Business Enterprise Planning
Different countries have laws and regulations governing different businesses unique to the country and business type. Usually, the laws are meant to protect consumers regarding the quality of products and services, safety, information, and pricing. In Saudi, a draft of E-commerce laws was introduced in 2014 to protect users and support the growth of e-commerce in the country (Al-Ghaith, Sanzogni & Sandhu, 2010). The laws are in regards to merchant information, consumer protection, advertisements and delivery.
The first e-commerce law requires businesses to include their website in their registration certificate (Cdn.stepfeed.com, 2016). The website must contain such information as physical address, contacts and registration certificate number. A contact telephone line that will be accessible 24 hours a day is on the website. The second law, which focuses on consumer protection, requires the company to indicate terms and conditions of service on the website, product information and their respective prices and indicate whether there are extra charges on delivery or special deliveries. With regards to this law, a list of the products we will be dealing in is already on the website with their respective prices. In the case of any additional charges in special cases, it will be communicated to the customer before delivery. The law requires the company not to keep personal information for customers longer than required. The company should not share such information to third parties. Smiles for Miles will keep customer information until the gifts have been delivered and payment made. Once the transaction has been completed successfully, we will safely discard the information. The law also requires the company to not to infringe on trademarks, stipulate duration for advertising, the products to be advertised. Smiles for Miles will advertise their products on social media for the first three months with pictures of all our products displayed. We will use our suppliers’ trademarks with their consent since we plan to do a collaborative business where we get the gifts from already existing companies on contract basis. We also lease a trademark by the help of our attorney who will help us in making sure that the trademark registration met all the requirements by the law.
How the Business will deal with various Legal Items
Intellectual property
Intellectual property laws protect property that is not tangible like copyright, patent, trademark, and software (Saudi Ecommerce, 2016). Our company is aware of the rising cases of software piracy in Saudi Arabia due to the rapid growth of the information technology industry in the country. We are also aware of how software piracy can hurt the finances of a company, especially our company that is just starting up (Al-Ghaith, Sanzogni & Sandhu, 2010). For this reason, we will abide by the intellectual property laws by creating a website that is exclusive and unique to our products and services in the country. We will acquire the software by either contracting or buying from only licensed company to avoid cases of piracy.
Trademarking
Trademarks are regulated by Royal Decree No. M/21 of 28th Jumada 1423 Heijra ("Saudilegal: Intellectual Property", 2016). This law requires that all trademark applications must be made to the Trademarks Office of the Commerce and Industry Ministry. The law lists all the requirements for trademark application which must be met. Our company will do research about leasing a trademark which we will use for the first ten years as we get acquainted with the state laws (Business and Design, 2012). In leasing, we will use an attorney to ensure that the trademark we lease met all the requirements as stipulated by the trademark regulations during registration.
Franchising
Franchising is popular in Saudi Arabia and may be appropriate for our business since we intend to enter into a contract with existing businesses where will be getting the various products we will offer to our customers (Al-Ghaith, Sanzogni & Sandhu, 2010). However, in the first six months, we will consider just getting products from these businesses since we expect to serve a small number of customers-500 only. Later on, after the business picks and after we have acquainted ourselves with the Saudi Arabian laws in regards to entering a franchise agreement, we will adopt it.
Equal employment opportunity
Saudi laws governing employment are presented in Royal Decree No. M/51 of 23rd Sha’ban 1426 Hejra ("Saudilegal: Employment Law", 2016). The law requires that 75% of employees of a company must be Saudi citizens, except when in cases where they are unavailable due to lack of expertise or are not qualified academically. Our company is aware of this law that is why we abide by it. Besides, the Saudi nationals are the ones familiar with the laws and policies governing business operations in their country (AlGhamdi, Drew & AlFaraj, 2011). They are also familiar with most of the places where we may need to deliver gifts. It is appropriate that we employ Saudi nationals for smooth operations. We will also offer equal opportunities for both men and women since there are no restrictions regarding employing Saudi women.
Technological Applications
Being an online business, our company is exclusively technological except for deliveries. This means that at times we may never meet some of our customers in person. Smiles for Miles website will our official online store where customers can shop from. We will apply information management system to get and store information about our customers on the website. We will also provide contact information of the company and the personal shopper. Such information will be useful in customer service and support (Al-Hudhaif & Alkubeyyer, 2011). We will upload pictures of the gifts, wrappers and the final wrapped gifts chosen by customers on the website. We will also use email in communicating with the customer about the progress of gift and delivering, and sending reminder emails on their preferred dates. Depending on how the customer wants to be reached, we may use or phone both. We may also coach the customers who are not sure about the perfect gift on the choice of gifts through email. We will also adopt social media advertising strategy where we will share our website on the major social media platforms; Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to create awareness and promote our products and company to potential customers. We will use the social media as a means of getting and giving feedback from/to our customers and doing forecasts about customers, consumers and the preferred gifts by customers. We will use cameras for taking photos for gifts, wrappers and wrapped gifts which we will later display on our website.
References
Al-Ghaith, W., Sanzogni, L., & Sandhu, K. (2010). Factors influencing’ the adoption and usage of online services in Saudi Arabia. EJISDC: The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries, (40), 1.
AlGhamdi, R., Drew, S., & AlFaraj, O. (2011). Issues influencing Saudi customer’s decisions to purchase from online retailers in the KSA: A qualitative analysis. European Journal of Scientific Research, 55(4), 580-593.
AlGhamdi, R., Nguyen, J., Nguyen, A., & Drew, S. (2012). Factor(s) influencing e-commerce adoption by retailers in Saudi Arabia: A quantitative analysis. International Journal of Electronic Commerce Studies, 3(1), 83.
Al-Hudhaif, S., & Alkubeyyer, A. (2011). E-commerce adoption factor(s) in Saudi Arabia. International Journal of Business and Management, 6(9), 122.
Business, D. and Design, D.B., 2012. Doing Business. The World Bank. 2012a. http://www. doingbusiness. org/about—us.
Saudi Ecommerce (2016). Cdn.stepfeed.com. Retrieved 15 April 2016, from https://cdn.stepfeed.com/uploads/2015/02/09145031/Saudi_Ecommerce_Law_EN.compressed.jpg
Saudilegal: Employment Law. (2016). Saudilegal.com. Retrieved 15 April 2016, from http://www.saudilegal.com/saudilaw/17_law.html
Saudilegal: Intellectual Property. (2016). Saudilegal.com. Retrieved 15 April 2016, from http://www.saudilegal.com/saudilaw/16_law.html
