International Business

Strategic alignment of IT resources – A case study in Grocery industry (Part 1)

Strategic Alignment of IT Resources

Grocery Industry

Introduction

 Grocery Industry Introduction

• NAICS 445110: Supermarkets and Other Grocery except Convenience Stores . This U.S. industry comprises of establishments generally known as supermarkets and grocery stores primarily engaged in retailing a general line of food, such as canned and frozen foods; fresh fruits and vegetables; and fresh and prepared meats, fish, and poultry.
• Previously , grocery stores dominated their regional markets, however today, they are evolving into the global market at increasing rate.
• The top 15 global supermarket companies account for more 30% of the world supermarket sales (72).

Sales in billions

 

Global & Regional Players

Global & Regional Players

Industry & Firm Characteristics

A revolutionary supposition – Advice for improved Education system

The educational system should revise the curriculum according to the current technology demands in the society and to build creativity of students. I think the engineering schools in US are already doing it. If not, it is sad and the management should take necessary actions to consult the industry and experts to see what subjects are most strategic and valuable to the students so that learning it will enable them to build a better society, nation and world.

I don’t agree to the idea of liberation by allowing students to learn what interests them, without proper direction. It will be like unrestricted actions, mostly immature, having no clear direction. A universal principle that we forget is that experienced direction and wise restriction leads to the real educational success and wisdom to build a better society. What will happen if all youth mind and power goes to learning some skating classes and thinks that its their means of liberation? Does that lead to a better well build society?

Looking back to the educational system in India, I think the real drive that is going on is to bring IT to the most common man and reduce the digital divide. The move happening in the schools is not different. I don’t think it has any negative aspect. The world is already moved to the phase of “global village”. Its a wise decision by schools and technological institutions to adopt policies that makes IT a easily available commodity.

Article copyright (c) 2010 – 2020 – Deepesh Joseph (deepeshjoseph@yahoo.com)
Get all articles from www.getallarticles.com. Be informed and gain knowledge. Good resource for research and reviews.

Is there a more effective strategy for helping developing countries increase the computer and information literacy of their children?

Intel’s Maloney’s words – “It’s about the Web more than anything. I have young kids …….. doesn’t have access to the Web is overwhelming” – is very striking. OLPC efforts might be an answer to this concern. Strategy and plan alone doesn’t work when we are talking about reforming developing nations, cost effective infrastructure is also important. I would suggest that manufacturing information processing devices such as the XO should be done to reduce the TCO as low as possible.

OLPC website at http://www.laptop.org/en/laptop/ describes the OLPC efforts in detail, their mission, vision and even hardware, software specs. The cool part that I liked is that they are using Open source tools and solutions to build the system. This will open up new realms to introduce and support Linux based Open-source systems into schools and other educational institutions which are looking for cost effective methods of increasing the computer and information literacy of the students.

Article copyright (c) 2010 – 2020 – Deepesh Joseph (deepeshjoseph@yahoo.com)
Get all articles from www.getallarticles.com. Be informed and gain knowledge. Good resource for research and reviews.

What implementation plans should countries make before entering into contracts to purchase low-cost computers?

Here is a nice article on what determines the usage of XO type laptops in developing countries – http://www.olpcnews.com/countries/india/ . The article can be used as a base for understanding how various levels of developing economies see and plan the usage of low-cost computers such as the ones envisioned by OLPC.

Article copyright (c) 2010 – 2020 – Deepesh Joseph (deepeshjoseph@yahoo.com)
Get all articles from www.getallarticles.com. Be informed and gain knowledge. Good resource for research and reviews.

Should funding be available for social impacts research when it is not likely to lead to new innovations?

I think we should encourage funding on social impact research as it would lead us to explore and find answers to long disputed or rather complex issues. One major area in which funding can be flown in can be reaching out of computers and Internet in mass usage in the rural and village areas (talking about developing countries like India). This may not bring about innovation, but will lead to social empowerment.

In India, I have worked with a couple of organizations such as CDAC (Center for development of Advanced computing www.cdac.in) who is entrusted with enacting and implementing policies to bring IT to the common man. The organization supports various independent and collective research project efforts in the area of Localization of Software so that people can use their native languages while interacting with PC. The efforts are focused on Linux based Open source systems which can be freely modified. Seeing the potential impact of open source systems, giants like Microsoft started playing game by granting free computers to all rural and village schools, all loaded with windows. See how far competition goes…

Article Copyright (c) Deepesh Joseph 2010 – 2020

Is there a need for legal and technological protection mechanisms that are uniform internationally?

This article is a good resource for those who want to know more about the most raised question – Is there a need for legal and technological protection mechanisms that are uniform internationally? Read along ..

I reviewed the Betamax case (Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984)) from Wikipedia. See how it has played an important role in shaping fair use act. Interesting though, to note that the Supreme court ruling in favor of Sony was reversed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, making Sony liable for contributory infringement. Also have a look at the Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation (280 F.3d 934 (CA9 2002)) case. Its a fair decision where usage of thumbnails of full creative image was found to be legal according to the Four Factors of Fair use analysis.

DRM seems to be more relevant for the movie/music industry where there is fear of losing royalty via unauthorized copying and tampering. However, strict usage of DRM in the realm of softwares wills really shrink creativity, innovation and free speech. Then it would be more of Digital “RESTRICTIONS” Management rather than Digital Rights Management (As suggested by Free Software Foundation).

 Meshing of international values and practices is a difficult challenge before any efforts, which strives to bring out policies and regulations globally. However, the current scenario of communication and information without barriers, calls for a major role from US’s side to take active role in World treaties that deal with global issues.

I think the question can be best answered if we think about the way in which the world is moving towards a global village. Internet and wireless technologies has a significant role in this major upheaval. If this change brings out that there is no geographical barrier to information dissemination, then uniform methods of legal and technological protection is essential in an international sense. This is a big challenge and all countries should come together and work on it.

Article copyright (c) 2010 – 2020 – Deepesh Joseph (deepeshjoseph@yahoo.com)

Preparing Marketing Plans – Sample one for Amazon.com – A handy tool for strategic IT managers

Overview

Amazon.com offers Earth’s largest selection of online products. Being the #1 online retailer, it offers the most advanced and innovative ways of e-commerce that is capable to continuously deliver fastest, reliable, cheapest and most user-friendly online shopping experience for the customer. 

Marketing Strategy Focus and Market Segments

Company’s mission is to become extremely customer-centric where customers can come and discover anything they want to buy online at lowest possible prices (Business Wire, 2007, April 24). The strategic focus of the company that can influence its marketing plan will thus be improving customer satisfaction via better customer-service, easily navigable website with greater focus on personalized services and learning customer behavior, expanding its international market to increase its customer base and thus annual revenues, expanding its affiliates program to increase web-site traffic and continuing to work on alliances to expand its product line to become a one-stop online retail store. 

Amazon.com’s market segments are consumer-centric and are categorized based on geography, demography and customer behavior. Geography based market include the North American market and the international market. Demography based market segments targets income levels, age and sex. Behavior based market segments include existing customer bases with varied buying or selling characteristics. The key issues faced related to market segmentation are fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, global trade regulations and economic conditions, changing consumer tastes and demands, adapting the personalization services to new behavioral patterns and product expansion. 

Marketing Mix – The 4 P’s 

Product: Amazon.com’s product line falls under 3 broad categories – Media, Electronics and Other General Merchandise, and Others. Media includes books, DVD rentals, music etc.  Electronics and Other General Merchandise includes all electronic items, toys, apparel, kitchen and house-wares, health care etc. Others includes mainly co-branded credit card programs. 

Place: Company concentrates on fully online business where products will be displayed and sold directly via company’s global website versions (country specific) or through affiliates. 

Price: For retaining its vast customer base, company applies Penetration pricing strategy offering lowest price possible for high quality products and services.  Promotion: Company’s major mass-promotional medium will be internet itself via affiliate programs, gift cards, promotion codes and strategic alliances for cross sector product selling via partner websites, . The company can look forward to establishing a general purpose email service, similar to Yahoo! Mail and use it as a medium for advertisement. 

Measuring customer satisfaction

Realization of Amazon.com’s marketing strategy and its success in e-commerce business depends on its ability to satisfy and retain its vast customer base. The question that needs to be asked is – Does the current product offerings, price, customer service and website content, search and ease of use imparts the expected value to the customer. Collecting and analyzing external satisfaction data can be successfully used to measure customer satisfaction in this case since the customer need to be heard directly in order to improve the current services. Quantitative techniques such as customer surveys, questionnaires, customer reviews and ratings and customer personalization data collected from the customer behavior on the website, can be used to measure whether the marketing goals are met. 

Article Copyright – Deepesh Joseph (2002-2020) 

References:

1. Business Wire. (2007, April 24). Amazon.com Announces First Quarter Sales Surpass $3 Billion, up 32% Year over Year — Operating Profit Grows 38% — Raises Financial Guidance.  Amzn Investor Relations. Retrieved May 6, 2007, from http://phx.corporateir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=989711&highlight=

2. Mattern J. (2007, Feb 8). One Page Marketing Plan Template. Retrieved May 6, 2007, from http://marketing-plans.suite101.com/article.cfm/one_page_marketing_plan_template

3. Public Affairs, UIUC. (n.d.). Marketing Plan Summary: Developing marketing plans.  Retrieved May 6, 2007, from http://publicaffairs.uiuc.edu/marketing/summary.pdf

4. BusinessVictoria. (n.d.). Sample Marketing Plan. Retrieved May 6, 2007, from http://www.business.vic.gov.au/busvicwr/_assets/main/lib60016/marketing%20plan%20final.rtf

5. BusniessLink. (n.d.). Marketing plan summary and introduction: Write a Marketing Plan.  Retrieved May 6, 2007, from http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?type=RESOURCES&itemId=1075313149

6. MoreBusiness.com. (2007, May, 5). Sample Marketing Plan: AMT. Retrieved May 6, 2007, from http://www.morebusiness.com/templates_worksheets/bplans/printpre.brc

About surveys on International Business – Are you World-Minded?

One interesting thing that I have noticed about is that most of the business case surverys that deal with world-mindedness, stresses more on religious, cultural and racial factors (surface level diversities) which are always hard to deal with. Also, stress on immigrant jobs, national loyalty and patriotic feelings was relevant. I think most of these surveys brings into light one’s positive global outlook, his acceptance of diversities and willingness to adapt to the global scenario. It indeed tells us whether we are actually “world-minded”. It gives us insight to areas to work on for increasing our “global management potential”.

Some surverys suggests abolishing all national governments and replacing them with a single global government. The scoring system gives that a regular score. I don’t agree to that since it’s hard to change the beliefs, values and perceptions that form each nation’s culture. Rather we should support efforts of global organizations such as UN, WTO, WHO etc.

I have been in my native country, India, before I settled in US. I can say that there exists a huge cultural (work, values framework) difference between the two countries. It is interesting to note that companies like Infosys strives hard to cope up with the differing modes of operations in India and US. One big thing that has helped Infosys to remain competitive is its ability to adapt to the new culture and work environment.

(c) Deepesh Joseph, 2006-2008