E-Business

Plan development
Introduction
• E- business, globalization and the Internet are dependent on each
other and their progress goes in hand in hand.
• To start any business- online or traditional, small scale or large scale,
as a service provider or product supplier and whatever the nature of
the product being sold, to whomsoever- for profit or non profit, there
needs to be a well thought out business plan.
• Writing a carefully thought out business plan document is an
important preliminary steps for any business owner.
• The same principle applies for E- Business.
Why E- business Plan:
• Following are the reasons for writing a business plan.
• It outlines and focuses on the objective and provides other suitable
information and necessary analysis.
• It is essential and key selling point while contracting with bankers,
investors and money lenders.
• It can rightly point out and uncover the exclusion or weak spot in the
plan and planning process.
• It helps to assign or distribute the business resources appropriately.
• It can be used to take advice from the experienced people in the intended
field of business.
Software Programs to create a Business Plan
• There are various software programs designed to create and format a
business plan and compile the essential information.
• PLANMaker: Helps in creating a professional, well documented business
plan. The software is self supporting and does not require Spreadsheet or
Word Processor to operate.
• Business Plan Pro is a popular and an easy to use business software which
gives plenty of sample plans, a big database of venture capitalist with
appropriate audio help.
• BizPlanBuilder Interactive helps us in processing the business ideas and
choreographs every move, with intuitive, seasoned and artfully designed
system.
Continued…..
• Business HeadStart has many function and features similar to
BizPlanBuilder. However this plan is appropriate for people who
already have some work experience in creating business plan.
• PlanWrite is a business- Plan software that provides a built in wizard
to guide through the process of writing a plan. It is loaded with a
library of sample business plan.
Element of Business Plan
• A well written business plan is an organized consideration of every
critical factor that is involved in business objective and their
fundamental purpose. Depending upon the type of business being
created, a carefully planned and precisely written business plan would
include most of the following.
• 1. The first line of the document should start with the company name
of the proposed business.
• 2. An executive summary of the document must be prepared.
• 3. The objective and the goal of the business be set.
Continued
4. A one- paragraphed mission statement that explains the overall
purpose of the company or the mission of the E-business venture should
be prepared.
5. The section on key to success define what the company will offer that
will make it most successful.
6. Company summary to give detail about company and services.
7. Company Location and facilities
8. Start up summary includes the detail of what will be required,
monetary as well as other infrastructural requirement to launch a
company.
Continued
• Investment section lists from where the initial start up capital will come
from.
• Sourcing describes who the suppliers will be.
• Market analysis describes the target customer.
• Marketing and sales strategy
• Organizational structure of the company
• Financial planning
• Risk identification
• Expansion Plan for next 3- 4 years for growth of business.
Phases/ Aspects of E- Business
• To prepare a business plan one needs to do a lot of research on the
various aspects of E- business and go through the different phases of
plan writing.
 Opportunity
analysis/
Understanding
business
scenario
E- marketing
Expansion/
and sales
Exit strategy
strategies

Phases of
E-
business
Website and Plan Product and
portal pricing
ddevelopment strategies

Management Budgeting and

and team costing
Opportunity analysis/ understanding the
Business Scenario
• The purpose of this phase in the e- business plan development process
is to assess how prepared an organization is to start to e- business.
• The necessity of e- business may stem from customer who want the
business organization to have a web presence or from competitors
who do their business online.
• In order to set a realistic goal for any business it is necessary to
understand the business scenario.
• Opportunity analysis help to understand the extent of creating
visibility. The internet allows the organization to present itself in front
of the whole world at the cost which is very low.
Continued…
• Investing in an altogether new customer segment is a potential risk
factor and has to be analyzed properly.
• The Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis is
a simple process to understand the business, its resources and its
environment by analyzing its internal strengths, internal weakness as
well as threat in the external environment.
SWOT Analysis
• SWOT Analysis provides a powerful insight into organizations to keep
a check on their strengths as well as weaknesses and to discover
possible opportunities and threats with respect to their business.
• It is a useful tool to define and decide a business organization’s goal as
well as marketing strategies.
• It helps the management to understand how the business is doing
better than its competitors, or vice versa, or what the possible
opportunities that may help the business to get benefitted are, or
how a business should prepare to respond to possible external
threats.
Continued……..
• As a first step SWOT analysis start by analyzing an organization’s
internal strength as well as weakness.
• In the second step, noting down the external opportunities that may
affect the organization and possible threats to it is important.
• It has been proven by many e- business organizations that the
productivity and success rate of the business is enhanced due to a
well thought analysis of strengths, weakness, opportunities and
threats.
Continued…….
• Strength: Strength are the positive, tangible or intangible, internal and
those that are under the control of an organization. Strengths helps in
understanding and reminding about the positive aspects of the
organization that add value and offer competitive advantage to the
business.
• Weakness: Similar to strengths, weakness also offers an opportunity
to understand and get reminded about the weak factors of an
organizations. Weakness may include limited resources, poor location
of the business organization, the lack of expertise, poor distribution
set- up and lack of skill set with the people involved and so on.
Continued…….
• Opportunities: Opportunities are an evaluation of the external
positive factors that stand as reasons for an organization to exist or
flourish. Opportunities are external to the business and they provide
and environment or market wherein the organization can hope for
benefit.
• Threats: Threats are factors that are generated due to change in
environment. They have an impact on the business. They are beyond
the control of an organization and can pose as major risks in
implementing the defined marketing strategies or for the whole
business itself.
Example of SWOT Analysis
• SWOT analysis of an online computer shop
• Strengths:
• As it is well established computer shop in this market area, it has good
knowledge about the customers, and their requirements and systems.
• It has been in this market since a long time and has proved to be
reliable business to its customers as well as suppliers.
• As it will have online as well as traditional stores, it can provide
training to the customers.
Weakness:
• The costs to maintain the inventory, maintain the warehouse and sell
it is higher compared to the cost in direct selling from supplier to the
customer.
• It does not have a brand name to make it recognized among national
or international customers.
• It does not have the means to utilize Internet marketing or online
advertising.
Opportunities
• The number of Internet users an E- Customers are increasing day by
day.
• Easy availability of Internet is attracting more and more people and
making them comfortable in using the in using Internet in doing
various business as well as financial transaction.
• LAN based office systems are much more knowledge as well as service
intensive.
Threats
• People get everything online, including training.
• Various news coming from different media regarding hacking of
websites or cheating in online payments may damage the confidence
of the customers.
E- Marketing and sales strategies
• Once the second phase of opportunity analysis has been completed,
the third phase of e- marketing programs- the planning stage –
begins. It requires developing pricing, adapting distribution, and
search engine strategies. Developing Internet marketing, goals and
strategies before actual website development allow one to check how
well the website can serve the goals of e- marketing programs.
• With the help of a huge range of technologies, marketing the business
can be done on a global, around the clock basis.
• The Internet offers a much higher degree of interaction.
Product and Pricing Strategies
• Implementing an e- business solution requires knowledge of business
processes, industry trends, stakeholders, complex technologies,
strategic planning and organizational dynamics.
• It also requires a deep knowledge of the financial aspects of e-
business. To plan the implementation of e- business, deciding product
and pricing strategies, budgeting costing takes a major role in
planning process.
• Pricing strategies should be designed in such a way so as to get the
advantage of markets and market situations and the clients and their
mentality.
Budgeting and Costing of E- Business
• The budgeting and costing of E- business should be handled in the
same way as that of traditional businesses. The budget for an e-
business can be projected as a single activity, such as website
designing and maintenance or can spread across all other
departments, such as in e- mail marketing, advertising, order handling
and so on.
• E- business budget too needs to be estimated every year and
responsibly managed throughout the year to ensure achievement of
the goal of e- business.
Management and team
• The role of the management team is important in any business. It
becomes absolutely necessary that the management team work in
alignment with the business objectives that are written down in the
business plan.
• The management team should understand the goals and objectives of
e- business and it should be aligned with them. The management
team should work consistently to keep the business on track.
Website and portal development
• The website of a business is a window for the customer and it
provides an insight into the business. From the marketing point of
view, the website is like a business card of the company.
• This phase of e- business plan is the technological side of the e-
business development process. In this phase it is determined what
kind of web presence the organization need to have and how to
develop the business web site.
Expansion/ Exit strategy
• E- business life cycle starts with planning, continues with growth, and concludes with exit.
• Expansion Strategies:
• There has to be a plan which should continually think of the ways to expand, to become a
more modern business. It should think of combining the business with all the latest facilities
to improve on the sale and customer relationships. An existing e- business can be expanded
simply by upgrading the website to a higher level to facilitate more e- business operations
through the website or it can be expanded by enhancing actual e- business operations.
• Exit strategies:
• Every e- business has to go through an state in the life cycle of the business at some point of
time. Like the expansion strategy has to be planned well in advance and thought from every
aspects of business, the exist strategy too needs to be considered very strongly during the
planning itself.