Smart saver compiles a list of all the current sales listed by different businesses. This makes it easy for consumers to know when savings are available. Customers can then purchase items directly from the app, or go to the stores website and make the purchase.
Smart saver compiles a list of all the current sales listed by different businesses. This makes it easy for consumers to know when savings are available. Customers can then purchase items directly from the app, or go to the stores website and make the purchase.
Smart saver compiles a list of all the current sales listed by different businesses. This makes it easy for consumers to know when savings are available. Customers can then purchase items directly from the app, or go to the stores website and make the purchase.
INTRODUCTION People are paid a certain amount of income. With this limited amount of money, a person has to pay for university textbooks books, and all the other essentials that come with being a student. Once necessities are accounted for, the surplus; which is generally a small amount, can be spent on luxury items. Therefore, maximising discretionary income is important. This problem led us to our solution of an application; smart saver. The app compiles a list of all the current sales listed by different businesses, making it easy for consumers to know when savings are available. From there, customers can then purchase items directly from our app, or go to the stores website and make the purchase. The app will categorise the different businesses. 3. BUSINESS SECTION 3.1 Vision To save people time and money by providing a platform to access a list of sales anytime, anywhere. 3.2 Industry Analysis: Mobile Savings Application Industry Force: High/Low: Justification: Buyer power: High There are many companies which have similar purposes as smartsaver. It is a crowded industry with companies such as 1day who also collate information about products having sales. Consumers have many options, making buyer power high. (Apple, 2014) 2
Supplier power: Low There are many different potential suppliers to smart saver. Companies such as Sun, Microsoft, AT&T, UUNet are in the Active server provider market. Therefore if one company decides to increase its prices, smart saver has many other options (Bianchi, 2014) Threat of new entrants: High The barriers to entry are low. It costs $25 to register as a developer with Googles Android Application market. (Google, 2014). For Apple, there is a $99 per year cost to develop an application. (Apple, 2014) Threat of substitutes: High There are many businesses which are concerned with collating prices from different businesses. While they may focus on individual industries, like webjet, they still provide a similar service as smartsaver. Customers could also simply find out when sales are on through TV. TV advertising allowes them to reach local, national and international audiences (Fox Marketing, 2014) Rivalry among existing competitors: High On the Apple market, there are over 100 applications that relate to listing sales. So there is fierce rivalry in this industry. (Apple, 2014) Overall attractiveness of the industry: The mobile saving application industry is quite a competetive one. As you can see, Porters 5 forces analysis has shown negative results. The business will therfore focus on ways to make their application stand out. 3
3.3 Customers Needs The application is targeted toward University students, but could expand to other cost conscious consumers. While smartphone users aged from 25-44 use the greatest number of apps, 18-24 year olds spend the most amount of time using them out of any demographic. (Nielson, 2014) Students understand the benefits as it gives them the ability of a computer, but with more practicallity. Using smartphones saves them time (faster access), and money. Our product will align well with this as it saves them both time ( knowing when sales are on), and money (they can now purchase goods when they are on sale). 3.4 Product and Service In recent years, there has been a growing trend in the number of users of smartphones. In New Zealand, there were up to 30% more internter connections through our smart phones from 2011. (Statistics New Zealand, 2012). By creating a smart phone application, we are tapping into this growing market, and satisfying their need for a quick and easy way of making savings. A reason as to why people dont go out and buy goods while sales are on is because they are unaware. By using an app, sales are literally in the customers hand. With the popularity of apps incrasing, creating one becomes an easy decision. 3.5 Suppliers and Partners Our partners would be the different companies which advertise their savings on our mobile application. The Warehouse and New World as examples, gain advertising, by being displayed to all of our customers, allowing them to reach a market which may have previously been un accessible. While our business benefits from having popular names as our listed businesses. Partnering with these businesses gives our company credibility, as customers would feel more confident with using our application knowing we have partnered with such popular companies. Another partner could be business who provide electronic payment systems such as paypal. They would provide our customers a safe and reliable way purchase goods online. To make the partnership worthwhile, we would offer them a small percentage of sales revenue from each sale we make through the application. 4
Suppliers to smart saver include mobile phone application hosting businesses. These companies provide us a platform to display our applications through both Apples app store and the Android market. We would pay these two companies to be able to list our application on the market. Another supplier would be the company or person who develops the application. App Developer, for example. 3.6 Strategy: Focused Low Cost Seeng as our product is targeted towards university students, it would be narrow marke as this is a relatively small proportion compared to the population. Our application will be free, so is low cost. When $0.99 is attatched to applications, there is significantly reduced demand for their products. (Gordon, 2013) As we are entering a market which is already relatively crowded, attatching a price to the application would be unwise. 3.7 Value Chain Activity: Service after the sal e The vision statement states that people will be able to ...access savings anytime, anywhere. Anytime and anywhere links to the accessibility of the application; time frames when the system is operational. There will therefore need to be a sophisticated and reliable feedback system, where consumers can rate the performance off the application in terms of how reliable it is. Timeliness can be achieved through prompts from the app directly after the customer has viewed the app, or purchased products through the app on sale. 3.8 Business Processes 3.8.1. CUSTOMER FEEDBACK PROCESS Feedback from customers is an essential process. Their assesment of our product will be of vital importance to constantly improve the product. We will upload regular updates of the product stemming from the customer feedbac. Feedback would be analysed and placed in one of four different sections; high need to reorganize, low value; high need to reorganize, high value; low need to reorganize, low value; low need to reorganize, high value. The level of need of reorganization would be determined by the amount of feedback related to the same point, and the amount of value 5
would be determined by the customes. This feedback system would be simple and inexpensive to run and make, aligning us with our focused low cost strategy. BUSINESS PROCESS MODEL: CUSTOMER FEEDBACK PROCESS 6
3.8.2. UPDATE UPLOAD PROCESS- After collating all of the feedback, udpdates will then need to be uploaded to the application. Uploading them is a process of high importance, and shouldnt disrupt the use of the application for long periods of time because that would contradict the vision of anytime, anywhere. The updates would also contain maintenance adjustments. 3.9 Functionalities 3.9.1. CUSTOMER FEEDBACK PROCESS Feedack collection Need/value analysis of feedback 3.9.2. UPDATE UPLOAD PROCESS Update creation stemming from feedback Update upload 3.10 Systems
3.10.1. REAL TIME SAVINGS INFORMATION SYSTEM The main proces of the application will be uploading real time information about sales. Some sales go on for a matter of hours, so timely information about them is imperative. Within minutes of stores giving us information about their sales, smart saver will need to udate the list of savings. 3.10.2. FEEBACK EVALUATION SYSTEM This system is important as it determines which pieces of feedback need to be prioritised. The feedback which is determined to be of high need to reorganize and will give high value are the ones which will be completed first. 3.10.3. MAINTENANCE SYSTEM It is estimated that almost 80% of IT resources are used on maintenance, so this will be an important part of smart saver. (Pettey, 2006) Included in the regular updates, will be maintenance checks on the application. Our application aims to be used anytime, anywhere, so maintaining availability is key. 7
Summary Table
Value Chain Activity Processes Functionalities Specific Information System(s) Broad Information System(s)
Service After The Sale 1. Customer Feedback Process 1. Feedback Collection 2. Need/Value analysis of feedback Feedback evaluation system TPS 2. Update Upload Process
1. Update creation stemming from feedback 2. Udpate Upload Maintenance System
CRM 8
CONCLUSION Smart savers vision is, to save people time and money by providing a platform to access savings anytime, anywhere. Through the customer feedback process along with the update upload process, the business will make sure that our customer needs are met.
REFERENCES
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Nielsen. (2014, January 7). Smartphones: So Many Apps, So Much Time. Retrieved from http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2014/smartphones-so-many-apps--so-much- time.html Gordon, M. E. (2013, July 18). The History of App Pricing, And Why Most Apps Are Free | Flurry. Retrieved from http://www.flurry.com/bid/99013/The-History-of-App-Pricing-And- Why-Most-Apps-Are-Free#.VDcKkPmSxns
S.110 Business Systems: Deliverable 2: Business Section 2014 Name Marthalena Heather Netid Group Number: Website Link: Tutorial Details Tutor: Day: Time: Time Spent On Assignment: Word Count: 1641