Abstract
Ever since the internet was made available for public use in 1991, its popularity has increased manifold in the years that followed. In fact two of the most prominent landmark events during the 1990s that clearly demarcated two eras of the modern world are the advent of worldwide web and the idea of globalization. With the internet getting increasingly accessible to a much wider section of the population, along with improvement in speed, its applications started increasing and currently touches almost every aspect of our lives. In U.S. alone, the number of internet users per 100 people witnessed an exponential increase from just 1.2 in 1991 to 87.4 in 2016 as estimated by the World Bank . The deeper penetration of internet in a globalized economy shrunk the world into one single large global market, where the virtual distance between the nations became nil and companies, once focused on local or national markets started churning out products for the global market. It is estimated that in 2013 alone, the global B2C e-commerce transactions clocked more than $ 1.2 trillion . It can be said with utmost impunity that having a website these days is a must for businesses, big or small in order to better serve their customers. Whether for e-commerce or not depends on the nature of the business and the strategy of the organization.
This research paper focusses on an automobile workshop- ‘CAREZ’ that caters to the end-to-end repairing and detailing needs of its target customers.
Internet Business Model
CAREZ, the sole proprietorship shop has decided to go for an interactive website, where the customers can get in touch with the company through live chat and call options. Customers can enquire about repairs, road side assistance, car wash, accessory recommendations, tuning options and other technical doubts pertaining to their vehicle either through chat or phone call. They will also have the convenience of making a prior booking before taking the vehicle to the workshop. Buttons directing the customers to the Facebook, LinkedIn and WhatsApp pages of the company will be provided on the website which provides the customers with additional options to interact with the workshop administration and mechanics. The website will also have the option to provide feedback after each completed interaction with the customer. Other services offered and listed in the website include pick-up and delivery, insurance renewals, vehicle consultation etc.
Benefits of Website
The benefits of maintaining a website, even though for a single location large auto garage is immense. Firstly, it helps in gaining immense visibility to the shop. This helps the workshop in gaining interests from potential customers, not limited to its neighborhood, but from distant locations as well. Secondly, the website helps the business to list its entire range of service offerings. Important point to be taken care is the proper presentation and listing of the services under appropriate categories and ease of search for a visitor. Thirdly, the website provides a platform for the garage to interact with the customer and provide the customer with various options to reach back. The fourth benefit is in linking the customer to the social media platforms like Facebook which provides the company with an excellent venue for real time interaction with the customer. Fifth, the company can use the website as a medium to announce the new services added, discounts, loyalty programs etc. In short, the envisioned website for CAREZ will take care of the entire supporting functions like sales, marketing, customer support etc.
Other Benefits of Internet and the Website
A few of the other potential benefits for CAREZ include-
Business tie-ups: The garage can enter into a tie-up with OEM companies and provide their products/services to its customers at attractive rates
Collaboration with insurance and legal houses: Similar to the tie-ups mentioned above, the workshop can rope in insurance and legal offices to provide their services to the customers of the workshop at discounted rates.
Advertisement revenue: Depending on the traffic, the workshop can gather revenue by selling advertisement spots on their web page to other automobile business houses.
Customer care: The workshop can use their website to trigger automatic emails and messages to its clientele to up keep the relationship and ensure brand recall.
Website Functional Specification
The following is the functional specification for the website -
Company Overview: ‘CAREZ’ is a sole proprietorship multi-brand workshop catering to the end-to-end car repair and detailing needs of the customers. The name depicts soothing care to your car and the vision of the company is to create an everlasting impression on its customers with their expertise in car care. Currently, the company is based out of a single location and employs twenty resources that include floor managers, technicians, administrators, customer care representatives, accounting professionals and helpers.
Goals and Site structure: The website should be capable of enabling customer profile creation and log-in sessions, educating the customer on the services offered, fix prior appointments, interact with the consultants and technicians, both over chat and phone, provide feedback on the services received, provide links to the OEM websites, get the service cost estimates, self-repair guides, good driving and car maintenance guides and emailing and messaging options. The data from the website should be integrated to a data warehousing and business intelligence solution which will analyze the data. It should also be integrated with the accounting and operations software to enable creation of customer loyalty programs and accounting purposes.
Target Market: The target market include customers from the neighborhood, adjacent towns and inter-state highway drivers.
Technical Specifications: The following are the technical functionalities that the website should perform-
References: Some of the key competitor website referenced include-
http://www.entirecarcare.com/
http://www.carcare.org/
http://www.joesautocare.net/
Technological Specifications
Hardware Requirements:
The required hardware to support the website development include-
Computer: Most of the modern day desktops and laptops have the required specification needed for this exercise. A minimum of 2GB RAM should be ensured for pulling along with heavy programs like photo editors
Internet: A high speed internet connection is required as hosting the website onto the server involves transfer of files and constant updates.
Back Up: It is advisable to keep a backup of all the web files at least once in a month to keep the repository intact as it may find useful, in the event of a site crash. An external hard drive or a DVD can be used to take the backup.
Server: It is optional as the website can be hosted on third party servers. This should be the preferred mode, especially for startups and small business houses, as this will free them up from the task of maintaining a server in their premises with a dedicated staff to run it. Otherwise, the ideal specification for the server would be 2 GB RAM, 2 GHz dual-core processor and 250 GB hard disk.
Software Requirements:
Web Creation software : Some of the design software and languages that can be considered include XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, Microsoft Front Page, Adobe Dreamweaver etc. For server side programming the recommended technologies are PHP, ASP, .Net, ColdFusion, Perl, JSP, SQL etc.
Graphic Editing: To edit graphs and pictures in the website, software such as Adobe Photoshop, Photo Studio, CorelDraw etc.
Databases: Some of the popular database software include MySQL, PHP, Zoho Creator, VB .NET, Caspio etc.
References
Rogers, S. S. (2013, May 19). Website Design- Hardware and Software Tools You May Need. Retrieved from Molana News: http://www.molananews.com/website-design-hardware-software-tools/
Scott, A. (2016). What Hardware Is Needed to Build a Website? Retrieved from Opposing Views: http://science.opposingviews.com/hardware-needed-build-website-1046.html
Statista. (2015). Statistics and Market Data about E-commerce. Retrieved from Statista: http://www.statista.com/markets/413/e-commerce/
The World Bank. (2016). Internet users (per 100 people). Retrieved from data.worldbank.org: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.P2
Uwujaren, J. (2016). The Functional Specifications for Web Design. Retrieved from Chron: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/functional-specifications-design-32364.html
