Final Post

Trend i choose is: PDA phones.

PDA phones or smartphones, is a new phenomina, it interest more than one, especialy business men.
This technical cell-phones are very smart:

- they work with worldwide GSM,a convenient feature for overseas travelers.

- It can store a variable number of phone book entries. This is generally the case of phones with a dynamic memory and, it usually allows for a lot of phone numbers to be stored.

- It has a memory expansion slot ,a useful way to store more pictures and music or transfer them from and to the laptop computer.

- It has a speakerphone, which can prove useful in a car or in other situations.

- It has a built-in small keyboard. Useful not only when typing text messages but also when browsing the Internet and adding new phone book entries.

- Bluetooth-enabled, which is an interesting plus. Bluetooth is not really necessary but may be handy if you want to use a wireless headset or transfer data to or from your laptop, for instance.

- Video Conference and Conference Calling.

- Sending and receiving emails.

For visualising the trend:
-http://cellphones.about.com/od/an_motorola/a/anmot_q.htm


* How this trand is influencing Business model?

- Everywhere i go nowadays i see people with PDA phones in their hands. First, business men were the only one concerned, sending emails, receiving them, sending documents, searching information in the net, it replace somewhere the usual laptop. Now, i feel like young people are intersted more and more about the product. I personaly realise the importance of it. It make our life easier; we can work while we are waiting for our plane, we can receive emails even if we don't have a computer with us, we can call, listen the music, make a conference call, its really a very smart cell phone, i guess the business is growing fast around the world, everyone would like to have it.

I never thought that one day we could have a smart phone which replace 3 or 4 gudgets. It was a very smart idea to find out it. it help us, specialy business men or women, to save their time, monney. to stay connected with their offices. I personaly prefer Blackberry phones, for me it's all about beinig in, and also to being professional. All of this PDA's phones are very fachionable instead of being smart, important in business life.

In the future, i think that the trend will continue to growth, now i guess that we will perhapes have a more intiligent phones, mess bigger, but i think that this is a very important product for business men or women. It helped them to save time, monney, and so many other things, so i don't think that the industry will suffer from copetitors. I also think that the product will attract even young people, instead of sending sms, we will send email by our PDA phones.
I beleive that this industry will continue to growth considerably, no one can stop it especialy after the huge consomation by business world.

INNOCENTIVE

Innocentive is an open innovation marketplace which connects innovation and solution seekers with creative thinkers and solution providers.Innocentive was launched by Eli Lilly & Co'sventure capital group . the main idea behind this business was to use the power of the Interne to enhance scientific and technological collaboration.

This business model is a very useful way to make things easier. The solutions seekers could save time and people who could help have the mean to provide the solution.First of all, it has found the way to stimulate people to collaborate.Not only there is a financial booster for people who want to shear their ideas, but also there is a competition between participating groups.

ADVANTAGES of INNOCENTIVE : the worldwide brainstorming- Its is a worldwide laboratory where everyone can work on everything, which is an open creativity market but safe,- It is the best way for seekers to get solutions from a different search area than the one they know already. Problems can be solved simply because non specialist with new approach are working on them.- It is a time and money saver tool because : - 1/ People who chooses to work on any program are passionate about it first , which can help a lot in the originality of the outcome.- 2/It makes seekers and solvers quickly in touch ,.- It is a risks minimizer for a company or an organization. Instead of spending months or years on a topic, they can benefit from the experience or curiosity or passionate people and get the result quicker.

DISAVANDTAGES of INNOCENTIVE : IP problems to solve,- Some touchy subjects regarding deontology cannot be submitted ( nuclear orwar related projects),- Time might be difficult to evaluate and control,- Some subjects might not be chosen by solvers.So the seeker might fail tosucceed.

Social Entrepreneur

In my own opinion, the concept is a real shift to corporate responsability. A company needs to be innovated, so it needs a social entrepreneur in order to solve its social problems,and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Social entrepreneurs assess their success in terms of the impact they have on society. I think that social entrepreneur became very important for a company.

There are continuing arguments over precisely who counts as a social entrepreneur. Some have advocated restricting the term to founders of organizations that primarily rely on earned income – meaning income earned directly from paying consumers. Others have extended this to include contracted work for public authorities, while others still include grants and donations.Today, nonprofits and non-governmental organizations, foundations, governments and individuals promote, fund, and advise social entrepreneurs around the planet. A growing number of colleges and universities are establishing programs focused on educating and training social entrepreneurs.
Once again, its better for a company to use the help of social entrepreneur for its benifit.

Vente privées.com is a new pynomina wich attract a large number of people. This is the new way of doing good business, buying expnsive clothes or products with interesting prices. Inernet allowed both brands and costumers to benifit from the situation. Once again, E Business show us how important role it plays in our usual life, how practical our life is thanks to E business. All we have to do in order to benifit from interesting prices vente privées propose, is to register our selves and than we will receive all promotion they propose. we can aloso see the products, colors, sizes in the net, once we receive products we can return them back if we arent't satisfied.

2/

Vente-privee.com Refashions Closeouts

Private sales of designer overstock have been a part of the Paris high-fashion scene for years. This Internet middleman takes the concept online
During frenzied invitation-only clothing sales called ventes privées, chic Parisians strip down to their underwear to try on deeply-discounted designer clothes in bare rooms with cement floors and florescent lighting. After fighting over last season's stilettos and then stuffing as many glamorous gowns as they can grab into extra-strength trash bags, they put back on their street clothes and haul their take to makeshift checkout counters.

Distasteful as such cut-rate shopping orgies might sound, top designers such as Givenchy—the fashion house that gained fame with clients like Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly, and is now owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH.PA)—find them a reliable and time-tested way to get rid of overstock.

But now luxury marques and even consumer products companies increasingly are turning to an online alternative that is shaking inventory-clearance to its foundations. Called Vente-privee.com, the six-year old French company holds invitation-only closeout sales over the Internet—and attracts a million unique visitors a day who buy, on average, 40,000 items daily.

All in the Presentation

Items for sale include luxury apparel and accessories, wine and Champagne, household linens, baby clothes, and small household appliances. All are sold, while they last, at fixed prices 50% to 70% below retail. With revenues last year of roughly a half-billion dollars, up 40% from 2006, privately held Vente-privee.com is becoming a force in distribution and is starting to be copied around the world.
Part of what sets the startup apart is its unique approach to merchandising. Instead of showing grainy pictures of unsold blouses or handbags, Vente-privee.com puts together slick promotional shots and videos featuring fashion models and original music that add lustre to the merchandise. The campaigns—approved by the brands—help boost sales while making the online shopping experience more pleasant than a real-world sample sale. Deeply discounted prices are mentioned, of course, but there's nothing about the Web site reminiscent of a bargain basement.

First-Mover Advantage

"Vente-privee.com has created an entirely new channel for brands," says Christian Strain, a principle with venture capital and private equity firm Summit Partners, based in Boston, Palo Alto, Calif., and London. Summit invested an undisclosed amount in Vente-privee.com last year for a 20% stake in the company—its first-ever deal in France. The funding is helping Vente-privee.com expand: It recently opened operations in Spain and Germany and plans to add Italy and Britain in the next six months.
That's not stopping a few well-funded rivals from trying to catch up. British venture capital firm 3i (III.L), which was spurned in an earlier effort to invest in Vente-privee.com, has sunk $8.3 million into a rival called BuyVIP. The Madrid company readily admits it's mimicking Vente-privee.com's model but says it aims to win by expanding faster into other European markets.

Overstock is Unavoidable
Meanwhile, in the U.S., two entrepreneurs have founded a New York rival called Gilt Groupe that launched in November. Alexis Maybank, a former eBay (EBAY) and AOL (TWX) executive, and Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, who worked previously at LVMH and Bulgari (BULG.MI), got seed funding from Kevin Ryan, a founder and former chief executive of online advertising giant DoubleClick, and raised $5 million from venture capital firm Matrix Partners. "Anyone who follows e-commerce is familiar with Vente-privee," says Maybank.

"A Revolution for Branded Products"

Today most such merchandise is sold via invitation-only ventes privées or sample sales, or through factory outlets and liquidation stores open to the public. Some is dumped through so-called jobbers, or wholesalers who buy overstock and then resell it at retail. But top brands hate the resulting low margins and tarnished image, says Xavier Court, who runs marketing for Vente-privee.com and is one of its eight founders.
The way we are dealing with overstock is a revolution for branded products," Court says. "It is extremely efficient, protects the image of the brand, and brings in new customers on- and off-line." Court and six of the other founders came from the apparel wholesaling world before starting Vente-privee.com, while one had an Internet background.

Self-Contained Merchandising Machine

Every day, beginning at 7 a.m., one manufacturer puts leftover stock on sale for up to 72 hours. Vente-privee.com's 4.5 million customers are notified a few days in advance of upcoming sales, and early birds have more to choose from. To reduce financial risk, the company doesn't take possession of any closeout inventory. It's just a middleman, passing along orders to the original seller and retaining a profit margin of anywhere from 20% to 40% per item. Discretion is also the name of the game: Only members are aware of the sales, and there is no record of an operation after it has been shut down.
Perhaps the most unusual aspect of Vente-privee.com is its merchandising program. The company hires models, make-up artists, hairdressers, and photographers to produce daily fashion shoots depicting leftover merchandise in the best possible light. The company also employs a team of journalists to put out its own glossy fashion magazine, called Rosebuzz, that goes out to 50,000 top customers. The headquarters even houses a recording studio where original music for advertising trailers is created. The songs have proven so popular that Vente-privee.com now sells a CD of 15 of the tracks on its site.

3/

2 examples are:

- Promod
- Diesel

FREEMIUM is business models usually involve a Free service, sometimes time limited or feature limited, supported by advertising.The goal is to convert these free users to paid subscriptions.

FREEMIUM was first articulated by venture capitalist Fred Wilson on March 23, 2006. "Give your service away for free, possibly ad supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc, then offer premium priced value added services or an enhanced version of your service to your customer base."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemium_business_model


online businesses utilizing FREEMIUM are:

1/ MEETIC
2/ SKYPE


The advantages for FREEMIUM are :

1/ It allow customers to experience the products before paying it.
2/ il allow customers to have a general idea about different products without any fees.
3/ it allow customers to have their own idea without being influenced by communication or media


The disavantages are:

1/ customers can have an idea about the products before buying it, it could be bad for the company if customers didn't like the product.
2/ customers can use only the free part of products, for example, only using SKYPE for usual calls, witch is free.
3/ customers could give to product a good value before using it, and than to be less satisfacted after using it.

Easy product for an Easy life

My phrase sum up the interesting document we had to read. Some people (business men) understood that they have to find a solution to make our life easier. Most of people search for good products, easy to use and especially cheaper than the others. From the document, we understood that M. STELIOS found a real good solution for a very smart business. Selling air-ticket cheaper that any others, proposing interesting cruises not expensive in order to allow people with limited budget to experience the cruise witch they always dream of.
Easy products is a concept of life, is a product for the masses. It means turning products unaffordable in past into affordable ones. Thanks to them some people’s life have changed, especially when it comes to cheap air-tickets that allowed many people to travel around the world.

The main idea here is that new business men think differently from the pass, they comes with new idea, practical, cheaper, easier, funniest.

Yield management is helping companies to sell products in the right time to the right person. But not only, it helps to push sells, to end a collection in order to bring a new one. All companies need to use yield management even if there are doing well.

For me, Easy jet is an excellent example for a company using yield management. The company is doing very well thanks to this method. The majority of sits are sold, planes are full, so the business is running well. Yield management is pushing sales. Easy jet comes with this idea, selling air tickets cheaper than other companies; the results are great for both company and customers. No doubt about it, Yield management is a solution for increasing companie's profit. thanks to companies like Easy jet, we feel the differnce only few years after being in the market.

The Long Tail

The long tail is a new phenomenon in our life. Customers can thanks to it find anything they need on the net. Sometimes we also can find products no more existing in the market, so we only have to search on the net in order to buy them.

In my own idea, the long trail is a solution for everybody; for both Customers and Suppliers:
- Customers can search in the net for any product they need, they specially can compare prices, purchase it easily and to have the product until home.
- For suppliers, I think that they help them to sell all products they have in the store, especially when they should expose a new collection or changing it, so they need internet in order to push their sales, without loosing money.

Internet become a real market, most people nowadays around the world use it for buying their products, Holidays, air tickets and also food. People's behavior changed, we don't need any more to go shopping, to search for a specific product, to buy music, we can download it from internet.

Internet offer us some products we can’t find any where else, a new way to make our life easier, customers don’t have to stop using a product because they don’t find it in the market anymore, and they only have to search in the net and to purchase it.

As we understood from the document the long trail, there is a real demand on line from customers, people’s behavior have changed and a large number of people become internet’s buyers. Years before, buy or sell a product buy using a computer was impossible, now thanks to internet, we can luckily realise what people before us couldn't.