Michael Rodriguez
Prof. Lytle
AMM 104
11 Mar. 2009
Net Savvy Homework
Chapter 1
1.
Whole Foods Market is a company that touts itself as being the largest retailer of
natural and organic foods. The core values of the company include selling high-quality
foods, customer satisfaction, supporting their employees, creating wealth through profits
and growth, caring about the community and environment, and finally maintaining good
relationships with their suppliers. The company meets these values through education,
innovation, and being a socially responsible company that looks out for its employees, its
customers, and the environment.
The main value of the company is going green. They communicate this through
their website by saying that they support organic farmers that grow natural foods without
putting harmful chemicals into those foods. They also mention that they recycle and
reduce their whenever they can. They also give a minimum of 5% of their profits to nonprofit organizations every year. It is different from traditional grocery retailers because
the company strives to make sure that they produce high-quality natural foods that are
healthy for everyone to eat in the end.
2.
Lands’ End is a clothing company that prides itself on providing high quality
products to its consumers. It provides value to its customers by providing great products
and service to its customers. Lands’ End is a direct merchant that deals directly with mills
and manufacturers without the need for middlemen. This results in quicker deliveries for
its customers. Lands’ End differs from traditional clothing stores since it is a direct
merchant that deals directly with manufacturers while traditional clothing stores go
through a middleman when dealing with manufacturers. Lands’ End also differs with
traditional clothing stores when it comes to service. Customers can use its website to
create a custom virtual model of themselves to determine how the company’s products
will look on them. Thanks to this, customers can order a custom size for themselves.
Lands’ End also provides free services such as free button replacement and free cuffing
and hemming of trousers for men and women. Traditional clothing stores don’t provide
these kinds of services. Thanks to this, the company creates value for its consumers by
providing innovative and great service to its customers.
Lands’ End is a socially responsible company that makes an effort to help the
community. Some of these nonmonetary benefits to consumers include the company
partnering with Habitat for Humanity to provide housing to homeless families, and
partnering with the American Red Cross to provide onsite blood drives, babysitting
classes, swimming lessons, CPR and first aid classes, and finally workshops for child
care providers. Thanks to these nonmonetary benefits from this company, people are
getting essential services that help to make life easier for them in the end.
Chapter 2
1.
Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream is a progressive company that aims to end social
injustice in the world. This company has some progressive goals in its mission statement
which includes reducing waste, supporting nonviolent ways to achieve peace and justice,
and finally finding ways to stop harmful food production. The company believes in
justice for the people and it has found progressive ways to do that. Inspired by the book
“An Inconvenient Truth” by Al Gore which focuses on climate change, Ben and Jerry’s
has increased their efforts to reduce global warming by creating more energy efficient
factories that help to reduce its carbon footprint. Thanks to this, Ben and Jerry’s are
helping to reduce global warming in our country. Ben and Jerry’s sponsored a symbolic
Olympic torch run that helped to raise awareness about the ongoing genocide in Darfur.
Thanks to their efforts, more people are now aware of this tragedy. Thanks to this
awareness, more people are now helping the people of Darfur. Finally, through its fair
trade initiative, Ben and Jerry’s have pledged to get milk from farmers that use cows who
are not treated with harmful growth hormones. By using natural milk in its ice cream,
Ben and Jerry’s are helping to promote good health among human beings. Based on all
this, I think Ben and Jerry’s progressivism gives them a competitive advantage in the
marketplace because their social reform movements help to provide a positive image of
the company to the people. Thanks to their progressive movements, there is hope for the
future in the end.
2.
The SWOT analysis for eHarmony includes its strengths, its weaknesses, its
opportunities, and its threats. One of eHarmony’s main strengths is that it is a well-known
brand. It is ranked as the number one online dating site on the internet. It has a lot of
success stories where some couples got married after meeting each other through
eHarmony. Another strength that the company has is through the methods it uses to
match people with each other. One of its best tools is the compatibility test it uses to
match prospective partners. Thanks to this scientifically-based test, eHarmony has been
able to successfully match many prospective partners based on compatibility. One
weakness that eHarmony has is that it charges too much on its subscription fees
especially its premium ones. This results in profit loss for eHarmony since its high
subscription fees are driving some consumers away. One opportunity that eHarmony has
is that they can expand internationally. Since they are doing fairly well in the U.S., they
can use their resources to expand globally. Finally, eHarmony faces stiff competition
from other dating sites especially free ones since those sites don’t charge for their
services like eHarmony does. eHarmony needs to find more innovative ways to compete
with these sites in order to stay profitable in the end.