Assignment 5Professor Keith Rieger04 Nov 20101) Why will OpenTable competitors have a difficult time competing against OpenTable?Opentable has a large number of restaurants already participating with them. They also have software that many companies like and is easy for consumers too. OpenTable has the ability to track consumers and help diners get the data they need for to help them grow. The company has more options than their competitors and that makes them more desirable.2) What characteristics of the restaurant market make it difficult for a reservation system to work?The restaurant market is difficult because it was, and continues to be highly fragmented, and local – made up of more than 30,000 small, independent businesses or local restaurant owning groups.3) How did OpenTable change its marketing strategy to succeed?To start with the company made a number of management changes. The company retooled its hardware and software to create the user friendly ERB system, and deployed a door-to-door salesforce o solicit subscriptions from high end restaurants. The combination of e-commerce, useful, user-friendly technology, and the personal touch.4) Why would restaurants find the SaaS model very attractive?Restaurants like the SaaS model attractive because customers don’t buy software and install it ontheir computers, but instead go online and get the software functionally through subscriptions. They also don’t sell goods, but instead enables diners to make reservations, like social networking sites provide