Describe how your Company Utilizes the Internet.

Essay by smitty007University, Bachelor'sA+, December 2005

download word file, 5 pages 5.0

Downloaded 76 times

Introduction

SBC is vigorously employing Internet technology, in many divisions of the company. This paper looks at only two divisions: retail and wholesale. SBC retail offers wire line and wireless services communications to the general public. Business customers can purchase those, plus advertising, pre-wired construction, radio communications and microwave communications. SBC distinguishes between retail and business customers; they pay different prices for the same item. SBC has huge amounts of information stored in legacy systems, which are computer programs and databases that were created before deregulation, during the years of AT&T industry dominance. These databases can be connected to Internet applications to create business advantages.

Is the Internet used for advertising?

Advertising is almost synonymous with the name SBC, one of America's most recent, and best known corporate logos. Internet advertising is heavily employed. Radio and television advertisements urge the listener to go to SBC websites. Customers who are waiting-on-hold for customer service hear messages urging them to look at company websites.

Consumers who happen to be browsing the Internet see embedded and pop-up advertising about how they can become happily involved with company websites. Three examples of SBC's internet sites that are heavily used are the Yellow pages (www.yellowpages.com), SBC's retail site (www.sbc.com) and SBC's wholesale portal (www.sbc.com/wholesale). In early 2003 SBC began urging its customers to use their online customer service by including the web-site address with every monthly bill. Now that's leveraging your assets to drive participation in the internet. The strategy is to give customers an idea of how easy it is to shop, order services, request repairs, review bills and select bill-payment options online with SBC.

Upon visiting the site, navigation and comprehension of the site was quite user friendly. Normally, customers must first register to use the site, filling in an electronic form with...