abhishreshthaa
Abhijeet S
Pest Analysis On Bebo : Bebo is a social networking website launched in July 2005. It is owned by Criterion Capital Partners. From March 2008 to June 2010 it was owned by AOL Inc.
The website's name is an acronym for Blog Early, Blog Often.[4] Users receive a personal profile page where they can post blogs, photographs, music, videos and questionnaires to which other users may answer. Additionally, users may add others as friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.[1]
Bebo was founded by Michael Birch and his wife Xochi Birch in January 2005 at their home in San Francisco.[1]
It was acquired by AOL on March 13, 2008 for $850 million.[5][6] In April 2010, AOL announced it was planning to sell or shut down Bebo,[7] with the sale being completed on June 17, 2010 to Criterion Capital Partners for an undisclosed sum[8]. It has been reported that the sale raised less than $10 million[9].
Bebo is similar to other social networking sites. Each profile must include two specific modules, a comment section where other users can leave a message, and a list of the user's friends. Users can select from many more modules to add. By default, when an account is created the profile is private, which limits access to friends specifically added. The user may select the "Public Profile" option so as the profile will still be visible to any other members of a school they may have joined. Profiles may be personalized by a design template that is the background of the user's profile, known as a skin.
Profiles may include quizzes which offer multiple choice, polls for their friends to vote in and comment on, photo albums which allows the user to upload an unlimited number of images with a maximum limit of 48 per album, blogs with a comments section, a list of bands of which the user is a fan, a list of groups that the user is a member of. A 'Video Box' may be added, either hot-linked from YouTube, uploaded directly to Bebo's servers via Motionbox or copied from a Bebo Media Content Provider's page.
Members can view the recent changes friends have made to their homepage from the 'Home' menu. These changes can include uploaded photos, updated flashboxes and newly added videos and friends. A friend's updates to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and other services can also be viewed, if those friends have linked those accounts to their Bebo profile. A map feature enables members to see who has being viewing their profile. However, the viewer must be logged in while viewing and have their profile set to public in the map section, in order for this to be possible.
Finding new markets may not guarantee success for the firm. A firm can also achieve growth in developing markets. Market development strategy involves developing new markets by duplicating the business operation, with minor adaptive changes. The firm can undertake a market expansion strategy. In market expansion, the same expertise and technology and sometimes even the same plant and operations facility can be used. There is therefore potential synergy and resulting reductions in investments and operating costs. Geographic expansion may involve changing from regional operation to a national operation, moving into another region, or expanding to another country (Proctor 2000).
The expansion of Zara in Europe, South America and Asia requires a more developed and well-managed supply chain. In order to make the expansion strategy effective the company must further develop its supply chain management process. In order to strengthen the company’s supply chain management, Zara can make use of different strategies where necessary. These strategies include Total Quality Management and Quick Response. These strategies do not aim to replace Zara’s supply chain processes but to enhance and support the company’s already effective supply chain.
1. Total Quality Management
The idea of total quality management (TQM) emphasizes planning for quality, including designing the product in such a way that consistent quality is more easily obtained and more easily measured. The impetus for a company to devote significantly more resources to quality through a TQM program comes from a trend that most companies are now experiencing – an increased competitive pressure that leads to higher costs associated with poor quality. The product must be designed in such a way that it can be produced consistently without losing sight of the design aspects demanded by the customer. The production process must be designed with quality in mind (Summers 1998).
2. Quick Response
Quick Response (QR), a program developed by textile and apparel manufacturers and retailers around 1985 as a way to cope with problems challenging the apparel industry, uses a combination of strategies to reduce inventory levels, improve merchandise quality, increase worker productivity, increase stock turnover, and reduce merchandise markdowns and inventory costs. Fundamentally, QR is a way to gather information about consumer preferences and to reflect them in production decisions in a timely manner. To comply with consumers’ needs, QR relies on sales data. Through computerized information systems, sales data are transmitted and transformed as useful information that reveals consumers’ preferences and reactions, and decisions are then made promptly to respond to what consumers want (Kang and Sullivan, 1999).
The QR strategy links all activity to real time demand. It is customized by the individual retailer or manufacturer and is particularly suited to small and medium-sized firms. It is designed to be context specific and to be contingent upon the setting. Quick Response as an operations strategy is designed to overcome the impact of seasonality in operations.
The website's name is an acronym for Blog Early, Blog Often.[4] Users receive a personal profile page where they can post blogs, photographs, music, videos and questionnaires to which other users may answer. Additionally, users may add others as friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.[1]
Bebo was founded by Michael Birch and his wife Xochi Birch in January 2005 at their home in San Francisco.[1]
It was acquired by AOL on March 13, 2008 for $850 million.[5][6] In April 2010, AOL announced it was planning to sell or shut down Bebo,[7] with the sale being completed on June 17, 2010 to Criterion Capital Partners for an undisclosed sum[8]. It has been reported that the sale raised less than $10 million[9].
Bebo is similar to other social networking sites. Each profile must include two specific modules, a comment section where other users can leave a message, and a list of the user's friends. Users can select from many more modules to add. By default, when an account is created the profile is private, which limits access to friends specifically added. The user may select the "Public Profile" option so as the profile will still be visible to any other members of a school they may have joined. Profiles may be personalized by a design template that is the background of the user's profile, known as a skin.
Profiles may include quizzes which offer multiple choice, polls for their friends to vote in and comment on, photo albums which allows the user to upload an unlimited number of images with a maximum limit of 48 per album, blogs with a comments section, a list of bands of which the user is a fan, a list of groups that the user is a member of. A 'Video Box' may be added, either hot-linked from YouTube, uploaded directly to Bebo's servers via Motionbox or copied from a Bebo Media Content Provider's page.
Members can view the recent changes friends have made to their homepage from the 'Home' menu. These changes can include uploaded photos, updated flashboxes and newly added videos and friends. A friend's updates to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and other services can also be viewed, if those friends have linked those accounts to their Bebo profile. A map feature enables members to see who has being viewing their profile. However, the viewer must be logged in while viewing and have their profile set to public in the map section, in order for this to be possible.
Finding new markets may not guarantee success for the firm. A firm can also achieve growth in developing markets. Market development strategy involves developing new markets by duplicating the business operation, with minor adaptive changes. The firm can undertake a market expansion strategy. In market expansion, the same expertise and technology and sometimes even the same plant and operations facility can be used. There is therefore potential synergy and resulting reductions in investments and operating costs. Geographic expansion may involve changing from regional operation to a national operation, moving into another region, or expanding to another country (Proctor 2000).
The expansion of Zara in Europe, South America and Asia requires a more developed and well-managed supply chain. In order to make the expansion strategy effective the company must further develop its supply chain management process. In order to strengthen the company’s supply chain management, Zara can make use of different strategies where necessary. These strategies include Total Quality Management and Quick Response. These strategies do not aim to replace Zara’s supply chain processes but to enhance and support the company’s already effective supply chain.
1. Total Quality Management
The idea of total quality management (TQM) emphasizes planning for quality, including designing the product in such a way that consistent quality is more easily obtained and more easily measured. The impetus for a company to devote significantly more resources to quality through a TQM program comes from a trend that most companies are now experiencing – an increased competitive pressure that leads to higher costs associated with poor quality. The product must be designed in such a way that it can be produced consistently without losing sight of the design aspects demanded by the customer. The production process must be designed with quality in mind (Summers 1998).
2. Quick Response
Quick Response (QR), a program developed by textile and apparel manufacturers and retailers around 1985 as a way to cope with problems challenging the apparel industry, uses a combination of strategies to reduce inventory levels, improve merchandise quality, increase worker productivity, increase stock turnover, and reduce merchandise markdowns and inventory costs. Fundamentally, QR is a way to gather information about consumer preferences and to reflect them in production decisions in a timely manner. To comply with consumers’ needs, QR relies on sales data. Through computerized information systems, sales data are transmitted and transformed as useful information that reveals consumers’ preferences and reactions, and decisions are then made promptly to respond to what consumers want (Kang and Sullivan, 1999).
The QR strategy links all activity to real time demand. It is customized by the individual retailer or manufacturer and is particularly suited to small and medium-sized firms. It is designed to be context specific and to be contingent upon the setting. Quick Response as an operations strategy is designed to overcome the impact of seasonality in operations.
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