Information Technology for Business Sample Assignment
Introduction
We-Innovate is a social enterprise which is based on the idea of upcycling, recycling and reusing second-hand material collected from homes, school, offices and industries in order to give them a new look and use so that they can be re-used for better.
The use of plastic has been forever condemned by all the environmentalists and the people of the society, and hence it has become increasingly important to make sure that this awareness is spread to each and every one to ensure that the people of the society are careful enough to understand that it is now time to switch to healthier, safer and sustainable options for ourselves if we want to go ahead in future (SENCER, 2016)
At We-Innovate, we focus on collecting these goods through our community collecting centres spread over Oxford, Southampton, Sussex and Ardingly currently. Then they are brought back to the warehouse where they undergo a quality check and then eventually our craftsmen work out their imagination and creativity on them by building them into something new at a considerably lower price, thus eliminating the need of buying a new one. This not only recycles the products for a better and new use but also helps in giving livelihood to the unemployed yet hardworking and creative people referred to us by churches, NGOs and many other establishments working for their welfare.
We thus, not only make money but also contribute to our twin causes of protecting the environment and giving livelihood to the underprivileged, both of which we feel is our responsibility.
Web-hosting for We-Innovate
Web hosting is an important service for any website. It allows the business organisation or the individual to publish their/his own website over the internet. Any company which provides these services to the people to publish or host their websites over the web is known as a web host or a web hosting service provider (Trever, 2015).
It works in a simple way. The company has its own server with your website stored into it. As soon as the website is searched for, it is directed to them via the server of the host.
For We-Innovate mid-level technical skills are required, hence the ideal hosting package which will serve our need will be the WordPress Managed hosting service. We have chosen Go-daddy as our web hosting service provider. This particular plan offered by them is just perfect and suited to our needs as they help in spreading our business with the help of content as the main tool. Add to it, this offers us security and backup for our website too, add to it all the features of WordPress. This is ideal because it is also affordable for us and helps in the initial stages of our business as it does not require much of place setting or requirements in terms of infrastructure (GoDaddy, 2018). Also, the plan can be further changed or upgraded as the Assignment of business grows.
Data Protection
Data protection is the need of the hour. Every customer has the right to know how and where is their data being used, and if it is not being exploited.
Data in the 21st century has a lot of potentials to change the Assignment of business over this time, however, it was extremely important to understand that the importance of why data protection is a necessary thing and how the companies are entitled to make sure that they protect the data of their customers to the best of their ability, and not exploit it for their own use.
Many big companies have been often known for exploiting the consumer data for their benefits. One such case for Facebook-Cambridge Analytica’s data leak where the UK based data analytics company was in news not long ago for their alleged involvement in infringing the data protection rights of the users (Nicholls, 2018).
This was the case which ticked the UK officials into clearing the data privacy laws for all the business houses to follow, and all the customer’s to be aware of. This helps in understanding why data protection is a big deal, and how we at We-Innovate will always thieve to successfully implement them as a service to our customers.
The UK Data Protection Act 2018 was finalised keeping in mind the necessities of the digital age and how it is to be taken care of. The law was administered by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and Home Office.
According to the new data protection act:
- The law is fit for this digital age to ensure the safety and security of data
- Empower people to take care of their data
- Supporting all UK and internally based business organisation working in the UK
- Ensuring data safety for the UK after BREXIT
The data protection law of the UK is known as GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation which aims to harmonise the privacy laws across Europe by giving the individuals the ultimate hold of their data. It aims to covers and regulate all the parties or organisation involved in or working as the controllers or processors of personal data and will now be kept under check by the GDPR (BURGESS, 2018)
We-Innovate will also come under the working of GDP hence data collection has to be done in a very clean and subtle manner. The data will be collected on the basis of website visits which will see the data analytics and consumer behaviour, helping the data analytic team track them down and give them the desired offers over their email or social media. This will ensure less labour from our side and less involvement with the consumer data as well, thus forming a base the company can then expand or take ahead later in some time. The company takes the data protection act very seriously and will always aim to ensure best practices from our side to make sure nothing is being done to infringe the rights and the privacy of the customers.
Role of Social Media
Social media plays an important role when it comes to the promotion of the business in any field and way.
Since We-Innovate is a social enterprise, it is important to know that the people are to be targeted in a certain way. There are many channels of promoting the company, one of which is social media. Social media or virtual marketing is the weapon of choice for every individual these days in the market, and it is extremely important to know that the people are active on not just one, but various social media and reaching out to them is not difficult, provided a proper structure is followed.
Social media marketing if properly used can be the key success driving factors for the company and can be instrumental in keeping its top position as well. The company has to make sure that the strategies are well formed in order to promote their brand further. We-Innovate will use social media as their primary source of marketing. We will sue websites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Youtube to let people know about our products and how we will go ahead with selling them. These websites will give us an established consumer base, and will allow us to market and spread out company presence in a very subtle and indirect way (Newberry, 2018)
Social media will help in increasing the website traffic as well, which eventually will help us in acquiring a consumer base to reach out to, without any trouble. As soon as the posts are published, the readers will be aware of the new products and can instantly check the website. This, however, is a small fragment of what and how social media can help us with.
Social media can also help us reach to social websites for advertisement of our company and will allow us to enter a space of social entrepreneurship in making.
This will serve all our purposes and will ensure that we remain on the tab and the mind of the users 24X7.
Communicating with the users will also become simpler through this medium, hence it is likely to be adopted for this purpose as well. Users can simply message their query to us via FB, twitter or any other handle and the team can get back to them, thus eliminating the need of having to establish a customer service support tea at such an early stage. This will be feasible and quick enough to solve our problems and keep us connected to the people as well (Das, 2016)
Achieving a loyal customer base, and keeping them active as well as retained is another task which will help We-innovate to reach out to its people, so that without any further ado or planning can this be taken care of in the best possible way, and no extra cost will be added for these operations too. All that we need is a good social media team of two to three expert people who know web analytics, SEO, SEM and can devise strategies for online campaigns and reach out.
Transaction Processing System for We-Innovate
This flow chart helps in understanding the flow of information and the transaction process of the website. It will help us in analysing how things will go about. It is exceptionally important to understand that the flow of information is important to understand how things will happen and how can the data be processed further.
This will help in understanding how once the information is received, how will it be taken care of from the website end and how can we, as website owners take care of it.
Website Design Guidelines
Designing the web page or the website for the business is the next big and important step for any business organisation as it allows the company to set up for themselves a virtual marketplace where it is easy for them to constantly be in touch with their customers.
There are a proper way and a set of guidelines to be followed while designing the website, in order to not only ensure the proper and complete safety of user data but also the well-functioning of the website for a long time till it is revised.
Following are some of the guidelines followed by We-Innovate for its website in order to make it more sustainable and well-functioning:
- The website should be simple and sophisticated for the person to navigate through it with subtle yet impactful UI and UX
- The website should follow the proper procedure of visual hierarchy
- The website should be consistent ie, the look and feel, colour scheme, navigation etc. should all be consistent with one another and the website theme (Devaney, 2017)
this is the homepage of our website. Here we show the customers what all upcycled or recycled products are available with us, how they look if they are bestsellers or not. This allows the customer to enjoy the experience as the page is colourful and precise to the point.
The homepage has been kept easy to navigate too and does not require much of going around to know what’s happening.
This allows a lot of flexibility with the users as they prefer coming back to see how simple yet majestic these upcycled crafts are.
this is the login page for customers where they sign-up and become members of We-Innovate. It also has a small strip of all the media and associate partners covering us and our products for the people to know who we are and how we work.
This page allows for us to collect the user data and reach out to them for sales, discount coupons, new items and so much more. Again, the page is simple and minimal in design without much noise.
This form is aimed to ensure that people register at the website to place their order, which will further allow them to see where the order is, payment status, track their order and other such functionalities which will be needful or them in future. All this will help the company as well, as it will allow us to monitor the purchasing pattern of the user, and thus help them see items they like over sale.
Bibliography
Trever. (2015). What is Web Hosting? Retrieved from www.website.com: https://www.website.com/beginnerguide/webhosting/6/1/what-is-web-hosting?.ws
GoDaddy. (2018). WordPress Hosting made simple — and blazing fast. Retrieved from in.godaddy.com: https://in.godaddy.com/hosting/wordpress-hosting
Nicholls, S. (2018). The Facebook data leak: What happened and what’s next. Retrieved from www.euronews.com: http://www.euronews.com/2018/04/09/the-facebook-data-leak-what-happened-and-what-s-next
SENCER. (2016). Is It More Important to You to Reduce, Reuse or Recycle? Retrieved from ww2.kqed.org: https://ww2.kqed.org/education/2016/10/28/is-it-more-important-to-you-to-reduce-reuse-or-recycle/
BURGESS, M. (2018). What is GDPR? The summary guide to GDPR compliance in the UK. Retrieved from www.wired.co.uk: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/what-is-gdpr-uk-eu-legislation-compliance-summary-fines-2018
Newberry, C. (2018). 23 Benefits of Social Media for Business. Retrieved from blog.hootsuite.com: https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-for-business/
Das, G. (2016). 10 Advantages of Social Media Marketing for Your Business. Retrieved from www.bluefountainmedia.com: https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/advantages-of-social-media-marketing/
Devaney, E. (2017). 8 Guidelines for Exceptional Web Design, Usability, and User Experience. Retrieved from blog.hubspot.com: https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/30557/6-guidelines-for-exceptional-website-design-and-usability.aspx
