Question

INSTRUCTIONS: READ THE FOLLOWING SITUATION AND ANSWER THE QUESTIONS ARISING FOR THE CASE ANALYSIS.

“STONYFIELD FARM GOES TO THE BLOGS”

The Stonyfield Farm story is a kind of legend. In 1983, friends and social activists Gary Hirschberg and Samuel Kaymen started with a good yogurt recipe, seven cows, and a dream. They established an organic yogurt company in Wilton, New Hampshire, to take advantage of baby boomers' growing concerns about natural foods and health, and to revitalize the dairy industry in New England. Stonyfield Farms has grown to become the third largest organic company in the world, with annual sales of more than $ 50 million in 50 states. It produces more than 18 million glasses of yogurt each month.

Stonyfield Farrn's spectacular growth is attributable in part to its ability to offer a product to a special niche market - people who value healthy food and want to protect the environment. These values ​​have become part of the "personality" of the company. Stonyfleld promises to use only natural ingredients and milk that has not been produced with antibiotics, synthetic growth hormones, or pesticides or toxic fertilizers. The company donates 10 percent of its profits each year to projects that help protect or restore the planet.

As the company expanded, management feared that it might lose touch with its loyal and committed customer base. Advertising based on traditional media was expensive and did not really help the company to "connect" with the kind of people it was trying to reach. This company prefers word-of-mouth techniques that deliver its message to customers in ways more compatible with its popular, organic, and activist-friendly image.

Stonyfield has multiple active email newsletters with more than 500,000 subscribers, and typically posts messages promoting causes that he supports on the tops of his yogurt glasses. Now she's turning to blogging to further personalize her customer relationships and reach even more people. Inspired by Howard Dean's presidential campaign and Dean's blogger tutorials, CEO Hirschberg became convinced that Stonyfield could use blogging to create a more personal relationship with consumers, different from the traditional sales relationship. "Blogs give us what we call a handshake with consumers" and "a little more access to us

Stonyfield now publishes two separate blogs on his website — Baby Babble and Bovine Bugle. At one time Stonyfield was running five blogs, but decided to withdraw three of them because they weren't attracting enough readers. Baby Babble provides a forum for Stonyfield employees and other parents of young children to meet and discuss child development and balance work with the family. Stonyfield created that blog because baby yogurts are one of its most popular product lines, and parenting blogs seem to appeal to a large number of readers. The Bovine Bugle provides reports about Jonathan's Organic Dairy Farm. Gates in Franklin, Vermont, a member of the organic cooperative that supplies milk for Stonyfield products.

This blog sparks a large number of nostalgic comments from readers who remember their childhood on a farm. As organic food grows in importance, these blogs help the company showcase the aspects that make it different from other brands and invite customers to help them in this endeavor. Stonyfield continually posts new content to each of the blogs. Readers can subscribe to any of them and automatically receive updates when available. And of course they can reply to these posts.

The benefits of blogging for Stonyfield have not yet been quantified so far, but management is confident there are real benefits. Blogs have created a positive response for the Stonyfield brand by providing readers with something that inspires them or sparks their interest -If blogs give new information to readers, inspire them to protect the environment or ask them for opinions, the administration believes that They will remember the brand when they are in front of the yogurt shelves in the supermarket or grocery store and that they will take a Stonyfleld product instead of a competitor when it is time to choose. Stonyfield has a fairly large website. Blogs offer a way to highlight some of the content on the Web that would otherwise be lost. This, too, helps drive some blog readers to buy Stonyfield products.

IV. What benefits does the introduction of an intranet and extranet bring to a company? Indicate and explain. 

Answer 1

Benefits of Introduction of intranet and extranet in a company

The Stonyfield farm can utilize intranet or extranet to ensure that they run the business efficiently.

Intranet

An intranet is an internal network where the workforce in a company is creating content and thereby developing the company culture. It serves the digital communication requirements of an organization. The benefits of the intranet shall be given below.

• An intranet is an effective tool that helps an organization in improving communication within an organization.
• The intranet is helpful in improving productivity by faster access to vital information.
• The intranet is helpful in fostering collaboration and teamwork within an organization.
• The intranet enables a company to distribute information in real-time.
• The intranet helps in duplication of physical documents that will result in the reduction of cost as well as duplication of work.
• It helps in the streamlining of day to day activities of the organization
• It also helps in the creation of a single database which is useful to manage the business better.

Extranet

An extranet is an intranet like network controlled by a company that provides access to customers and society that can interact with the company without granting access to the company's entire network. It helps in improving business relationships.

• An extranet helps in the creation of customer relationships and retention by providing access to timely information.
• An extranet provides customer access to order history, account balances and payments that help in the reduction of errors and thereby ensuring customer satisfaction.
• An extranet is a powerful tool that helps an organization in improving communication with its customers.
• An extranet is allowing employees to work remotely or work from home that can be used in critical situations.