E Commerce and V Business

Question: Discuss about the E Commerce and V Business. Answer: Introduction According to Grant, Fernie and Schulz (2014), Electronic Commerce, commonly known as e-commerce is the process of doing business with the help of computer networks i.e. the internet, online social networks, etc. Nowadays, this process of business is widely accepted throughout the world. E-commerce is in all the four segments of the business i.e. business to business, business to customer, customer to customer and customer to business. Electronic commerce refers to technologies like mobile commerce, online fund transfer, online marketing, online supply chain management, stock management system, electronic data interchanged, etc. The reason behind the popularity of e-commerce is that it saves both time and money and this process of doing business also provides convenience both the producers and the customers (Da Costa 2016). This report is about the commencement of a new business in the field of e-commerce. The primary reason for setting up an e-commerce business is that the profit margin is very high. This is an Online Food Delivery Business which takes orders from customers through the internet and delivers the food to them. At first, the operating industry of the business has been analyzed. Then the three primary goals of the business have been set and purposes are evaluated. Then the target market of the company has been recognized and set. At last, the two largest players in this industry have been recognized and their operations are critically analyzed. In the end, a conclusion has been drawn based on the total study. Industry Analysis The new online food delivery business will operate in the food delivery industry. The day is not far when the process of coming down to the restaurants and eat food or take the delivery of the food is going to be past for the continuous increase in the online food delivery system. In Australia, the online food delivery business is growing like mushrooms. Entrepreneurs all over the Australia are showing interest in online food delivery business and investing millions of dollars in this business segment. The main function of online food delivery business is that these companies allow the customers to order food from a wide range of restaurants and deliver the ordered foods to their doors within a certain time (Kurnia et al. 2015). Australia is a lucrative market in the area of online food delivery for the investors who want to invest in this particular segment as most of the Australian market is untapped. Investors all over the world are showing interest in investing in Australia as the social, political and technological factors of Australia is favorable for online food delivery business. The Australian Technology has improved enough to support this e-business. For Example, Technology giant Uber is eyeing to invest in this food delivery segment by launching their new service delivery business UberEATS IN Melbourne (Dunford et al. 2014). Other factors i.e. social and political factors are also investment friendly in Australia. According to Taneja and Singh (2012), like other business segments, there are some challenges faced by this online food delivery segment. The big challenge is to deliver the food on time. The food delivery companies promise the customers to deliver the food on time like within 30 minutes or 1 hour, etc. This is a big challenge as on time delivery requires an efficient network of logistics. But it is not always possible to deliver the foods on time as there can be various problems. The customer loyalty hugely depends on the timely delivery of foods. Online food delivery business is changing the customer perception about food deliver system. It is not just delivering the food on time; it is the process of delivering delicious and healthy foods in a convenient way which saves both money and time of the customers. Goals of the Business Every business has some specific goals to achieve as goals determine the direction of the business. The three primary goals of the newly launched Online Food Delivery Business are discussed below: The first goal is Timely Delivery. Timely delivery is the toughest challenge face by the online food delivery industry. The main purpose of timely delivery is that it determines the customer loyalty. According to Berger, delivering the food on time is the biggest challenge. To achieve the goal the company should employ an effective logistics system. The company is planning to employ an army of delivering persons who will be responsible to deliver the foods on time to the customers (Ross 2013). The second goal is to Maximize the profit by satisfying the needs of the customers. To stay alive in todays highly competitive market, the companies must think about the process of maximizing the profit as profit is like the oxygen of an organization. On the other hand, the companies need to consider the aspect of customer satisfaction at the same time. So the purpose of this goal will be to serve the customers in such a way that it can help to increase the goodwill of the company. And this total process will lead to profit maximization (Vranceanu 2014). The third goal is to Provide convenience to the customers in order and payment systems. The order process should be mobile friendly as nowadays almost all the people use mobile phones to order something through online. There will be an application through which the customers will order the foods. On the other hand, there should be various types of payment modes available to the customers. The payment modes should be secure as this is the matter of concern for most of the customers. Customers need safety while paying online and the company needs to be determined to provide it (Oliver 2014). E-commerce aspects of the Business According to Barnes and Hunt (2013), online food delivery business is a kind of business which totally depends on the internet as the customers use the internet to choose the restaurants, order the foods and payments. The new e-business is well structured to cater to the needs of the customers. The e-commerce aspects of the business are discussed below: The company will have an official website. The website will contain all the details about the partner restaurants. By accessing the website, customers can get the food menu of all those restaurants and order. There will be an official mobile application of the company which will have all the details about the restaurants. People can order through this application. The application will be a user-friendly one. Anyone can access the application as does not have any complex process to operate. The application will charge minimum data. There will be a system of tracking the delivery person through the application. Customers can see where the delivery person is through the application. So this application will provide a lot of features which is convenient for the customers (Holzinger, Treitler and Slany 2012). There will be two types of payment systems available for the customers i.e. Cash Payment and Online Payment. As most of the customers like to pay online, there will be a safe and secure mode of online payments. Customers can pay through their debit cards and credit cards by using the online application of the company. On the other hand, they can use the official websites of the banks on which they hold an account to pay bills. The application is purely hacker proof and confidential; so there is no chance of leaking the banking details of the customers (Kimes and Collier 2014). In the case of any inconvenience happens, the customers can talk to the representative of the company through a live video chat from the official website and the application of the company. Value Proposition Value Proposition helps to create the brand image of business. In simple words, by reading the value proposition of a company, customers can understand the benefits offered by the company (Osterwalder et al. 2014). The tagline of this online food delivery business is The Fastest Way to Get Your Food. The value proposition of this company exists behind the tagline. The benefits offered by this company to the customers are discussed below: As this is an online food ordering business, this gives the customer to order foods online and delivered by the delivery person of the company. Customers can order the food either by using the official website of the company or the official mobile application of the company. Both the website and the application consist of a large variety of restaurants which offer foods like Chinese, Italian, Thai, Continental, etc. The customers can get the foods within 30 minutes of the order as the company has a large number of delivery people and one delivery person engages one order at a time. This makes them more efficient and helps them to deliver the foods on time. By using the mobile application, the customers can track the delivery person i.e. where he is at that moment. The company accepts both cash and online payments. As most of the customers use online payment mode, the company has a well structured, safe and secure online payment mode (Bruneel et al. 2012). In todays world, customers want innovation as well as satisfaction from the companies. And to stay in the competition, businesses need to come up with innovative features that can attract the customers. The new online food ordering business has all the ingredients to cater to the needs of the customers and to stay in the marketplace. The unique facilities offers by the company will help to satisfy the customers as well as help to retain them (Flaherty and Rappaport 2015). Target Markets The twenty-first century is the century of technology and internet. People from all age group use the internet and mobile phones for daily purposes (Cunningham and Frschl 2013). Standing at this era, this new online food ordering business has a sky of opportunities to expand its business (Wedel and Kamakura 2012). There are two segments of people who are the target market of this e-business. The first target market is the people in the age group of 18 to 25 years. This segment of target market consists of mainly school and college goers. Nowadays being the age of technology, it can be presumed that all 90% of them use the internet on mobiles, tablets, laptops and computers. It has been seen that this age group of people has a high tendency of buying foods online like pizza, Chinese, etc. The money comes from two sources. The school and college goers get the money from their parents or relatives. Some of them doing a job while studying in the universities can buy the foods from their own. As this segment of customers is very tech savvy, they are the potential customers of the company (Cross, Belich and Rudelius 2015). Another target market is the people in the age group of 26 to 40 years. People in this segment are the working men and women. In this case of people, money is not the issue as they all are working people. As they all are working people, they do not always get the time to cook. Most of the time, they are in a hurry to go to the workplace, that's why they buy food online on a regular basis. On the other hand, at the time of parties festivals people enjoys a lot and do not like to cook the foods. They order foods from restaurants. All these situations give the company chance to make these potential customers as permanent customers (Craft and Hassan 2015). Competitor Analysis The Australian online food delivery market is vastly untapped. There is a very bright scope for the new companies to excel in this business. There are two large and renowned companies that are the competitors of the new Online Food Delivery Business. They are Delivery Hero and Menulog. Delivery Hero Delivery Hero is the worlds one of the largest leading online food delivery e-commerce company. The company was founded by Mr. Niklas Ostberg in the year of 2011. The headquarter is situated in Berlin, Germany. Delivery Hero has its presence in five continents including Australia. Delivery Hero has a well-structured e-commerce system for order taking and payment system. They have been continuously transforming themselves in the business sector. Delivery Hero has over 3, 00,000 restaurants all over the world registered with them. Customers can search for any restaurants and any categories of foods through their official website and their official mobile application. Both cash and online payments are available in Delivery Hero. There is a facility of saving one's favorite menu on the website. Delivery Hero does not employ any intermediaries in the order making and payment process. When someone places an order, that order goes direct to the selected restaurant and the food is delivered to the customer hot and on time. As Delivery Hero has the rating facility of the restaurants, one can choose the best restaurant among them (www.deliveryhero.com 2016). Menulog Menulog is Australia's largest online food delivery company regarding the number of order placed. The parent company of Menulog is Just Eat. The headquarter of the company is situated in Sydney. Menulog offers the customers to choose from a wide range of restaurants. Over 7, 500 Australian restaurants are registered with this company which provides a large variety of foods to the customers. In Australia, every year the highest number of online food orders are placed in Menlag. The reason behind this success is the well-structured e-commerce mechanism of the company. The company has a user-friendly website and mobile application which takes order in just one click. Menulog has a convenient online payment system which provides the customers with a safe and secure payment experience. They use to provide special discounts and offers throughout the year (www.menulog.com.au 2016). Conclusion Nowadays electronic commerce or e-commerce is the kind of business which is gaining popularity all over the world. This business maximizes profit for the producers and saves time as well as money for the customers. This process of business is very convenient too for both the parties. From the above report, we can understand that to set up new electronic business; certain factors need to be taken into consideration. At first, one needs to determine in which industry the business will be and after choosing the industry one needs to analyze that particular industry. Analyzing the industry includes the analysis of the benefits and the challenges of that industry. And this process shows the potentials of the business in that industry. It also includes the analysis of the competitors. The competitors analysis helps to spot out the loopholes of the business and gives the scope for improvement. After the industry analysis, the goals of the business must be set on higher priority. In this report, three particular goals of the new online food delivery e-business have been established and justified. After that, the value proposition of the business needs to be set i.e. what are the benefits the business is offering to the customers. 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