MIS 320 Milestone One Guidelines and Rubric Customer Acquisition Overview: An e-commerce consultant can provide insights, information, and expertise to a small or mid-sized retail business

Question

MIS 320 Milestone One Guidelines and Rubric

Customer Acquisition

Overview: An e-commerce consultant can provide insights, information, and expertise to a small or mid-sized retail business. E-commerce consultants can do many different specialized tasks, from helping a brick-and-mortar retailer plan for the addition of e-commerce to helping an online retailer expand its sales and reach a growing global customer base. To complete this assignment, you will assume the role of an e-commerce business consultant who owns a business specializing in the development of e-commerce business solutions.

Prompt: To prepare for your final project, you must complete three milestones. For each milestone, you will review the company’s business model and technology infrastructure. You will determine the business requirements necessary for improving the e-business operational strategy.

Your first milestone for this project will focus on customer acquisition. In this milestone, you will review the shortcomings of the company’s outdated technology as it relates to acquiring customers.

To complete this assignment, you must analyze the shortcomings of the company’s outdated technology as it relates to acquiring customers by addressing the following:

Summary of existing technical infrastructure related to customer maintenance
Overview of impact existing technology has on the business operations
Identification of data components necessary for making appropriate decisions for acquiring customers

Include an overview that introduces the components in the paper. It should summarize the elements in the paper and briefly describe the importance of ebusiness customer acquisition. Organize your assignment by creating a heading for each of the critical elements using the following outline:

Introduction

? Describe the importance of e-business customer acquisition

Analysis of existing technical infrastructure related to customer maintenance
Analysis of impact existing technology has on the business operations
Identification of data components necessary for making appropriate decisions for acquiring customers V. Conclusion
- Summary of existing technology ability to acquire customers

Background: Use the following attributes of the business and its owner to complete this milestone:

- The sporting goods store has experienced a recent increase in sales at its single location.
- The owner has been conducting its online sales through a locally built and hosted website (review the information in the table below).
- The owner is considering opening another physical location but is leery of investing money in another location because of the rising and unpredictable costs.
- The business owner is concerned of further investing in e-commerce solutions because the current setup is not productive.
- The business owner lacks technical experience of online business-development functions and wants to ensure your company can address the following components:
  - Customer acquisition o Sales transactions
  - Technical support

Current E-commerce Technology Setup

E-business Functional Tool or Strategy	Functional Description	Technology Classification
Shopping cart	Consumers can only use Mastercard for transactions. Must start a new shopping cart if it contains items consumer does not wish to purchase. No mobile access.	Digital payment services E-commerce marketplaces Collaboration and trading
URL	Website domain: http://www.iwanttopurchasealloftheseitemsformyself.org Company message backs guarantee of every purchase	Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols
Navigation	Products grouped by two main categories on the home page and then broken into multiple subcategories once users reach applicable products considered to be in the same classification No search function present within the website; however, certain pages can be located more easily if searched using a major search engine outside of the website Average number of clicks to complete transaction: 8	Search engine optimization Site navigation techniques
Customer acquisition and retention	Users are required to register: no guest checkout. Passwords must be 12 characters in length with varied requirements and must be changed every two weeks. “Contact us” information not present. Only one shipping/carrier option.	Profiling and personalization Search management Content and catalog management Email marketing systems
		?	Warranty database
		?	Customer relationship management (CRM)
		?	Online support capabilities
Website appearance	Every product includes a high-resolution image for display and no image dimensions set. Additional product information redirects customers to manufacturer site. Items cannot be “shared” via social media. Website uses WordPress template so updates can be made by owner for quicker access and lower cost.	? ? ?	Front-end optimization tools Cross-browser compatibility Meta-tag optimization
Technology infrastructure	Limited content management system, locally hosted. Domain name system (DNS) lookup is 20+ characters in length. Website contains over 100 redirects when loading. Website not using browser caching.	? ? ?	Redirect management Database and server performance Image caching and optimization

Rubric

Guidelines for Submission: Your submission should be 1 to 2 pages in length and should be organized following the outline provided in the prompt.

Critical Elements	Proficient (100%)	Needs Improvement (55%)	Not Evident (0%)	Value
Analysis of Existing Technical Infrastructure Related to Customer Maintenance	Thoroughly evaluates the shortcomings of the company’s outdated technology as it relates to acquiring customers by addressing the key features of technology infrastructure and its inability to acquire new customers	Sufficiently evaluates the shortcomings of the company’s outdated technology as it relates to acquiring customers but needs additional description/examples of technology infrastructure to support analysis	Does not evaluate the shortcomings of the company’s outdated technology as it relates to acquiring customers	25
Analysis of Existing Technology Impact on the Business Operations	Thoroughly evaluates current state of technology and its impact on customer acquisition, including relevant and supporting examples	Sufficiently evaluates current state of technology and its impact on customer acquisition, but examples are slightly underdeveloped	Does not provide an analysis of the technical business operations	25
Customer Acquisition Data Components	Identifies specific components prohibiting the business from acquiring new customers, including relevant and supporting examples	Sufficiently identifies components that prohibit customer acquisition, but examples are slightly underdeveloped	Does not provide any customer acquisition data components	25
Introduction and Conclusion	Clearly states current state of the business’s ability to acquire customers	Describes customer acquisition potential, but response is unclear or contains inaccuracies	Does not address customer acquisition ability	15

Articulation of Response	Summary is free of errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, and organization and is presented in a professional and easy-to-read format	Summary contains errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, or organization that negatively impact readability and articulation of main ideas	Summary contains critical errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, or organization that prevent understanding of ideas	10
			Total	100%