E-business systems

Building the system. Before building a system, a company needs to answer this important question: who will own the code? A company should own the intellectual property right (IPR), not an IT company who would later charge for every move you want to make.

Modeling. A webpage should be built up in a way that you can reach any information with no more than 3 mouse clicks. A three click rule is an unofficial web design rule concerning the design of website navigation. It is based on the belief that users of a site will become frustrated and often leave the page if they cannot find the information needed within the 3 clicks. However, some critics of the rule say that it's not the number of clicks that matters, it's the poor organisation of the site, that actually makes customers leave the site. Believe it or not, but some people will get lost on your website no matter how carefully you design your site navigation system or how explicitly you label it.

Creating a site map. One of the easiest way to create it is to use a software program that automatically generates a site map. There are a lot of software applications that generate site maps for you. Of course, the free ones offer limited functionality.

• Linkno: free site map generator
• Xtreeme: create static or DHTML site maps
• SmartDraw: choose from various layouts, special effects, etc.

Once a site has been created, an important question needs to be answered: who in organisation is in charge of maintaining the site? It needs to be updated frequently. Most likely it's the job of a marketing team. There are several software systems that are used for different purposes:

• Content Management System (CMS) -- helper program to help people submit into onto the webpage
• System Level Integration (SLI) -- e.g. when selling a drink at a bar, say 4 cl gin gone, the info goes to a central system, then gin supplier sees if bar is running out of gin, the supplier knows that the bar needs soon delivery
• Computer Reservation System (CRS) used by airlines -- e.g. Galileo, Amadeus, Sabre, Worldspan

Cloud computing, or services in the cloud, sounds fuzzy and unclear. Some analysts define cloud computing narrowly as a n updated version of utility computing: basically virtual servers available over the Internet. To learn how cloud computing works, click here. Some well-known services are "run through the cloud":

  

• docs.google.com
• Google Analytics
• salesforce.com
• Windows Azure
• Facebook
• Skype

Hospitality and tourism uses the following systems:

• Destination Management Systems (DMS) -- assists a destination management organization to collect, coordinate and disseminate computerized information about a particular destination.
• product management
• enquiry management
• visitor/consumer CRM
• business CRM & membership
• management reporting

• Global Distribution System (GDS) -- it is a Travel Agency Network that enables interconnectedess between Airline Computer Recervation System and travel agency terminals (CRS is a reservation system used by airlines only)
• Amadeus
• Galileo
• Sabre
• Worldspan

Mobile marketing

There are estimated 2 million Internet users, but as many as 5 million mobile phone users (January 2011) worldwide. It is a huge global reach for any company, isn't it? In the EU, however, you need a permission from a recipient if you want to send a promotional text. The opening rate of SMS promotion texts is very lucrative: 90% of the people read company text messages (cannot be even compared to the e-mail opening rate).

Many services move into mobile phones:

• mobile optimized web pages
• m-services

For example, Estonia has been in the forefront of m-services already for many years:

• m-parking
• mobile public transportation tickets
• mobile payments
• m-banking
• m-teacher
• m-neighbourhoodwatch
• m-library

The list is endless, because mobile phones can be used for so many other services. The technology is there.

Mobile optimized webpages. As people leave bookings and information search until the very last minute, then usually the information is checked on mobile devices, therefore, companies should critically think if their webpage doesn't have a mobile-friendly version, then this is the last chance to do it. Companies can check how mobile-friendly their m-page is on howtogomo.com or W3C mobileOK Checker.

SoLoMo (social-local-mobile) or some may talk about SoLoCo (social-local-commerce) refers to a more mobile-centric version of the addition of local entries to search engine results. SoLoMo emerged as a result of the growing popularity of smartphones and provides greater local precision to search engine results than what's available via a PC. The GPS technology integrated into smartphones and tablets provides more accurate geo-location results than the "IP mapping" approach necessary for home/office PCs. 47% of smartphone users are heavy users of social media, 54% use maps. Companies should really turn that knowledge into their advantage :) To a marketer, SoLoMo is a complete paradigm shift -- instead of pushing messages to a user via a TV commercial, radio or online advert, the message in pulled as a result of the users' location and activity on social networks. Dramatic shift, isn't it? The best example of this is a social check-in service like Foursquare, which would exist without the idea of location. So how far are we then from local advertising? There is Groupon, but that's basically it. There is plenty of room for development :)

Combining mobile & reality. We use QR codes and hide all sorts of information under them (additional info about a product, animal in the cage, voting platform, etc), we use bluetooth to transfer data, we track the closest ATM/shop/restaurant by LBSs (location-based services), we even explore augmented reality on mobile devices.

There are many examples of location-based services. Geofence is the digital equivalent to surrounding your business with a circle of greeters, welcoming customers to your area. It uses a virtual boundary set around any location and alerts mobile users as they cross it. How can a business benefit from this? For example Starbucks uses this service. If a person crosses a Starbucks geofence, they will receive a message from their location-based app highlighting an offer, coupon, or just a reminder to stop by. This messaging is more relevant to a user and more effective for a company. "Care for a cup of coffee?"

How should mobile marketing be used in hospitality industry?

1. pre-trip -- info sent on e-mail, by SMS
2. during travel, at commodation
• check-in
• schedule check & changes
• luggage info
• up-selling, cross-selling
• premium boarding/seating, pre-purchased meals & drinks
• lounge & club access
3. post-trip -- feedback questionnaire by e-mail, new sales offers

Social Media

Everybody can create content (like me :) but not everyone can create unique ideas. Even though I have this blog I cannot consider myself as a content creator. I think I belong to the 90% of population that looks for the information on the net and shares it. I guess I trust too much unknown people who put up information on the net :) Well, not entirely, of course. I definitely restrain myself from sharing all kinds of posts on FB. You really need to be critical about the info that's out there. I agree, that niche publications on the net are becoming more and more popular because people publishing their ideas are specialists in their fields. What is happening with the minds of people?

Many companies employ interactive value creation, i.e. creating content with the help of customers / partners. Customer involvement may bring you a lot of good marketing and sales, not to speak about increased revenue. There is a noticeable shift from monologue to dialogue happening nowadays, literally, companies ask help from customers. There are many names for interactive value creation: collaboration, crowd sourcing, crowd funding. There is a clear shift in thought going on: taking customers as part of a company, finding out what's going on out there. It's a fast way to understand the changes on the market, in people's mind. And the customers love you for that :)

The technology behind social media is Web 2.0. Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. By increasing what was already possible in "Web 1.0" (this term did not really exist before the new term was thought up) they provide the user with more user-interface, software and storage facilities, all through their browser. Major features of Web 2.0 include social networking sites, user-created sites self-publishing platforms, tagging and social bookmarking.

In social bookmarking system users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, but can be saved privately, shared within groups or certain networks. Most social bookmark services encourage users to organize their bookmarks with informal tags instead of the traditional browser-based system of folders.

The side-effect of Web 2.0 is increasing spamming. But the benefits are more important: openness, freedom, collective intelligence, user participation. Key features of Web 2.0 include

1. folksonomy (= free classification of information)
2. rich user exxperience
3. user as a contributor
4. long tail
5. user participation
6. basic trust
7. dispersion

E-business intelligence

Indeed, you need to be intelligent to do business online. There is too much information out there, therefore, one needs to learn to listen. Market research is expensive, but cooperation and collaboration with stakeholders will bring you lots of valuable information you would have otherwise paid to someone else.

There are several useful web visitor tracking devices (or CRM integrations) out there. Here are 2 examples:
Google Analytics (most of it free to use)
With the help of Google Analytics you can measure your sales and conversions, get fresh insights into how visitors use your site, how they have arrived  on your site and how you can keep them coming back.
Woopra (not free, they ask for a monthly fee)
Woopra builds a comprehensive, real-time profile and timeline for every user, tracking them from anonymous visitor to converted unique customer across multiple devices. 

If you want to know that has been said about your company, then the following sites should be visited:
Radian 6
Radian6 was bought over by Salesforce in 2011. Radian6 helps companies follow what people are saying about them online. Radian6 gathers the discussions happening online (blogs, comments, multimedia, forums, communities like Twitter, etc) and gives companies the ability to analyze, manage, track and report on their social media monitoring and engagement efforts.
Socialmention
Real-time social  media search and analysis. Like with Google Alerts you can receive social media alerts of your brand, company, marketing campaign or what not.


An acronym one needs to know:
SOA (Service-oriented architecture) can be seen as a continuum, from older concepts of distributed computing and modular programming, through SOA, and on to current practices of mashups, SaaS and cloud computing (which some see as the offspring of SOA)


PS. Pasi Tuominen (Haaga-Helia UAS) wrote his PhD on social media intelligence and reputation control.

Behavioural targeting

I was watching a BBC documentary called Virtual Revolution and they talked about how we have all sold ourselves voluntarily to internet giants like Google, Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, etc and are perfectly happy about that. It was disturbing, even though I knew about it, it still felt uncomfortable to think of it again. I wonder when we all one day move away from them?

As Douglas Rushkoff in the documentary says that "the product online is not an advert, the product online is YOU". You are sold to companies who advertise you their product based on your activities online.

Behavioural targeting is the weapon we're hooked on. Our online behaviour is constantly monitored. A powerful profile of US is created by ourselves. And this profile is sold to third parties who target their product to those who really have taken interest in it. No harm done then? A good overview of behavioural targeting can be found on Mashable by Lauren Drell.

Google is able to predict your future actions based on your search history with their magic algorithm. Recommendation engines decide what you LIKE for you. Netflix is doing the same as Google: they suggest movies that customers are likely to enjoy in the future. That means we're constantly sold the same stuff. People tend to buy products that they know. We're deliberately manipulated with that. We leave behind patterns that are picked up and used. Rushkoff says that "recommendation engines help ME to become ME, prototypical and demographical ME, not an individual with individual decisions". The question rises: what is privacy in the 21st century?

A counter-strike was tried to be given by Attention Trust Attention Trust =  set of principles to govern the Attention Economy based on the self-ownership of the data we create, and specialised software to regulate their use. The Attention Economy is one in which people spend their personal time attracting others' attention, whether by designing creative avatars, posting comments, or accumulating "likes" for their cat photos. Read more about Attention Economy here. So Seth Goldstein created this tool for people to use, but somehow people were not interested and it died. According to Goldstein "people seem to be dumb and happy about sharing their personal info to everyone". Can't agree more :)

On Facebook and MySpace we are categorized rigidly and strictly based on the format THEY provide (e.g. what music we like, are we married/single/searching, etc). Everything is structured and boxed, and you play by their rules, act how they've set everything and they know very well what you want, they play with you like a puppet. Most of us have created a digital profile of themselves, but do we want everyone to know what we thought this morning...also 40 years from now? We're economic pawns on the commercial front-line. Our life is always public. It is always possible to see, analyse and share our information. There is no privacy anymore in the 21st century.

Internet Marketing

When talking about marketing, then no one can ignore the 4 P's:

• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion

But in addition to the traditional 4 P's there are 3+3 more for service industry marketing:

• People
• Process 
• Physical evidence

• Partners
• Perception
• Performance

Here are some keywords and notes about the 4 first P's mentioned + 3 for service industry:
PRODUCT
DIY & customization is a current trend (IKEA). A customer saves money and seems like they don't mind wasting their time finding details in a warehouse and then mounting furniture at home.
PRICE
It is not a smart idea to compete over the price :) Find some other USP's, unless you sell for volume. Selling for less is eventually not sustainable -- how low can you drop the price?
PLACE
Make use of affiliate marketing (e.g. hotel + opera ticket, hotel + restaurant, etc)
There are many internet channels for finding your product/service. Google has come up with many useful search engines, like Google Hotel Finder and Google Trends to name some, to facilitate search on the Internet.
There are many sites that offer booking possibilities, and they all take booking fees. Nowadays quite many hotels and airlines have dropped using their services, instead they have set up their own online ticket/room sales.
PROMOTION
Every marketer's goal is to get their customers' profile and Facebook is a channel companies use more and more (making FB users like the networking channel less and less).

Affiliate marketing is also widely used in promotion: I market you, you market me, we're a happy family (sing it with Barney tune :)) This kind of cross-marketing eases the pressure for finding target groups and joint marketing gives a possibility to create a positive synergy because it creates more USP's concentrated together. Here is a good example of cross-marketing of companies all sponsoring a non-profit film festival in Estonia:

Viral marketing is another trend used nowadays more and more. Young customers step in and do the marketing for you :) Here is an example of a viral video created for a horror film festival in Estonia:

Google Analytics helps you analyse who, when and how much visit your web page. A handy tool for assessing how visible you are.

PEOPLE
Customer service on the web is very important, as people use less phones and more internet. If you give an option to contact you on the Internet, then answer your customers' questions ASAP :)

PROCESS

Up-selling is a method used very widely because it is easy to do and easy to get more money from customers: you add a little more and get a lot more. The same goes for cross-selling your products/services with other companies. For example, travel companies and airlines sell insurance, hotels and events. Post-selling is also a nice way to earn more money. For example budget airlines offer you an option to choose your own seat on the plane, but for some extra money (if you want to travel comfortably, then pay extra for leg space on a plane).

PHYSICAL EVIDENCE
Quite many companies have besides a physical store also a web store, the latter supporting the first (and vice versa).

Here are some examples of long-tail marketing techniques:

• new media marketing (e.g. through blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts)
• buzz marketing (word-of-mouth online or real world)
• viral marketing (e.g. through YouTube videos, viral e-mails, standalone  microsites)
• pay per click & search engine optimization (the marketing of websites on search engines such as Google, Yahoo & Bing by focusing on long-tail keywords which have less competition)

PS: When 90% of the world's population just reads the content on the Internet, then just 9% share and just 1% create the content.

PS: People don't buy propaganda anymore. Instead, they value authenticity and honesty. Therefore, grassroots information creation is popular (blogs :)). Moreover, quite many people trust information written by unknown people and their reviews. Emotions sell!

Knowledge era -- you're either on-line or out-line

Knowledge era means that knowledge is not necessarily shared in a face-2-face situation any more, but rather electronically, as it enables information to spread millions of times faster, globally. So nowadays, we can live anywhere in the world, and provided we have a good Internet connection, we can watch our homeland evening TV news at usual times by just accessing the Internet. We can read e-newspapers and e-magazines, give your e-vote at e-elections while having a holiday on the other side of the world, sign business documents by giving an e-signature. Convenient, isn't it? We are always connected and updated with all sorts of information we want to be exposed to.

It is difficult to find companies nowadays that do not have a webpage. More and more business is done online. Even museums have gone online. You can read documents dating back to 16th century and rare books online. Some clothes e-shops offer virtual dressing rooms -- possibility to try on clothes virtually by firstly entering your measures. By the way, the first robotic virtual dressing room was invented by an Estonian start-up company Fits.Me Virtual Fitting Room

Not that many companies use that software, but, honestly, that should be on every clothes e-store. How can you buy a tight dress based on its size? You can't, because not all the people have the same body shape as the model who this dress was originally tried on. Companies that use that virtual dressing room software are therefore at an advance position because they have the most satisfied clients. After all, the success of every e-shop is determined by its customers.