E-Business strategy - Essay Example

 E-Business Strategy Objective of the Paper The principal objective of this paper is to ensure that Starbuck Company and coffee houses improves their use of technology to ensure that the market in Ireland is better through the embracement of more e-business. The paper looks at all the areas that can be improved through e-business especially in this world where technology is very essential in the business market. History of Starbucks Starbucks as a Company was started in the early 70’s in Seattle Washington. The company which is an American global cooperation happens to center its core business in the selling of coffee at its coffee houses which are globally distributed. Currently, Starbucks has around twenty thousands stores operating in sixty countries. In Ireland alone, the company is host to about a hundred branches of the coffee company. In the 1990’s the company happened to experience a period of rapid growth, and was estimated to open at least one branch of the coffee house daily. With the increased competition within the Ireland market, several of the coffee shop businesses have been making attempts at expanding their businesses into the neighboring countries. The Review Process The review process entails the improvement of the Starbucks Company through the continuous use of e-business and it sub division of the e-commerce. This way, there will be guaranteed improvement of the company through the increment of the customers, better competition level from the other coffees shops, and the market as a whole. Statistics present at the National Coffee Association indicate that most consumers of the coffee happen to be aged between the ages of 18 and 24 years. An average number of adults, however, consume the coffee on a daily basis. This positive trend of growth has continually been experienced to date. Moreover, Starbucks has recently been working hard at expanding into other sectors via the establishment of several subsidiaries such as its Hear Music Brand and the Starbucks Entertainment Division. The Starbucks Company has had several issues with the technology that they have used in the past few years. Of importance to note is that guest communication is crucial as it revolves around the Company. Some of the issues that need to be addressed include poor communication between the staffs, customers and the external world. Rationale for The process mapping of Starbucks technological advancement Starbucks has made some efforts to improve customer communication. This has been central to design evaluation. These efforts include development of the brand in order to improve customer experience. One of these processes involved improvement of internal communications in the effort to ease customer base connection. Sophisticated feedback machinery sees to it that customer’s feedback is collected and acted upon in an effective and timely manner. One of such an effort includes the intention by the company to partner with Square’s GPS mobile for improved payments. In addition, through GPRS, the customer can be able to receive alerts on any updates including special offers. Starbucks can also get alerts whenever a returning customer has returned for more. Furthermore, Starbucks was named the most popular social media brand. It uses several social media sites to reach out new customers and continued communication with the old customers. Some of the popular sites used by Starbucks include Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare. In addition, the company has adopted the use of digital network in its stores. With Wi-Fi availability, the company is able to entertain customers with digital networks. The process mapping of Starbucks technological advancement The Intertwining E-business and Starbucks can be intertwined. This is because e-business uses tools like mobile phones, file transfer, video conferencing, internet, intranets, and extranet to improve the administrative and operational activities. It ensures that Starbucks is in a position to access the internet to source information about the company suppliers and products, and the general knowledge that is required to keep the company moving. There is also the use of electronic transaction like banking, management of finances, and control of stock among other functions (Stanford-Smith and Kidd 2000) Moreover, e-business entails human resources management, where the development of intranet for news, policies, staff movements, as well as, giving the staff an opportunity to apply for leaves and be able to access their personnel information online. E business is also concerned with customer relationship management, which ensures that all round functions of the company are intertwined through electronic capabilities. Advantages of e-business The use of e-business on Starbucks Company is basically to improve the limited use of e-business platform. It ensures that there is quicker and easier communication between the staff, and customers and all other people who are involved in the growth of Starbucks Company. Through the use of e-business and the incorporation of the e-commerce, the company has been able to strengthen the marketing capabilities and reach to its customer, hence the presence of more sales as compared to when the company was using limited e-business technology (Stanford-Smith and Kidd 2000). More sales have further led to increased hours of operations as improved website is now in a position to provide 24 hours 7 day information to the existing, and the potential customers. Situations that make the customers able to book in for meetings or other conferences that are related to the company. The e-business will automatically bring down the cost of doing business through lowering transaction costs together with rising efficient methods for payment such as the use of online banking, and the reduction of postage costs and stationery. Thus, there are more opportunities to adopt new business models and develop tailored customer support (Stanford-Smith and Kidd 2000). Introduction of E-Business In Ireland, there has been a significant boom in the coffee shop business. A situation that has been highly noticed especially with the offering of specialty coffees that currently been offered by various shops in the industry. The spur in growth of the coffee house market in the country has been basically spurred by the recent trend of the American coffee consumers, which has seen them becoming increasingly educated as to how the espresso based drinks in the industry are made. As per the data provided, the Starbucks Company has been rated as one of the coffee shops that have gradually increased in sales and customers. With this regard, it is crucial that Starbuck Company engages in e-business improvement strategy to ensure that it flourishes more in the drink industry. According to Stanford-Smith and Kidd 2000, e-business, or better known as electronic business is the use of the internet to operate businesses. It represents only a fraction of world business, but it is the greatest on the increase sectors, and grant entrepreneurs with excellent opportunities to flourish in the market especially now that Starbucks is an existing company. Being a company that deals with gulping –coffee to be specific, Starbucks requires the effect of e-business in its management to ensure that it hold it prestigious place in the market. The e-business in the Starbucks Company is that first the company is able to communicate effectively through sending emails between staff of the company, a method that is more effective and efficient bearing in mind that the company has several branches all over the United States that work under one management (Stanford-Smith and Kidd 2000). Thus, emphasizes the essence of having information being received fast, and at the same time in all the branches. Moreover, the company needs a faster and convenience way of communicating between the staff or the management and the suppliers, who in this case are people entailed to supplying the company with the necessary products and services. Basically, a business can be considered to be eroded with the e-business factor particularly when it relies on the internet in most of the communications that it is involved in. Although the Starbucks Company can be accessed through the internet, the company has not attained the level of e- business that it requires in the present. Hence, the company must come up with a new improved website to promote their business. Its website should involve the marketing of all its branches all over the Ireland, and the other parts of the world. Moreover, being one of the few coffee companies that have continually been in the market in the recent past, they should be able to sell their products directly through the internet. This ensures that the customers who are visiting various parts of the world are able to get the information through the internet about the coffee shops that they ought to prefer when they need refreshment at one point or another. Additionally, the company should guarantee that the customers are able to make orders, pay for the orders, and book in for sitting in advance at their preferred shops. This gives the company time to prepare, as well as, allowing the customers to work better in booking and have the confidence of having good services at their preferred places. Basically, online booking ensures that both management and the customer work at their own convenience to meet their targets and confront. Moreover, the use of internet on the communication between the company, and their customer makes the whole experience look professional and marketable (Stanford-Smith and Kidd 2000). With this regard, Starbucks Company should also take a further step into E- commerce. E-commerce entails ordering, buying, selling and paying of products and services using the internet. In essence, e-commerce is a subset of e-business which should be embraced by Starbucks can make up for the entirety of the business, and also be used in connection to the current traditional business models that have been used since the inception of the company. The impact of e-commerce is to ensure that any company is able to market, sell and conduct transactions with the customers without necessarily having a face to face contact between buyers and sellers. Hence, more e-businesses now carry out all their business online, and contain no physical store that customers can be able to visit (Stanford-Smith and Kidd 2000). E-commerce is intertwined with e-business. With Starbucks being an international company, it is frequently affected by fluctuation international exchange rates. This is a common occurrence that affects the trade of international companies. Once the currency of the coffee producing country happens to rise in the world currency market, Starbucks through the e –commerce will be able to investigate the market through the internet to determine when the market is best for the buying coffee. In essence, Starbucks spends more dollars in buying coffee from the country but when it happens to fall, Starbucks ends up getting more value for their money as they will be able to buy relatively more coffee at cheaper prices. Moreover, the e-commerce will help broaden the market for the company and give it more opportunity to search for better suppliers in a faster and convenience way. Through this the customers also get to experience of reduced coffee prices as a bonus for buying services from the company and its subsidiaries (Stanford-Smith and Kidd 2000). The e –commerce will also ensure that Starbucks Company, with the advent of globalization acts as a trading company that is willing to expand into new and emerging markets all over the globe. Through the e-commerce Starbucks will be in a position to equate its self with the global market. Previously, the global market has been affected by the shortage of coffee due most of the coffee farmers opting to grow other produce on their farms in place of coffee. The coffee farmers claim that they are increasing earning less money from the sales of coffee beans. Such and other issue may be alarming to Starbucks because its business revolves around coffee. Hence, e-commerce will enable the company to books and pay from their products through the internet in a faster and convenient ways (Stanford-Smith and Kidd 2000). Through e –business, Starbucks will be in a position to face its competitors from other coffee houses which sometimes tend to have prices that are below what Starbucks offer. More marketing will be done through the internet in bid to convenience their costumers on their prices and the products. Additionally, Starbucks will be able to respond to the fluctuation of prices with in the market and the stiff competitors. Needless to mention, Starbucks is relentlessly shopping in the market for new software through e-business. These soft wares are potentially be used to make its customers experience more satisfactory and ensure that it keeps Starbucks ahead of the current competitors in the market. Majority of these soft wares have been designed with the intention of improving the company’s website in terms of its speed and accessibility. The software upgrades also serves to assist in escalating the speed at which existing customers and the potential customers who are visiting the Starbucks coffee shops are attended to Stanford-Smith and Kidd 2000). Starbucks Company also has an information technology department that incepted its first website in 1998. This use of website ha enabled the company slowly embrace and transact with e –commerce. In the year 2000, Starbucks Company managed to upgrade its server system to the Microsoft Commerce server 2000, which led to a remarkable improvement witnessed in its online service delivery. However, the Company has continually embraced e-commerce by purchasing different commerce servers in relation to the change in technology Stanford-Smith and Kidd 2000). The presence of e-business and e –commerce has enabled Starbucks Company to consistently purchasing numerous advanced registers and coffee machines to replace the old systems. The use of these new systems has contributed to the improvement of staff‘s efficiency and the speed, with inclusion of assisting the shops produce better quality coffee products. The use of these new materials and processes has resulted to the company offering its customers faster attendance and service. In essence, Starbucks Company and coffee houses no longer experience annoying queues to be served. This ensures the Starbucks considerably expand its customer base, and assist in the improvement of better customer relations. The use of the six sigma, theory of constraints, continuous improvement for Starbucks Company This theory has been used to improve the performance of the system of a particular company, which in this case happened to be Starbucks Company. Its implementation involves a series of steps that are designed to facilitate a gauntlet of the improvement process. This is basically done through the five transformational phases. Step 1: Define: Identify customer needs and a project suitable for Six-sigma effort At Starbucks Company the customers are the most important people in the business. Hence, their needs should be prioritized. Thus, the improvement of the already existing e-business technology to a higher level will ensure that the company moves toward the growth route that is connected to the internet and anything that is online. Step 2: Measure: Determine how and what to measure the performance of the selected process. Starbucks should determine its performance through ensuring that the e-business and e-commerce that is being used in the Company improves the status of the company’s in the market. Step 3: Analyze: Understand and determine the variables that create quality variations The variables that create quality variations in Starbucks Company entail the use of internet to communicate internally and externally, both staff members and the existing and potential customers. Moreover, the Company is able to make transactions through the internet. Step 4: Improve: Identify means to remove causes of defects and modify the process Starbucks should ensure that they do not rely on information that is not internet based because it is bound to misguide the company on every issue as well as, dragging all its operations. Step 5: Control: Maintain the Improvement The Starbucks Company must maintain the improvement of the e-business and the e-commerce. The basic objective of the five –step process is to recognize requirements for both existing and potential customers. It also identifies and validates the chance of improvement, as well as, the upgrading of the business processes. This boosted their profitability, increases the market share and improves customer satisfaction (Stanford-Smith and Kidd 2000). Six Stigma theories (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Figure 1, Source: Author generated Conclusion E-business has become one of the few technologies strategies that have been sort after by many companies and organizations. Through this technology, companies are able to improve their facilities by the use of internet, intranet and extranet in ensuring that they have both intra and extra communication within the company, and the outside world. Starbucks is one such company, in embracing the e-business and e-commerce in providing services its customers in Ireland and other parts of the worlds. Bibliography: Stanford-Smith, B and Kidd, P., 2000. E-business: key issues, applications and technologies. Amsterdam: IOS Press. Read More