Would-be MBA students getting ready to take the GMAT might be in for a little surprise when they show up at the testing center. In addition to all the usual security measures—including video monitoring and the computer adaptive test itself—test takers will soon be asked to submit to a new one: a biometric device that uses an infared light to capture the test-taker’s unique “palm vein pattern.”

Pearson VUE, the company that administers the GMAT for the Graduate Management Admission Council, plans to announce the new security effort tomorrow, but BusinessWeek got a sneak peak at it today.

The Fujitsu “PalmSecure” device will be rolled out next month at 16 testing centers in India and Korea for GMAT candidates. It goes live in the U.S. this fall, and when fully deployed will be used in 400 facilities in 107 countries by May 2009.

The announcement comes as the b-school world is embroiled in a cheating scandal involving the GMAT–users of a now-defunct test prep Web site, Scoretop.com, have been accused by GMAC of using it to post and access live test questions, and GMAC has said it will cancel the test scores of anyone who violated its rules.

But the new security measure is designed to stop a different kind of cheating–the use of professional test takers, or proxies, to take the exam on behalf of someone else. GMAC’s been burned by this type of cheater before. Back in 2003, it busted a half dozen people who took the GMAT for others for about $5,000 a pop. GMAC canceled 166 scores as a result, and five of the six imposters ended up at Rikers.

More : businessweek.com

The relative efficacy of a global marketing strategy vis-à-vis a tailored marketing strategy remains one of the hotly debated issues of international marketing. As is the case in any debate, polarizing arguments for (or against) each abound. Proponents of a global strategy point to the increasing homogenization of customer tastes and preferences and suggest that significant economies of scale can be attained by standardized products marketing world wide (Levitt 1983). Critics, on the other hand, dismiss the potential of a global strategy and underscore economic, environmental and other cultural differences among nations as impediments to its implementation. They argue that reflect adaptation strategy to market-country differences will generate improved response (Kotler 1986).

Often overlooked in this fierce debate is a middle ground approach that takes into account not only differences or similarities among both markets but. As Quelch and Hoff (1986) point out, the real issue is not whether to standardize but rather how to tailor the global marketing strategy. Indeed, reliance on a global strategy can result in missing out on important target markets and positioning inappropriate. Likewise customizing marketing strategy to individual countries implies loss of potential economies of scale as well as exploitation opportunities for product ideas on a scale against (White Lock and Chung 1989).

The writings of recent genre suggest that comprehensive and tailored strategies are not necessarily mutually exclusive and that they can be used in tandem to reap the maximum benefits. In this vein, Jain (1989) and Kale and Sudharshan (1987) offers interactivity Market segmentation approach to world markets and point to the feasibility of identifying homogeneous segments which transcend national boundaries. Once identified these so-called strategic segments equivalent (Kale and Sudharshan 1987) can be reached via global marketing strategies aimed at different cross-national segments (Verhagen, Dahringer and Cundiff 1989). The idea of reconciling the different viewpoints of global marketing strategies and tailored intuitively appealing and is certainly represents a significant forward link in the design of multinational marketing strategies. However, the empirical support to middle ground viability of this approach is evidence to scanty and its Effect comes mainly in the form of anecdotes (Ohmae 1985, White Lock, 1987).

The study reported here is intended to partially fill in this void. Specifically, consumers in six countries including the United States, Mexico, The Netherlands, Turkey, Thai and Saudi Arabia were studied for InterBase Market segmentation on the basis of two criteria, perceived risk and brand loyalty (Kreutzer 1988). Consumers were questioned about their degree of perceived risk and loyalty for two brand products, bath soap and toothpaste. These products were chosen since they are widely available in different brands and are purchased on a frequent basis by the consumers in these countries. It was maintained that the consumers in these countries are not sufficiently similar regarding the effects of risk perception on brand loyalty, the underlying rationale for a single global marketing strategy at least within the context of products here would disappear under consideration. On the contrary, such a circumstance would render the middle ground approach feasible.