Developing a Digital Business - Example

Developing a Digital Business BA (HONS) BUSINESS MANAGEMENT & D PATHWAYS Business Idea: Maintenance and Plumbing Services Table of Contents Developing a Digital Business 1 2.0 Business Strategy 4 2.1.0 Business Model 4 3.0 The User Experience Design 8 3.1 A Storyboard Showing Two Typical, But Different, Interactions 9 3.2 Statements Of Usability Requirements 11 3.3 Descriptions of How Problems Will Be Handled For Three Possible User Mistakes 11 3.4 Our Competitive Advantage 12 4.0 Social Infrastructure 13 1.0 Abstract This report is a presentation of a digital business proposal that the author intends to set up. The proposed business is Maintenance and Plumbing Services whose target market is mainly individual customers, business entities and housing authorities. The company shall be based and headquartered in Manchester; United Kingdom. The report has four major sections; business proposition, business strategy, user experience design and social infrastructure. The business proposition explains the nature of the proposed business conveying unique selling points of the proposed firm. The business strategy section explains the specific strategy that the proposed digital business shall adopt to cut a niche in the market. It outlines the advantages that this new digital business shall bring to the market as well as the financial justification. The user experience section shows a reflection of user experiences in the digital business environment. Lastly, the social infrastructure section deals with the legal issues that are relevant to the digital business environment 1.0.1 Business Proposition The plan is to set up a maintenance and plumbing services company that aims at offering services to business entities, individuals and housing authorities. The company shall be e-based whereby the core business functions such sales and marketing and customer engagement shall be done online. Only actual work of providing actual services shall be done physically. All other aspects of administration, finance, personnel, and advertisement among others will be done online. The company will however be registered and based in Manchester; United Kingdom. The idea behind this company is provision of prompt and high quality services to the clientele whereby customer inquiries and questions shall be responded to within a very short period of time. The online office shall provide a forum for interaction with customers to get timely and real-time feedback on their demands, feedback and their preferences. 2.0 Business Strategy 2.1.0 Business Model Today’s business is becoming increasingly internet-based and e-commerce “has grown rapidly in recent years” (Jifeng, Sulin, & Han, 2012, p. 1131). This is due to the ever-changing and improving technology for e-commerce. According to Bharadwaj, Sawy, Pavlou, & Venkatraman (2013), a digital business strategy refers to “organizational strategy formulated and executed by leveraging digital resources to create differential value” (p. 472). Our digital business strategy shall therefore act as our organizational plan and policy that we shall implement by harnessing the power of digital resources in order to develop differential value for our plumbing services. Our digital business strategy shall be built around four key thematic areas the scope, the scale, the speed and value creation. The model shall borrow from each of the four models identified by Chatterjee (2013). They include efficiency-based, network-efficiency, network value and perceived value models. 2.1.1 The Scope Strategy For a beginning, our services shall be limited to Manchester where our portfolio shall include repair and maintenance of heating systems, air conditioners, WC, kitchen and bathroom plumbing. Our aim is to apply digital techniques to our business and ensure that our business operations transcend conventional areas of business administration such as logistics, procurement, sales and marketing as well as finance and human resources. Our vision is to go beyond mere application of information technology to business operations. We shall be broader in our scope to eliminate the separation that exists between the digital strategy and the conventional business strategy. We shall digitize all our products and services as well as the information related to them. We shall also endeavor to expand the boundaries of our business beyond the traditional confines in order to improve on our portfolio. We shall be looking at digital products that are more exciting to our customers in order to capture the market. The key strategy toward this end is the establishment of key strategic partnerships to derive more benefits from the world of technology. 2.1.2 The Scale Strategy We shall exploit the cloud computing services to scale up our infrastructure even if our physical infrastructure remains limited. This kind of a model shall be premised on virtualized resources, on-demand services, utilization of elastic resources and access to a broader network. Once our business strategy is fused with available digital infrastructure, we shall be able to adapt to and cope with the demands and needs of the ever dynamic digital market. We shall pay close attention to the network effects as well as multisided models of business. As alluded to earlier or, our scaling options in the business model shall be premised on strategic partnerships and alliances via digital assets that we could share with others firms. 2.1.3 Speed Strategy We intend to make use digital business strategy and resources to create our competitive advantage through timely and fast launch of our products and services. This shall ensure that we are ahead of our competitors. We shall also rely on the digital resources to achieve faster decision making. Moreover, we shall use social media platforms to respond to customer inquiries in real time and interact with them in a more meaningful way. This is particularly to those customers who may not find it necessary to make phone to the offices. 2.1.4 Value Creation Strategy We shall endeavor to create avenues for information sharing in useful forms which allow for resyndication and even remixing. We shall go beyond software models to try the development and implementation of multisided models of revenue. The aim is to ensure that all our services offered digitally are of superior quality and customers do not find any faults or flaws in them. This, however, shall be achieved through meaningful coordination with players in the digital industry. We shall invest significant resources in the general information technology as well as outsourcing information technology services in order to differentiate ourselves from our competitors. These strategies are important elements of general business strategy (Mithas, Tafti, & Mitchell, 2013). 2.1.5 Revenue Generation The digital business industry is a dynamic industry that is ever changing. However, it has a number of challenges that hinder revenue growth. One of the biggest problems is that consumers want to get digital information free of charge (Pauwels & Weiss, 2008). This notwithstanding, there are channels through which companies can still generate a good amount of revenue from digital products. Apart from generating revenue from the normal sale of our goods and services, we intend to tap into new sources of revenue through digitizing our services. The major area that we want to digitize is consultancy services. We intend to offer high quality consultancy services online. We shall have a site where only paid up and fully subscribed members can have access to maintenance and plumbing consultancy services. Such subscription, we believe, shall play an important role in boosting our revenues. There shall be different subscription options such as monthly, quarterly, biannually or annual subscriptions. Our target market in this digital business is three-fold. It comprises of individual customers, housing authorities and other business entities. This target group will be given different packages depending on their needs for the services we offer. 2.1.6 Competitor Analysis Maintenance and plumbing services industry in Manchester is affected by poor and slow response to customer demands. Some of the customer dissatisfaction with the services is captured in statements such as “Paid £100 pound for the job and the leak is actually worse than it was before he came to do the job. Would never recommend or use again” (Fiona, 12 March, 2014). Our major aim is to provide high quality maintenance and plumbing services to customers in Manchester. We shall maintain high quality services by ensuring that we respond to customers’ queries promptly. In our Manchester target market, competition is quite stiff especially from more established firms who have been in the market for quite some time. Such firms include Heritage Heating & Air Conditioning, D.E. Roy Plumbing and Mechanical LLC., and LW Plumbing Serices. These firms boast of many years of experience in the plumbing industry with highly skilled personnel to do the jobs. They are well established in the market. However, these firms have more or less the same weakness. They do not have significant online or digital marketing plans. A quick glimpse at their respective websites show little to suggest that they engage in significant digital business (LW Plumbing Services, 1 April 2014; D.E. Roy Plumbing Services, 1 April 2014; Heritage Heating & Air Conditioning, 1 April 2014). Apart from having provisions to give quotations and service forms, they do not have any digital products. This is the niche that our business shall occupy. Relative our competitors in the market, ours is a new entrant with no experience in the market. We therefore anticipate a number of difficulties in entering the market. The greatest challenge is attracting customers who are otherwise loyal to the existing firms and convince them to embrace our digital idea. Moreover, we are limited in terms of capital needed to start up the business. We shall rely on our own personal savings and as well as loans from close family members. This, however, may not be sufficient to set up the necessary physical infrastructure and facilities for the business. Nevertheless, it shall be enough to set up a full-fledged digital company. 3.0 The User Experience Design In the digital business industry, image creation is a sine qua non for success. A corporate home page plays an important role in convincing customers and users “firstly to get involved with the website and read more of it and secondly to establish a contact with the company” (Möller, Brezing, & Unz, 2012, p. 739). Our website shall therefore be designed to elicite a positive impression on the users so that they continue browsing. More specifically, our website shall have the following components buttons: Home, About Us, Plumbing, Repairs, Maintenance, Heating, Video, Careers, Location Map, Contact Us, Repair Tutorials, Blog, Service Order Form, Revise Order, Request For Quotation, Consultancy, Registered User Login, Customer Feedback, Make Payments, Generate E-slip, User Interaction Forum. There shall also be linkages to social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and YouTube. Most of these buttons shall have dropdown menus to provide more direction to customers. Because our website is aimed at conducting e-commerce, we shall use Secure Sockets Layer to host it as it is significantly sophisticated. We shall be very keen to ensure that our website connects well with consumers correctly and that we invest in appropriate social channels. Otherwise if we fail in this regard, we are alive to the fact that our efforts may be worthless (Tsai, 2014). 3.1 A Storyboard Showing Two Typical, But Different, Interactions This being a digital business, we anticipate that there will be a lot of virtual interactions with our clients and customers. This means, therefore, that we need platforms that will ensure that we interact with our clients effectively. We shall use online collaboration tools such as email which is considered as “an effective communication tool” (Wong & Sloan, 2006, p. 90). Other tools that we shall use include blogs, and social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and YouTube among others. We shall have a proper channels and techniques of communication with our customers and clients to ensure that they are satisfied. The following are illustrations of how interactions with clients could be handled through e-mail. Interaction 1: Email Communication From potential customer to the company: Hello there, I recently bought a house. Everything was winterized, the pipes are now busted. Can you people help me fix it? I look forward to a timely response. Tom. Company representative: Dear Tom, Thank you for contacting us. Yes, we can fix that problem as soon as we agree on the terms and conditions of our service. Kindly tell us how soon you want it fixed and give us your physical address and telephone contacts so that we can get to you. However, you will be required to complete our service order form on our website. Kindly log in to www.mamaps.co.uk and click on the “Service Order Form” tab. Fill in the necessary details and click on the “Place Order” button just below the form. Once you do that, we shall come to your house within an hour to sort out the pipes. Once again, thank you so much for showing interest to use our services. We promise you the very best. Warm regards, Ezekiel Customer Service. Interaction 2: On the Online Service Ordering. Our business shall largely be driven by e-commerce and as result, most service orders shall be done online. Tom, the example above, was referred to the website to fill in the order form which appears as shown below. Please read the terms and conditions of our services by clicking on the link mamaps terms and then fill in the Service Order Form below. Date Service Order No. MAMAPS/010414 Customer Name Surname: Last Name: Contact information Tel: Email: P.O. Box: Physical Address Block No.: House No: Street: Service Ordered Repair: Maintenance: Other: Problem Description Nature of the problem Very urgent Normal Delivery Not urgent I have read, understood and agree to the terms and conditions of service. 3.2 Statements Of Usability Requirements Our website shall be as user friendly as possible. Sensitive information and data shall be encrypted and we shall use firewall and antimalware software for security reasons. The website shall be developed in such a way as to ensure that customers are satisfied. It shall have sections for specific services such as repairs, company information, order forms, requisitions for quotations, feedback, payments, among others. Our website shall have two major sections. One section shall be devoted to the general walk-in customers and clients seeking general information and ordering for services. They will not be able to access more sensitive and confidential information. The other section shall be devoted to our more loyal customers. These are regular clients who we have contracts with or have subscribed to our digital packages such as consultancy and online lessons in plumbing and maintenance. They shall be registered, be issued with user names and unique access codes. 3.3 Descriptions of How Problems Will Be Handled For Three Possible User Mistakes Three possible user mistakes are as follows: a) Providing the right information in the wrong sector. To minimize this, the sections will be developed to have dropdown menus from which customers can choose the required option such as the type of service, payment option, urgency of the order. In addition, the forms will be made in such a way that they can detect wrong information filled in the fields. However, mistakes are always bound to happen. In such a case, the website will be developed to ask customers to verify their information before it is submitted. In addition, a grace period of twenty four hours shall be given to allow customers retrieve their forms and edit the information earlier on provided. This, however, will only be applicable to subscribed customers. b) Giving a wrong address Our website will be developed to contain all the addresses in Manchester. This will ensure that or potential customers and clients fill in the correct addresses. Wrong addresses will be rejected by the system. In case one chooses a wrong address, the provided telephone number will be used to contact them to get the right addresses. c) Failure to generate an e-slip upon payment If the customer forgets to generate his electronic receipt for payment that he or she makes, it will be possible for the client to log in to the website (if he is subscribed) and retrieve his or her e-slip. 3.4 Our Competitive Advantage Our competitive advantage lies in our ability to provide fast, reliable and unparalleled good quality services. All our business platforms shall be open and accessible on a twenty-four hour basis. No matter the time of day, no matter the season, we shall respond to the customers call for services. Our website shall also be highly exciting and interactive to keep clients and customers coming back. Encouraging customers to regularly check their reports can have incredible positive impact on their frequency of visits to the website (Skiles, 2013). We shall keep on reminding our customers to access their accounts and reports in our databases. Our website will not be dull as other websites appear to be. We shall invest in resources, tools and equipment that will enable us deliver quality services to our customers. 4.0 Social Infrastructure The legal framework with regards to digital business in the United Kingdom has generally been slow in evolving. It began in the year 2009 with the realization that removal of barriers to e-commerce, advertising and self-regulation were important steps in driving the digital economy of the U.K. (Howell, 2009). The Digital Economy Act has been critiqued by some players in the digital industry as being somewhat redundant (Imgham, 2013). They argue that players should develop their own code of conduct in the digital industry. However, the intellectual property rights shall safeguard our digital business. In a bid to regulate ourselves, we shall develop a code of ethics to guide our employees’ conduct. The code of ethics shall ensure that the employees treat customers with utmost respect and personal information is stored in a private and confidential place. We shall endeavor to protect our digital trade secrets and confidential data from misappropriation and should it happen, we shall take legal action since such behavior is subject to criminal law (United Kingdom, 2014). 5.0 References Bharadwaj, A, El Sawy, O, Pavlou, P, & Venkatraman, N 2013, Digital Business Strategy: Toward A Next Generation Of Insights, MIS Quarterly, 37, 2, pp. 471-482, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 1 April 2014. Chatterjee, S 2013, Simple Rules for Designing Business Models, California Management Review, 55, 2, pp. 97-124, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 1 April 2014. D.E. Roy Plumbing and Mechanical LLC. Accessed from http://www.deroyplumbingmechanical.com/ on 1 April 2014 Heritage Heating & Air Conditioning. Accessed from http://justcallheritage.com/ on 1 April 2014. Howell, N 2009, The Year in Regulation, New Media Age, p. 19, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 1 April 2014. Imgham, T 2013, Sonys Gatfield calls for digital code of conduct, Music Week, 30, p. 5, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 1 April 2014. Jifeng, L, Sulin, B, & Han, Z 2012, The Effectiveness Of Online Shopping Characteristics And Well-Designed Websites On Satisfaction, MIS Quarterly, 36, 4, pp. 1131-A9, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 1 April 2014. LW Plumbing Services. Accessed from http://www.ratedpeople.com/profile/lw-plumbing-services/index on 1 April 2014. Mithas, S, Tafti, A, & Mitchell, W 2013, How A Firms Competitive Environment And Digital Strategic Posture Influence Digital Business Strategy, MIS Quarterly, 37, 2, pp. 511-536, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 1 April 2014. Möller, B, Brezing, C, & Unz, D 2012, What should a corporate website look like? The influence of Gestalt principles and visualisation in website design on the degree of acceptance and recommendation, Behaviour & Information Technology, 31, 7, pp. 739-751, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 1 April 2014. Pauwels, K, & Weiss, A 2008, Moving from Free to Fee: How Online Firms Market to Change Their Business Model Successfully, Journal Of Marketing, 72, 3, pp. 14-31, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 1 April 2014. Skiless, D 2013, Strategies for Serving Clients Online, Investment Advisor, 33, 9, p. 73, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 1 April 2014. Tsai, A 2014, DOT.COM-ING Your Business: Eight Elements of a Successful Online Marketing Plan, Home Business Magazine: The Home-Based Entrepreneurs Magazine, 21, 2, pp. 28-33, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 1 April 2014. "United Kingdom." Political Risk Yearbook: United Kingdom Country Report (2014): 2-17. Business Source Complete. Web. 1 Apr. 2014. Wong, C, & Sloan, B 2006, An Empirical Survey Of The U.K. Construction Smes E-Procurement Readiness From The E-Legal Aspects, Journal Of Construction Research, 7, 1/2, pp. 81-97, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 1 April 2014. Read More