Executive Summary
The purpose of this report is to investigate the value of Enterprise Systems, ECommerce, Decision Support Systems and Emerging Technologies and how they
could potentially benefit Animal Adventures. Using these systems in their company
could greatly reduce sales costs and increase revenue and their competitive advantage
in the industry. Analysis and comparison of different options was conducted to find
the best way forward for the team at Animal Adventures. Findings indicate that while
all of these tools can be beneficial separately, if integrated they can be a highly
effective way to increase sales and revenue within a business. It is recommended that
Animal Adventures invest in an enterprise system with e-commerce management
capabilities, a simple decision support system for the website and also new
technologies that could benefit their company and set them apart from others in the
travel industry.
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Introduction
Animal Adventures have issues with their database, lack of an E-Commerce system,
not enough sales representatives to provide for customer demand and lack of website
information. This report will inform Animal Adventures on recommendations for
Enterprise System a new SAP Customer Relationship Management (CRM) fitted
specifically for their needs, a new incorporation of a new payment method on their
new website, an updated decision support system with a questionnaire and live chat
and for Emerging Technologies the new Google Glasses and Canon PowerShot N.
Enterprise System
Two of the main issues identified by managers at Animal Adventures were the lack of
data visibility across the different departments and also the inability to access real
time sales data from their stores.
Implementing an enterprise system for Animal Adventures would provide a solution
to both of these problems as well as giving the team the competitive advantage that
they will need when expanding into the Australian market. SAP provides enterprise
management solutions to businesses large and small across many industries
throughout the world, and upon comparison to other systems we believe that SAP
Business Suite, in particular SAP Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
software will be best suited to Animal Adventures needs. The SAP Business Suite is
configured to each individual businesses requirements, and encompasses finance,
manufacturing, procurement, product development, marketing, sales, service, human
resources, supply chain management and IT management. (SAP Business Suite
Features and Functions).
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The SAP CRM system will provide the following benefits to the Animal Adventures
team:
Marketing - overview of the marketing function and the ability to manage the brand,
campaigns, lists, offers, loyalty programs and e-marketing.
Sales - facilitates collaboration between sales and marketing departments, reporting,
e-commerce, customer interaction, end-to-end sales process and customer loyalty.
Service - by providing real time customer information, the sales experience and offers
can be tailored to
each customer to
maximise sales
and resolve any
issues.
Contact Centre personalised
marketing
Figure 1. CRM System Diagram. (CRM Systems, n.d.)
campaigns, consistent customer experience, analysis of trends, extend market reach.
E-Commerce - manage internet sales, customer convenience self-service, reduce sales
costs. (SAP Business Suite, n.d.)
This will connect information for each department in one shared place for reporting
and analysis to support decision making. SAP Business Suite will organise current
customer and business information into a format that will be much easier to access
throughout the company, as well as providing Animal Adventures with a solid
platform for growth and expansion into the Australian market.
Our recommendation for Animal Adventures is to purchase SAP Business Suite and
have it tailored specifically with functions relevant to their industry needs. This is a
great system for a mid-sized business and being a global brand will provide the
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support that will be needed when implementing the software. It will allow Animal
Adventures to reduce sales costs, manage e-commerce, increase visibility across
departments, and access real time customer information from multiple locations.
E-Commerce
Sales representatives at Animal Adventures identified a lack of E-Commerce system
as a problem for them that need to be addressed to reduce the amount of time spent on
administration and reduce the sales costs incurred by the business.
An improved website and online booking system will free up time for the Sales reps
which could be better spent finding new customers or collaborating with the
marketing team to create campaigns to increase sales. This can be integrated with the
ERP system to manage information collected from the website, helping to build the
customer database and reach a wider audience.
The sales team will be able to share information on each tour regarding price, dates,
photos, videos and even interactive content. The use of a Decision Support System as
part of the website could also help the customer determine which tour would suit their
needs as well as providing answers to frequently asked questions specific to each tour.
Social media can also be used to link to the site which may introduce Animal
Adventures to a different target market, these are powerful tools that can be used to
increase their customer base.
Using an E-Commerce system on the website will reduce the amount of time
currently spent processing payments and entering customer details. Different payment
options can be offered credit card, bank transfer and PayPal, and receipts will be
automatically generated and emailed to the customer, while the site will record
customer details for future transactions or to be used for targeted marketing
campaigns.
We recommend that Animal Adventures invest in a new website or develop their
current site to incorporate an e-commerce system to enable online booking, as well as
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adding more content about tours for customers. Hiring an E-Commerce manager and
creating a new department will greatly benefit Animal Adventures in the future and
would help the Sales and Marketing teams to optimise the benefits that this system
can bring to the company. We have no doubt that if Animal Adventures were to
follow this recommendation, that they will be able to reduce sales costs and increase
revenue.
Decision Support System
Animal Adventures are dealing two problems of not having enough sales
representatives to provide for their customers demand because of how long the
process of setting up their trips takes and not having their website up to date providing
information, answer queries or can provide the sale transactions.
The new involvement of the Intelligent Agents software will perform these tasks such
as a providing the best trip suitable for the customers budget, remember the
customer’s details, search for trends and can inform anyone that the server has been
down. (Oldfield, 2013)
Using the new form of advertisement in social media, Animal Adventures are able to
attract customers from around the world and provide them with the information
needed. With all the growth of the company the new decision support system will
provide them a questionnaire that will suit each customer’s needs and make it easier
for the customer to decide for what they want for themselves. The use of the Artificial
Neural Network (ANN) will help animal adventures in finding any problems that
occur, incomplete data and can have a bank alert that a credit card payment is a fraud,
letting Animal Adventure know to cancel that payment. (Oldfield, 2013)
The new availability of a live chat is the new best form the customer can be offered
with because a sales representative will be available 24/7 and it can be answered from
different forms of technology.
It is recommended that Animal Adventures improve and update their support system
because it will be beneficial to both the sales representative and the customers. It will
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improve their customer service, limit their mistakes, have more organisational control,
give the customers the option to specialise their trip, make an online payment with the
options given, have a 24 hour access and be given the option of a live chat to a sales
representative for any queries.
Figure 2. MindMeister Questionnaire. (Al-Hilali, 2013).
Emerging Technologies
Animal Adventure has no equipment to sell adventures in the current market.
Customers want to buy adventures but can only do that through phone or coming to
an Animal Adventure, which wastes time and sales representative don’t time to
collect new customers.
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So I suggest Animal Adventure to purchase ticket vendor for automatically selling
adventures for customers. That can reduce customers waiting time, and save staff
time.
Recently, there are some new technologies that have been published. According to
Animal Adventure, they want expand to Australia market situation; we have
suggested some products for them. The first one is the Google glasses. It is a wearable
computer with a head-mounted display machine, they look like the glasses we wear
normally, but Google glasses have a built in hardware and software. In hardware,
Google glasses have a camera, touchpad and technical specifications. The Camera can
take photos and record 720p HD video. Touchpad allow the users to control device by
swiping through a timeline. Google glass has the Android 4.0.4 and higher system,
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 16GB storage and 682 RAM. Animal Adventure is going to
introduce this technology into each store for the customer to make time pass when
they’re in queue. The company can play some tour pack information through Google
glasses; reducing asking the sales representative at the counter. Some customer may
feel curious about this new technology, attracting their attention while making a
deal.
Figure 3. Google Glasses. (De Los Santos, 2013).
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Figure 4. Canon PowerShot N. (Canon, 2013).
Another technology we want to suggest is the Wi-Fi camera. Canon PowerShot N is a
new digital camera with built in Wi-Fi for wireless transfer of image to social
networking sites, which is the difference between other cameras. Customers can
connect the camera to their cell phone, after finishing taking photos, sending the
pictures to their phones or computers, saving the usual time it took to transfer. Animal
Adventures can provide camera rental service for the customers for when they have
fun in travelling; they have high quality photos on record.
Considering Animal Adventures potential expansion in Australia, their budget does
not yet include the purchase of the new technologies, so we have decided to just buy
the camera and then, depending on our revenue, buy the Google glasses or other
emerging technologies products.
Conclusion
In this report we have discussed Enterprise System, E-commerce, Decision Support
System and Emerging Technologies. In Enterprise System we introduce SAP, CRM
system. In the E-commerce section we have offered different payment options, hiring
an E-commerce manager and creating a new department. Providing different solutions
to solve the customers’ problems or when they are travelling or prepare to travel. We
have also suggested two new technologies in Emerging Technologies part and aim to
customers have an unforgettable experience.
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References
SAP Business Suite Features and Functions.
http://www.sap.com/australia/solutions/business-suite/features-functions/index.epx
CRM Systems. (n.d.) CRM System Diagram. Retrieved from
http://www.crmsystems.com/about_crm/5_minute_crm.aspx
Oldfield, J. (2013). Information System 2
Retrieved from iBook.
Al-Hilali, T. (2013) Mindmeister questionnaire retrieved from
http://www.mindmeister.com/300048471
De Los Santos, B. (2013), Google Glasses
Retrieved from
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/02/20/172498296/googles-glassproject-can-you-make-the-grade
Canon USA, Inc. (2013), Canon PowerShot N
Retrieved from
http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/cameras/digital_cameras/powersh
ot_n
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