“Be the Dream” Community Technology Center (CTC) e-business Proposal

Zen Benefiel

Tracy Fowler

Kevin Kostrobala

David Coles

University of Phoenix

EBUS 500.1

Facilitator: Kadambi Vijaisimh

August 3, 2003

Abstract

“Be the Dream” is an aggressive group of entrepreneurs that bring years of IT experience to the table.  As the group began its dream of a Community Technology Center and e-curriculum portal, a sound and functional e-business plan took shape.  What is our dream?  A Community Technology Center (CTC) is where people get free or low-cost access to computers and computer-related technology, such as the Internet, together with learning opportunities that encourage exploration and discovery. Partnerships create shared ownership of vision and distribute responsibility of task completion in the achievement of collaborative missions, utilizing both click and brick assets. Socially responsible action in creating low-cost solutions for educational content and delivery to the end user creates community utility.  We are committed to the success of providing our customers IT solutions and our future investors sound profitable investment opportunities.

 Table of Contents

Abstract.............................................................................................................................. 2

Mission Statement............................................................................................................ 4

I.     Products and Services............................................................................................... 4

Key Points....................................................................................................................... 4

Figure 1. Internet Revenue (Source: ActivMedia)....................................................... 5

II.    Advertising.................................................................................................................. 8

Key Points....................................................................................................................... 8

III.       Marketing............................................................................................................... 10

Key Points.................................................................................................................... 10

Table 1.  Customer Related (7 advantages, 2003).................................................. 11

IV.      Technology – Procurement and Distribution...................................................... 11

Key Points.................................................................................................................... 11

Figure 2. Procurement and Distribution Architecture.............................................. 14

V.   Financial Requirements........................................................................................... 16

Key Points.................................................................................................................... 16

Table 2.  Startup Costs............................................................................................... 16

Chart 1. Estimated start-up costs.............................................................................. 17

Chart 2. Continued Operations costs........................................................................ 17

Summary.......................................................................................................................... 18

References...................................................................................................................... 19

Mission Statement

To provide low-cost access to computer and computer-related technologies while building collaborative alliances that deliver e-curriculum.

I.                    Products and Services

Key Points

·        Web-based delivery services

·        Bundled Curriculum

·        Stand-alone Curriculum Modules

·        Professional Services

·        Training and Development

·        Professional Career Enhancement

In today’s competitive environment, a strong education may be all that separates someone from the next closest competitor. As advanced technology is sweeping through every sector of the business world, the educational system will not be without its technological changes. The emergence of the Internet and online education’s, such as U of P, has shaped the way we learn and interact today, with many more great changes to come in the future. In figure 1, a recent analysis shows the explosion of growth in the use of the Internet for commerce.

Figure 1. Internet Revenue (Source: ActivMedia)

One such change will be with the emergence of the e-curriculum, or online sites that will have a variety of learning courses to teach students, both young and old, a full education. The curriculums will be the teaching guide for home or charter schools to teach young children the basics from the grades K-12 or they can be geared towards the adult population to teach typical business skills such as leadership training, dealing with conflicts, or a variety of other typical business skills. The curriculums will be housed in central servers in which the purchasing parties can access the curriculums through a web site at any time to download the information and activities as well as updates made to past purchased items. The e-curriculum business will be a combination of two traditional e-business categories, namely the business to business (B2B) and the business to customer (B2C). The web-site developed will be customized to focus separately on each of these two business categories, tailoring the information found on each to the target audiences.

The B2B section will be geared toward the adult users who will be working to improve their soft skills. The target audience for this section will be businesses whom are upgrading their employee’s skills, single employees who would like to develop new skills to further their careers and government agencies. The government can use this system for inmates in the penal system as well, to help people who may have strayed down the wrong path develop new skills to help market themselves when they get back into society or to simply learn everything required to complete their GED. From the web-site, the business can purchase the desired skill packages needed and access the server to download all the reading and activities needed to complete the package.

The B2C section will be geared towards the home or charter schools. The site will provide a one-stop shop for teaching children all the information they will need to learn for one complete grade of school from K-12. The teacher will merely have to access the information from the server and all the needed activities, readings and teaching notes will be at their disposal, decreasing the time teachers need to develop lesson plans and create activities.

 Although the web-site will be geared to different groups, the same features will be provided for all users. The site will have an online catalog of all the information stored on the servers separated into different categories. The customers will have a search feature to match key words and phrases from the catalog of products to what they desire. Customers who are looking for multiple items can select several different products and put them in their shopping cart and purchase all items when they are finished. A function will also be provided if a school or business is looking for a certain topic which is not listed, the customer can fill out a form and a service representative will reply to them if this is something that can be provided in the near future. Finally, a separate section will list items that are in development and will be added soon. Items that are in this section can be pre-ordered and the site will notify the customers when they are available.

Since e-curriculums are a relatively new business, it may take some cooperative marketing to get the product into the awareness of the main stream public. Since the e-curriculums will be purchased from those who create them, such as some of the large publishing companies, it will be important to have links to our web-site from these corporations. Securing top search engine ranking is another important feature of our marketing plan. Gaining the approval of organizations such as teacher’s unions or business skills groups will help to increase the companies name recognition. Approval and recommendations of our e-curriculum from trade unions and membership organizations, adding links to their sites, show endorsement of our product as another way to gain a quality education or learn new skills. 

Additionally, when a company or school uses our product, branding and name recognition occurs through placing our logo and website URL at the bottom of each prominent page. When the student or business person likes what they learned they have the address to find more products from us at their fingertips.  As an added promotional feature, when a parent of a student is looking at what their child is being taught, they will see our web address on the bottom of the page which may spark them to take a look at what else we have to offer.

The increase in education and skill sets development to our end users is not the only benefits our site will provide. The curriculums provided will help to promote students to reach new levels of learning by combining computers and cutting edge technology into the learning process. Our site will provide businesses a low cost way to increase their employees’ potential and develop them into the future leaders of the company. The curriculums will provide the average user a means to learn the skills needed to further their careers to the levels they aspire. 

Internally, our business will provide a lucrative product that can be used over and over again and the only costs past the initial outlay will be to buy new packages and maintain systems. The infrastructure can also be converted to provide storage space for corporations or be an Internet service provider as well. Best of all, the company is trying to educate society and raise the standard of living for everyone by using cutting edge technology and getting users more acquainted with computers, which has already become essential in today’s business culture. 

II.                  Advertising

Key Points

·        Web advertising using industry standard products

-          Email

-          Banners/buttons

·        Messaging with cell phones and pagers

·        Search engine teaming

·        Traditional sales

-          Telephone contacting

-          Fliers mailed

·        Educator conventions

·        Related media publications

Since the curriculums are an e-product, the primary method of advertising will be electronic, via the web, email or messages sent to electronic devices such as cell phones or pagers. The company will work with large, previously established on-line companies to have banners or buttons placed on their web-sites to advertise the CTC and their products. The company will also petition search engines to allow their web-sites name to be shown as a result when people are searching for educational needs. Keyword purchases and some pay-per-click advertising may also be included. Marketing electronically will be a higher focus for the company due to millions of people who have access to the web and can be reached by this type of advertising.

The web is not the only media used to advertise the product though. Various forms of direct marketing will also be utilized to raise customer knowledge about the CTC. Traditional B2B marketing, via mail and telephone, will also be utilized. Fliers will be mailed to customers, especially to growing or expanding areas where traditional education (state run schools) may not be adequate or in place yet. The CTC will also set up booths and/or kiosks at teaching conventions to market our new product to established schools as a new, cutting edge method for reaching the technically advanced youths of today. Radio and television promotion may be garnered through publicity campaigns, PR events, or co-sponsoring projects or programs within the community without incurring the traditional high costs of the medium.

III.                Marketing

Key Points

·        Off-line vs. on-line marketing

·        Target audience

·        Track marketing data

-          Web surveys

-          Traffic analysis software

-          Sales figures

An overview and analysis of traditional (off-line) and online market research is a snapshot of marketing of today and pre-internet or eCommerce. Table 1 compares “customer related” issues in both on- and offline environments.   When a prospective customer views a web-page, instant information is available to them.  Instant data is also available to the company that the customer is viewing on-line.  The off-line customer may not express any interest and the company visited has no feedback at all.  The competition that companies are faced with online as well as traditional commerce is enormous. 

The target audiences for our products will be home schooled students, start-up/charter schools and businesses looking to enhance the skills of their workforce, and life-long learners.  Since these targets are rather diverse, research will need to determine the best path toward marketing to these specific demographics and interest levels.

Table 1.  Customer Related (7 advantages, 2003)

Once marketing methods have been established, it will be important to track which methods provide the best results. Intelligent agents are incorporated to facilitate the analysis of efforts in the placement of advertising. One of the easiest ways to determine marketing effectiveness is by surveying customers when they visit our web-site or talk with our representatives. Questions as to how they first heard about our product or service will be asked to each customer.  Sales figures generated from each type of advertising will be tracked to determine the methods that are most effective.

IV.               Technology – Procurement and Distribution

Key Points

·        Web-based procurement financial benefits

·        Supply chain management

·        Distribution channels

·        Collaborative alliances

“Electronic commerce decreases the cost of creating, processing, distributing, storing, and retrieving paper-based information. For example, by introducing an electronic procurement system, companies can cut purchasing administrative costs by as much as 85 percent” (Ref Pg. 62).  Several methods are used for electronic procurement of e-curriculum. Cyber savvy teachers with a passion for sharing regularly post their achievements to electronic repositories. Traditional textbook manufacturers are developing their own brand of e-curriculum. Bundled thematic units are being created by teacher collaboratives, electronic curriculum developers, and even companies that are aligning practical academic knowledge bases with real-world applications.  Figure 2. provides the architecture design.

Procurement

An active procurement process involves setting up extranets with the variety of suppliers as well as curriculum analysts. Procurement also involves leveraging existing systems, resources, and repositories as functional pieces for Intranet and extranet purposes, with ultimate application across the Internet and World Wide Web. Using intelligent agents, the results of searches for state-of-the-art curriculum can also categorize and identify preferred curriculum bundles and/or subjects. This feature should increase utility for customer relationship management as well in fulfilling specific requests.

 In the case of specific curriculum developers, the agents can identify and compare relative factors within examinable parameters on supplier websites and return ranked scores for internal analysts. Intelligent agents can also be used to seek out teacher-made curriculum, contacting potential candidates, and notifying internal resource developers for follow up on potential suppliers. Collaborative alliances will develop as the project evolves because of the nature of educators’ willingness to support a collective approach to solving many of the problems with traditional curriculum delivery.

Supply Chain Management

“A more recent trend, however—direct-to-consumer selling—is driving an even larger logistics shift in the U.S., according to Ron Riggin, vice president and general manager of MARC Global Systems. MARC is a global supply chain execution (SCE) systems provider for tier-one and -two customers at hundreds of sites worldwide. The latest 3PL trend is application-hosting, a.k.a. ASP. ASPs disseminate logistics applications over private networks or the Internet from a location other than the customer's. "The world is moving back to data centers, like 20 years ago when IT occupied the IBM universe," said Mr. Riggin. "Especially in the last year to 18 months, IT architecture has been moving to the ASP model via Intranets. Now, with Web technology, ASPs and 3PLs can deliver software on demand to end users in real time. You get local processing ability but central management." (Navas, 2003)

Designing the CTC with data center capacity increases electronic dis-intermediation in the B2C supply chain. Storage of electronic curriculum on local servers increases uptime and deliverability to local clients via Intranets and distance clients via extranets and the Internet. Once the hardware infrastructure is in place, intelligent agents will again deliver accessible product for perusal, acceptance or rejection, and categorization for inclusion in the e-catalog of available material or queued for additional screening. Licensing and User Agreements will promote low-cost accessibility for low-income communities, un- or under-employed professionals and small businesses. Through collaborative alliances and consumer survey development, development suppliers can further refine products for specific clients and extend their product potential.

Figure 2. Procurement and Distribution Architecture

Distribution

Clients will include on-site users at the CTC, home-schoolers, life-long learners, small businesses, and charter, district and private schools. The distribution model includes our ultimate consumer satisfaction, supply chain management, and relationship building marketing model to ensure sustained use and future growth. Although the direct link between producer (in the case of teachers) and consumer may not be possible, the capacity to collect and store data, concerning curriculum, allows an ever-greater market for the individual or collaborative teacher teams.

The CTC infrastructure increases the capability to deliver the e-curriculum through the internal LAN and across Intranets, extranets, and the Internet. Special intelligent agents are again involved to monitor access and means of distribution in order to increase customer satisfaction, monitor internal processes within the software systems, and continue quality delivery to end users. In-house servers with DS3 lines ensure enough bandwidth availability during peak accessing times so that the real-time delivery is not interrupted.

It is also conceivable that collaborative alliances will develop as distribution channels grow. Many charter schools are hampered by the high cost of e-curriculum packages that are poorly serviced once they are delivered and installed. Third-party distribution channels will develop through the relationships that are built with schools and small businesses, expanding the delivery capacity of e-curriculum. Using the Intranet server within the CTC as an application warehouse helps to reduce maintenance and support problems.

V.                 Financial Requirements

Key Points

CTC / E-Curriculum Start-Up Budget

·        Equipment – $450,000 

-          Computers, Furniture, Infrastructure

·        Personnel – $465,000

-          Service and Technical Staff

·        Facility - $500,000 (Lease/Purchase)

-          Building, Utilities, Services

·        E-Curriculum Development – $500,000

-          Acquisition, Creation, Delivery

Presented in Table 2 is a cost breakdown of the first year expenditures necessary to get the project moving.  Chart 1 provides a breakdown of where monies will be allocated.  Chart 2 provides a snapshot of the day-to-day operations and funding.

Table 2.  Startup Costs

Chart 1. Estimated start-up costs

Chart 2. Continued Operations costs

Summary

Cooperation creates open environments for growth and success through inclusion of the best of each organization’s expertise. This type of e-business allows competitive activity, which has lead to conflict and exclusivity of information, to engage more fully in the market through shared technologies. Collaborative alliances are the way of future, applying best practices in current management philosophy, which empowers organizations to build capacity through shared resources. Sustainable growth comes from community involvement that is facilitated through the inclusion practices of the organization; developing a community capable of raising the new genre of children through a systems approach to learning.

 A new paradigm of leadership, based on socially and environmentally responsible action, provides a balance between libertarian and utilitarian methods of personal involvement. The greater good is served through the empowerment of individual skills sets necessary for the program to function. Group(s) alignment with a collective mission allows each individual to serve as an integral part of the whole, empowering participation and results. The synergy of this hybrid model can effectively bridge the click and mortar worlds of business with the growing community educational needs for both youth and adult learners.

References

 ActivMedia, Copyright 2000 ActivMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Turban, Efraim, King, David, Lee, Jay, Warkentin, Merrill, and Chung,  H. Michael (2002) “Electronic Commerce 2002:A Managerial Perspective, Second Edition”, Prentice Hall, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 page 32, 39, 108

(SEO = Search Engine Optimization) The 7 advantages of Marketing online vs. Marketing traditionally (2003) – Available: http://marketing-of-training.com/overview/seo_vs_marketing.htm

Kotler, Philip, (2000) “Marketing Management”, Prentice Hall, Inc. Upper Saddle River , New Jersey 07458 page 105.