The case describes the management challenges for WEB.DE AG, a Fast Growing Company, in the internet business. WEB.DE has its roots in CINETIC (Corporation for the Development and Sale of Media Technology) GmbH headquartered in Karlsruhe, which was founded as a software development company by brothers Matthias and Michael Greve in 1987. In 1994 CINETIC changed its focus to the developing Internet/World Wide Web. Just in the year the business unit WEB.DE, with the focus on end-user services and services for navigating and communicating in the Internet, was brought to life. Matthias Hornberger, board member for business development, called the then web catalog the German answer to Yahoo! In November 1995 the first commercial web catalog with around 2,500 entries was started. After one year the number of entries rose over 1,000% to 25,000. The brothers Matthias and Michael Greve developed the editing system COPS (Corporate Online Publishing System), which is the technical basis of the catalog used by WEB.DE since then and up until today.
WEB.DE's business model consisted of three segments:
The reason that these three business segments generated revenues was the portal's vast reach and a large number of loyal customers. In the year 2002 WEB.DE had more than 12 million registered users and reached almost every third home in Germany.
The case also examines in detail the products and technology of WEB.DE AG, its business model and competitors, prospects, goals and the future challenges for the company.
Author: Karl-Heinz Rau, Prof.
Institution: Business School of Pforzheim University
Number of pages: 15
Language: English
Ceeman Accreditation
Champion Awards
Member Services
Calendar of Events
New member
Network events
Collaborate