Use these links to help you complete the Exploring the Internet exercise in the Building Skills for Career Success section at the end of each chapter.

Select a chapter:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

Chapter 1: Exploring the World of Business
The Internet is a global network of computers that can be accessed by anyone in the world. For example, your school or firm is most likely connected to the Web. You probably have private access through a commercial service provider like America Online, Prodigy, or a host of other smaller Internet service providers.

To familiarize you with the wealth of information available through the Internet and its usefulness to business students, this exercise focuses on information services available from a few popular "search engines" used to explore the web. Each of the remaining chapters in this text also contains an Internet exercise that is in some way associated with the topics covered in the chapter. After completing these exercises, not only will you be familiar with a variety of sources of business information, but you also will be better prepared to locate information you might need in the future.

To use one of these search engines, enter its Internet address in your web browser. The addresses of some popular search engines are
http://www.altavista.com/
http://www.lycos.com/
http://www.msn.com/
http://www.yahoo.com/

Assignment

1. Examine the way in which two search engines present categories of information on their opening screens. Explore the articles in the business and economics categories. Which search engine was better to use, in your opinion? Why?
2. Think of a business topic that you would like to know more about, for example, careers, gross domestic product, or another concept introduced in this chapter. Using your preferred search engine, explore a few articles and reports provided on your topic. Briefly summarize your findings.

Chapter 2: Being Ethical & Socially Responsible
Socially responsible business behavior can be as simple as donating unneeded older computers to schools, mentoring interested learners in good business practice, or supplying public speakers to talk about career opportunities. Students, as part of the public at large, perceive a great deal of information about a company, its employees, and its owners by the positive social actions taken and perhaps even more by actions not taken. Microsoft donates millions of dollars of computers and software to educational institutions every year. Some consider this level of corporate giving insufficient given the scale of the wealth of the corporation. Others believe that firms have no obligation to give back any more than they wish and that recipients should be grateful.

Assignment

1. Select any firm involved in high technology and the Internet such as Microsoft or IBM. Examine their website and report their corporate position on social responsibility and giving as they have stated it. What activities are they involved in? What programs do they support, and how do they support them?
2. Search the Internet for commentary on business social responsibility, form your own opinions, and then evaluate the social effort demonstrated by the firm you have selected. What more could the firm have done?

Chapter 3: Exploring Global Business
A popular question debated among firms actively involved on the Internet is whether or not there exists a truly global Internet-based customer, irrespective of any individual culture, linguistic, or nationality issues. Does this Internet-based universal customer see the Internet and products sold there in pretty much the same way? If so, then one model might fit all customers. For example, although Yahoo.com translates its web pages so that it is understood around the world, its look may be considered pretty much the same regardless of which international site you use. Is this good strategy, or should the sites reflect local customers differently?

Assignment

1. Examine a website such as Yahoo's (http://www.yahoo.com/) and its various international versions that operate in other languages around the world. Compare their similarities and differences as best you can, even if you do not understand the individual languages.
2. After making your comparison, do you now agree that there are indeed universal Internet products and customers? Explain your decision.

Chapter 4: Navigating the World of e-Business
To thrive, all websites need visitors. Without the revenue that comes from firms that buy banner advertising on websites or the subscription fees paid by viewers, the necessary cash to create, maintain, and grow simply would not exist. What attracts viewers varies according to their lifestyles, age, gender, and information requirements. Many online communities focus on the interests of a selected target audience. MarthaStewart.com and iVillage.com are two well-known sites catering mostly to college-educated women interested in leisure, parenting, business, nutrition, and the like. However, these are only two sites in a sea of choices.

Assignment

1. Identify and describe two or more websites with content that attracts you and keeps you returning on a regular basis.
2. How would you describe the target audience for these sites?
3. What advertisements are typically displayed?

Chapter 5: Choosing a Form of Business Ownership
The arguments about mergers and acquisitions often come down to an evaluation of who benefits and by how much. Sometimes the benefits include access to new products, talented management, new customers, or new sources of capital. Often the debate is complicated by the involvement of firms based in different countries. The Internet is a fertile environment for information and discussion about mergers. The firms involved will provide their view about who will benefit and why it is either a good thing or not. Journalists will report facts and offer commentary as to how they see the future result of any merger, and of course, chat rooms located on websites of many journals promote discussion about the issues.

Assignment

1. Using an Internet search engine such as AltaVista or Yahoo!, locate two or three sites providing information about a recent merger (use a keyword like merger).
2. After examining these sites and reading journal articles, report information about the merger, such as the value, the reasons behind the action, and so forth.
3. Based on your assessment of the information you have read, do you think the merger is a good idea or not for the firms involved, the employees, the investors, the industry, and society as a whole? Explain your reasoning.

Chapter 6: Small Business, Entrepreneurship, and Franchises
Perhaps the most challenging difficulty for small businesses is operating with scarce resources, especially people and money. To provide information and point small-business operators in the right direction, many Internet sites offer helpful products and services. Although most are sponsored by advertising and may be free of charge, some charge a fee, and others are a combination of both. The SBA within the U.S. Department of Commerce provides a wide array of free information and resources. You can find your way to the SBA through http://www.sbaonline.sba.gov/ or http://www.sba.gov/.

Assignment

1. Describe the various services provided by the SBA site.
2. What sources of funding are there?
3. What service would you like to see improved? How?

Chapter 7: Understanding the Management Process
Most large companies at one time or another call on a management consulting firm for a variety of services, including employee training, help in the selection of an expensive purchase such as a computer system, recruitment of employees, and direction in reorganization and strategic planning. Large consulting firms generally operate in the global marketplace and can provide information and assistance to companies considering entry into foreign countries or business alliances with foreign firms. They use their web pages, along with magazine-style articles, to celebrate their achievements and to present their credentials to clients. The business student can acquire an enormous amount of up-to-date information in the field of management by perusing these sites.

Assignment

1. Explore each of the following websites:
   Accenture: http://www.accenture.com/
   BearingPoint (formerly KPMG Consulting): http://www.bearingpoint.com/
   Cap Gemini Ernst & Young: http://www.cgey.com/
2. Judging from the articles and notices posted, what are the current areas of activities of one of these firms?
3. Explore one of these areas in more detail by comparing postings from each firm's site. For instance, if "global business opportunities" appears to be a popular area of management consulting, how has each firm distinguished itself in this area? Who would you call first for advice?
4. Given that consulting firms are always trying to fill positions for their clients and to meet their own recruitment needs, it is little wonder employment postings are a popular area on their sites. Examine these in detail. Based on your examination of the site and the registration format, what sort of recruit are they interested in?

Chapter 8: Creating a Flexible Organization
After studying the various organizational structures described in this chapter and the reasons for employing them, you may be interested in learning about the organizational structures in place at large firms. As noted in the chapter, departmentalization is typically based on function, product, location, and customer. Many large firms successfully use a combination of these organizational strategies. You can gain a good sense of which organizational theme prevails in an industry by looking at several corporate sites.

Assignment

1. Explore the website of any large firm that you believe is representative of its industry, and find its organization chart or a description of its organization. Create a brief organization chart from the information you have found. You may choose one of the consulting firms listed below:
   Accenture: http://www.accenture.com/ BearingPoint (formerly KPMG Consulting): http://www.bearingpoint.com/ Cap Gemini Ernst & Young: http://www.cgey.com/
2. Describe the bases on which this firm is departmentalized.

Chapter 9: Producing Quality Goods and Services
Improvements in the quality of products and services is an ever-popular theme in business management. Besides the obvious increase to profitability to be gained by such improvements, a company's demonstration of its continuous search for ways to improve operations can be a powerful statement to customers, suppliers, and investors. Two of the larger schools of thought in this field are total quality management (TQM) and the European-based ISO 9000.

Assignment

1. Use Internet search engines to find more information about each of these topics. The W. Edward Deming Institute (http://www.deming.org/) and the International Organization for Standardization (http://www.iso.ch/) sites will be good places to begin.
2. From these web pages, can you tell whether there is any real difference between these two approaches?
3. Describe one success story of a firm that realized improvement by adopting either approach.

Chapter 10: Attracting and Retaining the Best Employees
Although you may believe that your formal learning will end when you graduate and enter the working world, it won't. Companies both large and small spend billions of dollars annually in training employees and updating their knowledge and skills. Besides supporting employees who attend accredited continuing-education programs, companies also may provide more specialized in-house course work on new technologies, products, and markets for strategic planning. The Internet is an excellent search tool to find out about course work offered by private training organizations as well as by traditional academic institutions. Learning online over the Internet is a fast-growing alternative, especially for busy employees requiring updates to skills in the information technology (IT) field, where software knowledge must be refreshed continuously.

Assignment

1. Visit the websites of several academic institutions and examine their course work offerings. Also examine the offerings of some of the following private consulting firms: Learning Tree International: http://www.learningtree.com/
   Accenture: http://www.accenture.com/
   KPMG: http://www.kpmg.com/
   Ernst & Young: http://www.ey.com/global
2. What professional continuing-education training and services are provided by one of the academic institutions whose site you visited?
3. What sort of training is offered by one of the preceding consulting firms?
4. From the company's point of view, what is the total real cost of a day's worth of employee training? What is the money value of one day of study for a full-time college student? Can you explain why firms are willing to pay higher starting salaries for employees with higher levels of education?
5. The American Society for Training and Development (http://www.astd.org/) and the Society for Human Resource Management (http://www.shrm.org/) are two good sources for information about online training programs. Describe what you found out at these and other sites providing online learning solutions.

Chapter 11: Motivating and Satisfying Employees
There are few employee incentives as motivating as owning "a piece of the action." Either through profit sharing or equity, many firms realize that the opportunity to share in the wealth generated by their effort is a primary force to drive employees toward better performance and a sense of ownership. The Foundation for Enterprise Development (http://www.fed.org/) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and executives use employee ownership and equity compensation as a fair and effective means of motivating the work force and improving corporate performance. You can learn more about this approach at the foundation's website.

Assignment

1. Describe the content and services provided by the Foundation for Enterprise Development through its website.
2. Do you agree with this orientation toward motivation of employees/owners, or does it seem contrived to you? Discuss.
3. How else might employees be motivated to improve their performance?

Chapter 12: Enhancing Union-Management Relations
Union websites provide a wealth of information about union activities and concerns. Just as a corporate home page gives a firm the opportunity to describe its mission and goals and present its image to the world, so too does a website allow a union to speak to its membership as well as to the public at large.

Assignment

1. Visit the following websites:
   AFL-CIO: http://www.aflcio.com/ United Auto Workers: http://www.uaw.org/
2. What are the mission statements of these unions?
3. Briefly describe your impression of the areas of interest to union members.
4. What is your impression of the tone of these websites? Do they differ in any way from a typical business website?

Chapter 13: Building Customer Relationships through Effective Marketing
Consumer products companies with a variety of famous brand names known around the world are making their presence known on the Internet through websites and online banner advertising. The giants in consumer products include U.S.-based Procter & Gamble (http://www.pg.com/), Swiss-based Nestlé (http://www.nestle.com/), and British-based Unilever (http://www.unilever.com/).

According to a spokesperson for the Unilever Interactive Brand Center in New York, the firm is committed to making the Internet part of its marketing strategy. The center carries out R&D and serves as a model for others now in operation in the Netherlands and Singapore. Information is shared with interactive marketers assigned to specific business units. Eventually, centers will be established globally, reflecting the fact that most of Unilever's $52 billion of sales takes place in about 100 countries around the world.

Unilever's view that online consumer product sales are the way of the future was indicated by online alliances established with Microsoft Network, America Online, and NetGrocer.com. Creating an online dialogue with consumers on a global scale is no simple task. Cultural differences are often subtle and difficult to explain but nonetheless are perceived by the viewers interacting with a site. Unilever's website, which is its connection to customers all over the world, has a global feel to it. The question is whether or not it is satisfactory to each target audience.*

Assignment

1. Examine the Unilever, Procter & Gamble, and Nestlé sites and describe the features that you think would be most interesting to consumers.
2. Describe those features you do not like and explain why.
3. Do you think that the sites can contribute to better consumer buyer behavior? Explain your thinking. *Kay Parker, "Old-Line Goes Online," Business2.0 Magazine, http://www.business2.com/content/magazine/marketing/2000/06/01/12979 (June1, 2000).

Chapter 14: Creating and Pricing Products that Satisfy Customers
The Internet has quickly taken comparison shopping to a new level. Several websites such as bizrate.com, pricescan.com, and mysimon.com have emerged boasting that they can find the consumer the best deal on any product. From computers to watches, these sites offer unbiased price and product information to compare virtually any product. Users may read reviews about products as well as provide their own input from personal experience. Some of these sites also offer special promotions and incentives in exchange for user information.

Assignment

1. Search all three of the websites listed above for the same product.
2. Did you notice any significant differences between the sites and the information they provide?
3. What percentage of searches do you think lead to purchases as opposed to browsing? Explain your answer.
4. Which site are you most likely to use on a regular basis? Why?
5. In what ways do these websites contribute to price competition?

Chapter 15: Wholesaling, Retailing, and Physical Distribution
One reason the Internet has generated so much excitement and interest among both buyers and distributors of products is that it is a highly effective method of direct marketing. Already a multibillion dollar industry, electronic commerce is growing as more businesses recognize the power of the Internet to reach customers twenty-four hours a day anywhere in the world. In addition to using the Internet to provide product information to potential customers, businesses can use it to process orders and accept payment from customers. Quick delivery from warehouses or stores by couriers such as UPS and FedEx adds to the convenience of Internet shopping. Businesses whose products traditionally have sold well through catalogs are clear leaders in the electronic marketplace. Books, CDs, clothing, and other frequently purchased, relatively low-cost items sell well through both the Internet and catalogs. As a result, many successful catalog companies are including the Internet as a means of communicating about products. And many of their customers are finding that they prefer the more dynamic online versions of the catalogs.

Assignment

1. Explore the websites listed below, or just enter "shopping" on one of the web search engines-then stand back!
   http://www.llbean.com/
   http://www.jcpenney.com/
   http://www.sears.com/
   http://www.landsend.com/
   http://www.barnesandnoble.com/
   http://www.amazon.com/
2. Which website does the best job of marketing merchandise? Explain your answer.
3. Find a product that you would be willing to buy over the Internet and explain why you would buy it. Name the website and describe the product.
4. Find a product that you would be unwilling to buy over the Internet and, again, explain your reasoning. Name the website and describe the product.

Chapter 16: Developing Integrated Marketing Communications
As a promotional tool, the Internet stands alone among all media for cost-effectiveness and variety. A well-designed company website can enhance most of the promotional strategies discussed in this chapter. It can provide consumers with advertising copy and sales representatives with personal-selling support services and information anytime on demand. In addition, many companies use the Internet for sales promotion. For instance, most newspapers and magazines provide sample articles in the hope that interested readers eventually will become subscribers. And virtually all software companies present demonstration editions of their products for potential customers to explore and test.

Assignment

1. Visit two of the following websites and examine the promotional activities taking place there. Note the sort of promotion being used and its location within the site.
   http://www.wsj.com/
   http://www.businessweek.com/
   http://www.forbes.com/
2. Describe the promotional tools exhibited on one of these sites.
3. What would you recommend the company do to improve the site?

Chapter 17: Acquiring, Organizing, and Using Information
Computer technology is a fast-paced, highly competitive industry in which product life cycles are sometimes measured in months or even weeks. To keep up with changes and trends in hardware and software, MIS managers must routinely scan computer publications and websites that discuss new products.

A major topic of interest among MIS managers is groupware, software that facilitates the management of large projects among geographically dispersed employees as well as group activities such as problem solving and brainstorming.

Assignment

1. Use a search engine below and enter the keyword groupware to locate companies that provide this type of software. Try the demonstration edition of the groupware if it is available.
   http://www.google.com
   http://www.altavista.com
   http://www.lycos.com
   http://www.yahoo.com
2. Based on your research of this business application, why do you think groupware is growing in popularity?
3. Describe the structure of one of the groupware programs you examined as well as your impressions of its value to users.

Chapter 18: Using Accounting Information
To those unacquainted with current activities and practices in larger accounting firms, there is often some surprise at just how varied the accounting work involved actually is. Although setting up and maintaining accounting software for clients are standard, accounting firms also can provide a wide range of specialized services. For example, research into mergers or acquisitions of other firms, investment advice, and solutions to financial problems are now common strategies for revenue growth within accounting firms. Most websites for large accounting firms also will post information about current employment opportunities.

Assignment

1. Visit the website of a major accounting firm such as Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (http://www.deloitte.com/), KPMG (http://www.kpmg.com/), PricewaterhouseCoopers (http://www.pwc.com/), or Ernst & Young (http://www.ey.com/). Describe in general terms how the website is used to communicate with clients and prospective clients.
2. What are some of the content items presented on the site? What do these tell you about the firm and its clients?
3. Search the site for career information. Often the firm will post descriptions of employment opportunities along with educational and experience requirements. Describe what you find.

Chapter 19: Understanding Money, Banking, and Credit
Internet-based banking is no longer a new concept. For many Americans, technology has changed the way they conduct their banking transactions. For example, most people no long carry their paychecks to the bank to be deposited; instead, the money is deposited directly into their accounts. And an increasing number of individuals and businesses are using computers and the Internet to handle their finances, apply for loans, and pay their bills. Banking from a home computer is continually being made easier, giving bank customers access to their accounts 24 hours a day and seven days a week. As a result, you have more control over your money.

Assignment

1. Examine the websites for several major banks below or others that you are familiar with. Describe their online banking services. Are they worthwhile in your opinion?
   http://www.bankofamerica.com
   http://www.citizensbank.com
   http://www.wellsfargo.com
   http://www.wachovia.com
   http://www.fleet.com
2. In the past three years, how has technology changed the way you handle your money and conduct your banking transactions, such as depositing your paychecks, paying your monthly bills, obtaining cash, paying for purchases, and applying for loans?
3. In the next five to ten years, what will the banking industry be like? How will these changes affect you and the way you do your banking? How readily will you adapt to change? The Internet and the library can help you learn what is in the forefront of banking technology.
4. Prepare a report explaining your answers to these questions.

Chapter 20: Mastering Financial Management
Finding capital for new business start-ups is never an easy task. Besides a good business plan, those seeking investor funds must be convincing and clear about how their business activities will provide sufficient revenue to pay back investors who help to get them going in the first place. To find out what others have done, it is useful to read histories of successful start-ups as well as failures in journals that specialize in this area.

Assignment

1. Examine articles that profile successes and failures in the following publications and highlight the main points that led to either result.
   American Venture magazine (http://www.avce.com/)
   Business 2.0 (http://www.business2.com/)
   Red Herring (http://www.redherring.com/)
   Fast Company (http://www.fastcompany.com/)
2. What are the shared similarities?
3. What advice would you give to a start-up venture after reading these stories?

Chapter 21: Understanding Securities Markets and Investments
For investors seeking information about individual companies and the industry to which they belong, the Internet is an excellent source. If you find the right website, it provides sales and revenue histories, graphs of recent trading on stock and bond markets, and discussions of anticipated changes within a firm or industry. The interested investor also can look at Internet business reports of stock and bond market activity. Among the many companies that issue these reports are Dow Jones, Standard & Poor's, Moody's, and Dun & Bradstreet-all firms that provide, for a fee, analysis and private research services.

Assignment

1. Suppose that you are interested in investing within a particular industry, such as the semiconductor or computer industry. Explore some of the websites listed below, gathering information about the industry and a few related stocks that are of interest to the "experts."
   Business Week: http://www.businessweek.com/
   Dow Jones: http://www.dowjones.com/
   Fortune: http://www.fortune.com/
   Nasdaq: http://www.nasdaq.com/
   Standard & Poor's: http://www.standardpoor.com/
   New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com/
   Wall Street Journal: http://www.wsj.com/
2. List the stocks the experts recommend and their current trading value. You can use one of the web search engines such as Yahoo! Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com/) to check the price. Also list several stocks the experts do not like and their current selling prices. Then list your own choices of "good" and "bad" stocks.
3. Explain why you and the experts believe these stocks are good or poor buys today. (You might want to monitor these same websites over the next six months to see how well your "good" stocks are performing.)