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To Analyze Rand Mcnally Case Study Using the Competitive Forces

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Rand rvlcNally Maps Out a Trip into a Digital Future
In 1856 William Rand and Andrew McNally founded a small printing shop in Chicago which they called Rand McNally. The company did not begin printing maps until 1916, but it has been the leader in maps ever since, credited with creating the mapping conventions for our current numbered highway system. In 1924 Rand McNally published its first Rand McNally Road Atlas. The various versions of this atlas have sold 150 million copies in the years since, making it the all-time best selling map product from any publisher. Today Rand McNally has 1,200 employees, mostly at its Skokie, Illinois headquarters.

Through the following decades the company continued to develop …show more content…

To accomplish these objectives, the company had to address two needs that all types of travelers experience: the need for quick information about travel conditions and recommendations on meeting those needs along the way. To accomplish this the Web site must not only help travelers to plan the trip, but travelers must be able to bring the Internet with them as they travel. Travelers need online road maps, detailed driving instructions, and road condition updates while they are on the road, which means they will have to be delivered through wireless technology as soon as it matures. The Rand McNally Web site also needed to work with third parties to provide other travel information such as timely weather and hotel reservations. The site also had to have a very userfriendly interface, one that can be used comfortably by people who are not highly skilled Internet users. Profitability remained a critical goal for both management and the investors. Profitability requires services that are good enough that customers will be willing to pay for them.

Rand McNally's main online competition was MapQuest, whose Web site has been highly successful. In March 2000 the site had
5.5 million visitors who viewed and printed its electronic maps. During the same month Rand McNally had only 255,000 visitors. In

addition, MapQuest had partnered with many corporate and Internet business forces whose visitors need to use maps

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