Club IT: Implementing E-Commerce, Essay Example

Introduction

Today where every technology interrelated to Information technology involves the dot com phenomenon; ecommerce is relatively an evolving field which is persistently changing. New fields are emerging from E commerce Wu and Hisa describes it as “Internet-Enables Commerce (I-commerce) and mobile commerce (M-commerce) is based on developments pertaining to the Internet and on prior technological innovations arising from the combination of telecommunication, and organizational computing”. E commerce can be divided into two separate domains, one is E commerce itself, and the other one is E business. ”Www.davechaffy.com” explain a formal definition which describes“”e-business (e’biz’nis) – the transformation of key business processes through the use of Internet technologies”. Generally the business functions and processes which involves electronically and digitally within the organization are referred as E business.

Club IT

‘Club IT’ is owned by Rubin Keys and Lisa Tejada. It is a music store which has earned a considerable amount of success. Its start up phase has established a strong customer base. The entertain area is always busy as the customers come to relax and enjoy the music after a stressful routine. Rubin and Lisa have decided to enhance the business processes in a more efficient and productive way. ‘Club IT’ is a music store. It is more than a store because it is serving customer, intermingle of music and appealing food. The people who are employed in ‘Club IT’ are, assistant manager, four (4) bartenders, six (6) wait staff, two (2) stewards, two (2) short-order cooks, and four (4) security personnel. The Clientele of ‘Club IT’ includes young professionals who come to the club seeking relaxation and enjoyment. The company has decided to implement an ecommerce enabled systems implementation plan to enhance and grow business.

The Operations of ‘Club IT’

Following are the current operations performing in ‘Club IT’

• The preparation of food and serving
• The music and dance sequences for entertaining customers
• Liaison with the food and beverages vendor.
• Inventory monitoring,
• Price calculation of the food and beverages served to the customers
• Musician selection criteria along with the genre.
• Selling Merchandize of signature variety.

There are certain issues which need to be address in order to enhance the business processes of ‘Club IT’.

‘Club IT’ Issues

‘Club IT’ Issues (Customer Relations)

As the customers are visiting the club, the organization is not focusing on individual customer perspective, resulting in vague information of customer interest and likenesses related to the club activities. In this way, the organization cannot take appropriate decisions based on the interest and likenesses of the customers of the club. As there is no data of ‘customer interaction’ with the ‘Club IT’ services, the staff cannot entertain the customer in a better way. There is no interaction of customers with the ‘Club IT’ system.

‘Club IT’ Issues (Inventory Management)

The club currently does not support analytical monitoring of the stock items. It means that the supplier do not know the product demand in the club. The club does not guarantee to provide the merchandize the customer wants. This may impact in a negative customer loyalty issue. The club’s mission is to earn the loyalty of the customer.

Strategic Planning Evaluation

There is no criterion for setting strategic goals for better management, customer relations and satisfaction. The organizations must evaluate the strategic planning activities for the betterment and growth. The planning relies on the available assets of the organization. This area also needs improvement as planning is essential before implementing any strategy. For understanding key issues having significant impact on the survival and success of the organizations strategic planning is an essential process (Efendioglu & Karabulut, 2010).

Implementing E Commerce Systems

For making the 3 p relating to (peoples, employees and culture) Customer relationship management system is required. The basic factors which enabled the implementation of customer relationship management systems are the expansion of the computers and the global telecommunication infrastructure (Lošt’áková, 2009).

Customer Relationship Management

Customer relationships are occurring on several levels in the club. CRM will share the customer relationship data within the organization employees for making better decisions, follow ups on all dissimilar levels in dealing with the customer. The CRM system will make a customer a useful entity for the organization. The customers are authorized to find information and services to acquire a conclusion resulting in fewer customer staff and order entry.

The customer relationship data is centralized and is accessible to all the Club’s employees. It means that all the customer data and history are just away from the ‘click of the mouse’. The customers may feels as a part of the ‘Club IT’ team because they will get what they wants as only delighted customers provides a superb level of loyalty. If the customer satisfaction increases, Club IT will get more business and revenue.

Supply Chain Management System

Supply chain management systems are implemented globally for utilizing their supply chain activities in a productive approach for competitive advantages (Kanji & Wong, 1999). By implementing supply chain management systems, the ‘Club IT’ will able to reduce costs and maximize productivity for inventory and stock management department. The food items and beverages will be transported in a smooth flow lowering supply and storage costs. Supply chain management works on delivery scheduling. The supply and demand visibility will be transparent for the Club IT employees resulting in meeting demands for the club visitors. Importance will also be given to areas such as compliance, health and safety. The enhanced correlation with the trading partners enables the ‘Club IT’ to align the current business strategies and priorities. This will increase the organizations overall performance and achievements of goals.

Entity Resource Planning   

An ERP assimilate the business processes with its software modules. Each business process may contain multiple business functions integrating with multiple ERP modules representing business functions (Jong-Sung Lee & Aggarwal, 2009). Before implementing ERP for ‘Club IT’, business process identification is an essential part. The business processes of ‘Club IT’ are:

• Entertainment Management
• Staff Management
• Supply Management
• Stock Management
• Staff Payroll Management
• Customer Relations Management
• Compliance, health and safety Management
• Product sales

ERP divulge an essential responsibility for evaluating ‘strategic planning’ enabling ‘Club IT’ to set strategic plans, policies, objectives and new goals. The productive informative module of the ERP enables the staff to take rapid decisions. The data alliance enhances better visibility and overview of all the operations conducting in the ‘Club IT’ premises.

Meeting Future Technology Trends and Expansion

All the 3 applications which are implemented in ‘Club IT’ have full potential to support the expansion of ‘Club IT’ in future. This will be beneficial for the organization as no new application cost is required.

Professional Development

It is a process in which employees and teams engage in a continual process of learning the new systems. ‘Club IT’ can conduct training through different methods:

• Creating sessions
• Self directed learning
• On the job learning

Depending on the job description any of the above option can be selected for training the employees of ‘Club IT’. The training will be conducted by the vendor as there is no technical staff currently.

Cost & Implementation

‘Club IT’ will buy the three software ‘off-the-shelf’, because there are no ‘in house’ developers for this task. This will save vast amount of time as the software can be integrated and customized according to the business logic of ‘Club IT’.

• The cost for Customer Relationship Management software will be $ 12 per user per month. The calculation can be made on how many employees’ works on CRM.
• The cost for Supply Chain Management software will be $ 8 per user per month. The calculation can be made on how many employees’ works on SCM.
• The cost for Entity Resource Planning software will be $ 15 per user per month. The calculation can be made on how many employees’ works on ERP.

CRM and SCM will be installed on instant basis. The ERP system will take a month for integrating business logic in to the system.

Conclusion

After implementing the 3 application, every business management domain is covered. The Customer relationship Management system covered the customer relations enabling the organization to provide advanced customer services resulting in customer loyalty. The Supply Chain Management system covers the stock and inventory management of the club. Customers are getting what they want. Relations with trading partners are better. Transparent inventory control is provided for better planning and items forecasting, saving transportation and storage cost. The entity resource planning system integrates all the business logic in to one interface. The club owners can review and monitor activity and performance on each and every aspect of the organization. This gives the better picture and helps to set new goals and objectives for the better performance of the organization.

Work Cited

Jen-Her, W., & Tzyh-Lih, H. (2008). Developing E-Business Dynamic Capabilities: An Analysis of E-Commerce Innovation from I-, M-, to U-Commerce. Journal of Organizational Computing & Electronic Commerce, 18(2), 95-111. doi:10.1080/10919390701807525.

Chaffy, D. what Is Difference between Ebusiness and Ecommerce?. Define E-business and E-commerce . Retrieved November 1, 2010, from http://www.davechaffey.com/E-business/C1-Introduction/E-business-E-commerce-defined

Efendioglu, A. M., & Karabulut, A. T. (2010). Impact of strategic planning on financial performance of companies in turkey. International Journal of Business & Management, 5(4), 3-12.

Jong-Sung Lee, & Aggarwal, R. (2009). Identifying business processes: The key initial step of erp implementation. Review of Business Research, 9(4), 121-126.

Kanji, G. K., & Wong, A. (1999). Business excellence model for supply chain management. Total Quality Management, 10(8), 1147-1168. doi:10.1080/0954412997127

Lošt’áková, H. (2009). Benefits of crm differentiated on the basis of customer lifetime value. Scientific Proceedings of RTU: Economics & Business, 19, 1-7.