...In 1999 Autobytel.com was leader in the online car referral business amongst a very competitive market. The online car referral concept was based on giving the consumer a way to shop for automobiles online that didn’t involve going to a dealership and dealing with high pressured sales. When time came to buy the automobile they had selected, the service provider would send the purchasers information to a qualified dealership in their area to process the sale with little to no haggling involved due to the level of information the purchaser had at their disposal. The way these online referral companies were able to make money off this process was to sign up qualified dealers around the country and charge them a fee to send motivated buyers their way, and to offer a large compliment of services that aided the purchase of the vehicle to the automobile purchaser. Though Autobytel.com was experiencing record growth in the online car referral industry it still was not able to create positive earning off the services they were providing. Like many Internet companies this was a problem that plagued their companies due to the large over for the revenue they received and they new if they were to remain a viable company something needed to be changed. In order for Autobytel.com to turn their current offering into positive earnings, there are many thing that need to be looked at create more added value proposition to both of their customers, the automobile buyer and seller. For the...
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...even turned a profit. If you think car dealers are a pain, try working with car buyers. If buyers see the stereotypical dealer as a hustler who is partial to false promises and esoteric pricing, the dealer sees the typical customer as a grouchy opportunist who will dicker for an entire afternoon, then take a quote down the street to see if a rival dealer can beat it. A service that aims to please both of these groups might seem like a dubious business model. But Autobytel, a seven-year-old online car-buying referral service, has mastered the balancing act. Generating roughly $17 billion in car sales annually – or 5 percent of total U.S. volume – Autobytel’s network embraces 8,800 dealers, 10 million customers, and four Web sites: Autobytel.com, Autosite.com, Autoweb.com, and CarSmart.com. It is nearly twice as large as its nearest rival, Microsoft’s Carpoint.com. Autobytel’s secret to success it that it makes life easier for dealers rather than trying to replace them. Customers who want an Autobytel referral must disclose their names, addresses, and payment method; in return, they get a price quote from a local dealer. To separate tire-kickers from serious buyers, Autobytel’s proprietary 26-step screening process verifies everything from area codes to the age of each potential buyer. Historically, dealers close about 12 to 15 percent of the leads they receive from Autobytel, as opposed to a 10 percent rate from other online referral services. It is important for Autobytel...
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...extremely high in comparison to revenues. Autobytel approximately 3000 dealers in North America in major metropolitan areas. Majority of expenses they are incurring are in relation to the extensive training provided and marketing. The auto retail industry generates approximately 1 trillion dollars a year, this includes both new and used car sales and parts and service. Used cars make up about 40% of vehicles sold. Gross profit margins on used cars tend to be higher therefore salespeople are under more pressure to close the deal and for the consumer the vehicle has predetermined characteristics that often cannot be changed (mileage, accessories, history of use and maintenance records). Prime reason customer would be drawn to AutoBytel.com. Vehicles are certified pre-owned, no high pressure sales tactics, can search for price, make, model, mileage, year and location of vehicle so customers can choice from a larger selection of used cars and find what they want. Have access to Kelly Blue Book reports for trade in information and are giving 72 hours for 100% money back return. AutoNation (400 new car franchise and more than 40 used car superstores in 20 states) vertically integrate the car industry by selling, renting, leasing and servicing cars at every level imaginable. Spending 1.3 million advertisement was extravagant for a company with 1996 sales of 5 billion and no operating profit. (super bowl promotion) Repeated the promotion in 1998 paying 1.5 million in advertising...
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...FIN 922 – Investment Management In this report we shall discuss three companies which are listed in various exchanges in the U.S and conduct an event study and make a consensus on their responsiveness to an Earnings Surprise. We also need to establish a relationship between the Market Index and the Stock in itself. This relationship can be determined by running a regression and using the Market as the independent variable and the Stock as the dependent variable. In order to analyze the responsiveness of a stock, we need to understand and imply the concept of the beta. The beta is a measure of the volatility, or systematic risk, or a portfolio in comparison to the market as a whole. Beta is used in the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), a model that calculates the expected return of an asset based on its beta and expected market returns. Beta is calculated using regression analysis and you can think of beta as the tendency of a security’s returns to respond to swings in the market. A beta of less than 1 means that the security will be less volatile than the market. Now, we are going to conduct an event study for 3 companies. 1.) Parker Drilling 2.) Autobytel Inc. 3.) Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. 1. Parker Drilling Company Introduction Parker Drilling is part of the Oil & Gas Equipment & Services industry. The company was founded in 1934 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Parker Drilling specializes in barge drilling, onshore drilling...
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...Question 1 (a) In today’s competitive world, every company has to study consumer’s purchasing power and behaviour prior to develop a marketing plan for their product. This enables the marketer to understand who constitute the market, what and why the market buys, who participates in and influences the buying process, and how, when and where consumer buy (Marketing Teacher, 2014). The car market, in the same manner as other markets, has entered an aggressive period in which, despite the fact that volume sales have expanded, business sector qualities are declining as a consequence of high capacity, abnormal amounts of imports and business immersion. Ladies are still much more probable than men to live in family units with no car, despite the fact that the example is much more equivalent among more youthful men and ladies. Ladies' increased earning power and rising their financial, thus make them one of the developing significance in growing car producers' debilitated deals targets. (Kaplan, 2015) For Volvo company, they have done a research indicates that in the United states, women purchase about 65 percent of cars and influence 80 percent of all car sales (Walter, 2012). Therefore, Volvo find out the woman preferred car by forming a group of all female team project manager and automobile designer, thus they found out that female customer in the premium segment demand for everything that men wanted in term of the performance, prestige and style. (Carscoops, 2015) ...
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...Chapter 1: Convergence Multiple Choice 1. E-marketing affects traditional marketing in which of the following ways? a. increases efficiency of traditional marketing functions b. technologically transforms marketing strategies c. decreases the reach of marketing campaigns d. both A and B (d; Medium; p. 3) 2. _____ is the subset of e-business focused on transactions. a. E-commerce b. E-marketing c. Digital technology d. ESP (a; Hard; p. 3) 3. Convenient access to digital information has the ability to transform all of the following except _____. a. ecosystems b. governments c. societies d. businesses (a; Easy; p. 5) 4. The Internet consists of all of the following except _____. a. computers with data b. users who send & receive data files c. a technology infrastructure to move, create and view or listen to the content d. a central mainframe (d; Medium; pp. 3-4) 5. A network that runs internally in an organization but uses Internet standards and browsers is known as _____. a. an Intranet b. an Extranet c. an Internet d. the Web (a; Medium; p. 4) 6. Internet technology has changed traditional marketing in all of the following ways except _____. a. made place less important b. increased the importance of interdisciplinary understanding ...
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...INTRANET DEVELOPMENT Internal Communication Platform An intranet provides a secure centralised resource for key business information and procedures, and is a common platform for internal communication which can bind together many processes and data in the dealership or group. The Intranet used in our dealershipcomes with a number of modules that highly customisable, allowing it to be be adjusted and expanded so that it exactly fits the company's needs. Intranet modules include: * HR Documentation * Document Store * Time and Attendance * Shared Calendars * Communication Platform * News and Announcements * Company Information * Performance Reporting * Interaction and Feedback * Daily Operating Controls HR Documentation Enables Human Resources department to centralise all company documentation for internal and staff use. Store documents such as: * Health and Safety Information * Staff Handbooks * Staff Policies and Procedures * Healthcare forms All in one centralised document storage facility.Create a fully audited workflow procedures e.g.to enable staff to request annual leave and automatically submit it to their manager for approval. Time and Attendance Centralised HR Attendance information. * Provides HR and managerial level control and transparency to monitor daily attendance for members of staff and to view at a glance attendance, annual and compassionate leave for multiple employees over an extended...
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...CASE QUESTIONS Abercrombie & #Fitchthehomeless 1) Why did this crisis occur? Why did Jeffries’s comments trigger such a large response? 2) Evaluate A&F’s response. What could the company have done better? 3) What changes should A&F make? Autobytel.com 1) How does the internet change traditional channel structures? Does the internet facilitate disintermediation, re-intermediation or can it do both? 2) Can an intermediary serving two customers avoid alienating one of the groups as it searches for ways to grow? If not, why? If so, how? 3) What is the value proposition for each of Autobytel’s customers? 4) What is the basis of Autobytel’s market leadership? Is it sustainable? Why or why not? 5) Where do you think this market is ultimately heading? Is Autobytel missing the boat? 6) What should Autobytel do? CardSwap 1) What is the value of gift cards to retailers? 2) What is the value of gift cards to consumers? Is the Consumers’ Association of Canada correct in saying there is no value to the consumer? 3) Would you use a service like CardSwap? Why/Why not? 4) What is the size of the market that CardSwap is focusing on? 5) What is CardSwap’s sustainable competitive advantage? 6) What is the value of a customer to CardSwap? How much should Poptia be willing to pay to recruit a customer? 7) What should Poptia do to generate customers? Cialis 1) What are the most relevant dimensions along...
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...Multiple choices: 1. Management Information System is mainly dependent upon: Information 2. The most important attribute of information quality that a manager requires is: Relevance 3. Human Resource Information Systems are designed to:Development of employees to their full potential 4. Operational Accounting System include:Inventory control 5. EIS stands for:Executive Information System 6. Intranet provide a rich set of tools for those people:None of the above 7. Which one is not the future of wireless technology?-Telegram 8. OLTP stands for:Online Transactional Processing 9. Which one of the following is not considered as future of m-commerce: 10. Which of the following is not the level of decision making:Activity control Part Two: 1. What are the „Strategic Information Systems‟? A Strategic Information System is a system that helps companies change or otherwise after their business strategy and/ or structure. It is typically utilized to streamline and quicken the reaction time to environment changes and aid it in achieving a competitive advantage. Key features of the Strategic Information Systems are the following: * Decision support system that enable to develop a strategic approach to align Information System (IS) or Information Technologies (IT) with an organization’s business strategies. * Primarily enterprise resource planning solutions that integrate/ link the business processes to meet the enterprise objectives for...
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...For exclusive use at IMT Nagpur, 2015 9-106-014 REV: AUGUST 24, 2005 TARUN KHANNA KRISHNA PALEPU Spotting Institutional Voids in Emerging Markets 1. Introduction With the demise of communism, many countries in the world today are striving to build their economic activity around markets, and to participate in free trade arrangements, such as the World Trading Organization (WTO), European Union (EU), & North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The first step for most countries in this endeavor is deregulation and liberalization, thus opening their markets to free economic activity by local and international investors and entrepreneurs. However, companies and investors rushing to cash in on these new opportunities learn an important lesson—often through experience—that while these new emerging markets may be liberalized, they do not function in the same way as the more advanced markets of Europe, United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia. It is dangerous to equate liberalization and deregulation with building a well functioning market economy. Investors and companies operating in emerging markets quickly realize that these markets do not have all the infrastructure—both physical and institutional—needed for the smooth functioning of markets. The frequent economic crises engulfing many emerging markets—in Mexico and Brazil in the early 90s, Asia in the mid-90s, in Russia soon after, and in Argentina most recently— offer stark reminders of these institutional...
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...62 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW Many have argued that the Internet renders strategy obsolete. In reality, the opposite is true. Because the Internet tends to weaken industry profitability without providing proprietary operational advantages, it is more important than everfor companies to distinguish themselves through strategy. The winners will be those that view the Internet as a complement to, not a cannibal of, traditional ways of competing. Strategy and the by Mich36l E. Porter Internet I "^ INTERNET is an extremely important new J technology, and it is no surprise that it has received so much attention from entrepreneurs, executives, investors, and business observers. Caught up in the general fervor, many have assumed that the Internet changes everything, rendering all the old rules about companies and competition obsolete. That may be a natural reaction, but it is a dangerous one. It has led many companies, dot-coms and incumbents alike, to make bad decisions - decisions that have eroded the attractiveness of their industries and undermined their own competitive advantages. Some companies, for example, have used Internet technology to shift the basis of competition away from quality, features, and service and toward price, making it harder for anyone in their industries to turn a profit. Others have forfeited important proprietary advantages by rushing into misguided partnerships MARCH 2001 63 strategy and t h e Internet and outsourcing relationships...
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...1.1 Introduction of the organization GREY ADVERTISING BANGLADESH LIMITED Grey Advertising Bangladesh Limited is one of the leading advertising agencies in Bangladesh. According to the AD age (An International advertising magazine) Grey is the third largest ad agency in Bangladesh in term of annual revenue. Grey Advertising is one of the newest ad agencies as well. Started only in 1996, Grey has been able to strengthen its market position strongly – thanks to its multinational experience and ‘Global’ approach to business. A Grey Global Group Inc, USA company, Grey has one of the most exquisite portfolios in the country. The major clients are British American Tobacco Bangladesh (BAT), Procter & Gamble (P&G), Glaxo SmithKline (GSK) Vaccination, GSK Consumer Health Care, Philips Lighting, Lafarge Cement, City Cell Digital, Novartis, Dhaka Bank, Gallery Apex, International School Dhaka, Pacific motors, Shark Energy Drink, Igloo, Coca-Cola, Siemens, Aarong etc. It is worth mentioning that BAT, P&G, and GSK are all global partners of GREY WORLDWIDE. The only multinational company in the country, Grey has proven its worth over past few years. From establishing a new brand like Virgin drinks or CityCell Digital to continuing the Global Corporate image of BAT, Grey is termed as the most respected ad agency in Bangladesh. Managed by the professionals having proven track record, Grey maintains one of the smallest workforces to run its multi-million taka operations. The creativity...
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...A R T I C L E www.hbr.org Strategy and the Internet by Michael E. Porter Included with this full-text Harvard Business Review article: 1 Article Summary The Idea in Brief—the core idea The Idea in Practice—putting the idea to work 2 Strategy and the Internet 20 Further Reading A list of related materials, with annotations to guide further exploration of the article’s ideas and applications Product 6358 Strategy and the Internet The Idea in Brief Does the Internet render established rules about strategy obsolete? To the contrary, it makes them more vital than ever. Why? The Internet weakens industries’ profitability, as rivals compete on price alone. And it no longer provides proprietary advantages, as virtually all companies now use the Web. The Internet is no more than a tool—albeit a powerful one—that can support or damage your firm’s strategic positioning. The key to using it most effectively? Integrate Internet initiatives into your company’s overall strategy and operations so that they 1) complement, rather than cannibalize, your established competitive approaches and 2) create systemic advantages that your competitors can’t copy. Integrating Internet initiatives enhances your company’s ability to develop unique products, proprietary content, distinctive processes, and strong personal service—all the things that create true value, and that have always defined competitive advantage. The Idea in Practice THE INTERNET’S INFLUENCE The Internet powerfully...
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...Chapter 1: Introduction This project is undertaken to find out the pre-purchase and post-purchase behaviour of iPod users in the consumer market. Consumer behaviour includes the actions a person takes in purchasing and using products and services, including the mental and social processes that precede and follow these actions. The pre-purchase behaviour is determined by the expectation a customer develops in his/her mind before purchasing a product. Pre-purchase behaviour depends on various factors like 1) Financial stability of the customer 2) Reach by material which may be competition from the products of the same range like mobile, digital camera or by people, basically the peer factor.3) Advertisement 4) Competitive Advantage 5) Past experience buying from the seller. Post-Purchase behaviour is defined when after purchasing a product, the customer compares the product with the expectations he had developed in his mind about the product before buying, whether he is satisfied or unsatisfied with the product. Satisfaction or unsatisfaction affects consumer value perception. Post-purchase behaviour depends on various factors like 1) Easy to handle 2) Lack of Performance 3) Frequency of use. The six stages of consumer buying process will be included in determining the post-purchase behaviour of iPod. They are 1) Need Recognition 2) Information Search 3) Evaluation of Alternatives 4) Purchase Decision 5) Purchase 6) Post Purchase behaviour. 1.1 What is iPod iPod is a...
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...3 CHAPTER CHAPTER OUTLINE ■ ■ ■ E-Business SE C T ION 3 .1 Bu si n e s s a n d th e I n t er net SECTI O N 3. 2 E- Busi ness D i s r u p t i v e Te c h n o l o g y Evolution of the Internet Accessing Internet Information Providing Internet Information ■ ■ ■ E-Business Basics E-Business Models Organizational Strategies for E-Business Measuring E-Business Success E-Business Benefits and Challenges N e w Tr e n d s i n E - B u s i n e s s : E-Government and M-Commerce ■ ■ ■ ■ opening case study Amazon.com—Not Your Average Bookstore Jeffrey Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon.com, is running what some people refer to as the “world’s biggest bookstore.” The story of Bezos’s virtual bookstore teaches many lessons about online business. Out of nowhere, this digital bookstore turned an industry upside down. What happened here was more than just creating a Web site. Bezos conceived and implemented an intelligent, global digital business. Its business is its technology; its technology is its business. Shocking traditional value chains in the bookselling industry, Amazon opened thousands of virtual bookstores in its first few months of operation. Bezos graduated from Princeton and was the youngest vice president at Banker’s Trust in New York. He had to decide if he would stay and receive his 1994 Wall Street bonus or leave and start a business on the Internet. “I tried to imagine being 80 years old, looking back on my life. I knew that I would hardly regret...
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