OpenTable
According to the Case study instructions, it is expected to analyze the existing company, which should be operated in the sphere of e-business. Besides, it is necessary to create a new organization functioning in the same or similar sphere of activity. OpenTable Company was chosen for the research. Based on the OpenTable Inc., (2013), this company is located in San Francisco, California (USA) and created in 1998. The organization gives the opportunity to reserve seats in restaurants and to order the dinners via the web-site or mobile applications for iPad, iPhone, Android in a quick and efficient method. Also seats can be booked throughout such associates of this company as Google, Zagat, Yelp and 600 other organizations. In addition, OpenTable allows its clients to make reservations 24 hours not only from the web page, but also with the help of the Facebook or Twitter pages. Two reservations occur via OpenTable every second. 27,000 restaurants use the services of this firm. The process of the system works in a following way: visitors of the web-site search for restaurants and reservations by taking into consideration such characteristics as times, dates, cuisine and price range. Users receive the e-mail, which confirms their booking after subscription in the system. Furthermore, people usually get points of reward ranging from 100 to 1000 points after each dinner. This gives the possibility to have discounts in restaurants that cooperate with OpenTable. Based on Business Insider (2013), the start-up makes money in two ways: It sells special tools to restaurants for reservation management, and works at the online reservation service as on its own web-site as via partner sites. Although booking is free for consumers, restaurants are imposed with payment for every reservation with the help of OpenTable. In addition, the company makes the biggest amount of its money “by selling its reservation tools to restaurants” (Business Insider, 2013). It suggests two key operations at the present time:
1. OpenTable Electronic Reservation Book (ERB) The "ERB" is a terminal of the computer. The included software allows reserving online, implementing the management of the organization of seats, giving the tasks for waiters, and memorizing of the information about regular clients. Restaurants give a one-time payment for installation and costs of training. It varies from $200 to $700 depending on the company. A payment for monthly subscription is used and equal to $199 per month with additional cost from $25 to $89 for a month. OpenTable gets a payment for each person who finished the reservation:
Cost per dinner
For what?
$1.00
for reservations with the help of the OpenTable’s website or mobile application
$0.25
booking via the website of the restaurant where the software of OpenTable is applied
2. OpenTable Connect
This is the lite version of the reservation based on a web system that let restaurants make booking online. According to the companies’ claims, the target market of this product is restaurants, which usually rely upon clients from the street. OpenTable receives a payment per person who finishes the reservation with the help of this system in the restaurants. It equals to $2.50 for diner who reserves via the site of OpenTable and $0.25 for diner who reserves throughout the site of the restaurant, but with the help of software of OpenTable.
Amount of revenue generated by these products
The revenue of OpenTable approximately consists of booking payments for person and subscriptions. In order to see other ways of
