Good foundations of business systems and e-commerce report example

Executive Summary

This report is about Lonely Cat Club Company, which offers an opportunity for the pet lovers to give their cats fun moments even when they are away from home. The club has well qualified and experienced employees who give pets lots of fun when brought to the club, and communicate promptly with clients to update them on the conditions of the pets. Lonely Cats Club manages to keep their competitive advantage due to their innovative nature and quality services they offer. The club has introduced the use of e-commerce in various departments to enhance activities such as advertisement, improving customer relation and, managing the company resources. The Lonely Cats Club has been able to identify market niche, especially areas where customers are dissatisfied or where the market seem not to have attained optimum exploitation of the existing opportunity through innovation. This report addresses these concerns, gives the company’s background, look at the mission and vision of the club. The paper also addresses the place of innovation in the club’s performance, the use of ICT to enhance the club’s performance, market gap analysis procedures used to identify new market opportunities. The club creates a very conducive environment for the cats whose owners are busy and do not want their cats to be lonely. The club enjoys a competitive advantage with massive market base.

Introduction

Lonely Cats Club is a company that has specialized in taking care of pet particularly cats that are lonely. The core service offered by Lonely Cats Club is pet care for the genuine lovers of pets, who may not have time to take good care of their cats. The club is a very safe place for the cats as it has insurance cover for any eventuality within official duty of taking care of the cats. Lonely Cats Club has a well-established network for reference check and professional team who are fully experienced in pet. The company has realized a significant performance in the previous and for that reason; other services were added. Some of the services offered along with pet caring are; putting out bins for the client should there be a need, and when no restriction is given, they water the client’s plants. The club also provides grooming services for cats, such as bath, shampoo, and taxi service if the clients would like their cats transported back and forth for a routine vaccination appointment while the client is at work or otherwise occupied. Service quality and reliability guaranteed in all operations of the club and clients served with all due respect from the club’s professional team. The management team are very competent in all areas dealing with pet handling, they also employee innovation in their service delivery making the operation look unique from those of competitors (Garvin 2010). The club innovatively introduced the use of internet in their communication system; this ensures that feedback from customers and possible questions do not take a longer time responded to by the club. The internet has made the clubs dealing with the clients appear as there is a face-to-face communication. The report intended to give a clear picture of how the club embraces innovation and the use of electronic medium to facilitate their activities. The report presents all these in various sub headings to give detailed information on operations of the company.

Mission

The club aspires to be the best company that offers the best home for lonely cats in the whole world.
Vision
The primary objective of Lonely Cats Club is to be the best provider of a comfortable environment for the lonely cats. To give lonely cats opportunity to have fun with other cats in a well-kept environment with strict supervision
Secondary objective is to offer other services such as putting out clients’ bin and giving pets a ride for those cats that love strolling.

Objective

– Promote pet grooming by offering friendly homes for lonely pets away from their homes.
– Give the clients peace of mind when at work or in a vacation by keeping their pets safe
– Raise increasing return on investment for the shareholders of the club with increase in the quality being offered

Market Gap Analysis

Gap analysis is the processes used to determine company’s position in the present times and possible position in the future. The main reason company carries out market gap analysis is for the identification of what a competitor is supplying in the market and what the competitor anticipates supplying to the same market. Decisions that are involving marketing investment is always complex, and proper analysis are required before any resources is committed. The commonly considered factors in the market gap analysis are which geographical market to exploit, identifying the marketing mix that best suits the business and how to use this information to the advantage of the company (Garvin 2010). Lonely Cats Club is very careful not to make any incorrect decision that can be wasteful to the club. The Lonely Cats Club Company has been employing the use of, Silicon Cloud method of marketing analysis tool, to help in identifying potential markets. The tool also helps the club to understand the new marketing opportunities. The company is interested in knowing the company’s current supply to the market as well as what the company is planning to offer in the future. The difference of the two is the marketing gap, which need bridging by the management. Many people do have a problem with how to leave their cats when they are going for academic or business trips, that may take long or even when they go to work. The current market served by the Lonely Cats Company is just, but a fraction of the larger market, this shows that there is part of the market not served (Schroeder 2012). There is a need to exploit the new market while also keeping the existing market. Currently, the club only deals with lonely cats and not including the lonely dogs. There are those who do not have a cat for a pet, but have a dog. Such people also need the same services and, therefore, the club needs to tap these markets.
Market gap analysis is different some managers can opt analysis in operational perspective or strategic perspective. Tactically the management modifies the existing mixes to ensure that they reach their desired level. The club, through innovation, is tactically using the promotion mix to ensure that they reach a wider market to increase their market base. The use of all social media is a strategy by the Lonely Cat Club to bridge the gap in the market. The Club will be able to maintain competitive advantage economically bridging the market gap.

Value Perception Based on the Customer and Business

Customers always have a perception on services and goods, which are being offered in the market. Value perception is that worth a consumer feels about services and product offered by the company. Most of the time, customers tend to pay for the worth of the product or service. They use the feeling from within to gauge the worthiness of a service (Schroeder 2012). What a customer think of the goods and services offered by the firm is very important, as it will also determine whether they will recommend your products to other customers or not. Lonely Cats Club has a brand name of having the best home for lonely cats. The services by the club are of high quality; this is because the owner of the club used to be a counselor of pets and the general behavior of cats. The club ensures that the vetting process is very solid, since the husband of the owner’s previous occupation as a high-ranking police officer, and he currently owns a PI company. They finally end up with the best recruits who are fully qualified for the company’s jobs. Those who successfully pass the recruitment process, and become employees of Lonely Cat Club, go through thorough training now and then to ensure that they remain relevant throughout their term of service. The highly qualified leadership of the club has maintained the competitive advantage of the firm, which has always increased customers’ perception on the club’s services.

ICT Strategies

Success of the company in the contemporary world depends so much on the level of ICT use in that particular firm. The dynamics of the technology use calls for serious concern on how to incorporate it in the company and still maintain the profitability of the firm. Most business activities can be so efficient if the use of the internet carefully monitored and the right measures taken. The businesses that turn a blind eye on the use of ICT in their operations risk losing their position in the market. The most challenging part in the use of technology is the cost of acquiring and installation the whole system in the club; the maintenance cost is also very expensive, however, the long-term benefit is always more than the initial cost (Peter 2012). The other challenging part in the use of ICT is the fact that they keep on changing now and then. The company needs to review the technology now and then to ensure that it conforms to the changes in the market to avoid risk of being obsolete.
In the Lonely Cat Club, ICT plays a major role in all business departments with every department given communication system to ensure that there is free flow of communication. The company has Management Information System (MIS), which ensures that information system of the club is under control of a powerful system that is beneficial to the club. As a service industry that targets those who want to have a place to keep their pet, a better medium of communication that facilitates the effective and efficient way of communication is needed (Peter 2012). The club has a website from where clients are able to check up the services it offers and the terms of service. The products offered by the club are all over the social media and other important sites; to capture a large and diverse market. The club has adopted the WOMO (word of mouth online) where both the management and the potential clients can chat on the business issues as if they are on a face-to-face talk. There are e-newsletters that the company uses to carry out advertisement in a bid to show how much they embrace technology (Peter 2012). The company plans to have business processes improved by employing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to enhance the relationship between the management and the customers. Other systems that the club intends to use to boost their e-commerce are Human Resource Management (HRM) system, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and security system. All these systems are to guarantee that all the pets are safe and should there be a problem, the alarm alerts management to take corrective measures to prevent a worse scenario.

Time to Market and Costing

Marketing is the creation of awareness and arousing the desire of clients to acquire the services or the product of the company. Business can sell the products or services even without carrying out marketing, but is likely to sell more when it carries out marketing unlike when it does not. The company’s marketing department finds out customer needs and communicates them to a production department, which is to produce the product as per the customers’ interest to achieve customer satisfaction. So many clients do not plan for some of their purchases, but end up buying because the marketing managers aroused their desires. Lonely Cats Club maximizes their revenue on the services of keeping lonely cats belonging to clients who love traveling and do not need their pets on board (Peter 2012). Managers have put in place a number of marketing strategists in place to ensure that a good number of customers become aware of the club, and that their interest to enjoy the services to be guaranteed. The club has resorted to e-advertisement as most advertisements are in an electronic medium to ensure that diverse and relatively large market captured. The marketing department targets diverse lovers of pets prompting the use of different social media for advertisement. Innovation also brought about the use of e-newsletter found in various high schools and most established firms. Other means through which the company has resorted include printing T-shirts and hats with the company logo that are worn by staff and those who show interest of buying. The company gets the interest of so many potential clients aroused through these many innovative advertisement media, which has significantly improved the competitive advantage of the club (Peter 2012).
While doing marketing, there are costs that the company has to incur. Marketing is very important when the sales revenue is more than the cost of marketing and, therefore, marketing department should ensure the use of economical marketing methods. The club incurred a number of costs in advertisement, but the level of sales revenue is remarkable showing that the methods are efficient.

Conclusion

Lonely Cats Club is a company of professionals who take care of lonely cats whose owners are at work or travelling but do not want to have cats on board. The owner’s husband with a wealth of knowledge from experience has strengthened the competitive advantage of the club as they get the best recruit and policing work guaranteed. The club has embraced innovation in their dealings, which has seen their product being unique from the competitors. Most of the advertisement and marketing are through an electronic medium because of embracing e-commerce in the clubs dealings. Marketing analysis intended to understand the market gap is part of the research the club is working on to take advantage of the new markets to remain key players in the pet market.

References List

Garvin, D. A., 2010. Managing Quality. New York: The Free Press.
Schroeder, S. A., 2012. Marketing Gap Analysis. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Peter, F., 2012. Creativity and innovation. New York: Collins