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INFOSYS.110 BUSINESS SYSTEMS: DELIVERABLE 2: BUSINESS SECTION2014

Name Vera ClarksonNetID vcla436Group Number: 110Website Link: http://infosys1102014s1group110.blogspot.co.nz/

Tutorial DetailsTutor: Day: Time:Kit-Wah Huang Monday 9-10am

Time Spent on Assignment: 30 hours Word Count: 1644

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ELECTROWISEINTRODUCTION

Wasted electricity in households is a worldwide issue and many people don’t realise how

much it is costing them, as well as our environment.

In all households, a significant amount of electricity is wasted due to people leaving their

appliances on when they are not using them. Additionally, just leaving appliances on stand-

by or plugged in uses up a significant amount of electricity over time. Although this wasted

electricity may seem insignificant, they can be extremely costly in the long run. According to

Ministry for the Environment (2011), New Zealanders waste over $100 million a year by

leaving appliances on stand-by. Wasted electricity also results in thousands of tonnes of

pollution being emmitted into the environment each year.

To minimise the wasted electricity in households, our company has invented the

Electrowise. This device is a control system that can be installed households to control and

monitor the electricity consumption throughout the house.

3. BUSINESS SECTION

3.1 Vision

To provide households with an easy and affordable way to contribute to saving out planet,

and inspire people to become more aware of the importance of saving electricity.

3.2 Industry Analysis: Household energy-saving device industry

Industry: Household energy-saving devices Industry. Includes devices that focuses on saving

electricity in households, such as solar-powered chargers, energy-saving lightbulbs,

household heating controls, household electricity controls, etc.

Force: High/Low: Justification:

Buyer High Buyers have many choices because there are so many different

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power: products in the industry, and there are many sellers that the

buyer can purchase them from. Efergy (n.d.) is one example of

the many sellers within the industry, offering a wide range of

energy-saving devices.

Supplier

power:

High The most important supply for companies in this industry is the

electrical tools needed to manufacture their products. There are

many suppliers that firms can purchase these from. Ebay (n.d) for

example has many different sellers of electrical tools, ranging

from cheap, low-quality tools to more expensive, high-quality

tools.

Threat of

new

entrants:

High Some of the products in this industry are not too costly and

require very few and raw materials. E.g. energy-saving lightbulbs

are “inexpensive to produce” (lights-out saves energy, 2010). This

makes it easy for people to enter the industry.

Threat of

substitutes:

High There are many other ways to save electricity instead of using

energy-saving devices, such as switching appliances off at the

wall, using hot water more wisely, and insulating your home.

(Consumer.NZ, n.d.).

Rivalry

among

existing

competitors:

Low There are many firms in the industry, however rivalry is low

because they all sell different products with different features

and functions. E.g. there is very little competition between firms

selling solar-powered chargers and firms selling energy-saving

lightbulbs. Therefore the firms aren’t in direct competition.

Overall attractiveness of the industry: Overall, the industry is not very attractive. Buyers

have a lot of power, and there are many firms already in the industry. This makes it hard for

any firm in the industry to gain a decent proportion of market share.

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3.3 Customers and Their Needs

Our customers are all NZ homeowners.

We understand that homeowners can be very busy with work, parenting, and other

commitments. Many homeowners therefore don’t have the time to unplug appliances

around the house every night to save electricity.

Homeowners also have many bills and expenses which they would like to minimise. One of

the biggest motivators homeowners have for conserving electricity in their homes is the

accumulated savings in their energy bills at the end of the year (Beth Asaff, n.d.).

3.4 The Product and Service

The ElectroWise is a simple and easy-to-use system that enables homeowners to have full

control of the electricity consumption in their house. It is connected to all the power plugs

throughout the household, and the sensors that we have installed in each of the rooms.

These sensors detect whether someone is in the room or not, and switches the power on

and off to selected power plugs in the room accordingly. To select the specific power plugs

to automatically control, the user can use the touch screen tablet-like device.

This touch screen device is the primary controller of the ElectroWise system. One of its main

features is that it can display a map of the house and the locations of all the individual

power plugs. The user can then use this to look around the house and select a specific

power plug to automatically control. They can also use this feature to see how much

electricity a specific power plug is consuming and monitor it over time.

Thus, our product provides a easy and convenient way to save electricity in households. It

allows household owners to save time while still being able to save thousands of dollars on

their power bills.

3.5 Suppliers and Partners

One of our company’s major partners is the EECA. They are an entity that is set up by the NZ

government to encourage and support energy conservation in our country (ECCA, 2014). .As

partners, we work together in achieving our goals. They help us by helping promote our 4

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ElectroWise product through their EnergyWise programme, and we help them by

supporting homeowners to save electricity .

We have also partnered with Deloitte in NZ. Over the last few years, Deloitte has been

working towards becoming a true environmentally sustainable business (Carbon Reduction,

n.d.). We have now formed an alliance with them – their consulting team are providing us

with advice and support to grow our company, in return for providing the ElectroWise

system in their local offices.

Our main raw material of the ElectroWise is the tablet-like touchscreen devices. We

purchase these from focalprice.com as they are an affordable and very reliable supplier –

offering free shipping, 30 days money back guarantee, and a gauranteed safe shopping

experience (Focalprice.com, n.d.).

We also require the tools that our technicians use in installing the product in homes, such as

wiring, pliers, and safety equipment. We purchase these from Toolware, NZ’s largest suplier

of quality trade tools (ToolWare, n.d.).

3.6 Strategy: broad market low cost

Our product is aimed to target a wide range of NZ households, from small to large. We

believe that every family can help contribute towards saving our planet by using our

product. Therefore we have a broad market competitive scope.

Our goal is to encourage everybody to start saving electricity, so we need to make the

product affordable so households of all different income levels can purchase it. Therefore

we have adopted a low cost strategy.

The overall strategy is therefore broad market low cost.

3.7 Value Chain Activity: Marketing and selling the product

The most important value chain activity for this business is marketing and selling the

product.

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Marketing and selling the product is an important aspect of growing our business. As we are

just a newly formed business and not many people know about us, we have to put a stong

focus on our marketing activities. We hope that this will help us to achieve our long term

goal – to encourage people to use our product to save electricity and contribute to saving

the planet, and inspire people to become more aware of the importance of saving

electricity.

3.8 Business Processes

3.8.1. ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN PLANNING PROCESS – To successfully create awareness of our

new product and boost sales, we follow our advertising campaign planning process. As we

are just a newly formed company, this is an important process of our business.

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3.8.2. SALES PROCESS – This is the process our company follows to successfully complete a

sale. To ensure maximum customer satisfaction, we need to make this process as simple

and carefree for the customer as possible. This process is important to the business

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because we need to make successful sales and keep customers happy in order to gain a

good reputation and grow our business.

3.9 Functionalities

3.9.1. ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN PLANNING PROCESS

Research customers and market

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Determine advertising budget

3.9.2. SALES PROCESS

Receive customer order though call or website Retrieve and store customer details

3.10 Systems

3.10.1. MARKETING ANALYSIS SYSTEM – System that allows our company to analyse

customers and the market. It helps us answer questions such as: What is the best way to

target homeowners and convice them of the importance of saving electricity? And how

profitable will advertising be?

3.10.2. SALES PROCESSING SYSTEM – System that receives and stores all information about

sales and our customers. This system is important because for our company to achieve its

goal of contibuting towards saving the planet, we must know how our sales are going, and

who our customers are.

3.10.3. FINANCING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM – Takes information from financial statements and

uses it to determine what would be the best way to spend our money in order to achieve

our goal of supporting households to save electricity. This proccess is important because our

business must be financially stable in order to succeed.

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3.11. Summary Table: Value Chain to Systems

Value Chain Activity

Processes Functionalities Specific Information System(s)

Broad Information System(s)

Make the

product

1. Advertising campaign planning process

1. Research customers and market

2. Determine advertising budget

Marketing analysis system

Financing management system

Decision Support System

Decision Support System

2. Sales process 1. Receive customer order through call or website

2. Retrieve and store customer details

Sales processing system

Sales processing system

Transaction processing system

Transaction processing system

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CONCLUSION

In conclusion, wasted electricity in households is a worldwide issue that is being faced,

however has not yet fully been addressed. It is costing New Zealanders $100 million each

year, and costing the environment thousands of tonnes of pollution. Our company has come

up with an IT solution that addresses this issue, called the ElectroWise, which aims to

provide households with an easy and affordable way to contribute to saving out planet. We

believe our company will be successful because our solution is unique and effective, and

focuses on targeting our customers needs.

REFERENCES

1. Ministry for the Environment. (2011). What ETS means for householders and individuals. Retrieved from https://www.climatechange.govt.nz/emissions-trading-scheme/about/what-it-means-for-me/households.html.

2. Efergy (n.d.) energy saving products – products. Retrieved from http://efergy.com/nz/products/energy-saving-products

3. Financial web (n.d). Finweb.com recent articles: saving. Retrieved from http://www.finweb.com/financial-planning/3-useful-electricity-saving-devices.html#axzz32hEQl6ap.

4. Lights-out saves energy: fact or fiction? (2010). Retrieved from http://www.examiner.com/article/lights-out-saves-energy-fact-or-fiction

5. Ebay (n.d.) . Electrical tools for sale | Ebay. Retrieved from http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR5.TRC1.A0.H0.Xelectrical+tools&_nkw=electrical+tools&_sacat=0&_from=R40

6. Consumer.NZ (n.d.). Consumer powerswitch – Saving energy. Retrieved from https://www.powerswitch.org.nz/powerswitch/site-info/saving-energy

7. Beth Asaff (n.d.). Understanding the importance of conserving electricity. Retrieved from http://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/why-is-it-important-conserve-electricity

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8. ECCA (2014). What we do | Energy Efficiency and Coneservation Authority. Retrieved from http://www.eeca.govt.nz/about-eeca/what-we-do

9. Carbon Reduction (n.d.). Deloitte demonstrates commitment to embed sustainability with a focus on reducing emissions. Retrieved from http://www.carbonzero.co.nz/why/documents/Deloitte%20LLP%20CEMARS%20case%20study.pdf

10. Focalprice.com (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.focalprice.com/

11. ToolWare (n.d.) Toolware sales Auckland: Quality trade tools. Retrieved from http://www.toolware.co.nz/results.php?keywords=electrical&Submit=Search

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