E-Commerce Action Plan for Four Organizations - Essay Example

? Electronic Commerce: An action plan for each of the following four organizations; • NBC • Rogers • Bell Canada • Sony Introduction Till 1908, the science and technology was not advanced enough to develop even a simple electric socket and by 1969, they had developed APRANET which is considered as the base of the internet. The internet has revolutionized the modern world today and enabled quick access to unlimited information to thousands of millions of people of the world. The APRANET which was initiated initially in four universities namely UCLA, Stanford, UCSB (Santa Barbara) and University of Utah soon became an easily available technology to thousands of millions of people of the world in the form of the internet. The APRANET which started its journey in 1969 and facilitated email has travelled a long way through the world wide web (www), the internet, internet radio, wireless internet, e-commerce and presently opened the doors for the internet TV. E-commerce has revolutionized the business processes and business transactions and the internet TV is another form of e-commerce and has opened doors of tremendous opportunity for different TV channels. This paper analyses the scope of e-commerce and the internet TV and the recent changes in the TV industry. It also discusses the action plans of TV channels NBC, Rogers, Bell Canada and Sony in order to exploit the opportunity offered by the internet TV. E - Commerce and Internet TV The Internet and the Web have enabled online business transaction which is called e-commerce and formally, it is the digital commercial transactions which is also known as E-business. E-commerce has changed the traditional processes of transactions which was considering consumers as passive targets and was driven by sales force. E-commerce is becoming popular due to its unique features which include its ubiquity, universal standards, global reach, richness of information richness, information density, interactivity, social technology and personalization/customization. With the growth and popularity of the internet in the world and its wider reach the internet TV is becoming very popular. Recent Changes in the TV industry Recently, there have been many technological developments in the TV industry which has changed the complete scenario of the TV industry. The recent trends require the TV industry to deliver the current form ‘TV’ via the Internet. The industry needs to not only produce huge quantity of the internet enabled TV sets but also to meet the challenges of delivering the current form of TV through the internet. The development in science and technology has enabled fast internet services and the possibility of delivering TV programs through the internet which can reach in any corner of the world through wireless network. The present delivery system requires the services of a network provider and a set top box but the internet TV would require only a modem to provide the services. The picture quality of the internet TV is multiple times better than the existing quality and it can be demanded by many consumers provided the basic problems are solved. The basic problems include lack of appropriate business models for the internet TV, limited bandwidth affect the quality and speed, lack of internet connections to many TV sets. The major problem experienced by consumers is the availability of millions of video programs make it difficult for them to navigate through and search for the desired program through the internet TV (Meyer & Peng, 2005). Action Plans The action plans of major TV service providers of the world like NBC, Rogers, Bell Canada and Sony need to address to the major challenges of finding an appropriate business model for generating revenue, improve the limited bandwidth quality, ensure the availability of the internet connections to TV sets and to device an appropriate system to make navigation through millions of programs easy. Their action plan should focus on positioning themselves for the transition from traditional to Internet TV that is occurring considering new and old competitors and it should identify new revenue streams they would be able realize and the existing revenue that they may lose. They also need to analyze that they will be net winners or losers. There are different options for these companies to earn revenue, to generate profits, and to produce a superior return on invested capital and the selection of option depends on the choice and strategy of the company. Some of the available revenue models for these companies are: Advertising Subscription Transaction fee Sales Affiliate NBC The NBC Television Network gets its strength from its strong national identity and programming with both the local identity and its affiliates across America. The revenue generated by the sale of advertising time makes the NBC Television Network able to provide the programming free of cost to the people. The company also has a strong base of affiliated television stations. For internet TV, the revenue models best suitable for NBC is the advertising and affiliate revenue models which would increase the present revenue collection increasing its net profit as it would provide a reach to a greater audience. Rogers In brief, Rogers Anyplace TV is one of the best service provider of entertainment video in Canada. It provides anytime, anywhere access to its members on-demand. Its members can access sports, movies, specialty TV and other favorite programming anywhere in Canada and the internet TV can enable the company to create a membership base across the world. The revenue model suitable for the company is a subscription revenue model. Presently the company has one-quarter-million members which is expected to multiply manifold once the internet TV is widely accepted. Bell Canada BCE Inc. or Bell Canada is the largest communication enterprise of Canada which provides an innovative and comprehensive broadband service to different customers. Its services include Fibe TV, high-speed Fibe Internet, Virgin Mobile, Bell Mobility, IP-Broadband services, Satellite TV and ICT services. The revenue model best suitable for the company are sales and subscription to position the company in the competitive market and increase the revenue collection. Sony Sony's Internet Player provides services of watching television and surfing the internet to its customers with Google TV. Its services also include Internet apps, Google Search, full QWERTY remote and Chrome Browser. The action plan of SONY requires it to focus on advertising, sales and subscription revenue models to position itself in the market and to increase the existing revenue collection to increase its profitability. Reference Meyer, K. E., & Peng, M. W. 2005. Probing theoretically into the internet TV: Transactions, resources, and institutions. Journal of International Business Studies, 36 (6): 600–621. Read More