AYMEN-MBA 2

FINAL ASSIGNMENT

THE EXAMPLE OF "FACEBOOK"

It’s true that business innovation coming from within the company itself has been challenged or “disrupted” by new trends or shifts driving new business models.
Nowadays, the competition is harsher and not easy to be determined. The competitors are not distinguishable any more and many business industries are facing the problems linked to the birth of new business models going on the same path as the new technologies in order to attract and satisfy more costumers. Let’s say they are beating some existing business models and gaining their costumers. The life cycle of various products and industries are varying; some of them become shorter and others longer. Those which the life cycle has become shorter did not know how to survive in the market and face the new competitors. Those who had succeed to survive and to extend their life cycle knew that they have to review their strategies. By reviewing and making better their development strategies some businesses can solve competition problems but for a certain period of time. In order to keep attracting people and making loyal the existing costumers the business must keep in touch with the evolution of the market, of the technology and especially the consumer behaviour and needs. The strategies should be regularly refreshed and updated.
We are living in a world of changes. Changes happen every day, everywhere and in all the areas and industries. All this changes are giving new features to the behaviour of the modern consumer and his needs and requirements.
In my eyes, the biggest trend that I also consider as a shift is the internet. But internet is a very large topic with undetermined new services and ideas. In the internet industry we assist to the birth of many trends which try to satisfy the newly created social, professional or personal needs!

When I red the subject of this assignment I had in mind “facebook”. Certainly, all of us know or have heard about this new kind of social networking.
In few words, Facebook is a social platform connecting people with other people specially friends. At the beginning it was a network gathering the students of Harvard University and by the way the founder of the site and its current CEO was a Harvard student; Mark Zuckerberg. Quickly, the site was expanded to other American universities and became worldwide known end 2006 beginning 2007. Everybody could join the network and enjoy its utilities!
The concept does not seem very profitable but if we go a bit deeper into the details of the services it provides we can see many revenue streams.
By joining facebook each member has the majority of the modern communication means in order to keep in touch with his outside world; friends, professional or no professional networks. With its various features facebook offers the possibility to build the image that everyone wants to communicate to the others (information, photos, taste…). all this information were used by facebook and its partners to provide the appropriate products through a “personalized marketing” based on all the person details provided in the site. This kind of marketing was considered very efficient because it does not attack and harass directly the guest; it’s introduced through the networks that the user chooses to accept or not the membership. And through the several networks formed everyday we can find people having same movie taste or same shopping ideas…..
In addition facebook offers more developed services providing very important and interesting statistics for example: by doing a simple poll in a certain area of what is your favourite soft drink? The results obtained could be of a great help for the drinks suppliers or producers whom could establish a targeted marketing strategy…
Such services offer the opportunity to use them for professional purposes in order to reach efficiently, quickly and precisely the right customer!
With its growing user’s number, facebook is attracting more partners, sponsor and specially advertisers.
By establishing its own marketplace and more new features facebook is matching the increasing requirements and expectation of the new technologies consumers
In other words this new kind of social networking is influencing some business industries. If we take the example of marketing and promotion industry, Facebook makes, sometimes, the task easier by preparing the field to the advertisers, and more complicated in other cases. During a certain period of its development, Facebook has utilised all the information regarding its members despite they are private to establish a very important data base to be sold for different companies
In my eyes this trend is following the evolution of the consumer behaviour. The invasion of internet and its predominance of our daily life gave birth to many trends which in some cases constitute a real shift in the mind of the consumers.
The challenge is to make feel the consumer comfortable with the utilities of the concept and not submerged by all kind of advertisement and unimportant information.
We are living in a new era where the technologies are imposing their rules. We can not deny their role of making easier and more sophisticated our life but they certainly caused the stress. The successful concept has to be useful and well presented to the customers. The competition is focused on how to present the services to the customers what’s the best way to attract him and make him choose this or that concept!
I already spoke about the impact of facebook on the marketing industry and I think that the human resources field could enjoy this innovation. It’s more accepted by young generation who are using all the new means to communicate to express their point of view and of course to be always present. Many companies are using facebook in order to create their own networks. This could be done spontaneously or proposed by a leader.
One of the reasons which pushed me to choose facebook as a subject is the example of consulting company (bank industry) where I have some friends. The idea to create a network on the web came from the human resources manager who succeeded to make better the atmosphere inside his team. He told that it’s better that hi5 because you can use it for professional and individual purposes at the same time. It makes you able to reach forgotten friends and networks which could help you to improve your professional position.

Below, links to visuals of "facebook"

http://oedb.org/blogs/ilibrarian/wp-content/facebook_activity.gif

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Metamodel_of_Facebook.jpg

Future Watch

I personally see the future watch as the continuation of the predominance of internet. It’s also following the evolution of the societies and offering more solutions for the consumer in a shorter time with updated content.
The given examples of “future watch“such as; www.trendwatching.com, www.style-files.com or www.wallpaper.com are showing how the quality of the service and the information is improved. They give the possibility to the consumer to be informed about the latest trends and ideas.
I don’t think that the future watch has a short life because one of the basic things of this concept is the updating and the renovation. Maybe the way how to present the information should have a short life cycle but the principles remain. In this way the concept creators will regularly look for the better and most efficient way to reach its costumers.

posted by Aymen @ 4:51 PM