This course seeks to develop an understanding of the way internet business is affecting management and marketing of goods and services. Students will undertake a critical analysis of the new challenges that e-commerce poses to managers. Finally, students will learn how traditional paradigms about marketing, and business management are affected by the unique features of e-commerce. Some topics that will be covered are:

Understanding consumer behavior on the Internet. How traditional consumer behavior patterns are affected on the internet? How to segment the consumers in these emerging markets?

Understanding issues of advertising on the internet. Understand new measures of advertising effectiveness that have been developed for the internet.

E-commerce and how it affects competitive strategies.

How to conduct market research using the internet?

The importance of brand management

Managing distribution chains and supply chains

Managing pricing strategies and related issues.

Electronic payment systems

Virtual organizations

There are four key elements of instruction:

Learning by doing: You will develop a business plan for a specific e-commerce business.

Learning through lectures and discussions.

Learning through case studies.

Learning through electronic media

You are required to obtain a case packet for the course, to be made available at the bookstore. There are 7 cases in the packet.

The required textbook is:

Principles of Internet Marketing - Ward Hanson, South-Western College Publishing, 1999

CLASS FORMAT

There is an explosion of information on e-commerce. Since it is difficult for a single person to update information at such a rapid rate, the class will facilitate this process. Each group will collect interesting information from the web about one chosen marketing topic and present it in class. We will call this segment "Internet News". If you send me articles and information regarding the appropriate web sites before class, I will link these to my homepage so that the entire class can benefit from your search efforts. Each group will pick one of these topics to do their research.

Venture capital procurement

Pricing on the Internet

Advertising metrics for e-commerce

Market research on Internet

Retailing versus E-tailing - Challenges in distribution

Consumer behavior on the Web

Brand management for e-commerce

Competitive strategy in e-commerce

Students will work on a group project and submit a written report and a class presentation.

The project due in six weeks will do an in-depth analysis of how a set of companies in a single industry are doing marketing on the web. Specifically, students will analyze the business model that the company is utilizing and its contribution to the success or lack of success. For instance, if you picked web-based stock traders, the project will assess which company is doing what to get a large share of the market. Knowing the principles of business strategy, which company is likely to succeed and why? What changes would you recommend if you were planning to enter the market. How would you approach the marketing differently. Finally, students will develop a strategic plan for an alternate web site that seeks to offer consumers a better value proposition. This report will be in HTML language and will be put on the web in due course.

Sample Industries could be :

Job search sites, Electronic stock-trading services, Wedding web-sites, music shopping, business-to-business web sites, health information providers, web portals, security providers

Students should choose industries that are different from the cases that are selected for this course.

Course grades will be determined by your performance on case reports, scores on examinations, project and class participation. The weight given to each of the activities is given below.

Class participation grade is subjective grade and will be based on

Preparation for the class: whether the student has read the case, understands the issues and concepts involved, etc.

Completion of the reading exercises using the internet.

Participation : whether the student participates in the discussion and contributes to the analysis, and

Attendance.

Cases will be graded mainly on the strength of the arguments in the analysis section.

In order to encourage groups to prepare a professional report the following weights will be used.

Exams are closed book, multiple choice and short answer questions. Emphasis will be on testing of basic concepts and application of these concepts to actual situations.

UTD has clear policies on academic dishonesty, which includes cheating on an exam, plagiarism, collusion, and falsifying academic records. These activities will not be tolerated in this class. Please look at the catalog for more information on this topic.

In this course, collaboration is permitted on all group projects including case analysis and final project. No cooperation or collaboration is allowed on homework assignments and exams. Appropriate action will be initiated against students who violate this policy.