Template talk:Infobox company/Archive 1

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What do people think about including NAICS industry classification and (insert year) revenue as well? This is pretty critical information for evaluating companies and understanding what they do, both academically and practically. Plus the info is generally easily available. And why include slogan -- it seems irrelevant, and would often change anyway. --Goodoldpolonius2 18:29, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm indifferent about the slogan. I support including industry codes, but please do it in an internationally-respectful way. I don't know what system, if any, is used in other countries. Rhobite 18:40, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
For industry codes, NAICS is used for North America, Europe uses the NACE. The NAICS is more common, however, for non-government reports. I would suggest that we include "industry" in words (software and services, chemicals, steel, etc.), and then allow people to put in a NAICS or NACE code. I would even suggest including industry instead of products, since the products thing only makes sense for a few types of companies -- what are the products of Walmart? Of Goldman Sachs? And even IBM's "products," like computers, only represent a bit of their actual revenue.
And what about revenue? It seems critical to understand how big a company is, and not just in terms of people. The objection above (that it would get out of date) makes little sense - so does the number of employees, the executive management, and even the slogan. Revenue is pretty critical.
Finally, as for the slogan, I am not sure how it is at all useful to anyone. "Your potential. Our passion." "I'm lovin' it"? These are advertising phrases, and do not reflect anything about the company. Neither does the founding location, by the way, which can be mentioned in the article if relevant but is not useful in info boxes, by and large.
Basically, why not remove founding location and slogan (we could also remove products) and include revenue and industry? That information is infinitely more useful as a first glance summary than the slogan and founding location. Take a look at Dow Chemical Company, for example. Does "Living. Improved Daily." say anything useful? And with no revenue figures, there is no way to see how big it is compared to other companies and why it is important. Any thoughts?
--Goodoldpolonius2 21:44, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I disagree with all of these proposed changes. First of all, the only people who know and understand NAICS or NACE codes are accountants, tax lawyers, and small businesspeople who file their own income tax returns. Most Wikipedia users (I'm thinking of say, the average 15 to 22-year-old who's only worked as a line worker) would say, what the hell?
Next, NAICS codes in general are notorious for encompassing huge industries and sectors, and for lacking specificity. Also, I know from personal experience that NAICS is quite slow in adding codes to cover new industries, which is annoying for people in those industries.
Another point is that this is one of the most popular infobox templates and changing it would create a huge mess across many, many WP articles.
As for getting rid of the slogan field, I strongly disagree. I like company slogans, empty of meaning as they often are, because they are often unintentionally ironic and thus humorous. For example, Boeing's slogan is Forever New Frontiers, which is quite ridiculous; everyone knows that Airbus is the true innovator in aviation nowadays (Boeing has specifically refused to even consider making a double-decker jumbo jet while Airbus is already building one). Also, seeing a slogan reminds me of the company's advertising, which then reminds of what I know about it.
As for revenue, I am not sure that is a good idea. It fluctuates way too much (do we use the annual or quarterly numbers?) and would have to be regularly updated (by who?). Of course, if you can come up with some automatic way to scrape securities reports information and pipe it directly into Wikipedia, I suppose that would make it feasible. --Coolcaesar 02:55, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)


Lets deal with the issues one at a time. First, as for industry -- the point was not to use NAICS or NACE codes (which has the disadvantages you stated), but to use word descriptions supplemented by codes, like "Software," followed by a code if available. The advantage of using the codes is that they would work as categories to allow companies to be easily compared, but the real point was that industry, rather than products, would be a lot more useful. Witness Wal-Mart, where the products are listed as "Wal-Mart Discount Stores, Wal-Mart Supercenter, Sam's Club, Neighborhood Markets," which makes no sense at all. Besides, it is already being used for industry in entries like Exxon and ConocoPhillips and others, so why not standardize?
Next, slogans. While I appreciate that you find slogans unintentionally ironic, you are admitting that it says nothing about the company. It may occasionally remind you of advertising, but not in every case, and it carries almost no information. Plus, many non-US companies do not have slogans, or have different slogans in different countries. It can still be mentioned in the article, but aside from personal preference and POV about irony, I don't think there is a good reason for the info box. What does it mean that Target's slogan is "Expect More. Pay Less" and Wal-mart's is "Always Low Prices"? Or that Budweiser's is "True."? Besides, of the top three companies in the US (Exxon, Wal-mart, GM), only one has a slogan listed.
Finally, revenue. Sure, revenue fluctuates, but given a figure and a year gives a much better sense of how big/important/relevant/etc a company is than any other information. Revenue figures rarely change by orders of magnitude year to year. Knowing that Wal-mart's revenue was $285.2 Billion and Target's was $46.8B is useful in understanding the size of these companies, even if those figures are a year or two old. Plus, it would force people to include this info, the current Target entry doesn't have revenue figures anywhere!
As for difficulty with changing this, I don't think that it is a compelling reason to not consider changes. They can be phased in over time, but being left with mediocre info boxes because we don't want to consider changes seems silly. Besides, many companies do not yet have info boxes, and of those that do, many are incomplete (with no slogans, like Berkshire Hathaway, or no founding info, or misused product boxes).
--Goodoldpolonius2 06:13, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oppose changes

As the initial designer and implementor of this infobox, I oppose the changes proposed by Goodoldpolonius2.

Firstly, the objective of an infobox is to provide simplified major details about a subject. When I designed this infobox, I designed it according to my needs as an entrepreneur and marketing professional. [Obviously, many Wikipedians are pleased with the design.] As such, the adage "don't fix what isn't broken" applies. The changes proposed by Goodoldpolonius2 are neither beneficial to the typical reader nor to me, and are either redundant or proposed ad ignorantium. In addition, significant changes require updating every article which uses this template. As of this writing, there are nearly 300 articles using the company infobox.

  • Notice of industry classification is irrelevant when the Products are properly listed. In business, a "product" can be a tangible good, service, organization, or any resource. See 7-Eleven, Microsoft, Nokia, and Wal-Mart for examples of proper Products values. Moreover, the concept of "industry" is vague and ultimately is ignored for the practice of business.
  • Slogans are an expression of a product's corporate culture, brand identity, and brand essence. Slogans also indicate the direction(s) which a product desires positioning towards. Slogans even reflect the positioning of a product. The value perceived of slogans is directly proportional to how extensive the knowledge of marketing a reader possesses.
  • Notice of revenue data is redundant and subject to the passage of time when readers realize that public companies publish such data through their stock exchange(s) and on their websites (e.g., annual reports). Both the stock exchange(s) and official websites listed in the infobox of public companies are external resource links which contain regularly updated and more accurate data.

Adraeus 07:20, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No personal attacks

Wow, talk about violating Wikipedia:No personal attacks right out of the gate. Between calling this an argument from ignorance and attacking my knowledge of the business world, well, I am impressed. Look, if you need me to invoke resumes, I have founded a company that employs over 50 people. I have an MBA from one of the top five business schools. I have done marketing consulting for VCs, government agencies, and technology companies. I have academic articles in a number of the major journals in business academia as well. I say this not to invoke authority, but to demonstrate that I really am not ignorant on this topic. Given the hostility of your responses to other posters, and certainly to me, I realize that this is going to be a losing fight right off the bat, but here goes:

  • Products: You argue that the Wal-mart case is an example of properly-listed product values, but do you really think the Wal-mart product list makes sense? What is the "proper product values" for Dow? For Goldman-Sachs? For Boston Consulting Group? Isn't some sort of industry description more useful? Industry is not ignored in business, it is the first thing you list, and the first thing you use to describe a company: "Biogen is a biotech company" not "Biogen makes Zevalin." Industry does not need to be precise: "GE is an industrial conglomorate" or "IBM is a technology and professional services company" is fine. And your definition of products as including an "organization or any resource" is just plain wrong, resource and organization are vastly different from product. Find me any major source that uses this as a product description, or that considers the Wal-mart stores a product.
  • Slogans: Slogans do not represent corporate culture, for goodness sake, the previous commenter explained that he liked them for their ironic value. Do you think that the fact that Budweiser's slogan was just changed to "True." changes anything about the company? What is the slogan for Fortune-20 company Berkshire Hathaway? Why is the difference between the slogans of Target and Wal-mart significant? And this is very US-centric in any case, since firms in many other countries do not even have slogans, or use different ones in different countries.
  • Revenue is no more instantly out-of-date than employees or top management. And it is a major way of judging the size and nature of companies. You do not need to be current to the year, or even the last few years, for revenue to be useful in the infobox. But how is it redundant? What other information in the infobox has this data?
  • Practicality: many of the almost 300 articles have large sections of the infobox blank. In any case, I would propose that we create a new infobox with any revisions that we decide on. People can then transition to the new infobox gradually when they overhaul articles. Or we can just add lines for industry and revenue and keep slogans and products in as well, and phase them out gradually. It does not seem like the difficulty of transition is reason enough to not discuss changes.
  • Standards for debate. I think it would be worth making it explicit what the standard you keep citing of an article "beneficial to the typical reader [and] to me" is. What makes an article beneficial to you, and what do you think makes it useful to a reader?

I know you feel intensely proprietary about this infobox you designed, and my suggestions were not designed to tear down your work, merely to argue that, as is the philosophy of Wikipedia, that it could be made even better. It would be great if you actually responded to the arguments rather than attacking me. Please make your case, rather than assuming that anyone who disagrees with you is an idiot. Do you really think the infobox is perfect? --Goodoldpolonius2 14:10, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't have strong feelings either way about the proposed changes, so I'll just butt in to ask everyone to cool it down. Please keep it on topic. Adraeus, again you are making borderline personal attacks. It's also inappropriate to suggest that you should have more influence over this template because you made the first edit. Change happens.
On to the changes. If we are choosing a single financial figure to list in the infobox, are we sure that revenue is the right one? It does give a good idea of the size of established companies. But it says nothing about a company's profitability, and it's meaningless for new companies. I don't know if there's a better figure to use, though. Market cap is extremely volatile.. net profit measures profitability but not size. Maybe revenue is the best choice, but since it's a single click away, does it really need to be added to the template? No single number gives a complete picture of a company's condition. Maybe we should leave the financial data to the external links.
Products: Now that I think about it, it's awkward for us to shoehorn services and brands into the "products" field. I agree with Goodoldpolonius2 on this point. As the number (and importance) of service-based companies increases, I think it's inaccurate to imply that every company has "products". I support changing this to some sort of industry box. Rhobite 21:16, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)
Rhobite, thanks for the cool head. Since I don't want to ruin the chance of making any change by insisting on my full agenda, I will split my proposal and table my suggestion that we remove anything from the current infobox (though I believe I am right about the "slogan" and "founded" information being of little value), if that seems too controversial, and we can discuss it more later. That aside, we should definitely change product to industry, though. And we should have some sort of financial measure as well. All measures are flawed (number of employees being a good example), but revenue is the general number used for ranking companies in the Fortune 500, for determining whether someone is a small, medium, or large business, and for starting any discussion about company size. I am open to debate, but since people often don't list any financial measure in the articles (see Target Corporation), one financial measure on the infobox would both allow comparisons and provide some consistency, at least within an order of magnitude. I don't think we need financial data in any sort of investor kind of way, but comparing the even out-of-date revenue of Wal-mart to Target, or GM to Ford, is highly useful to encyclopedia readers in understanding the companies, even though it would not be to investors, and should be viewable at a glance.
So, lets discuss: (1) Changing product to industry and (2) Inserting a financial measure, namely revenue, to the infobox. Thoughts?
Goodoldpolonius2 21:34, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Argumentum ad ignorantium is not ad hominem; it's a logical fallacy. The only reason I mentioned that I initially created this infobox was to connect the fact that the infobox works for me with the fact that I designed it to satisfy my needs while retaining simplicity for the casual reader. Wikipedia:Assume good faith I know your proposal for change is in good faith, but I don't think your argument for change justifies the increased workload that would result from your changes. If I were to make a significant change, I would remove the number of Employees value since it requires annual research to maintain its accuracy. Considering how many articles use this infobox, such research and maintenance is already a heavy workload. You want to add another value which requires annual research. That's ridiculous.

  • Products: See WordNet: "product"
  • Slogans: If there's no slogan, we use the value "N/A" as an acronym for "not any" or "not available". In CSS, I think there's a way to hide the Slogans row if there's no associated value, but nobody has since introduced that feature. Slogans are an expression of corporate culture and do affect corporate culture. Research memetics and branding.
  • Revenue: Like the number of Employees, I say no. Such data can be found using external resources which are dedicated to producing accurate information annually. If you want to discover the annual revenue of a company for a given year, use the public company's stock exchange link (e.g., NASDAQ/NYSE) or use their official website to find their annual report in the investors section. The infobox should not be used as a repository for easily outdated information.
  • Practicality: Diffusion of responsibility is not a good thing to rely on. For every moment there exists a flaw in the infobox, a reader of an article will see it. Remember: this is web publishing. Any changes made show up on the final product. Any changes made to this infobox cannot be significant unless absolutely necessary.
  • Standards for debate. Since you're proposing significant changes, why don't you elaborate on your needs and why this infobox is not useful to you?

Adraeus 22:28, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Rhobite, I don't appreciate you lecturing me on personal attacks when I've made none. I have not attacked Goodoldpolonius2 in any way. If I do attack, you will know it and you will feel it. I suggest you modify your attitude. Telling someone they're making "borderline personal attacks" indicates you're not assuming good faith, which isn't a good thing for someone such as you.
In business, services are products. Products is defined as "a total bundle of satisfaction; a service, a good, or both—offered to consumers in an exchange transaction." See Wikipedia's article, product, for clarification.
We should acknowledge that there aren't many private companies which publish their revenue data. Revenue would be applicable to mostly, if not only, public companies. If Revenue is added, I will defend Slogan to the death. If Revenue is not added, I will support the removal of Slogan. Both Revenue and Slogan are useful information to those that know how to interpret such data; in addition, such data is only readily available from and relevant to public and marketing-oriented companies. Of course, we could diverge and create separate infoboxes for public and private companies, but again, that's a lot of work to implement.

Adraeus 22:28, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This reminds me of our argument over Template:Nasdaq. In that case you were neglecting the fact that writing "NYSE: YHOO" implies to most people that YHOO trades on the NYSE. In this discussion, you are neglecting the fact that "product" isn't synonymous with "service" for most people. I think you have trouble picking up the connotations of words. Other people may have different interpretations of the words you write. They aren't necessarily wrong, and you aren't necessarily right because your words adhere to broad dictionary definitions. Arguing from dictionaries really isn't a valid tactic, anyway. I understand that "product" has a broad meaning in marketing-speak, but it refers to a tangible good for most laypeople. Rhobite 23:14, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)
  • You subjectively interpret "NYSE: YHOO" as meaning Yahoo! trades on NYSE. That's your personal interpretation. That is not what is written. What is written is simply a link to a stock exchange's data on a stock with no other meaning attached or implied. Rhobite, you have a serious problem with understanding things objectively. I pointed this out before and you complained I was attacking you, which seems to be your strategy for just about everything. Take this Uncritical Inference Test to see how well you can differentiate facts from inferences.
  • You are neglecting the fact that this infobox is business-related. As such, we use business terminology. Adraeus 01:04, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I am glad we are making progress. I do have to disagree that services are products, however. In fact, they are almost always differentiated, for example:
  • Academia, these are almost always distinguished, see, for example: "Business-to-business service marketing: How does it differ from business-to-business product marketing?" by Gordon, Geoffrey L, Calantone, Roger J, di Benedetto, C Anthony. The Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing. Santa Barbara: 1993. Vol. 8, Iss. 1; p. 45. There are many, many examples.
  • Common discussion. See here, here, here, and many, many more.
  • News and Media. See here or here or many others.
Besides, even just limiting to product and service leaves out a wide range of business types (see business) that are traditionally considered neither: utilities, finance companies, agricultural businesses, mining, education, and even retail and distribution. Industry is definitely the preferred term.
I would say that it is worth adding revenue (and keeping slogan, if you want). There is private revenue info on D&B and Hoovers, and even if we can't list every company that doesn't make it any less useful for the majority of companies - we can't always list slogans or founding locations either.
--Goodoldpolonius2 23:19, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The definition of product is set in stone throughout the businessworld and in academia. To correctly refer to tangible products, use the term "goods". Tangible goods, intangible services, organizations of offerings, ideas, etc., are all products. This is understood wherever you go in business.
  • "a total bundle of satisfaction; a service, a good, or both—offered to consumers in an exchange transaction." (Longenecker, Justin G., et al. Small Business Management: An Entrepreneurial Emphasis. 13th ed. N.p.: South-Western College, 2005.)
  • "Product is a term used to describe all goods, services, and knowledge sold. Products are bundles of attributes (features, functions, benefits, and uses) and can be either tangible, as in the case of physical goods, or intangible, as in the case of those associated with service benefits, or can be a combination of the two." [1]
  • "A product can be anything one receives in an exchange, including all tangible and intangible attributes and expected benefits; it may be a good, service, or idea." [2]
  • "A product can be (1) a bundle of attributes (features, functions, benefits, and uses) capable of exchange or use; usually a mix of tangible and intangible forms. Thus a product may be an idea, a service, a physical entity (a good),or any combination of the three. It exists for the purpose of exchange in the satisfaction of individual and organizational objectives. (2) Occasional usage today implies a definition of product as that bundle of attributes where the exchange or use primarily concerns the physical or tangible form; in contrast to a service, where the seller, buyer, or user is primarily interested in the intangible. Though to speak of "products and services" is convenient, it leaves us without a term to apply to the set of the two combined. The term for tangible products is goods and it should be used with services to make the tangible/intangible pair, as subsets of the term product. (See services.)" (Calantone, Roger J., C. Merle Crawford, and C. Anthony Di Benedetto. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000.) [3]
  • "Services are products, such as a bank loan or home security, that are intangible or at least substantially so. If totally intangible, they are exchanged directly from producer to user, cannot be transported or stored, and are almost instantly perishable. They come into existence at the same time they are bought and consumed. They involve customer participation in some important way, cannot be sold in the sense of ownership transfer, and have no title. Most products are partly tangible and partly intangible, and the dominant form is used to classify them as either goods or services (all are products)." (Calantone, Roger J., C. Merle Crawford, and C. Anthony Di Benedetto. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000.) [4]
  • "A product is the end object of a transformation process that includes physical objects, information or services. Result of activities or processes and may include service, hardware, processed materials, software or a combination thereof; can be tangible (e.g. assemblies of processed materials) or intangible (e.g. knowledge or concepts) or a combination thereof; can be either intended (e.g. offering to customers) or unintended (e.g. pollutant or unwanted effects)." [5]
"Industry" only refers to the stereotypical categorization of an organization's primary business activity determined by the largest portion of revenue. [6] Classifying organizations by industry is a faulty scheme which yields zero benefit to strategists and inreases the layperson's risk of misunderstanding. For instance, a company that is categorized as a farm equipment provider may actually be transitioning towards providing only telecommunications services. Still, using the "industry" classification scheme, we would categorize that company as a "farm equipment provider". While that's an extreme example, it does happen. (Nokia used to be a wood-pulp mill, a rubber products manufacturer, a telephone/telegraph cable manufacturer, a telecommunications switching equipment developer, a personal computer solutions provider, etc.)
By listing an organization's major product offering, readers can more accurately perceive to what category they think an organization belongs without us stating "this organization is this type of company."
Adraeus 01:04, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Since this is a business-related template, we should therefore use impenetrable marketing language? What a convenient rule to completely make up on the spot. Rhobite 03:21, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)
If accounting is the language of business, marketing is the heart and soul. Adraeus 07:35, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Different contexts

Adraeus, I think it is fair to say that both industry and product are defined differently in different contexts. I also think that you are using far from the most common usages.

  • Industry. There are real problems with your assertions about industry yielding zero benefit to strategists and laypeople.
    • Industry is used by strategists all the time. Michael Porter, for example, the most cited reference point in strategy, talks about the key element of competitive strategy being "the structural analysis of industries." Industry comparisons are also the key element in understanding company performance.[7] The list goes on.
    • Industry is used by laypeople and businesspeople all the time. Witness the North American Industrial Classification System. Or the way industry is used to classify companies informally[8]. Or your own user page, which starts: ""Adraeus" (pronounced adray-oos) is an alias for an American businessman in the strategic branding and marketing industry." You don't say that you produce branding products.
    • Your definition is too limited. The definition you use, refering to the "stereotypical categorization of an organization's primary business activity determined by the largest portion of revenue," mischaracterizes the link you gave in support, which says nothing about stereotyping, just that this is how it is typically done in finance. And your own examples don't show any problems, Nokia was once a logging company and is now a telecom company. Where is the problem?
    • You are right, industry is an inprecise term, to use it, we will want to define it. And if you want to use the word "business" or "major areas of business" or something, that is fine. But general industry classification is important, I hope you will agree, and it is better than listing individual products. Again, "Biogen is a biotech company" not "Biogen makes Zevalin."
  • Products vs. Services. I agree with you that there are a number of sources (driven from economics, which uses these definitions) that define goods as physical things, services as intangible things, and products as the superset of both, but this is hardly universal in academia, as my sources above point out (Porter also differentiates, for example). Given your use of the "common man" standard so often in this argument, however, I think you would agree that this is not the way most people use these definitions, and the links I provided show that in most discussion and business press there is a difference. We need look no further than the way in which the product line has been filled out so messily in many service companies, and the fact that even the example you gave, Wal-mart, lists the lines of business as product, rather than "retail" or some more reasonable view of the service, to indicate the confusion.
  • Products vs. Industry. The real question is whether to use products or industry/business as the defining characteristic in an info box. There are strong reasons to use industry. (1) While both can be inprecise (as the use of the product infobox for many service companies shows), it seems difficult to argue that it is easier for people to identify industry by listing product names (is Zevalin a drug, a Swedish fighter jet or software?) than by seeing a general category. (2) The product box is causing confusion, as people are using different levels, witness Ford Motor Company vs. General Motors or Microsoft vs. Hewlett-Packard. (3) It is easier to compare two companies when they are categorized by industry rather than product, and will be easier to categorize them in Wikipedia as well. (4) It is more intuitive, as the fact that your own user page uses industry rather than products to define your business indicates.

And are we agreed on adding revenue? --Goodoldpolonius2 03:43, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • Industry. To understand why industry classification relies on stereotypes, and is therefore a faulty scheme, you need to understand the cognitive processes behind categorization. Humans are pattern-oriented thinking machines which usually categorize subjects using properties common to other subjects similar to the subject being categorized. The other method of categorization is largely irrational and is common among those not comfortable with "smart shopping": a consumer may perceive a subject as representative of all similar subjects henceforth based on deep impact and/or a first impression. There are several books on the subject of the problem with "industry" and several popular business authors have also elaborated on why "industry" is unimportant, inaccurate, and faulty. (I have a lot to do tomorrow and I have to get to sleep earlier than usual so I can't cite sources for you right now. I think Al Ries in The Origin of Brands talked about the problems with "industry", but I'm uncertain.) I'm not disagreeing that businesspeople use "industry" and that numerous texts are written about it; however, I'm with the "other side" that says that methodology is idiotic. Many people misunderstand brands and branding too, but that doesn't mean we should cater to their ignorance. (A proper, more useful example of your example would be: "Biogen IDEC, formed from two of the world's leading biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, provides ZEVALIN® (Ibritumomab tiuxetan) radioimmunotherapy to...")
  • Definition of product. I guarantee you that if you e-mail an intelligent business academic at any popular business school in the United States that they will respond with a definition, at least, similar to the definitions provided above by academically credible (and popular) sources, including introductory college business textbooks.
  • My profile uses "industry" only because my intent was to retain ambiguity and remain somewhat anonymous. My usage is certainly not a "thumbs up" for industry classification.
No, we are not agreed on adding Revenue unless you are willing to take responsibility for researching and implementing the latest and accurate Revenue values for the 300-or-so articles that are using the infobox now. I'm certainly not going to volunteer without having such data beforehand. I suggest you make a list of the Revenue values for each company using the infobox... even if just for you to get a feel for how much work your significant change will cause. By the way, wouldn't it be more useful to have 200X Profit instead of Revenue?

Adraeus 07:40, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

One more try

Adraeus, you don't yield much ground, do you? I have never denied that there are problems with industry as a measure, but have proven that industry (or business) is in incredibly common use and is commonly applied in all sorts of strategy situations, despite your earlier assertions. The same problems with use plague all sorts of business terms, as sociologists use terms differently than economists, and product designers from venture capitalists. It seems foolish to argue that some sort of aggregrate term that indicates that Wal-mart, Target, and K-mart are all in the same "industry" or "business" is useless however. In fact, strategy cannot be made without comparing within an industry and I would guess that most laypeople would give similar answers when asked what industry Wal-mart, Target, and K-mart are in, even if they cannot name each of their "products." While your example ("Biogen IDEC, formed from two of the world's leading biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, provides ZEVALIN® (Ibritumomab tiuxetan) radioimmunotherapy to...") is a good first sentence, note that it provides industry information - giving the company as in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry - and then uses that to place the product. Listing only ZEVALIN® (Ibritumomab tiuxetan), which is what the product label currently demands, is almost useless.
On product, I spoke to a professor at Harvard Business School about this on Friday, and one at MIT-Sloan today (the first was incidental, the second was in direct response to your inquiry). As I mentioned above, you are certainly right that in many economic definitions, product is a superset of both goods and services, but the term product and service are considered seperate in the study of technology and innovation, as well as in organizational theory and in teaching to MBAs. Again, this leaves us with an imprecise definition (as one professor said "you have to be really careful with the usage of the terms"), but the vast majority of popular information supports that most people think these terms have different meanings, and even academics using product as a superset of goods and services define this precisely before using the term. "Product or Service" is the suggested usage.
On revenue and how to make changes. The glory of Wikipedia is that the work is distributed over time and authors. I will not take responsibility for filling in 300 revenue figures. I will happily fill in some, but not all, nor should I have to. Just as many infoboxes are missing slogan, to be filled in when people find them, so to will revenue be filled in as pages are updated. Besides, although you never responded, I demonstrated that many of these infoboxes are filled in differently, or inconsistantly, or not at all. For the same reason, having some missing revenue or industry at first is not an issue, it is merely a way of ensuring that we develop consistant and better infoboxes in the future. Again, we do not need to delete anything (despite the fact that I think it is better to do so) to roll out these changes. So, I propose that we add "Industry" and "Revenue" to the Infobox and either eliminate Product (which is misused in the majority of info boxes) or replace it with "Products/Services," if you want to keep it as is.
So, at this point I have both demonstrated my points time and again (with some supporting opinions from Rhobite) and have compromised in response to arguments (dropping my deletion proposal, eliminating NAICS, etc.). Though you have agreed with some of my points, you have yet to budge in even admitting change is valuable. Is there any point in continuing this discussion, or are you going to resist any possible changes, thinking the infobox is perfect? If that is the case, since there seems to no one else arguing to establish consensus one way or another, would it be best for me to develop my own alternate company infobox and solicit input that way? Should we solicit outside opinions? I am worried that even after consulting professors, providing detailed evidence, and giving convincing arguments there is nothing I could demonstrate, prove, or say that would convince you to change your mind, making this a colossal waste of time. --Goodoldpolonius2 01:28, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Oh, my, goodness, that's a lot of text. I'm delighted to see that somebody tried to argue with Adraeus. I tried once.--Jerryseinfeld 20:40, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Before your latest response, I carefully (and extensively) considered your proposal. I'm willing to accept the following:
  • Remove Slogan. This data is likely difficult for non-branding engineers to interpret. Since my business is strategic branding, I understand how slogans are useful indicators of corporate/product culture; however, since your business is obviously not strategic branding, you think slogans are useless. One needs to have, at least, expert working knowledge of branding to find slogans useful as data. Because the infobox's objective is to provide a brief overview of quantifiable facts about a business organization to the layperson, and understanding the usefulness of slogans requires expert knowledge, I think Slogan should be removed.
  • Rename Products. Replacing Products with Industry would exchange one problem with another. For instance, all videogame development companies would be classified in the "interactive entertainment" industry; however, that classification is irrelevant to the layperson considering that what's important is what videogames were developed and/or produced. "Products/Services" would require increasing the width of the infobox, which is already wide enough to accomodate Key people names and their primary job titles. We should rename Products to Offering or to another blatantly general term that refers to what a company provides to its customers.
  • Revenue. For me, this remains an iffy subject. I need more convincing to justify the permanence of its existence as infobox data. I didn't want Employees initially because that data, like revenue data, is quickly outdated; however, I compromised (with myself) by adding the year the number of employees was estimated next to the number of employees in the infobox. Perhaps the same can be done with revenue. Still, there are many business organizations whose revenue is kept secret, and by removing Slogan we would advocate against displaying data only relevant to certain organizations.
  • Industry. As stated above, replacing Products with Industry would only exchange one problem with another.
Adraeus 22:11, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)


Adraeus, thanks for the feedback, I think you have some good ideas that will let us push this ahead..
  • So, lets eliminate slogan, for the reasons you gave, which make perfect sense.
  • As for the industry/product problems, I agree that "interactive entertainment" would not be useful, but I also think that a list of game titles would be similarly difficult to understand. In fact, video games are a great test case, as there are both developers, who make the games, and publishers, who distribute them. This causes a problem for any sort of product definition, as both companies would have the same product! We need to work together to come up with some middle level of aggregation between product and industry so that Bioware is labelled a "game developer" and Electronic Arts a "game publisher." What are your thoughts? Some suggestions could be "offering," as you suggested, or "market," or "primary business," or "line of business," but I am open to other ideas as well. Lets try to come up with something.
  • Revenue. Perhaps we could take your good idea on employees, giving dates, and place those next to revenue figures? Revenue (or some financial measure) seems pretty critical in understanding company size, otherwise how do you know the relative size of players? It provides an important comparison with other companies, and an indication of economic clout. Even if revenue is out-of-date, as long as we give the years it should not be a big problem. Unlike profit, but like employee numbers, revenue figures generally remain within the same order of magnitude for years at a time. As far as those where revenue is being kept secret (private companies), there is a generally accepted source of revenue estimates in Dunn and Bradstreet, and usually other general estimates as well. Also, most large companies are either public or (like McKinsey and Company) have easily available revenue estimates a Google away. While that doesn't mean that there may not be occasional problems, but the vast majority of significant companies will have easy-to-access revenue figures. Are you closer to being convinced? I do think this is an important measure.
--Goodoldpolonius2 03:34, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
You make an interesting point about industry classification; however, I think industry classification is only somewhat useful if complemented by an offering listing.
{{{company_name}}}
{{{company_logo}}}
Type {{{company_type}}}
Founded {{{foundation}}}
Location {{{location}}}
Key people {{{key_people}}}
Industry {{{industry}}}
Offering {{{products}}}
Revenue {{{revenue}}}
Website {{{homepage}}}
Are we suggesting something like so? Adraeus 05:13, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Excellent! That looks great to me! --Goodoldpolonius2 12:11, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)