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Planning for e-business

E-business is more common than ever before. You are probably already using e-business in one way or another, for example, the credit card/debit card machine you have next to your cash register is e-business. If you are thinking about making e-business a bigger part of your daily operations, you should first determine if your company is ready for e-business and the ROI . If the picture looks good, you can follow-up with a plan.

Incorporating the 'e' into your business plan

Think about how ready you are to adopt e-business strategies into your business. What e-business technologies can you use to build and grow your business? Look into ways you can assess, use, and maintain your e-business technologies. Find out what challenges you will face.

Hiring a private e-business or Web consultant to help assess your needs and assist you with the technical aspects of e-business adoption is one option to consider if you want to make the most of the Internet technologies available.

• Small Business Internship Program
  
  http://www.canadabusiness.ca/eng/summary/1050/
  Applies to: All of Canada
  You could get money to hire a student to help you implement e-business practices and technologies that can increase your sales and productivity.

Brainstorming: research your options

Think about what parts of your business can be more efficient and what goals you want to achieve by using Internet technology. Can you automate to increase proficiency and sales and reduce costs?

For example:

• You have been in business for a while. You have a storefront location, but you notice that the local competition is cutting into your sales. You need to find a way to reach more customers. Opening another store or moving is much too expensive, and probably a bigger step than you are ready for. You could use the Internet to promote and sell your product to a wider market.
• You are a new business owner with a large product line that changes often. A print catalogue would be expensive and time consuming to develop and manage. You could put your catalogue online by developing a website. Then you could quickly and cost-effectively update your product pictures and descriptions. All you need to do to get the information to your customers is refer them to your site.

Conduct a SWOT analysis

A Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis of your business is an effective way to look at the benefits and challenges that come with going online. Some ways it can help are by indentifying:

• Which of your customers and competitors are online and how they may be different from those offline
• What new information, products, or services you can offer by building a website or using Internet technologies
• How your daily operations can be improved with Internet technologies

Key issues in business planning

Industry, market and competitor analysis

Look at your industry. Who are your customers? What are their needs? Can you reach an existing or new market online? The global nature of the Internet means you have to think about your customer base in broader terms. If you know who all of your customers are, then you can target your marketing efforts to them with greater effect. If you do not research online opportunities, then you miss out on potentially viable new markets.

Questions to look at for this part of your plan:

• Industry: How large is your industry in dollar and unit terms? Is your industry growing or contracting? By how much? What are the usual distribution systems in your industry? Are there any technology trends that will affect your industry?
• Market: Who is your target market online and offline? Are they different? How? Where are they located?
• Competition: Who are your leading competitors? How are they different? How are they using the online channel to their advantage?

Marketing and sales strategies

When you look at your product or service, you should consider how suited it is to Internet marketing. A marketing strategy that includes an online component is almost always a benefit to business efforts.

Outline how you want to market and/or sell your product online. This can be as simple as developing a basic brochure style website to provide information about your product or service. It can be as complex as a comprehensive Internet marketing strategy that includes a well-optimized, e-commerce website with an online advertising campaign including banner and affiliate advertising.

Consider your target market, your product and your long-range goals. What do you want to achieve online? Consider your budget. How much do you have to spend on the online portion of your marketing strategy? If you are on a tight budget, you may want to develop a long-range plan of action which outlines a step-by-step approach to grow your revenue.

Website development

If you are going to develop a website, you will need an action plan for the task. This plan can be included in the marketing section of your business plan.

Your website plan will want to address:

• Purpose of the website: Review your reasons for bringing your business online. The purpose of your site will determine how the site will look and function.
• Style: How will your website look and feel?
• Site evolution: What are your plans for your website in the long term?
• Domain names and hosting: What will your domain name be? Who will host the site? Will you buy and run your own server and host it yourself?
• Security: What security measures will you use to protect your customers privacy and your business records online?

Operations

There are e-business strategies for automating aspects of your business operations. They will let you streamline your operations and collect and use customer information to your advantage. There is customer relationship management software, accounting software, shipping software, database and email applications. Consider:

• Implementation schedule: Set out what needs to be done to get Internet ready. Who will be responsible for what? What are the deadlines? Plan for what might happen if and when tasks aren't completed on time.
• Evaluation and metrics: How will your website traffic and e-business activities be evaluated and monitored?
• Logistics: If you are selling products, how you will ship your products to their destination? How will your shipping expenses be reflected in your pricing? How will you deal with product returns?
• Review and updates: Implement a schedule for reviewing and updating your plan as your business grows and changes.

Budget

When you work out your budget each year, make sure your e-business spending is on track with your plan. E-business in your budget should be handled the same way you would budget for traditional items. You can allocate an e-business activity as a unique item, such as a website, or you could spread it across other departments. For example, put Internet marketing in with overall marketing costs.

A budget is not a static thing. Yearly revisions will be necessary. You may have upfront costs, such as initial website development, which will not be spread out over the long term. You may have maintenance costs, such as website testing, updating, and enhancing, which may not come into play in year one.

Estimating costs for e-business adoption can be the most difficult aspect of developing your business plan. Seek out quotes from suppliers to estimate what your costs might be.

Knowing what you want to get out of e-business and having a well thought out plan will make the implementation and use of e-business much easier.