Imagine that you are the manager responsible for e-commerce in your selected e-business. As E-Commerce Manager, you have been asked to investigate Knowledge Management, assess its suitability as a tool to retain key corporate knowledge, and produce a report on these two aspects. Please summarize the key findings of this report in your blog posting this week. Make sure that it is specific to your company and your company’s market sector.

Definition  

Knowledge assets are the knowledge when it comes to the markets, products, technologies and organizations, that a business owns or needs to own and which enable its business processes to generate profits, add value, etc. Knowledge management is not only about managing these knowledge assets but managing the processes that act upon the assets. These processes include: developing knowledge; preserving knowledge; using knowledge, and sharing knowledge.

Therefore, Knowledge management involves the identification and analysis of available and required knowledge assets and knowledge asset related processes, and the subsequent planning and control of actions to develop both the assets and the processes so as to fulfill organizational objectives. Early knowledge management technologies included online business yellow pages as expert in locating document management systems. KM technologies grew in the mid-90s.

It is important for Schuh to keep up to date and on top of the business to ensure that they can makae a profit and for the company to grow in value aswell.

Explicit and tacit knowledge

·        Knowledge Management - Techniques and tools for capturing and spreading knowledge within an organization.

·        Explicit – the details of processes and procedures. Clear knowledge can be easily detailed in procedural manuals and databases.

·        Tacit – less tangible than clear knowledge, this is familiarity on how to react in circumstances when many different items are involved. It is more difficult to sum up this knowledge, which often is remembered by employees.

 Strategies

Knowledge may be accessed at three stages: before, during, or after KM-related activities. Different organizations have tried a number of different ways to gain knowledge, including submission of content and incorporating rewards into performance measurement plans. A lot of controversy exists over whether incentives work or not in this field and no conclusion has been made.

One strategy to KM involves actively managing knowledge. An example of this is, individuals try to explicitly encode their knowledge into a shared knowledge archive, this could be a database, as well as retrieving knowledge they need that other individuals have provided to the archive.

It is important that Schuh have their strategies in place before, during and after the knowledge management system.

Motivations

A number of claims exist as to the motivations leading organizations to undertake a KM effort. Typical considerations driving a KM effort include:

·        Making available increased knowledge content in the development and provision of products and services

·        Achieving shorter new product development cycles

·        Facilitating and managing innovation and organizational learning

·        Leveraging the expertise of people across the organization

·        Increasing network connectivity between internal and external individuals

·        Managing business environments and allowing employees to obtain relevant insights and ideas appropriate to their work

·        Solving intractable or wicked problems

·        Managing intellectual capital and intellectual assets in the workforce (such as the expertise and know-how possessed by key individuals)

Technologies

More recently, development of social computing tools (such as blogs and wikis) have allowed more unstructured, self-governing or ecosystem approaches to the transfer, capture and creation of knowledge, including the development of new forms of communities, networks, or matrixed organisations. However such tools for the most part are still based on text and code, and thus represent explicit knowledge transfer. These tools face challenges in distilling meaningful re-usable knowledge and ensuring that their content is transmissible through diverse channels.

‘Traffic building’ is the process of increasing the number of people who will visit an e-commerce web site. It covers many of the techniques shown in the ‘green’ boxes on slide 10 of this week’s (week 9 CRM) slides.

Specifically for your chosen web site, describe the main types of online marketing communications that it could use for traffic building. Justify how each of these types is applicable to your site. Deadline is 6 pm Friday as originally indicated.

Search Marketing

As researched in my previous blog Schuh appears in search engines. When searching I searched for a popular brand of shoes sold by Schuh, this was Irregular Choice. I was able to find the website easily through Google as it appeared third on the list, but I had to search through two pages in Yahoo before I found the link to their page. By being high on Google’s list this increases the traffic to the website, it leads to this as more people would view the site even if they were not particularly looking for that shop. The sponsored part that is in the search engine is the part where the site has paid for to display it. Every time a user clicks to enter the site then the company has to pay the search engine, giving it the name “Pay Per Click” this system is in the search engines benefit to show the site in the results.

Online PR

This includes all the other means of contact with their potential customers.  Schuh offers a number of things for the customers, this includes a forum, it can be found at: forum.schuhstore.co.uk, in this forum it includes a number of topics for potential customers to view and add their comments. Schuh also have a Bebo, MySpace and Facebook page, all of these pages contain information on the company, and it also means that if people come across these pages while their on their own page this means that it could lead to increasing business.

Schuh also offer a mobile service, this means that the user can actually shop for shoes on the go! They can log onto www.schuh.mobi from their mobile phone so they can look at all the latest styles to arrive in Schuh and if they just have to have a pair then you can even buy them using your mobile.  

 Online Partnerships

Schuh have an online partnership with Republic, Schuh have a link to Republic’s website and Republic has a link to the Schuh website. This partnership also continues offline by sharing premises.

This partnership relates well as Republic sells only clothes and Shuch only sells shoes, this means that people can get shoes to go with the products that they have purchased off the republic website.

Interactive Ads

Schuh only advertises on Republic’s website. I have found no other websites who advertise for them. Schuh could increase business by advertising on other websites. Although a number of people would not access the website using an advertisement as the think that it could have a virus within it.

Opt-in Email

Schuh have a mailing list for customers to sign up to, this emails customers with their newsletter to show what new products have come into stock. This could also increase business as customers could look at the newsletter and see a pair of shoes that they like but had no intention of buying. This is a visual reminder for the customer to visit the site and to see if there is a product that they might like to own.

Viral Marketing

Schuh have an option on their site to email a friend a product that you think that they might like. This could increase the business to the company as it could entice someone to access the website who would not have thought about accessing the website.

For your selected e-commerce site, assess the ease (or not) with which you can find the site using a search engine. Type some of the company’s branded products or key themes into a search engine. Discuss what is returned. Pay particular attention to ‘paid for’ results. Also, check where competitors appear, interpret the results. Provide recommendations.

For this question I am going to use two different search engines to search for brands within my company. I have decided to use google.com and yahoo.com.  I decided to use the two different websites to see if there was much of a difference in the results from the different search engines.

I chose to search google first. When searched for on google.com was ‘Irregular Choice’. My results showed the Schuh were the fifth result, although the top three websites are irregular choice’s own site. This is not a surprise as you would expect the Irregular Choice websites to come up at the top of the search. I would of expected Schuh to appear on the first page as it is a big company that is well established within the UK.

Below is a link to the google results page:

 http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=irregular+choice+shoes&meta=

When using Yahoo’s search engine I typed in the same as I typed into google to ensure that the results where fair. When I searched Schuh did not appear on the firse page of results, it did appear on the second page, it was the eigth result on the second page. I thought that it would have been higher up on the results as in google, I thought this as Schuh is well known and not many high street shops sell the brand of shoes.

 Below is a link to the results page of Yahoo:

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?p=Irregular+choice&ei=UTF-8&rd=r1&fr=yfp-t-501&pstart=1&b=11

When searchingyahoofor irregular choice it appeared on yahoo page two. Within Yahoo it brought up some of the leading competitors including Office and pretty shoes.com. A number of the results where from ebay and amazon.

I was not surprised with my results form google but I thought that Schuh wuld have been higher up on the results in Yahoo.

Q.12 Carry out web research to find out what is meant by the term ‘Cloud Computing’. Describe in your own words what is meant by this term. Explain in your own words the impact that cloud computing might have in e-commerce. Ensure that you describe potential benefits and problems.

Cloud computing

is an Internet-based development aswell as the use of computers.  The cloud in cloud computing is a metaphor used to describe the Internet’sinfrastructure as it is  unseen. Cloud computing is a style of computing that relates to IT, it provides  a service enbaling users to gain access to different technology-enabled services from the Internet.

“Cloud Computing is a model where information is permanently stored on servers on the Internet, they are cached on the users device for a short time, this could be on a desktop, a I-Phone, a Blackberry and other devices that users can gain access to the internet.

Cloud computing includes software as a service. This is a common theme, it depends on the internet to meet the needs of the different users accessing the internet.

Below are some of the chracteristics of cloud computing.

Characteristics of cloud computing.

• Capital spending for the fixed assets
• Device and location independence
• Multitenancy
• Scalability
• Sustainability
• Security

Advantages of Cloud Computing

It is valuable to a small business or company as it is very cost effective if the business is olny starting to set up, it is also cost effective for larger business that could be on a budget.

One of the biggest advantages of cloud computing is that the user may no longer have to be bothered having to use a traditional computer to use applications, or have to buy an upgraded version to enable users to use different and new devices. In the future it is a big possibility that any device that can access the Internet will be able to run a cloud-based application.

There will also be less trouble with any maintenance issues. The storage capabilities are big so that users do not have to worry about running out of space. Using the cloud the user knows that that are accessing the latest version of software.

Disadvantages of Cloud Computing

The disadvantages of cloud computing includes that its use is relies on accessing the Internet and the servers. Also it totally relies on a network connection; this means if the network goes down the computer cannot work again until the network is restored. If the network gets overloaded it will make the functions of the computer much slower.

Another disadvantage is that it does not use a hard drive, this could be a problem as some applications or hardware may require having a hard drive attached to a computer.

Cloud computing affects the e-commerce side of things, this means that the services are available anywhere in the world, this is ideal for e-commerce as it means that the business can be accessible to any potential customer anywhere in the world. The Internet is a point of access for consumers with any computing needs.

Q.11 Using your chosen e-commerce company, analyse their strategy for management of the upstream and downstream supply chain.
Concepts that should be included are as follows:

• Push vs pull supply models
• Vertical integration vs disintegration vs virtual integration
• Partnership management and value networks
• Procurement and fulfilment strategies

Schuh is a downstream organisation from the organisation to the customer.

Pull Vs Push

The Push vs Pull models are important to a company as it is their main system that is to be followed if they are to have a well stocked successful shop.

The pull chain runs from the supplier, in this case a shoe supplier, to the manufacturer leading to the distributor being schuh and then to the customer. The aim of this chain is to optimise the production process for effective cost and efficiency. This chain is crucial as without any of the links the chain could collapse.

Schuh has many suppliers within their chain as they sell a wide variety of shoes from a number of different brands.

The Push chain runs from the customer to the retailer, then the distributor to the manufacturer and then to the supplier. The aim of this chain is to enhance the product and service quality. This is benefiting the customers in the future to enable the chain to make improvements.

A customer might have bought a faulty pair of shoes, after a week wearing them the sole had worn through, this information would run through the chain to the manufacturer and then they could make the improvements so that they don’t face that problem again.

Vertical Integration vs disintegration vs virtual integration

Schuh is a disintegrated company. This means that they have a network of suppliers as they sell a number of different branded shoes both in store and online. This means that they can cut the cost to a value that suits as well as being able to focus on the core capabilities for the chain to be successful.

 Partnership management and Value networks

Value = (Benefit of each value chain activity – it costs) + (Benefit of each interface between VC activities – its cost)

Schuh have a number of shareholders, this is to enable to free up more money for a number of reasons including setting up another store or for the day to day running and the bills of the stores

Procurement and fulfillment strategies

The company aims to fulfil the customers order and deliver the item required efficiently. Schuh have a system where they can see what the best selling products are and are prepared to meet customer demand. They are able to order a larger number of the popular shoes to ensure that customer’s orders are fulfilled.

The threat of substitute of products and services

Schuh is the only website that sells a wide variety of branded shoes that is also on the high street for their customers to shop in. The Schuh name is a well established company so customers would use the website as they know it would reliable to place orders. The website is regularly updated to let customers see the latest fashion trends and give them an opportunity to make their purchases.

If the company regularly assess the threat of substitute of products and services then they will be able to offer competitive pricing and promotions to ensure that the keep their customer base.

The threat of the entry of new competitors (barriers of entry)

New competitors are a worry to any company, although Schuh have a big place in the market as they have been established for over 10 years. Schuh also offer a wide variety of products to suit most of their customers, including male shoes. They also have a presence in many shopping centres and high street shops to entice customers in to buy a pair of shoes that they hadn’t planned on purchasing. Having a website Schuh is reducing their barriers of entry as competitors can see what their competitors are selling on a regular basis.

The intensity of competitive rivalry

Competitive rivalry is something that no company wants as this could reduce the amount of business done by the company as another company could offer the same product for a lower price. Although this is beneficial for the customers as it means that competitive pricing is introduced  meaning that the customer can get the product for the lowest price they find by shopping around. This could also help the company as if they were the one to offer the lowest price then their business could increase.

The bargaining power of customers and buyers

The customer has the power to change their mind and to shop on a different company’s website if it means that they are getting better value for their money. The customer has the right to cancel their account with any company and select a different company to set up an account with, as this is a costless process for the customer. Any company can offer incentives to keep their customers from using other company’s such as discount vouchers and promotions. Schuh could do this by offering free post and packaging or vouchers for 10% off or even student discount.

The bargaining power of suppliers

With such a competitive market the suppliers also have to have competitive pricing. If the suppliers product can come from another supplier hen they have to ensure that they have the lowest price or a good offer to encourage the company to shop with them and to increase business numbers.

However if the product is unique then the supplier has a very strong market enabling them to set their prices to ensure that profit is made as they have no competitors for the business.

Schuh have a number of different suppliers as they sell a wide variety of different branded shoes.

Q.9 Does the site use cookies? Explain how cookies are used in your site.

Schuh uses cookies for the shopping basket, this means that the customer will need to have cookies enabled to be able to purchase product online. They have cookies on the site so that if the customer decides to add a pair of shoes to the shopping basket they can then go back and continue shopping with the chosen pair of shoes still remaining in their shopping basket. This means that the customer can order multiple pairs of shoes in one order rather than having to make several different orders if they want a number of pairs of shoes.

Within the web site cookies are used to keep track of the items that the customer has placed in their shopping basket, this process only lasts 2 days and then the cookies expires. The cookie can only store the information for a short period of time.

The cookies work from the computer and cannot be linked back to an individual user, there is no way of tracing a person with the cookies as they do not store personal information.

To order from the Schuh website the customer must have cookies enabled in their browser, if they cannot do this then the customers are advised to go to their local store and see if the store has the product that they require, if the store do not have the correct product then they are able to order the shoes from their shop to be delivered to the store itself or the customers house.

Q.8 Examine the registration process for your site, from the perspective of security. Is your data encrypted? What does this mean?

“We are committed to protecting your privacy and the security of any information given to us in order for us to process your order.”

Schuh’s policy is to not gather or hold information a customer’s information without consent from the customer. By placing an order to Schuh the customer is giving their consent for them to hold the information given. They also say that any information that the do hold will be kept updated and then will be destroyed once they have no use for the information.

Schuh operate a strict policy on not sharing their customers information with any third parties, with the exception of the delivery company delivering the shoes to the customer. They also share the information to ensure that payment of the order will go through.

 On the website it states that the customers “privacy and confidence will be respected at all times.

The security of the customer’s transaction is important to Schuh and to prevent customer details being seen by unofficial parties they protect it throughout the payment process.

To ensure this is done they use a secure server to encrypt the customer’s information before it is sent to the payments processor. All the customer details are passed on at this point to be able to complete their order.  This means that if any unofficial parties were able to see the information they would not have the code to decipher the information to gain the detail of the customer purchasing products form the website.

Q.7 Look in detail at the terms and conditions for purchasing from your site. Are they reasonable? Comment on anything unusual or unreasonable that you find. What about returning goods? Describe the main mechanisms of support provided by your site. Do you think that it is better or worse than the competition? Explain your answer.

The terms and conditions for purchasing off the Schuh website are reasonable as they cover the basic problems that could occur during making a purchase off the website. There are no unreasonable demands that the company make within the terms and conditions. They have all the information that the user may need to know in great detail so that there are no aspects that are not covered in detail, it is also easily understood.

If any problems do occur then they have a number of ways that the customer can contact them asking for a refund or even needing help for anything. There is a customer service hotline that is open from Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm. The customer can also go to their local Schuh store and deal with a member of staff working within the store. The customer can also email the company anytime if they have a query that they need the answer to. They also have another support line that is not customer service that customers can contact them on 6days a week. There is also an address that customers can write to.

If the customer wants to return the goods Schuh operate a 365 day return goods policy. The customer can do this by presenting the shoes in the box as they would have received them. If the item is unused or faulty then the customer can receive a full refund.

Schuh offer an excellent support system for their customers giving them many options to get in contact with the company if they are experiencing problems. They offer a better service than their most of their competitors as they have many different ways of getting in contact to suit any generation.

Q6. New channels to market for e-business are increasingly being used. Such channels include mobile device access as well as digital television access. Consider and describe the potential future impact of ONE of these channels for your e-business from the perspective of the e-business. What strategic choices (if any) need to be made.

Mobile devises are becoming incresingly a popular way to access the internet. This is due to the high demand of people wanting 24hour access to the internet no matter where they are. With the new technology within the mobile devices people are able to get access to the internet anywhere. New mobile devises are being made with built in Wi-Fi and 3G, this gives the access to the internet anywhere at anytime.

This would benefit the customer as many people don’t have time to look around the shops within the town they live in. this makes the process easier as it could be more convienient for the customer possibly leading to incresed busniess and returing customers.

This would also benefit the company when the internet is more widely avaible on the mobile devises as they could have a higher business turnover as more people can access the website from all over the world and make their purchases.

With the mobile devises  becoming more accessible to people it inceases the amount of people using the website and maybe leading more people to buying the product off the website. Also if people are on different websites that advertise the schuh website it could increse users as their attention is grabbed by the advertisment.