Research Paper on:
Julian Barnes' Article on Proctor and Gamble

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
new division; incentives for technology managers; and whether or not to enter technology partnerships. Bibliography lists 1 source. PGpgprt.rtf PROCTOR & GAMBLE SEEKS PARTNERS By Dr. P.  McCabe For The PaperStore, June 2001 properly! Proctor & Gamble historically has been known for its secrecy, for keeping their  innovations and strategic plans to themselves. They have a staff of scientists that includes 1,500 employees with Ph.D.s. The company holds 27,000 patents. They spend about $2 billion per year  on research and development. Despite their advances in technology that could benefit others, they have never offered to trade, sell, license or in any other way share their secret processes  and technology. In recent years, market conditions have acted to change their minds. The company has made a number of partnership agreements, including one with Coca-Cola, another with Dana  Undies and another with Marine Optical. The technology designed by Proctor and Gamble that is very attractive to other manufacturing companies is based on reliability technology. This technology to predict  when maintenance of manufacturing machines will improve performance and when it will slow performance. If Proctor and Gamble maintains its current policies on licensing and selling its proprietary technologies,  it will face both opportunities and risks. The risks relate to the possibility of another company duplicating the technology, making sufficient changes to file for a new patent. This would  take revenue away from Proctor & Gamble and also dilute the value of their own technology. The opportunities are vast. Consider the data: most manufacturing plants have a reliability  of 60 percent or so. The companys reliability technology improves that factor by 25 percent bringing it to 85 percent. That is an extremely high reliability and one that could