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Sunday, April 20, 2008
Panasonic Case study
Chapter 6: Case Study
2. Business performance and ability to execute its strategy
Panasonic product offerings and business operations spanned across the globe with several manufacturing units, sales divisions and administrative offices located in various countries and regions. Panasonic’s worldwide operations with fragmented office units each with its own IT applications that worked discretely from the rest of the company resulted in their product and customer data being inconsistent, duplicate and or incomplete
The different sources and versions of data impacted operational efficiency negatively and the company had to spend a lot more time and money to deal with these data inconsistencies.
Prices of new technology offerings and products decrease over a time and in order to maintain profit margins it was very critical that Panasonic reduce operational costs and increase sales growth.
For a successful product launch all of the product data such as product photo, manuals, pricing data and point of sale marketing information have to be rolled out with high accuracy, consistency within short time periods.
Data movement through legacy systems, fax machines, e-mail, phone calls and regular mail made data management vulnerable to inefficiencies and inaccuracies.
The current disparity in its organization, application systems and data management caused greater time and effort to create data for launching products globally which gave an advantage for competitors to infiltrate markets and eat into the potential Panasonic customer base.
3. Panasonic decided to follow a single source data repository system for its enterprise by implementing master-data-management (MDM) software from IBM’s Web sphere line of system. MDM software aims to merge disparate records into one authenticated master file. MDM helped to fix discrepancies among the databases used by various departments, consolidate data as well as systematize the business processes related to the data.
The service layer of the MDM maintains the integrity of the master data and synchronizes updates to the master file.
The deployment of the IBM MDM software paid dividends within its first year and half. Panasonic was able to get products to the market faster and spend 50 % less time creating and maintaining product information. Time to market for a product was reduced from five to six months to one to two months. Panasonic Europe improved its efficiency by a factor of 5 and anticipated sales increase by 3.5 %.
2. Business performance and ability to execute its strategy
Panasonic product offerings and business operations spanned across the globe with several manufacturing units, sales divisions and administrative offices located in various countries and regions. Panasonic’s worldwide operations with fragmented office units each with its own IT applications that worked discretely from the rest of the company resulted in their product and customer data being inconsistent, duplicate and or incomplete
The different sources and versions of data impacted operational efficiency negatively and the company had to spend a lot more time and money to deal with these data inconsistencies.
Prices of new technology offerings and products decrease over a time and in order to maintain profit margins it was very critical that Panasonic reduce operational costs and increase sales growth.
For a successful product launch all of the product data such as product photo, manuals, pricing data and point of sale marketing information have to be rolled out with high accuracy, consistency within short time periods.
Data movement through legacy systems, fax machines, e-mail, phone calls and regular mail made data management vulnerable to inefficiencies and inaccuracies.
The current disparity in its organization, application systems and data management caused greater time and effort to create data for launching products globally which gave an advantage for competitors to infiltrate markets and eat into the potential Panasonic customer base.
3. Panasonic decided to follow a single source data repository system for its enterprise by implementing master-data-management (MDM) software from IBM’s Web sphere line of system. MDM software aims to merge disparate records into one authenticated master file. MDM helped to fix discrepancies among the databases used by various departments, consolidate data as well as systematize the business processes related to the data.
The service layer of the MDM maintains the integrity of the master data and synchronizes updates to the master file.
The deployment of the IBM MDM software paid dividends within its first year and half. Panasonic was able to get products to the market faster and spend 50 % less time creating and maintaining product information. Time to market for a product was reduced from five to six months to one to two months. Panasonic Europe improved its efficiency by a factor of 5 and anticipated sales increase by 3.5 %.
The Next Wave of Business Analytics
Article:
The Next Wave of Business Analytics. By: Veset, Dan; McDonough, Brian. DM Review, Mar2007, Vol. 17 Issue 3, p20-22, 3p; (AN 25155923)
The article gives insight on a survey conducted on Business Intelligence (BI) in 2006.BI helps users and firms make better business decisions utilizing database query, reporting and online analytical processing (OLAP) technologies.
The article discusses Business Analytics (BA) which is the next wave in BI.BA includes tools and applications for tracking ,storing ,analyzing ,modeling and delivering data in support of automating decision making and reporting processes.
The article talks about the BI market progression in 15 year cycles. From 1975 to 1990 firms relied on large mainframes for its reporting needs. From 1990 to 2005 saw the beginning of client server based BI to Web based acrchitecture. The new wave of BA will last till 2020.
BA projects can include a broad range of software across a technology stack, including data integration, data warehouse management and various analytic applications and BI tools.
The article also suggest emergence of open source BI software with simpler reporting functions and subscription based BA software.
Overall the article talks about the increasing need of BA and its growing importance across industries. IT departments would face the growing demand of end user BA needs and develop software services that will help faster and better business decision making.
The Next Wave of Business Analytics. By: Veset, Dan; McDonough, Brian. DM Review, Mar2007, Vol. 17 Issue 3, p20-22, 3p; (AN 25155923)
The article gives insight on a survey conducted on Business Intelligence (BI) in 2006.BI helps users and firms make better business decisions utilizing database query, reporting and online analytical processing (OLAP) technologies.
The article discusses Business Analytics (BA) which is the next wave in BI.BA includes tools and applications for tracking ,storing ,analyzing ,modeling and delivering data in support of automating decision making and reporting processes.
The article talks about the BI market progression in 15 year cycles. From 1975 to 1990 firms relied on large mainframes for its reporting needs. From 1990 to 2005 saw the beginning of client server based BI to Web based acrchitecture. The new wave of BA will last till 2020.
BA projects can include a broad range of software across a technology stack, including data integration, data warehouse management and various analytic applications and BI tools.
The article also suggest emergence of open source BI software with simpler reporting functions and subscription based BA software.
Overall the article talks about the increasing need of BA and its growing importance across industries. IT departments would face the growing demand of end user BA needs and develop software services that will help faster and better business decision making.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Chapter 4 case Study
The increased surveillance power and capability of the U.S government definitely presents an ethical dilemma. One hand it helps the government catch in advance organizations and individuals that plan to harm society and destruct lives within its boundaries. It also helps the government plan better for impending danger within its soil. On the other hand the surveillance mechanism treats many innocent people as potential threats and directly intrudes into the privacy of many of its citizens. It is very frustrating for a person to note that somebody is listening to his conversations within his own house/country and he does not have freedom of privacy. The following five-step process helps analyze the issue of U.S government’s use of telecommunications data to fight terrorism. a> Identify & describe clearly the facts: In May, 2006 USA today reported that 3 of the 4 major United States landline telecommunications companies had cooperated with the US government in its fight against terrorism by sharing information of billions of phone calls made by Americans. This was clearly an intrusion into personal privacy of citizens who were oblivious of the fact that someone was listening to their phone conversations. b> Define the conflict or dilemma and identify the higher-order values involved The moral dilemma involved the need to protect citizens from terrorist’s acts versus the need to protect individual privacy c> Identify stakeholders – The stakeholders in this issue would be the US government, Citizens, privacy advocates, judiciary d> Identify the options that you can reasonably take The 3 options available are I> Use the existing surveillance power and capabilities to keep track of terrorist groups and their activities. II> completely stop this program III> Use the surveillance program on specific suspicious individuals based on a judicial approval e> Identify the potential consequences of your opinions Option 1 helps the government have better controls in its national security matters and helps identify threats to the nation before it rolls out as a disaster. On the flip this options intrudes personal privacy which as a citizen each one has a right to personal freedom of speech and association. Option 2 satisfies the privacy advocates and the citizens but may create a security loop hole wherein terrorist activities may go unnoticed Option 3 strikes a balance between both the key stake holders to this issue i.e. the US government and the privacy advocates / citizens who deem their personal privacy rights. The responsibility of the phone companies is primarily to protect the privacy of their customers. At the least the phone companies should have released a disclaimer to their customers stating that is a possibility of the telephone lines used by its customers may be subject to monitoring by government agencies and that they do not guarantee privacy protection. This type of informed consent could have better protected the company’s social and ethical standards. Phone companies working with the government in this fashion stir a lot of political issues. Companies that need to abide by government enforcements and legal decisions often need to reevaluate their ethical conduct and standards. Customers who trust the company that they deal with all of a sudden are exposed to the company’s unethical practices and are morally cheated. Moreover governments become weak and unstable when such anti trust laws are broken by the very keepers of law and governance.
Block Buster Vs Netflix Case study
Block Buster Vs Netflix Case study Blockbuster entered the movie rental business in 1985. Blockbuster business model consisted of independent store locations serviced each of which serviced the local population in the surrounding neighborhood. They also offered in store video sales apart from the video rentals. In the first 20 years of business they opened 9100 stores in 25 countries. By 2004 Blockbuster had 40 % of the US market share estimated to range from $7 billion to $9 billion per year in sales and around $16 billion in video sales. 2. New market entrants that differentiated their services by offering video rentals more conveniently challenging Blockbuster’s traditional mom-and-pop-style stores. Customers could select their rentals via Netflix internet portal and these DVD’s were mailed to customer via postal service. Netflix customers had access to thousands of movie titles without leaving their homes. Netflix did not have any cost incurred to buy and maintain local stores in cities and also their reach to customers was limitless. The online video rentals business strategy has destroyed many local video rental stores and also dampened sales of DVD’s across major electronic retail giants. The revenues for online movie rentals which were non existent in 1998 rose to $522 million in 2004.Netflix increased its sales and its subscription model became popular which helped them gain a market share from 2 to 7% from 2003 to 2007. The entry of Netflix was a cause of concern for Blockbuster and they addressed the competitive market place by launching their own online rental store and a monthly subscription service for in store customers. 5. It is very hard to predict the success for both Blockbuster as well as Netflix given their existing business model. Rapid technology advancements are changing the way we can access movies and music and has made the future of video rental very unpredictable. Many cable operators offer video on demand technology that offer movies and programs that are not yet made available on DVD. Several cable companies like Dish Network and Dish TV provide video recording technology that would make DVD rentals obsolete. Moreover with Apple’s success with Itunes store where one could download music for a small fee is considering to add movies at a flat rate pricing model. There are also several firms that sell movie downloads through their websites. Amazon.com the world’s largest online retailer has entered the online movie rental service in United Kingdom. Many new entrants already have a large customer base and robust technology to support their business strategies which makes the survival of Blockbuster and Netflix questionable in the long term.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Week 3 Article: The Rising Price of Privacy
Article Reference:
Title: The Rising Price of Privacy. By: Smith, Steve, EContent, 15252531, Apr2008, Vol. 31, Issue 3
Database: Business Source Premier
Summary: The article discusses how the online companies intrude online privacy without the consumer’s knowledge and use this data for new business generation, marketing campaigns etc. The attitude of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also has been very callous and failed to regulate and enforce strict guidelines with regards to behavioral targeting.
Consumers are more concerned of online theft and fraud and are less worried about websites tracking their online behavior and sharing that information across platforms.
Some advocacy groups have recommended to FTC that monitoring user behavior thru websites should be deemed unfair trade practice because many of the users are unaware that their online movements are being profiled.
The authors warns that before the privacy issues multiply and create a big concern, consumers need to act and recommend strict guidelines to be enforced by governments and industries.
The article talks about the ethical and moral dimensions as discussed in chapter 4.
In my opinion this article gets us to the next big questions namely
Which is about the unknown profiling happening without our knowledge?
What other technology improvements and advances are being used by companies to monitor consumer behavior?
And
How much of our likes and dislikes is being monitored and shared across industries and applications?
Title: The Rising Price of Privacy. By: Smith, Steve, EContent, 15252531, Apr2008, Vol. 31, Issue 3
Database: Business Source Premier
Summary: The article discusses how the online companies intrude online privacy without the consumer’s knowledge and use this data for new business generation, marketing campaigns etc. The attitude of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also has been very callous and failed to regulate and enforce strict guidelines with regards to behavioral targeting.
Consumers are more concerned of online theft and fraud and are less worried about websites tracking their online behavior and sharing that information across platforms.
Some advocacy groups have recommended to FTC that monitoring user behavior thru websites should be deemed unfair trade practice because many of the users are unaware that their online movements are being profiled.
The authors warns that before the privacy issues multiply and create a big concern, consumers need to act and recommend strict guidelines to be enforced by governments and industries.
The article talks about the ethical and moral dimensions as discussed in chapter 4.
In my opinion this article gets us to the next big questions namely
Which is about the unknown profiling happening without our knowledge?
What other technology improvements and advances are being used by companies to monitor consumer behavior?
And
How much of our likes and dislikes is being monitored and shared across industries and applications?
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