Samuel E. Bodily  |  S. Venkataraman  

                                      ASSIGNMENTS FOR CLASSES 1-4

1.  March 19, 2002 

    Read:        Strategy and the Internet, Michael Porter, Harvard Business Review, March 2001.

    Prepare:     MSN CarPoint (9-898-280)

    Assignment: 

1. MSN CarPoint is the most-visited car-buying website. What is MSN Carpoint’s value proposition and why is it valuable?  What are CarPoint’s key advantages over its competitors?

2. Is selling cars on the internet an attractive opportunity? Why?  How do we assess the attractiveness of an opportunity in the digital world?

3. What impact does MSN CarPoint have on the dealers and manufacturers of automobiles?   

4. Would you buy an automobile on the web?  Would you buy from MSN CarPoint?  Would you invest in MSN CarPoint? 

2.  March 20, 2002 

    Prepare:     Healtheon/WebMD (9-701-007) 

    Assignment: 

1. Why is there so much inefficiency in the health care sector in the United States? 

2. What is Jeff Arnold’s strategy for addressing the inefficiencies in the health care sector? 

3. Will Jeff Arnold’s strategy work?   

4. What is the value proposition offered by Healtheon/WebMD?  For whom is it valuable?

5. How much of the value created will Healtheon/WebMD be able to capture?  Why? Who else could disintermediate the health care system? (Other verticals? Other horizontals?) 

3.  March 25, 2002

     Prepare:     Online Retailers (ch. 4 of Internet Business Models) 

    Assignment: 

1. Do “Online Retailers” have any advantage/disadvantage compared to their traditional rivals in the retailing industry?  What are their advantages and disadvantages?

2. How do “Online Retailers” create value for their customers and how different is their strategy from traditional retailers?

3. What constraints do traditional retailers face as they contemplate a strategy of selling online to their customers?  What are the arguments for and against adopting an offline-online integration strategy?

4. What constraints do “Online Retailers” face as they attempt to win market share from traditional retailers?  What might be a winning strategy that is able to not only create significant value, but also claim some of it?

5. How great are the threats of disintermediation that online and traditional retailers face from the manufacturers of the products they sell? 

4. March 26, 2002 

    Prepare:     E-Loan
                      Lending Tree CD (UVA-BP-0408-M) 

    Assignment: 

1. What is E-Loan’s business strategy?  How does it differ from Lending Tree’s business strategy?  From the traditional mortgage brokerages? 

2. In the case of each of these companies, how do they add and capture value in the loan origination value chain?  What do each of them add to customers; suppliers; partners?

 3. How will Lending Tree fare in the competition with E-Loan?

 4. How can Lending Tree claim a defensible, sustainable position in the industry?

                      ASSIGNMENTS FOR CLASSES 5-10

 5. April 1, 2002

    Read:      Online Content Providers (ch. 3 of Internet Business Models) 

    Prepare:  Boston.com  (9-800-165)

1. Michael Porter claims that, for all its hype the internet has actually made many industries less attractive.  Has the internet made the newspaper industry unattractive? Why or why not?

2. What are the opportunities and threats facing  the Boston Globe because of the Internet? Given these opportunities and threats, what specific strategic challenges does the Internet pose for the Boston Globe?

3. How does the Internet affect the revenue and profit models of the Boston Globe?  How might the Internet replace any lost revenues/profits from the traditional business?

 4. What might be the appropriate level of online-offline integration (or degree of separation) for Boston Globe.  How should they approach the overall question of online-offline integration?

6.  April 2, 2002     

   Prepare:  the case material for your team (except for Business Week Online, where there is no case.

   View:  Website for your company that is linked to the schedule on the course page

    Assignment:

    Presenting teams will work in your “learning teams” on your assigned content company materials and websites.  Prepare a 7 minute Power Point presentation on your assigned content company from this list:

 *CBS Marketwatch,*Stephen King,*TV Guide,*Launch Media, *Encyclopedia Brittanica, BW Online.

* means cases distributed to team members.

    In class we will hear your presentation on the 6 content companies and address the following questions:

1. Describe and evaluate the online strategy of your company?

2. How is the strategy of your company positioned to create value?

3. What characteristics, if any, of your company's strategy are designed to capture value for shareholders?  Will your company make money from content?

4.  Be prepared to discuss the frameworks you used to answer the above questions. 

 7.  April 8, 2002

   Read:      The Art of Standards Wars, California Management Review, volume 41, No. 2, Winter, 1999. 

   Prepare:  Adobe Systems Incorporated (9-801-199)

1. How was Postscript established as a de facto standard?  How did Adobe make money from Postscript, despite its being an "open" standard?

2. Which firm is currently in a stronger position to control de facto standards in the eBook space:  Adobe or Microsoft?

3. What should Adobe do? How can they win the standards war?  Should they focus on eDocs or eBooks?  Will the eBooks market tip or will there be multiple standards?  How can Adobe make money in this market?

 8.  April 9, 2002  (No class meeting; please use class and preparation time to continue working on your  PowerPoint presentation of your Concept Paper Topic for April 15/16.)

9. and 10.  April 15 and April 16, 2002

 The concept paper topic assignment has two parts.  The first is an interim presentation and the second is a final paper.  The interim group PowerPoint presentation will be held on April 15/16 and the final papers are due on May 8.  Here is a brief outline for each of these deliverables.

 Deliverables:

1.      PowerPoint presentation April 15 or 16

2.      Final Paper May 8, 5:00 pm.

 Suggested outline of PowerPoint Presentation:

• What is your interpretation of the topic?

• Brief survey of literature on the topic

• Summarize the big ideas from the literature

• Sketch out a preliminary outline of your idea on this topic

• Outline or give Table of Contents of your final paper

Plan to submit your presentation by email on April 15, 8:30 am.

Prepare to speak for 15 minutes, followed by questions.

Elements of Final Paper:

Outstanding papers aspire to the quality of a publishable paper in a respected manager's journal (e.g. Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, McKinsey Quarterly).  We are looking for new ideas and creative thinking; we assume that you will be familiar with previous ideas and tie them in, building upon them rather than simply summarizing them.

The papers should not exceed 15 pages of single-spaced text; you can include unlimited exhibits; be creative in using the media that best conveys your ideas, including multimedia.

ASSIGNMENTS FOR CLASSES 11-12

11.  April 22, 2002

Prepare:  Lonely Planet (a digital case on CD) (This CD is released for a single use, so please return your CD in class).

Individual and Group Assignment:

Please use the same groups (follow link for list) that you used in preparing for the Online Retailers and the Online Content classes to prepare this case.  Each member of your team will have one of the following roles in preparing the case (groups 5 and 6, one of you choose two roles):

q       Marketing

q       Business Development

q       Publisher

q       Chief Operating Officer

q       US General Manager

q       Financial Controller

Your group may find it more efficient to assign the roles and do preparation parts A. and B. below before your team meets.

This case preparation is done in the following sequence:

A.  View the Introduction (step 1 of the journey) and the Snapshot (step 2) material.

B.  In your individual role, prepare the material for Decision 1 (step 3 of the journey). 

C.  Meet with your group, discuss and then submit your recommendations for Decision 1.  Send your recommendations by email to BodilyS@virginia.edu from within the digital Lonely Planet case.  This includes an overall recommendation and issues from the perspective of each role in your group (steps 4 and 5 on your journey).

 D.  View the material for everyone and for your individual role related to Decision 2 (step 6 on the journey).

E.  Discuss and then submit your group's recommendation for Decision 2 by email.  This includes an overall recommendation and issues from the perspective of each role in your group (steps 7 and 8 on your journey). 

12.  April 23, 2002

Prepare:  Office Depot E-Business

1.  What are your recommendations on the strategy options facing Office Depot?  Why?

2.  How will the direct competitors (Staples and OfficeMax) likely react?  What will Amazon.com and Buy.com do?

3.  Relative to their competitors, what major capabilities and strengths will allow Office Depot  to achieve successful back-office integration and customer-facing integration?

4.  How could Office Depot win?  How could Office Depot lose?

5.  What impact could the various strategic options have on the top line?  On the bottom line?

ASSIGNMENTS FOR CLASSES 13-15

13.  April 29, 2002

Speaker: Colin Gounden, of Marketspace, a member of Monitor Group.

Topic: The Internet Dilemma for Traditional Companies: Generating Off-line Sales.

Assignment: 

Reference Material:  You may find the following report from UCLA highly relevant and interesting.  You may read it at your convenience.

      http://ccp.ucla.edu/pdf/UCLA-Internet-Report-2001.pdf     

       Think about the following questions in preparation for class:

14.  April 30, 2002

Speaker:  Lawrence Snapp, Darden MBA '99, Executive Vice President and Founder of  ReturnBuy.com and/or Walt Shill, President and Chief Executive Officer

Assignment: 

1. Read the materials at this link chronologically, giving attention to the white paper:

http://www.returnbuy.com/business/press.html

Explain the different stages of ReturnBuy's development. What have been the main strategic objectives for ReturnBuy during each phase?

2. After learning that eBay has committed to a minority investment in your company, you must set the strategic direction of ReturnBuy. What will you do with regard to the following:

a. A strategy for merchandising through eBay and/or on your own web site

b. Establishing the bounds of your alliance with eBay, e.g. joint selling strategies, exclusivity (formal or informal) of marketing arrangements, sharing company secrets, etc.

c. Public financing (IPO) versus through eBay and other partners.

15.  May 1, 2002- in Room 170

Review: Cases, Readings (including class slides saved on the course folder available in Outlook) and your Concept Paper Topic Materials.

Assignment:

1.  Consider the challenges of the Internet.  What issues have been resolved and what issues are still unresolved in your mind about eStrategy?

2.  Consider the following topics covered in the course:

• Value Creation 

• Value Capture 

• Deconstruction of Value-Chains

• Off-Line - On-Line Integration

• Standards Wars & Dominant Standards

• Digital Exchanges

• Network Economics

• Cannibalization/Channel Conflict

Pick three topics from the above list that interest you and may be closely related to your concept paper topic.  Be prepared to summarize the key insights you have gained on these topics.