Information Technology Strategic Plan
2016-06-07
Information Technology Strategic Plan
Introduction
As we know, the success of any organization depends largely on how it satisfies customers. If the customers like the quality of work and organization of the administrative staff, they will become loyal. Thus, the rate of customers’ loyalty will increase. Attracting customers are contributed by the timely execution of orders or projects, good service, reasonable pricing policy and effective business communications with customers. Not every customer is willing to spend his money immediately and conclude a profitable deal with the company. In order to increase income, the customers must be interested in the company’s goods or services. The highest level of service will allow the company to stand out from the competitors.
Today, it is not enough to have a unique product or service in order to compete successfully: the consumers want only the best products and services. Customer loyalty programs, which are developed by experts, must help the company to achieve efficient communication with customers and partners, which are directed at mutually beneficial long term relationship.
Increasing of the customer loyalty is a complex task, which involves the use of the staff motivation mechanisms in the company’s activities. Despite the fact that each employee has developed their own style of interpersonal communication with customers, staff management specialist should be sure that the level of product/service is quite high, and increases customer loyalty (Rouse, 2016).
I as a senior business consultant must analyze the current situation of the company SMART, conduct SWOT-analysis, develop strategic plans and specify its main goals and emphasize the positive impacts of the strategic plan. These points are presented in the report below.
Discussion
Introductory Statement of the Company
The company SMART specializes in wholesale and retail trade of coffee and tea. The product segments of the company include different kinds of coffee, tea, additional goods, some crockery, accessories and gift sets. The company SMART is located in city Seattle, WA, US. The permanent staff of the company includes around eighteen persons. They are employees, who work directly in the store and administrative and support staff. The company cooperates with two types of clients:
end-consumers (ordinary people, who buy products for themselves);
business units (restaurants, café, offices and others).
The organizational vision of the company is the following: to grow effectively from year to year. The company’s mission can be presented as follows: to provide all the customers with high quality goods and satisfy all their needs.
The company’s current value system includes such directions as:
customer focus;
respect for customers as well as employees;
professionalism;
teamwork and enthusiasm.
The organizational structure of the company is mixed, linear-functional. The current revenues of the company are around five million dollars per year. It is quite good result for the company in Seattle, but the company seeks to expand its activity and enter the market of neighboring states.
The company offers its customers exclusive products, and seeks to ensure the stability of the business due to peculiarities of the construction of processes of interaction with customers. One of the key components of the process of interaction with customers is the shop staff that largely influences the formation of customer loyalty.
Current Technology and Security Aspects of the Company
The total selling space of the store is 98 square meters:
47 sq m is trade area;
12 sq m is set aside for storage room,
39 sq m is for administrative and household needs.
Delivery of goods is carried out in accordance with the demand of the population and established store mandatory assortment list.
Goods in the store are classified in accordance with the variety, taste, and other parameters. The kind of the packaging also plays an important role in the selection of products by the customers. It can be both environmentally friendly paper packaging, which allows “breathe” for dry blends, or conventional plastic stylish packaging.
Store interior can be considered as original and memorable. There are designed special racks for cans of tea and coffee in the store for the company: each bank is exactly in its cell designed for it with minimum clearance. Shelves are used as storage; all products are placed in them.
Good tea and coffee, as well as spirits, require a special attitude. The customer cannot buy them just for the nice box or jar, and even more so, for the beautiful voice and the manager’s eyes. It is necessary, first, to evaluate the flavor of tea or coffee. That’s why there are special showcase for the samples of coffee and tea. It has come up with a special large countertop, on which it is possible to arrange and calmly assess banks with tea and coffee. It should be noted that these countertops almost do not apply for other product groups.
Also, the store has other different features in its interior. For example, were made especially for this shop and its typical faceted windows as the original drives. The mezzanines have given a very interesting appearance to the usual showcases, they. It should be noted that this type of windows has become in great demand. Customers pay a great attention to the decoration of the store both inside and outside.
The individuality of this store is also given by the shelving with sloping shelves facing as directly from the wall. These racks are very convenient for calculations of sets. They combine the unique features: the largest capacity does not give the impression of massive ones.
At the same time, attention in the store is paid not only beautiful and functional placement of the products. The interior of the store requires an integrated approach. One of the lucky finds is a unique rack-arch that is designed the passage in the utility room. Another good decision concerns the lighting. It is also a very important aspect of the work on the interior.
A successful lighting can have a positive impact on the choice of buyer. This is important, because the goods do not need to only touch or smell, but also to consider carefully. Fluorescent lights with the spot lighting in the shelves are the most appropriate for the store of the company SMART.
One more feature of the store that can attract customers and satisfy their needs is a formation range of goods. It is a complex process in retail trade enterprises, which is based on the account of many factors. Common factors include customer demand and production of goods. Specific factors include the type and size of the store, its technical equipment, the supply conditions and composition of the population served. When forming the range of products in retail trade enterprises it should be taken into account some features of the demand coffee and tea.
It should be noted that the main goal of company SMART is to sell a product, to meet the customer demand and as a result make a profit. In this case, the main objective of the consumer is to buy the goods/services and the end result is to satisfy his own needs. Thus, the product has two characteristics:
the usefulness;
the ability to sell (exchange money).
Private goods, in this case, tea and coffee, have a number of species, subspecies, varieties, differing in minor consumer properties (specific model, brand, size, color, price and others). Each company strives to produce more than one kind of goods, which can meet the diverse needs of multiple groups of consumers.
It should be noted that the company has enough computers and other equipment for effective workflow. The company uses the own software for accounting products, planning new supplies, bookkeeping and accounting staff time. It also includes corporate mail service. The company does not use servers as a data store. Indeed, backup copies of the software are regularly saved on several computers in the accounting department of the company.
It should be noted that the company does not have its own website and does not conduct marketing activities on the Internet. In this case, it needs to introduce an information technology team that can optimize current technologies, which the company uses now.
Information Technology Personnel
I as the senior business consultant, propose the following five information technology roles, which would be in place in order to achieve better satisfaction with the customers:
software developer (team lead);
developer of mobile applications;
front-end developer;
web-designer;
an internet-marketing specialist, who will be responsible for SMM, PPC, content, other activities.
Proposed business venture in the context of increasing the clients’ satisfaction level involves the following activities:
creation of the corporate website of the company (like online business card);
creation and launch of an online-store, which can extend the number of potential clients as well as loyal clients. The visitor returns to the website of purchase only if he clearly understands that he gets a tangible benefit there. This is exactly what the loyalty program must provide: it gives the visitor a significant gain or money, or time. All of them are important for the customers. The relevant recommendations, which are based on customer interests and preferences, can save time. Quick and effective work of managers in the company can be considered as a norm now for all self-respecting organizations (UMD IT Strategic Plan, 2016). It should be noted that an online store can provide the bigger variety of the products for the customers in comparison with the real store. It is not so expanse for online store as for real stores. At the same time, the customer can save time for shopping, and it is a tangible and significant plus for him.
creation free mobile application for current clients and its publication in the Play Market and Apple Store. Those customers, who have long time with the company, need to get some incentives. For example, fast delivery service out of turn or special price offers can be offered for the loyal customers as a bonus. A good way to reward loyal customers can be small vouchers and discounts not only for the purchases in the online shop of the company, but also on other websites (for example, Amazon or Debenhams). In this case, online-shop can attract new clients and get many positive feedbacks from the customers. One more feature is to create the so-called “Guest Book”. It can be conducted in the real store as well as an online shop. It is a database of loyal customers that shows characteristics of customers and their preferences, values and expectations (Berisha-Namani, 2013).
launch of the official pages of the company in the social networks (Facebook, Twitter, and others) and their promotion. On the page on social networks the consultants can place cognitive information about tea, coffee and other topics related to store assortment, answer customer questions, announce upcoming events and activities. Usage of these marketing tools is focused not only on the promotion of goods and the store, but also in the formation of stable and trusting relationship with the customer that is based on individual approach. It should be noted that the representation of the company on the Internet is an important indicator not only for customers, but also for business partners: producers, suppliers, franchise, sales representatives and others.
blogging about coffee and tea, their kinds, ways for making drinks and other interesting information for clients.
SWOT-Analysis
As we know the SWOT-analysis consists of four main elements: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Proposed business venture differs by the following strengths:
high popularity of innovations;
an opportunity to extend the number of potential clients through the launching the online-store;
company can become more close and friendly to its clients through the Internet;
proposed business venture includes a huge number of internet-marketing activities, which are suitable for the modern people, who prefer online-life, make orders online and form an opinion about the company through the information provided to it on the internet and reviews from other customers.
The main weakness is connected with the huge expands, which are needed for implementation of the proposed business venture in the context of the analyzed question of the company SMART. At the same time, positive results will not come immediately. Around six months should pass in order to achieve first results. It can be explained by that all online business processes are closely connected and all of them must work stably and correctly in order to achieve planned results (Silverstein, 2001). One more weakness is linked to the information technology team. Today company does not have specialists in this field. In this case, only five people will be responsible for implementation of information technology strategic plan. It assumes a quite high risk of plan implementation within the company.
The main opportunities of the business venture for the company SMART can be as follows:
do not depend on the location of the store and attract clients through all the territory of the US;
Possible threats of the proposed business venture are linked to the high competition on the appropriate market. Also, it is quite difficult to identify online customer and determine his sex, age, occupation and other useful information. It should be noted that the number of refusals from the online orders is bigger than from ordinary orders in a real store. It needs to take into account in order not to increase the reserves in stock. One more threat is linked to the software and website. If one of them will work incorrectly, it could paralyze the work of online-shop and impact advisedly on related processes. In this case, the company needs to introduce support department, which can resolve any problems with software or related applications in the fastest time frame.
Major Goals for the Information Technology Strategic Plan
The proposed main goals of the information technology strategic plan are the following:
Positive Impacts of Implementing Strategic Plan
Implementation of the information technology strategic plan can lead to a great number of positive organizational impacts. Strategic plan aims to change the scheme of the business processes within the company
Some of positive impacts as results of implementing the strategic plan are presented below:
improvement of communication tools (including online surveys, , which are used in the company, which can accelerate main business processes in the company and provide effective feedback to customers;
visitors come to the online-shop without any extra investments in advertising. It contributes to the increasing of the customer life cycle and as a result the increasing of the sales volume and company’s profits;
implementation of a strategic plan can help to expand the activity of the company in other states of the US and reach a new level of partnership with customers (especially, business units).
Conclusion
Customer loyalty is an important indicator of success and the level of development of any organization. Customer loyalty provides a stable existence and prosperity of the company. After analyzing the company SMART, one can say that it not sufficiently uses information technologies and related tools. The proposed information technology team will include software developer, developer of mobile applications, front-end developer, web-designer and internet-marketing specialist. The main activities of this team relate to the entry of the company into online business, company’s promotion on the Internet and development more close interrelations with modern customers, who actively use different gadgets.
The proposed information technology plan has many potential positive impacts on the company SMART. It provides the company an opportunity to achieve planned results, configure the communicative component in business processes and provide a high level of security for both employees and customers.
References
Berisha-Namani, M. (2013). Information Technology, Internet and Marketing. International Journal Of Electronic Commerce Studies, 4(1), 103-110. Retrieved from http://academic-pub.org/ojs/index.php/ijecs/article/view/1116
Rouse, M. (2016). What is IT strategy (information technology strategy)? - Definition from WhatIs.com. SearchCIO. Retrieved 7 June 2016, from http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/IT-strategy-information-technology-strategy
Silverstein, B. (2001). Internet Marketing for Information Technology Companies (2nd ed., p. 425). Business & Economics.
UMD IT Strategic Plan,. (2016). Division of Information Technology. University of Maryland. Division of IT. It.umd.edu. Retrieved 7 June 2016, from http://it.umd.edu/ITstrategy/
