Section-A
Question1) What do you understand by diffusion of technology? Discuss the significant activities for diffusion.
Question2) How do market considerations affect product life cycles and innovations? How could designers help in improving the competitte abilities of the organisation?
Section-B
Case Study
E-Trade Inc. must be gone-just like e Toys, e Auto and everything company founded on belief that prefix e exempted it from all rules of business. So why is e trade not only still alive but posted its largest profit ever. During past five years, e trade has moved beyond a mere online brokerage to become nation’s 62nd largest bank with $17 billion in assets and more than 500,000 accounts. Banking revenues which last year topped $457 million, 35 per cent of company’s total has provided a life-saving cushion. Launched in July 2000, the Commercial Electronics Office is the one stop shop on the web for corporate banking requirements, ranging from foreign exchange loan servicing to quarter billion dollar wire transfers. C.E.O. turned profitable in April 2002, but real payoff came during next 12 months. As other big banks suffered along with recession wrecked corporate customers, Wells Fargos Internet based revenues grew 25 per cent. Where do profits come from? Essentially from nets ability to deepen client relationships. "We found that longer the customers has been online", says Deny Peltz who now runs wholesale internet group that Ellis established, "the more our products he is likely to have". The webs success at cross selling makes sense: Regular web users are exposed to all of Well Fargos banking products when they log on, and banks sale force emphasizes that if customers sign for new services, they could access them through familiar interface. Like many forays there were some mistakes. For instance, Ellis and team originally assumed that C.E.O. required to be a destination site or portal. But Wells quickly learned that clients didn’t care about financial news feeds of e procurement of business supplies. So Ellis and Peltz focus on what customer did want: convenience, instantaneous account information, and most of all, industrial strength security and access controls. Ellis, now executive V.P. for wholesale services, downplays C.E.O.s role in Wells Fargos corporate banking success. Web is just one of the doors bank opens to customers he says modestly. But Kovcevich brushes that aside, "I don’t think our customers can live without the internet", he says.
i) What lessons in business strategy can be applied to development of e commerce channels of other companies from experience of e trade?
ii) What is business value of C.E.O. online wholesale banking portal to Wells Fargo?
iii) What can other companies learn from success and mistakes of Wells Fargo e commerce system?