Challenges Facing E-business - Case Study Example

Running Head: E-business Name Course Lecturer Date SWOT Analysis The purpose of this SWOT analysis is to gather, evaluate and analyse information as well as to identify strategic options facing the council. This SWOT analysis is a very effective way of identifying the internal factors (strength and weakness) and external factors (opportunities and threats) facing the council. Carrying out this analysis will help to focus on the areas that the council is strong and where the greatest opportunities lie. In essence, this SWOT analysis provides the bigger picture of the most important issues that affect the survival of the council as well as its prosperity in the future (Gao&Peng 2011). Strengths One of the most important strengths of city of Marion is its employees. It has employees with good internet and online reputation, they possess refined internet skill and this enables them to respond to `customer queries very quickly and in in an efficient manner. Moreover, the city has demonstrated good and successful marketing strategies, this helps in formulating the future plans of the city. The city of Marion serves its customers very well and this has enabled it to earn good reputation in Australia especially south Australia, it considers the good reputation as an asset. The city has been experiencing increasing economic growth for the last ten years; this is an indication of not only good management but also implementation of viable strategic plans. In addition, the business provides a wide range of services through various fields such as tourism, education, health, accounting and others. This helps it to diversity its income and therefore hedges its earnings against harsh economic conditions. The staff develops and builds good relationship with the customers and therefore they feel appreciated, valued and recognised by the business (Helms&Nixon 2010). This creates loyal customers. Weaknesses There are few weaknesses that city of Marion indicates, one of them is lack of real online service. There is influx of customers in the real online service looking for services but the city has not been able to fetch these customers as it does not have real online service. Moreover, it has outdated website pages with contents that are not updated. The city focuses only on the local market while neglecting the international market. It provides limited online services and information to the suppliers and customers. Also, it does not utilise the social media and advertisements in promoting its services and products (Zavadskas et al., 2011). Opportunities Marion is not facing any real competition in South Australia. It has good working relationship and cooperation with the neighbouring councils of Onkaparinga, Holdfast bay and Mitcham. The federal government invests heavily in the council and it also gets investments from the private sector as well. The council has also good external communication with the levels of federal government support. They have major stakeholders like SIEC TAFE and Flinders University. Threats There are similar projects carried out by the other councils and therefore they might attract more customers and investors and hence draw them away from the city of Mario. Recommendations The real online service is one of the most productive areas of the business, as such; it would be a viable and good idea for the city of Marion to activate and focus more on this area. They will need to update the websites and its contents regularly in order to keep their customers andsuppliers well informed and knowledgeable. It is recommendable for the city of Marion to use technology and advertisements to attract more tourists. Many customers and tourists use technology and advertisements and therefore it is good to use them in order to reach them. It should design its website to include attractive features such as videos and pictures related to its business and projects (Valentin2011). It should conduct surveys in the community in order to obtain feedback on how the customers want and look for in the websites. This would help it to improve the business page and information content. The business should use the social media presence to reach out more potential customers. It should use twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp pages directly linked to its website. Challenges Facing the Enterprise One of the major challenges that the enterprise is facing is technology concerns. Although it is well established in the market place, it is yet to embrace the current technology in its activities. This is evidenced in lack of information and outdated contents in its website. The enterprise should ensure that it incorporates the current technology to enable it to reach out and serve more customers. It does not have the necessary technological facilities and equipments. Another major challenge is financial constraints, the council is not fully self-sustainable and therefore it depends on the external support to fund it. This limits the number of projects and investment opportunities that it can utilise as it does not have enough financial resources to undertake all available investment opportunities (Kajanus et al., 2012). The external funding from the government and the private sector investors is not enough and the funding comes with strict measures and therefore the council has no full authority to invest the funds as it wishes but as the providers provides. Security is another major challenge facing the enterprise. The investment projects face several security threats ranging from natural disasters, terrorism and local violence from the community. The community may be hostile and this is a treat to the enterprise as it may fail to implement its plans for investments in such areas, this represents foregone income. The investments do not guarantee income and therefore the investors take risk in investing in council projects (Valentin2011). Another challenge for this enterprise isfluctuations of the global economy. There is downturn in the global economy due to poor performance of worldwide financial system. Customers take back seat and take reservations in spending. As compared to the past periods, the spending patterns of customers, especially tourists, have decreased considerably because they do not want to spend. In addition, the human resource lacks some necessary and essential skills to conduct real online services. The failure of the enterprise to maintain an updated website and its contents inhibits `the human resource from learning how to conduct real time online services. It is therefore important for the council to consider training its employees so as to instill them with the necessary skills and knowledge to move the business forwards. Lastly, there are many formalities and legal procedures that must be followed in undertaking projects and events (Helms&Nixon 2010). These procedures take time as they involve the scrutiny and authorisation of different parties; this provides a challenge to the city of Marion. References Gao, C, Y, &Peng, D, H, 2011, consolidating SWOT analysis with nonhomogeneous uncertain preference information, knowledge-based systems, 24(6), 796-808. Helms, M, M, &Nixon, J, 2010, Exploring SWOT analysis–where are we now?: A review of academic research from the last decade, journal of strategy and management, 3(3), 215-251. Kajanus, M, Leskinen, P, Kurttila, M, &Kangas, J, 2012, making use of MCDS methods in SWOT analysis—Lessons learnt in strategic natural resources management, forest policy and economics, 20, 1-9. Valentin, E, K, 2011, Away with SWOT analysis: use defensive/offensive evaluation instead, journal of applied business research (JABR), 21(2). Zavadskas, E, K, Turskis, Z, &Tamosaitiene, J, 2011, selection of construction enterprises management strategy based on the SWOT and multi-criteria analysis, archives of civil and mechanical engineering, 11(4), 1063-1082. Read More