E-commerce

Purpose This paper examines two related articles focused on the interaction of information technology and “structure” in an organization that initiated a “technology-driven” change and continues to adopt and practice an apparent radical business model grossly supported by the current state of information technology.

Considered in this paper are: the points raised by one of the authors of the two articles used in this paper, Wallace (2000), about office design and the degree to which IT can or should drive decisions about the structure and functioning of workplaces; some of the points discussed in the above said two articles regarding technology choices made by certain companies aligned with their corporate philosophy; and the opinion of this writer/student whether <he/she> would enjoy working in a company like the restructured Oticon.

Objective

This paper answers this question: Is Oticon a good model for effectively integrating information technology into the office? Introduction How would one react today to an interviewer’s opening remarks, like this: “No titles. No offices. No paper. ”? Welcome to Oticon—a company that “thrives on chaos”! A company that has demonstrated it is possible to create such an organizational environment and yet capable of producing impressive results. The Oticon organization People at Oticon are “given freedom to do what they want,” quotes LaBarre (1996) of Lars Kolind, the leader of Oticon Holding A/S.

Inside Oticon’s “150-person headquarters” are plenty of workstations, but no one is sitting at them … hardly anyone is sitting anywhere. ” And yet, the signs of “subversion” and “revolution” are manifested in the “quiet chirping of the company’s ‘internal’ mobile telephones; footsteps tapping up and down a three-story circular staircase; the rumble of wheels on hardwood, a signal that employees are moving their ‘offices’ … and forming new self-managed teams.

” The workforce is expected to develop “products twice as fast as anybody else”; however, “not fast on the surface” but rather “fast underneath. ” The company enjoys an enviable record today, like, a “shares … trade for $100 50% above the IPO price. ” All it took to initiate the revival of a “deeply troubled company” was a “four-page memo”a “declaration of dis-organization” aimed at “reinventing the company” forever. The revolutionary leader of Oticon believed a “breakthrough” was needed that required the “combination of technology with audiology, psychology, and imagination.

” Behind this conviction is the “ability to ‘think the unthinkable’ and make it happen. ” People in this kind of organization “would be liberated to grow, personally and professionally, and to become more creative, action-oriented, and efficient,” quotes LaBarre of Kolind (1996). The “formal organization” of Oticon was “abolished. ” “Projects,” but not the typical functionaries that create bureaucracy in an organization, “became the defining unit of work. ” In Oticon “teams form, disband, and form again as the work requires.

Project leaders  compete to attract the resources and people to deliver results. Project owners (members of the company’s 10-person management team) provide advice and support, but make few actual decisions. The company has a hundred or so projects at any one time, and most people work on several projects at once. It is, essentially, a free market in work,” observes LaBarre (1996). Each project is treated like a “company” itself and the Project Leader can feel like a true “CEO.

” Plenty of “freedom” is allowed; “use of more resources than planned” are not an issue; but “Deadlines are what really matter” in Oticon. The physical environment at Oticon is atypical“uniform mobile workstations consisting of desks without drawers and state-of-the-art networked computers”; “office spaces” are nothing but a space to “park” one’s work tools during a project duration that could be within a “few weeks to several months”; the “environment” reinforces “walking, talking, and acting.

” What enables the maintenance of the delicate balance of “dis-organization” and a highly productive, coordinated, and efficient functioning at Oticon is the number of technologies that support this business environment. One is a technology-based mechanism that allows employees freedom to “move around” without having to “drag lots of paper with them”each morning, people enter the “paper-room” to take their individual mails; scan them; then “throw the originals into a shredder.

” Another is the extensive and mandatory use of “mobile phones”these gadgets are “small, sleek a permanent appendage to the waists of Oticon’s employees. ” A third is a technology that supports “shared creativity”a “large, computer-filled conference room that includes groupware systems for electronic brainstorming and electronic whiteboards connected to videoconferencing equipment,” notes LaBarre (1996). Furthermore, these “tools ‘speed up our intellectual process by a factor of five, We can do in one day what we used to do in one week.

We use them whenever we come to a critical decision-making point. We also use groupware for collective writing of technical manuals. It’s fascinating to watch 10 people simultaneously working on one document” quotes LaBarre of Kolind (1996). But what if people fall back to old habits? Well, when it did prevail in Oticon at one Christmas time, a decisive executive said “I exploded the organization” (LaBarre, 1996). And in a “rare top-down intervention” at Oticon, the CEO “instructed people and teams to relocate based on the time horizons of their projects.

” For example, “Teams devoted to short-term business goals (sales, marketing, customer service) moved to the top floor. People working on medium-term projects (upgrading current products, for example) and long-term research went to the second floor. People focused on technology, infrastructure, and support moved to the first floor,” notes LaBarre (1996). This kind of situation makes Eticon’s business environment a “total chaos,” and “within three hours, over a hundred people had moved,” quotes LaBarre of Kolind (1996).

Finally, LaBarre highlights Eticon as a unique company with this quotation of the company’s CEO: “To keep a company alive, one of the jobs of top management is to keep it dis-organized” (1996). The role of office design in an organization The Eticon case illustrated above demonstrated the successful firm resolve of a CEO to implement a plan that is, to “dis-organize”; however, with the appropriate support mechanisms that is, the adoption of appropriate information technology support base.

LaBarre (1996), however, gives less emphasis on the significant impact of “office design” in the article although a 3-storey “headquarters” edifice implies something although lacking in details. Wallace’s (2000) article rather provides more emphasis on the role and impact of “office design” in today’s organizational and work environments where people, machines, tools, equipment, and various technologies particularly “information” inevitably interact.

“Technology is creating a huge evolution in office design, affecting where, how, when, and what work is done,” writes Wallace (2000). And “companies’ business models and technology needs must be identified for architects and designers to design appropriate solutions. ” Wallace points out that “corporations are investing in people and what makes them more productive including redesigning the office work environment” so that “before moving furniture and walls around, a company must assess its corporate philosophy and either confirm it, rework it, or adopt a new one” (2000).

In presenting the “three basic business philosophies reflected in office design,” Wallace (2000) stresses on a “rank or job title equals square footage” model which implies that the size of offices allocated to employees is based on currently-held position; the other end of this model is the “pay-for-performance”-related philosophy in which the organization is characterized by its “flat”-ness and office space does not really matter much so long as targets are achieved.

In the middle of these two extremes lies the third philosophy which is a mixture of the two extremes that influences the varied designs of office spaces. Another key emphasis of Wallace’s article is that “technology drives new office design. ” Gone are the days when a manager- or a Director-level position, for instance, would be provided with specific office space design. Today, as what Wallace writes, high consideration is given to the integration of technology-based infrastructure in “office designs” like where to strategically place a conference room that is quickly accessible for everyone.

This conference room must also contain all the requisite IT-supported machines, like, phones, video conference boards, projectors, computers and printers, among other. One side bar in Wallace’s entitled is “A Tale of Two (Virtual) Offices. ” It mentions about Oticon, thus: “In spite of the best of intentions and contrary to rumors, the paperless office still hasn’t arrived. Closest to making it a reality is Denmark-based Oticon” (2000). In another side bar in Wallace’s article, the author writes: “Sounds cool, doesn’t it?

Before you consider a paperless office, be forewarned that the reality of going virtual requires more than a top-down management decision” (2000). Wallace (2000) concludes her article with: The past: You were in the office. The present: Your desk is office. The future: You are the office. Conclusion The answer of this student/writer to the question “Is Oticon a good model for effectively integrating information technology into the office? ” is: Yes. However, not all companies in the world are Eticon.

Some key factors are important to be considered the decision-makers; the workforce; the office design; and specific IT-based support mechanisms. This student/writer would enjoy working in a company like the restructured Oticon. If there is Eticon of Denmark, there is also a GE of the US that spurred the creation of its e-Business and influenced global e-commerce from its inception in 1999. GE’s e-Business created a corporate culture known today as “Destroy Your Business” driven by then GE’s CEO, Jack Welch, Jr.

References

1. General Electric Company (2007). GE 2006 Annual Report. Retrieved March 20, 2007 from http://www. ge. com/ar2006/ltr_stakeholders. htm
2. LaBarre, P. (1996). This Organization Is Dis-Organization. In Fastcompany. com Issue 03, p. 77, retrieved on March 19, 2007 from http://www. fastcompany. com/online/03/oticon. html
3. Wallace, M. C. (2000). Complexity of New Office Designs: Thinking Through Your Future Workplace. In Searcher Vol. 8, No. 10, retrieved March 19, 2007 from http://www. infotoday. com/searcher/nov00/wallace. htm

This paper covers the understanding on E-Business, Its architecture and the various E-Business Models that are implemented worldwide effectively with the presence of Internet. Internet has connected the globe in such a way that reaching any customer in any corner of the world is just few clicks away and this has made the concept of E-Commerce and E-Business so successful and effective. To build an effective E-Business application one needs to focus particularly on the e-business architecture at the time of designing and developing the application.

The E-business models are broadly categorised into B2E, B2C and B2B business models which are discussed below in the paper. It also covers in brief the SWOT analysis on the E-Commerce which will enable to highlight the scope areas for the improvement in the e-Commerce industry. Introduction Internet has provided a strong platform to E-Commerce to capture the entire business world very effectively in no time.

With the advancement in technology and efficient research been done on the E-Commerce, its business models and architecture, the security, confidentiality and the authenticity of the transactions been made through internet has also made E-Commerce, a great success. Since, it has become quite handy to target and reach the potential customers across the world with the help of E-Commerce; almost 100% increase in the sales has been observed over the past decade which in itself is a very big achievement to any industry.

Internet has played the role of a great contributor in the establishment of E-business industry and this rapidly growing industry has a promising future ahead as the research and developments are continuously working towards introducing the new and more efficient architectures and models. It is a fact of no surprise that in the present time, transactions worth billions of dollars are been made on daily basis on the internet due to the highly advanced security measures being implemented in the E-commerce. What is E-business?

We all are quite used to hearing this term –E-business in some way or the other in today’s time but what exactly e-business is . E-business is the modern concept of doing business through internet and the various technologies implemented to ensure the security and confidentiality of the transactions been made over the internet. Here, the customer does not pay the bills directly to the vendor and so; it requires either the bank details or the card details to complete the billing transaction which takes quite a number of confidential information from the customer.

Many people define E-commerce and E-business as two separate entities but ideally they both are associated and as e-commerce should be considered a segment of the e-business category only. In the simplest of the terms, E-business is nothing but any particular business being conducted over the internet and we all are very much influenced with the concept of e-business in some way or the other. E-Business Architecture E-business or E-commerce uses Internet as the platform to execute all its services which includes the online payment system too.

Since the customer is required to make the payment to the vendor over the internet by either sharing his bank details or the Debit card/Credit card details it requires lot of security and authenticity as the customer passes very crucial information to the vendor over the internet. This has made it quite important and necessary to have a strong and secured architecture system in the e-commerce development. This industry has seen immense development and advancement in the last two decades which again has made e-business, a flourishing and profit making business.

The concept of online payments has touched the life of everybody either directly or indirectly. We regularly use the online payment services to book the movie tickets, to pay our internet and telephone bills and even when we take the help of airline booking vendors they too use the concept of online payment to book our flight tickets. The most advanced and latest innovations been made in the e-commerce architecture are the outsourcing and cloud computing. Three-tier architecture has dominated web-based solutions. E-Business Models

Based on the mode of execution and the sources involved in the E-commerce, various e-business models are defined which makes it easy to differentiate one model from another. Few business models to name are B2B (Business to business), B2C (Business to customer), B2E (Business to employee). B2G (Business to government), G2B (Government to business), G2G (Government to government), G2C (Government to Citizen), C2C (Consumer to consumer), C2B (Consumer to business) etc. The most common business models which are frequently used are B2B and B2C.

All these models work on the same concept of using internet as the base technology for their implementation and execution. Let’s talk about the two basic models B2C and B2B in brief. B2C or Business-to-consumer as the term defines the activities which are been done in between the vendor serving the business and the consumer who is taking the services from the vendor. For example a person buying a pair of shirts from the vendor in any online store is the appropriate illustration of B2C business model.

B2B or Business-to-business model deals with the transactions been made between the two business vendors like the manufacturer or a commodity and the whole sale vendor. Here both the parties involved come under the business category. SWOT analysis on E-business SWOT Analysis, The strength, Weakness, Opportunity and threat analysis is one of the most effective and appropriate analysis been implemented in any industry to identify the scope of improvement areas and work in the desired direction to achieve the pre defined goals and objectives.

Let’s discuss each one of these elements in brief here. Strengths: The major strength areas in e-business are the various levels o management which makes it feasible to effectively implement the high standards of security required to keep E-business model running successfully. Also, the various levels in the architecture of the e-business models allows the data and the application to run and store separately thus making it possible to avoid any kind of data loss or breach. Languages like PHP and .

Net in the programming world have provided a lot of flexibility to the applications which run over the internet. Weakness: The organizations with the motive to earn the maximum amount of profilt from their e-business have started outsourcing a number of services or applications. One such example would be outsourcing the Domain hosting to some other vendor who is providing this service at very low cost but this might harm the business due to the slow speed of data processing and transaction execution. These affect the security and goodwill of the business.

Opportunities The opportunity associated with the rapidly growing e-business industry is definitely another option to promote the concept of outsourced sharing operations which mutually benefit both the parties to avail better services and that too in quite low cost. It also makes it possible to reduce the cost of operations required to run a business as it does not need the business to be established physically at any place, also reduces the cost of the employees too as most of it is been managed over the internet.

The connectivity and speed of processing of transaction is highly commendable over the internet which is a great factor in itself. Threats: Major threats associated in the e-business model are the security and authenticity of the payment solutions that are used to complete the billing or the payment transaction. This system needs to be built on strong and safe platforms as it processes the confidential information passed from the consumer or customer to the vendor.

Few very common names associated with the merchant payment services are Paypal, SWReg, AlertPay, MoneyBookers etc. Conclusion E-commerce industry has evolved itself in a very short p of time and it regularly keeps on updating itself in terms of the technology been implemented in it which is a healthy sign of development in any industry. The associations been made amongst the vendors have made it quite simple and feasible to do any kind of transactions online in to time and with much ease.

The advanced technologies used in the E-business will definitely promote the concept of online transactions and will surely take this industry to heights which will not only double the sales in just few years but will also provide the boost to the other industries too to adopt the concept of e-business if they have yet not tried it. Recommendations In spite of “e-business’ being quite a new concept, there is already a great amount of experience in design and implementation of e-business initiatives and measurement of their impact.

As firms are seeking to look at the initial and copied online store examples and beyond them to the lesser obvious business areas where a transformation could be brought about by e-business technologies, the need to benchmark the existing e-business experiences has arisen. Along with IBM Global Services, a joint project is being conducted to perform a task whereby e-business initiatives deployed since a long time are being surveyed and their impact is being observed and analyzed.

The objective to be achieved by the survey is breaking down a particular industry into e-business components i. e “building blocks” which can also be seen in initiatives in the other industries as well as functional departments. Identifying, describing and organizing these building blocks help in reusing the same in new initiatives. Building blocks is used as a unit to model the e-business initiatives of a firm rather than its business model which is a term that is often used inconsistently to suggest formulation and analysis of e-business strategies.

Two reasons are present for such a choice. The first reason is that a business model has an invariable link with the situational context-the firm along with its industry. As a result, reapplication of the observed business model without isolation from its context to another firm is difficult. The second reason is that a business model often applies to a whole firm rather than particular e-business initiatives that are undertaken by the firm. . References 1.

Book on “Enterprise Business Architecture-The formal link between strategy and results” by Ralph Whittle and Conrad B. Myrick http://books. google. co. in/books? id=Id89sggCJ38C&dq=e-business+architecture&source=gbs_navlinks_s 2. Korper, S. , Ellis, J. (2001), E-Commerce Book Building the E-Empire. Academic Press, San Diego. 3. Understanding on E business models-http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Electronic_business#Models 4. What is a business Model and its classification http://www. ebusinessmodels. com/

Nowadays, the company operates international shipping from Its e-commerce sites to more than 90 countries and fulfillment centers In Canada, United Kingdom, China and Japan. Once GAP Inc. Introduces their e-commerce; the revenue increases by 22% in year 2010. There are many opportunities to increase the revenue by selling online like expand the market to the global stages. It can be reached to the customer that won’t have Gap Inc. Shop available to their countries. And It also provides 24 hours for customer to buy the products which it makes more convenience for the customer.

Moreover, with the help of website and Internet, the company can get the attention from difference segment of customer by having difference styles In each pages on the website. Also, It will be other means to do the marketing like free shipping worldwide. How does going online impact the cost? Facility – It reduces the cost of building the store in every province and countries in the world. For some area might have only few demands, so it would be better to send the products via shipping the products from DC.

And this way will be able to operates 24 hours, better than normal store that have Limited time to open the store each day. Inventory – It is lowering the inventory cost by keep the inventory in the same places like DC and central Warehouse or risk pooling. This way will be reduce cost in terms f share Inventory and uncertainty demand. Transportation – Normally, Gap Inc. Was using Third party or package carrier to ship the products when the product shipped within US or nearby area with small size like Canada.

And the company has central DC located in the main countries like Japan and China to ship the products within Asia zone. This way, it will be lower their shipping cost by achieving economy of scales. Information – It will be easier to collect the customer Information and the cost to collect it too. The company can collect customers personal information and their buying behavior through the website. This way will be a lot cheaper than do the survey in order to get the information about the customer.

And it will be help to remain the customer loyalty by offer the best deal or service according to the customer history. Is in the middle for both efficiency and responsiveness, which it fit to the firm’s strategy. For responsiveness, the clothes must change the style every season to match the occasion. Also for efficiency, the company is also achieving in some times. Because Gap Inc. Has store available more than 3,000 places. So they can achieve the economy of scales by order with the large volume. Who in the supply chain can extract most value?

In order to achieve the supply chain, the companies have to coordinate to reduce the total cost and maximize their profit. So all of the companies within Supply chain will gain the benefit from doing online business. For example, upstream side, selling the product online will increase the demand. So the supplier produces more products, they can get more money. Downstream side, distributor can reduce holding cost by sharing the inventory and the customer will be more convenient like they don’t have to go out for shopping. It can save transportation cost and time. Is the value to existing players or new entrants?

It would be worthwhile to do e-business for both existing players and new entrants. The benefit that the company can gain from doing business online is more than the cost of doing it. In terms of existing players like Gap Inc. , it is a good way to reach more customers like in difference segment or difference countries. Also, it is easier to collect customer’s information. In terms of new entrants, it would be a great chance for doing the business with lower cost and high value. It takes minimum investment with lower risk because you don’t need to build the store or any facility.

The primary aim is to evaluate the Starbucks website (www. starbucks. com) and the Greenmountaincoffee website (www. greenmountaincoffee. com) to discover the major customer related activities and their support by the latest information technology. Depth evaluation of what services and functions the websites provide to the various levels of customers. The secondary research is about the e-commerce strategy models that have been adopted for effective functioning of the website for the customers. It includes the business models adopted for servicing the customers.

The first section deals with the Starbucks website discussing the services it provides to the clients and the involvement of the business models. The second section takes up Greenmountaincoffee website and the customer related services along with the business models that successfully implement the business models.  The homepage offers a great look  displaying all the services that the company provides and are accessible from online site. The various customer related services can be highlighted as follows:

1. Browse the Coffee catalog: The Link “Our Coffee” provides an insight to all the items and products that are available with the company and can be used by the customers for their choice.
2. Browse store locations: The customers can browse store locations that are near to them. Starbucks is spread in over 27 countries and over 5 continents in the world.
3. Customer service options: In spite of selling coffee, the customers can listen to music, read books, access to local events, access Wireless internet and so on at the coffee parlors at selected locations. These are the additional entertainment options they offer at the parlors for fetching more customers of every length and dimension.
4. Starbucks card: The various offers and gift cards are available for a price. It helps one to avail discounts, whole bean purchase, brewed coffee refills at no cost. One has an option to regulate designing of loyalty card and also take care of the refills and various gift options.
5. Purchase options: The organization has allowed selling of coffee packages over the internet for various groups of customers from individual to institutional customers. It allows customers to use their Credit card, debit card and Paypal options for making any sort of payments.
6. Food service: It also offers food service to various businesses and industry cafeterias, hotels, colleges, healthcare and other centers.
7. Entertainment Services: It also sells Starbucks branded books, music collections, movies and many more.
8. Ancillary services: It also sells brewing equipments, coffee, tea and many more. The store locater search option provides various search facilities for any store within the domain of Starbucks.

E-Commerce Strategies and Business Models

Starbucks cater to individuals at home and also institutions like education centers, colleges and universities, hotels, healthcare units and many more. It has adopted B2B and B2C model for its online strategy. Legal and ethical issues are vital to online success. Building trust and user confidence is essential to our client, respecting consumer privacy and adhering to data protection legislation. “Consumers are extremely concerned about security and privacy on the Internet” (Trepper, 2003).

Starbucks Safe Shopping

Guarantee means customers pay nothing if unauthorized charges are made to their credit cards as a result of shopping at Starbucks. They use secure sockets layer (SSL) technology encrypting all personal information. “Starbucks takes customer fears about security seriously” (Chaffey, 2004) Starbucks makes clear terms of trade and offer warranties/returns policy. They address copyright, patents and trademark protection. It is authorized by VeriSign Inc for the use of SSL certificates for authentication of user’s data and further implies that it is safe.

It is also certified by HackerSafe  which makes sure that enough protection shields is taken into account for safe shopping and information can be trusted as it is displayed for the site. On the web technology side, Active Server pages (ASP) is used for the web pages to exchange information and get the job done. At the server end there is more than one web servers to cater to the business functions namely display of products, promotions on them and their prices, managing the shopping cart, payment system, registration and delivery system, shipment, tracking back of order and many more.

It may use RSS to announce their offers and promotions to web based blogs and news. On the e-commerce side, it has used VeriSign services for protecting data and information exchanged between the sites. It uses a 128-bit SSL certificate to get the job done. The e-commerce transactions can be well protected using the SSL technology (Rayport, 2002). It is very secure for all business deals and offers greater protection for business financial information.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act states that all public business companies should adhere to the new standards established by law for the additional task of supervising all the financial transactions and auditing procedures by the board members. It requires company auditors and financial officials to show independence in auditing and reporting financial reports. On the other hand, US Patriot Act gives the authority strong rights to search for important personal information about people and detain anyone who is suspected of terrorism.

It also expands the Secretary of the Treasury’s rights and authority to regulate financial transactions especially those that involves transactions with foreign individuals and entities. To ensure that everyone is in compliance a set of policies are usually done by the companies that will encourage employees to report anyone who is violating the law and offer them safety while the case is being investigated. An incentive system is sometimes done to maintain independence and ethical behavior within the company.

Web 2. 0. : Definition, Advantages and Disadvantages Formally speaking, Web 2.0 deals with a set of principles and practices that connects and integrates a huge group of sites that demonstrate some of the principles or practices. Web 2. 0 is more likely an advanced way of searching data, sharing files and interacting with other users in the web. An example would be the principle of participation rather than publishing. Web 2. 0 allows interactive communication through blogs where people can freely share ideas and learn in a single system or home page.

By using optimal ways to make systems more efficient and enhance collective intelligence, Web 20 is able to make lives of people more convenient and businesses more cost effective. Unfortunately, Web 2. 0 allows other people to gain easier access to other people’s personal and important information and files leading to file or system hacking and virus transfer. It may also serve as a tool for terrorist and anti law activities due to efficient data accessibility DQ#3: Wi-Fi for M-Commerce Wi-Fi basically stands for “wireless fidelity”. Computers in a Wi-Fi network connect wirelessly to a wireless router that is positioned in an area and is connected to the internet by a DSL modem.

Wi-Fi is said to be very useful because anyone within 200 feet from the access point can gain access to internet. Nowadays, Wi-Fi is being used for small scale computing devices such as PDAs and laptops to aid in efficient business transactions and sharing of files within an area or a company. However, the security of file sharing is one of the main concerns of m-commerce. This is addressed by having a password or authentication key before accessing the Wi-Fi. Since, Wi-Fi technology is continuously improving, cellular phones with office and Wi-Fi capabilities are in demand for people in m-commerce.

Even though laptops are still considered as useful gadgets, Wi-Fi mobile phones are handier and more functional.  Legal and Ethical Considerations in E-Commerce Like other businesses, e-commerce also has ethical and legal considerations that guide entrepreneurs in achieving a successful business. Ethical considerations include the independence, integrity, honesty, and dignity of data establishers, data users and other people involved in e-commerce. Trust is very essential among business relationship and it can only be done through proper ethical behavior and clean business transactions.

In accordance, legal considerations include data privacy, security in sharing files and information, validity of contracts and business transactions and technology use. To ensure information security in e-commerce, a password protected database can be established in which all users can gain access only through their assigned password which will consist of several combinations of letters and numbers. The database will ask for the password every time before any transactions is made like file sharing, data retrieving, etc. For higher security, passwords will be changed monthly and users will be updated immediately.

This is an analysis of a case study on Longcloud Lamb Company. The analysis is based on segmentation from both a macro and micro level. The analysis is important as it enables one to understand the market and operations of the company. This case study gives details on the global market of the company and proposed improvements. Discussion Macro-segmentation Longcloud Lamb Company can be classified in accordance with macro segmentation with regard to its global market. France, Germany and Britain are the main European markets of the company’s organic lamb and goat products. The USA is the subsequent market following the European Union.

Smaller markets on a global context for the company’s products are North Africa, India, the Middle East and fragmented Latin America. The company has managed to have a measurable market as indicated by the fact that its market can be easily identified and accounted for. Despite the fact that Longcloud Lamb is still a young company, it has managed to establish links with the world outside New Zealand. The company has managed to establish five export partners in Japan and the USA. In addition, it has local 32 customers who buy the company’s products on a regular basis in both countries.

E-commerce has enhanced accessibility to these international markets. Clients can place orders and make orders through the internet. Within seven years of operation, the company is satisfied with its exponential progress with regard to demand growth. The company’s phenomenal growth shows that the company benefits from substantial profit since growth is always associated with gains. However, the company is still bent on improving its global market. In addition, there are plans for recouping costs that have been incurred during acquisition of new lands. There are plans to increase stock as well.

The company is still aimed at upgrading its processing plant to meet up with USDA and EU certification and Halal capability (Case study of Longcloud Lamb Company). Micro-Segmentation According to micro-segmentation, Longcloud Lamb Company is specially based in New Zealand where it specializes in the sale of frozen and chilled goat and lamb products. Due to improved technology, the company is now able to sell its products to customers on an individual level across the globe. Sarah, the marketing director of the company was focused on capturing a wider market.

With the use of an e-commerce that was not language biased, Sarah proposed that the company would capture the niche market. The niche market includes organic restaurants, religious organizations, schools and non-profit organizations. Language has always been used as the main screening criteria. French and Arabic are the languages that are to be used for the e-commerce of the company in addition to English. It was argued that customers were more comfortable while carrying out transactions while using their own language instead of the more official English language.

As argued by Sarah, the use of these extra languages in addition to English will also contribute to the growth of the company in terms of lambskin and wool products. This is the company’s medium goal (Case study of Longcloud Lamb Company). Conclusion Longcloud Lamb Company is still a young company and despite this fact, it has realized exponential growth. This is attributed to the fact that it has a wide market base from across the world. This case study is a clear demonstration of the importance of a measurable, stable and wide market for a company’s products.  Reference Case study of Longcloud Lamb Company.

D AP World History Theme Analysis Our world is impacted by many things. Social structures, politics, economics, the environment, and our interactions affect how we live. They create the history of our world. In Nectar in a Sieve, many of these themes are represented. Gender roles and relations have always had an impact in societies. Men often believe they have the upper hand over women. It shows in the way females are treated. When Rumi was married to Nathan, she had to leave her family and go to his land.

He didn’t have to live where show comfortable or on a neutral territory. Young women are often uprooted from their family and rarely see them again. When Ira had a child out of wedlock, she was looked down upon by many. However when a man does the same, there is no judgment and criticism. Nate impregnated Kunthi twice yet Rumi took him back without a problem (p. 84-85) Agricultural and pastoral productions are the center of life for millions of humans. The same can be said for the characters in Nectar in a Sieve.

In the village, farming is how most survive. They live off the land. Without the land, there’s no income or food. They sell their crops, give their profit to the landlord, and save a portion of the crops for their families. Rumi and Nathan grow a variety of crops. When nature doesn’t work in their favor, their lives become difficult. Often the crops are ruined by droughts. During these times everyone struggles to survive. Rumi’s family became malnourished when the rains didn’t deliver. Her son, Kuti died from starvation. p. 99-100) The importance of the land is shown when they lose their land and homelessness is forced upon them. (p. 130-135) Land represented hope for Rumi. (p. 132) Without agriculture, the villagers would not survive. Trade and commerce is one of the main ways humans gain what they need. In Nectar in a Sieve, trade controls who has what and who survives. The tannery is the center of commerce. Villagers come to buy and bargain. As the years past, Rumi watches the tannery change, for worst in her opinion.

It becomes harder to sell, trade, and buy because the economics of village change as new people move in. The tannery is looked at as the place of money so two of her sons get jobs there. Rumi resents the tannery because it represents change that she feels is not needed. Although themes look complicated on paper, they fit perfectly into our world and the world in Nectar in a Sieve. Male and females have double standards. Agriculture is the basis of life and survival in the village. Trade and commerce help villagers make money and get necessities to survive. These themes translate into real life.