Very often, inboxes are filed with e-mails that are least expected. These e-mails are commercial mails that promote a product or a service and generally ask for a click on a specific link given in the mail. If the person is interested, then the person will visit that site, otherwise the mail can just be deleted from the inbox. Technology has become the predominant element in many businesses. Information Technology has added to the capabilities of companies enabling them to set new standards in business. The power off the Internet has transformed everything. E-commerce has redefined markets, industries and the way one does business. The growth on online marketing has just begun and it is at an early stage of evolution. The Internet has not only revolutionized personal lives, but has even transformed the world of business to a great extent.
Today the internet provides a generic packet-based public infrastructure for communication. Several networks carrying both non-business and business oriented traffic communicate via this infrastructure. Image-data transmission from one point to another over the internet usually faces challenges of authenticity, integrity and privacy. It is the desire for everyone using the internet to send and receive data without having doubt about the data being compromised.
Most of the markets of the world have integrated, and are moving towards a unified global market and the flow of trade has significantly increased. Though the concept of global marketing has gained significance in the last few decades, companies had begun trading across borders much earlier. Changes in various environmental factors, especially technology and economy, have been responsible for companies to go global. Many organizations today have realized that to achieve economies of scale and survive in today’s competitive world, it is vital to become global, use the strengths of different markets and market their products globally.
In the recent times, this term – ‘globalization’ has gained a lot of importance. Even this has got an impact on the developing E-commerce. Globalization has been defined by different sources differently meaning various things – free markets, economic liberalization, Americanization, proliferation of information technologies, and as well as we being on the threshold of realization of unified community without major causes of social conflict.
Some view it as a beneficial process and others view it as a key which helps in future economic development of the world. Globalization is something which is inevitable and at the same time irreversible. It is believed that Globalization is something which offers an extensive opportunity for a development which is worldwide. Though globalization is trusted to be something which tends to provide a scope for worldwide development, it is also true that this scope is not evenly progressing. Due to the advent of globalization, many countries are becoming highly integrated into the global economy in a very faster pace. This faster integration has helped such countries to grow faster and also at the same time reduce even poverty.
Today, globalization which is defined to be a process of continuing integration of different countries of the world, has already taken its path in many parts of the world. Many national economies are being exposed to a higher cut throat competition than earlier. The sole reason for this being globalization supported by the accelerating pace of the advancements in technology, the liberalization of the prices and trade practices and also by the increasing importance to super national rules.
The rapid increase in the growth of online marketing can be attributed to many factors. Goods, services and ideas can move across continents efficiently at the click of a mouse. Anyone can link up with anyone else, anytime and anywhere in the world. With the advent of e-commerce, the rapid growth of the Internet and online transactions taking place at all times of the day and night, today’s markets, businesses and customer never sleep. This is not only a new challenge for global businesses attempting to serve a client base that spans time zones, but also for local enterprises that can no longer afford to restrict themselves to traditional hours of doing business. Online business is growing with the assistance of new powerful technologies like satellite communication, mobile telecommunications, interactive voice recognition, data mining, digital signatures, virtual private networks, and portable computing. The aim of these technologies is to benefit a firm’s online marketing efforts, in terms of both cost and value.
Ccompetition has created great challenges for marketers. Functions like production, distribution and consumption are being influenced by market forces. Changes taking place in the business environment have made customer service, quality assurance and price competitiveness vital for the existence of a firm. Business firms have realized that they cannot survive without marketing. Marketing plays a significant role in the sustainability of an organization.
This report takes a look into website design that provides market products of the company and improves data communication in the internet applying the new features among the services provided.
Objectives
- To design a website that will enable the can sell their products online.
- Develop a website that will keep tract of stocks of the company.
- Development of website that will allow buyers and sellers to participate in online forums,
- Development of website that will ease ordering of Bikes irrespective of Geographical distance i.e. globally.
- Develop web-based system that will provide new development or product development.
- Design a system that can store details of the all customer and supplier details.
- Determine the interoperability between suppliers and company.
Concept
ULMS Bike survived in the slump market. They have decided to develop and apply some of the website relating to purchasing, ordering, selling, customized details developed from a database of customers and inventory usage, design and transmission and cash management for finance section. Website is a term which describes the how business information will be processed which acts as a market place for the international customer. If it is implemented well it will help this company to successfully compete in the market.
Due to such pressures this company is required to make decisions regarding its display of thousands of items in each store. If items are not systematically placed in a presentable manner and cost effective manner, company will never achieve the cost efficiency needed to compete successfully. Improvement of inventory in supply chain is also required. Supply chain is now a major department that creates value as the project goes through multiple stages to finally being present to the customer. Inventory is significantly important as deterioration of items can severely affect the end product, as a result impact the customers needs.
To connect this, Wide Area Network (WAN) will be used. The WAN is most prone to threats on or of its security for the reason that it is either connected to the internet or it is a connection of many LANs. Geographically, the Wide Area Network WAN is distributed nationally or internationally. The transmission may include the following: wire pairs, fire optic cables, coaxial cables, satellite and even microwaves. The mention of this transmission media matters a lot in the context of WAN security whereby the inclusion of a firewall is determined by which media that may be used. Three transmission media will be considered and one medium may be recommended due to its availability and its strength to prevent intrusion or its security. The transmission media must also be in a position to work with a firewall in harmony. For this Website to Exist transmission media can be:
- Fiber optics
- Coaxial cable
- Satellite
The advantages of the fiber optics are; the speed of data and information transfer is extremely fast and high quality of signals, which is minimal error rate, electromagnetic interference does not affect it, hence there is no distortion when transmission is on. With all the above mentioned merits, the major concern of this study is the security, at this instant the fiber optics is the most secure of all transmission media for the reason of its point to point one way communication. Hence it is very difficult to tap information at any point. This implies that with the security of fiber optics and in combination with the firewall then the security of any WAN is guaranteed and confirmed. There is a possibility of data or information tapping when coaxial cables and satellite may be used. Like, the satellite, the advantage is that it can be used in a very wide area, and signal from it can be broadcast to all receivers within its range of reception and finally the transmitted information may easily be tampered with people having intent to sniff into the network. From experience and the analysis of various transmission media, the fiber optics is the best when security of a network is paramount. The measures are two; one, the use of firewalls and two, the use of user IDs and passwords and or the two combined.
There are various concrete ways to ensure security of WAN. The best way to ensure the security of WAN is through the connection of hardware components is such a way that anybody using the network is not an intruder of threatening information that goes through it is filtered. Example if the WANs are in the internet or connected into the internet, then firewall, the router, through the server and then lastly to the workstations will be the right way these components must be arrayed to ensure maximum security, the firewall as usual will filter, the router will direct certain information to server of a folder in server that cannot be shared or intruded by anybody at anytime. However, if any person wants to access data or information form another computer in a certain LAN and has to go there through the internet, then the arrangement will be secure to go through the server, then to the router and lastly to the firewall and then internet will enable the person get the information. The access to data and information is ensured when the person is authorized may be given the pas words and the user IDs of those various components like the server and the firewall.
In the diagram below, the security of a network will be acknowledged and ensured.
The diagram depicts that if one wants to access data from another W/station he/ she has to go through firewall, router and the server. Good security carries the high cost and it is better for a network to take high cost and ensure the security, than loose data and information, software or hardware and the organization goes down the drain.
ULMS Bike will have to network machines and have a website that gives customers an opportunity to transact their business with the company easily. In the company each machine within the network should have an exceptional IP address for its identification. While IP does the ordering of the data packets to be transmitted IP is the key element that enables data communication via the internet by delivering data to its recipient according to the unique address included with the data.
Reduction of production costs are prime concern for most companies and ULMS Bike is no different. Price of commodities is significantly rising with the increase in oil prices and no stability seems to exist during this period. Therefore its vital that production costs through use of technology will bring the costs to the minimum level. This will not just provide the competitive advantage but help ULMS Bike have a breather with respect to its costs. For every successful business it’s important that growth and creativity does not end, therefore for company launching of new brands and website is also a primary concern. Therefore unless either of the system is not used, ULMS Bike will have difficulty in continuing as a successful and thriving business entity.
To address these issues I had to carry out a fact finding process. I used various techniques to gather as much information as possible. A discovery phase was the first step that occurred upon interacting with group of people relevant to the subject matter (usually the customers or people who have gone through the process). I interviewed a number of employees of ULMS Bike by asking them closed and open end questions. Some employees were directly related to these issues while others were indirectly related to such topic but their input was considered vital as they could come up with an idea which the others cannot. I gave the employees the chance to share their experience and knowledge by asking them ‘Open ended’ questions, questions like what happened, How to increase the efficiency? Whereas Close ended questions were also asked with typical answers like yes or no to confirm a point/issue.
However such questions were seldom asked as the objective was to understand the situation properly and hence take out as much information as possible from the employees. This exercise was not just confined to employees as customers of ULMS Bike were also surveyed to know how to improve the presentation and sorting of items for ease of the customer.
This interview process continued to the extent that coverage was taken to the competitors of ULMS Bike. Since they were in the similar industry therefore they had good idea of how to deal with such issues. It was difficult to get to speak to them openly as no one was willing to let their secret ingredients out because of which they enjoyed the competitive advantage. However, not all the issues could be solved as they were also facing similar problems and like ULMS Bike were searching for means to improve their performance. Since everyone in this world have their own opinion, competitors had a different approach to website as a marketing tool as they considered some other matter more relevant and important than what ULMS Bike faced as a challenge for future success and sustainability.
Part of the interview process was the observations that were necessary in determining how truthful an individual is in answering the questions posed by me. Certainly most of the people that I interviewed were hard to get hold off that is why this survey and recommendation that I intend to provide was not considered to be significant for them. That is why I dint get neither much time nor the information to my liking as they were the primary source of information.
Based on all of the above knowledge of how decision support system and expert system operates under different circumstances it is easier to determine which system will best meet the needs of ULMS Bikes. This is a website system which has been successfully implemented competitors is implemented by the company as the objective was to put the information at the right place, leaving the end decision in the hands of the users. Looking at this approach it’s eminent that ULMS Bike prefers to have a website for e-business rather than e-mail address because e-mail address is likely to make will provide prods that is available to customers.
In traditional shop, orders are the only information that the firm’s exchange, but the website now allows the company to share all bikes information quickly and inexpensively. It has a substantial impact on sales management. The application of website, especially in the growth oriented industries, has significantly lowered the time and cost to keeping making sales and cost of sales being reduced. As a result of this success story, there is now a general belief within industries that capturing and sharing real-time demand information is the key to improved management of sales.
This project will only focus on the design and implementation of a stock inventory database, sales graphical user interface and peer to peer network for use only by the staffs and management at ULMS bikes. Furthermore, such a website would only deal all company process of managing transmission products of product.
Lastly it’s important to understand that a website requires skills and knowledge that a specialist would have in his/her field. Problems identified do not relate to such details and specification that a website would be applicable. The organization as a whole faces a major problem with data automation based on which a decision is made.
Requirements
- Competitor Analysis: There are many competitors of ULMS bike in market. This competitors include; distributors of bikes, foreign companies and many others. However the manufacturers and e-retail shops will be greatest competitors of competitors of ULMS e-business. Each of these competitors has various services that are unique to each except the products they offer. For example E-shops will offer all types of bikes.They should also think of diversifying into products as a way of fighting competition.
- User profile: The users of this system will include employees, suppliers, customers and many others.
- User Requirements: Today the internet provides a generic packet-based public infrastructure for communication. Several networks carrying both non-business and business oriented traffic communicate via this infrastructure. Image-data transmission from one point to another over the internet usually faces challenges of authenticity, integrity and privacy. It is the desire for everyone using the internet to send and receive data without having doubt about the data being compromised. The cost of technology involved in e-business is relatively high compared to a physical business environment. The technology involved demands for a relatively high cost standards e.g. maintaining of a website and securing the transactions involved in the business. It requires highly expatriate personnel in the development and the maintenance of the site.
The website should be designed in such a way that is user friendly to the customers and business partners. It should provide specific link areas to the customers and business partners to enhance the user efficiency i.e. should be able to generate pop-up adverts and generate questions to the user to enhance their sense of direction.
The marketing strategies to be used should include a direct e-mail where the specific targeted customers are delivered the mails according to their product preferences and alerts on the availability of new products or changes on the product composition. This strategy is most appropriate since it will ensure that the message achieves the exact target customer or partner therefore the possibility of it being given the attention and therefore the response required.
Target marketing is also one of the most appropriate strategies to use where the customers are contacted according to their tastes and preferences. The strategy targets a given clientele or market niche in a market i.e. a specific consumer group that is perceived to be the best consumers of the given products.
Search engines can be used as another strategy where adverts are placed in a search engine site such that customers and partners worldwide can log on to the company’s website and get to know more about the company’s products and services that are offered by the company and then utilize the appropriate areas of interest. This is achieved through creation of a company’s website detailing all about the products and the services.
Products to be sold include long lasting food products that. This can be achieved through the electronic funds transfer whereby the transactions are carried out electronically between the trading partners through use of credit cards with the assistance of automated clearing house.
Online communication expands a company’s marketplace to national and international markets. With a minimal capital outlay, a company can quickly locate customers, the base suppliers and the most suitable business patterns worldwide. It enables consumers to have customized products from PCs to cars at competitive prices.
It lowers telecommunication cost because the internet is much cheaper than Value Added Networks. It enables companies to procure materials and services from other companies rapidly and at less cost due to the internet efficiencies. There may be difficulty in integrating the internet ands e-commerce applications and software with some existing (legacy) application and databases.
There is need for special Web servers in addition to network servers in the case where the e-marketing is involved.
Other tools to be used for the system to be fully operational, it requires resources both hardware and software to make its implementation successful. These include:
- Hardware Requirements; Pentium III or IV computer with at least 128 Mb and 40GB of Hard Disk, printers, servers, Fiber optic cables Coaxial cable, Satellite, Network interface cards to network the computers and a controlled room.
- Software Requirements; Visual basic 6.0, Ms Word, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Visio drawing HTML LANGUAGE
Structure
Design
The design of a new system for ULMS BIKE was segmented into following areas:
- Logical Systems Specification: The logical systems specification will deal with the identification of three (3) hardware and software combinations, comparison of the three and the selection of the most suitable option.
- Logical Design: The logical design will deal with providing textual descriptions followed by a high level functional design and Graphical User Interface Design. Furthermore, such a GUI design will include logical design for screens, forms, and reports.
- Physical Design: The physical design will show the design of screens and reports for specific pages. Furthermore it would also show how normalization of data for the stock inventory database will be done.
After design testing will done which will include:
- Site preparation: Check power outlets availability and Layout office furniture
- Installation of Hardware: Crimping of cables, Running of cables, Placement of computers and printer and Connecting crossover cables to PCs
- Testing of Hardware: Test network compatibility using database, Test network connections and Printer Connection
This is the process of studying the business processes and procedures, generally referred to as business systems, to see how they can operate and whether improvement is needed. It may include examining data movement and storage, machines and technology used in the system programs that control the machines, people providing inputs, doing the processing and receiving the outputs.
This is the fact-finding stage or the analysis of the current system. It is a detailed study conducted with the purpose of wanting to fully understand the existing system and identify the basic information requirements. I also carried out a thorough investigation in every aspect affected to determine whether the new system is feasible enough to be implemented.
Development: This section is concerned with the actual formation (development) of the Stock Inventory Database, Graphical User Interface and Peer-to-Peer network for ULMS. Additionally, development would rely on the requirements in terms of feasibility, analysis, and design. It is important to note that implementation of the system would focus on the actual setup, installation and configuration of the network.
Database Design
It is the description of the database design that shows all the attributes, the size and the description of the attributes.
- The lists of the tables used in the system include:
- Order table
- Suppliers table
- Invoice table
- Login table
- Payment table
- The database design is shown below
Login Form Codes
System and Interface Design: This is the description of the entire system design which includes form design, connection with the database, accessing and modifying records and ensuring the system functions according to the user specifications.
This is where almost all the entire work in the system’s development is done. It designs the user interface.The links and connections between various forms and databases are also considered here to ensure that communication in the system is effective.
Input and Output Design: This describes the inputs into and outputs from the system. It is well described terms of input/output structure diagrams.
The inputs in the system include:
- Supplier details
- Order details
- Payment details
- Invoicing details
The outputs from the system include:
- Bills statement Room status
User Login Table
Supplier Table
Invoice Table
Layout
Conclusion
Taking advantage of the social media websites is another method of attracting customers which in turn may lead to increased sales. With the advent of Information Technology over the recent past, the way online business is developing has drastically changed. Currently, many internet marketers have started using social media as one of their important marketing tools in order to promote their online businesses in competition with other players in the e-market. The efforts of online marketing not only influence the service quality and the quality of the product but also the sales and volumes of business.
The increased competition of websites available today also demands increased attention towards the measures of promotion that by online marketers in order to promote their websites and online businesses. If proper care and due attention is not paid towards promotion of the website, there is a possibility of not being to survive in the cut throat online competition. A few examples of social media are blogs, forums, and pod casts etc. All of these social media websites are good sources of attracting people towards websites and generate huge traffic. Online marketers use these social media in different ways to suit individual requirements.
Next important aspect to be considered is the communication with the clients. Website owners need to be in constant touch with all their customers however busy they become depending on the sales season and other similar activities. It is a common mistake that marketers do by ignoring sending mails to customers about various offers when they are busy during the peak sales season.
Social Networking Community is something that helps you in list building. By making use of these, it is possible for you to grow you list to a huge number of subscribers in a very less time. After you grow your list to such a big number of subscribers, you can send mails to those subscribers in order to train them step by step on what to do next. There are many people now-a-days who are interested in business opportunities. Such people can be found in different forums of websites. By getting into such forums and by listing posts there, you attract not only the person who is actually looking for a business opportunity, but also many other people who actually visit such forums.
With the advancement in information technology and the use of internet, today online businesses have developed drastically. For anybody to survive in the online market and to sustain the growth of the own online business, traffic generation is the key to success. For doing this, you are required to market your website well. Due to the existence of millions and millions of websites, the competition has also grown rapidly. In order to compete yourself with the other businesses you need to get into rapid advertising of your website failing which there is a strong chance of losing in your business.
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Appendix
Project Schedule
Research and development division is to take two weeks to come up with a list of tools required for the successful implementation of the project. Infrastructure Development division is to take one week to identify a test lab purchase the proposed tools and set up the test environment in the lab. The standard and testing division is to take three days to perform all the tests which the project is all about. Depending on the outcome, discussion and conclusion of the test the implementation division will carry an analysis for 2days and determine whether the research was successful and whether it can be implemented in a production environment.
Chart showing duration taken by project management to perform a successful implementation of the project.