Internet Services - Modelling and Developing

Analysis report

Blue Sky, a china shop
The analysis report been made by Ville, Taru, and Antti.
21 January 2005
The index of contents

Description of the present situation of the company or organization

The china shop Blue Sky is quite successful with its firm and traditional business strategy. Blue Sky has one shop in Helsinki. Blue Sky does not have any Internet services but it uses some e-mail in its operations..

Overview of the company

Blue Sky started its business in 1930 in the Fredrikstreet in Helsinki. Blue Sky imports china from France, Italy and China. In addition, Blue Sky organizes porcelain painting courses the popularity of which has been increasing recently.

The staff of Blue Sky includes the owner Leena Aaltonen, three shop assistants and one porcelain painting teacher. The turnover of the company is 1,2 million euros.

External partners

The external partners of Blue Sky are the following:

china shops in France, Italy and China
two china painting material shops in Central Europe
order suppliers
an e-mail service provider.

Customers

The customers of Blue Sky arechina retailers and different institutions which buy china for their training and refreshing purpose. The customers of Blue Sky are also privat persons who buy china for them-selves as presents. Some private persons participate also in the porcelain painting courses of Blue Sky. One third of the customers are Swedish. Some of the customers are regular customers. They receive the prochures of Blue Sky few times a year and they get a fixed amount discount of some products.

The retailers are female-dominated small companies with one to five employees. They prefer traditional communication chanels to the Internet. On the other hand, the staff in the institutions have basic skills in information technology and they use the Internet in communication and information seeking, usually from some specific addresses. One half of the private person customers of Blue Sky use the information technology and the Internet at work. Many of them have already asked if they could receive the information on the porcelain painting courses and on new products via the Internet.

The present and the goal situation of the Internet activity and ability of Blue Sky and its customers is presented in the e-commerce maturity model.


Organization /Customer	Organization /Customer	Basic knowledge of ICT	Knowledge of the net	Using Internet services
Absence from the net		Present situation
Presence in the net
Product information in the net			Goal situation
Sales and interactivity in the net
Integration of Internet service and internal information systems
Wholly integrated online store service

Table 1. The present and the goal situation of the Blue Sky presented in the e-commerce maturity model.

In the present situation, the company does not have any Internet services. Most part of its customers have basic knowledge of the ICT and the amount of those who have the knowledge of the net is growing. In the goal situation, most of the customers have knowledge of the net and the product information of the company is in the net.

Competitors

Blue Sky has two considerable competitors in Finland, one in Central Finland and the other in the eastern Finland. The company in the eastern Finland has an Internet service to which there is a link from the Internet service of the municipality.

Information

The information entities of Blue Sky are:

Customer (name, contact information (address, phone number, e-mail address))
Corporate customer (type of the corporate customer (retailer or institution), name, C-code, account number, commercial register code)
Regular customer (regular customer number, discount percentage)
Privat person ()
Product class (name, material, country of manufacture, description)
Product (name, delivered price, selling price, size, description)
Supplier (name, contact information, C-code, account number, commercial register code)
Course (dates, topic, price, place).

The other information entities of Blue Sky are:

Delivery (date, state)
Order (date, state)
Participation (state)
Invoicing (sending date, due date, sum, state).

object class diagram

Diagram 1. The information of Blue Sky described in the object class diagram.

Processes

The processes of the Blue Sky are the following:

Supplying the products
Fixing the prices of the products
Presenting the products
Ordering the products
Organizing the courses
Enrolling to a course
Participating in the courses
Invoicing
Paying the invoices
Invoicing the supplies
Paying the supply invoices.

Use case diagram of the processes of the Blue Sky

Diagram 2: Processes of Blue Sky presented in a use case diagram.

Information security architecture, policy and rules

Blue Sky has no information security rules. The customer information is in a manual card index and it is handled in accordance with the Finnish Personal Data File Act. The office doors are locked when the office is closed and the alarm goes straight to a security firm.

Risks of the present situation (risk-analysis)

The business of Blue Sky is stable and the suppliers and the customers are faithful. With the technical development the Internet services become marketing and acting channel also to the porcelain business. This may be regarded as a risk.

The information of Blue Sky is based on the printed brochures which are not always up to date and do not reach the potential customers. Printing and posting the brochures is expensive and, therefore, they cannot be re-printed as often as the product range changes. Some customers have expected the product information to be on the net. Blue Sky's competitor from the eastern Finland has a working Internet service with the product information, though only in Finnish.

Business strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (the SWOT-analysis)


Strengths stable and profitable business longtime customer relationships fine location trustworthy suppliers	Weaknesses no precence on the net the brochures are not always up to date the course information does not always reach the potential target group poor technical knowledge no clear picture of the possibilites of Internet service
Opportunities new customers thru the Internet service improvement of the image of the company with the qualified Internet service the current information on the net the presentation of the new products on the net the development of the business	Threats the Internet services do not remain up to date the Internet services of the competitors are better the viruses the crackers the customers do not search the company's information on the net the maintenance of the Internet service is not cost-effective

Table 3. The SWOT of the present situation of Blue Sky.

The strength of Blue Sky, which will be kept also in the future, is the stable and profitable business functioning via the traditional channels. The Internet services will offer Blue Sky new opportunities to inform, catch new customers and develop the business.

Weaknesses of Blue Sky are the partly out-of-date information and the absance in the net. The latter is connected with the poor technical knowledge and unfamiliarity of the opportunities of the Internet services to the business.

The threats include the competition situation, the maintenance of the Internet services and the unknown attitude of the customers.

Problems and their possible solutions (the problem-solution-analysis)


Problem	Solution
Designing, printing and posting product brochures is expensive and takes time. The information of new products is available usually only one month after the information or the products are already in the shop of Blue Sky.	Blue Sky will have its product information on the net in addition to the printed brochures. The time-delay is shorter and informing about the changes is easier. Blue Sky will not give up traditional brochures but all the products may not be presented in them. The address of the Internet services will be added on the brochures for futher information.
The course information does not reach the potential course participants, altought Blue Sky sends its course brochures to the regular customers and on the notice boards of the nearby shops and companies.	The course information on the net.
Blue Sky is not on the net but its competitor is. This may lead to a loss of market share because a part of the customers has some Internet knowledge.	Developing a Internet service to Blue Sky in Finnish and in Swedish.
Blue Sky employees do not have technical skills.	The maintenance of the Internet service should be easy. It may be bought from someone who has technical skills. The staff ot Blue Sky will develop the content to the Internet service maintenance.
The customers' Internet knowledge is not good.	The Internet service have to be clear and easy to use.

Table 2. The problem-solution-analysis.

Business requirements

According to the description of the present situation, the business requirement is the visibility on the net. The reasons for this are the following:

some of the customers have desired the information of the products and courses on the net
one competitor is on the net
on the net, all products could be presented with lower costs than now and the information on changes in the product range could be quicker than now.

The Internet service should serve customers according to the image of Blue Sky in Finnish, Swedish and English..

Goal situation

Definition of the goal

Blue Sky has, in accordance with its image, a clear, easy-to-use and easy to maintain Internet service in Finnish, Swedish and English. The Internet service presents the products and courses of Blue Sky. It is up-to-date so that the information about new products and about the removal of the old ones is not delayed more than one day.

Measurers

The measurers which show if the goal situation has been reached are the following:

The Internet service is up-to-date:

When a new product arrives to the shop, its information is on the net at least the following day.
When a product has been removed from the stock, its information is removed from the net at least the following day.
If a product is temporarily unavailable, the information about this is on the net at least the following day.
The course information is up-to-date on the net. When a course is over, its information will be removed at least the following day.

The information in the Internet service reaches the customers.

The number of visitors in the Internet service is at least 50 persons a month.
The course participants will have a feedback form where there are, among others, some questions about using the Internet service. At least 30 % of those who answer the questions has visited the Internet service.
The regular customers will be asked about the use of Internet service twice a year.

External partners

In the goal situation of Blue Sky, there are two new external partners: the website server and the website maintainer. It is probable that the same company will give the website which is giving the email service.

Customers

The present faithful customers will stay and the Internet service will provide Blue Sky with new customers to buy the products and participate in the courses.

Competitors

The competitors of Blue Sky are the same as in the present situation. The Internet service in three languages will improve Blue Sky's competition situation if the bigger part of the customers has knowledge of the net.

Information

The information in Blue Sky is the same in the goal situation as it is in the present situation.

Processes

In the goal situation the company should be able to maintain the Internet service and answer to the questions coming thru it. On the other hand, the amount of questions by phone may decrease.

The new processes are:

maintenance of the Internet service (Blue Sky has to develop the contents which the maintainer will update)
answering the questions coming via the net
handling the feedback.

Information security architecture, policy and rules

The present information security policy of Blue Sky will be improved at least by taking backup copies about the information as well as with the usage of firewalls. The company which offers the website has to up-to-date the information security architecture.

Risks of the goal situation (risk-analysis)

In the present situation, Blue Sky does not have any Internet services. Thus, the goal situation has many risks of which the company has no experience.


Risk	Proba- bility *)	Serious- ness *)	Conse- quences	Causes	Means of preventing the risk	Respon- sibility (person or the role)
Viruses	B	M	Close the infected website.	Virus attack	Updating the virus- databases and programs often enough.	The website server provider
Old or false infor- mation on the net.	S	M	False information to the customers.	A delay or hurry in the mainte- nance	A realistic maintenance shedule.	The main- tainer.
The fall down of the server	S	M	The Internet service is not working.	Technical failure	Backups,	The website server provider.
The Blue Sky is not able to handle feedback or questions in time.	M	M	Customers are disappointed.	Too much work, priorization of the jobs, unexpected amount of feedback or questions in the Internet service.	Anticipating of the situation, realistic promises of the schedule of the answers in the Internet service.	Whole staff and the owner.

*S = small, M = midsized, B = big

Page updated 23.1.2007
Eija Kalliala, firstname.lastname@haaga-helia.fi
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