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Example research essay topic: Competitive Advantages Amp Sons - 1,867 words

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... iVillage tries to give women all kinds of information around their life. Owing to different roles of women acting in the society, their purposes on line are various. Different customers buy different kinds of value. "Customer value is the sum of benefits received minus the costs incurred by the customer in acquiring a product or service. " (Treacy and Wiersema, 1995) Women can get all kinds of information they wanted on iVillage.

com without buying newspaper or magazine. On this point iVillage offers their customer the lower cost products. However, a large amount of information may cause some problems. Customers may be lost among the mass of news, topics and message. Sometimes they read the articles forgetting their initial intention. Next, it is not easy for customer to find the particular information among thousands of items.

Although iVillage has a search service, it is still need time to find what you really want because there may be many articles attach to the key words. Finally, there is no guarantee about all the content is high quality and original. Secondly, iVillage has developed its site into a community-oriented site. Offering support groups, bulletin boards, and buddies. IVillage has set up a community for every interest. "At any one time, there are some 1, 400 ongoing discussion boards which bring together groups of like-minded women who share experiences or help each other solve problems. " (http: // web) In this case, the consumer drove the site's innovation. The company has to respond by further developing the offering to fit the needs and wants of its users.

The interactivity enhances the relationship between customers and the company. As a result, customer can be benefited from two aspects: First, the information is updated because the communication is ongoing every day. Whenever you enter into iVillage there are a lot of message on different bulletin boards. You can talk to many people as if attending the party.

Instant and current communication gives customer the updated information about the topics they are concerned. Second, the information is much valuable and the customer can use it to solve the problem in real life. For example, the Work from Home section offers a software library filled with bookkeeping, billing, legal, payroll, and sales-lead software. From the Health Page, you can access the huge store of medical information. This feature of iVillage adds more value of the service to the customer. On the other hand, iVillage would have loyal customer as it provides more value to customer.

Therefore, interactivity is an important differentiate strategy for iVillage. Finally, iVillage is venturing into e-commerce. IVillage develops this strategy according to the changeable environment. Today, "more and more web sites are competing for the same revenue dollars from advertisers. Along these lines, advertisers have become less willing to post ads on pages that are increasingly congested with other sponsors' banners and links. As such, pages are limited in the number of ads they can post, which in turn caps their ability to generate revenues. " (Afuah and Tucci, 2000) iVillage has an advantage to e-commerce due to its existing customer base and on-line community.

IVillage develops its e-commerce in a very clear way, especially for information service. For example, when I try to acquire the information about my constellation in the horoscope channel, it provides me some brief information. While for the details, I need to pay money. This may have two effects on the customer. One is to arouse the customer's interesting and enable them to pay for the service; the other one is to frustrate or even annoy the customer because they cannot receive the instant information. Oxygen.

com Oxygen. com, backed by strong media personalities and heavy investors, has generated an interest because of its innovative approach to satisfying women's needs. It combines the entertainment power of television with the power of Internet to create interactive television. This differentiate strategy is hard to imitate.

Therefore, Oxygen erects barriers around its product market space. As we know, with the Internet, it is considerably easier to learn about competitors' products and technologies that underpin them. "With the databases on patents available on the Internet, an imitator can quickly search through its own patents and those of its target competitors and be in a better position to challenge the patents or to determine what it needs to leapfrog the competitor. " (Afuah and Tucci, 2000) Oxygen's unique method to develop the Internet business has great competitive advantages. Drucker (1985) asserts, Innovation is a specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which they exploit change as an opportunity for a different business or a different service. It is capable of being presented as discipline, capable of being learned and capable of being practiced. Entrepreneurs need to search purposely for the sources of innovation, the changes and their symptoms that indicate opportunities for successful innovation.

And they need to know and apply the principles of successful innovation. "Uniqueness does not lead to differentiation unless it is valuable to the buyer. Oxygen's products deliver the following values to customer. Firstly, it is satisfying the various needs of the customer. Most women enjoy the program on the television. However, when they are on the Internet, they may lose opportunities to watch TV. Oxygen solves this problem in an innovative way.

Its 24 hours cable connect enables you can watch TV program at any time when you are on the Internet. Next, the information about the TV program is easy to get. On the web page, customer will find TV schedule easily, and you can receive program information everywhere on Oxygen. Finally, Oxygen not only provides television service but also the favorite topics to women such as health, career, family, relationship and self-discovery. Nevertheless, everything has two sides.

Although Oxygen's new style represents the trend of future media. Some disadvantages still exit, particularly when Oxygen tries to explore the international market. First, Oxygen narrows the market segment. It is can only maintain the loyal customer who is both interested in television and Internet. According to some people's view, the combination of television and Internet may weaken their strength to some extent. The company's energy and investment have been scattered.

Therefore, the customer may think it cannot provide the high quality service. In addition, some women who do not like television would feel been bothered by the television information showed everywhere. Meanwhile women who prefer television to Internet would not like to get information of TV program though the Internet. Therefore, the Oxygen will lose some market share compare with iVillage.

Second, Oxygen. com has region restriction. The customer cannot see TV program if there is no cable accession. However, "Internet access and use around the world is large and growing every day. " (Currie, 2000) Approximately 100 countries now enjoy Internet access. There are around 20 million Internet hosts worldwide. If Oxygen only restricts its service within the US, it would lose the huge global market.

Who is the winner? In the Internet business, customers control the company's success or failure. "We have entered an era vibrating with the din of small voices. Every citizen can be a reporter, can take on the power that be. The difference between the Internet, television and radio, magazines, newspapers is the two-way communication.

The Net gives as much voice to a 13 -year-old computer geek - as to a CEO or Speaker of the House. We all become equal. " (Siegel, 1999) Therefore, which company owns larger customer and offers more value to the customer would beat the competitor. Based on this principle and according to the evaluation mentioned above, iVillage has superior competitive advantages. First, the statistic below shows iVillage attracts and maintains more customer than Oxygen. (Source: Jupiter/ Media Matrix, January 2000, Women over 18) Next, iVillage can build customer for life because of its updated and a large amount of knowledge and information.

While Oxygen's combination feature reduced its communicating function. Customers prefer iVillage not only for the entertainment but also for learning. Learning is along the life. From the history of iVillage, we can see it always stick to the customer-focus strategy. It was the first company to offer the service for women. Then iVillage developed its site into a community-oriented site from its original content-only product.

In recent years it attempt to the e-commerce. All the evidences show iVillage can respond immediately to the customer's needs, and develop the effective strategies according to changing environment. Consequently, it dominants the women market on the Internet and becomes the market leader. Finally, iVillage Understands women better than Oxygen. From web design to content, iVillage tries to present a delicate and comfort home to women because most women do think home is a wonderful place. While Oxygen likes an exciting and dynamic bar, where you can go there once a week but cannot stay for life.

In short, iVillage offers more value to the customer so it would be the winner according to my point of view. It is really a worthy website for women. Conclusion The Internet has changed the world's economy. It is a trend for companies to do business on the Internet.

iVillage. com and Oxygen. com are the media company on the Internet whose target market are women. The combination of volume-based and e-commerce business model offers iVillage greater competitive advantage as well as provides more value to the customer.

While Oxygen's innovative business model, which integrate the television and the Internet, is hard to imitate. The name of iVillage is quiet, safe and peaceful, while oxygen if full of adventure and exciting. Most women would prefer iVillage to Oxygen in concern of name value. In terms of web design, iVillage also provides more value to the customer than Oxygen.

iVillage provides women with comprehensive information on the Internet and develops its site into a community-oriented site. While Oxygen's innovative method, which is restricted by region, narrows the market segment so that it cannot have large share as iVillage. iVillage understands the customer's needs and responds quickly to the market change. It develops the service for women and by women. village's customer-focus strategy gives its more competitive advantages as well as adding much value to the customer. Therefore, iVillage stands out of the fierce competition.

Reference: Afuah, A. and Tucci, C. L. (2001) Internet Business Models and Strategies: Text and Cases, McGraw- Hill, New York. Amor, D. (2000) The E-Business (R) evolution, Prentice Hall, New Jersey. Briggs, A. and Cable, P. (1998) The Media: An Introduction, Addison Wesley Longman, New York.

Currie, W. (2000) The Global Information Society, John Wiley& Sons, Chichester. Drucker, p. (1985) Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Butterworth-Jeinemann, London. Kotler, P. (2000) Marketing Management: analysis, planning, implementation, and control, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey. Jaworski, J. F. and Report, B.

J. (2001) e-Commerce, McGraw-Hill, New York. Porter, M. E. (1985) Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, Collier Macmillan, London. Ries, A.

and Trout, J. (1986) Marketing Warfare, McGraw, Hill. Treacy, M. and W ier sema, F. (1995) The Discipline of Market Leaders, Harper Collins, Glasgow. Seek, D. (1999) Future Your Enterprise, John Wiley& Sons, New York. Tyler, D. (1995) "Spider Spins Web for Women", Courier Mail, 13 April, p. 22.


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