Indiv 3 - Walmart's and Dell's Successful Strategy

Dell and Walmart's advantage over their competition is not due to technology, it's due to management. Do you agree? How does your answer relate to some of the problems that these companies have had recently?

I agree that Dell's and Walmart’s advantage over their competition is not due to technology, but due to management. Their success is not coming from advanced technology.

For nearly five decades, Wal-Mart's has provided low-priced products to its customers. Wal-Mart does not have any special advantage in technology. Wal-Mart stores operate according to their "Everyday Low Price" philosophy. It mainly has advantage over its competitors because it has been better at containing its costs.

Dell is in a similar situation as Wal-Mart. Dell makes low-end computers, and does not use particularly advanced technology in comparison to its peers. Dell’s success lies mostly in its supply chain management, which enables the company to lower down its cost.

However, recently both companies have been experiencing problems because they have been sacrificing product quality in order to achieve lower costs. Walmart forces its suppliers to compete with each other to reduce their wholesale prices. The supplier then will turn back the loss to the manufacturer, which results in bad product quality. Eventually, this will affect consumers’ confidence on Walmart’s products.

Dell is facing the same problem. Outsourcing customer service and producing products overseas is causing a loss in confidence in their products and services.

News 8 - P&G Supply Chain Management Solution

1. Supply Chain Management is the combination of strategy and technology that helps a business find raw materials that they need to produce their products or services. It involves systems which control and communicate with suppliers, vendors, warehouses, transportation parties and customers. Some examples of supply chain management software include EDI system, online tracing and inventory system. Many 3rd party logistics companies are also providing supply chain solutions for other businesses. Two such companies are UPS supply chain solution and Fedex Trade Networks.

2. I found a recent news article related to Supply Chain Management
http://www.scmr.com/article/CA6494820.html?industryid=48314

3. The article is about Proctor & Gamble’s decsion to choose Optiant software to help implement its new supply chain strategy. The Optiant SCM software will help P&G deliver their products to customers in the most efficient manner. In order to fulfill its inventory planning and optimization goals, P&G is looking forward to expanding the partnership with Optiant.

I agreed with P&G’s business idea because a good SCM provides optimal coummication and control over vendor, customers, warehouse and transporation. Instead of spending money to develop its own SCM software, it is better to outsource the SCM to a professional supply chain solution company, such as Optiant, because they are more experienced in this area. This will allow P&G to focus on the bigger picture of their business. In the new age, businesses will be able to receive or make orders, ship products, check inventories, pay vendors and bill customers through the SCM system without the need to step out of the office or make any paper transactions.

News 7 - Artificial Intelligence

I learned in class that Artificial Intelligence does not only mean artificially created machine that thinks like a human being. That is still science fiction. However AI can make machine programs become “smarter” by an automatic learning process.

I found an interesting article about Artificial Intelligence:
http://www.fuchsiashockz.co.uk/articles/artificial_intelligence/supercomputers_key_to_the_brain.php

The article is about a group of scientist trying to use the world’s most powerful supercomputer, Blue Gene, to simulate the human brain’s function. They hope they can find out more about the human brain. However, people are worried that this project will lead to a computer having conscious thought or have a mind of its own. The answer from one of the head of the project, Markus Baertschi, is no. He declares that the brain is still far more complicated than the computer. This supercomputer only has 8000 processors to simulate each individual virtual neuron in the brain, but the human brain has trillions and trillions of neurons. Beside the size difference, scientists still do not know how to make the processors work together like a brain.

I agree with the scientist in this article that it is too early to worry about an artificially created machine life. We should do more research and development on artificial intelligence because we can utilize this technology to help us on many areas, such as, medical, laboratory, industrial and entertaining purposes.

News 6 - eBay and Advertisement

1. In class, I learned that Google became successful at auctioning advertisement spots by using the bidding method, similar to the way an item on EBay is priced and sold. Additionally, I learned that Google was paid for every click that was made on the advertisement, so there was room to manipulate by clicking multiple times with no intention of purchase.

2. Below is an article on the role of online advertising in ebay.com: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,138155/article.html

3. EBay’s highly successful business model is providing a place where sellers and buyers can process transactions using online auction, generating revenue for eBay. However, eBay’s direction apparently changed recently when it signed a deal with Yahoo and Google to display exclusively their pay-per-click and PPC text ads featuring external retailers. According to the article, this business of online advertising has doubled eBay’s advertising revenue compared to last year, at the expense of drawing a number of customers away from eBay sellers.

I agree with the author that advertising for external retailers may hurt sellers. Sellers are forced to compete with bigger, more well-known retailers. The venture mainly generates more revenue for eBay and other participants, but not eBay sellers. On the other hand, customers benefit from more options. They are able to compare items on eBay with outside retailers’.

In my opinion, this advertising deal is a short-term strategy because it may eventually lead eBay sellers to abandon eBay due to loss of sales. Furthermore, customer traffic drawn to eBay’s system of bidding are distracted and redirected to other sites. These customers may become loyal to outside retailers and abandon eBay completely. Perhaps, we also cannot overlook that traffic to eBay may drop due to repulsion from over-advertising. Thus, eBay may potentially lose on both advertising revenue and eBay sales commissions. On the other hand, these problems may be averted if eBay is able to manage the type and number of ads that can be displayed on the site.

Indiv 2 - Tracking File Sharing in P2P

1. There are ways for a manager of a P2P network to monitor the type of files that are being shared. The fact that there is news of people who share copyrighted material on P2P being caught and penalized indicates that this is possible.

Two ways the manager of a P2P network can monitor the types of files that are being shared is through a software or website with tracker listed. The file is registered with a server, called tracker, and the tracker keeps track of which seeds and peers are in the network. The seeds are clients with completed files, and the peers are clients with incomplete files. P2P peers can connect and download segments of the files from any seeds and peers from the tracker.

If the P2P network is using a trackless system, (decentralized tracking) every peer acts as a tracker through the distributed hash table (DHT) method. The manager can also monitor the network by the ping monitor method. A ping command is sent to every peer machine within the network using a peer protocol on the peer machine, and it will request a response with DHT info. If a response is received at the sending peer machine, the responding peer machine is operating, and the monitor program will receive the DHT info from each peer machine.

2. I think it is worth tracking because it could help protect copyrights.

3. I believe the monitoring should be paid for by the tracker website and the P2P software provider because they are providing the P2P service and should be liable for tracking any illegal downloads that are occurring on the network.

News 5 - CRM Selection

1. This week, I learned that CRM, customer relationship management, is an information system as well as a strategy that combines sales, marketing, executive information systems and all other information related to customers. I also learned that it greatly improves a company’s ability to improve its business relationship with its customers.

2. Since there are so many CRM software being marketed out there, I think that companies face a lot of confusion when choosing a suitable CRM system. Here is a link to the article I found giving advice on this topic:

http://www.crm2day.com/library/EEEuukAukEdtvgQDjz.php

3. The author believes that choosing the right CRM system will help the company serve its customers better. He suggests that different CRM decisions should be made by big and small companies. According to the author, there are 10 factors to consider when choosing a suitable CRM system.

I agree with the author’s view that a company has to choose a CRM with functions geared toward achieving the company's goals. All aspects of a business' management should aim to the business' goals, and that includes technology. Also, the new system must be compatible with the current system in order to have a smooth installation. There should not be a chaotic installation period where existing customer service management would be interrupted. It should be reliable throughout and user-friendly. Lastly, extra embedded functions are always a plus. I think the author was thoughtful in considering the factors for a suitable CRM. However, I suggest that he should distinguish the factors in order of increasing importance as the nine factors after the first one appear to be listed in random order.