After being invited and reviewing the current issues of OceanICT, I am really interested to use my knowledge and expertise on behalf of my consultancy firm; who believes in Bering the best out of small companies and guiding them towards success.
First I would like to list the issues OceanICT is facing at the moment and the possible outcomes of them in the long run. For making sure that the company wont face these issues in the future, they need a very good plan which I feel can be achieved by making an strategic plan, in where there will be all the key features OceanICT wants to achieve and a clear guideline for them with a list of thing they need to do and how exactly they should follow and maintain all the aspect of the plan.
Let's first briefly discuss about the current issue which OceanICT is facing:
Shifting into a new premise as a result of expansion.
The problems sales staffs are facing in terms of travelling.
The proposition of R&D staff to work away from office.
The ignorance of some good engineering practice by the software staff due to overload of work.
The resignation of the software manager and joining to a rival company.
The proposal by the senior management to develop an essential company web site in order to ensure e-business.
It looks like the company has going through a lot of changes this time and the good old practice where they are expert in may be getting out of the way or getting less consideration. I think the company need to fix these issues for a long term and for doing that I would like to set some key points which OceanICT need to bare in mind and ensure a well practice of them for the next four years. To make it more specific, I would like to introduce a Strategic plan for the company.
OceanICT, Strategic plan for the upcoming years 2011-2015:
Increase the profit by 25% (Expand customer base through sales call, increase the marketing budget to 10% as the business is growing and having a bigger place than before)
Increase the staff by 10% by hiring full time staff with a contract for at least for two years for different department including 5% increase of software staffs for the next four years.
Add 2000sft space for the additional employees and set up small office for the sales staff in a different area.
Design and establish a fully functional website for the e-business in order to increase the sales by 20%.
Additionally, developed separate company website with live video conferencing facility and online chat facility for the employees to log in from remote places and update their work.
Decrease absenteeism by 25% and offer £150 annual bonus for perfect attendance.
Possible solution to the problems the company is facing:
Before going to the main discussion, let's see the main issues OceanICT needs to be solved as soon as possible and the potential solutions.
The issue with the R&D staff are facing and where they want to work away from office and want a company web-site where they can remotely log inn and update their work which may could save a great deal of time and cost. At the same time the company can use this website to do handle the e-commerce for there potential target small companies. At the same time the sales staff can use this site to update their work as well and the customer service can be given by live video chat and live online chat.
At the same time, customer can leave their feedback which could help the business to priories the development needs to be done in order to satisfy the customers and future development of their products.
It is looking like; building a web-site can solve the most of the problems OceanICT is facing at the moment. I would look into few things need to be considered before fixing the final design of the web-site.
[Source: http://www.hooverwebdesign.com/articles/how-to-create-an-ecommerce-empire.html]
Establish an identity, a right domain name or URL which can make a difference of the company among the other e-commerce URL and will solve the problem to get lost in the online crowed.
Previously I have consulted with few of the senior manager and all of them agree with www.oceanict.com.
Purchase and set up the web server for OceanICT.
Building an attractive storefront where the guidelines will be helpful for the uses of the web-site (both customers and the employees).
Link "About the Company" with all the information about the Company, name logo, addresses and phone numbers.
A site menu listing all the attributes of the web-site and in all the pages the menu will remain in the same place.
A "what's New" selection for new and announcement about the product and promotion and ensure that this area is updated regularly.
The privacy statement which describe the business policy and the policy to protect the customer's information.
Ensure the security of user's information by setting up a SSL server id which can protect customer information and a secure way of payments by credit or debit cards with a very simple way.
Add the to some engines, directories, spam-free ffa pages and guest books to ensure the promotion of the website.
Keep the download speed short which mean I have to use less graphic which may be able to slow the page to download.
Make it simple so there will be less number of clicks for buy and checkout.
An employee area where the employee can log in from different pc's and can join to online chat, can send e-mails and can see the list of employee online and can chat with them.
Recommended design of the e-commerce website for OceanICT:
By looking into the aspect of the company and its aspiration I will recommend OceanICT the following design on the next page.
Fig: Design of e-commerce website for OceanICT, Design: Own.Image Source: http://www.solcomhouse.com/images/Van_Halen_-_Van_Halen-cd.jpg, http://www.shopmaker.co.uk/
In the website the" live video chat" features is a highly secure staff interface which will allow them to login to the intranet to remotely login to update their work and carry out e-meetings via video conferencing links with remote clients. These sections will Bering a great deal of advantages for the company to communicate easily with their clients and customers.
The benefits of having live online chat are as follows:
The company's R&D staff can work from home computers and they can update thre work from there and where the software staff can have a look to their work and finalize their department task. This process will save a great deal of time for the R&D staff to come to the office only to submit their research and as there is a concern of traffic problem in the office area they don't have to travel frequently to the main office. This could save the cost of the company as well.
The sales staff can use the online video conferencing facility to the remote clients where they may have to travel to these customers home and they can demonstrate the benefits of using the OceanICT software in contraction and designing the project. It will be a very convenient for the customer as well where they can have the same meetings but in a more interactive way and their quires can be answered instantly and again, as the sales staff spent a lot of time in travelling, that problem will be solved as well.
In the future if the company expand to other cities or prospectively in other domain, the official meeting will be more convenient for the management.
The customer service and maintenance staff can solve customer problems online where they may had to travel to the customer's office. At the same time the potential customer who wants to buy softwares from OceanICT may will have a chance to speak to the company assistant to understand their service where they may previously use to make phone calls; video conferencing will make it more inactive to them and will allow the company staff to discuss more detail as the conversation will be more like face to face. Where half of the sales staff's job will be done.
The customer enquiry system:
Providing the right information to the right customer and the after sales service is a biggest challenge for any company. A company may be expert in sales but there main performance lies in the expertise of retaining the customers and as a growing business OceanICT will always keep that in mind and will try and put all their effort to ensure that their customer's problems are solved and the there is a quick reply to enquires and possible solution to the problems. The "customer enquiries" will allow the customers to solve their problem online.
In "FAQ" section there will be all possible answers of the previously raised problems and the solutions. where customers can chose from a list of questions and the possible solution to them and again if the question is not enough for their problems, they will ask to have an option to chat to a customer service officer online and they will try to solve there problem by ringing their system. In this area there will be some assistant software where customer can easily troubleshot their softwares themselves and find the solutions from the website.
For technical enquires, customer can take help of the technical experts who will be available on request to have video conferencing for upgrades and some maintenance.
Additionally, there is another option for the new users of the OceanICT softwares, the "Demonstrations" area. This area is mainly designed with the necessary videos to explain the way company's software works and the screenshot of the task required to run the software successfully. All they need to do is select the right software serial numbers but in here the software which is specifically designed for companies may not be found. In that case the customer has to contact with the customer service team.
A customer who wants to buy online, they can make their payment by major credit or debit cards. If there is any problem arises for ordering and payments, they can take help of the customer enquiry area where the customer service team will give them the necessary guidelines and tips to buy online from OceanICT website.
This system will also allow customer to disubscribe from OceanICT service and with a option to leave their feedback and if they still want to receive the company's newsletters or latest offer they can register their name here and receive those information.
If any customer wants to receive a company catalogue they just can leave their company name and full address and the purpose of the enquiry here and the system will automatically notify the right department to send catalogue to their provided address.
The plan of the website has done and previously I discussed about the major functions of the website but the most important part is the cost of doing all these activities. As OceanICT is not a big business in the market, their budget is not very big for the project but because of the mass potential of having a big market and increase in sales, the company is ready to spend enough money to make this project successful.
To measure a set up and development and maintenance cost the board of managers are called for a meeting to discuss about the potential cost for the project of building the website and they come across a outcome, which is as follows:
Set up and Development cost:
The following is the cost breakdown for setting up [source: www.oceanict.com.]
Domain Name: This is the basic in creating the website and there is no other substitute of this. As the price varies from register to register at this point of time the cost can be around £100 for per year. [http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/registerdomain.shtml]
Web Hosting: There is a monthly fee which needs to be paid to the web host. The price varies from web host to web host but it can be £100 a month.
Graphic Designing Cost: Graphic design is one of the major cost which needed to be considered and by reviewing many web provider's site, it would be £399.
Cost continues: with the help of an online website designing site we will try to take an idea about some other costs.
C:\Users\jahaji\Mutimidia\Desktop\price-comparison-chart2-1024x288.jpg
Fig: example of set up and development cost, source: http://www.murrion.ie/murmurs/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/price-comparison-chart2-1024x288.jpg
Conclusion:
The price of designing the website may vary but so far the mentioned price is looking convenient for OceanICT to go for. In the long run they can upgrade their website and which can produce a more improved website with lot more feature and a attracting to the customer and bring more revenue for the company.
