Competing with It and the Internet

Class 2. January 18 - Thursday

Prepare: VeriFone (1997)

ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS:

1. What are the key attributes of VeriFone’s organizational structure? Do you agree with those who identify VeriFone as a virtual company?

2. What role does the IT infrastructure play at VeriFone?

3. What major challenges will VeriFone senior management face in the future?

4. What do you think are the core attributes of the VeriFone culture? Will it be possible to maintain the company’s culture as part of H.P.? Class 3. January 23 – Tuesday

Prepare: Edmunds.com

1. What are the strength of Edmund? What are the key components of Edmund’s business system that add value?

2. How do production, distribution, organization structure and staffing requirements for a web presence differ from those of Edmund’s original Guides?

3. How far could Edmund’s push its “all information/no services” strategy while simultaneously generating enough revenue to sustain the company?

4. How could Edmund’s design its site to support its strategy?

5. How could Edmunds.com position itself to become the number one automotive site? Class 5. January 30 - Tuesday

Prepare: CNET 2000

1. Do you agree with CNET’s decision to:

a) Avoid entering other vertical markets?

b) Avoid direct participation in online retailing?

c) Avoid licensing CNET’s reviews and articles to online retailers?

d) Increase ad spending to $100 million?

2. Why do you think CNET’s stock price declined in response to the announcement of its marketing strategy?

3. Do you think that the company did a good job running the CNET 2000 process? Why or why not?

4. In January 2000, CNET acquired the “shopping bot” website my Simon.com (an event that is not mentioned in the case). Is this acquisition consistent with the strategy articulated by the CNET 2000 team? Do you think this was a good move? Class 7. February 6 - Thursday

Prepare: Dell Online

1. What are the key success factors of Dell’s Direct Model? How does Dell Online fit within this model?

2. What value does Dell Online deliver for the various Dell’s stakeholders?

3. Does Dell Online provide a sustainable advantage for Dell?

4. What are the next steps that Dell should undertake in order to be capable of doing “at least 50% of [its] business over the Web the next few years”?

5. What general lesson can we learn from Dell? What other type of business could be designed like this one?

Class 8. February 8 - Thursday

Prepare: Internet Securities Inc.: Building an Organization in Internet Time

1. Evaluate the Internet Securities, Inc. (ISI) business model. How do the founders and investors hope to make money in the future? How successful do you expect the firm to be?

2. Review Appendix B, containing a summary of Internet IPO deal. Which firms have been most successful within the capital markets? Why have they been successful? What implications can we draw about the potential success of Internet securities?

3. What competitive threats does the firm face in June 1998? Why didn’t entrenched players within the industry respond soon? How should the founders evolve the strategy to prepare for public offering (or other liquidity event) within the next year?

4. What advice would you give to Gary and Geroge Mueller concerning the strategic positioning of ISI? What changes should they make to ensure that the firm creates both short- term and long-term values for all stakeholders? How should the founders implement your recommendations?

Class 11. February 13 - Tuesday

Prepare: RealNetwork Computers, Inc.: Converging Technologies/Expanding Opportunities

1. Do you agree with the company’s decision to enter the “content hosting” business? Do you agree with their decision to purchase Film.com? Should they purchase other content sites? How important is the “Intranet Market” for the firm’s success in the future? Why is the company losing money? What do they need to do to become more profitable in the future?

2. Should resources and effort be focused on building traffic by creating relationships with customers on the front end, or should resources be directed toward linking in suppliers and content providers though backend integration of both IT systems and business processes.

3. How valuable is the RealNetworks brand? Evaluate the steps that the company took to build their brand. Some observers claim that it “takes lots of money to build and Internet brand.” Do you agree with that statement? What have you learned from the cases we have studied to date about the value of brand assets on the Internet and the process through which and Internet brand is built?

4. Is the company well positioned for success in the future? What are the key risks that they face? What recommendations do you have for the RealNetworks management team? Class 12. February 22 – Thursday

Prepare: QuikenInsurance: The Race to Click and Close

1. What value does QuikenInsurance offer to carriers, customers, employees and owners? What are the strengths and weakness of the model?

2. How does QuikenInsurance draw traffic to its site? What is the relationship between focused distributors, like QuikenInsurance, and general portal, like AOL and Yahoo!?

3. What challenges will Aldrich face as he transition from “entrepreneur to corporate executive?” What challenges will the new QuickenInsurance General Manager, Steve Bruce, face? What advice would you give to Aldrich and Bruce?

4. What recommendations would you give to Steven Aldrich in early 2000 concerning the evolution of QuickenInsurance and Quicken.com business model? How aggressively should he market QuickenInsurance and the other Quicken businesses to prevent erosion of market share by pure play” Internet companies, such as InsWeb? Class 13. February 27 - Tuesday

Prepare: AXI Travel – American Express Interactive

1. What exactly is AXI travel? How (if at all) does it add value for American Express?

2. Who are the key stakeholders in the AXI travel initiative: customers, major rivals, partners, potential entrants, and substitutes?

3. What’s your assessment of the way AXI travel was built, and rolled out?

4. What advice would you give Sonia Sharpe on how to pursue international expansion and the integration of AXI travel with other American Express services (for example, their corporate credit card service). Class 15. March 1 - Tuesday

Prepare: OnSale, Inc.

1. When Kaplan created the original Onsale auction format, he called it a “new form of retailing that exploited the unique characteristics of the net.” Do you agree or disagree with this statement? More generally, how is Onsale’s auction model different form traditional retail models?

2. What’s the “secret” to Onsale’s success? What have they done right? What have they done wrong? How scalable is the auction model?

3. Who is the typical Onsale customer?

4. Kaplan claims that the AtCost model is going to “create a revolution between the retailer and the customer.” Is this true? What are the arguments in favor of adding the new model to Onsale’s website? What are the risks? Class 16. March 8 - Thursday

Prepare: Adobe Systems Incorporated

ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS

1. How was Postscript established as a de facto standard? How did Adobe make money from Postscript, despite its being an “open” standard?

2. Which firm is currently in a stronger position to control de facto standards in the eBook space: Adobe or Microsoft?

3. What should Adobe do? How can they win the standards war? Should they focus on eDocs or eBooks? Will the eBooks market tip or will there be multiple standards? How can Adobe make money in this market? Class 19. March 20 - Tuesday

Prepare: Medtronic Vision 2010: Transforming for the 21st Century (A)

1. Is Medtronic’s business vision responsive to the situation?

2. What is your assessment of the project Vision.2010? Which elements of this project strike you as having been particularly crucial to creating the business vision?

3. What are the costs and benefits of having develop the business vision as the Medtronic management team has done?

4. Evaluate the nature of senior management involvement in the Vision.2010 project. Which elements of the project does senior management need to be intimately involved in, and which can it delegate or pay less attention to?

5. What advice would you provide Bill George on how to make Medtronic Vision.2010 a reality?

Class 20. March 22 - Thursday

Prepare: Meg Whitman at eBay

1. What was unique about eBay Inc.'s business transformation?

2. What opportunities did the company identify? How did it identify and create value in a new marketplace?

3. Why was the creation of a new Internet model successful?

4. What role did technology play in the transformation and development of the new market model?

5. What traits of on-line transactions did eBay use to hedge itself against its competitors? Class 21. April 3 - Tuesday

Prepare: Hotbank: Softbank’s New Business Model for Early Stage Venture Incubators

1. Are incubators a fleeting phenomenon, born of an overexuberant stock market, or are they truly a valuable and enduring way of bringing start-ups to fruition?

2. What value does Hotbank offer to start-ups?

3. What mutual advantages could the relationship between PhotoPoint and BluePoint bring?

4. What advice would you provide Ellen Levy on her decision about which relationships among Hotbank/SBVC portfolio companies to facilitate. Class 17. March 13 - Tuesday

Prepare: Electronic Commerce at Air Products

1. How (if at all) does Air Products’ e-commerce strategy add value for the company?

2. What exactly does Air Products’ web site do? How does it differ from traditional marketing communications and promotional materials?

3. What’s your assessment of Air Product’s e-commerce strategy (see exhibit 8)?

4. What should Joseph McKakin do next? Class 23. April 10 - Tuesday

Prepare: Bolsa de Valores de Guayaquil (BVG): Reaching World Wide Investors through the Internet

1. What challenges does BVG faced in fall 1998?

2. What recommendations would you give Enrique Arosemana to increase membership, ensure retention of current members and attract the attention to foreign investment dollars?

3. Should BVG begin implementation of Phase 3 (online trading) of the Mundo Virtual project? If so, how should they proceed? If not, what recommendations would you give to Arosemena about the potential for on-line trading in the future? Class 25. April 17 – Tuesday

Prepare: Patagon.com: Expanding Globally and Penetrating Locally while Constantly Reinventing Itself

1. What are the pros and cons of starting an Internet-based financial service company, such as Patagon, in an environment with highly unstable telecommunication and financial industries, and where market conditions do not support an immediate demand for EC?

2. What is your assessment of the process of EC strategy formation and implementation at Patagon? How did Patagon acquire capabilities to develop its EC strategy so expeditiously?

3. How can Patagon keep its growth momentum going in order to expand globally and penetrate in various diverse local markets? Would Patagon be able to timely implement and flawlessly execute its aggressive growth strategy? Would the strategy enable the company to reach profitability?

4. How can the management team create an organizational structure and processes to integrate the various companies that comprise Patagon while maintaining a consistently high level of entrepreneurial energy?