Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Compare and discuss contrast Essay Example for Free

Compare and discuss contrast Essay 1. Launched non-complete version of their website. Consumers get very annoyed when the e-commerce website they are trying to shop does not work. In software related commerce, one of the biggest complaints from users is insufficient testing for bugs before marketing to the public. 2. Annoying pop-up windows and Cumbersome Interface The multiple pop-ups further slowed down user download times and took away the sense of user control. When making a purchase most consumers prefer to make their own decision without pressure from pushy salesmen. From personal experience, most consumers prefer to seek out information as needed instead of having it pop up in another window. 3. Miss Boo, Shopping Assistant This virtual shopping assistant seemed crazy. Why did Miss Boo say Tie me up, tie me down in a shoe that looks like its been attacked? This irrational verbiage symbolized the dementia in design that was systemic in the website. When the company icon/mascot says irrational things it reduces consumer confidence in the products and services provided in the website. 4. Usability In Boo.com case, there was a big disconnection between the bandwidth required to run the website multimedia and actual bandwidth of average consumers. Consumers simply did not have the bandwidth to shop at Boo. com, or the right program (Macromedia Flash) to load the images. People were not ready for the excessive graphics, movies, audio, and video. * Unable to alter customer buying behavior Boo. com was unable to attract customers in large numbers, nor was it able to generate a sufficient level of repeat customer from the small number of clients that did use its services. Few people are happy to buy clothes without first trying them on, which represented a fundamental problem for Boo. D. What could Boo. com have done differently that might made it a success? * Technology First Solutions The technology that was supposed to power Boo. com did not work. As with everything else, the concept for its Web site was extraordinarily ambitious, with complex global distribution and multiple currencies and dazzling interactive features. And it was to have been built from scratch, something the technology team came to realize was difficult, if not impossible. Management spending was unprecedented for a dot. com. By the time the site was supposed to go live in May 1999, Boo. com had run up a $600,000 bill from Hill Knowlton, the companys public relations firm, mostly for setting up lunches with fashion editors for the founders. Hill Knowlton threatened to stop working for Boo. com because the firm was not paid on time. Ms. Leander, a former Elite model who was also Boo. coms marketing chief, hired Roman Coppola, Francis Ford Coppolas son, to direct the companys TV ads, featuring nerdy young people in urban chic clothing, which were part of a $42 million campaign for the big introduction. That included $25 million worth of advertising in magazines, newspapers, and billboards. Many employees said they received a mobile phone, a Palm hand-held device and an American Express card. Salaries were high for a dot-com on the make. III. Compare and discuss contrast between Staples. com Boo. com Usability It has been obvious from day one on the Web that what people want is fast downloading, information rich websites. Speed is a critical factor that drives Web usage. When people come to a website they are invariably looking for information. They dont want to hang around. They dont want to be left waiting. The best website is the one that gets them the right content fastest. In general, usability was a big issue for Boo. Consumers did not have the bandwidth to shop at Boo. com, or the right program (Macromedia Flash) to load the images. During then, the common folk were not ready for the excessive graphics, movies, audio, and video. Also, the annoyance of Miss Boo, their online helper, also detracted people from shopping at Boo. com. As more problems arose, Boo forgot about their customers. Staples. com has not committed the same mistake. It has built a portal based on what customer wants, content rich and fast downloading. This was clearly indicated by Staples. com portal recent won of a prestigious award for best business-to-business site from MIMC, the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council. (www. boston. internet. com/news/article. php/494001).   Convenience Feedback from customer commented that Boo web site was very complicated to navigate through, which meant that it was very difficult to make comparisons between the different brands that were stocked. According to Mori (2000) the ability to find product information and to compare prices is a very attractive feature for Internet shoppers. The Staples. com web site on the other hand has been designed for usability, reduced clicks, time-saving navigational tools, and personalized time-saving features for quick access. * Interaction Interaction is the means of relationship-building with individual customers by providing timely pre-sales information and excellent after-sales support. Boo. com has no strategy of building up customer relationship. The company suffered from very low rates of customer retention. Staples. com offers tremendous online resources that provide personalized, right time customer information. When you place an order, Staples encourages you to sign up for e-mail reminders, which will be sent to you BEFORE you run out. Once you receive the e-mail you can access Staples. com directly, buy what you need and your new supplies will be on their way. Product matchmaker- products are listed specific to the customer personal equipment. Plus, order history and a favorite shopping basket will keep track of items that are continuously purchased for fast checkout! This strategy clearly scored a big plus in term of building good relationship with their customer. * Brand Image For any new start up, making itself known is a big challenge. In Boo. com case, it spent relentlessly to create it brand image. The management committed $25 million to an advertising budget, a huge sum for a start-up. The company chose to advertise in expensive but trendy fashion magazines such as Vanity Fair as well as on cable television and the Internet. Staples. com has an easier path for it inherited the brand name from its parent company Staples Inc. * Vision or Strategy The creators Boo. com had a great vision, but failed to support that with a good strategy. First, the company had failed to consider potential competition from its main competitors who have strong brand name such as Lands End, and Nordstrom. Second, it is evident that little market research was done as Boo. com strived to sell a good (clothing) that was hard to sell on the Internet. As for most shoppers, they prefer to touch, feel, and try on clothes before buying it. Third, they failed to consider their resources as they launched their websites simultaneously in several countries. Staples. com has both a vision and good strategy. It has established a vision of creating outstanding customer service through a great Web experience. With this vision, it laid the strategy foundation that the key to online success and increased market share was to make its e-commerce site as usable as possible. Staples wanted the site to be customer-driven: to support customer needs in an easy-to-use, intuitive way. Conclusion There would be various reasons for failure in EC such as lack of funding, incorrect revenue model, and so much more, but typically, no business model should ever ignore the golden rule customer satisfaction. Strategic planning clarifies what an EC project should do or focus on with respect to the companys mission and the given business environment. To start or to survive companies must learn from the lesson of others failure and successful stories. Appendix A: Critical Success factors (Extract from: http://www. e-bc. ca/) Critical Success Factor Definition Competitive Advantage 1. Convenience The usability of the web site for the purpose for which it was designed: for example, to assist, buying or selling, to find information, to track a process. Users find it easy to carry out the process, so they are more likely to use the site and return to it. 2. Brand Image The ability to build up a brand name for the e-commerce business, and its products and services, using online and offline brand-building techniques. The more awareness a business can generate for its site, the greater the volume of traffic and potential for sales. 3. Interaction The means of relationship-building with individual customers by providing timely pre-sales information and excellent after-sales support. The business builds up a critical mass of loyal customers. Reference: 1. e-business infrastructure: Lessons from failure, Computer Finance, Dec 2000, p11 2. Mack, Ann M. , Stayin Alive, Adweek Eastern Edition, 06/12/2000, Vol. 41 Issue 24, p68 3. Turban, Efraim, King, David. , Lee. , Warkentin, Merill. , Chung, H. Michael. (2002) Electronic Commerce 2002: A Mangerial Perspective, Prentice Hall.  http://www.hostelworld.com/

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

The Vietnam War - The 1968 Tet Offensive :: Vietnam War Essays

The Vietnam War - The 1968 Tet Offensive For several thousand years, Vietnamese Lunar New Year has been a traditional celebration that brings the Vietnamese a sense of happiness, hope and peace. However, in recent years, It also bring back a bitter memory full of tears. It reminds them the 1968 bloodshed, a bloodiest military campaign of the Vietnam War the North Communists launched against the South. The "general offensive and general uprising" of the north marked the sharp turn of the Vietnam War. Today there have been a great number of writings about this event. However, it seems that many key facts in the Communist campaign are still misinterpreted or neglected. In the mid-80, living in Saigon after being released from the Communist "re-education camp," I read a book published in the early 1980's in America about the story of the 1968 Tet Offensive. It said that the North Vietnamese Army supreme command had imitated one of the greatest heroes of Vietnam, King Quang Trung, who won the most spectacular victory over the Chinese aggressors in the 1789 counter-attack - in planning the 1968 operations. The book quoted King Quang Trung's tactic of surprise. He let the troops celebrate the 1789 Tet Festival one day ahead so that he could launch the attacks on the first three days of the lunar new year while the Chinese troops were still feasting and not ready to organize their defense. Those who claimed the similarity between the two campaigns certainly did not know the whole truth, but jumped into conclusion with wild imagination after learning that the North Vietnamese attacking units also celebrated Tet "one day ahead" before the attacks. In fact, the Tet Offensive broke out on the Tet's Eve - in the early morning of January 30, 1968 at many cities of Central Vietnam, such as Da Nang and Qui Nhon, as well as cities in the central coastal and highland areas, that lied within the Communist 5th Military Region.. The other cities to the south that included Saigon, were attacked 24 hours later at the small hours of January 31. Thus the offensive lost its element of total surprise that every tactician has to respect. But It surprised me that some in the American media were still unaware of such tragic story. The story started some 5 months previously. On August 8, 1967, the North Vietnam government approved a lunar calendar specifically compiled for the 7th time zone that covers all Vietnam, replacing the traditional lunar calendar that had been in use in Asia for hundreds of years. That old calendar was calculated for the 8th time zone that Beijing falls

Monday, January 13, 2020

Application Architecture Essay

Strayer University: Piscataway In designing and building a payroll program for a large organization with offices spread across the country, which possesses quite a few changelings to overcome and must be done in a particular manner. Thus having the right application architecture is important where the design is concerned. Because the company has one large data center that each office connects to via a wide area network (WAN), hence the appropriate architecture for this solution would have to consist of a WAN diagram to be used in management of this project, along with system documentation, and information technology architecture documents to provide a visual representation of the network. A wide area networks (WANs) usually covers a large, physical area. And many WANs cover entire buildings, cities, states, or regions, thus the primary purpose of the WAN is to link together all the local area networks, of these other offices spread across the country. The Payroll program being used in this case study has been cent ered on having the proper application architecture that would be effective for the solution being deployed. It would take into consideration where each piece of equipment needs to be deployed and where its physical location should be sited and which is most effective for the organization. Thus an effective system would combine elements into an architecture, or design, that is flexible, cost-effective, technically sound, and able to support the information needs of the business. There would be a logical design of the payroll system into a physical structure, which would include hardware, software, network support, and processing methods. Therefore an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)Â  would have to be established in order to determine the strategies for using IT resources in the new payroll application. There would also be a supply chain management (SCM) and initial Cost and TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), and this will come into effect when the final design stage is completed, and where certain decisions will be made that will have a major impact on the initial costs and TCO for the payr oll system. Cost estimates should also not be overlooked when final decisions are being made. There would also be consideration for scalability in reference to the new system ability to expand, change or downsize easily to meet the changing need of a business enterprise, if the need arises in the future. Besides all of this it would be important in implementing systems that are volume-rated, such as transaction processing systems that would have more than what it was designed to handle. Below is a global payroll core application which determines the organizational structure for payroll processing. This diagram shows the hierarchy of components in the organizational structure. Some software applications will include procedures for web integration, which would require an information system with applications. Thus a Web-centric architecture would avoid many of the connectivity and compatibility problems that typically arise when it comes online and users/employees start accessing it through the web. With the new system being put into place other legacy systems may need to be integrated with the new applications. Thus the interfacing of both would have to be consistent with the requirements to analyze different types of data formats and compatibility. Those implementing the new payroll system should know if the new application eventually will replace the legacy system. Potential ethical issues that could arise in connection with the new architecture are fundamentally associated with the emerging of the development of the new system. Where the concern would be the right away that the new payroll application has on the jobs that it may affect negatively and may replace the person/employees that use to do certain aspects of the legacy system. The idea that the new system would replace humans in many jobs, within the business may result in widespread job loss. To fully grasp the issues involved with computer ethics, it is important to consider the history of the organization being discussed for deployment of this solution. References Herold, R. (2010, June 22) Introduction to computer ethics. http://www.infosectoday.com/Articles/Intro_Computer_Ethics.htm Oracle: PeopleSoft Enterprise Global Payroll (n.d) Introducing the Core Application Architecture. http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E20215_01/hr91pbr1/eng/psbooks/hgpy/chapter.htm?File=hgpy/htm/hgpy04.htm

Saturday, January 4, 2020

Comparing Political Philosophy Theories - 1095 Words

Associate Level Material Ethical Theory Comparison Chart Respond to the prompt for each of the five ethical theories listed. One section on each chart has been filled in as an example. What is good? (1–2 sentences) Aristotle – Virtue EthicsMill – UtilitarianismKant – DeontologyConsequentialismNodding – Care Ethicswhat would you say is our principal or highest objective by nature? According to Aristotle, it is the attainment of happiness, for it is that alone that we seek for its own sake. Based on Aristotle assertion a woman bearing a child is good.For J.S. Mill, decreasing pain and increasing pleasure is good. However, not all pleasure is the same. Mill argues that intellectual pleasures are superior to bodily†¦show more content†¦It does not rely on religion, society or culture; it only depends on the individuals themselves. The main philosopher of Virtue Ethics is Aristotle. His theory was originally introduced in ancient Greek times. Aristotle was a great believer in virtues and the meaning of virtue to him meant being able to fulfill ones functions The utilitarianism works in determining consideration of right conduct should be useful of his consequences. This spectacle theory is basically based off the fat that is largely possible ability of balance pleasure over pain. This action should take a lot of consideration which the way we made the decision about disciplinary action on people or even animals. It was said that the actions of sacrifice and people or animals is wrong. So drawn my friend coworker on the bus and a heated argument with display that ethics.The deontology is the basis of more action duties. The principle of goodwill is what makes people act for duty, and acting for duty given them action of more value. However the action does not take into consideration theShow MoreRelatedThe Classical School And The Neoclassic1702 Words   |  7 PagesToday s Economy as it relates to Classical and Neoclassical Thought Economic thoughts and theories are constantly evolving. One reason being is the growth and evolution of humans and systems. This constant change often brings about greater economics challenges. Thus, we can strongly contend to the fact that the state of today’s economic isn’t as found in the 18th or 19th and so on. Moreover, economic theorists presented with these robust economic challenges often time build up on each other. ThatRead MoreThe Social Philosophies On The Race Theory And Feminism Approaches1316 Words   |  6 PagesThis paper will address and define the social philosophies on the Race Theory and feminism approaches. These theories will be explained of how it is understood, compared and contrasted through examples of social justice, and examples of injustice. 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