Case Study Google in China

1.    Which factors best explain why Google was so successful in the first place? Where any of these conditions for success put in jeopardy by the decision to launch Google.cn?

Ans: The main factor that lets Google to be successful is that the service that its offered to its users. The fast and reliable search results provided by its comprehensive search engine lets the user to save time in browsing the net looking for particular sites. This service alone of the Google dominates the market around the world in terms of Market share. As their mission asserts that “Google’s mission it to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. But this statement is being put in jeopardy when they entered in China market. Google is force to create another version of its product Google.cn to fit the conditions of the country. The new version Google.cn display its search result by filtering first and removing search hits that are deemed categorized as illegal information and omitted in the search results resulting in compromising the quality of information that is given to its users and time as its take time to filter the search result by third party software.

             

2.    Was Google right to have entered the Chinese market the way it did? Did Google’s mission compel it to create Google.cn? What specific aspects of the mission does Google address in making its decision to enter? What other reasons could there have been for entering China? How do Google’s conclusions fit with its motto, “Don’t be Evil”?

Ans: China has an economy that can be describe as a “Tiger economy”. This factor is very hard for any business owner to ignore. The move of Google Company to entered Chinese market is a very smart decision to make. Entering China market arena is not easy as Google face unique challenges as they force a different version of the product the Google.cn to meet the conditions that they must filter the search results according to the defined criteria set by China that they deemed as illegal information. In spites of the challenges that the Goolge is facing they did not stop in fighting to enter China market. Their Corporate mission served as a guide for them to make a decision to enter china enormous market as its corporate mission states that “our business commitment to satisfy the interest of its users, and by doing so to build a leading company in a highly competitive industry” is their priority. This corporate mission of the Google served as their backbone to enter the china market where there is a fierce competition. Even if without the corporate mission, China’s enormous and growing economy is a very formidable business opportunity to ignore. Its potential market is a good opportunity to venture business. Google’s motto “Don’t be evil” suggest that every user must deserved the best information or virtually all the information accessible anywhere on the world.  But this motto is being challenge the moment they entered China. Removing search results or degrading information which results to no information is inconsistent with Google’s mission.

             

3.    Where is the success of  the Chinese censorhip system? In other words, what makes their censorship system work so well? Where does Google fit in to this system? Has Google worked to improve the situation? What more could it do?

Ans:

            Every country has own culture and I we need to respect that. The Chinese government feels that it needs to filter the information or limit the information that their people may needs to acquire through the net is necessary. Maybe their move to put up a Censhorhip system serves its purpose in protecting their people in China for inappropriate information. Definitely Google must alter their products to meet this demand. Google’s search engine can still fit to this system by complying with the requirements set by the Censorship system causing the search results by their search engine to further filter by the censorship system. With this, Google turn their attention in making their Google’s search engine as self-censoring their search results. For me, Google must follow the conditions and terms of every country as it’s very improper and arrogant to tell every country how to run its country.  Google sees this as challenges as a business operating requirements in order for them to enter the Chinese market. They treat is as business requirement only.

Case Study 1: Facebook(A):Beacon and Privacy

1.    An important consideration for every e-commerce website is to maintain the privacy of its  users. Use of innovative technologies and lack of secure systems makes it easy to obtain personal and confidential information about individuals and organizations. Do you think Facebook was able to deliver the need for privacy for its clientele?

Ans:

            Privacy issue is a main concern of every internet users around the world. Having somebody standing at your back watching and writing everything you do/surf in the internet is a very annoying thing for me and it is the responsibility of every owner/developer of every sites or applications we used in the internet to safeguard and maintain the privacy of its users. As for the question if I trust facebook in keeping my privacy is “No”. Personally, I was a victim of such invading my privacy while one time I was playing an game applications in facebook and broadcast it without my permission to my list of friends. Though there is an option there if that opted me to from broadcasting my activities around facebook. For me, facebook should be by default set it to “disabled state” so that only the users can manually activate it. Or automatically ask the users for confirmation to do it and if the users will not take actions about it, facebook will imply it that the user does not want it for them to broadcast its activity. I know facebook want to implement this mechanism for them to track the activities of their users for business/advertizing purposes but it should be done with the users knowing it.    

2.    Owners of websites should guard against the potential sources of liability which could lead to legal claims against them. Since the Internet knows no boundaries, the owner of a  website could be confronted with legal liability for non-compliance or violation of laws of almost any country. As a Filipino user, in cases of privacy infringement and intellectual property rights violation on the side of Facebook due to system features and implementations, Do you feel comfortable in using the website? What are the ways that you could do to prevent incidents like this to happen? And In cases it happened, What are you going to do to protect your rights?

Ans:

            Amazingly, knowing the flaws and potential invasion of my privacy I still want to use/ or log to facebook sites. Maybe, because I still feel facebook still the most effective way for me to track my friends online and for some personal entertainment purposes. For in case of privacy infringement or intellectual property rights violations I still send a petition to facebook owners together with the support of the facebook community to seriously take my account in consideration in resolving the privacy issues/concern that I petition for preventing further violation and protection of other user’s rights. For the the ways I can suggest in protecting your privacy are (1) simply read carefully the guidelines and privacy agreement in every sites your are visiting. Reads some reviews in third party review panels regarding the sites. Read some users comments. Or (2) internet is a place where we can do anything we want. Be who ever we want. Pretend to be somebody. So, I don’t put my vital information about myself as it is a possible for somebody to know it and use it for some other purposes. So don’t put your vital information publicly. (3) if invasion of privacy happens, petition them and I know for sure it won’t be easy.

3.    Many websites advertise goods or services to customers. The traditional laws of advertising, which apply to ordinary sales, are enacted in the interest of all consumers to prevent deceptive and unfair acts or practices. Explain how effective is Facebook on monetizing their website? Is it ethically correct to monetize certain social networking websites without informing its users about its intensions before the user signs-up to its website?

Ans:

            For me I feel somehow unfair for me that facebook is using me for their monetary purposes without asking me to do it, especially even before I sign-up in facebook. Earning millions for themselves and without a dime for myself. I like the way facebook before way back the time when facebook still starting, there where no ads it was just plain facebook. But on the other side, if I am the owner of the facebook, will I will be paid for my work? The fact that the users are benefitting from the services provided by the facebook site to its users. I think their will be no company will stay for long without earnings to spend for development or operational expenses. I think its alright for every company to monetize their sites, just informed or ask permissions to its users. Or place it on their agreement explicitly.

4.    What are the good and bad sides that Facebook has implemented as new means of making money online? Is it a good idea to sell goods and products on its website? How do you think to maximize online advertisement through Facebook?

Ans:

            Having advertisement on facebook provides two sides-it has an advantages and disadvantages. Let’s talk first with the advantages-the users are given a chance to buy products that they might feel of importance or needs. They can click it to buy it and it’s up to the users not to buy it. It’s there for their in case some users might find it useful because advertisement is filtered based on the browsing activities and preferences.  But on the other hand (disadvantages), users find it annoying to being offered with a lot of stuff that they find it irrelevant to them. Advertisement found in every page of facebook occupies a significant amount of the user’s screens that it’s too hard for them to ignore. Its annoying sometimes to see advertisement in facebook page that when you click to ignore it, it will just disappear and be replace with some other advertisement. For me facebook still can used advertisement on their page maybe by limiting the number of advertisement to be display in every page. Or have options to display or not be displayed on the screen. Or setup special page on facebook that displays all the monetary advertisement to that page.

5.    Recently Facebook began selling stocks to the public in the most talked-about market debut in years.  As an entrepreneur, should you jump in on Facebook stocks? Why or Why not? Explain.

Ans:

Well this is interesting for every entrepreneur because if you try to look the stocks of facebook, it will not go elsewhere but UP. In spite of the issues surrounding facebook there are still a lot of ordinary users in facebook that doesn’t care about this and mostly probably the majority of the populations feels the same. More and more users will come to be a member of facebook. This is a very attracted to business entrepreneurs, they always love to follow the money. So if you ask me if I’m willing to buy some stocks to facebook, I will definitely say yes.  

Case Study 2: Less Paper, Better Reforestation (RIMS)

1.    What where the main deficiencies of the paper system? What was wrong with the fact that a human remembered where record could be found?

Answer:

Having a paper system for some reason will be quiet good because you’ll have the vintage feeling of having in your hand the actual paper or the information. But the obvious problem of the paper system is that as the volume of records increases thus the paper/document also increases. Until such time we got a lot of records more than we can handle and manage. This now possess a problem to a company specifically in searching a document from a bulk file of papers kept in a storage room or a closet. Even having a best practice of indexing the papers/document when keeping it still it needs an extra effort for the keeper to familiarize where a certain papers/document can be found. The fact that sometime we just only remember where a file could certainly be found we must consider some human-error factor that could lead sometime to losing a file and more worst if that somebody be replace by someone else it could be very difficult for him/her to locate some un-index files.

2.    List and explain the benefits of the RIMS system.

Answer:

Having Reforestation Information Management System or RIMS in the business gives them

a.    Exact inventory of the seedlings

b.    Employees is provided with updated records

c.    Employees are provided with the exact information about the seedling information such as the time and date the seed was plant to ensure the seedlings receive the care it needs to grow.

d.    Employees can access the seedling information through mobile application.

e.    Searching of records now is much more easily compared to a paper system before.

f.     Increase in employees’ productivity by having accurate records of million seedlings being planted and monitored. With the paper system it is impossible to keep track of this information.

g.    Cost efficient as the company only needs a few people monitoring the system compared to old paper system.

h.    Valuable information on how to plant a seed that has a maximum potential for growth can now be recorded and analyze in later time to be studied by new planters of the company. 

3.    What can be the benefits of analyzing employee performance by the system?

Answer:

The importance of analyzing employees performance by the system is that the top level managers gives an incite as the staff stays in the business for so long the staff accumulate an understanding or expertise in planting a seed of a particular species and when this staff retire all the many years of hard-work and knowledge will also gone if not pass to younger generation of planters. So, there is a need for the company to records the information needed to have an optical growth for a particular seed. By doing analysis, there is a lot of lesson to be learned in nature of their business as how it aspires from small scale seed planting business to a very large scale business.

4.    Consider the types of information systems discussed in the chapter. Which type of system could probably help both the nursery and the Department of Natural Resources?

Answer:

The Nursery and Department of Natural Resources needs a type of Information System that will monitor the type of trees that needed to be planted in a particular place to fulfill its purpose of reforestation in the area so that the Nursery department will able to plant a seedlings that we be nurse to be planted in the area later. This Information System should work hand in hand with both departments to make sure that the Nursery is seeding a right species of plant and the correct number (quantity) of seeds needed by the Department of Natural Resources for their reforestation projects. The system must have features that will able to monitor the growth of each seeds that has different seed details to ensure that the seed will not die or gone to waste.

Case Study 1: The Personal Touch (FedEx Information System: CLARIFY)

1.    What is CRM in general? Give Examples of Different CRM Applications.

1. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in general is a software tool use by the company’s call center agents primarily design to quickly cater and resolve customers’ inquiries and complaints.  CRM assist the call center representatives of the company to quickly view all the necessary data of the customer and other necessary data to promptly resolve the issue of a customer who is calling. Secondly it provides the company precious information about the common complaints that the customer experiencing in terms of the services of the company to its customers thus providing the company a proactive way not to repeat the same problem a customer is experiencing or at least find a remedy to that problem. Third, it increases the productivity of the company’s revenue by satisfying its customer. Satisfy customer will always come back to continually avail the company’s service. CRM provides a way to make a single transaction a lot faster and efficient. The faster you can resolve a customer complaint the lesser the cost. Now a days CRM save millions of dollars worth of revenue around the world. New features are being added as world changes so with the needs of its customers.

Different Types of CRM Software and its examples

A. Sales force automation

Sales force automation (SFA) involves using software to streamline all phases of the sales process, minimizing the time that sales representatives need to spend on each phase. This allows a business to use fewer sales representatives to manage their clients.

B. Marketing

CRM systems for marketing help the enterprise identify and target potential clients and generate leads for the sales team. A key marketing capability is tracking and measuring multichannel campaigns, including email, search, social media, telephone and direct mail.

 

C. Customer Service and support

Recognizing that service is an important factor in attracting and retaining customers, organizations are increasingly turning to technology to help them improve their clients’ experience while aiming to increase efficiency and minimize costs

D. Appointment

Creating and scheduling appointments with customers is a central activity of most customer oriented businesses. Sales, customer support, and service personnel regularly spend a portion of their time getting in touch with customers and prospects through a variety of means to agree on a time and place for meeting for a sales conversation or to deliver customer service.

E. Analytics

Relevant analytics capabilities are often interwoven into applications for sales, marketing, and service. These features can be complemented and augmented with links to separate, purpose-built applications for analytics and business intelligence.

F. Integrated/Collaborative

Departments within enterprises — especially large enterprises — tend to function with little collaboration. More recently, the development and adoption of these tools and services have fostered greater fluidity and cooperation among sales, service, and marketing.

G. Small Business

For small business, basic client service can be accomplished by a contact manager system: an integrated solution that lets organizations and individuals efficiently track and record interactions, including emails, documents, jobs, faxes, scheduling, and more.

H. Social Media

Social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are amplifying the voice of people in the marketplace and are having profound and far-reaching effects on the ways in which people buy. Customers can now research companies online and then ask for recommendations through social media channels, making their buying decision without contacting the company.

I.             Non-profit and membership-based

Systems for non-profit and membership-based organizations help track constituents and their involvement in the organization. Capabilities typically include tracking the following: fund-raising, demographics, membership levels, membership directories, volunteering and communications with individuals.

CRM Examples

• SnapCRM is open source web-based customer relationship management software that integrates sales force automation modules such as the account management system, contact management system, sales lead tracking and marketing system, competitor management, sales forecasting, sales order management system, and product information system. SnapCRM should be run in Windows, but files and folders stored in SnapCRM can be accessed from Windows, Linux and Mac clients.

o   Vtiger CRM is open source CRM software for sales force automation of small and medium businesses. It can be run under Linux and Windows, and provide enterprise features such as Microsoft Outlook integration, email integration, and product customization.

o   InfusionSoft is highly recommended. Excellent web based CRM solution for small to medium companies seeking a comprehensive and reliable CRM tool. Awarded the prestigious 2007 CRM Excellence Award for “Top Small Business Marketing Software”.

o   SAP CRM- is an integrated customer relationship management (CRM) software manufactured by SAP AG that targets business software requirements of midsize and large organizations in all industries and sectors.

o   NetSuite CRMS- is the only on-demand CRM Software that gives you a real-time 360 degree view of your customers. With all your CRM Software contact management data in one system, you'll close more deals and improve customer satisfaction.

• SugarCRM - helps your business communicate with prospects, share sales information, close deals and keep customers happy.

2. Enumerate and explain the various ways in which the CRM application discussed here (Clarify) saves costs or helps in other ways.

          Answer:

CRM is a very useful tool for a company. It helps to save cost by providing a list of all common complaints and its probable solutions. More transactions at lower cost mean more profit. Clarify provides the top level managers essential data about the behavior of the customers such as customer doesn’t really want a very polite reps by making extra talk to the customer but rather customer wants a direct answer to their problems. The faster the reps resolve the issue of the customer the faster it gets off to the phone.

3. Which matrix would you use to measure before and after performance regarding the information technologies implemented in this case? Consider cost, service, quantity, cycle time, and any other performance factor and provide a specific metric (i.e. ratio, product, or absolute value).

Answer:

The best performance matrix to use in measuring the before and after performance regarding the information technologies implemented in this case is to use a line graph to have a good picture about the increase in productivity of its reps by looking the rate of increase of number of customers served over time versus the cost of operation. Line graph provides the viewer an impression about any two data they would like to see if it gains better performance over time. On the other hand, Bar Graph would also be good if you want to view if the performance of the reps increases when using the CRM compared to the old ways of handling the customers’ complaint.

4. As a customer, would you prefer more or less mechanized service in lieu of human help?

Answer:

For me, I would still prefer to talk to human representatives because I can discussed a lot more precise what are my needs to ensure I will got the more accurate response from the call center representative. Mechanized service often results if not properly design leads to non-accurate results thus making customers frustrated. Based on the research customers using mechanized service usually only try to resolve their problem 2 or 3 times but after trying if they will not get want they wanted they will quit and give up leaving them frustrated and unhappy. But there are still a significant number of customers that are now using online services of the company to resolve their problems. These customers are usually computer literate and have an easy access to the internet making online inquiry much more easily compared to calls.

5. As an executive for FedEx or a similar company, what else would you implement using software and the internet?

Answer:

If I can be at that position, I would be happy to have CRMS and other IS installed at my company. Company has a lot of information more than a users/employee could handle. Having a tool that could sort things out for a user could be very beneficial. For a company like the FedEx, transporting the client packages in the correct place at a right time is the highest priority. Customers needs to keep track on their valuable packages so they need to ask somebody from the FedEx company through their call center agent reps where their packages now. Like FedEx they cater 8 million packages on peak days. So, imagine to bulk of calls the company receiving are enormous and these calls must be address properly. To reduce these bulks of calls, as a top executive on this company I would seek a solution by installing a computer system that would assess or answer these calls by an automated computer with predefined answers. Those calls that cannot be catered by the automated computer will have an option to speak with a human representative. The other solution will be to have a site (website) for customers to make their inquiries about their package through online system applications. Through this I will significantly reduce the bulks of calls receive by the company’s representatives and reduce also the number of customers put on-hold during their calls. I would like also to install a Real-time mapping system to all major cargo and ships of FedEx that must be monitor 24/7 to ensure all packages arrived at the right place at the right time.