This document provides details about a business proposal for an online brokerage service that connects green product suppliers with companies looking to adopt more environmentally friendly practices. The proposal includes a vision statement, industry analysis of the online brokerage industry, identification of customer needs, description of products and services, discussion of key suppliers and partners, strategy of focused low cost, identification of important value chain activities and business processes, and systems needed to support the business.
This document provides details about a business proposal for an online brokerage service that connects green product suppliers with companies looking to adopt more environmentally friendly practices. The proposal includes a vision statement, industry analysis of the online brokerage industry, identification of customer needs, description of products and services, discussion of key suppliers and partners, strategy of focused low cost, identification of important value chain activities and business processes, and systems needed to support the business.
This document provides details about a business proposal for an online brokerage service that connects green product suppliers with companies looking to adopt more environmentally friendly practices. The proposal includes a vision statement, industry analysis of the online brokerage industry, identification of customer needs, description of products and services, discussion of key suppliers and partners, strategy of focused low cost, identification of important value chain activities and business processes, and systems needed to support the business.
Name Redmond Coulter NetID rcou200 Group Number: 450 Website Link: http://infosys110group450.blogspot.co.nz/ Tutorial Details Tutor: Day: Time: Helen Cheng Tuesday 3pm Time Spent on Assignment: 14 hours Word Count: 1648 * *Not including References
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2 CLEAN AND GREEN WITHOUT COSTING THE EARTH. INTRODUCTION We are faced with a very real and pressing problem. Pollution is rife in business and its destroying our planet. The problem is its expensive and difficult to go green for many businesses, so many dont try. The solution is use technology to make it cheaper and easier to go green so the companies can save money while they save the planet. We can do this through a unique website the unites suppliers, companies and consumers in a way that will help everyone by facillitating decision making. 3. BUSINESS SECTION 3.1 Vision We only have one planet to call home, we aim to keep it clean, green and healthy by helping busniesses to help us, help it. 3.2 Industry Analysis: Online Brokerage Industry Industry: We are in the Online Brokerage Industry, we essentially negotiate deals between suplliers and companies to facillitate the movement to green behaviour. This is the largest and most important and therefore we will treat this as our industry. Force: High/Low: Justification: Buyer power: High There is a very large number of Online Brokerage firms in this industry, there are 45 listed on findthebest.com alone. (Findthebest, 2008) This means that the consumer has a great deal of choice and therefore has high buyer.
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3 Supplier power: Low There are not really suppliers per se in tis industry, only the suppliers that offer deals through the industry to buyers, if a supplier does not wish to use a particular brokerage they will simply use another supplier meaning the supplier does not have much power in this industry. Threat of new entrants: High The only set up necessary to run a company in this industry, is a website and skill in negotiation. The costs of starting up a website are very low (Heng, 2014), the only difficulty would be acquiring a decent customer base. Consequently the barriers to entry are very low. Threat of substitutes: Low There is not much in the way of substitutes for this industry, customers will only have a choice of an online brokerage or physically visiting a broker. Since this is inconvininent and not much different to simply using an online broker, it is unlikely people will use this substitute Rivalry among existing competitors: High There is a very large number of brokerages as mentioned under buyer power, and therefore rivalry among existing competitors will be high. Overall attractiveness of the industry: The Online Brokerage Indsutry appears to be a fairly unattractive industry. There is a great deal of competition and buyer power is high. This means it is a very tough industry to thrive. However it is an industry that is cheap and easy to get into and although this means there is always a threat of new entrants it also means it not difficult to get into yourself. Furthermore, when a borkerage company grows large the
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4 financial returns are very large and rewarding (Horrowitz, 2013) Overall this industry is tough and unappealing but offers a good potential return and furthermore sepcifically speaking about our company, our objective is altruistic in nature and consequently is not promarily concerned with the attractiveness of the online brokerage indsutry. 3.3 Customers and Thei r Needs The customers for our company are two distinct groups. Consumers who are environmentally conscious and wish to support the movement for change in business approach to the environment by supporting green companies. These customers need to know which companies use green materials, products and services. There is a growing demographic of environmentall concious consumers. (ClickMarkets Inc., 2008) The other target group of customers is businesses with a desire to implement change and become environmentally friendly. There are so many businesses that wish to go green but are unable to face the cost or lack the expertise necessary. (Egeland, 2009) These customers need to have the environmental options clearly laid out in terms they can understand so they can make an informed choice and make the switch, to this end, they need to know which products that are available are eco-friendly and how much they cost relative to this. 3.4 The Product and Service Our proposed solution is this web-service that will compile a list of all available manufacturers of primary goods and list them according to criteria such as price, how environmentally friendly they are etc. and also broker deals for large trade agreements that will offer a discount to companies using the green goods. Companies will have the option to register with the site so they can receive a rating according to how green their practices are. This will solve both groups of customers needs. The consumers will be able to visit the website to find an accurate and reliable list of companies that actually demonstrate consideration for the environment through their actions and will be able to reward these companies that rank highly for their eco concern by giving them business. The companies themselves will be able to make the transition to eco friendly more easily because they will be able to see what green products are available and get cheaper deals through the website, thus reducing the cost and difficulty of becoming environmentally friendly.
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5 3.5 Suppliers and Partners The first step in creating a successful online brokerage business will be gathering businesses who are interested in going green. However the most important task is locating manufacturers who are willing to supply those who use the site. It will be crucial to find manufacturers who make green products and getting them to agree to provide a discount for large companies that will use their products. Therefore we will form partnerships with green manufactures. Two green manufacturers that could be part of the site are EarthTec and Greenblendz (10 Companies With Eco-Conscious Production Processes, 2014), supplying various items through the site to companes at a discounted rate to faciliitate the green movement. Both these companies are comitted to helping make a cleaner world by protecting the environment and would likely be happy to offer discount to help save the environment. 3.6 Strategy: Focused Low Cost Although the number is growing, currently and for some time in the future, the segment of the market concerned with the environment is quite narrow. We aim to offer business the chance to go green whilst saving money and keeping costs low, furthermore as an online comppany we will have low costs ourselves, consequently we will be using a low cost approach. A narrow market and low cost strategy is what we will use The overall strategy is therefore Focused Low Cost 3.7 Value Chain Activity: Market and sell the product or service The most important value chain activity for this business is market and sell the product or service. We will need lots of suppliers of green products happy to use our site and also offer deals, this will only happened if many businesses use our site allowing us a position on negotiating power. Additionally we will need to acquire public notoriety in order for business to become interested in receiving a positive rating from our site to earn customers. With such a need for large amounts consumers, suppliers and businesses to all be using this site in order for it
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6 to work, the most important task will be to garner all these people by making them aware of the service and making them wish to use it. Therefore we will need to market to them and convince them to use the product. 3.8 Business Processes 3.8.1. TARGETED MARKETING ANALYSI S PROCES The first business process is to determine what our target market of environmentally concerned companies and consumers is specifically looking for in a green service in order to tailor our advertising and marketing to appeal to them and demonstrate what we can offer them.
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3.8.2. DEAL BROKERAGE PROCESS Once a business has decided to use some green products listed on our website, the next step as part of marketing and selling the product or service is to actually contact the supplier of the product they are after and arrange a deal between the companies that leaves both, satisfied customers of our web service.
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9 3.9 Functionalities 3.9.1 TARGETED MARKETI NG ANALYSIS PROCES Allows us to target the market we are interested in specifically Allows us to re-engineer current marketing tactics to refelct changing trends 3.9.2. DEAL BROKERAGE PROCESS Allows us to arrange communication between 2 interested parties. Allows us negotiate successful deals between companies. 3.10 Systems
3.10. 1. INFROMATION PROCESSI NG SYSTEM- We will need a system the supports the gathering and storing of information from various sources such as surveys and feedback from those who share our companies vision. This will provide us with the raw materials to transform into trend analysis and tehrefore adjust our marketing approach to best capture new customers. 3.10. 2. TREND ANALYSIS SYSTEM In order to determine what is desired and changes in the market trends, we will need a system that processes the gathered information and analyses the findings to generate a list of trends that give us insight into how we need to market our service. 3.10. 3. USER INFORMATI ON DATABASE SYSTEM In order to arrange communication and subsequent deals between parties interested in conducting business, we will need to have a system that keeps track of all the products offered by all the various manufacturers who are partners with us and that will provide this information to us in order to facilitate us in brokering a deal between companies
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10 3.11. Summary Table: Value Chain to Systems
Value Chain Activity Processes Functionalities Specific Information System(s) Broad Information System(s)
Make and sell the product or service 1. Targeted marketing analysis process 1. Target the market we are interested in specifically.
2. Re-engineer current marketing tactics to refelct changing trends Infromation processing system
Trend analysis system Transaction processing system (TPS)
Decision Suport System (DSS) 2. Deal brokerage process 1. Arrange communication between 2 interested parties.
2. Negotiate successful deals between companies. User information database system Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
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11 CONCLUSION Overall we believe the solution we have proposed will be effective in creating change in the way businesses approach the environment. By using information technology we can increase business intelligence and support decision making and assits companies make the transition to being a green organisiation. REFERENCES 10 Companies With Eco-Conscious Production Processes. (2014). Retrieved May 24, 2014, from Planetsave.com: http://planetsave.com/2013/06/21/10-companies-with-eco-conscious-production processes/ ClickMarkets Inc. (2008). Green Attitudes Survey. GoGreenOnline Inc. Egeland, B. (2009). 4 Misconceptions about Going Green. Retrieved MAy 24, 2014, from BusinessKnowHow.com: http://www.businessknowhow.com/manage/gogreenmyth.htm Findthebest. (2008). Retrieved May 22, 2014, from http://brokerage-accounts.findthebest.com/ Heng, C. (2014, April 7). How much does it cost to set up a website? Retrieved May 22, 2014, from thesitewizard.com: http://www.thesitewizard.com/gettingstarted/cost-setting-up-website.shtml Horrowitz, J. (2013). Big U.S. brokerage firms are thriving. Retrieved May 23, 2014, from Reuters.com: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/06/us-big-brokers-study-idUSBRE9450L320130506