MIS Project: My Digital Shelf - Essay Example

MIS Project: My Digital Shelf Business The project is an online bookstore, called Lib Cafe, which will allow the clients, trade directly used books without using traditional brick and mortar bookstores. The sellers will be able to receive more for their books while the buyer will also pay less. On top of books, the clients can also sell used CDs, accessories, computers, class notes, tutoring services, old tests, and other products. The site also seeks to offer professional evaluations, classifieds, retail, and specialized content. Business Plan Mission/Vision The Lib Cafe’s mission involves the provisions of a unique and valuable source of information, services, and products for the clients. To achieve this mission, Lib Cafe will commit to several philosophies, i.e. the clients will be the employer, the product is the most important thing, and to keep the store’s employees happy to provide the best service. In addition, the store will avoid greed and opportunism. Objectives Lib Cafe has several objectives that they seek to achieve. These are: 1. Turn ordinary physical shelves available in our homes into a virtual/online/digital shelf that can be accessed from anywhere. 2. Provide fast and economic way of delivering products and services to customers for entertainment and educational purposes at reduced/competitive prices using latest/advanced technologies available, today. Market Analysis The Middle Eastern market is an expanding market, yet, as a niche market, it is underserved. It is expected that the market will grow from 100 million potential in 2012 to approximately 15 million in 2020. Ardent book readers also spend approximately $100 billion dollars every year with at least 30% of this now being spent online (Carey 22). One reason why the Middle Eastern consumer is overlooked is that the majority of information sources relied on by marketers does not adequately represent the population (Carey 22). However, as a marketer, this group needs to be recognized as a good opportunity and connecting to them in their early years, especially, could reap dividends in the future. Competitive Analysis Lib Cafe faces competition from various competitors such as traditional brick and mortar bookstores, textbook exchange sites, online retailers, online auction sites, comparison sites for book prices, and content specific sites for textbooks. These include Barnes & Noble, Bigwords.com, Efollet.com, Haif.com, JourneyEd.com, TextbooksX.com, Collegeclub.com, Ecampus.com, Ebay.com, Lazystudents.com, among others (Mercer 32). Strategy Lib Cafe’s potential market is around 100 million clients who are live in the Middle East and North Africa. For the second phase of this project, the plan is to focus the marketing efforts on a subset market that has its location in the Middle East (Mercer 44). The plan is also to expand to other markets using a phased approach, which will focus on a new region every year with North Africa and Eastern Europe as the next target. Sales Direct download – for purchased items (does not qualify for resale). Online Access to Company’s Cloud – for purchased (qualify for resale), rented or subscribed items. Shipped – physical product available for shipping (optional at higher costs). Products and Services Lib Cafe seeks to offer a unique content, service, and product blend to its clients, which other companies do not offer online. Lib Cafe also seeks to aggregate content, services, products, and participants to come up with a client-to-client retail website and market place. This will target 100 million potential users. Financials According to the requirements and opportunities that Lib Cafe has come up with, in their business plan, the financial projections are as follows: Ensure that the company exceeds an increase of 1.5 times in profits and revenue by year three. Make a report on its profits in month 9 of operations Ensure that there are exceptional revenues and sales by the end of year two. Lib Cafe needs a seed investment and later investment rounds as it expands. The initial funding will be required for customer acquisition, marketing, website development, and software development. Marketing Plan Lib Cafe seeks to attract clients using online advertising and traditional advertising strategies in order to form a marketing campaign at the grassroots. Because most of Lib Cafe’s client acquisition will be due to the promotion in various countries directly, it will be essential to recruit markers in these countries to take up positions in the various countries with regards to local advertisement implementation and sales in a marketing campaign at the grassroots. Lib Cafe will use various promotional and advertising channels. These are the posting of flyers in various campuses, inserts and adverts in local and regional newspapers, direct mailing, advertisement at shopping malls, distribution of marketing items, advertisement in care-packages and booths during university opening week, registration with search engines, and links on websites regularly visited by book enthusiasts (Kerzner 19). In addition, the company will use traditional media like TV, radio, magazines, and direct mailings, banner ads, indoor billboards, as well as part sponsorship of select community events. Product Information Lib Cafe seeks to offer functionality that lets clients trade used textbooks. Textbook exchange is a functionality that will allow them to post textbooks on the internet for trade or that they wish to buy, as well as tell on the book’s condition. Those clients who are searching for used books can do so in their local area as well as in the region that Lib Cafe will be operating in. They will pay a fee if they want to post textbooks, which may vary based on what they want for the book. Textbook categories will include business, accounting, law, history, engineering, marketing, computer science, political science, and physics. Another product that the site will offer is auction functionality, whose features will include proxy bidding, flash buy, Dutch and Blind auctions, Multi item, and standard reverse. The functionality will have a structure of posting fees that will be similar to those on eBay with categories that include furnishings, games, electronics, tickets, old tests, class notes, and textbooks (Kerzner 54). The site will also offer classified functionality with charges based on the classifieds’ length of time. This functionality will include for rent, apartment wanted, tutors, for hire, and others. Finally, there will be retail functionality where the site will sell target products to clients. Sample product categories here include clothes, furnishings, games, appliances, electronics, and books among others. The service will work in various ways. These are managing customer accounts (opening/updating/cancelling), managing products portfolio (adding/deleting or activating/deactivating), managing payments/subscriptions (transaction notifications / renewals / reminders), providing suggestions and recommendations (based on user’s purchases/subscriptions/searches), and providing reports on different activities for monitoring purposes Management Team Amir Kahn; Chief Technical Officer and Web Developer With approximately ten years of experience in programming, engineering, and sales; he has been successful in several start-up companies and holds an MBA in E-commerce and Computer IS, as well as a Bsc Degree in electrical engineering. Kelly McLaughlin: Marketing and Online User Experience With over five years of experience in online branding, interactive space, and user experience design, she also holds a Bsc. Degree and direction training from the United States Woodruff School. Jasmine Ali: Marketing and Communications Ms. Ali possesses over five years of experience, and she has worked for major organizations in the Middle East and Western Europe. She comes with vast knowledge sales, PR, employee communication, technology marketing, and interactive communications. She is also knowledgeable in project management, web management, concept strategy, client need analysis, and interpersonal relationships. Mohammed Abu-Bakr: Advisor With over ten years of experience in business and technology systems integration and having worked for small startups and major organizations, he will bring network design experience to the company. He also has an MBA and a BBA in computer IS and Management Science. Works Cited Carey, Jane. Human factors in information systems. An organizational perspective. Norwood : Ablex Pub. Corp., 2011. Print. Kerzner, Harold. Advanced Project Management: Best Practices on Implementation. Hoboken : Wiley, 2009. Print. Kerzner, Harold. Project Management : Case Studies. Hoboken: Wiley, 2013. Print. Mercer, David. Building online stores with osCommerce : beginner edition : step by step introduction to osCommerce. Birmingham : Packt Pub., 2010. Print. Read More