. Wagoner understood. This wasn’t happening. “Well if you don’t do it with us,” he said, “we’re going to look elsewhere.” With that, the G.M. execs left.

At first, Mr. Ford was angry. G.M. could be so arrogant. But the overture was disturbing. If G.M. went bankrupt, a big part of the automotive supply chain could collapse. That would hurt the entire industry, including Ford. Bill Ford respected G.M.’s power and mass as no one else at Ford could. After all, he is a great-grandson of Henry Ford.

“I grew up in this town, and G.M. was the giant,” he later recalled. “That was just the reality of life for me from childhood.”

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=0accd74c0c4d889435a3e08bfca74d77

Filed Under: Economy News Tagged With: , ,

Digital Domain: One Site Fits All, Except for Advertisers

August 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The problem has persisted despite many executive changes, revampings and rebranding campaigns that have tried to make Yahoo a destination as highly valued by its advertisers as its users.

Yahoo is second only to Google as the most-visited Web destination in the United States market, bringing in 178 million unique visitors monthly in June, according to comScore. That is a 27 percent increase over June 2008. But the company’s market capitalization is little changed from 2003. The company holds the No. 1 spots in news, sports, finance, entertainment news, real estate and comparison shopping sites, according to data collected in June by comScore. Yahoo’s e-mail service alone drew 2.2 billion visits in June, according to Experian Hitwise.

What a mismatch: Where else on the Web can you find, on the one hand, so many happy users whose growing numbers testify to their satisfaction in Yahoo’s services and, on the other, financial performance that is so lackluster?

A fundamental change in the way display advertising is being bought and sold is hurting Yahoo’s core business. Today, advertisers care less about creating a partnership with a particular Web site and more about the behavioral characteristics — as best as they can be known — of their target users, wherever they happen to be. More and more ads are placed through online ad exchanges, in which ad agencies buy from whoever offers the lowest price for users who meet the buyer’s criteria.

Yahoo sells display ads — at a premium price — to advertisers interested in claiming a place on its choicest pages. This is “Class 1 display.” Those purchases do not come via online ad exchanges. They require an old-fashioned sales technique that long predates the digital age — what Carol Bartz, the Yahoo chief executive, calls “face-to-face relationship selling.”

When Yahoo does not manage to sell the available space on its premium pages at a guaranteed high price, it channels the space as Class 2 display into the ad exchanges, where it is sold at much lower rates. In the second quarter, a significant portion of its Class 1 display space in the United States market failed to sell.

The impact on the company’s financial performance has been unmistakable. For the quarter, Yahoo’s revenue for display ads worldwide was up 5 percent over the year-ago period, which doesn’t sound bad. The problem is that there was high growth everywhere but the United States, where that revenue actually declined. Growth in the United States matters most because an overwhelming majority of the company’s revenue comes from this single market.

Ms. Bartz, Yahoo’s chief executive since January 2009, said in a conference call after the earnings report that the reasons for the shortfall were recent moves at its United States sales group, including leadership changes, field staff turnover and organizational restructuring. All was being straightened out, and the new people were coming up to speed, she reassured listeners.

She did, however, have to lower the long-term guidance for the growth of display ad revenue, which would now fall below what had been projected just two months before.

Yahoo investors, though, showed no inclination to accept the idea that the poor display ad sales were just a minor execution problem. Yahoo’s stock has fallen about 20 percent since the earnings were announced on July 19. That compares with around 10 percent for the Nasdaq, so the recent market rout carries only partial responsibility.

KEN SENA, a director in the equity research group at Evercore Partners, says he doesn’t believe that Yahoo’s strategic position is hopeless. “Given the number of visitors who come to the site, Yahoo has an opportunity,” Mr. Sena says. But the company’s executives, he adds, must somehow figure out how to “create a new experience for those visitors.”

An executive who is working on the new experience is Ross Levinsohn, executive vice president for the Americas, who joined Yahoo nine months ago.

He retained a newcomer’s optimism after the disappointing second-quarter results were released. “We hope to tap into the portion of the $85 billion spent on TV advertising today that is shifting to digital,” he said in an interview late last month. Yes, “$85 billion” certainly has a nice ring to it.

Mr. Levinsohn did mention, however, that more of Yahoo’s choicest display ad space was being filled in online ad marketplaces. “Commoditization,” as he called it, “has been far more aggressive than most people would have thought,” he said.

That does not augur well for the future. Ask any Web publisher. Once prices go down, down they stay.

Randall Stross is an author based in Silicon Valley and a professor of business at San Jose State University. E-mail: stross@nytimes.com.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=a1f501a30639c7f2bf4dacc37016d96c

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,