Pervasive Computing And Communications Workshops Assessment Answer

at is why; it can be said that Google had to confront Microsoft head-on in cloud computing segment. 

Google's decision to take on Apple is another right decision taken by the management. Every four out of five smart phones in the world are equipped with Android OS. Still, consumers prefer "I-Phones" as only Apple can release upgrades and updates which are easier for the customers to follow. On the other hand, manufacturers of Android are slowly but steadily trying to cut Google out of the loop by adding their own tweaks to the software. As a result, Google was losing their grip and Apple started to improve their market share. On the other hand, Google gains its biggest revenues from the advertisement (Choi & Varian, 2012). That is why; the management wants as many people as possible on the web. The more users are there on the web, the more advertisement Google can sell. Therefore, to keep their revenue stable and to keep improving in the future, Google has decided to launch their own smartphone Nexus that will help them to control Android and all relevant software once again.

Google’s move to quit China because of censorship issues was not a good decision. It is true that Google experienced a number of cyber attacks in China and discovered that Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists were hacked (Tan & Tan, 2012). All these happened because of the censorship rules and regulations of the country. Some said that Google took the right decision; however, the global companies must understand that they will face different challenges and policies in different countries (Löwe, Mandl & Weber, 2012). Some of the policies will create obstacles and will prevent global companies to conduct business. Quitting is not an option as they can adopt alternative ways. For example, Google could add censorship evading functions through its web browser Chrome (Mason 2013).

Microsoft

Microsoft’s strategy

In its initial days, Microsoft was competing against Netscape that had 72 percent market share. During that time, Microsoft implemented a strategy where their new web browser Internet Explorer was collaborated with its office products such as Excel, Word and PowerPoint. Therefore, users who wanted to use Office products became an Internet Explore user also (Pisano 2015). During a poor economic time, when the consumers denied Vista, Microsoft launched a campaign named as “Windows life without walls.” A series of commercials were also launched under the campaign of “I m a PC.” These campaigns helped the organization to improve morale of the employees and gain loyalty of the customers. Besides, in order to understand what the customers want and how they like to buy products, Microsoft opened a number of retails stores in 2009. This helped the organization to observe the customers closely.

Pros’ and Cons of "I'm a PC" campaign 

The campaign was launched by Microsoft to challenge the “Get a Mac” promotional campaign of Apple. However, through this campaign, Microsoft could identify the customers who were looking for fancy designer computers. It also exhibited the innovative power of the company and the usage pattern of the updated version of the machines. Besides, Apple, through their campaign tried to convince customers that computers are of no use (Peng 2013).  However, Apple’s campaign was launched with the same aims and objectives. As Apple was the first company to launch such as campaign, they got all the credits, as there is no place for copied contents.

Acknowledging Apple’s campaign

According to Shapiro and Varian, (2013), the decision of acknowledging the campaign of Apple was a good decision made by Microsoft. Apple, through their campaign tried to prove that PC is a dull and clunky thing. Microsoft had to do something to protect their place in the market. That is why; they launched that campaign and promoted their capability of innovation. This campaign helped the organization to gain loyalty of their employees and customers. Besides, Microsoft had to launch a campaign for another reason. Apple started to convince people that personal computers are useless. If Apple could finish their campaign successfully, the chances were high that Microsoft could lose their entire market share.

“IDEO”

Reason behind IDEO’s success

The primary reason behind IDEO’s success is their focus on establishing an effective plan that helped them to gather information by conducting widespread market research. The management of the organization worked hard to integrate buying behavior of the customers along with product life cycle (Chudasri, Walker & Evans, 2013). On the other hand, IDEO also took a positive approach towards design thinking which is known as the study of consumer behavior (Fuerderer et al., 2013). Their design thinking was developed based on practical needs and demands of the customers. Besides, the organization also provided superior customer services that helped the consumers to solve any product related problems. The management of the organization could also keep their customers highly interested to the products offered by the company. Regular communication with the consumers and clients along with behavioral mapping, IDEA could achieve success in the industry. Behavioral mapping helped the company to learn and access the behavior of the customers. Last but not the least, IDEA’s focus on improving technology also helped it to upgrade the products they are offering. That is why; they are able to serve their customers at a higher level.

Challenges faced by IDEO in research and designing

While doing research in order to improve the designs of its products, IDEA faced biggest challenges from the customers. Success of a research depends on data collected from the customers (Ahmed, Ting & Johl 2015). Most of the times, while conducting a research, the organization had to work tremendously hard to collect proper information in order to create a customer friendly product design.

Brand awareness for IDEO

Being a consultancy organization, brand awareness for IDEA mostly comes from its great services. IDEA helped several organizations to solve critical problems related to usability issues. As a result, it could create a number of success stories among the customers. The organization also won many awards for it and clients (Leenders & Dolfsma, 2016). These things helped to generate positive brand awareness for the organizations. Besides, the management of the organization is continuously framing new methods and procedures in its development and enhancement. As a result, they are able to improve their brand awareness. Their brand awareness has helped the organization to have clients such as PepsiCo, Ford, Nike, Bank of America and Prada.

“FULLA DOLLS”

Pros and cons of FULLA DOLLS’s selecting marketing

Fulla Doll is known as an alternative product of Barbie doll and is marketed mainly in Islamic and Middle Eastern regions. After it was marketed first time in the year of 2003, Fulla Doll became a role model for young Muslim girls with many families who wanted their daughters to dress like Fulla. The biggest advantage of Fulla is it is marketed only in Muslim countries where Barbie is banned because of its outer looks. Fulla came with a certain body composition that was similar to the Muslim culture (Bahemia & Squire, 2013). As a result, parents had no problem and allowed their daughters to play with it. In spite of being tremendously famous in some countries, the biggest disadvantage was its limitation. As a result of regionalism marketing, Fulla could not tap into worldwide market and could not generate exemplary figures.

Strategy to improve sales and segmentation of Fulla Dolls

Currently, the management of Fulla Doll is mainly focusing on the Islamic countries where Barbie doll is banned due to its western looks and outfits. There, Fulla Doll serves as an alternative product of Barbie; however, it comes with Muslim fashion that includes hijab and abaya. Manufacturer of Fulla Dolls, which is New Boy Design, will have changed their strategy, which is to focus only on Muslim countries (Dunn & Dunn, 2016). They will have to improve their advertising strategies to appeal to customers from different languages and religious beliefs. Besides, they will have to tap into foreign markets such as UK, US and other European counties; however, keeping the original ideas intact.

"JIM Thomson Thai Silk Company."

Strategy to extend product line

Jim Thomson Thai Silk Company is considered as the leading Asian lifestyle brand in Thailand. The main reasons behind its success are its range of products that includes fabrics, accessories, apparels and upholsteries. Besides, the company is also good in blending Western designs along with Thai heritage and traditions (Sohail, Naz & Malik, 2014). The organization is also connected with Ed Turtle that is a famous US designer known for customizing fabrics and products for projects of Park Hyatt Hotels and Aman Resorts. Besides, these two famous hotel brands, the company also serves hotels such as Conrad and The Oriental.

Difference between JTTS and other brands

The specialty of JTTT is their unique idea of mixing Thai traditional designs along with contemporary Western design. Besides, the organization made a triumphant conversion from silk fabrics to home furnishing (El-Bassiouny 2014). These extensions allowed the company to gain a competitive advantage over its rivals. Besides, it has also placed JTTS as a company that is way more different than other organizations in the same industry.

References

Ahmed, S., Ting, D. H., & Johl, S. K. (2015). An Evidence of the Seamless Experience: Touchy Promotional Campaign. Global Business and Management Research, 7(2), 63.

Bahemia, H., & Squire, B. (2013). A Conceptual Model of Open Innovation for New Product Development Projects: Towards a Contingency Theory. J. Tedd, Open Innovation Research, Management and Practice, 129-156.

Choi, H., & Varian, H. (2012). Predicting the present with Google Trends.Economic Record, 88(s1), 2-9.

Chudasri, D., Walker, S., & Evans, M. (2013). Directions for Design Contributions to the Sustainable Development of the Handicrafts Sector in Northern Thailand. IASDR 2013, 24-30.

Dunn, R., & Dunn, A. G. (2016). Bad Dolls/Reappropriating Badness Performing the Feminine with Reference to Arab Muslim Dolls and Tiqqun’s Young-Girl. Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 12(2), 275-283.

El-Bassiouny, N. (2014). The one-billion-plus marginalization: Toward a scholarly understanding of Islamic consumers. Journal of Business Research, 67(2), 42-49.

Fuerderer, R., Herrmann, A., & Wuebker, G. (Eds.). (2013). Optimal bundling: marketing strategies for improving economic performance. Springer Science & Business Media.

Leenders, R. T., & Dolfsma, W. A. (2016). Social networks for innovation and new product development. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 33(2), 123-131.

Liu, C. Z., Au, Y. A., & Choi, H. S. (2014). Effects of freemium strategy in the mobile app market: an empirical study of Google play. Journal of Management Information Systems, 31(3), 326-354.

Löwe, R., Mandl, P., & Weber, M. (2012, March). Context Directory: A context-aware service for mobile context-aware computing applications by the example of Google Android. In Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops (PERCOM Workshops), 2012 IEEE International Conference on (pp. 76-81). IEEE.

Mason, E. (2013). Shaking up the anaconda: the new face of censorship in China. Index on Censorship, 42(2), 43-45.

Peng, M. W. (2013). Global strategy. Cengage learning.

Pisano, G. P. (2015). You need an innovation strategy. Harvard Business Review, 93(6), 44-54.

Shapiro, C., & Varian, H. R. (2013). Information rules: a strategic guide to the network economy. Harvard Business Press.

SOHAIL, R., NAZ, R., & MALIK, N. A. (2014). A Postcolonial Study of Barbie Phenomena and its Implication in Pakistani Urban Context. European Academic Research, 11(5), 6949-6980.

Tan, J., & Tan, A. E. (2012). Business under threat, technology under attack, ethics under fire: The experience of Google in China. Journal of business ethics, 110(4), 469-479.

Zhu, D. H., & Westphal, J. (2015, January). A Structural Theory of Power, Strategy, and Performance. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2015, No. 1, p. 18452). Academy of Management.