Quality Driven Strategies and Technologies - Essay Example

Cover Sheet AOL—Quality Driven Strategies and Technologies Student Name: Admira Puce Student ID Number: Course: Quality Management Course Number: BSMG345 Case Study of Quality Management at AOL Title: AOL—Quality Driven Strategies and Technologies I. Introduction A. What is AOL? B. Brief study of its evolution. II. Body A. Services 1. AOL --An online resource 2. In Retrospect—A Comparison of the Past and the Present B. Quality Initiatives 1. Focus on Quality A Market Response 2. Mission and Training. 3. Online User Friendly Tools 4. Responsible Organization C. Recent Strategies 1. Downsizing Workforce 2. Integrating Operations 3. Outsourcing 4. Adding utilitarian Concepts III. Conclusion A. Quality-The Quest for Perfection B. Need to Focus on Niche Segments AOL—Quality Driven Strategies and Technologies Introduction AOL, the Internet division of Time Warner Group, was called the America Online LLC till 2006. The company operates internationally with its headquarters at New York (NY). The headquarters have been recently shifted from Dulles (VA) campus to New York to bring more cohesion in its operations. The company is the biggest global Internet Service Provider with millions of subscribers worldwide. Merger with Time Warner was effected, in 2001, by AOL to emerge as the world’s biggest service online and media, infotainment and entertainment service services supplier. The giant dream that effected this merger remains to be fulfilled. Services AOL operates web applications like Netscape, Mapquest, AOLmusic.com, Moviefone, Weblogs, and CityGuide besides providing standard email services. AOL provides users with an array of other easy to navigate utilitarian features like Yellow Pages, Movies, Job guide, Real Estate information, Business and Political News, Downloads, Instant Messenger, Embeddable videos, online market, web search and features on food, finance, on line games, stocks and autos besides lots of information on a host of concepts. AOL was also the first online company to introduce the concept of Buddy List. The collaboration with Time Warner provided AOL with a vast resource base of movies, 200 radio channels, videos, databases, graphics, and music. In the early Internet years AOL was a dial up subscriber based Internet service provider. AOL initially charged its customers on the Internet usage on time basis, but later it shifted to policy of a fixed charge. In Retrospect In 1985, the company originated in the name of Quantum Computer Service that provided an online link to Commodore Computers. Then it worked in close association with Apple. Applelink compatible with Apple II and Macintosh computers was launched in 1989. Soon Quantum Computer Service created the PC Link for IBM systems. Quantum Computer Service was then quick to realize the impending potential of online services and effected a series of mergers and time-ups. In 1991, the company changed its name to America Online and later it acquired ANS and Netscape. In 1992, AOL launched its version compatible with the Windows. For a long time, the company competed with Microsoft in providing the web browsing facility. Since then AOL has launched many versions the latest being the AOL 9.0 VR released in 2007. Quality Management at America Online (AOL) has always been an initiative in innovation. At the heart of AOL’s philosophy has been deliverance of quality through creation of innovative concepts. The company has believed in the philosophy of providing more subscribers with more and more of its services. As such AOL’s history is full of instances where it managed to literally exceed customer expectations by delivering products that were genuinely ahead of times. Whereas the Quantum Computer Service had provided the first online message facility ever, true to its name, America Online had put Americans online for the first time ever. But as competition caught up with AOL, and broadband became a common utility in the American household, AOL woke up to stall its subscriber base from withering away. It may be mentioned here that AOL began to give its email services free, in 2006, long after Yahoo, MSN and others had adopted it and won over considerable following. However, statistics still portray a positive picture for AOL. In the second quarter of 2006, AOL registered a visitorship of 114 million unique visitors making 52 billion page views in all of its web properties (AOL.com). Quality Initiatives Quality, to say the least, has been a market forces driven necessity at AOL rather than being a self-propelled initiative to give the subscriber the best option. But now that time is running out for AOL, it has gone into an overdrive taking a slew of measures focusing on quality for winning back or retaining the customer. Andrew Weinstein, an AOL spokesman quoted by Bosavage (2006) says, “The entire focus of our company has shifted to provide a range of services, to include an all-inclusive software client to very granular long-tail experiences for users who want to have a more discrete experience.” AOL is focusing on making easy to use but technologically advanced products. Weinstein quoted by Bosavage (2006) elaborates: “AOL applications are not designed for technologists, but technologists designed them. We are focused on building great products, making them available to everyone and making tools available to developers. When you do that, word gets out." AOL has a very highly dedicated and synergized workforce that handles its core operations. The employees of the company are routinely made to undertake Human Resource and technical training to inculcate a competitive spirit that strives for excellence. AOL’s mission statement “To Serve the World’s Largest and Most Engaged Community” says a lot about the quality practices that are inherent to its working. The company intends to grow by promoting AOL as the center of the world’s most well-knit online community. The company has laid out a seven point charter to meet its objectives—Creativity, Customer Focus, Agility, Teamwork, Integrity, Diversity, and Responsibility. AOL strives to promote creative thinking, innovation, and risk taking in diverse and responsible work force by conducting business with highest regard to ethics and delivering as a cohesive workforce. The company being currently headed by Randy Falco, the Chairman and the Chief Executive Officer has eight other young and dynamic leaders reporting to the CEO. Randy Falco is assisted by Ron Grant, the President and the Chief Operating Officer. All members of the Management report directly to the CEO and the COO. The business units of AOL are categorized as Platforms and Technologies, Products, International, Global Advertising Strategy, Customer Management and Paid Services, Platform-A, Business Development and Programming. Each unit is headed separately by a team leader. In the late 80s, AOL had given the world, the first taste of ‘Instant messaging’. In 90s the company had pioneered the concept of chat rooms. Today, the company has already launched the Beta version of AIM Pages. AIM Pages is a social networking site in which users can design and customize their web page according to their needs. AIM Pages is intended to be the next big step in Internet value added services to the net savvy customer of AOL. Direct IM enables the users to send instant messages in a peer to peer connection through the AOL. Enhanced IM features include facilities like Instant Image, AOL Talk, File Transfer AOL Video Messenger, and AOL Live Video. The AOL email comes with industry standard anti-virus and anti-spam filters. It provides McAfee Virus Scan and Filters to its subscribers. This was a part of the All in one Safety and Security Center concept promoted by the AOL to provide overall protection to its users. One of AOL’s quality improvement tools is target the Internet abuse by children while providing them with customized services. This is in contrast to the approach of the competitors of AOL that have literally bombarded the people with Internet facilities with little scope of monitoring and control by the senior members of the family. AOL created the concept of ‘walled-garden’ approach which restricted the Internet access of children. The AOL Application® Services - Software Update is targeted to make the AOL experience of tech savvy more convenient (Aol.com). In addition, to this AOL has provided the parents with AOL Parental Controls. This service equips parents with ability to limit the time and scope of Internet usage. Parents can also control and monitor the receiving and sending of emails of the children. AOL was one of the first email service providers to equip its users with Mail and Spam controls filters. AOL provides anti-corruption tools to tackle situations where a particular download is threatened by corruption due to interruption. Recent Strategies AOL has also effected strategic changes in its set up to improve its quality through cutting of costs. Recently in 2007, AOL went into a downsizing move to curtail its costs. Hundreds of workers at company’s offices in Dulles (VA), and New York (NY) were laid off. A lot of infrastructure and workers were relocated. The Network Operations Centers were integrated from three into two. The company is increasingly relying on outsourcing of its operations to cut costs and bring efficiency in its workforce. The customer service of AOL is being handled from its outsourcing centers in India, Philippines and China. AOL has also tried to make other value additions to its product and services by adding a wireless division. AOL has stated its intention to launch the certified email. Certified email will allow only those users to send emails that have a pre-existing business relationship. AOL has also launched the Uncut Video which allows the AOL users to add remarks on the Videos. The Xdrive enables the users to send files up to 5GB. The company has also announced plans to launch a special application that will allow users to download full length movies and television programs Conclusion Quest to quality is an unending process. The road to quality never ends as it involves betterment of services, adding innovative ideas and making the organization reach out to more and more people. As of now, AOL is locked in a struggle to outdo its behemoth competitors like Yahoo, Google and MSN. AOL strives to provide almost all services that its competitors provide, in turn, losing focus on customer specific quality deliverables. AOL needs to focus on its niche segments and then bring in more quality to the services that it provides. References: Aol.com, Aol Help, Retrieved, December 12, 2007, http://help.aol.com/help/supportcentral/supportcentral.do Aol from Wikipedia, The Free Encylopaedia, Retrieved December 12, 2007, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL Aol, LLC, Answers.com, Retrieved December 12, 2007, http://www.answers.com/topic/aol?cat=biz-fin Bosavage, Jennifer, The Rise And Fall (And Rise?) Of AOL, Information Week, Retrieved December 12, 2007, http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=193104723 Read More