...Integrative Case Analysis – Competitive Strategy eHarmony Industry Structure and Value Creation/Capture From times immemorial, with the possible exception of Adam and Eve (whose marriage was probably made in heaven anyway), finding a life partner on Earth has been a difficult task. Wars have been waged, monuments erected and kingdoms won and lost, in partner-acquisition endeavors. People have used numerous techniques, institutions, practices and systems over time to try to perfect the art of finding a partner that they could be happy with. Yet no system is universally accepted as a formula for success. The Internet in the mid-to-late 1990’s offered the promise of making the partner search process more efficient, quicker (for some), less onerous, and less emotionally draining than other means. This led to the creation of a new Industry – the Online Personals Industry – which I would define as “a collection of online services built specifically to cater to the needs of those looking online for a relationship partner, whether for marriage or long-or-short-term companionship”. By leveraging the power of faster communication, access to a large number of candidates and intelligent learning systems to suggest possible matches, online personals sites had an opportunity to carve out a non-trivial share of the matchmaking or partner-finding “market”. Technology had the additional benefit of bringing together people from distant geographies (I have a Chinese-American friend who met...
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...eHarmony SWOT Analysis * Strengths * Well-defined competitive space (Marriage-Minded Singles), Long-term compatability * Endorsed by Christian organizations * מאושרה על ידי ארגונים נוצריים * Able to convert active members to paying members 3 times as effectively than competitors * Distinguished by Personality profile and patented matching algorithm * מתאפיין בפרופיל אישיות ובאלגוריטם האמאמת אישיות אשר מוגן תחת פטנט. * Extensive Relationship questionnaire * שאלון יחסים נרחב * Selective pool of singles (declinesd to sell memberships to at least 1 million people) * בדיקה סלקטיבית של רווקים (סירבה למכור חברויות לפחות 1 מיליון אנשים) * Offer Guided communication, which can lead to more meaningful and deeper communication between matches, and can lead to a “known you forever” feeling * Strong offline marketing campaign that paid for itself * eHarmony Labs, which studies “biological, sociological, and neurological underpinnings of love” * Questionnaire demonstrates seriousness * Weaknesses * Increased competition with the development of more specialized sites, like JDate and ChristianSingles.net has put stress upon the more general eHarmony * eHarmony does not handle same-sex relationship building * Lengthy questionnaire * Declined memberships lead to short-term opportunity costs * EH charges about twice as much as other dating sites * Distinction...
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...How, How Do I Love Thee? A Rhetorical, Rhetorical Analysis The search for a soulmate always lurks in the minds of single young adults. People want someone who possesses similar qualities, yet at the same time, they want someone who will fill their flaws and make them a better person. For some, this process of finding the perfect partner can take years upon years, but the 21st century technology of online dating sites now allows prospective users to find potential dates within a few days. While this may sound like a breakthrough in the science of relationships, doubt regarding its viability exists. Lori Gottlieb, a renowned author who often focuses on the topic of online matchmaking, asks the question, “In the subjective realm of love, can cold, hard science help?” (2) To answer this question, Gottlieb endures countless hours of research, interviews, and simulations, writing her article “How Do I Love Thee?” as a final masterpiece to display her findings. Through a sarcastic tone, witty asides, specific details, and emotional, logical, and ethical appeals, Gottlieb effectively illustrates her discoveries on whether or not science can truly determine compatibility and lasting love. Before she places her opinion on display, Gottlieb first builds up the article with interesting statements to keep the reader engaged. She frequently inserts her own sarcastic opinions into her article, sometimes through asides and parenthesis, and other times through appositives or descriptions...
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...eHarmony A. eHarmony is currently having difficulties acquiring customers who are nondomestic, have not yet tried online dating, and those who are not thinking about marriage. They are enduring this with determined competitors in the market place. They need to be able to market themselves without any detriment to their current client base. B. One pro to expanding into the global market place would be to affect and acquire thousands of untapped users. eHarmony has proved to be very successful in the US regarding long term relationships. The infrastructure would already be in place in most English speaking countries. All the consumer would need is an internet connection to be able to use the site. This is a market where their competitors have started to tap, but as eHarmony has proved they can do the job the best matchmaking wise. One of the pros is that the algorithm of the questionnaire and matches might not translate to other cultures. What one American finds enduring and a must in a mate, an Australian can find little to know worth in. eHarmony would have to sink significant money in research to prove their strategy can work successfully outside of the United States. Concerning tapping into the marketing of “medium-relationships” are also relatively untapped client base. eHarmony has reiterated that their goals are marriage, not a 2 year long relationship in your 20s. eHarmony would be opening themselves to a vast population of “singles” yet not ready to commit to a...
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...eHarmony Business Case – Suraj Vadhul + Mauricio Jaramillo Executive Summary eHarmony, founded by Neil Warren and his son-in-law Greg Forgatch in 1998, is one of the leading online dating sites that helps singles in their search for long-term and serious relationships. Today, eHarmony has13.8% of the U.S. dating service market with over 33 million registered users. In the year 2003, eHarmony joined the elite group of companies in the online dating sector achieving a cumulative revenue of 1 billion. eHarmony has its operations in the U.S, Australia, Canada, U.K and Brazil. It has a widespread user base from over 150 countries. Neil Warren, who is the permanent CEO and founder of this company, started this as a match making site which implied its importance on compatibility rather than matching people on their hobbies or interests. eHarmony claims to use a complex scientific algorithm which gets the detailed user input and matches based on the developed algorithm. The results, according to the company, are staggering, as they claim that more than 600,000 people found their love on eHarmony. External Analysis Strengths eHarmony claims to have one of the strongest match making scientific algorithm which has appealed to millions of users and has steered them to stick with eHarmony, to find their perfect partner. Since eHarmony has always been highly receptive in the U.S, they have the selective user policy where not all the users who register get to access the site. A good...
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...Case study: eHarmony Concepts of a case study: General to specifics. The economic, strategic and business logic of the industry. What are the choice, pros, cons, trade off. Intro eHarmony: online dating site for marriage-minded individuals. It combines extensive relationship questionnaire, patented matching system and guided communication. Information good of eHarmony: individual match. Match: eHarmony biggest competitor. I. Overall view of the industry | Size | Information flow | interaction | activities (work, random encounters) | 3 | 1 | 3 | brokers (family, friends) | 2 | 2 | 1 | market (parties, bar, club) | 1 | 3 | 2 | Interaction: how easy it is to get a relationship out of random encounters, friends etc. Information flow: information you give about yourself and information you learn from the other. From this table we can deduce that there is no perfect and best channel. Every channel has a significant disadvantange. Hence there is a potential of overcoming these difficulties through online dating. Companies have to add value and capture as much of this additional value as possible. II. How much of that value can a company get? For this we need to do an industrial analysis. How structurally attractive the industry is. Suppliers and buyers are the same group of people. They are the customer supplying information/profiles. They have a very strong power because they can go to another firm. But the limit of...
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...RESEARCH ARTICLE An investigation on the specific causes which weaken online dating websites’ efficiency Weiyi Zhang University Bridge Writing Introduction Since online dating started 20 years ago, it has developed into a mature industry. In the U.S, over forty million citizens have memberships to online dating websites; however, less than half of online dating users have turned virtual dates into real ones. Even more surprisingly, after the last decade’s rapid growth, the proportion still is not as high as people imagine. In 2005, two-thirds of online dating website members never had a face-to-face date with their virtual romantic interests. Moreover, some experimenters from Stanford University and Michigan State University conducted research about online dating with a sample including 5,000 couples, which were separated into 2,500 online couples and 2,500 offline couples. The observation showed that couples who met each other online have a higher possibility to break up than those who met each other offline, which is 47 percent versus 29 percent. According to the mentioned data, online dating might be less efficient than offline dating. However, just as the old saying goes, “What is rational is actual and what is actual is rational.” Online dating does accord with the trend of the times. Therefore, this article will try to discuss some potential specific causes which weaken online dating websites’ efficiency. As a result, some readers or online dating websites users...
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...9-709-424 JULY 1, 2008 MIKOŁAJ JAN PISKORSKI HANNA HAŁABURDA TROY SMITH eHarmony Greg Waldorf, the CEO of eHarmony, was in his car driving down the Interstate 10 Freeway after a day-long meeting with eHarmony’s senior leadership team. The sole purpose of this October 2007 meeting was to decide how the company should address recent competitor actions. After many deliberations, Waldorf’s executive team was able to identify four strategic options. Now, Waldorf and Greg Steiner, the President and COO, who was sitting next to him, were debating which option the company should pursue. As the two whizzed down the car pool lane, passing cars stuck in traffic, they reflected on eHarmony’s success. This online personals site targeted marriage-minded individuals and offered a unique product which combined an extensive relationship questionnaire, a patented matching system and a guided communication system. Despite charging a premium for its services, eHarmony had experienced phenomenal membership growth while its competitors stalled. As a consequence, it was able to increase its paying membership base to slightly less than a half of its largest competitor, even though it entered the market six years after they did. The success of eHarmony did not go unnoticed. From the beginning, competitors had been copying some of the company’s product features and closing the price gap. More recently, Match, eHarmony’s biggest competitor, had increased its advertising expenditures...
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...men and 26 for women. People started following cohabitation before marriage. Also, 60% of those who married in early 2000s had lived with their future spouse for two years before getting married. EHarmony followed the concept of filling personal information and questions for selecting the right partner to their customers. The problem is that they need to fill 436 questions including basic information; it takes around 1.5 to hours. Customer feels too lengthy for filling that information but later it was reduced to 250 questions which take only 45 minutes. Also company faced issues of getting only 20% of potential customers. After filling all the questions, the company’s next step is matching algorithm. It means they will match the information given and they will find a selection. Also they did a matching algorithm validation scale on 4000 couples. Although critics believed that patent amounted to little more than a marketing gimmick, further company research revealed that successful couples who had met on eharmony were significantly happier than couples who had met “in the wild”. EHarmony spend a lot of money in marketing activities as $80 million per year. Though they spend huge amount, their advertisement were broadcasted only national cable networks. The competitor for eHarmony is Yahoo! Personals and Match. In contrast to the tough competitor, people...
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...Question 1 Does eHarmony have a competitive advantage? If so, where does it come from? I believe that eHarmony does have a competitive advantage. This is largely due, I believe, to their focus on and first moves toward a customer base that was looking for serious, long-term relationships and compatibility. eHarmony aimed to assist each user in ensuring they were found with a compatible partner(s). In doing this, as well as promotions by company founder Dr. Neil Clark Warren, eHarmony managed to gain the interest of faith communities, a previously untapped market segment by dating sites. As a result, there was exponential growth with 100,000 registrations within a few weeks and by early the next year there had been 300,000. This meant that eHarmony were able to break even early and become cash-flow positive only two years from it's initial breakthrough. Competitive advantage was created for eHarmony largely through it's efficient and integrated system that it offered. It contained a Personality Profile, a Matching Algorithm and a Guided Communication System. This system was exclusive and purpose built for eHarmony as well as being patented. Upon registration, members were required to fill in an extensive Personality Profile that covered many areas of compatibility, however, were largely represented by three guiding principles; Values, Personality and Interests. This information was then assessed by focus group. Once completed, eHarmony's algorithm would assign members with...
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...------------------------------------------------- eHarmony Case Analysis ------------------------------------------------- Summary While meeting people online to find a viable partner is more popular now than ever, online matchmaking industry initially faced challenges stemming from the stigma attached to it. The stigma subsided with time as more successful relationships evolved from online dating. Currently, people frustrated with traditional dating process which takes time and patience, prefer to meet people online for several reasons. Primarily, the convenience and accessibility is a huge benefit. There are over 20 million singles online and eHarmony states that one in five marriages started from an online relationship. Using online service not only allows you to meet other singles outside of your geographical area but also your social circle that you share common interests with. Online dating allows singles to search for a mate twenty four hours a day, seven days a week which works perfectly for a busy professional. Secondly, online sites like eHarmony provide matchmaking tools that can suggest single who are compatible with your values and beliefs, these tools make finding a potential mate easier than if you were randomly trying to meet someone in the real world. Lastly, it allows the singles to build a rapport before dating someone thus reducing the awkwardness of a first date. All of these factors play a role in eHarmony business strategy to differentiate the company...
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...Finding Love Online Literature Review Sonja R. Cherry-Kelly WRTG 391 25 June 2013 In today’s fast pace world access to technology has made life a lot easier. America has come to rely on technology as a mainstay in their life through the use of gadgets such as the computer, smartphones and tablets to name a few. The ability to pay bills online, shop for clothing and food, communicate with family and friends through social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have most people young and old taking the leap of faith onto the internet bandwagon. In fact, having access to such a vast array of information has open up a plethora of opportunities to include finding love online. While most people welcome this opportunity to find their true love using this alternative there are those who do not share their enthusiasm. Neil Postman the author of Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology believes that America has become too reliant on technology and as such has become a slave to it. He writes that the acceptance of technology as the master means that “a new kind of social order” is inevitable and will lead to “rapid dissolution of much that is associated with traditional beliefs (1992, pg. 71). “ Postman’s beliefs regarding America’s obsession with technology has not stifled people in their pursuit of romance; despite the risks involved such as scams, identity fraud and the stigmas that have been identified with this type of romance, people continue...
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...Jackalyn C. Majors American Intercontinental University Unit 1 Individual Project MKT640 – A Managerial Approach to Marketing Abstract This paper will follow two specific products and services that have come to development for the global marketplace in the last few years. This paper will discuss the product launch, and the impact of technology on the product along with the legal and ethical implications and how they were handled. The companies being discussed in this paper are Red Box and eHarmony. Understanding a Successful Launch Introduction These two companies discussed in this paper are Red Box movie DVD rental, and eHarmony online dating service. It will be it is important to understand these challenges in today global economy these two strong successful companies endured. Understanding these challenges can teach what is examined in launching new products along with the impact of technology on these products, along with the legal and ethical implication of launch of these products and services. Challenges in New Product Launches When Red box first evolved it was owned and placed in McDonalds fast food restaurants as a subsidiary of McDonalds and soon was sold to Coinstar who quickly moved Red box to grocery stores, drugstores and others including Walmart, Walgreens and 7-Elevens increasing Red box location to over 28000 kiosks in the United States (Augustine, C 2011). In the late 1990’s after 35 years of work as a psychologist and marrage counselor...
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...completely gone and online dating websites currently attract millions of users every day, and the industry as a whole is making hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Online dating provides a way for people to meet prospective partners and to get to know them through e-mails and chats. Dating online is straight forward a person becomes acquainted with another one through the process of e-mail or social media websites like eHarmony and Facebook. The two people then try to explore their compatibility by finding out their dislikes and likes, before meeting face-to-face. There are numerous websites a person can explore when trying to find just the right match. Privacy settings, scams, or being “catfished” have always been an issue when looking for love online. With all this new technology we tend to be less social and become more attached to our phones and computers. Should we really trust online dating websites to find us matches, when we really don't know if that person on the picture is really them? One of the first and most popular dating website eHarmony was launched in August 22, 2000; it has members in more than 150 countries founded by Neil Clark Warren. The second biggest online dating website Match.com founded by Gary Kremen in 1993 was first meant to classified systems for newspapers in 2000...
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...A documentary topic, I would like to pursue is Online Dating. Main areas in my research, I expect to conduct is online dating statistics, dangers of online dating and advantages and disadvantages of online dating and finding out if anyone has been successful or unsuccessful at using online dating sites including Tinder, Match, eHarmony, PlentyOfFish, OkCupid, Zoosk, ChristianMingle and BlackPeopleMeet. The relevance of this film is to show the experiences of people whether good or bad through the use of online dating. What motivates me to explore this topic is, I have participated in online dating and have been unsuccessful in finding someone. Dating sites, I used are Tinder, OkCupid.com and ChristianMingle.com. Creative models that have impacted my thinking are Dan Slater (Author) and Laura Scotty (Filmmaker). Dan Slater is the author of “Love in the Time of Algorithms: What Technology Does to Meeting and Mating”. Slater believes the use of online dating has changed society. In the book he explains how a basic need for human intimacy has transformed into a two billion dollar industry and how technology fits into this traditional methods of dating. Laura Scotty is the director of Digital Dating, which is a documentary film about the immense popularity of online dating. Laura explores the massive appeal of online dating sites from Tinder to Plenty of Fish and meets users who use the sites. Some questions that interest me is finding out what do people look for in...
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