unit 8 business online p1
In this unit I will be examining different online business activities, understand what makes it feasible for a business to go online, find out the issues which affect how businesses operate online and consider the benefits of operating online.
TASK 1 (P1)
A) John Lewis:
)
John Lewis website sells goods and provides good service for customers. John Lewis sells in both, stores and online. You can shop or browse items online and get them delivered free. Products that John Lewis sells on-line are:
* Home & Gardening items
* Electrical Appliances
* Technology
* Sports & Leisure & Travels
* Fashion
* Gifts & Flowers
* Toys
* Baby items
Also John Lewis has own credit card service called the Partnership card which
has link on the main page, this link's leads to another website
www.patnershipcard.co.uk which is designed for applying for the Partnership
Card.
The People behind this card: The Partnership card team is issued and managed by John Lewis Financial Services Limited, which is a member of the HSBC Group of Companies. The John Lewis Partnership teamed up with the HSBC Group in 2003 to create and jointly manage John Lewis Financial Services Limited, with the aim of providing a card offer that is right for John Lewis and Waitrose Customers. The combination of the John Lewis Partnership's retailing expertise and customer knowledge, combined with the HSBC group's significant card experience and technological skills enable John Lewis Financial Services to offer a compelling and attractive credit card. For more info: visit, www.parnershipcard.co.uk/html/aboutus.jsp
2)
John Lewis is in the Private Sector:
The John Lewis Partnership is a creative and successful way of doing business, bravely putting the happiness of Partners at the centre of everything it does. It's the embodiment of an ideal, the outcome of nearly a century of endeavour to create a different sort of company, owned by Partners dedicated to serving customers with flair and fairness.
All 68,000 permanent staffs are Partners. The partnership owns 26 John Lewis department stores, 187 Waitrose supermarkets (www.waitrose.com), an online and catalogue business, John Lewis Direct (www.johnlewis.com), a direct services company, Green Bee (www.greenbee.com), a production unit and a farm with a turnover of nearly £6 billion last year. Partners share in the benefits and profits of a business that puts them first.
3)
John Lewis has a massive brochure which gives information about the products to customers before they buy it. John Lewis also provides to customers a John Lewis website where they can shop through John Lewis website as well as the brochure.
4)
John Lewis does have a website to advertise and market, to promote the business. If a business has a website, it's useless if no one knows about it.
5)
As well as providing information The John Lewis website is about advertising and marketing and education and business an activity which includes the direct selling of goods.
6)
Yes, this site is used to support mail order by customers being able to order catalogues.
7)
Yes, it is possible for you to carry out online transactions over the website this is because customers purchase/order from online and are able to pay for the goods.
8)
Apart from transactions John Lewis website does introduce others things. Customers can get updates, offers such as, Christmas, Mothers Day, Summer Sale and promotions as well.
B) Watford Borough Council
. This website is informational and does not sell goods or products online.
2. Watford Borough Council is a public, local government service.
3. No, this website also provides a whole lot more than just providing information because you could make payments on the website and there is also a whole lot more links you could choose from.
4. Yes, because its lots of people know about their services and advertise their latest news the website is used to advertise and market. The products and services.
5. Letting people know what their rights are and by using different languages for those who don't understand English the site educates people.
6. There is nothing on the website that can be order or use for mail order, so the site does not support mail order.
7. Yes, you could carry out online transactions over the website because this allows people to pay their council tax and other local authority charges.
8. There are other interactive activities as well as transaction, such as you could get information on planning or even submit planning applications and you can review it by using the website.
C) England shelter
. This site is for on-line selling of a service, it is just a service for homeless people because there isn't any goods or services to be sold.
2. The service is a charity service; shelter is a privately owned not for profit company. It is not owned by the government.
3. No, apart from providing information this website helps people to find place to live.
4. If they don't advertise customers wouldn't know about this site, it's pointless and their services so this website is used to advertise and marketing.
5. This site does educate users because you can find out all about your rights if you become homeless.
6. There's nothing to order on this website so it does not support mail order.
7. Yes, you can carry out online transactions because you can donate money online.
8. There is no other major interaction although you can get advice and support.
TASK 2 (P2) (M2) PLANNING ISSUES.
) Yes! It's suitable to have a website for a Pizza Company because customers can save time, it means you can avoid the trip to the shop and it's easy and secure. Also business should know is there a market for what you're trying to sell, this has to be researched and a questionnaire can find out. I would say there's a market for a Pizza Company to have a website that sells pizza online.
2) All websites have a domain name - which is normally the same as the organisational name, such as www.lush.com, www.boots.co.uk, and www.zara.com ideally, these names are easy for customers to remember, to say and spell and as near to the operational name as possible.
Many UK businesses own the domain name ending with.com and .co.uk (and possibly.net as well) - and may even register common misspellings of their name so that anyone entering these will be automatically redirected to the main site. British Gas has gone one further and registered www.house.co.uk as well as their own name.
A name must be officially registered before it can be used. It is then leased to the owner for a specified period, after which time the owner can choose to renew it or not.
There are loads of issue's when you choosing a Domain name, which are:
1 Your Domain name should be your Website name.
2 Generic names of Brands.
3 Long or Short Domain Names.
4 Hyphenated Names.
5 Plurals "The", and "My" Forms of the Domain Name
6 www.petra'spizza.co.uk
3) The businesses have to choose whether to create the website "in - house" or "out source" ask a professional to do it so.
In house: Do I need to obtain help and advice through many free services and local agencies, such as Chamber of Commerce. Are more skills needed to use specialist packages like Macromedia's Dream weaver, fireworks and flash technology, which enables professional developers to produce many different effects and designs.
2 Outsource: Do I know how to run a professional web-design agency for a business, which is worthwhile to ensure that the site positively promotes the company's image.
My Recommendation:
4) The most ideal website should include an e-mail address, in order to contact them. However this means that they need to hire an employee in order to check these mails and update the websites, this employee would also be very useful in suggesting future developments based on the customer feedback. Selling stock online would also mean that they need to keep enough stock to meet the customer demand, this mean that an extra storage space is needed. Extra staff would also be necessary in order to dispatch items. There must be a thorough check to see that the payment is received before sending the goods.
5) These will depend upon the scope of the online business, the type of site and whether it is hosted in-house or by ISP: to run a website these skills are needed.
? Technical Skills - to ensure the website stays operational and is fully secure
? Website design and maintenance skills - to develop or update the site on a regular basis
? E-marketing skills - to ensure that the site is ranked highly by Internet search engines and are easy for customers to find
? Admin and customer service skills - to respond to customer enquiries, orders and feedback promptly and appropriately
? Management skills - to take account of the legal responsibilities related to operating online, to identify opportunities for improvements and future developments, to ensure staff are well-trained and resourced and capable of coping with the additional and different demands received.
IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES
) If the site doesn't run correctly or efficiently, users wouldn't reuse it and wouldn't like it.
* The biggest potential problem of going online is that the information will be badly organised.
* Websites should be planned so that users can easily find what they are most likely to need.
* Customers can decide whether they like a website within two clicks, if they see a badly designed site with too much text or cannot find what they want they are likely to leave it very quickly.
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This is a preview of the whole essay
IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES
) If the site doesn't run correctly or efficiently, users wouldn't reuse it and wouldn't like it.
* The biggest potential problem of going online is that the information will be badly organised.
* Websites should be planned so that users can easily find what they are most likely to need.
* Customers can decide whether they like a website within two clicks, if they see a badly designed site with too much text or cannot find what they want they are likely to leave it very quickly.
What the website will actually do is shown below.
Appears properly on all browsers and operating systems (e.g. Apple Mac, Fire Fox, Opera, Internet Explorer)
*
Loads quickly
*
Any elaborate opening graphics can be skipped if required
*
Text is structured in easily-digestible small chunks
*
Does not request personal information before people can access the site
*
All links work properly
*
There are no factual errors or mistakes with grammar, spelling or punctuation
*
All information is up to date
*
Navigation is consistent - it is easy to find way around the site and return to the home page
*
Instructions are clear and easy to understand
*
Advertising is not intrusive
*
There is clear contact information
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There is an easy-to-use search facility which brings up accurate results
*
There is a print option which omits graphics and other unnecessary text and ensures all text is printed clearly.
*
2) A basic site could be all that is needed, but it's dangerous to assume that anyone who has basic skills with IT can create a suitable business website. Commercial websites are usually complex and large with thousands of pages, there is security encrypted pages for receiving any payments and there are links to product database. In such case, expect design and programming skills are required, also a good knowledge of database technology and familiarity with different types of web services:
? Website design can be creative then should be planned safely so that users can easily find what they are most likely to need.
? Plan the structure and design the site to reflect the business image and to allow for future development needs
? Design the pages so that they provide a consistent image to users
? Add text, Graphics, Links and any effects required
? Ensure that the site is accessible to disabled users
? Include security features such as encrypted pages and protection against hackers.
3) To develop the company site and meet the needs of different users, I would change design, graphics, add more info or attract with images at regular intervals. This enables the website to be improved and modernized as well as being made more appealing to customers. Including security features such as encrypted pages and protection against theft/hackers. A scalable website is one designed to grow or change to continually meet business needs.
4) Amazon or My places are example for a extent of a website that could range from passive brochure ware, to a limited interactivity by customers to those which are fully interactive. Interactivity by customers is where they could communicate or order online. More specialist skills are needs if more functionality is required and the greater the cost of developing the website.
If the business would like to sells online then consideration should include which stock is to be feature, where it would be stored, if any additional stock could be required, how will the payment be accepted and how the goods will be sent and will be legal issues of selling online.
The website also would need to cope with the projected number of visitors on the site; otherwise it will crash or work so slowly that it becomes useless. This means carefully considering the projected amount of 'traffic' to the site and the website capacity. A very good famous example of website crashes includes the BBC site on 9/11 and the government census site on its launch date.
5) All websites should be accurate, must be kept up to date and should relevant to the customer. There are some cases where the needs and demand of the customer could change over period of time, so that the website will have to be revised to incorporate increased service levels, such as online order tracking, online communication with staff and automated confirmation of order.
To ensure that the website always meets the needs of its users the updating and reviewing of it must be planned. Changing of the design at regular intervals also has its benefits, because it makes the website to be modernized and improved as well as being attractive and appealing to the customer.
6) Setting up an online operation is likely to involve collaboration with several partners.
7) Additional finance: Might be required to pay for additional stocks or raw materials that are required, site development costs and also if any expert staff that need to be hired.
Financial services: Will be required if the business will receive payments
Online. This can be done in one of two ways:
? The business can pay Merchant Service or Payment Service Provider to collect and process payment is captured on its behalf. This is useful for small firms because payments are captured on the PSP's secure site - not that belonging to the business. PSP charge a fee for this service. They also hold to the money for between 30 and 60 days as a precaution against fraud. Examples includes World Pay at www.worldpay.co.uk and Net Banx at www.netbanx.com
? The business can arrange with its bank to operate its own Merchant Service and process its own payments on a secure website. Banks only agree to this if they are convinced of the financial status of the business, the security arrangements in place and are satisfied with the terms and conditions of online trading
TASK 3 (P3) Operation Issues
)
Many online customers expect to be able to pay for goods they buy by debit or credit card. They also have to be certain that their personal details will be kept confidential. Newspaper headlines about fraud, hackers and identify theft obliviously put people off. To be secure online payments need to be:
? Private and confidential between the buyer and the seller
? Authentic because both people are who they claim to be
? Conveyed intact and without any changes or alterations during transmission
? Erased from the system after the process has been completed.
? SSL (Secure Socket Layer) - allow you a standard browser, such as Microsoft Explorer, to transmit and receive information securely.
? SET (Secure Electronic Transfer) is a system for credit card transactions. When the card holder buys online the credit card company authenticates the card via a digital signature. This proves the card holder is genuine.
? There may be also problems coping with the legal requirements of trading online or with dealing with cultural expectations or other restrictions relating to foreign buyers
2) Businesses could struggle to adapt that used to operating on a small scale or dealing with customers face to face. They also might misjudge the quantity or type of orders they may receive, cost of distribution, packaging and time taken for a staff to fulfil online requests and popularity of their websites.
A business could struggle to repay any money that was borrowed to pay for the website development and it may have unsold stock if it was less successful. If it can't fulfil order promptly or enquiries quickly due to insufficient stock or too few staff then it will not only fail to take advantage of new business but customers are unlikely to contact it again in the future if it has done itself a disservice.
There might also be problems with dealing with cultural expectations or coping with legal requirements of trading online or order restriction relating to foreign buyers. It may take some time before it can respond to all the pressure and challenges it may meet unless the businesses can obtain specialist help and advice.
3)
To minimise customer errors order forms should be designed to be foolproof. The website also should be made to prevent any obvious mistakes by the customers such as submitting the same order form twice. Most websites are designed in such way that key information in an order form has to be entered before the form is accepted. It's also useful if large quantities or any obvious errors are queried before the order is processed. Online customers are protected by the sale of goods act and the supply of goods and services act 1982 in the way other consumers are. Sale and supply of goods to consumers regulations 2002 also gives them the right to return any goods that are faulty whether they are brought online or from the shop.
4)
Any organisation that stores and processes any information about individuals must register with information commissioner whether the information is on a computer system or in written records. Comply with the terms of the data protection act 1998, meaning the data must be secure, accurate and not kept for longer than necessary. This also means a business can't put any private information on its website or disclose any details about the customer to other people. Websites provide privacy policy and electronic communications regulations also allow business to send e-mails only to people who have 'opted in' by giving their active consent to receive these. These kinds of e-mails also include an option for the recipient to unsubscribe at any time. Websites also include visitor's details by during a registration or ordering process.
5) What is cyber crime? Crime committed using a computer and the internet to steal a person's identity or sell contraband or stalk victims or disrupt operations using malevolent programs.
Examples of Cyber crime:
? The computer or network is a tool of the criminal activity include spamming and criminal copyright crimes, particularly those facilitated through peer-to-peer networks.
? In which the computer or network is a target of criminal activity include unauthorized access (i.e. defeating access controls), malicious code, and denial-of-service attacks.
? Which the computer or network is a place of criminal activity include theft of service (in particular, telecom fraud) and certain financial frauds.
? Traditional crimes facilitated through the use of computers or networks include other gullibility or social engineering frauds (e.g. Hacking "phishing", identity theft, child pornography, online gambling, securities fraud, etc.) Cyber stalking is an example of a traditional crime - harassment - that has taken a new form when facilitated through computer networks.
Why do businesses need to be aware of it?
This is because businesses can lose financially or suffer brand damage. The move by organised criminal networks into cyber crime demonstrates how much money is to be made from this medium. These loosely-formed networks are different from what have been known as traditional organised crime groups, which are characterized by structure and a defined hierarchy.
6) For the information provides it's current and product description/information and lists are accurate the business needs to update websites regularly. There are some cases were incorrect or out-of-date information creates problems. There is nothing worse than for a customer to see pages that have not been changed/upgraded for a year or more.
7) If the sites information is wrong customers will not reuse it, you might lose your business profits. To avoid this you should cover this on your websites:
? The information on the websites must be clear and descriptions must be accurate.
? If you are adding images on your sites, it must be make sense to customers or else it's pointless to have images on your sites.
? A business that deliberately misleads customers could be liable under the terms of the Trades Description Act.
There may be a case to answer if a customer took action based on outdated or inaccurate information. To cover these kinds of problems most websites have a disclaimer clause. However it depends upon the type of website. An example would be NHS and Tesco or Asda, NHS has to be more careful about the accuracy of the information it provides than Retail stores such as Asda or Tesco.
8) Multinational businesses with overseas customers normally have a facility to enable users to choose the website version they want, sometimes by identifying their national flag for example as at www.mcdonalds.com or www.burton.com
When foreign buyers want to purchase goods, smaller organizations will not have this facility to deal with it and that causes more confusion. This is the reason why many firms would include disclaimer clause, for example at the Marks and Spencer website where orders are only accepted if the description accurately matches that on the site and company takes no responsibility for goods to be used abroad or any local laws that would affect the purchase in any way.
Small firms that would want to sell to any foreign business customers have two choices. They might have enquires for their services translated or try to work through a local agent. It should be done by an expert. Online translation services such as Google's might be useful for a pen friend but not recommended for any important business documents.
9) Every computer users are dependent upon their Internet Service Provider to stay online. If the system develops a technical fault, then Internet access is lost until the fault is repaired. This can create serious problems for an online business, particularly if the website is 'down' for any length of time.
The system itself may develop a fault even if there aren't any problems with an ISP. The software may be corrupted or the hardware may malfunction. Most businesses have back-up servers for this reason; so if the servers goes down they can simply switch to another. Due to programming errors or through a virus, software problems can be caused.
If there is any major disaster none of these measures will help. To repair and restore the system quickly, problems relating to hardware and software failures, and loss of data, some businesses have their website offsite in a secure location where there are some specialist staff available to deal with problems. If there is a major system problem they may have to deal with calls from angry customers and the staff will not be able to do their jobs. If there are any breakdowns it puts more pressure on the staff.
0) Data can be lost for various reasons. A report about data loss says there is a total of 1.7 million incidents every year, as a result of the following problems:
3%
Hardware loss, e.g. through flood or fire
5%
Theft, e.g. laptop theft
7%
Computer virus
3%
Software file corruption
31%
Human error, e.g. accidental deletion
41%
Hardware failure, e.g. drive failure
Daily back-ups of the whole system mean that a business can always reinstall its systems to within 24 hours of a problem occurring. Online businesses face several operational risks. They need to keep their website up to date and may be liable for inaccurate information. Then they need to ensure global customers can understand the website, deal with equipment and software failure including loss of data and comply with global business regulations.
TASK 4 (P4)
DESCRIBING STAFFING ISSUES:
) Employ an IT technician to create and develop the site. A specialist hosting company is the bunker to keep the site secure and to undertake the routine maintenance. E-marketing is experts used to promote the site and to devise associated marketing campaigns.
2) Most of the large businesses with a popular website, such as John Lewis and M&S, use a call centre to answer customer queries. This is an external operation where customer service staff are employed to respond to customer calls. They have access to the customer and product databases so that they can see relevant information on screen during the call.
3) Most of the staff may find that, as a result of the website, they have less personal contact with customers who can now place orders online, email if they want information or contact a call centre if they have a query. This may dishearten some staff and delight others!
4) Many staff need special training with unfamiliarity technology, so that staff feel comfortable working with the new technology, this is important because staff will not work efficiently or effectively if staff are not sure what to do or are struggling to understand the new system. This might be an advantage to the business!
5) Break down in the on-line service, problems relating to hardware and software failures, and loss of data. Any breakdowns obliviously put more pressure on the staffs, which are unlikely to be able with calls from angry customers too.
DESCRIBING FINANCIAL ISSUES:
) Setting up a small informational website may be done quite inexpensively, there are more costs involved for firms who want to carry out a substantial amount of business online or use their website as a major way of promoting the organisation. In addition, circulating the potential financial benefit is not easy. The last thing a business can afford is an expensive online presence which brings few, if any, for example, financial benefits and actually incurs costs to keep operational.
2) The costs that maybe faced to make a new website and other costs:
? For Hardware's
? For Software's
? For Program adaptation
? For staffs (salary)
? For a specialist hosting company if is it from out source or in source
? For a marketing (advertising)
3) Every business goes online in the hope of generating additional business. There may be a problem occurs if there is a huge surge of interest which the company cannot handle. This can result in the site crashing, it's because too many customers are trying to use it at once.
It may mean that enquires cannot be answered quickly or orders cannot be filled because there is not enough stock or few staff to process them. Buying more stock or employing more staff both cost money and may result in cash flow problems. If the company gets a bad reputation because it cannot cope, the site may lose customers rather than help to gain them.
4) International transactions are often subject to both customs duties and Value Added Tax. This can substantially increase the price of goods bought from overseas that, at first glance, seem to be bargain.
Goods bought from within the EU are not subject to import duty, but those from other parts of the world are. The duty to be paid depends up on the type of goods, their value and country of origin.
DESCRIBING DISTRIBUTION ISSUES:
) Business that are distribute goods on a global basis have other concerns including:
? Special documents: This must be completed to comply with customs and other shipping regulations.
? Special labelling or packaging: This is needed for some items, such as perishable or hazardous goods.
? The best method of transport: This will depend upon the type of goods and destination, as well as the cost.
? Insurance: to protect the sender in case the goods are damaged or lost en route.
2) The method used will vary the price of distribution. The longer the distribution time the less delivery will cost whereas the shorter the delivery time the more money it will cost to get to you. There is a cheaper to send goods by sea - and slower - than it is to send them by air. But these are not the only choices and combination of transport services may be used.
The two main important factors to consider are the type of goods and the speed at which they must be transported. Heavy goods are more expensive to transport than those which weigh very little; bulky goods are dearer than small ones. It always costs more for express deliveries.
3) Several types of goods need special concentration.
? Fragile Goods: This will to be packed carefully with bubble wrap or other protective material. They will also be labelled 'fragile' and other handling instructions may be attached (for example 'This way up')
? Perishable Goods: Must be delivered promptly. They will be labelled accordingly and may be transported in special vehicles, such as refrigerated Lorries.
? Hazardous Goods: May need to accompany by special paperwork such as a Dangerous Goods Note.
4) Providing services on a global basis is usually easier than providing products, simply because there is no need to physically move anything. There may still be charges such as VAT to take into account, but other costs will relate purely to the costs of managing and administering the service.
There are some examples:
? Online insurance quotes for cars, houses, travel and even pets
? Booking flights online with airlines all around the world
? Booking hotel rooms
? Downloading music and ring tones
? Downloading software
? Applying for a job through an online recruitment site
? Finding a house for sale at house builders' sites or estate agencies
TASK 5 (P5) (M3)
MARKET PRESENCE
The general benefits of online trading are quite straightforward
Global Presence
The John Lewis website is available to customers from any location in the world. This can greatly increase promotional and trading opportunities, especially for small businesses.
24 Hour Service
The John Lewis website is never close and it's available to customers 24 hours a day seven days a week so orders received at any hour of the day of night - and automatically approved or information can be provided.
Equality Of Presence Regardless Of Size Of Business
The customer judges the business on the appearance and usability of its website, not on the size of the business. Therefore, a small business with a well-designed site and excellent service can compete, in theory, with much larger businesses.
Rapidity Of Response To Customer Interest
A website can provide several opportunities for customer contact, such as 'call me' buttons and email messages, but speed of response is vital. In 21st century Internet provider, provided good service and faster response to customers who enquire by telephone or letter. If the John Lewis responds very late or even worse, fails to respond altogether, then not only is potential sale lost, but the image of the business is tarnished. To put off this, nominated staff must be given the task of responding to site enquires promptly. On the other hand, this can be handled through an automated system.
Opportunities To Analyse Online Competition
It is easier and quicker to understand and compare opponent activities online than by visiting their stores or obtaining information on their products and services offline. Before businesses go online it should analyse the web presence of each of its main competitors. This shows the style of their site and the size of the electronic marketplace and content of competitors' websites. The aim must be to be at least as good - and if possible better. Businesses should also understand, through, that once they are online then their competitors can also keep an eagle eye on their operations.
MARKETING BENEFITS
The benefits of the businesses increase by going online depend upon the type of business activity carried out and the size. Most service industries go online mainly for promotional reasons, to give themselves a higher profile and provide more information about their work to the customers. A small manufacturing company , for example, may went to reduce its costs by buying its supplies online and reducing its storage space, whereas an online store will want to attract new customers and increase sales.
Getting on a 'links' list is an obvious benefit for firms because it encourages more people to visit their site.
The target market of this business, actions of competitors and the budget available. Promoting products or services is also a benefit; at the same time as promotion is one part of the marketing mix, many firms talk about their promotional mix, the best mix will depend upon the type of product, The main reasons for promoting the business include:
? Giving information on products and services
? Publicising special offers or events, including competitions or sales
? Telling people where the business located or how it can be contacted
? Building up a positive image of the business
? Stating their attributes and the benefits associated with buying them
? Telling people about changes and improvements that have been made
Internet marketing also referred to as online marketing or marketing, it's the marketing of products or services over the Internet. The Internet has brought many unique benefits to marketing including low costs in distributing information and media to a global audience. The interactive nature of Internet marketing, both in terms of instant response and in eliciting response, are unique qualities of the medium.
This chart below shows some of the most common promotional methods used by small businesses selling locally.
* Customers can shop or browse items online or select goods from a catalogue in store and buy them and have them delivered.
* The business sells Home & Garden, Electrical Appliances, Furniture, Technology, Toys and Gifts & Flowers etc.
* It is a Tertiary sector
* It was founded in 1864
* At John Lewis Around 69,000 employees works for the business.
* The turnover of the company was £6billion (2006)
* Official website for John Lewis is:
The website for this company is: www.johnlewis.co.uk
To be successful to operate an online business, without competition there isn't any benefit. This business should know as much as they can about their opposition and their operations, includes this following:
? Checking out their website
? Issuing questionnaire
? How many competitors are there and where are they located?
? What prices do they charge?
? What is their sales turnover?
? Reading competitor's adverts and leaflets
? Visiting competitor as a 'customer'
? The goods/services they currently use
? What is their customer profile?
? What is their Unique Selling Point?
Collecting Market Research Information From Online Enquiries
There are several ways in which organisations can obtain information from users of its website:
? Through log files and cookies
? Website activity software
? Registration and order forms
? Online market research
Access To New Markets
Going online enables even the smallest business to make contact with wider range of customers.
? Remote locations
? Customers with travel difficulties
? Poor transport links
? Customers with disabilities
Access From A Wide Range Of Devices
Customers can access websites today easily by number of ways, like interactive TV in the home to a variety of mobile devices, such as WAP and 3G mobile phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants) and pocket PCs. Information stored on a PDA can be downloaded to a PC easily and quickly. To access these, there plenty of smart phones out today.
LEVEL OF RESPONSE
The degree to which an organisation responds to the needs of all its potential customers will depend upon its business activity, the scale of the business and the degree to which it intends to do business online. Factors it will need to consider are given below.
Sales Features
This can include delivery to an alternative address or the ability to select a specific delivery slot, delivery door to door. Also there are other options can include a gift-wrapping service, a returns service to a nearby 'brick and mortar' store and notification by email when new goods arrive in stock.
? Access from a wide range of devices - to access to a website to be possible from mobile phones, key content on the site must be viewable on a small screen. This can done by creating a cut-down, text version of the site in Wireless Markup Language (WML) to reduce the size of the Internet page to key text only.
? Access out of business hours - customers can get help from the website 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, regardless of whether the sales or customer service team is physically present outside normal working days.
? Access from around the world - this is key benefit for many organisations that provide products or services with global appeal. For John Lewis it cant I mean customers can access the John Lewis site from all over the world but customers cant order products if customer is residence from out of UK. For example Football club can do this such as Man United, Barcelona and Real Madrid etc this is because this is a whole different subject.
? Rapid response to order and enquires - the addition of an email link on the site enables any customer with an enquiry or complaint to contact the company quickly. Business customer service can respond customers far more rapidly electronically than they can by 'mail'. If information, orders have to be fulfilled using traditional systems, then the fact that business can benefit from impulse responses and orders from customers.
? Online order tracking - the John Lewis enable customers to track their orders online to identify when it will be delivered. On the other hand there are many different websites that tracking orders when delivered to you by for example Dell website, customers can check when their computer is assembled, when it is shipped to the UK.
? Reduced stockholding - responsive and flexible electronic ordering systems this means that the amount of stock which must be held at any one time is reduced.
TASK 6 (M2 D2)
The advantages and disadvantages of this business operating on line.
Planning Issues- Any local independent traders, such as taxi firms, plumbers and also hairdressers do not have an online operation but the organisation should have one. By traditional advertising and personal recommendation for example, yellow pages or a local newspaper are the reasons their customers can find them not by looking up on the Internet.
Implementation Issues - The availability of decision support and productivity software is providing opportunities for small and large businesses to develop systems, which make use of operations research models to support decision-making it. A framework for the development of small business decision support systems is presented and is applied to inventory management decision support system, which utilizes economic order quantity models. For example, Issues related to design, development, and implementation of small or large business decision support systems are discussed in detail and many aspects of the framework are illustrated using the inventory decision support system in a small and large business environment.
Operation Issues- Most online customers expect to be able to pay by credit or debit card. They also have to be certain if their personal details will be kept confidential. People get put off by hearing about fraud, identity theft and hackers. All online payment needs to be secure so they are secure. For example buyers are protected by secure sockets layer (SSL) but not the seller. It's because there are no checks that the buyer is the owner of the credit card used to buy the goods or the buyer is genuine. SET (secure electronic transfer protects both parties.
Other example:
* Internal Fraud - misappropriation of assets, tax evasion, intentional mismarking of positions, bribery.
* External Fraud - theft of information, hacking damage, third-party theft and forgery.
* Employment Practices and Workplace Safety - discrimination, workers compensation, employee health and safety.
* Clients, Products, & Business Practice - market manipulation, antitrust, improper trade, product defects, fiduciary breaches, account churning.
* Damage to Physical Assets - natural disasters, terrorism, vandalism.
* Business Disruption & Systems Failures - utility disruptions, software failures, hardware failures.
Staffing Issues - An online presence could cause some concern for the staff. It depends on the type of operation like the way changes are delt and its size. Staffs are concerned that their jobs could change or even disappear. Paying a specialists hosting company like a banker is an example to keep the site undertake routine maintenance and secure or hiring agency to develop and create the site.
Financial Issues - It is quite cheap to set up an information website; however firms who would like to carry out a substantial amount of business online or even use their website as a big way of promoting the organization more cost could be involved. Calculating the potential financial benefit is not that easy. An expensive online presence which brings few is that last thing a business would be able to afford, for example, financial benefits and actually incurs costs to keep operational.
TASK 7 (D1)
This allows some or all of the following functions to be performed by payment protection software program.
* Credit/debit card payments can be processed - including authorisation.
* The online store uses the data to draw up profiles of regular customers so that they can mail them with information on promotions of their favorite products.
* Stock records can be updated as soon as a product is sold. This also allows low/high turnover stocks to be identified. Stock types which need re-ordering can also be identified.
* Bar code readers can identify each product and find the price from the computer. The total spent by each customer is also calculated.
Additional examples are shown from payment protection software program can help, which is in the table below:
Operational Risks - The risks apply to any organisation in business it is if particular relevance to the banking/retail, where regulators are responsible for establishing safeguards to protect against systemic failure. Operational risk is defined as the risk of loss resulting from inadequate or failed internal processes or from external events. Includes legal risk, but excludes strategic risk: For example, the risk of a loss arising from a poor strategic business decision. Damage to an organisation through loss of its reputation. Although it is understood that a significant but non-catastrophic operational loss could still affect its reputation possibly leading to a further collapse of its business failure.
Other example:
* Internal Fraud - misappropriation of assets, tax evasion, intentional mismarking of positions, bribery.
* External Fraud - theft of information, hacking damage, third-party theft and forgery.
* Employment Practices and Workplace Safety - discrimination, workers compensation, employee health and safety.
* Clients, Products, & Business Practice - market manipulation, antitrust, improper trade, product defects, fiduciary breaches, account churning.
* Damage to Physical Assets - natural disasters, terrorism, vandalism.
Execution, Delivery, & Process Management - data entry errors, accounting errors, failed mandatory reporting, negligent loss of client assets.
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