To: Dr. Erika Paterson
From: Alison Ma
Date: June 19, 2020
Subject: Formal Report Proposal – Improving the Use of Technological Software to All Staff in E-commerce Office
Introduction
Most of the members in the society have been using the internet every day. With the blast of coronavirus, many businesses moved their business from offline to online, trying to capture potential gain from customers on a new channel. I am pleased to be able to work in the largest E-commerce company in Hong Kong, coordinating email and app notification campaigns as well as communicating with the other teams for product promotion plans. However, I realized that most of the data work about e-commerce is unrecognized by most of my colleagues in the company; only a group of business analysts is familiar with the technical work, such as programming and result analysis etc. I am interested to know more about how the company runs and work out a feasible solution to my supervisor and management team in this company.
Statement of Problem
Now the company is comprised of many departments. Each department is divided into small teams responsible for individual tasks. Just like my internship, workers are doing email campaigns with the programming-ready languages. They only need to change certain numbers to tailor each email and schedule each promotion using certain websites. However, most of the people are missing skills to critically analyze the response rate of their campaign, such as the clickthrough rate (the percentage of people who clicked a product promoted in your email) etc.
There are a lot more tools to use for E-commerce, such as Google Analytics, however, I think that the company is missing the training as only a small portion of expertise knows the function. I think it is necessary to increase the exposure of staff to the other E-commerce tools in this internet-driven world in order to advance in their role.
Proposed Solution
I propose to make a solid plan for the implementation of specific technological tools. First, the company should purchase a full plan for the necessary tools so that all the workers in the company could have access to it. (The cost is huge but considering the scope of the company that I am working in, they are financially sustainable for the plan with the highest transparency and access).
I will also propose to have multiple software implemented. A successful company should include more than one useful software for different purposes and for a better analysis. After getting to know more about the functions, I will propose some to the company and seek opinions from the management team in order to increase the exposure to the e-commerce software to more staff.
Scope
In order to introduce technological software for e-commerce, I plan to research on the following area:
- The software recommended for e-commerce
- The feasibility of the introduction of technological software to other staff in consideration of their workload
- The cost needed and training available
- Any plan necessary to boost training participation
- Any difficulties in management perspective to introduce technological software
Method
My primary source will be interviews with related personnel. I want to take advantage of my internship in my current company and interview with different stakeholders. I plan to discuss with the current business analysts (the current team who are familiar with technological software), the manager and two to three normal colleagues from other departments for their opinions. If time allows, I would also conduct an information interview with expertise from other companies to know about their thoughts on the current e-commerce trend and tools.
My secondary source will be scholarly articles of e-commerce exploration in recent decades, which helps to define my research direction and questions with the interviewee.
My Qualification
I am a student studying International Economics. I have a deep interest in digital marketing as it entails unlimited possibilities in the digital world. In my thesis paper, I had also studied the trend of e-commerce to the imported value of the US apparel. In my classes, I have also analyzed the cost and benefits of different policies, whether the net present value is positive for carrying out the plan.
After achieving an internship role in the company with the largest online shopping platform in Hong Kong, I have had more exposure to the e-commerce marketing team, especially in communication with the sales and design team to establish a slider on the website to advertise certain products. After realizing the problem, I want to make an impact in my internship and make a proposal to the company with the knowledge I gained from my degree as well as a perspective that is fresh to the company.
Conclusion
As an Economics student, I have been giving suggestions that are the most conducive after analyzing the given situation. With my strong interest in e-commerce, I am confident that I will gain a lot of insight while digging deeper into the digital world of business. Knowledge of certain software has to be acquired in order to avoid being eliminated from the job market. This proposal is a skill set that is valuable not only to the people in the company but also to other companies that are considering investing in human capital. I am looking forward to seeing even a small change my report could bring.
Hello Alison,
Thank you for posting this proposal. This looks like a worthwhile and useful investigation. The one concern I have is it might be too ambitious, too much work for the time allotted. Interviews are timely and difficult to arrange. I am happy to approve your proposal, but please take my concerns into consideration and streamline the work as much as possible. I look forward to reading your progress report, thank you and enjoy.