Launching a Successful Online Business And EC Projects

Chapter 16 – Turban and King

1. Understand the fundamental requirements for initiating an online business.

2. Describe the process of initiating and funding a start-up e-business or large e-project.

3. Understand the process of adding EC initiatives to an existing business.

4. Describe the issues and methods of transforming an organization into an e-business.

5. Describe the process of acquiring Web sites and evaluating building versus hosting options.

6. Understand the importance of providing and managing content and describe how to accomplish this.

7. Evaluate Web sites on design criteria, such as appearance, navigation, consistency, and performance.

8. Understand how search engine optimization may help a Web site obtain high placement in search engines.

9. Understand how to provide some support e-services.10. Understand the process of building an online

storefront.11. Know how to build an online storefront with

templates.

• STARTING A NEW ONLINE BUSINESS• AN E-START-UP IS A START-UP• CREATING A NEW COMPANY OR ADDING AN

ONLINE PROJECT1. Identify a consumer or business need in the

marketplace2. Investigate the opportunity3. Determine the business owner’s ability to meet the

need – Play with your or your team’s strengths

– Some Tips for Success1. Do your homework2. Aim for excitement3. Whittle, shape, iterate, repeat e.g prototype4. Get real e.g test market5. Avoid creating a gizmo

– Cloning

• PLANNING ONLINE BUSINESSES– business plan

A written document that identifies a company’s goals and outlines how the company intends to achieve the goals and at what cost

– business caseA document that justifies the investment of internal, organizational resources in a specific application or project

• FUNDING A NEW ONLINE BUSINESS– First Round of Initial Funding: Angel Investors and

Incubators– angel investor

A wealthy individual who contributes personal funds and possibly expertise at the earliest stage of business development

– incubatorA company, university, or nonprofit organization that supports businesses in their initial stages of development

– Second Round Financing: Venture Capital• venture capital (VC)

Money invested in a business by an individual, a group of individuals (venture capitalists), or a funding company in exchange for equity in the business

– Additional Funding: A Large Partner– The IPO

• ADDING EC INITIATIVES TO AN EXISTING BUSINESS– A storefront (custom or out of the box)– A portal– E-procurement– Auctions and reverse auctions– M-commerce– Enterprise social networks and Web 2.0 tools

• TRANSFORMATION TO AN E-BUSINESS– What Is Organizational Transformation?• Organizational transformation is a comprehensive

concept that implies a major organizational change• Transformation is not only a major change, but also a

sharp break from the past

– How an Organization Can Be Transformed into an E-Business

• CLASSIFICATION OF WEB SITES– informational Web site

A Web site that does little more than provide information about the business and its products and services

– interactive Web siteA Web site that provides opportunities for the customers and the business to communicate and share information

– attractorsWeb site features that attract and interact with visitors in the target stakeholder group

– transactional Web siteA Web site that sells products and services

– collaborative Web siteA site that allows business partners to collaborate

• WEB HOSTING OPTIONS– storebuilder service (ASP model)

A hosting service that provides disk space and services to help small and microbusinesses build a Web site quickly and cheaply e.g Yahoo Small business, Magento Go, etc

– Web hosting serviceA dedicated Web site hosting company that offers a wide range of hosting services and functionality to businesses of all sizes

• mirror siteAn exact duplicate of an original Web site that is physically located on a Web server on another continent or in another country

– ISP Hosting Combined with Web Designer– ISP hosting service

A hosting service that provides an independent, stand-alone Web site for small and medium-sized businesses e.g dedicated servers, Amazon EC2 (cloud), etc

– self-hostingWhen a business acquires the hardware, software, staff, and dedicated telecommunications services necessary to set up and manage its own Web site

• REGISTERING A DOMAIN NAME– domain name

A name-based address that identifies an Internet-connected server. Usually it refers to the portion of the address to the left of .com and .org, etc. e.g registering domain name using godaddy.com,

– Domain Name System (DNS)A hierarchical naming system for computers, services, or any resource participating in the Internet; it is like a directory

• contentThe text, images, sound, and video that make up a Web page

• CATEGORIES AND TYPES OF CONTENT– dynamic Web content

Content that must be kept up-to-date e.g stock, news,weather, etc

– Primary and Secondary Content• cross-selling

Offering similar or complementary products and services to increase sales e.g people who bought shoes also have bought socks• up-selling

Offering an upgraded version of the product in order to boost sales and profit e.g combo meals• Promotion• Comment

• CREATION OR ACQUISITION OF CONTENT– Buying Content– Buying from a Syndicator• syndication

The sale of the same good (e.g., digital content) to many customers, who then integrate it with other offerings and resell it or give it away free e.g isyndicate, yellowbrix

– Representative Content-Related Vendors– Content Delivery Networks e.g Akamai– personalized content

Web content that matches the needs and expectations of the individual visitor e.g using cookies

– Delivering Content by E-Newsletter• e-newsletter

A collection of short, informative articles sent at regular intervals by e-mail to individuals who have an interest in the newsletter’s topic e.g mailchimp, constant contact

• CONTENT MANAGEMENT AND MAINTENANCE– content management

The process of adding, revising, and removing content from a Web site to keep content fresh, accurate, compelling, and credible

– Content Testing and Updating– Content Removal e.g unlinked pages– Content Management systems: Vignette, MS

Sharepoint, IBM WebSphere Portal, Drupal, Joomla, Magento etc

• Guideline for a successful Web site:1. Build it for users (useful for the user, not

necessarily the company)2. Make it useful (e.g. usability test)3. Make information easy to find 4. Accommodate all users, including those with

disabilities e.g blind, deaf, partially sighted, etc5. Build a comprehensive, responsive, and effective

site

• Guideline for a successful Web site:6. Measure the site against the best of its peer

group7. Build trust; be up front about security, privacy,

and marketing policies. Secure sensitive pages8. Assign ownership to users, but work as a team

with the technical people9. Set priorities; do the most beneficial (core) stuff

first. Build in phases.10. Watch for new developments and encourage

innovation

• information architectureHow the site and its Web pages are organized, labeled, and navigated to support browsing and searching throughout the Web site

• site navigationAids that help visitors find the information they need quickly and easily

• PERFORMANCE (SPEED) e.g Net speed• COLORS AND GRAPHICS • usability (of Web site)

The quality and usefulness of the user’s experience when interacting with the Web site– What Annoys EC Customers? Pop up Ads, slow page

loading, confusing navigation, not info product information, complicated checkout

– Cross browser compatibility e.g IE 7, 8, Firefox, Chrome, etc

• WHO BUILDS THE WEB SITE?• PAYMENTS: ACCEPTING CREDIT CARDS

A credit card transaction in which the merchant does not verify the customer’s signature• An online business that wants to accept credit cards for

payment generally has to:– Open a merchant account– Purchase credit card processing software e.g authorize.net,

paypal, etc– Integrate the credit card processing software into the

transaction system

• WEB SITE PROMOTION– Internal Web Site Promotion• Web analytics (onsite and offsite)

The measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of Internet data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing Web usage e.g Google Analytics, web trends, etc

– search engine optimization (SEO)The application of strategies intended to position a Web site at the top of Web search engine results

- On page optimization- Off page optimization

– Pay per click