M115 week 1 seminar by Adaora Onyiuke https://padlet.com/adaoraonyiuke/upxyyyjv1ncw Strategy en-us 2019-05-14 21:39:32 UTC 2019-05-22 10:01:32 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.com/adaoraonyiuke/upxyyyjv1ncw/wish/360273383  ]]> 2019-05-15 10:51:30 UTC https://padlet.com/adaoraonyiuke/upxyyyjv1ncw/wish/360273383 https://padlet.com/adaoraonyiuke/upxyyyjv1ncw/wish/360274599 Strategy is about making choices that allow your organisation to be unique compared to other organisations in order to gain a competitive advantage; providing a different set of unique values to the end user (Porter, 1996). ]]> 2019-05-15 10:57:22 UTC https://padlet.com/adaoraonyiuke/upxyyyjv1ncw/wish/360274599 A business strategy is a set of principles adopted holistically by a company, encompassing short and long term goals, with the end result of achieving specific goals aligned with business targets. https://padlet.com/adaoraonyiuke/upxyyyjv1ncw/wish/360275986 2019-05-15 11:03:37 UTC https://padlet.com/adaoraonyiuke/upxyyyjv1ncw/wish/360275986 Amazon has been very aggressive in its strategy in the last decade from being an online books retailer to an internet business, which has led to them acquiring companies that operates in various industries. Some of the companies they have acquired are shown below: 1.Wholefoods – groceries 2.Ring – home security 3.Zappos – apparel & footwear 4.Alexa – data collection 5.Pillpack – online pharmacy 6.Twitch – livestreaming platform 7.Kiva – robotics. These are not just pointless acquisitions however. It can be seen that Amazon is following its mission as the “Earth’s most customer-centric company” with a focus on “selection, price and convenience” (Amazon, 2019). Amazon uses the core competencies of the company that they acquire to reach out to new customers as well as existing customers through providing improved services or a wider range of products.For example, after acquiring Alexa, Amazon has been able to benefit from the technology of customer data collection and use it to offer what other products a specific customer would need or want to purchase. Additionally, it launched Amazon Echo, a smart speaker, which allows a user to not only listen to music but also manage their everyday life such as making calls, checking the weather etc. but more interestingly allows customers to order from Amazon by simply talking to the device.As the examples show, Amazon has not only focused on a single industry but has decided to enter different industries through acquisition but all of them has links to online or technology innovation thereby keeping its core identity as an online player. https://padlet.com/adaoraonyiuke/upxyyyjv1ncw/wish/362207528 2019-05-21 16:07:45 UTC https://padlet.com/adaoraonyiuke/upxyyyjv1ncw/wish/362207528 Alibaba’s special innovation, initially, was that they were truly building an ecosystem: a community of organisms (businesses and consumers of many types) interacting with one another and the environment (the online platform and the larger off-line physical elements). The strategic imperative was to make sure that the platform provided all the resources, or access to the resources, that an online business would need to succeed, and hence supported the evolution of the ecosystem.The ecosystem was simple at first - linking buyers and sellers of goods. As technology advanced, more business functions moved online—including established ones, such as advertising, marketing, logistics, and finance, and emerging ones, such as affiliate marketing, product recommenders, and social media influencers. And as they expanded their ecosystem to accommodate these innovations, Alibaba helped create new types of online businesses, completely reinventing China’s retail sector along the way. Alibaba today is not just an online commerce company. It is what you get if you take all functions associated with retail and coordinate them online into a sprawling, data-driven network of sellers, marketers, service providers, logistics companies, and manufacturers. In other words, Alibaba does what Amazon, eBay, PayPal, Google, FedEx, wholesalers, and a good portion of manufacturers do in the United States, with a healthy helping of financial services for garnish.Of the world’s 10 most highly valued companies today, seven are internet companies with business models similar to Alibaba's (Harvard Business Review - https://hbr.org/2018/09/alibaba-and-the-future-of-business) https://padlet.com/adaoraonyiuke/upxyyyjv1ncw/wish/362323964 2019-05-21 21:01:29 UTC https://padlet.com/adaoraonyiuke/upxyyyjv1ncw/wish/362323964 https://padlet.com/adaoraonyiuke/upxyyyjv1ncw/wish/362333356 Alibaba hit the headlines with the world’s biggest IPO in September 2014. According to Zeng (2018) Alibaba’s special innovation was truly building an ecosystem, a community of businesses and consumers of many typee interacting with one another and the environment (the online platform and the larger off-line physical elements). Alibaba strategic imperative was to make sure that the platform provided all the resources, or access to the resources, that an online business would need to succeed, and supported the evolution of the ecosystem. Alibaba wanted to expand their company by investing and brought other company. Mcclay (2019) states that the company that Alibaba bought over the last decade are: AutoNavi, Lazada, ChinaVision Media, South China Morning Post. The advantage of buying these company is location, China have 560 million Internet users spending 20 hours a week online and (Mourdoukoutas 2014).]]> 2019-05-21 21:50:01 UTC https://padlet.com/adaoraonyiuke/upxyyyjv1ncw/wish/362333356 https://padlet.com/adaoraonyiuke/upxyyyjv1ncw/wish/362476074 Ali baba has more comparative advantage because they able to compete effectively on a domestic and global level  and confident to grow that the Internet would serve as a launching platform for small and medium enterprises. (Alibaba, 2016a, p. 56). ]]> 2019-05-22 10:01:32 UTC https://padlet.com/adaoraonyiuke/upxyyyjv1ncw/wish/362476074