Word: slashe
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...result, downsizing is no longer the only way for businesses to slash their payroll costs. After working so hard and spending so much to recruit employees during the talent wars of the past decade, more firms are desperately trying to hang on to their workers while still cutting labor costs--which account for fully two-thirds of most companies' expenses. "One of the great successes of the U.S. economy has been putting flexibility into the wage structure and compensation plans," says Ira Kay, a compensation consultant at Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a human-resources consultancy. Variable pay "is a shock absorber...
Deep discounts are a devil's bargain. If companies slash prices, will they generate enough extra traffic to offset the loss of revenue per customer? Immediately after the attacks, airlines avoided discounts, figuring that anybody still interested in flying would pay top dollar. Now they are discounting in the hope of filling planes. Before Sept. 11 airlines needed to collect between 10[cents] and 12[cents] a mile for each seat to break even, but now that has gone...
...even as companies generate proprietary data at the rate of a Library of Congress once a month, the slumping economy has forced them to slash spending on information technology. And that pushes companies like EMC to diversify out of hardware, which has become a commodity business with less differentiation among products, and in which competition has compressed gross profit margins to about 30% to 40%. The manufacturers now see software's charm--or more specifically the charm of its 80% to 90% margins. In 1999 software composed just 10% of EMC's revenue; in the second quarter...
...seems relatively unscathed is Ryanair, Europe?s largest low-fare airline and one that does not fly the Atlantic. After the attacks, Ryanair put a million seats on sale for just $14 each. CEO Michael O?Leary scoffs at other airlines for cutting back operations and says they should slash fares to fill their aircraft. "The important thing is to keep people flying," he says. Analysts have been forecasting around $130 million in profit this year, and O?Leary sees "no reason why we won?t hit that figure." The outspoken chief has taken out newspaper ads railing against government...
...stands to lose about $2 billion, and European giants Munich Re, Swiss Re and AXA aren't far behind. Direct underwriters such as AIG, Chubb, Travelers and Hartford could lose hundreds of millions of dollars each. Many underwriters have jacked up the premiums for airlines and are sure to slash the level of coverage available for damage on the ground. In the future, companies will probably have to pay extra to be covered for an act of terrorism. It hasn't all been bad for the industry, however. With millions of individuals and businesses now worried about new risks, sales...