1.The SDW Company has been trading for one year. It provides rail travel services between three major cities in the country in which it operates.
Mr M, the majority shareholder and Managing Director, is keen to expand its operations and, in particular, to use the Internet as the major selling medium. He has discovered, for example, that doubling sales on the Internet usually results in no additional costs. However, doubling sales using a call centre normally results in a doubling of staff and an increase in costs.
All tickets are currently sold via the company’s call centre. The company has an Internet site although this is used for publicity only, not for sales or marketing. Competitors currently use a mixture of selling media, although detailed information on the success of each medium is not available to the SDW Company. Mr M has asked you, as a certified management consultant, to assist him in upgrading the company’s Internet site and, in particular, showing how this will help to reduce operating costs.
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Required:
(a)Advise Mr M on how to establish and implement an appropriate Internet strategy for the SDW Company.
(b)Discuss the key customer-orientated features of an Internet site, showing how these can be used to meet the objective of cost reduction required by Mr M.
