Business Systems Analysis
Technology is facing every aspect of our life including the way we do business. The advantages of technological advance in business cannot be underestimated. Classic Wear is a small brick-and-mortar business that specializes in designer shoes, clothing, and handbags. The business also deals with high-quality accessories for both women and men. Further, the business has tow full-time workers as well as three-part time workers. The owner of Classic Wear would like to enhance the business processes involved by incorporating a brick-and-mortar business with an e-business technology to promote growth using an online presence while becoming more customer-oriented.
Problem Statement
Despite the advancement in technology and increased competition, Classic Wear only has a website which lists a few of its products. Additionally, the website only enables the clients to see the different products offered by the business but does not provide an online transaction forcing the customers to buy the products only from the shop. The unavailability of an online transaction is a great problem for the business since it is unable to reach customers easily as its rivals who give online shopping experience. Moreover, the store is experiencing challenging the customers’ details as well as generating reports making it difficult for the management to make informed decisions.
Two Technologies
The primary goal of the store is to become more customer-oriented, promote growth, and increase its revenues. To achieve this goal, the business will be required to adopt efficient technologies in its daily processes. In this paper, I will provide details on two types of technologies that would help the organization to attain its goals. Upon performing business systems analysis, the technologies that are more likely to benefit the firm are business analytics and business intelligence solutions as well as social computing.
Business Requirement
Objectives
My core objective is to identify two technologies and competitors that are using the technology. Conducting this will help me make recommendations on the most appropriate technological solution that will help the store expand its operations. The other objective is to help enhance business processes involved in integrating a brick-and-mortar store with an e-business. To avoid interruptions to daily operations, adequate planning will be made. The third objective is to execute the identified technologies in the various business processes while ensuring the data of the company is safeguarded from both internal and external threats.
Description of the Project
In the contemporary business environment, it is common for new technology to be used in various areas. The benefits that come with the new technology makes it a vital tool to be considered by business owners. The for this technology to be effective, it should be able to have certain technology requirements. These technologies include managing inventory and shipping, integrating online transactions, facilitating collaboration between customers and staff, giving reports, and managing customer contracts. The technology should also be able to manage the current process involved in the brick- and mortar business including sales, inventory, and payments. It would be imperative to examine how the two technologies are currently used by Classic Wear competitors. I will obtain information from the competitor’s social media sites, websites, and business practices. I also intend to obtain information from ia marketing research across the industry.
Technology Requirements
The techniques are important since they are helping to address the various issues. The technological requirements include:
- Manage shopping and inventory
- Develop an online shopping
- Facilitate internal and external collaboration
- Manage customer contacts
- Give reports
- Manage business processes
- Facilitate online shopping and payment
Competitors and Technology
Technology One
One of the greatest rivals of Classic Wear is Macy’s. Essentially, Macy’s integrated the social media sites into the marketing efforts in 2010. Consequently, the company has increased its Facebook followers by approximately 12 million people (Moth, 2013). Macy’s has been considered successful in maintaining their customer interactions gin Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest. Social computing is an excellent technology that has helped to attain a bigger customer base and attract customers to their physical stores through promotions and discounts. Macy’s is considered as the country’s leading retailers. The company sells items such as shoes, clothing, makeup products, and handbags. Further, the organization offer the consumers an opportunity to buy products both in-store and online. Macy’s also has an updated IOS which provided the consumer with an opportunity to buy items at pick-up store as well as online.
Technology Two
The other competitor of Classic Wear that has greatly benefited from business analytics and business intelligence solution is kohl’s. Fundamentally, artificial intelligence is helping the organization to work faster, smarter, and more effectively. The technology is also helping Kohl’s to increase its customer base (Kohl’s, 2018). Just like Macy’s, Kohl’s sells its products both online and in-store. Business intelligence has enabled Kohl’s to innovate tools such as chatbots, image searches, and voice among other tools. The image search features help the customer to take a photo of the item they are interested in and Kohl’s app will give something similar. Besides, Kohl’s app has a database that helps build a profile for the customer based on past purchases to provide the client with new items that match the customer needs and preference. The chatbots are useful resources that facilitate a 24-hour interaction with clients to deal with issues they encounter both online and in-store. Moreover, inventory data influence artificial intelligence to help associated efficiently and quickly understand the available inventory in the store when helping the customer.
Technology Benefits
Throughout the research, I have learned that companies are benefiting significantly from social computing and business intelligence solutions. For instance, Macy’s has acknowledged it has benefited from social computing. Specifically, social computing has enabled the organization to expand its customer base and keep a continual interaction with their online customers. Further, Kohl’s has benefited from business analytics and business intelligence technologies. For instance, Kohl’s uses the technology to gather data about their customers to help offer a more tailored made shopping experience while enabling the associated to offer better customer service. The organization’s constant collection of data has helped with the continuous growth of the business. Kohl’s as a brick-and-mortar business, states that “focus on innovation and setting the path for long-term growth in an ever-evolving retail world” (Kohl’s, 2018). The new technology together with improved business strategies has proven the success of Classic Wear’s rivals. Therefore, I believe that these technological advances will be successful for our organization as well. If Classic Wear accepts to embrace the new technology, we would be able to see the growth for the organization and develop an online presence while helping it to become customer-oriented.
References
Kohl’s. (2018, April 17). The four technologies to know: Kohl’s is working smarter with artificial intelligence. Retrieved from https://corporate.kohls.com/news/archive-/2018/april/the-four-technologies-to-know–kohl-s-is-working-smarter-with-ar
Moth, D. (2013, September 9). How Macy’s uses Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google. Retrieved from https://econsultancy.com/how-macy-s-uses-facebook-twitter-pinterest-and-google/
