1.Most visitors to a … don’t actually buy anything, so simply having lots of … doesn’t mean there will be lots of sales. In fact, if the site attracts visitors through paid … on Google or Yahoo, then bringing them actually costs money.
2.Customer service reps answer questions via live … on the site. When a customer engages in live chat with a sales rep, the average … doubles in value.
3.But instead of real customer service reps, many smaller e-tailers use animated characters that draw on a … of answers to commonly asked questions. E-tailers hope that the animated characters will turn … into buyers.
4.When someone is shopping at home, they have an … of privacy. Ted Martin, senior vice-president for … and operations at Overstock.com, said: ‘We’re taking the conservative … right now, we don’t want to be intrusive’.
Text 2.Read and translate the text and learn terms from the Essential Vocabulary
The Value Chain
To analyze thespecific activities through which firms can create acompetitive advantage, it is useful to model the firm as a chain of value-creating activities. Michael Porter identified a set of interrelated generic activities common to a wide range of firms. The resulting model is known as the value chain:
The goal of these activities is to create value that exceeds the cost of providing the product or service, thus generating a profit margin.
— Inbound logisticsinclude the receiving, warehousing, and inventory control of input materials.
— Operationsare the value-creating activities that transform the inputs into the final product.
— Outboundlogistics are the activities required to get the finished product to the customer, including warehousing, order fulfillment, etc.
— Marketing& Salesare those activitiesassociated with getting buyers to pin chase the product, including channel selection, advertising, pricing, etc.
— Serviceactivities are those That maintain and enhance the product's valuein eluding customer support, after-sale services, etc.
Primary activities may be vital in developing a competitive advantage. For example, logistics activities are critical for a provider of distribution services, and service activities may be the key focus for a firm offering on-site maintenance contracts for office equipment. These five categories are generic and include specific activitiesthat vary by industry.
Support Activities
The primary value chain activities described above are facilitated by support activities. Porter identified four generic categories of support activities, the details of which are industry-specific:
— Procurement — the function of purchasing theraw materials and other inputs used in the value-creating activities.
— Technology Development -includes R&D, process automation, and other technologydevelopment used to support the value-chain activities.
— Human Resource Management— the activities associated with recruiting, development and compensation of employees.
— Firm Infrastructure — includes activities such as finance, legal, quality management, etc.
Support activities are often viewed as "overhead", but some firms successfullyhave used them to develop a competitive advantage, for example, to develop a cost advantage through innovative management of information systems.
Value-Chain Analysis
In order to better understand the activities for a competitive advantage one can begin with the generic value chain and then identify the relevant firm specific activities. Process flows can be mapped, and these flows used to isolate the individualvalue-creating activities.
Once the discrete activities are defined, linkages between activities should be identified. A linkage exists if the performance or cost of one activity affects that of another. Competitive advantage may be obtained by optimizing and coordinating linked activities.
The value chain also is useful in outsourcing decisions.Understandingthelinkagesbetween activities can lead to more optimal make-or-buy decisions that can result in either in cost advantage or a differentiating advantage.
The Value System
The firm's value chain links to the value chain of upstream suppliers anddownstream buyers.The result is a large stream of activities known as thevalue system.The development of a competitive advantage depends not only on the firm-specific value chain, but also on the value system of which the firm is a part.
