Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references. / The Internet has becoming an increasingly important channel for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business e-commerce. It has changed the way many companies do business. Every day, more and more companies worldwide are being linked electronically. But the success rate in terms of profitability for these startups is low. This thesis focuses on business-to-consumer aspect of e-commerce. My research is to study the models from a set of online merchants and see how these companies translate their companies' e-business vision into reality. What are the critical factors these online merchants considered as they transform their companies into an e-commerce? This thesis identifies the key success factors of this technology strategy and model as well as helps understanding to what extent this success can be replicated in other markets and industries. Through detailed case studies on Amazon and Dell, we will analyze their strategies and identify the success factors that make them unique to thrive on this competitive landscape of the Digital Economy. / by Le Kha. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2000. / Also available online at the MIT Theses Online homepage <http://thesis.mit.edu>. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-67). / This thesis focuses on an analysis of strategy in the prescription drug industry. For prescription drug companies, the ultimate consumers are patients, but intermediate customers are physicians. Because of regulations and the particular decision making process of choosing pharmaceuticals, the marketing activity of drug companies have focused on physicians and introduced their products to them. However, because of deregulation, the emergence of health maintenance organizations (HMOs), which aim to reduce health care costs, the value chain of prescription drug industry has been changing. Accordingly, prescription drug companies have been re-evaluating the traditional value chain of the industry. They have to invest in a more important part, and to establish a new business model. This paper will focus mainly on a prescription drug market, discussing a new value chain and its demand for change. This paper explains the increasing need for direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, which includes information technology and e-commerce, in contrast to the industry's traditional marketing. / by Yoshihito Takahashi. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107-108). / Using Michael Porter's framework for the competitiveness of the nations and Professor Michael Cusumano's theory on the orientation of the software companies toward services, I analyzed the country of Colombia's software industry to elaborate a diagnosis of current conditions and to generate some strategies for the Government and for the business sector using diagrams of dynamic systems. Keeping in mind that Colombia has significant human capital, success in this type of industry is likely, not only because the industry is highly dependent on human talent; but also because seeing the reality and determining that the number of qualified people is not very large, the country should create aggressive strategies to increase the number of people qualified for the industry. In the short term, it should emphasize the information technology (IT) services sector taking advantage of its strengths and looking for specific market niches. For the medium term it should look for software products where Colombia has a competitive advantage. / (cont.) Studies the Government is conducting to identify industries favorable to domestic growth could be very valuable to the software industry and could focus on the products those types of industries need. For example, Colombia could begin to analyze if it is well-suited to develop software products for the bio-fuel industry, relatively new industry, Brazil could be a great client and Colombia already has the necessary natural resources for this type of industry. / by Monica Cepero. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-116). / The Air Force sustainment system, which includes maintenance and logistics, is facing difficult challenges. As the maintenance system is being downsized, operations tempo is increasing and private companies are entering into competition for maintenance workload. The Air Force is under intense pressure to improve maintenance performance. Attempts to change the maintenance system in a piecemeal fashion have often led to unintended consequences and global sub-optimization. High-level simulation models of the maintenance system that could illustrate critical tradeoffs could provide a valuable tool for learning, and help improve system performance in the future. This thesis uses a simple high-level simulation model to model the sustainment of a unit of C-5 aircraft. It examines high-level tradeoffs in performance and cost due to the number of aircraft, the number of spare parts, and cannibalization practices. The effects of depot repair time and the failure probability of aircraft parts are also considered. In a system like that of the Air Force sustainment system that aims to improve maintenance and logistics performance and reduce cost, yet must deal with large demand variability and must be prepared for wartime surge, cannibalization, a large number of aircraft, and a large inventory of spare parts may be necessary and may even be cost-effective. / by Luis C. Tsuji. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-74). / This thesis investigates the emerging market for wireless information services caused by the convergence of Internet, information and telecommunication technologies. Portals and content and application providers are now entering a market previously controlled and dominated by the wireless network providers. This thesis starts with a description of this new value chain and a discussion of the power of each of the participants. This is followed by an overview of the market size and the projections for the future, together with a description of services currently available around the world and associated business models. A case study on wireless financial services follows next, to illustrate what might happen and be available in other industries in the near future. I developed three scenarios for the wireless Internet services the next three years: ** A closed case: The Wireless Network As A Toll Road ** Status quo: Internet and Commerce Without Wires, Why The Hype? ** An open case: New Unique and Value-added Offerings Create New Markets I used interviews with leading industry expert to validate these scenarios. There was a general consensus among the experts and managers that my most optimistic and pessimistic scenarios represent the likely range of possible future outcomes. The majority believes we will move from the current closed (i.e. the pessimistic) case to the open model (i.e. the optimistic scenario) ending up somewhere close to the open case. The experts believed that the open model would eventually "win" due to technical improvements and competitive pressure. Based on this, I arrived at ten strategies for successful market penetration of wireless information services. The top three are; act quickly to gain first-mover advantages, enter into profit sharing because this is a complex and networked marketplace, and thirdly address unspoken and subtle needs. The main challenges facing the players in this market are: ** They have to share the ownership and responsibility of the customer experience ** The need for developing open standards together to fuel the growth of the market ** That the timing of the products and services must be right the first time. / by Andres Svadberg Hatloy. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-76). / In many high technology industries, incumbents routinely find themselves loosing to new entrants as well as established competitors in the battle for leadership across successive generations of new technology. However, the demise of the incumbent is most typically associated with the entry of start-up firms particularly in settings with minimal complementary assets, few intellectual property rights and limited technical expertise. This thesis will explore a different competitive setting - the U.S. Government's unclassified satellite competitions - an arena characterized by deep technical skills, strong and lasting complementary assets and robust IP. Given these strengths, we would expect to find that incumbents would successfully win most competitions. In fact, according to newly gathered data, satellite producers for the U.S. Government have historically experienced an almost 90% loss rate in follow-on satellites competitions. This pattern is prevalent in satellite competitions undertaken by the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA), the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the United States Air Force (USAF) and the United Stated Navy (USN). / (cont.) The winners of these competitions are not to new entrants into the satellite business, but rather they are other established aerospace companies - suggesting that it is more than "organizational newness" that leads to success and more than age that leads to obsolescence. Anecdotal drivers of this trend abound, however, there is no systematic examination of the satellite industry and few settings in which the loss of incumbents to other large and established firms have been extensively analyzed. This thesis is an attempt to unravel the puzzling and repeated loss of incumbents to organizations that are in many ways very similar in terms of size, bureaucracy, technology etc. and yet which seem to be able to out-compete the winners of prior competitions over 90% of the time. This thesis argues that three factors drive this trend: 1. Non-incumbents leverage new architecture innovations to provide superior performance 2. Non-incumbent management encourages pursuit of architectural innovation 3. Non-incumbent optimistic bias enables aggressive bidding to win. / by Paul Scearce. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-103). / The business model of selling software bundled with hardware is called the appliance model. As hardware becomes less and less expensive and open source software is being offered for free, the traditional business model of selling packaged software is being threatened. This disruption in the software industry is forcing software vendors to consider other business models such as advertising-based, transaction-based, software-as-a-service or appliance-based models in order to create additional value for customers. Most of these models have existed in variants for decades but are now gaining in popularity due to factors such as changing cost structures or the Internet as a delivery channel. This thesis analyzes the economic drivers and barriers for the appliance model for both the consumer and enterprise software industry segments. Important drivers of the appliance model for both of these sectors are hardware commoditization, open source software and vertical integration in order to capture margins. In the enterprise software segment the complexity of traditional software integration and operation including unpredictability of total cost of ownership, rising IT personnel cost and maintenance fees are driving the adoption of the appliance model. / (cont.) In the consumer software segment, ease of use, limited battery life, disintermediated distribution and prestige are important economic factors. The appliance model also has a number of economic disadvantages that hinder its adoption. Among these are the additional competencies that a company needs to build, supply chain and distribution costs, as well as inflexibility and inconvenience for the customer. Decision criteria for companies considering adopting the appliance model are also discussed. Industry examples in the consumer and enterprise software segment are examined and specific companies are used as case studies. Among these are the digital music player, digital video recorder, router and enterprise search markets. The possible implementation paths for software companies transitioning to the appliance model are proposed and the virtual appliance model as a next adoption step is discussed. / by Bettina Hein. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-155). / The healthcare industry is expanding swiftly and total healthcare expenditures are expected to reach 18% of GDP by 2008. However there exist steep variances in quality of care and high incidences of medical error. This has given impetus to efforts at progressively evolving the healthcare delivery system. The role of information technology (IT) is seen as being central to cost reduction and quality improvement of healthcare delivery. Furthermore, efficiency gains will realize approximately 20% in cost reductions. However, there are significant challenges associated with widespread adoption of IT by healthcare providers. Despite the existence of vendor and technology maturity, implementation rates for clinical patient record systems were only 35% in 2006. This study addresses the problem of low IT adoption in hospitals through a three pronged analysis methodology. A Clockspeed analysis has revealed a dichotomy between the maturity levels of technology and vendors on the one hand and delivery processes on the other. This has resulted in lower business value being realized from IT investments by healthcare providers. / (cont.) To address the concern of low business value realization from IT investments, a workflow and Social Networking Analysis was conducted on the surgery patient flow process of a prominent Boston area hospital. It was demonstrated that productivity gains could be achieved through redesign of social networks at the workplace and by inculcating an enterprise-wide process orientation. This would generate greater business value from existing IT investments and thereby impact the rate of IT adoption. Furthermore, an assessment of IT Governance styles and IT Architecture maturity was done at the same Boston area hospital. The findings revealed the requirements necessary for migration towards an IT Architecture that could deliver data integration and an enterprise-wide process orientation. A top management driven approach towards a uniformity in governance styles and an alignment of business strategies throughout the organization were identified as the key requirements. The improved business value realized from IT investments through this combined approach makes the case for faster IT adoption by hospitals, and by extension, by healthcare providers in general. / by Chandrika N. Samarth. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-59). / In today's world of advanced technology and global reach, one company cannot necessarily make a significant technological innovation. A company that pursues a technological advantage needs to manage global collaboration or competition appropriately. Over the years, the "standardization" of technology has been one of the major strategies with which to encourage technological innovation and acquire a competitive advantage. However, a standardized technology does not necessarily contribute to creating a competitive advantage, and the "differentiation" of technology sometimes provides a better competitive advantage than standardization can. This thesis focuses on the strategic differences between the "standardization" and "differentiation" of a technology. The purpose is to gain insight into standardization and differentiation, looking them as drivers of R&D activities in a company pursuing technical competence. The thesis suggests advantages and disadvantages of each strategy and analyzes circumstances that affect strategic differences. The first part of the thesis establishes the fact that the strategic difference has a less impact on business activities and commercial success than on R&D. / (cont.) The second part clarifies the impact of the difference on R&D activities, and it consists of three case studies from the technological areas in which the author has experience. The observations from the case studies lead to a decision matrix for the strategic choice between standardization and differentiation. If a market requirement is uncertain, the differentiation better facilitates effective R&D by means of its flexibility; the technology consolidation linked to standardization would not work well in this situation. Also, if technology elements which satisfy market requirements or target performance are immature, differentiation makes R&D more effective because of its relative lack of restrictions; inherent competition and selection to avoid redundant work linked to standardization would not work well in this situation. / by Satoru Adachi. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2000. / Also available online at the MIT Theses Online homepage <http://thesis.mit.edu>. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-106). / The Internet is currently keeping managers awake at night. Surveys conducted in various industries and regions around the globe typically show that more than 90% of the executives consider that the Internet will transform or will have a major impact on the global market place. This work addresses this problem. It focuses on the issues of business transformation that result from the widespread adoption of the Internet, by manufacturers, distributors and consumers. In almost every industry, the Internet is bringing important business changes. The developments are bringing new competitors to the market place, bringing new forms of competition, and are reshaping industries. Two of the key issues to address are the identification of the major industry changes and the identification of the core capabilities required for implementing successful Internet ventures. Among established industries, financial services are already being strongly impacted. Financial services' products and financial services' value chain are predominantly built on information and its products underlay many of the other industries' activities. Bill payment and retail stock trading are leading the categories with higher share of online execution. The use of the Internet in the financial services industry is specifically analyzed in this work. / by Paulo Sobral. / S.M.M.O.T.