Executive Summary
Will Bury enterprises, is an organization that deals with the digitization of books through a technology developed and patented its entrepreneur Will Bury. This technology creates a file of the book, which gives an option of listening to the book with a realistic human voice or just reading it digitally; an exercise Will does on his own. Will is well aware of the technological advancements changing every possible data to its digital form and is confident that this business will thrive with time. He plans to pace up the transformation with his proprietary technology, which digitizes up to 500 pages of English per hour. The free access to toll free books that are not copyright protected makes his production cost be on the low, however for the copyrighted books he pays $5 per title. The competition in the business is high with key players such as the; Amazon, e-bay and other eminent online sellers, Will have to fight harder in this trade and make more sales. With a good business proposal, this will definitely be achieved.
The extensive growth of mobile devices as well as the increase in the amounts of information that flows through communication channels such as the e-mail, messaging services and social networks gives Will’s enterprises a rather competitive advantage. Over the years, many institutions of learning are adopting correspondence learning; where students can pursue their dream courses offered by institution away from home from their homes. In this case, digitized books come in handy as not all books will be found in all corners of this world in their printed forms. This factor combined with the convenience that comes with reduced space, the headache of book keeping, numbering and maintenance provides Will with a great opportunity to invest more in his business (McConnell et.al, 2009). His plan to expand his catalogue will require that he execute a business plan that sees continued revenue growth and reduced operating costs.
Introduction
Will Bury, the entrepreneur of Will Bury enterprises is not new to the information technology world, having worked at High Tech Digital Industries. It is when at High Tech that Will invented a garage operation of book digitization technology an invention which he may well decide to take up and devote his time to. With the consideration that he will be leaving a secure job with a good salary and benefits through which he is able to keep his family comfortable, he has to weigh various decisions before he can eventually make up his mind how to determine the applications of his technology. By so doing he will concentrate more on his invention, improve on it and probably increase his revenue growth, which he hopes to achieve. His organization will deal with the digitization of books through his already developed and patented technology (McConnell et.al, 2009). Will finds himself faced with some problems such as:
Inadequacy to determine all the applications for his technology
Inadequacy to demand for his software
Challenge in pricing of the audio books
Modes of delivering the books to his customers
Acquisition of books to be digitally transformed and scanned into his digitizer
How to hire the right workforce that will work best to give optimum output
Insufficient business skills
Training costs
Trends of audio books sales in the market
The group of people to target as his customers
These factors when tackled and solutions to them found will help Will to be more confident in investing his time and money into his business. The fact that he has identified a business in which he understands well and which he has passion for means he will smoothly run the enterprise and attend to technical matters immediately, which is a plus for him.
2. Proposed Solution
One of the greatest and most important and easy way that Will Bury can adopt to reach more customers is through online selling. By so doing Will, will reach a larger customer base as many people all over the world have easy access to the internet and are willing to buy. By posting on social networks in which many people to communicate through lately and blogging, he can reach more people. The fact that he has already developed his websites makes it easier as he can create direct links to his webpage, suggest to his friends and create pages on the network, which is cheaper. The bottom line is letting people know what he is doing by creating awareness after which those who buy will recommend to others which works through psychological selling.
Making his website more user friendly with better graphic design as well as updating it regularly could go a long way. As much as many people find the thought of buying online unusual; a clear, grammatically checked and well-designed webpage is worth checking out. The images of his CDs, bullets, display texts, logos etc can be displayed attractively and be of good quality.
About pricing of his books, pricing too low or too high can be detrimental to his business. Looking for the prices that his competitors are selling the same books for can help him determine his price range. He can drop the price by a dollar or two to attract customers. Alternatively, he can price equally but give discounts on the numbers of sales made. Because sometimes placing a product too low on the price margin can pose as being counterfeit according to some buyers. As part of the pricing considering pricing such as $19.99, $14.79 as opposed to $20, $15 respectively can see increased sales (Ball, 2009).
Getting a suitable work force is lurid for every employer. To get the appropriate workers for him he can create advertise for the positions he is willing to offer. Linking his website to direct job searches on Google, ask.com and other search machines would be of help. Considering candidates who are multi-lingual would also be advantageous to aide in expanding his catalogue.
As a way to keep his customers and make them feel appreciated; on time calls, return emails and replies on social media are a key. Calling especially to address concerns will see increased customer loyalty. By so doing specific needs can be addressed to via complains and compliments made.
Creating applications in his technology, which allows for the conversion of the narrator’s voice to sound exactly the same as the book’s author would make him to create a barrier in the market thus monopolizing the book digitization markets through product differentiation. Venturing into direct contracts by authors and book publishers where he is hired to digitize books before they are released such that the book is sold is together with the CD. This could be an added cost but could be worth trying as it would sell more compared to the generically produced e-books.
Considering to digitize other than books, other write ups such as journals, articles, minutes of meetings, papers, proposals etc. would be a good venture as they would be shorter to make and a new concept that would be easily sold. By so doing Will Bury will have targeted a larger audience who do not have enough time to peruse through all the pages as well those who are visually impaired.
3. The Benefits
Through the above-proposed solution Will Bury, enterprises can reach more customers while as the same time increase the revenue at reduced operating costs through leverage social media (Pugel, 2009). Through advertisements and blogging; clients through their comments can request to have specific books digitized which means that Will Bury gets to study what books to digitize more depending on the demand.
4. Costs
Reference list
Ball, L. M. (2009). Money, banking, and financial markets. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
McConnell, C. R., Brue, S. L., & Flynn, S. M. (2009). Economics: Principles, problems, and policies (18th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Pugel, T. A. (2009). International economics (14th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Brian Tracy (Mar 15, 2004). Advanced Selling Strategies: The Proven System Practiced by Top Sales people. Simon & Schuster Ltd.
