Global E-Business Coursework ASG1

The first piece of coursework requires students to present and compare customer journeys that start with a customer need, and progress to discovery, evaluation, purchase and post purchase stage of two different ecommerce websites of their choice.

This report will provide the basis for Assignment 2 (Group Work) where students will be creating a group presentation recommending the most efficient social channels to use to promote the goods or services of an e-commerce company based on the customer journey developed in the first individual report.

Module Learning Outcomes

The appropriate e-commerce solutions within a company’s strategic objectives

Effective e-commerce analysis in a company context, in order to enable the selection of an appropriate business model

The contribution of e-commerce makes through the whole business cycle;

Write a business report that examines the opportunity for strategic improvement in current business practice

Assess the importance of e-commerce concepts to an organisation’s future development.

Below are the following: a) details of the task you are asked to complete, and b) guidance on what you are asked to submit.

A) THE TASK WHAT YOU ARE BEING ASKED TO DO

You are required to understand the nature of the businesses you have selected, their products, markets and target audience
The selected businesses can be from any sensible market. It may be your current workplace, or your past employer or be based on your intended career, or simply be an area you have a particular interest in

Identify and analyse the customer journeys for the selected organisations (this can be done by visiting their websites and mobile sites)
Analyse how your selected companies have managed their customers buying experience
This should lead you to a discussion and evaluation of the effectiveness of different approaches to the customer journey.

B) THE REPORT WHAT YOU ARE BEING ASKED TO SUBMIT

You are required to submit a written report of 1500 words (+/- 10% – not including the reference list). You are encouraged to refer to the document CASE Guide to Report Writing. You might use the headings shown in this briefing or you may use your own headings; what is important is that you clearly cover all areas outlined below in a way that can be marked. You can be as creative as you like in using visuals, graphs and charts to present your arguments.

Your report structure and the marking scheme is provided below:

SECTION 1 Presentation and structure

Title page: This should include the following: ID, course details, Module Title, Module Code, Module leaders name, deadline date and word count

CONTENTS PAGE: your report should contain page numbers and you should include these in a clear contents page. Therefore, the structure of the report needs to look professional (10 marks available).

Introduction – Provide a brief paragraph outlining what your assignment will cover and how you decided what to cover (nb as normal, the report should be written in the third person).

SECTION 2 – Main Findings, Analysis and Conclusions:

Findings:

Your research and analysis on your selected companies, backed up by your academic research, will help you to illustrate (and analyse where appropriate) key activities and processes used and managed by these companies throughout the customer journey including the nature of the business, customers and the industry you are covering, customer engagement activities both inside and outside of the website and mobile site that the companies employ, followed by features of the journey including navigation and calls to action from landing to post purchase activities (30 marks available).

Analysis and conclusions

These must be clear and well-defined summaries that are supported with discussions and justifications that clearly analyse and evaluate the approaches that companies have used to manage the customer journeys, which must be supported by theoretical models on customer shopping journeys. These analyses should offer a complete investigation of relevant activities both inside and outside of ecommerce websites

The final part should include overall summaries and conclusions of the best practices that organisations can use to deal with customer journeys. (40 marks available).

Reference Sources

You are expected to use credible and up to date reference sources about E-commerce and customer shopping journeys. You should aim for at least ten credible reference
sources from a range of media (the set texts, academic journals, journals, online publications, relevant blogs, etc) but we would expect a good deal more. N.b. 1. this is in addition to material directly sourced from the e-commerce sites themselves.. n.b. up to date in this context will vary between totally current for statistical issues to back to the last century for purely theoretical issues. In general terms most relevant material is likely to be from 2011 onwards. (15 marks available)

SECTION 3 References and bibliography

You must reference all sources (n.b. to cover every reference and to include all screenshots, graphics, illustrations used etc ) using the CASE Harvard Referencing Guide. (5 marks available).

No appendices required.

Submission Requirements

You will be required to submit a copy of your full assignment to the correct assignment tab on the Module StudyNet site. You must submit this as a PDF file only! You must name your document as follows:

The filename must be in the form: Student_ID_GB1.pdf, e.g. “1235412_GB1.pdf. Failure to follow the above instructions will result in a penalty of up to 5% from your report mark.
The word count is 1500, +/-10%. No hardcopy required. Only the first 1650 words will be marked if the word count is too high.

Standard Business School penalties for late submissions will apply. I.e. -10% for each day late. Submissions over seven days late will not be marked.

If you exceed the word count then you will be penalised. Only the first 1650 words will be read and marked.

If you require an extension to this assignment deadline, you must apply to the Module Leader, Hajryo Hyseni, via email at least one week before the assignment is due
to submission. You must provide a valid reason for requesting an extension and be prepared to submit evidence if required to support your request. You should

not assume that you have been granted an extension unless you receive an email confirming that this is the case and advising you of a revised submission date. All the penalties listed above are still applicable to any revised submission date.