Marketing and E-commerce (Essay Sample)

Question 1
The case study involves answering questions on how digital process solved the requirement of making Beijing Olympics a success, by eliminating all problems. The organizers of the Beijing Olympics had to meet certain requirements for the event to be a success as a digital event. The first requirement the organizers were to meet is, recording performance of all participants and determining the winners in each event. The winners had to be determined instantly basing on milliseconds, and this information spread around the world. This requirement was met by installation of photo-finish cameras and computers, which enabled identifying actual winners even if the difference was milliseconds (Turban, King and Lang, pp. 88).
There were a lot of people coming to the event of which around 300,000 people coming from different parts of the world, 200 workers and athletes, also there were about 120 million domestic travelers to attend the event. These people included athletes, journalists, coaches and event officials. These people used different languages and different food habits depending on their countries of origin. Providing food, transport and accommodation was a hard task to the event organizers. Therefore, the organizers used Radio Frequency Identification tags (RFID). This was to ensure safety to all visitors and ensuring that quality food was provided. They also ensured monitoring of all transportation systems to ensure safety (Turban, King and Lang, pp. 88).
Another requirement was to check all the tickets to ensure they were real. This is because, they were sent to many countries prior to the event. The organizers used RFID tags, which were specially designed to ensure the tickets, were not fake. The organizers also introduced an online purchase of tickets where 12 million tickets were sold. They were sold by Beijing Gehua Ticketmaster, which ensured limited or no fake tickets (Turban, King and Lang, pp. 89).
In 2004 Olympics, there were Web-delivered services, but were not so many. This number was highly increased in 2008 Beijing. This was to cater for increased video viewing population around the world. The international Olympics committee also introduced a channel on digital media in YouTube, where people were able to watch the Olympics videos. The committee authorized the digital media, in 77 different countries. The videos could also be available on television, and display boards and they could also be downloaded through various Softwares such as Adobe Flash and Silverlight (Turban, King and Lang, pp. 89).
The other requirement was security, privacy monitoring and protection. The organizers had to utilize high quality video cameras to broadcast all the events around the world. This also had to be done to identify security threats during the event. They also ensured that all the security reports were intelligently interpreted (Turban, King and Lang, pp. 89).
There was the need to control Beijing traffic and pollution that result from traffic problems. The organizers ensured there were officers charged with the duty of managing the traffic during this event. This would efficiently reduce the number of vehicles in the streets, thus reducing pollution caused by traffic. The society could also be urged to use public means, bicycles and trains which are time efficient and safe to take them into the stadia. This will reduce the number of vehicles in the streets and also increase the size of the parking area (Turban, King and Lang, pp. 89).
There was a need to manage the social networks such as the blog and twitter. The organizers were urged to blog and disseminate information about the event. There was America’s cheer where the athletes could blog and let out their feelings. The organizers ensured that they controlled website coverage such as twitter and Facebook, which could disseminate information to the rest of the world (Turban, King and Lang, pp. 88).
Question 2
There are B2C activities that are described in this case. These are activities where business community, sell or engage in business with individual shoppers. An example of B2C activity is where the Olympic souvenirs were sold in different shops. This would work towards the publicity of Beijing Olympics and the individual shops as well as increased profits to the shopkeepers. Another example is food provision to all the visitors because all tastes and preferences had to be considered. The organizers ensured that foods from countries are provided such as Italian pizza, Chinese food and any other food from other countries. Another B2C activity was online purchasing tickets through Beijing Genhua Ticketmaster (Turban, King and Lang, pp. 89).
B2B activities are E-commerce models where those who take part are either businesses or any other economic organizations. An example of B2B, in this case, is where the International Olympic Committee introduced a YouTube channel to transmit the events as they happen in the stadium in 77 different countries. Another activity was a social network developed at Olympic-network.net. This helped IT companies such as Microsoft, Cisco networks and Limelight networks market themselves (Turban, King and Lang, pp. 89) .
Question 3
One of the chief business models identified in this case is online direct marketing where products and services are sold, and marketed by use of the internet. Through this model, people pay for the services and products using their credit cards from wherever they are. For example, in this case tickets were sold and marketed online, meaning people did not need to travel to Beijing to purchase their tickets prior to the event. People could also buy souvenirs online so as to keep them to remind them of the Beijing 2008 Olympics. This is an effective way of doing business online for products, which can be delivered online (Turban, King and Lang, pp. 89).
Another business model is viral marketing where organizations aim at increasing their brand awareness and company’s reputation by asking people to join certain programs, for example, athletes were encouraged to join blog posts on the internet. This would help increase the event popularity as many people join the blog and ask others to join. Also through Olympic network TV the Beijing event increased popularity because of the increase in the number of people watching the event (Turban, King and Lang, pp. 89).
Question 4
Social networks are extremely vital in any process that requires dissemination of information to a lot of people living at different places. Social networks can be defined as a mode of communication through building cycles in the community using the internet. This mode of communication allows people to share their thoughts, and their views with other people, who are, in the social network (Turban, King and Lang, pp. 90) . These people come together as a family and they share their opinions. Giving an example from this case is where America’s Cheer was introduced and the athletes were urged to blog and communicate with their fans. This helped the general public know athletes and their coaches well. There was also use of Twitter to connect people and spread information around th...