Building ERP and E-Commerce Capability- Supporting Marketing and Business Intelligence

Marketing and Business Intelligence Support
A customer relationship management module is designed to support both marketing needs and business intelligent needs of Franklin Cooking Company. Today’s consumer has more purchasing power than ever before, and their demands regarding customer service have increased. Customers expect a comprehensive, integrated customer relationship management module that makes them feel as if they are the only customer working with Franklin Cooking Company.
As customers continue to purchase cookies, data is immediately recorded about all of the items the customer decides to purchase. This data will quickly begin to associate the cookies that are purchased to the consumers who desire them. This means various pieces of data regarding cookie flavor preference will be attached to the consumer each time they want to purchase something from Franklin Cookie Company.
It is obvious the target market for selling cookies will be with the individuals themselves. This is what places so much value on the customer relationship module for the business. Since this is a smaller size company, marketing to large consumer groups will not be the objective of the customer relationship management module. Instead the individuals are the important people to market to, and the customer relationship module will handle all of these actions.
After enough data about the individuals has been documented, the data can be used to segment different variables that influence marketing to their respected individuals. Some of these variables can include things like a customer’s lifetime value to the company, regional demographics, sales medium preference, and average number of products purchased every transaction. All of this information can be used to treat the customer as if they are the only individual purchasing from the company.
By segmenting all of these variables, business intelligence needs are met. Franklin Cookie Company can specialize some of their communication to ensure their marketing is getting across to their consumer. This is a demonstration of customer relationship management providing an organization with the business intelligence it needs to be a flexible, competitive company.
Fulfilling these business intelligence needs is an important step to increasing work productivity. Not only does it provide cost savings, but it also increases the rate at which employees can respond to customer needs. The more Franklin Cookie Company understands about their customer, the more specific their marketing message can be. This kind of relationship with the customer avoids the cost of mass marketing to large groups of people.
Once the customer relationship module has been put in to place and runs seamlessly, different type of cookies can be created to accommodate individual’s needs. This feature is only capable after enough data has been recorded about the individual. This is part of a process that involves up-selling. Without the use of these business intelligence modules, it would be very difficult to up-sell to the correct individual.
Finally, a customer relationship management module will provide Franklin Cookie Company with data showing which individuals have quit purchasing cookies. It is not difficult to determine who has stopped making transactions at a store and who has not. The difficult part about this, and the most significant reason for success in a business, understands why that individual left. Customer relationship management at least provides information that shows why a customer left, and what the company can do as a whole to ensure that it never happens to any other individual customer.
CRM System Standard Approach

To implement a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system into an e-commerce and a brick and mortar organization, there are several steps that must be taken. CRM’s basic goal whether it is a traditional or an e-commerce type of structure, is customer satisfaction. To effectively make the CRM system work, all processes must work together to create a seamless company system. Let’s take a look into the processes that make up the CRM.
An important step in this process is to store the information that your system has collected. In order to do this, a centralized database would be the best solution for the company. This allows all information to come from one source for the entire company. Not only does this make it more simplified to backup data, it also ensures that employees are receiving the most up to date information in the system. Since this is a centralized system, information can be directly stored without any delay in updating. It is equally important that the information can be accessed and readable by all employees. Furthermore, it is also important that information certain departments or employees don’t need is not included in the screen that they receive. Receiving information that is not needed can slow down productivity shifting through all of the information and will annoy workers more than help them complete their job. With one system in place, access lists can be put into place to restrict access and protect personal information.
Another step needed in the process is the collection of personal data so that you can classify and organize your customers into categories such as age, race, gender, location, and spending habits. If a website is available for your company, customers can update their own information saving the company time and money. This can be completed when the customer first logs into the site. This is a very valuable tool used by the marketing department so they know which products are in demand at which times if the year, why, and who buys it. This collecting of data actually goes into the data mining process as well. The patterns and relationships of the customers can be relayed into spreadsheets. This process can also be classified as profiling. With this information, the sales and marketing department have a strong advantage as to what the customers are in demand for and when they want it. This can also enhance a customer’s shopping experience by offering coupons or discounts during the period where the product is mostly needed.
Customer information can also be stored by each purchase by assigning control or ID numbers to customers. Some companies can offer incentives to register their product online and answer a short survey. For instance, Max and Erma’s have comment cards on all tables. They also ask you to fill out comments online about the experience you had at the location where you were dining. When these comment cards are filled out online or through traditional mailing techniques, Max and Erma’s offer a coupon that entitles you to six free cookies. This is a nice way to entice customer survey responses. This valuable tool can also help service managers to determine where problems are in the company and what they can do to improve and make it a better experience for the customer the next time around.
A CRM system can also help decide if a royalty program would be a good alternative for the company. Based on the information that is collected, the system can decide who is eligible for more incentives. For instance, Macy’s offers a store credit account. When an individual spends over $1000.00 a year, they can be bumped up to a better card that has even better incentives such as free gift wrapping, or free shipping. Not only will this entice the customer to spend more online and at brick and mortar businesses, it also can save the customer some money in the long run. These incentive programs also helps assign numbers to customers so they can be tracked with their spending habits. This will help the company determine spending history so coupons and incentives can be used when the customer spends the most amount of money, say around a holiday or around a birthday date.
Measuring the Quantitative Value of a CRM
The Franklin Cooking Company will measure the quantitative value of the customer relationship management (CRM) program chosen. The primary reasons for implementing the CRM include:
Most organization loose at least 20% of their customer each year due to various reasons e.g. competition, a perception of better customer service and better products (Tech Republic, 2008).
It is easier and cheaper to retain existing customers (Wagner & Zubey, 2007)
CRM’s help in maximizing customer profitability (Goldenberg, 2002).
The Franklin Cookie Company is dedicated to the idea that our CRM is vital to business. “In order to manage effectively, one must measure” (Kaplan & Norton, 2001).Therefore, The Franklin Cookie Company will measure the quantitative value of our CRM:
· To influence or validate decision making
· To guide ongoing activities or tactics
· To predict future sales.
The Franklin Cookie Company will utilize its web site as the main measurement tool. Some of the measurements taken will be:
· Visitor count-How many people visited the site?
· Unique visitor count-How many unique people have visited the site?
· Duration-Total time a visitor spent on the page or site.
· Frequency-Number of repeat customers.
· Revenue generation-Total dollars spent.
o Average revenue per customer
o Revenue per visitor
These measurements will allow the Franklin Cookie Company to evaluate the Return on Investment for the CRM system, the value of each customer and also make assumptions about products, marketing programs and measure customer loyalty (Kellen, 2002).
These measurements will allow our company to clearly and visually communicate with upper management and help identify the company’s success or short comings (Tech Republic, 2008).



References
Awad, E. (2007). Electronic commerce: From vision to fulfillment. (3rd ed.). Upper
Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Dyche, Jill (2001). Crm handbook, a business guide to customer relationship
management. Addison-Wesley Professional. ISBN: 978-0-201-73062-3
Goldenberg, B. J.(2002). Barton J. Goldenberg. Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA: Prentice Hall.
Kellen, Vince (2002). CRM Measurement Frameworks. Retrieved November 24th, 2008,
from website: http://www.kellen.net/crmmeas.htm
Monk, E., & Wagner, B. (2006). Concepts in enterprise resource planning. (2nd ed.).
Boston: Thomson Course Technology.
Tech Republic. (2008). Selecting Strategic CRM Measures. Retrieved November 23, 2008,
from Tech Republic: http://whitepapers.techrepublic.com
Zubey, M., & Wagner, W. (2007). Customer relationship management: A people,
process, and technology approach. (1st ed.). Boston: Thomson Course Technology.

Module 3: Foundations of HCI and Usability Engineering

On module 3 I learned the use of standard measures on HCI design. On this topic we were told the reasons for using standard policies on when designing user interface. As follows
- Standard are widely understood by the users since they are a form of environmental policy.
- The cost of using standard measures is lower compared to implementation, economically effective.
- Sometimes standards need to be evaluated and changes need to be made once found there is other option that fit users than the existing standards.
- Standards are more widely used thus they promote consistency, good practice, common understanding and appropriate priortization of user interface issues. (Waldemar Karwowski, 2006)
I also learned the disadvantages of HCI standards which are as follows
These standards can quickly go out of date since most of them describe principles but not useful solutions.
American system has its own standard that differ from the matrix system used by the rest of the world, when designing a system or a software there should be option for US users or other users which would be the matrix system. This gives the designers a lot of time to fix the problem. Some countries like Chinese have their own new year that need to be considered. (Nigel Bevan, 2001)
Finally I learned how questionnaire can impact HCI design. If the designer designs a poor interface on questionnaire the user will get confused and quit. Finally I learned the styles and specific designs I would have to use when designing questionnaire interface.

Reference
Nigel Bevan. (2001). Disadvantages of user interface standards . International Journal of Human Computer Studies , 18.
Waldemar Karwowski, K. (2006). International Encyclopedia Of Ergonomics And Human Factors. CRC Press.

What is in Human's mind

On this module I learned that human being would find someone to blame or something to blame on when an error occur. But most of the time it does not help if the problem is likely to occur. I realized that problems like this can be reduced and as a designer they will have to find a way to prevent errors and improve the safety of the users. (Khon, Corrigan, & Donaldson, 2000)
In addition to that, I learned principles that need to be followed to make systems safer. I learned why accidents happen, how they happen. As a designer I would have to understand the errors that have occurred then and find solutions to prevent the errors from happening in the future. We have to remember that as a designer I might not be the one using the device. I should act as a user and see if I will be able to work on the device. Some designed are designed for special people like blind or people with no figures.
As a designer I learned that I have to evaluate the system before I release it to make sure that it meets the user’s needs. Check on the client and get the feedback from them and see if the client is satisfied. The other reason for evaluation is to see if there are any errors that need to be cleared. (Wette, 2008)
Finally, I learned that errors can occur as the user start working on the device and some occur later on as the user is at the middle of using it and most of the time those errors will occur due to poor installation. (Khon, Corrigan, & Donaldson, 2000)

Reference
Khon, L., Corrigan, J., & Donaldson, M. (2000). To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System. National academy press.
Wette, E. (2008, October 29). Franklin University Proffesor. Class meeting . Columbus, OH, USA.

Observations of HCI issues

In this module I learned the scope of issues affecting human computer interaction and the importance of user interface, the impact of good and bad user interfaces. I learned how diversity of user and tasks affect the design of user interfaces. (Dix, Finlay, Abowd, & Beale, 2004)
I learned that as a designer I would have to work in a diverse area like human factors and graphic design to be able to understand what I need in order to design a good interface. (Dix, Finlay, Abowd, & Beale, 2004)
Moreover, I learned about paradigms and how it promotes usability and interactive system. I also learned about the evolution of paradigms which gives a good practice on the history of interactive computing. Another thing that, I have learned that sometimes paradigms can be successful and sometimes might not get a clear reason why they support a user in accomplishing some tasks. (Dix, Finlay, Abowd, & Beale, 2004)
Finally, I realized that humans are the most unpredictable part when it comes to system design since they have higher failure rates under high stress level. Thus the design must provide an appropriate level of feedback without overloading the user with too much information. (Norman, 2002)

Reference:
Dix, A., Finlay, J., Abowd, G. D., & Beale, R. (2004). Human computer interaction (Third edition ed.). Essex, UK: Pearson education limited.
Norman, D. A. (2002). The design of everyday things. New York, USA: Basic books.

Norman 1 course Blog entry

I have learned the interaction between a computer and a human being.
Learn how to design a product that will effectively interact with a person and allow them to be able to finish the job specified.
I have learned how we can use Norman’s execution evaluation model and interaction framework that extends it, to analyze the interaction in terms of how easy or difficult it is for the user to express what he wants and determine if it is done.
I have learned the use of ergonomics when designing an interface, different types of interface and the importance of each one of them and if not properly used it can affect the effectiveness of the interaction. I have realized that when building a system I should make sure that it is interactive and usable. One can say the system is interactive or usable only if the system enhance.
This site takes you to a Bow – wow books for kids’ site. But once you get on the site you will be like where am I? Where am I going? It is supposed to be children’s web site but it is beyond terrible because there is nothing there.
http://www.bow-wowbooks.com/home.html
I do believe that kids’ sites should have some interactions like sounds. Well it’s a book site. Maybe someone reading the book as the kids follow. Puzzles and other games.

A child will not spend one second trying to figure out how to navigate this site. It took me a minute to figure out what to do on the site.

The Human Component of HCI

On this module I learned about user interface design which is also known as Human Computer Interaction (HCL) which is the study of interaction between the user and the computer. I always thought of interface design in terms of computers, but I have now realized that it also refers to many products where the user interacts with controls or displays. For example computer peripherals or audio equipment products that extensively apply user interface design.
Usability is the method of improving easy way to use during design process. Usability is very important for the survival. For example Intranet for the company, if it is not easy to navigate the site or if it takes time for the employee to find what they are looking for it will slow down their productivity. On the web site, if the customer cannot find what they are looking for they just leave the site and go to another one. (Nielsen's, 2003)
From visual perception
Human beings are highly tuned to images and visual information. When pictures and graphics are well designed they can be very appealing to us thus information can be communicated faster compared to other methods. (Hearst, 1999) I realized that when designing a new product for example a key board it is better to complying with older standards as much as possible - otherwise changes should be highlighted and explained. (Lee, 2008)
I also learned that new products need to be tested by users and receive a feedback from them so that the maker can make any corrections that need to be done before the product gets to the market place. In addition to that, I learned that when making a new product the aim is to make it user friendly, easy to learn, and marketable.
Memory
Moreover, I learned something about human information processing characteristics, how human action is structured, the nature of human communication and human physical and physiological requirements. We need to design an interface that doesn’t require the user to use their long term memory instead we need to balance the human common knowledge and the memory by using some kind of aid to ease their memory. For example: - use visual cues that are recognizable and understandable by the target audience. Consider using standard symbols like IEEE before creating your own. (Lee, 2008)
Problem solving
When designing a user interface, design it in a way that the user will be able to solve any problem they incur by providing a tool that is easily accessible “Help button” where the user will click and type their question. Example: - “When the user prints the document, and suddenly realizes that the printer is not configured to use the font, he can cancel the print job before it wastes lots of paper. The user feels safe playing with the interface.” (Lee, 2008)
Finally, I realized that users become frustrated with the application because they know what they want to do but cannot understand what the program has. For example the user initiate a command and realized that they went the wrong way or that is not what they want, they should immediately be able to reverse or cancel the procedure. (Lee, 2008)

Reference:
Hearst, M. (1999). User Interfaces and Visualization. Retrieved September 23, 2008, from Modern Information Retrieval: http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu
Lee, T. C. (2008, August 28). Experiences - A Pattern Language for User Interface Design. Retrieved September 23, 2008, from http://www.maplefish.com
Nielsen's, J. (2003, August 25). Usability in your product Development. Retrieved September 20, 2008, from Make it happen: http://www.useit.com

RFP REPORT – FOR MOCK’S AGENCY
RFP REPORT

mis 320

Catherine Mock
7/8/2008


Objective: The Mock’s Agency needs to update their current work stations and technology.
Current state of the agency: The current technology was designed to accommodate a small number of employees. But then as the agency continues to grow and the technology keeps changing, existing system is unable to accommodate the fast growing company as a result into more workload and slow service. “The existing system is unable to accommodate company’s daily task and are antiquated and operated beyond design capacity.”
Most records are taken manually and go through different hands of people before stored in the hard copy which is also stored manually.
Mock’s Agency’s system have no direct communication with the headquarters, they need some common system between the two.
Goals
Based on the current state of the Mock’s Agency, our strategy is to assist them in utilizing the newest technologies in efforts to streamline processes. This not only results in cost savings, it allows them to reallocate their internal resources toward core competency functions. These goals are accomplished by providing comprehensive document services as a “single source” supplier. Our goal is to reduce the amount of data entry especially on critical information like names, social security and addresses. Streamline information processes and introduce faster, more efficient technologies where applicable with emphasis on personalized, intelligent document delivery via mail or internet. Provide them with enough workstations based on their needs. Revolutionizes client computing by moving data and hard drives to the data center, while keeping application and graphics processing at the desktop. This also provides significant advantages that can help:
· Tracking data and eliminate time-consuming paperwork and redundant data entry.
· Improve security
· Enhance reliability
· Retrieve information faster
· Share important documents
· Reduce cost
· To develop and integrate solutions that meet current business needs.
Software
· Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 - License - 20 additional user CALs - English Windows XP Professional Edition with Service Pack 2
· Microsoft Office Small Business 2007
· Symantec Corporation: Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0 - 10 Users for virus protection.
Hardware
· Web Server Solution: 1U Rack mountable Server comes with Microsoft Windows Web server, 2GB memory and Two 80GB Hard Drives
· Rack Servers: Minimize floor space, ideal for customers with multiple servers or with limited storage space.
· Digital Persona® Pro from digital Persona® is a fingerprint sign-on solution that simplifies network and application authentication by replacing the need for user-entered passwords with a simple touch of a finger
· Dell Multifunction Laser printer 1815dn
· Microsoft Corporation Wireless Optical Desktop 3000 Keyboard
· Sony Cyber-shot DSCW170 10.1 MP 5X Zoom Digital Camera
· 10 Dell Precision T5400 Workstation - Businesses that need a space-saving certified workstation with dual-processor power, quad monitor support, up to 32GB memory, and dedicated workstation support.
· 10 Dell - Ultra Sharp 2709W 27-inch Wide-Screen Black Flat Panel Monitor with Height Adjustable Stand
· 4 Latitude ATG D630N Lap top- Designed for tough environments to withstand dust, humidity and potential drops
Networking
· Web-Managed Switches: Gigabit Ethernet connectivity with basic Web-based management features
· Firewall
Conclusion
Now I have my RFP response, I have developed a system that delivers the following
• An off the shelf and field proven software solution from Dell
• 21st century communication infrastructure
• Integration with the head quarter systems
• Developed to maximize funding to aid with the implementation costs for the project.