Market bundling strategies in the horizontal portal industry

The arrival of the Internet offers opportunities for both incremental efficiency gains and complete industry redefinition, presenting new value propositions and hence leading to the emergence of new businesses and industries. One particular case is that of the horizontal portal industry, such portals being consistently the most visited sites on the Web. Nevertheless, despite ongoing market concentration, overall profitability remains low. In this paper we contend that, although the industry has great potential for value creation, value appropriation in such information-based businesses remains problematic. The only way to achieve it is through cross-market bundling; that is, portals selling their products packaged with Internet access and proprietary content through system competition. We support our claims with theoretical argument and empirical evidence, analyzing the information distribution value chain in its entirety.Portals; information goods; Internet advertising; Internet service providers; content provider;

Simulating the conflict between reputation and profitability for online rating portals

We simulate the process of possible interactions between a set of competitive services and a set of portals that provide online rating for these services. We argue that to have a profitable business, these portals are forced to have subscribed services that are rated by the portals. To satisfy the subscribing services, we make the assumption that the portals improve the rating of a given service by one unit per transaction that involves payment. In this study we follow the 'what-if' methodology, analysing strategies that a service may choose from to select the best portal for it to subscribe to, and strategies for a portal to accept the subscription such that its reputation loss, in terms of the integrity of its ratings, is minimised. We observe that the behaviour of the simulated agents in accordance to our model is quite natural from the real-would perspective. One conclusion from the simulations is that under reasonable conditions, if most of the services and rating portals in a given industry do not accept a subscription policy similar to the one indicated above, they will lose, respectively, their ratings and reputations, and, moreover the rating portals will have problems in making a profit. Our prediction is that the modern portal-rating based economy sector will eventually evolve into a subscription process similar to the one we suggest in this study, as an alternative to a business model based purely on advertising

The Obamacare Opportunity: Implementing the Affordable Care Act to Improve Health, Reduce Hardship, and Grow the Economy for All Californians

This report describes how California can take advantage of ACA implementation to increase access both to health coverage and to vital safety net and work support programs.In Section I, we describe California's public benefit take up problem. We identify the take up rates of the key safety net and work support programs, barriers to greater participation, and the benefits of increasing participation in such programs.In Section II, we describe how ACA implementation can increase take up rates for health insurance and public benefit programs. States can expand integration infrastructure and operations across a broad range of programs and the federal government will pay most of the costs.In Section III, we set forth various policy options for integrating California's Marketplace with public benefit programs. We describe California's existing integration efforts and present ACA and non-ACA best practices from other states regarding take up strategies.In Section IV, we make recommendations focused on a single goal -- increasing the take up rate of safety net and work support programs to improve health, reduce hardship, and grow the economy for all Californians

Paving the way to e-services: Innovation through online games

The transformative power of organizational and service innovations on value or supply chains has been the object of several studies. The question identified in this paper is how disruptive trends in the videogames world can have spill-over effects in the broader realm of e-services. Section 1 opens with a brief review of literature. Section 2 proposes a description of the on-line games industrial ecosystem, the characteristics of the production process and the value chain in the online video games industry. The main techno-economic models for the production and distribution of online games are described in a third section with an emphasis on service creation, and illustrated by some case studies. The last part highlights the trend of innovative paths towards an economy of e-Services which are driven by the evolution of online games in a converged environment. --Online value creation,virtual world,virtual good,value chain,digital content convergence,new business models,services

eEnabled internet distribution for small and medium sized hotels: the case of hospitality SMEs in Athens

Advances in information and communications technologies (ICTs) have strategic implications for a wide range of industries. Tourism and hospitality have dramatically changed by the ICTs and the Internet and gradually emerge as the leading industry on online expenditure. The Internet revolutionised traditional distribution models, enabled new entries propelled both disintermediation and reintermediation and altered the sources of competitive advantage. This paper explores the strategic implications of ICTs and the perceived advantages and disadvantages of Internet distribution for small and medium-sized hospitality enterprises (SMEs). Primary research in Athens hotels demonstrates the effects of the Internet and ICTs for secondary markets, where there is lower penetration and ICT adoption. Interviews and questionnaires identified a number of strategies in order to optimise distribution. The analysis illustrates the strategic role of ICTs and the Internet for hospitality organisations and Small and Medium-sized organisations in general. Most hotels employ a distribution mix that determines the level and employment of the Internet. The paper demonstrates that only organisations that use ICTs strategically will be able to develop their electronic distribution and achieve competitive advantages in the future

A New Approach for Evaluating the Order Fulfillment Process Options of B2C Horizontal Portals Using DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis)

By using the traditional statistical or operations research methods for deciding the product-delivery logistics, the portal companies are not using their competitive advantages on being more e-enabled, informed and computationally able than their traditional counterparts. In this paper, we show some typical characteristics of the portals like their handling of a huge range of goods in terms of transactional values or volumes. Subsequently, we have identified three types of generic product-delivery logistics of the portals with various intermediate entities or trading partners. Then, a completely different approach using an extreme point method rather than the traditional central-tendency-based statistical methods has been suggested

The business model: Theoretical roots, recent developments, and future research

The paper provides a broad and multifaceted review of the received literature on business models, in which we attempt to explore the origin of the construct and to examine the business model concept through multiple disciplinary and subject-matter lenses. The review reveals that scholars do not agree on what a business model is, and that the literature is developing largely in silos, according to the phenomena of interest to the respective researchers. However, we also found some emerging common ground among students of business models. Specifically, i) the business model is emerging as a new unit of analysis; ii) business models emphasize a system-level, holistic approach towards explaining how firms do business; iii) organizational activities play an important role in the various conceptualizations of business models that have been proposed, and iv) business models seek not only to explain the ways in which value is captured but also how it is created. These emerging themes could serve as important catalysts towards a more unified study of business models.Business model; strategy; technology management; innovation; literature review;

A Process Model for Assessing the Distribution Options for Horizontal E-Business Portals

E-business portal acts as an interface between the e-suppliers and e-customers and many different types of distribution channels are defined individually by various enterprises. The logistics management and decision parameters for distribution models depend on the type of portal e.g. horizontal or vertical. In this paper the focus is on the distribution channels defined for horizontal portals, which are critical aspects of e-business but are not as explored as the other aspects. In this paper, various aspects of e-business models have been analyzed and research reveals that distribution issues need to be looked at with a fresh approach, because the tradition methods do not take into account some typical characteristics of e-business like the range of goods, transactional values and volumes the horizontal portals nowadays handle. Towards this end, three types of distribution channels for a generic horizontal portal have been identified. A decision parameter table has been formulated and used to assess various options for the distribution logistics for the horizontal portals. Also each of these broad categories has been dealt with individually highlighting their salient features along with the advantages and disadvantages associated. The primary objectives for assessment are cost savings and profit maximization of the portal. An assessment process model has been developed on the basis of some key e-business tangible parameters like transactional value, business volume etc. which can be further extended to include specific e-business model dimensions. The parameters are also analyzed subsequently in terms of their availability, size etc. so that the implementation considerations can be realistically made. Finally, the application potential, extendibility and usability of the process model have been explained and it has been shown that this generic model is simple, flexible and specific implementations can lead to e-business portals functioning with a better competitive advantage

Sustainable Evolution of Business Models: Cases from Scandinavian Internet Portal Market

Portals exist for a large number of topics and they have become quite common on the Internet. So far, researchers have not extensively studied the evolution of portals and only a few portal business models have been reported in the literature. We wonder if Internet portals are following the same evolution path, and what kinds of similarities and differences can be observed. The theoretical references, we drew on for the design of a field study, were derived from a number of theories considering portals, online communities, and network economics. We chose to research six portals, comprising Danish, Finnish and Swedish portals, of which three represent healthcare and three mobile services. We learned that the portals are quite similar in their scope of operation. Furthermore, we noticed that there is a difference between portals hosted by large organizations and portals that existing independently. All six portals are national in their geographical sphere of attention. This stresses that the local language capabilities are important when launching a portal. Finally, existing theories seem to provide an adequate theoretical vehicle for explaining the evolution of these portals. The practical contribution of this paper lays in the set of guidelines that can be applied by portal managers to identify their focus areas. It also provides some guidance about in which direction Internet portals currently develop