E-commerce plan - I will be producing a plan report aimed at the management of Price Brown Partnership. Price Brown Partnership is a Qualified 'family' Real Estate Agency established in Mojacar since 1984.
E-Commerce Plan
Introduction
I will be producing a plan report aimed at the management of Price Brown Partnership. Price Brown Partnership is a Qualified 'family' Real Estate Agency established in Mojacar since 1984. Price Brown Partnership was the first British Professionally Qualified Real Estate Agents to practice in the area. As members of a prestigious professional institute, their aim was to set a standard of 'Caring' in the interests of their clients, offering them a free after-sales service. They have an earned respect of the local people by delivering an efficient, honest and straight forward service, they were chosen by them to sell their property, and purchasers were recommended to seek their advice and guidance. Consequently, it is now the one of the foremost offices in the Province. Price Brown has properties that are close to the beach and others further back. Some that is near to the village and others out in the countryside. They have townhouses and villas in adjoining areas and on the hill side.
Map of Mojacar
Fig 1.0
Mojacar is located in the province of Almeria which sits between the provinces of Granada and Murcia/Alicante. 3100 hours of Sunshine a Year Almeria offers the best climate in the whole of Spain, warm and dry throughout the year, with little rain and a large number of hours of sun a year. Temperatures reaching no lower than an average of 13º C in the winter and no higher than an average of 25º C in the summer. A perfect all year round climate. Mojacar is a unique blend of mountains and valley areas sheltering the beach and the sea. Mojacar is also a very popular destination for holidays it is actually one of the top ten destinations in the world. That's why is been an ideal for Price Brown Partnership business to operate in this geographic segment.
The business reason/ rational for development & introduction of e-commerce into the partnership and the objectives of the strategy
E1
The benefits of introducing e-commerce
The benefits are, it is easy to identify the benefits of e-commerce individually, but they look even more impressive when they're all lumped together. First, your customers have access to your business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. People from all over the world can visit the Price Brown partnership. The impact of large amount of people visiting your web site is it may lead to an increase of sales. The increase in sales may lead to the development of Price Brown partnership. That can open up new markets and make it easier and more efficient to do business with your existing customers, too.
Marketing is also a benefit to the Price Brown Website it can give a competitive advantage, it can promote all the, services through search engines such as google, and villa and pricing in one place and you can update it quickly and easily. You can update your electronic brochures without going to a printer. Visitors can check on availability, request more information, or place an order. By sending e-mails by Doing business via the Internet has been a smart move for lots of businesses but not for others.
As people visit, the Price Brown site you could collect information about your customers and, with their permission, establish an e-mail dialogue to share information relevant to both of you. Online communication can help you improve the services to meet your customers' needs too. By having good communication leads to a development of e-commerce and this can have a positive impact between customers You can track customer satisfaction and create a feedback loop to obtain ideas for new services that otherwise might be overlooked. How this can be done is adding links such as E-mail.
Valuable marketing information could be derived from the hits on your website. You can see what people are most interested in, you can collect details about the visitors (using registration forms and, perhaps, 'cookies') and you can use feedback forms. Don't overlook the importance of attracting visitors to your site and making your content 'sticky' to keep visitors on the site and encourage them to return.
The Internet is providing a new way to do business electronically-commerce is revolutionising the way businesses transact with other businesses and with customers. It gives you the edge over your competitors, so the Price Brown Partnership could sell more villas and rent more than their competitors in order to increase development. Inexpensive start-up cost it costs a lot less to start selling online then it does to open a shop on the high street.
The e-commerce system allows you to get a feel for the potential of Internet selling, without the need to spend vast amounts of capital to obtain this. As the system is set-up, within the standard charges for our normal web sites, you pay no extra for us to do this for you in the first place. Your customer places orders over a secure Internet connection. You are automatically notified by email when an order has been placed. You collect customer orders from a secure server directly and then process them offline through your normal credit card or banking facility (if you do not accept credit cards, the system allows for cheque or money order payments also). The system can be linked into on line authorisation banks if you prefer (these Merchant Banks will charge you a percentage of your turnover and a monthly rental or a set-up charge for their services
The benefits that e-commerce will give to the company are stated below:
* Individual access to customers (this procedure entails the use of COOKIES, this is a profile on the individual that visits a website, this allows the company to work around the needs and requirements of the consumers.
* Shortening of the supply chain.
* Possibility of global access to the website.
* The location of the business will become unimportant to the customer.
* Reduction in costs, due to removal of the need for premises.
* E-commerce breaks down the barriers of market entry.
* Maintains a competitive edge.
* There is also a possibility of low promotion cost to the company, so there is less expenditure.
Business reasons for introduction & development
The rational for introduction for e-commerce in Price Brown Partnership is too let people know about their services, so that people can visit the villas or decide to buy or rent a villa, so that they can access to shared, up-to-date information by connecting people. The development of e-commerce gives the opportunities to attract people all over the world. It is more likely that Price Brown Partnership will have people from colder climate countries. E-commerce allows people communicate better by having an e-mail link it is cheap, quick, flexible and convenient. An e-mail and any computer file you attach can be sent over the phone line in minutes. Distance is no object. Some solutions are easy to achieve using the technology you already have in Price Brown Partnership in a new way. There is a market is growing market for holiday rentals the business takes 10% of the rent on every villa. The Price Brown Partnership have holiday rentals listed below are just some of the fabulous apartments and townhouses that they have available.
Villa Sellares Residencial Sunshine
Parque Residencial Rio Abajo
The development of Price Brown Partnership is there are many different types of apartments to choose from to suit different needs.
The properties are well designed with spacious accommodation and will be built to high standards. The Price Brown Partnership takes 2% when villas are sold. The tropical communal gardens areas and pools will be extensive. Each property has private parking or garage facilities. Every modern convenience is to be found here as well as sports facilities including sailing, fishing and golf, just to mention a few. There is a market is market for properties for sale such as the detached villa the beautiful Californian-style bungalow situated in La Ribina (La Garrobina) Vera. Close to the Desert Springs Golf Club. Immaculate condition throughout.
Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, living room with fireplace and French doors leading to lovely covered, beamed verandah. Separate dining room with beamed ceiling. Swimming pool and terrace with poolside changing room/toilet.
Very pretty internal patio. Large upper terrace. Workshop, gardens and carport. Air-conditioning. Lovely views.
The Price Brown Partnership lists the travel arrangement on their web site
The nearest airport to Mojacar is in Almeria and is just 45 minutes drive away, so this would be suitable for customers. Murcia has airport approximately 1h 50m from Mojacar. Alicante airport is approximately 2h 15m from Mojacar. Malaga airport is approximately 4hours from Mojacar. There are also car hires companies that are available.
C1
Comparison of advantages & disadvantages of introducing e-commerce into the Price Brown Partnership
Advantages
E-commerce is a great way to let a large audience, know about the services of villas that available to rent and buy.
Through e-commerce computers allow the Price Brown partnership to perform operational task more quickly and effective than humans.
The Internet allows the Price Brown partnership opportunity to completely change the way they conduct business. It allows them to build a "community of value" that provides a discernible value to the membership of the community.
The market for villa are rapidly expanding, the introduction of e-commerce in the Price Brown partnership give a competitive advantage to access the market.
The e-commerce strategy allows the Price Brown partnership to a faster way of information dissemination as communication is hi tech.
The Price Brown partnership can display information, pictures, and prices of products or services without spending a fortune on colourful advertisements.
Disadvantages
The competition has been increasing rapidly with new business; selling similar villas in Mojacar has introduced the e-commerce strategy. This may affect the Price Brown partnership as they may louse potential customers.
The competitors of the Price Brown partnership are able to visit their web site; they can observe how the business attracts new customers and how they present the villa for sale and rent. They can benefit by using the Price Brown partnership web site to their advantage.
Technology is changing rapidly the Price Brown partnership, must keep up to date with the latest technology, so their business can benefit by new innovation. If the business of Price Brown partnership does not keep up with the technology they may be left behind.
Many people are still computer illiterate to take advantage of this avenue of e-commerce, so they are unable to see the Price Brown partnership web site.
The Technology problems can cause the Price Brown partnership web site to not operate properly, causing you to loose customers and sales.
E2
Objectives
The objectives for the Price Brown Partnership are to increase sales by advertising more and gaining more customers.
The objectives for the Price Brown partnership is too keep customer returning to the business. If they can do this they will be more successful. It is six times more expensive to get new customers. The business can also increase it market share in Mojacar, buy selling and renting more properties. This may also help the business expand. Businesses gain a larger market-share by increasing the sales of their products against competitors. This may involve reducing prices. The Price Brown partnerships are loyalty to customers and encourage repeat sales, businesses need to be reliable and provide a quality service to their customers in order to be successful.
Strategy
The e-commerce strategy that I think Price Brown partnership chose from is one of the tree strategies is:
* Do nothing
* Marketing channel
* Full Trading online
Do nothing
Do nothing this is when the business does nothing, I would not recommend this strategy because this would not be suitable for the Price Brown Partnership. The business will lose out on sales because other competitors will take advantages buy trading online and using it as a marketing channel. The dangers of doing nothing is the business ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
Strategy
The e-commerce strategy that I think Price Brown partnership chose from is one of the tree strategies is:
* Do nothing
* Marketing channel
* Full Trading online
Do nothing
Do nothing this is when the business does nothing, I would not recommend this strategy because this would not be suitable for the Price Brown Partnership. The business will lose out on sales because other competitors will take advantages buy trading online and using it as a marketing channel. The dangers of doing nothing is the business be will, suffer because, potential customers will not see the Price Brown Partnership on Internet. Some of people may recommend doing nothing because it will reduce the expenditure of the business.
Marketing channel
Marketing channel is when the business uses the web site for advertising; this may be used to attract potential customers. Showing people what the Price Brown partnership has to offer may do this. Such as villas for sale and rents. People may also contact the business of the Price Brown partnership by calling them or by visiting the business. Many businesses use the Internet as a marketing channel such as JJB sports www.jjb.co.uk.
Full trading
This is the buying and selling of products over the internet it very unlikely that people would buy a villa from the Price Brown partnership because of the high value cost, business such as Argos use full trading as well having their own shops. The benefit of full trading is that it is easy for a person to order the goods online. It is also available on the Internet 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I would not recommend full trading for the Price Brown Partnership. The constraint of full trading is that the product you have ordered may turn out to be the wrong goods. It also possible that hackers could obtain personal information on credit card details, if the business site is not secure.
Recommendation of strategy
The marketing strategy I would recommend the Price Brown partnership is to use the internet as a marketing channel, why this would be the best choice because as well as the Price Brown partnership advertising in the 'Sunday times' that can gain more potential customers by using the internet. There are business such as letbuyit.com and lastminute.com that only trade exclusively online. The benefits for using Price Brown partnership as a marketing channel, is that it still can use other channels such as newspapers such as 'The Daily Mail'. Marketing channel puts the business in a stronger position to be more successful.
Analysis of how the plan meets its objectives
Every step of the plan helps to meet the objectives, for example by using the marketing strategy of a marketing channel may have an impact on the amount of sales made by the Price Brown partnership. The impact would increase the amount of sales made and this will lead to an increase in revenue for the business. The strategy contributes to help achieve its objectives of increase in sales. The Price Brown partnership can use e-commerce by using the benefits to achieve it goals. The development of the web presence allows the business to focus on a larger global market. The plan is aimed to get the best possible way to be successful using e-commerce. By following in the plan:
* The rationale for development for e-commerce. This part of the plan will state the reasons for e-commerce in the business. This will give a good idea why to have a web presence to the management.
* The potential for e-commerce can state the benefits the business may receive from the e-commerce and how they can use it to meet the Price Brown partnership objectives such as increase sales.
* By identifying the risks the Price Brown partnership can avoid these constraints by overcoming it. This may lead to less risk in the future of the business.
* Looking at the legal and security issues affecting the development, this may prepare the management to make sure the Price Brown partnership run smoothly. It the business is running good it likely it will meet it objectives, without any legal and security affecting the development.
* The main feature will help the Price Brown partnership, to be more attractive and interesting to the potential customers. The moment the Price Brown partnership web site looks good, but more work can be done to make it more appealing to potential customers; this can lead to customers staying longer and join the mailing list.
* By making the analysis of the impact of e-commerce this can show the management how the impact has benefited, the Price Brown partnership. It can also show how the marketing and financial plan worked out to meet objective in the business.
* It also important to identify the competition is so vast on the web. There can literally be thousands of places a customer can go to purchase the similar product and services that the Price Brown partnership offers. The Price Brown partnership just has to stay above it competitors, so it's able to meet all the objectives.
By looking into every part of the plan the management will be able to make the right suitable decisions. When eliminating the risk and disadvantages of e-commerce and concentrating on the benefits and potential of e-commerce, the Price Brown partnership can meet the following objectives:
* Increase sales
* Higher profits
* High customer satisfaction
* Increase in market share
* Well established web presence that is successful
Potential of e-commerce within Price Brown Partnership & how it used
E-commerce is any electronic exchange of data between a business and its customers. This includes fax, telephone, voice-mail, EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), e-mail, extranet, Internet.
E-commerce is the practice of buying and selling products and services over the Internet, utilising technologies such as the Web, electronic data interchange. There are many reasons why e-Business and e-commerce expanding at such at incredible rate. More and more businesses and organisation are expanding their business activities into the Internet, more and more users, consumers and customers are using Internet to find products and information related to their interest. There is doubt that Internet has becomes parts of everyday life to certain group of peoples.
The term "e-commerce" is used loosely to mean "buying and selling good electronically." Today, it is also used to advertise and promote, that means conducting business over the Internet, an open, global electronic marketplace. Most people think in terms of an electronic catalogue that lets customers go to a web site like Amazon.com, fill their electronic shopping cart with stuff, click on the checkout button, pay with a credit card, and wait for UPS to deliver the order.
E-commerce is concerned with attracting new customers, and therefore it involves advertising, public relations, and lead generation. It includes collecting customer information and order processing, so it involves back-office accounting and administration. Because it is involved with getting products and services to customers, it affects channels of distribution. In short, it has the potential to expand opportunities as nothing else has ever done.
E-commerce is one of the most "integrated" solutions you can possibly attempt in terms on taking your business to the Web. That is to say, a multitude of different applications and service providers will be working together in unison to enable your e-commerce site.
E-commerce also deals with B2B stands for "business-to- business exchange is a website where many companies can buy from and sell to each other using a common technology platform. Many exchanges also offer additional services on line. For Price Brown Partnership they are dealing with the term e-commerce refers to all online transactions, B2C stands for "business-to-consumer" and applies to any business or organisation that sells its products or services to consumers over the Internet for their own use.
E-commerce has a much greater scope than the popular image it gives about dot com businesses. The growth of E-commerce has been very rapid over the past years. It is also predicted that this growth is expected to continue for the foreseeable future, especially as people can access the Internet nowadays through many different channels such as the following:
* WAP phones,
* Computers,
* Internet TV
* Digital TV
Business organisations such as the Price Brown partnership have different levels of involvement and potential in e-commerce, for example, some do not trade on the Internet but may use it as:
* Another advertising tool,
* A brochure to provide product details for customers,
* E-mail newsletters
* A way in which the company can gain market research on their customers.
Some business trade only on the Internet, an example of this type of company is WWW.LETSBUYIT.COM. Others will just use it as one of many sales channels, an example of a company this type is a supermarket, travel agents etc. A businesses involvement in E-commerce may be progressive, for example a business may start using the web, to advertise their products, and then slowly move towards providing a service, which allows customers to buy their products online.
Business buying online is known as e-procurement and forms part of supply chain management. The supply chain management includes:
* Procurement
* Inventory management
* Forecasting
* Warehousing
* Logistics/distribution
Most businesses that are not successful in their E-commerce strategy fail because of poor distribution systems or stock levels that cannot cope with demand. Both of these factors may be the result of the company not forecasting properly.
Identification of any problems
and risks that might be encountered and how they might be overcome
The key disadvantage of e-commerce in Price Brown partnership
They may be a business with a domain name that suits Price Brown partnership business, but are unable to have that domain name this would be a disadvantage if a business were trading using the domain name that you want. The only way to have the same name would be to buy it of the person who has it. As technology is always changing the business Price Brown partnership may spend money for update for:
Software
* The office software such as Microsoft office will have to be updated, this includes Microsoft front page.
Hardware
* New Computers, such as reliable computer that have a fast processor speed.
The web site has to be updated regular and worked on by staff so this is an on going expense to the Price Brown partnership. Staffs have to be trained in using e-commerce as the new technology is introduced.
There is also a disadvantage as some people are unable to access the Internet, so there not able to visit the Price Brown partnership business. This may be because if the high cost to purchase a computer.
E3,
The risks
Serve brakes down
There are risks such as the server breaking down the way in which Price Brown partnership can over come this is by having a new web hosting company such as oneandone.co.uk that are reliable and cost between £29-£99 a month. One and one services shared hosting plan and want to make the next step; this is the right solution for business. They have features of shared plans combined with the enhanced performance that a dedicated server offers. One & One System Administrators monitor and maintain your dedicated server. If the Price Brown partnership can stay focused on your core business and leave all server administration to them. They will monitor, manage and maintain your server. This gives a peace of mind choice for large web sites, with no need for root access. I would recommend that the Price Brown partnership pay 99 pounds a month.
People may ignore the site
E trading creates time zone issues - every e-business is expected to be open twenty four hours three hundred sixty five days a year. Support needs to match the opening hours. Other wise people who visit Price Brown partnership may move on to the next web site. The web site for Price Brown partnership has to have a good image and good layout in order to gain potential customers. Customers have become promiscuous: they have zero tolerance and customer defection is only one mouse click away. This may aggravate customer churn: customers have one-click patience and no loyalty. To retain customers, response and availability are key (although the customer may have a preference and may try the Price Brown partnership first next time).
Advertising must be used
Traditional ways of limiting risk and demand (e.g. market segmentation) may not work in the Price Brown partnership; wide deployment means that demand can be instantaneous, overwhelming and devastating. Advertising and promoting in different channels may overcome this.
Customer information should be safe
A Confidentiality Agreement providing that Price Brown partnership ideas/business plans will not be used by or disclosed to any third party; on their customers. Price Brown partnership is not giving out any information to tired parties, so they don't have to cover this part. This would come under the date protection if they did break this.
The Act will affect e-businesses that store, transmit or receive "personal data" over the Internet. Essentially "personal data" is data (or data and other information) from which a living individual can be identified.
An insurance customer will, for example, provide personal data when requesting or completing a proposal form on-line
The Price Brown partnership could improve their promotions by advertising their business in the most popular search engines such as yahoo.com msn.com and lycos.com. At the moment the Price Brown partnership is using ask.co.uk and google.co.uk these are also a popular search engine but not as successful as the top three search engines.
If they advertise in more popular search engines this would lead to more visitor hits to the web site, and may lead to an increase in the amount of people who visit the Price Brown partnership to estate to rent or buy a villa.
The Price Brown partnership is not been updated often enough this is a risk, when a property has been sold and the web site still shows a vacancy for the same property, customers may decide they are interested in a property that shows its available. They can overcome these obstacles by ensuring that staff updates the server more often.
E4, E5
The major barriers
There are communications barriers that the Price Brown partnership has to look into on their web site such as the French German and Spanish and Belgian language site are still under construction. So because of the inflexibility language barriers the business of Price Brown partnership may lose sales from form Spain Germany and Belgian because some potential customers can't read English. They way the business can over come this problem would be to employ a person that has the technical skills to make the web site available to global markets. So I would recommend that the Price Brown partnership employ some to deal with this problem, so that the web site is well maintained and are available in different languages.
The customers attitudes towards the web site, some customers maybe first time users of the internet and may miss out on important links to the property on offer and some people will leave after 6 seconds. The way this can be overcome is by making sure the employees that design the web site design it well and make it attractive to people who visit the site.
The Price Brown partnership does not have sponsorship on its web site this may also be a barrier as they are losing money by not have any sponsorship. By having sponsorship and advertising may bring revenue to the business.
The Price Brown partnerships have not been able to really forecast a demand, as some potential customers leave the web site after a few minutes because they are unaware how to join the mailing system of Price Brown partnership. The Price Brown partnership can overcome this by ensuring it's clear to join the mailing system on the home page. This way a potential customer can pass information on the villa they are requesting information on.
People visiting the Price Brown partnerships may feel there is a lack of commitment in the business; they may feel the business only providing services and villa aimed at 30-40 year olds. The Price Brown partnerships may louse customer between 25-30 as they think the Price Brown partnerships is aimed at families and older people. The way the Price Brown partnerships can overcome this barrier is by making the web site appeal more to the younger people. This could include information on the local night-clubs and activates.
There is a major barrier of people not trusting the Internet, they may feel it's is not secure or safe to pass their credit card details, this would apply to the Price Brown partnerships if they rented villas online. They way they could resolve this is by warning customers their details will be secure as the server has a high security server.
For some businesses, barriers to E-commerce may appear to be impossible to overcome, for example when products cannot be sold electronically, the company cannot deal with such high demand or response rates.
Many of these barriers can be overcome by carrying out the following procedures:
* Using government support
* Recruiting new staff
* Customer education and awareness campaigns
* A good business plan
* Training and development of staff
* Commercial websites that offer help and support, for example Price Waterhouse Coopers, IBM
* Help from organisations such as AEV (Alliance for electronic business)
These methods will help any organisation to overcome any barriers that they will have to overcome, in order for their E-commerce strategy to be a success.
C3
Justification for overcoming barriers and risks
There was a communication barrier where the French German and Spanish and Belgian language site are still under construction. The reason why I suggested changes had to be made soon as the Price Brown partnership may lose sales from form Spain Germany and Belgian because some potential customers can't read English. The way of solving this problem was to employ someone who has technical skills to make the web page in written in French German and Spanish and Belgian.
The Price Brown partnership did not have any sponsorship this was a barrier as the business was lousing out. Sponsorship can bring in money and make the web site more popular. I said they could get sponsorship and add advertising the reason why so the business can benefit by these extras on their web site.
There was a risk of the Price Brown partnership server braking down; I suggested they could join one and one service shared hosting plan. The reason why so they can overcome the risk of server breaking down, by having one and one services they provide enhanced performance that a dedicated server, this will monitor, manage and maintain the server. By having this services the server running smoothly. This service may cost ninety-nine pounds a month.
The Price Brown partnership web site looks all right at the moment, but it could overcome this by making the site more attractive. The reason why I think they should make it more attractive, so they can increase the amount of hits the web site receives. Employing more skilful web site designers can do this all.
The Price Brown partnership was not advertised or promoted enough, when searching on the Internet I only found the web site in three searching engines out of the top ten search engines. The business can only overcome this risk by adding the web site to more popular search engines such as Lycos. Why I think the business should add the web sites too more search engines is so a larger audience of people is able to find the Price Brown partnership web site. The search engines should also list the company in first five pages. If the web site was not listed in the first five web pages it highly unlikely that people will view the page, as there will be many other sites appearing on the screen. So it's important that the web site is in the popular searches.
Legal & security issues affecting the development and how they may be addressed
A hacker may try to hack into the server of Price Brown partnership website to change data or transfer data from one location (workstation). A firewall may be used; this is dedicated gateway machine with special security precaution to allow any specific information through and rejects all other types. This may also be done by a third party hosting service such as Giacom: World. Giacom: World is a hosting service that also provides a high security for server.
There are many competitors that the Price Brown partnership has such as mojacaronline.com, apartmentspain.co.uk and mojacar.co.uk who sell similar villas. There are also some businesses that copyright data from websites and use it on their web site; this is a legal issue when material is copied without permission of the holder, also constitutes a copyright infringement.
Customer's personal data can be taken by via E-mail or by phone. The Price Brown may keep customers data so that they can inform their customers about certain property. If employee of the business processed personal data for direct marketing, this would be a breach of the data protection act 1998. The way this may be overcome is by is by having a supervisor to check that the business is running smoothly and to the rules of business.
Legal issues such as Internet misuse by employers may affect the development of Price Brown partnership. An employee may spend a long time visiting sites that are not relevant to what they are meant to be doing in office hours, so this would go down as time wasting the legal justification would be theft of the company's time and misuse of resources.
Main features that a web site must contain in order to be successful
In order to successful the Price Brown partnership could include the following at the moment they have covered a few of the items covered below.
The only main way of gaining customers to notice and buy from the Price Brown partnership is through electronic web sites. It follows then the following then the design of the web site and image is vital importance if Price Brown partnership is going to be successful. The main features a site must contain:
. The homepage must be attractive and suitable for the business.
2. The site should be designed professionally.
3. The links should lead to the customers needs
4. It must have a detailed content
5. The e-mail function should work and give out daily responses to queries
6. It must match the company general marketing
7. Interactive information on the business
8. A very reliable on maintenance of site
9. Fast reliable access on web site
0. The web site made simple so it easy to understand
Analysis of impact of the development on the business as a whole
The impact of e-commerce and information technology has had on the Price Brown Partnership is the benefits are the rapid expanding market of the growing amount of people using the internet who are able to visit the Price Brown Partnership web site.
The state of art technology that provides the Price Brown Partnership site with new ways to deliver the message that they are honest and 'caring' towards the interest of their clients. Through the development of IT and e-commerce, the price brown are able to show their brand image instantaneous world wide, the development of Internet allows communication without long-distance chares.
The development of e-commerce could also allow people to rent a villa using there credit card, this could have an impact on sales, and it's highly unlikely that people would use their credit cards.
The impact that IT has on Price Brown Partnership is it able to use new technologies to show complete sets of architectural plans and large 3D colour impressions of the complex from different angles on display in their offices. The Price Brown Partnership also shows the future development, of the designs are generous in internal living space and each unit has a superb spacious sea facing terrace. There are 2 and 3 bedroom apartments and penthouses available, all with two bathrooms. There is an attractive communal tropical garden area with swimming pool. The new technology may put the business in front of their competitors, or may allow the business to keep pace with competitors.
E-Commerce has the impact of reduced overall labour costs this can benefit the Price Brown Partnership as there is a growing amount of people using the internet, so they can search using search engines like for e.g. ask.co.uk and visit the Price Brown Partnership web site. If people are interested they may contact the business. This all contributes to the development of the business.
There are excellent reasons for the Price Brown Partnership doing business electronically. So that they can stay ahead of competitor and help the business develop. Depending on the nature of the Price Brown Partnership, trading on the Internet promises greater market penetration, increased customer response, more flexibility and lower costs. You also have the opportunity to forge closer relationships with customers. Electronic links facilitate easy, fast, effective communication, allowing development of business relationships, innovation in goods and their delivery, and improved operational efficiency.
The Price Brown Partnership web site add efficiency as they have more ways working with customers as they can use the internet as a sales channel and marketing and also use newspapers such as the Sunday times. It will also improve the market for villa as more people now learn to use the Internet. The business will have to spend money on marketing so that they meet the customer's needs. In order to spend money on development on the Price Brown Partnership they must budget by using a financial plan to support the business. If too much money is invested on development, the business may go bankrupt. That why it's important to use a budget by using a financial plan.
Intranet Systems
If the Price Brown Partnership has an internal network, they could be using this network to provide an Intranet information system. An Intranet is just like the Internet - it allows you to send and receive electronic mail, and publish and read web pages - but the web pages and other information is only accessible from computers on their network.
How intranet can be used need to distribute information to their staff, even if it is something as simple as a list of staff telephone extension numbers or a price list. The cost and hassle of changing and distributing printed information is high.
Instead, you can deliver your internal information via an Intranet. In the case of a telephone list, this would mean creating a web page showing the list, then placing this page on a computer which can act as a Web Server. This might be an expensive dedicated system, but it can also be any Windows 95 or 98 computers - web server software is available free for Windows computers, and the computer can be used for other office jobs at the same time as it is being a web server.
Whenever your staffs need to find a phone number, they just run their web browser, and reach the right page within a couple of mouse clicks.
And whenever the information needs updating, the person responsible just changes the page. From that moment on, everyone who looks at the page sees the new information.
It's easiest to think about an intranet as a private website, which you can use not just for telephone numbers, but for internal newsletters, notice boards, and all other types of communication. If the Price Brown Partnership has several offices with connected networks, an Intranet is an especially useful way of cutting the cost of communicating between offices.
Extranet
An intranet which is accessible from outside the local network is called an Extranet. It is possible to provide client access to your network over a dialup connection, or using the Internet, but the costs of this type of system are quite high, and security may be a problem.
However, if the Price Brown Partnership wanted to create an Extranet, (for example to allow their customers to place orders directly into your computer system or to access tracking information about villa) we can advise and help you.
World-wide Internet Population
Below shows the impact of amount millions of people who use Internet in year 2000. They're growing amount of people using the Internet every year the figures raise.
Online population of language used on the Internet below. On the Price Brown Partnership web site, language is written in English. The Spanish and German and French are still other construction. When the Price Brown Partnership employ someone whom able to translate this to the other three languages. The business will able to see an increase in visitors.
Outline of marketing and financial plan to support the development
In Price Brown Partnership the marketing and financial plan is very important to the business. The Price Brown Partnership has to budget how much it will spend on marketing this is important, as it has other cost to consider. The money spend on the marketing will be used to get the Price Brown Partnership well established in many countries round the world. Marketing should be used to find out customer's needs by carrying out research will help to established customers needs. All this will come together in the plan to support the development of the business.
The Price Brown partnership could carry out market research on their business. This could include questionnaires to find out what people think about the web site, about the image of the business, and about the prices of the villas, are they getting for value money. They could find what improvement they think the web site needs. When looking at the results the Price Brown partnership, can decide to make important decisions to the plan. This may include the financial plan to make any improvement to the web site and to the business.
The marketing used may add value to the business. I researched on the web hosting companies, to find out which one was suitable the Price Brown Partnership website. There was web hosting companies such as websitehost.co.uk that charge ten pounds a month, but I did not find this, suitable because they only offered 30 meg web space everything else was good, but not that professional. When I found the web site hosting service from giacomworld.com, they charge twenty pounds a month, they provide provided professional services with 100 Meg web space, with round the clock monitoring and power back up and front-page extension. I would recommend giacomworld.com because they provide a suitable service.
The Price Brown Partnership will have to consider the cost office software, such as Microsoft office 2000. This will cost around four hundred fifty pounds. The office software will be installed on the computers, and may be used to carry out tasks such as e-mail customers and making appointments.
The financial plan will be able to support this because it's not expensive when the web hosting is complete the advertising and promotions will be done by adding the web site to a number of popular search engines. The marketing part of the plan will aim the Price Brown Partnership, to have the right strategy, so the business is performing well using the strategy. The cost of the marketing expenses will be recorded will affect financial part of the plan. It would be suitable for the Price Brown Partnership, to use banner advertisement this is a long thin ads that are on top and bottom of most web sites. The banner will have a hyperlink from GIF, this could direct potential customers to the Price Brown Partnership web site, the suitable web sites the banner should be on is holiday web sites such as lastminute.com.
(INCLUDE RESEARCH)
Analysis of potential impact of e-commerce on the business in terms of marketing and financial implications
What would e-commerce do co-ordinate events, and special offers on villa, forecast income and expenditure. Estimate the costs.
E-commerce is concerned with attracting new customers, and therefore it involves advertising, public relations, and lead generation. It includes collecting customer information and order processing, so it involves back-office accounting and administration.
The potential for e-commerce is so the Price Brown Partnership can benefit by having access to larger market by attracting visitor to their site. The e-commerce gives the more opportunity to be successful than not having a web site. The marketing cost of advertising and promoting the web site. Should have a positive impact on the business. It's important the benefits out way the costs.
If the Price Brown Partnership see no change in the business performance, after the marketing and financial implications have been made. The marketing strategy may not be working or the advertising in different search engines may not be a popular that why they might not been many hits on the site.
The Price Brown Partnership may to invest more money into marketing and development of web site, so they are able attract visitor to the web site. The Price Brown Partnership should carry out a financial plan so they know how much they will spend. They may also forecast income and expenditure taking place. They can also estimate on expenses.
The marketing could involve co-ordinating special events, such a tour round Mojacar for free to member of the Price Brown Partnership. People could join up by signing up to stay over by renting a villa. This would be an expense to the business, but they can benefit by making profit on the rental of the customers.
The marketing can also be used for special offers on the villa for sales; they may offer a great deal, that may attract more visitors to Mojacar. If there are many people making enquiries on certain villa to visit the Price Brown Partnership. The business may forecast the likely income and expenditure.
Every marketing plan has to fit the needs and situation. Even so, there are standard components you just can't do without. A marketing plan should always have a situation analysis, marketing strategy, sales forecast, and expense budget.
* Situation Analysis: Normally this will include a market analysis, a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), and a competitive analysis. The market analysis will include market forecast, segmentation, customer information, and market needs analysis.
* Marketing Strategy: This should include at least a mission statement, objectives, and focused strategy including market segment focus and product positioning.
* Sales Forecast: This would include enough detail to track sales month by month and follow up on plan-vs.-actual analysis. Normally a plan will also include specific sales by services, by region or market segment, by channels, by manager responsibilities, and other elements. The forecast alone is a bare minimum.
Evaluation of potential of e-commerce on the business and analysis on risk involved
Look if the project was worth it, what improvements, what cost benefits analysis
E-commerce is one of the most "integrated" solutions you can possibly attempt in terms on taking your business to the Web. That is to say, a multitude of different applications and service providers will be working together in unison to enable the Price Brown Partnership e-commerce site.
In e-commerce there are some many potential benefits of having customers have access to your business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. People from all over the world can visit the Price Brown partnership. The impact of large amount of people visiting your web site is it may lead to an increase of sales. Sometimes the benefits may not work as benefits in the Price Brown partnership web site. The may be a large amount of money spent on the e-commerce web site. But not enough sales made to cover the expenses. The Price Brown partnership web site can cost ten thousands pound or more to be set-up.
When looking at the Price Brown partnership, it looks to be successful because it has had over 4000 visitors since it launched the web site on 11 January, 2002. By making improvements that I suggested they may able to increase the amount of visitors and may increase the amount of potential customers renting a villa.
The risk involved are server breaking down, the reason why this is a big risk is because any one trying to visit the Price Brown Partnership will be unable to view the site. In a business it always important to have a server that is reliable. A reliable server may make the difference of gaining customers that are interested in a villa or gaining nothing because of the poor service of a server.
The web site of Price Brown Partnership, may not be a popular search in search engines, this is risk if the web site is not popular. The money spent on the web site well goes to waste, if the web site filtered to popular searches.
Coherent plan which includes evaluation on marketing and financial implication which clearly evaluates cost and benefits of the strategy
Plan
* Marketing implications
* Financial implications
* Evaluation on cost marketing and financial implication
Marketing implications
The marketing strategy I said would be suitable for the Price Brown Partnership is marketing channel, the marketing channel will be used by advertising the business online. This will require the web site to be updated with the latest villa available for sale and rent and latest developments on the Price Brown Partnership. The marketing implications is that staff will spend time updating and developing the web site this will be a on going expense to the Price Brown Partnership. The marketing research will help to make decisions on the web site on improvements and how to maintain high amount of hits to the web site. Part of the marketing plan is to bear in mind the Price Brown Partnership web site appears in the most popular search engines. So when potential customers type in keywords such as 'villa for sale in Mojacar' the Price Brown Partnership should be listed in the top 10 web sites. Search engine optimisation is one of the most effective forms of online marketing. A recent study by Forrester Research found that 81 percent of UK users said that search engines helped them find the web sites they use, up from 67 per cent in 1999.
* Search engine optimisation is cost effective and results based
* Drives targeted visitors to your website
* Offers higher conversion rates than other forms of online marketing.
When your target audience searches for your service online, how likely are they to find your website? The digital marketing company thedmco.com search engine campaigns ensure that when customers search for your goods or services in search engines and directories, your site is listed in the top results. This may be useful ensuring, the Price Brown Partnership web site listing is popular search.
Pay per click search engines allows web site owners to bid to be listed in the top results when someone searches for their selected keywords. You only pay when visitors click through to your website.
The Digital Marketing Company has extensive experience in running pay per click campaigns, which deliver cost effective and targeted traffic to your website. Overture is the most popular of the pay per click engines, and hence has the most sophisticated reporting tools and the most extensive partner network. The average cost per click for an Overture campaign is about 16c compared to $5 for online advertising. Links from the Overture search engine appear as sponsored links on other major search engines such as Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, AOL Search and Direct Hit.
There are other engines, such as Findwhat and eSpotting, which are forging new partnerships and gaining popularity. The advantage of these is that it is easier to gain top rankings for a minimum spend, whereas Overture charges a minimum of five cents per keyword.
Google has also introduced two excellent paid placement programs, Google AdWords, which is based on CPM or cost per impression pricing and AdWords Select, which is similar to Overture and its pay per click pricing model.
Financial implications
The financial implications is considering the cost to the Price Brown Partnership. I will list the following costs that are involved in setting an e-commerce web site.
Domain name
This cost around £20 pounds a month, to have a complete professional business web hosting service. Giacom: world provides this services giacomworld.com.
Server
This is important so the web site server never brakes down or is slow. This cost around £99 a month. One & One System Administrators monitor and maintain the dedicated server. Oneandone.co.uk
Web site development
This involves staff updating the web site and developing the site and adds new features. The Price Brown Partnership may pay around £15-20 for this service.
Search engine optimisation
Its important for the Price Brown Partnership web site to be listed in the fist pages when potential customers search for villa using key words. The digital marketing company thedmco.com search engine campaigns ensure that when customer's search they will find the web site in the first three pages. This will also be an expense to the Price Brown Partnership if they decide to use digital marketing company.
Cost benefit analysis
Whether the benefits of the web site will comprehensively out-weigh the costs involved in producing the web site. All the cost should be beneficial to the business; the way this can be analysed is by checking it their increase in the amount of visitors each week, the sales made for villa and renting should show a increase over a few weeks. If the amount of visitors requesting information has increases and sales then it's likely the e-commerce strategy is working well. It will be important for staff to monitor the level of customer's visitors and sales made.
Evaluation on marketing and financial implication
The marketing and financial implications should be cost benefit for the Price Brown Partnership; it would fit together with the plan. It is a fact that E-Commerce sites lose almost half of their potential sales because users cannot use the site. All too often websites are either designed so that they are pretty to look at and full of impressive features, or are too generic and lacking professionalism. What these websites have in common is that they fail in the single most important aspect: to meet the needs of the customer. It is surprising to see how many sites omit vital information or lack clear site navigation. This leads to a frustrating experience for the site visitor which in turn diminishes trust in the business. Lack of trust means lower sales. With the Price Brown Partnership is already a successful business the online website is also good, but with my help it can be improved to get the most out of e-commerce.
Having a well-built website is only part of a successful e-commerce operation. It has to be backed-up by business processes that contribute to a great overall customer experience:
* Consistent and quick customer service.
* Secure and reliable hosting.
* Appropriate online marketing campaigns
The Price Brown Partnership has a well-built website. It important to consider the cost of marketing and financial implications, if the cost was not anticipated this would cause a failure to the e-commerce strategy. It is likely the financial costs and marketing will be recorded in a sales budget after that is finalised it can be put in a sales forecast, so the Price Brown Partnership can forecast an estimate on the amount villa will be sole or be rented. Some of the cost is quiet expensive like the server being maintained by One & One System Administrators monitor and maintain the dedicated server. This cost around £99 a month, its vital the sever never brakes down and is not slow some potential customers are able to visit the web site with any problems. The cost of developing the Price Brown Partnership web site can be high because a lot of work goes into developing the images for the future and maintenance to let customers know about what villa are for sale. The web site development is very important because if the Price Brown Partnership web site was not developed well it would not look professional, people viewing the site would likely to leave the site.
Conclusion
(What I did what I found out)
Andrew Braganca Unit 24
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