Wiggly Wigglers - Essay Example

?Introduction According to research, small firms have the potential to make significant contributions to economic growth and development. This is possible especially with the current improvement in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Several small firms in the world value the existence of internet. Availability of the internet and several other current technologies enable the companies to perform their operations faster and effectively. The size of the firm, resource availability, technological and operational shortfalls dictates the type of technology a firm requires. Despite adoption of technology contributing positively to the organization, most firms have not utilised the potential benefits. Therefore, small firms and even researchers themselves should consider the factors hindering and those enabling adoption of wide range of technology to enable them make informed decisions on technology adoption. Wiggly Wigglers is a point of reference on benefits derived from adopting technology. Wiggly Wigglers gained immensely after adopting new technologies. Wiggly Wigglers is a natural gardening company which was founded by Heather Gorringe in 1990. It is located in a farm in the rural Blakmere, Herefordshire. According to Heather Gorringe, they live in a village with a total of 63 people only. She says that the cows in their farm are three times more compared to the total number of people. The company being careful in handling the land, the surrounding community and the environment, it produces eco-friendly products. These include: eco-friendly homeware, plants and worm composting kits. They are keen to work with the environment and not against it. The small company gets motivation, ideas and directions which assist consumers to be part of the solution and not part of the damage, when it deals with various environmental products, such as gardening and recycling. The success of the company has been attributed to adoption of new technology at the early stages. The company came up with its own website in 1995. This included validation of the company’s address. Heather Gorringe admits that the company has been able to expand through various services which are internet based. She admitted that she has always been impressed by technology and that she has a great passion for it. The company has witnessed growth even through the recession. This is because the company did not invest in an internal information technology infrastructure but embraced already existing information communication infrastructure such as the social media and services available on the internet which was of great advantage to the company. According to Bunzel, social media overcomes the barriers which exist between marketing and training. Social media assist large organizations and small businesses as well as the entrepreneurs to communicate different messages that drive sales in companies or portray positive image (goodwill) about the entity. The company’s founder Ms Gorringe began to explore earnestly the social media in September 2005. This was the period when she travelled to London to attend a podcasting conference. She was ever determined to find various innovative ways which could help boost her company. Her greatest desire was to reach out to greater audience about their existing products through broadcasting. Most people had the concern for organic gardening but most lacked adequate content. It was while at the conference that she fully understood about podcasting potential. She wanted to be independent on the issues to discuss. She was aware that to be able to sell she had to find an opportunity to give more explanation concerning the company’s products. Therefore, social media became the best tool to interact with her customers and other interested people. Social media enabled customers to purchase flowers online from the company. The company was able to persuade all its potential customers through the internet that its bouquets of English origin were of quality and worth buying. Selling worms was one of the most challenging tasks the company experienced. This is because sale of worms could not be done on conventional advertising media such as the radio. However, the company managed to sell the worms through the internet (online) because podcasts gave adequate room for the seller and buyer to interact adequately. Heather Gorringe realised that podcasting was an effective and efficient way of making sales. Cost was minimal and customers understood the message extremely well. High levels of sales were greatly attributed to use of facebook and podcasting because the two media are as social as the products themselves. Furthermore, through podcasting wiggly wigglers company managed to introduce one to many conversations. This enables different listeners to experiences a one to one conversation. According to Barnes, wiggly wigglers company has remained motivated in embracing technology. It became the best gardening podcast in the first annual mouse and towel awards in early 2007. When the award was introduced, a US blogger was disappointed that garden bloggers were being ignored. The dissatisfied blogger tried to challenge bloggers who were ignoring garden bloggers. Luckily through the award, Wiggly wigglers team was able to introduce a country living magazine in the UK and managed to post the podcast. Through this, the company benefited as sales hit the roof because they were able to offer valuable information to the farmers and company’s fair-trade was promoted to a wider audience. Courtesy of the latest technology, the Company is able to connect with their current customers who are based in different places, and are able to find new ones. The company is known to serve 90,000 of its customers worldwide and have the potential to supply its various products across Europe. Internet advertising is cost effective and the company has kept its advertising budget at the minimum. This is because the company reduced its advertising cost by 80 percent when the company abolished its traditional advertising and introduced the social media. The company has attracted several facebook fans, the current number being 898, and normally over 170 discussions topics are conducted online by the company daily. Using their Wiggly sofa, the Company is known to host 50 weekly podcast on average. This way the company is able to reach out to several listeners in a given week. It was rated the favourite gardening podcast by San Francisco Chronicle readers. While using the Wiki information which was generated by the company’s customers and experts, the company managed to create its own catalogue. According to Solis and Kutcher, wikis design enables those who access a given site to add, edit and amend information while using any given web browser. Wikis enables a company to collaborate with its employees, consumers and influencers. In addition, Wikis provides a vibrant forum where customers and even partners get a chance to give various content and suggestions. It improves ideas in a current fashion, which can be easily scaled and measured. The low cost of the social media used by Wiggly Wigglers sets the company apart. There are several vital tools which she mentioned, this include postcode look-up. She admits that before adopting the postcode look-up into their internal systems, they were faced with various challenges. They had problems with the carrier company as their addresses were not sensible, their mails often bounced back and postcodes were frequently incorrect. This was mainly because it did not appear in the carrier company system. Before adopting the current technology, the company had several mistakes to handle and problems to solve. This was a great trouble as it was even difficult to get some the parcels out. It was impossible for the company to blame a given department for the inaccurate addresses. However, due to adoption of postcode anywhere everything in the company began to run smoothly. With postcode look-up, the address data becomes fresh, accurate and cost effective. This is because it is web-based and can be used everywhere where there is internet connection, whether at home or office. The company is experiencing efficiency in terms of entering the company’s records in the database. What initially was being done in several weeks is being handled in few hours. In addition, inclusion of address auto-fill to an online checkout or even to an in-house database takes the shortest time possible. The cost of losing and replacing packages is minimised by the elimination of poor addressed data. In Wiggly Wigglers, accuracy is crucial. This is because misplacing even one digit creates a big difference since it will cause unnecessary delays and sometimes non deliveries. Timeliness is very important and misplacement of given digits may bring about wasted round trip. In addition, delay in various deliveries to the customers may cause increased charges of delivery and reputation of the company suffers irreparably. Wiggly Wigglers Company managed to be recognised and awarded during the 2008 Global Dell Small Business Excellence Award. The company was awarded for its leadership and innovation in the social media industry. In a press conference in New York, the company was announced the winner and it received $50,000 technology award. This had a positive influence on the company as it was brought to the international limelight. The 2008 Global Dell Small Business Excellence Award improved the reputation of the company. This was evident when the company received congratulatory messages from its many bloggers and podcasters. With the help of technology, people all over the world can know all that is produced in the company including the price for each product. They can also inquire the company’s delivery services available and its costs. For those in the UK, the company uses their standard delivery service, which stipulates that all dispatched orders should reach its clients within 3 to 5 working days. However, the company offers priority, dispatch services meant for those who want the goods in the shortest time possible at higher price. The delivery of the company is also convenient in that an individual does not have to wait for goods to arrive as one’s signature is not required. Delivery of bird’s food, fresh flowers and those with gift vouchers are eligible for free delivery. In addition, customers who order goods worth ?60 and above are entitled to free delivery. The cost of delivery of other orders despite how bulky or large they are is ?4.25 per order. Timely delivery is also available at an extra cost. These include deliveries on Saturdays and on weekdays during morning hours and in the afternoon. For overseas deliveries they are charged at a cost, the company contact overseas customers immediately when they make an order for them to give advice concerning the cost of delivery. All this vital information is available online at the customer’s disposal. It is convenient for the clients who are window shopping and trying to compare prices. Online customer reviews are also very important for the company. They will get to know of the customer’s complements and criticism and correct wrongs noted immediately. According to, IT magazines, most companies who focus to remain innovative during the difficult times have advantage when the economy improves. Wiggly wigglers in the past have managed to distribute over a thousand leads in a month. The company is also keen on utilising customer’s online feedback in order to improve on the wide range of production. Conclusion The decision for small firms to adopt the new technology has been attributed to the influence of different factors which include innovative, organizational and even environmental. Through adoption of technology by wiggly wigglers has proved that small firms have the potential to compete and have equal opportunities with the biggest companies. All it requires is small firms to have proper and innovative technology. Bibliography 1. Barnes, L 2007, Podcasting for Profit: A Proven 7-Step Plan to Help Individuals and Businesses Generate Income Through Audio and Video Podcasting, Maximum Press, 2. Bunzel, T 2010, Communicating, Training and Learning in the Web 3.0 World, John Wiley and Sons, USA. 3. Clapperton, G 2009, This is Social Media: Tweet, Blog, Link and Post Your Way to Business Success, John Wiley and Sons, USA. 4. Solis, B & Kutcher, A 2010, Engage!: the complete guide for brands and businesses to build, cultivate, and measure success in the new web, John Wiley and Sons, USA. 5. Stewart, S 2011, Wiggly Wigglers podcasts dish the dirt on gardening, viewed 20 March, 2011, . 6. Twentyman, J 2009, ‘IT role model: Online network helps make the garden grow’, Financial Times, March 11, viewed 20 March, 2011, . 7. Zimmerman, J & Shalin, D 2010, Social Media Marketing All-in-One For Dummies, For Dummies, USA. Read More