Week 10 – Change Management

E-commerce allows Argos to share existing services and products through the web electronically.  It is for this purpose that the rapid share of information/know how amongst all Argos employees’ is a total necessity.  Using knowledge management allows Argos to be aware/mindful to move the right knowledge to the correct people and at the right time.  This makes it possible for Argos to achieve the full benefits from knowledge management.  Without this Argos as a company would find itself publicity awkward/hesitant through lack of ability creating failure in relation to act in response to the desires of the open market in all areas (Business to Business, Business to Customer, Business to E-commerce or Customer to E-commerce).

 

Argos’s knowledge management has many objectives

 

Argos knowledge management has many objectives these include, retaining key talent/expertise, improving profit and in return revenue, increasing customer satisfaction, faster time to market their products, defend market share with new products’, reduces costs, developing new products/services and reintegrating new market segments.

 

Argos’s main target in relation to knowledge management

 

Argos’s main target in relation to knowledge management would be based on the company’s performance, innovation, competitive advantages and ways to enhance the current e-commerce website (www.argos.co.uk).

 

Argos growth and importance of knowledge management

 

Argos has grown rapidly over the years and now has a well established reputation throughout the U.K and ROI with the help of knowledge management and will continue to do so in the future.  Therefore knowledge management has proved to be a fantastic implementation idea for argos.co.uk and generates a lot of extra revenue for the business.  The key is always keeping on top of information flowing in every direction no matter how big or small.  Although this has been a huge success to-date for Argos, it is very important Argos keeps knowledge management up-to-date within all sectors of their business, ensuring a smooth operation for all throughout.

 

Argos contributes to the growth in organisational range throughout all channels/markets.  This is gained using knowledge management, another factor helping to expand/help growth within the retail giant.

 

Knowledge takes a long period of time to gain and lots of experience is required.  If an Argos employee was to retire and knew the ins and outs of everything, which no one else had experience/knowledge of and then one day they decide its time to retire or leave the job the company is left with a major problem, which could be detrimental to the business in so many ways.

 

As the open market is becoming increasingly competitive and the speed of innovation is developing rapidly, knowledge must evolve at even quicker rates, to always keep ahead of the game.

Business such as Argos organise their business to be very much so focused on creating value for money in relation to everything they do, making life a whole lot easier for both the business and consumers.

 

Why is knowledge management difficult to companies such as Argos?

 

Currently there are many problems associated in relation to finding out knowledge assets and in return being able to identify the correct knowledge to represent/implement, also having an effect in cost (implementing knowledge management efficiently and effectively in a cost-effective manner).  Argos needs to have a enterprise-wide vocabulary, the purpose of this is to ensure information flowing within the business can be understood easily and not have many interpretations (clear to understand).  Finally being able to, share existing knowledge sources and future ones amongst different applications and various user types.

 

How to manage knowledge

 

Knowledge management throughout Argos is covered throughout four main topic areas, these are as follows:

 

Identifying knowledge assets company possesses

Reviewing use of knowledge ensuring added value

Analyse how the knowledge can add value

Specifying what actions are required to reach a better usability service

 

Bibliography

 

http://www.library.nhs.uk/KnowledgeManagement/

 

http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~alm/kam.html

 

http://www.stevedenning.com/knowledge_management_and_ebusiness.html

 

 

Week 9 – Customer Relationship Management

 

The Main types of online marketing communications that Argos does and could use for traffic building are as follows:  Search Marketing, Online PR, Online Partnerships, Interactive ads, Opt-in e-mail and Viral Marketing (electronic word of mouth, all paid for).  

 

Search Marketing

 

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), this involves Argos controlling the quality and volume of traffic to their website (argos.co.uk) from a search engine.  In other words the higher up the rank the Argos website is the more visitors the site will receive.  As more people will see the website this will attract more potential customers and bring in more revenue to the business.

 

Pay Per Click (PPC), this is an Internet advertising model, which Argos uses.  Argos would be the advertisers and only pay if a user clicks on their link/advertisement within search engines such as Google.  This method also allows Argos to measure the success rate and maximise the Return on Investment (ROI).

 

Trusted Feed, this basically works by allowing a trusted ‘third’ party usually a search engine marketing company such as Google, Msn, Ask and enthusiastically embraced by the like of Argos, Amazon, e-Bay and more.  It also allows a website such as Argos to ‘feed’, its entire website in the form of a database, directly into search engines own database.  Paid-for and free results are displayed together in the listings again this is thanks to Trusted Feed.  There is an advanced cost-per click which Argos must pay as a website.

 

 

Online PR

 

Media Alerting Services, this allows Argos’s customers’ to stay up-to-date with all the latest price drops, catalogue clearance and new products Argos has to offer.

 

 

Online Partnerships

 

Argos runs an Affiliate Program, basically if you become an Argos Affiliate and one of your visitors’ to your site clicked on an Argos.co.uk via your link and further bought a product, Argos in return would pay your commission (3% on every Argos.co.uk product) as a form of reward for bringing custom to them.  All orders and deliveries’ handled by Argos.  Argos Affiliate links are provided by Argos and its free to join.

 

Other online business Partners of Argos.co.uk are as follows: Argos gift card and Argos Spares.

 

 

Interactive ads/banners

 

Types of advertising which usually contains text, photographs etc.  Designed to catch the readers’ attention and make them want to look at something in greater detail (gets the Argos customer interested or drawn in).

 

Rich Media

 

Type of advertising, which usually contains text, photographs etc.  Designed to catch the readers attention.  Argos may use a mixture of text, audio, video to enhance presentation and interact better with customer online at Argos.co.uk

 

Sponsorship

 

Argos have had hotlink ads through Panasonic (Panasonic suppliers to Argos), enabling customer to place orders, this is increasing the chances of notifying more people through advertising and selling more products.

 

 

Opt-in e-mail

 

Argos operates an opt-in e-mail (electronic newsletter), used to send e-mail to potential customers/customers who have expressed an interest within a product/service.  They do not have to buy anything.  E-mails are sent automatically to persuade potential customers/customers to try a product/service.  These potential customers/customers have given permission to Argos as an organisation to contact them.  This is crucial within a retail environment for both first-time and repeat purchases.

 

 

Viral Marketing

 

Argos had a online viral campaign (2007) which was extraordinary, dominated by a giant sweet jar, standing over 2 metres tall, it highlighted Argos’ range of over 18,000 products and drove awareness of Argos.co.uk during Christmas (2007).  This was carried out in the form of a interactive 3D game.

 

Incentives

 

Throughout the year Argos.co.uk offers customers who spend £50 a free £5 electronic gift voucher and over £100 a free £10 electronic gift voucher.

Also if a customer uses an Argos card online through the Argos website or in store depending on the value of their purchases can get interest free credit for up to 9 months (3, 6 or 9 months interest free credit).

 

Media Mentions

 

The website is promoted in a wide range of resources such as, TV, radio, newspaper, bill-boards and in-store.

 

 

 

Bibliography

 

http://www.weboptimiser.com/resources/why-trusted-feed.html

 

http://www.guava.co.uk/search-engine-marketing/pay-per-click/

 

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/StaticDisplay/includeName/Affiliate.htm

 

http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/86330/

 

http://www.brandrepublic.com/MarketingDirect/Features/CaseStudies/813076/Argos—Big-idea-brings-big-returns/

 

http://www.homeretailgroup.com/home/media/argos/corpnews/2007/2007-10-10/

 

Week 8 – E-Marketing

I am going to use two search engines to see the ease or not so ease of accessing Argos.co.uk, my chosen website using key themes.  These are Google and Ask.

 

I have been asked to pay particular attention to ‘paid for’ results.  These are results which appear on the far right within your search engine in a separate column and you would pay the likes of Google or Ask for this privilege, and it can be rather expensive if the ad is clicked constantly.  Sponsored links or paid ads what ever you want to call it can slo have a background colour, the main ones are light blue and a light yellow colour.  In simple terms you are paying Google and Ask.  In return whenever a search engine users types the likes of ‘Toys, Furniture, Games Console etc’ into the search engine facility it relates the paid for ads with the key word the user has typed.  You may even say that it is pushing a website up the ranks, so that it has a better chance of someone discovering it, creating more traffic and in return hopefully more sales and generating extra revenue for a company such as Argos.

 

 

I typed ‘toys’ into the Google search engine and then clicked return.

 

 

The above shows the results of my Google search.  The sponsored links are located at the top and far right as I have shown.  Argos is the 2^nd option down the sponsored link ads for ‘toys’.

 

 

Amazon was 8^th in the sponsored Links as shown above.

I am now going to try Ask search engine using exactly the same search, to see if the results change.

 

 

I have typed the identical search from Google into Ask.

 

Argos are attracting more customers by placing their ads on Google.  It enables them to connect with potential customers and they only have to pay when someone clicks on their ad, there is no charge for the ad being displayed.  It is a simple process, Argos would create ads, chose keywords, this would be words or phrases related to the business.  There ad would then appear on Google using one of Argos’s chosen keywords, this ad may appear next to the search result and in return advertising to an audience which is interested in a particular product/service.  The customer/potential customer can click on your ad to find out more or make a purchase.

Week 7 – E-Procurement

Cloud computing is a computing pattern, which is accessed over a network and assigns different tasks, software, services and combination of connections.  Network of connections and servers is jointly known as “the cloud”.  The term cloud is used as a metaphor.

 

Super computer-level power can be assed using computing at the scale of the clouds.  The resources within these clouds can allow users to see the information they want, as and when they require it. (E.g. laptop, iPhone, Blackberry).  This may also be described as “on demand computing”.

 

Enormous amounts of data can often be sorted out using cloud computing (made up of thousands of servers, based in data centre).  Cloud computing is more or less buzzwords, which are used to repackage utility computing and grid computing.

 

Cloud computing also allows companies and users to pay for service and storage that they require and when they require it.

 

There are companies out there who provide business solutions to large corporations; this is the likes of SAP.  SAP basically would host an individual company’s data such as Argos in their data SAP centre.  Basically there job is to provide Argos with software applications, which would link the company to their data.  Argos use the SAP customer ordering system this may also be known as SAPCO and is used both online through the website and in store.

 

The biggest cloud network that most people would know and use is windows live services including e-mail, instant messaging and storage.

 

Benefits of cloud computing

 

Basically you do not have to maintain infrastructure for any applications.  This saves electricity costs and labour costs.  Another great advantage being you can access an application wherever you go and on the move.  Companies either big or small have no need to buy individual servers for any new software applications.  Servers will prove to run more efficient as memory is distributed throughout the cloud network.  Cloud computing is much more useful/beneficial toward large organisations/companies, which are required to process a vast amount of computer related power.  In saying that it can be used in a much smaller scale (individual) to access the likes of Windows Live features.

 

More benefits include

 

• Free up Internal Resources
• Easily Implemented, without need of purchasing hardware or software licences
• Scalability, enormous and organisations can add and subtract capacity as the network loads dictates
• Quality of service, vendor can provide 24/7 customer support and offer immediate responses in emergency situations
• Skilled Practitioners, vendors are reputable and offer customer reliable service
• Security, improved die to data be centralised, but in return raises concern over loss of control around sensitive data
• Performance is consistent and monitored

 

 

 

Problems of cloud computing

 

• Depending on application or the vendor, you are always dependent on others keeping data intact and application functional.

 

• Application changes may happen either without your consent or knowledge, therefore there is a security risk of personal data be lost or stolen.  Basically the data is in the hands of a 3^rd party resulting in not directly in the user/owners hands.

 

• Cloud computing requires an Internet connection and sometimes signal may be weak and can cause problems within/throughout applications. 

 

• I do not like the fact that your personal data may be stored in file severs in one country and processed by severs in another, perhaps even at the other side of the world (worldwide).  Can be affected by bandwidth being insufficient or even a high network load.

 

 

http://www.wikinvest.com/concept/Cloud_Computing

http://www.webhostingunleashed.com/features/cloud-computing-benefits/

http://www.zenofnptech.org/2008/08/what-is-cloud-computing.html

http://education.staffordshire.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/622E825F-D072-4B47-9E28-F3CE3B6F09CA/81723/GuidetousingArgosCardsAug08.pdf