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bussiness
“Gap.com” argues convincingly that Gap, one of the nation’s most successful clothing manufacturers and retailers, has managed its move to Internet commerce well. Gap has enjoyed many advantages in bringing its business to the Internet, but the two most important factors in establishing its on-line presence are its brand name and its ownership of its retail outlets. The importance of these two factors will be explored in this essay.
For any business, “success” means profitability, but this may be too simplistic a definition. Any attempt to define “success” must include serving the long-term interests of the firm and its investors or owners; thus, any venture that harms the long-term interest of a business, even one that brings in much revenue in the short-term, should not be considered successful. A good example of this “short-term thinking” would be the policy pursued by Apple Computer in the 1980’s. By refusing to license its operating systems to other manufacturers, Apple kept all the revenues for its innovative, technologically superior Macintosh computers to itself, but eventually lost nearly all of its market share For any business, “success” means profitability, but this may be too simplistic a definition. Any attempt to define “success” must include serving the long-term interests of the firm and its investors or owners; thus, any venture that harms the long-term interest of a business, even one that brings in much revenue in the short-term, should not be considered successful. A good example of this “short-term thinking” would be the policy pursued by Apple Computer in the 1980’s. By refusing to license its operating systems to other manufacturers, Apple kept all the revenues for its innovative, technologically superior Macintosh computers to itself, but eventually lost nearly all of its market share