Technology Helps Starbucks Find New Ways to Compete Essay

1. conk out Starbucks subroutine the competitive forces and value chain mannequins. The milieu in which the specialty drinking chocolate fabrication had to compete during the 2008 was made up of cheaper fast food chain and global frugal follow throughturn. Compare with McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks offers a unique experience in high spirits-end specialty javas and beverages, friendly and knowledgeable servers, and node-friendly burnt umber shops. However much and more guests complain that the Starbucks lost their hip and topical anesthetic feel. Under this circumstance, the red-hotly entrants are much more easy to land the specialty coffee bean area, beca practise Starbucks would generally lost their specialty in coffee industry, and coffee industry does non put a high agio on economies of scale. The primary shift products posing a potential nemesis to specialty coffee were the caffeinated soft drinks produced by Pepsi and Coca-Cola. Competitors uni form Pepsi and Coca-Cola offered beverages, which had the caffeine essential in specialty coffee, at signifi after parttly lower prices. (Quelch, 2006) Since the taste of the customers neer discount, Starbuck need to refine their product and gain quality. Moreover, with the development of the engineering, Starbuck customers would require profound IT survive during their consumption. Thus the suppliers of Starbucks has branched bug out to app suppliers and IT industry suppliers. In enact to moot with the profits plunge in 2008, Starbucks decide to overhaul its affair using in fund engineering, aggressive product differentiation outline and lean their management and working processions.By using the in store technology, Starbucks district managers can do most of their work sitting at a table in one of the stores they oversee. To kick upstairs human resource, Starbucks created a 10-person lean team whose job is to travel the country visiting franchises and teach them in lea n techniques made famous by automaker Toyotas production system. To save the time the employee to make a drink, Starbuck set out to streamline the traffic processes used in each of its stores so that baristas do not need to bend down to scoop coffee, cutting down on idle time while waiting for coffee to drain, and purpose ways to reduce the amount of time each employee spends making a drink. Thanks to the improvement of technology, human resource, procurement and firm infrastructure, Starbucks elevated their take over activities and expend their margin.2. What isStarbucks stock strategy? Assess the role played by technology in this business strategy. First, the company has revamped its in-store technology and sought to unify its business processes with wireless technology and the winding digital platform. Also, rather than model the practices of competitors, Starbucks pursued a more aggressive product differentiation strategy, intend to emphasize the high quality of its bever ages and efficient and helpful customer service. At the like time, however, Starbucks also focused on becoming lean, like many of its competitors, eliminating inefficiency wherever possible. 3. How much has technology helped Starbucks compete? pardon your answer. The technology helped Starbucks increase the in-store presence of district managers by25 percent without adding any extra managers. And the use of digital mobile platform and Wi-Fi make Starbucks welcome among customers.In fulfill1. What functions are provided by the Web site?The sack upsite of Starbucks provides their company cultures, coffee visiblenesss, coffee house, responsibility, card and deals, online shops and on-line customer service. 2. How does the Web site subscribe to Starbucks business strategy? The web site provide on-line coffee house to give their customers more than their expected, the music WI-FI community provide the entertainment, on-line community and IT support all together. At the same time, the coffee profile and menu institute the diversity of their products and service.Burton Snowboards Speeds Ahead with Nimble BusinessProcesses 1. Analyze Burton using the value chain and competitive forces models. From the competitive forces point, Burton controlled almost half(a) of the market at its peak, that is to say the barrier for the new entrants to this industry is muteness high, because Burton has occupied most market, and the way to compete with Burton means large economic scale investment. And the core techniques of Burton had been refined for years. If the new entrants want to break the predominance of Burton, they should have much more edgy management and skills. Same rules, the brat of substitute production is low. While its market power of suppliers is stable, because material of snowboard is wideand the component of snowboard is relative exclusive and the manufacture technique provide not face fluctuant revolution. On the other hand, customers require more an d more alter and delicate service, especially for the young customers who would ask for more personal designs. To enhance the value chain, Burton snowboard need to add technology support, improve its systems for inventory, supply chain, purchasing, and customer service. In the past, Burtons selective culture systems were a hodgepodge of inconsistently apply and underutilized software. The company had to manually allocate product to customers and orders. barely now, Burton applied pirate flag Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software to resolve problems this way without adding new layers of complexity to its IT infra-structure, and the company gained proficiency with SAP enterprise software in the process. For the primary activities, since Burton revamped their selective information and order system, Burtons inbound logistics and outbound logistics experience much more scientific and effective. Therefore, the dealers reorder with Burton to replenish their stock or to buy new products.2. Why the business processes are described in this eluding such an important source of competitive advantage for Burton? Because Burton wanted to speed up this process so that its dealers and retail customers would have more precise information about the availability of products not currently in stock. 3. Explain exactly how these process improvements enhance Burtons operational transaction and decision making? SAP analysts helped Burton identify the top five minutes that were the most critical to busi-ness operations and that needed optimization from a systems standpoint. separate processes in need of improvement included the order-to-cash process (receiving and processing customer sales, including order entry, fulfillment, distribution, and payment) the handling of overdue purchase orders in the procure-to-pay process, which consists of all the step from purchasing goods from a supplier to paying the supplier and the electronic data interchange (EDI) inventory feed extract transactionIn exertion1. What is the purpose of this Web site? How does it support the companys goals? The web site is aimed to achieve product advertisement, Prospect generation, Direct sales, Business-to-business sales, Customer support and Education. Burton set a concise and bring inive web site to attract customersto drill down into the culture of the product and the company so that to show their product confidence as well as their humanistic service.2. What functions at this Web site are related to the business processes discussed in this case? How did improving those processes impact the Web site? The website displays all Burton stores on it to demand customers for a better shopping. Also, the website provide Help column to deal with techniques problems and service reflection. Since the website opens on-line shopping channel, the order information can processed flat in their ERP system .Will Technology Save the Publishing persistence?1. Evaluate the impact of the network on newspaper and give-and-take publishers using the value chain and competitive forces models. When the information dynasty comes, publish industry, the torch confirm of civilization, has to facing the big revolution. As a pass way to throw in the towel knowledge and news, publishing industrys competitors are television, radio, and theaters and so on. But now the powerful new entrant internet, is driving publishing industry to a digital division. Instead of traditional paper based book and newspaper, the e-book is a much more popular substitute products. At the same time, suppliers are pursuing a higher margin between high cost printed publications and low cost e-publications. And more and more your readers prefer to use electric devices to read books and newspapers.2. How are newspapers and book publishers changing their business models to deal with the Internet and e-book technology? One plectrum is to share revenue with Internet partners such as Google and Yahoo. A nother is to charge fees for newspaper content delivered to new reading devices, including smartphones, e-readers, iPads, and tablets, which enable online newspapers to be read everywhere. A third option is to charge fees for premium news and opinion. But because advertising remains a major source of revenue, the newspapers must clearly figure out how to get down their online revenue fast enough to offset their losses from print advertising.3. How can newspaper and book publishers take better advantage of the Internet? What will it take for them to benefit from e-books? Explain your answer. Publishing companies have begun investing more resources in the Kindle and iPad as delivery platforms for their books and less money in traditional delivery platforms, like print news and bound books. by this digital platform, publishers can win thenew channel to sale publications as well as win back their ad sponsors.4. Will technology be able to save the newspaper and book publishing industri es? Explain your answer. Yes, technology will provide a new way to publishers which is publishing through digital information system such as e-readers, ipad, mobile devices and on the internet. The essential meaning of publishing industry is still brisk, precisely the outer form changed.DEFINITIONBPR This radical rethinking and redesign of business processes is called business process reengineering (BPR).BPM Business process management (BPM) is an approach to business which aims to continuously improve business processes. Disruptive technologies disruptive technologies are substitute products that perform as well or better than anything currently produced. appraise Chain ModelThe value chain model highlights specific activities in the business where competitive strategies can best be applied (Porter, 1985) and where information systems are most likely to have a strategic impact. This model identifies specific, critical leverage points where a firm can use information technology mos t effectively to enhance its competitive position.