Subject category:
Strategy and General Management
Published by:
International Institute for Management Development (IMD)
Version: 25.11.2003
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https://casecent.re/p/11956
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Abstract
This case describes the development of America Online (AOL), a dominant Internet player accounting for some 60% of all home-based Internet users in the United States in 1998. AOL targeted Internet novices with easy-to-use news, shopping, and chat rooms, and connected its customer ''community'' to a large network of Internet ''content providers''. The case describes how AOL overcame a series of recent setbacks, and developed a series of three key rules ''communication, community and clarity'' to bring coherence to its strategic development process. In 1998, AOL was facing new challenges from Internet service providers and ''portals'', yet as a major player in the mass-media industry it had attained a market capitalisation in late 1998 of some $12 billion.
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Abstract
This case describes the development of America Online (AOL), a dominant Internet player accounting for some 60% of all home-based Internet users in the United States in 1998. AOL targeted Internet novices with easy-to-use news, shopping, and chat rooms, and connected its customer ''community'' to a large network of Internet ''content providers''. The case describes how AOL overcame a series of recent setbacks, and developed a series of three key rules ''communication, community and clarity'' to bring coherence to its strategic development process. In 1998, AOL was facing new challenges from Internet service providers and ''portals'', yet as a major player in the mass-media industry it had attained a market capitalisation in late 1998 of some $12 billion.