Question

Write a business report based on the following:

A new business, Globex Corporation has been created as the result of merging two large regional business, Riverina Precision Farming, and B T & Sons Farming Equipment. Globex Corp is primarily located in the Riverina Region of NSW and has three locations, Albury, Griffith and Wagga Wagga. Within Globex there are two arms to the business (Precision Farming & Farming Equipment), each of which is represented at each location.

The Globex Farming Equipment head office is located in Wagga Wagga, while the Globex Precision Farming head office is located in Griffith. Parts and Services for both arms as well as administration support are coordinated from the Albury office.

Globex Corporation strives to supply agricultural solutions that achieve the following objectives:

• Fulfill unmet market needs
• Exceed the standards for quality, effectiveness and value of its competitors
• Delivered on time
• Supported with expert technical service and advice
• Environmentally responsible and beneficial

Senior management has finalised on the following decisions:

1. Globex will retain all existing staff, stock and infrastructure from the merged businesses. B T & Sons aging systems are to be merged into the Riverina Precision Farming systems.

2. Globex have decided to invest in the development of an Online Sales Management System (OSMS), replacing all manual processes, allowing clients to order and pay for equipment online.

3. You are required to provide any two suitable business processes or solutions that could be employed to enhance this model. You should substantiate this process or solution with relevant references to literature.

4. Suggest how social media could play a role in promoting the OSMS to customers - giving suitable approaches from literature.

Write a business report outlining the above case, stating assumptions you make at the beginning of your report. Provide critique into the management decisions substantiating with reference to literature. In your report, make the difference between Information Systems (IS) and Information Technology (IT) issues and how it will affect customer choice, continued patronage, brand loyalty, and so on.

Suggest how to attract new customers (from competitors) and any other new business opportunities that may arise with such a set up. All these should be substantiated with references to IS and IT literature.

Answer 1

Answer: As stated above, a new firm is established as Globex Corporation by merger between two existing companies which are geographically at different location but in same trade. As stated above the firm will retain all its existing staff, stock and infrastructure.

The firm desires to start Online Sales Management System(OSMS) to better the sales process and replace the existing manual process. For this above company can opt for either of below two models:

(a) In house Ecommerce Website and setup: This is the first method in which the company can develop its own website and launch the website on internet with creating the website as the requirement and budget. The company have to setup a in house information technology team or can outsource the entire website related work to any information technology company. The in house setup or own website is useful and effective tool for the company as company is already have expertise in production and want to expand its business from manual to online mode. The company needs to ensure following things before starting or launching own website for business and sales:

1. Robust website with highest uptime, secured browsing and safe payment gateway.

2 Dedicated IT team to monitor and need to develop the strong supply chain.

3. Partner with reliable and efficient logistic company.

4. Strong service support and call centre to manage customer queries.

5. Returns and warranty management process.

(b).Alliance with ecommerce companies: The another option is to sell its products on other ecommerce platform as vendor and use their platform and logistics network. This method has less profit margin but is cost effective and the company need not to setup any in house large IT setup or staff to manage the website. The website and product cataloge is mostly managed by online ecommerce company with their own payment gateways and logistics system. The warranty and customer service part is to be managed by company in house in this case. The only requirement is to get the best terms with renowned ecommerce platform and having strong in house customer support team.

Role of Social Media in OSMS: The social media now days plays a very important role in sales decision of the customers. Websites like Facebook, twitter ,Google etc provides the product advertisement services on their platform as per AI logic i.e. artificial intelligence. The present world in more virtual and advertisement pattern has also been changed more to digital and people tend to buy the products only after reviewing online ratings of the products.

The company should ensure that its product gets the real and good ratings over various platforms and is prominently visible at most popular social media platform of the region where company wants to expand its business.The companies are now have dedicated social media handles on twitter and Facebook to handle customer queries and complaints. There is very bright future for online sales as the geographical boundaries and barriers are no issues with online platforms and social media success is very important for any brand to establish in market.