Table of Contents
Summary
The report has conducted an environmental analysis of Winefusion by using the PESTLE tool to assess the external environment under which the business operates. The study has analysed the political environment that can be affected by its stability, the economic factor that determines the taxes and levies imposed on Winefusion products and services, which may determine its business efficiency and performance. The socio-cultural factors analyse the wine consumption and the social groups will drive the sale volume. The report identifies the millennials as a potential group for improving sales volumes for the Winefusion. Currently, Baby boomers and Generation X are the main drivers of the sales volume. The technological environment offers Winefusion an opportunity to reach a wide market through the internet beyond its geographical area of operation. The wine industry is a highly volatile and unstable as well as unpredictable business environment that is shaped by intense competition and consumer perception. Winefusion must adopt an innovative strategic approach to remain competitive in the market such as the adoption of ebusiness strategy in its sales and marketing. The implementation of ecommerce can assist the business in maintaining relationships with its customers as well as expanding its market share. The proper utilisation of the website to achieve profitability requires not only technical skills but marketing and access to resources. With the intensification of competition in the global wine industry and the reduction of logistical barriers by globalisation forces, ebusiness strategy becomes the only viable recourse for maintaining and expanding the market outreach for the wine industry.
Introduction
The globalisation of the wine industry challenges the way wine fusion conducts its business and the opportunities presented in the wine business. Technological advances mean that wine products are able to reach geographical areas that they could not otherwise reach. The wine customers have become more tech-savvy and aware of the wine brands, and with the age of online shopping, they have a wide variety of wines to select from (Begalli, Codurri, & Gaeta, 2009).
Environmental Analysis
Winefusion is a company created to bridge the gap between experienced and novice wine drinkers. It seeks to introduce wine drinking in social gatherings and make wine approachable by consumers on all fronts. It offers a range of great crafts of wines. The Winefusion external environmental analysis includes the political, economic, social, and technological environment (PESTLE) facing the wine industry (Sammut-Bonnici & Galea, 2015). In the political environment, the winery faces the regulatory and existing legislation that challenge consumption of alcoholic beverages. In the economic perspective, the Winefusion is affected by the taxation regime targeting wine products and the cyclical patterns of wine distributions. The social environment of the wine industry identifies the demographic groups that drive wine sales. Typically, generation X and baby boomers form the bulk of wine consumers and are expected to increase the sales volumes of the wine industry.
Winefusion can expand its market by increasing its products sales to the millennials. This can be implemented through marketing its products in the social media platforms which are a source of trend influencer for the millennials (Lin & Kim, 2016). It is expected that by the year 2020, millennials will be the drivers of Winefusion sales. The technological environment that shapes the Winefusion external environment shapes the relation of the firm with the consumers. The advent of the interactive media makes the firm able to interact with individual consumers, and understand their needs and expectations. Through technological advancement, Winefusion can increase its sales and increase competitiveness in the market by enlisting targeted marketing through the social media platforms such as Facebook (Kumar & Raju, 2013).
Critical Evaluation of the Winefusion’s current use of e-Business
The wine industry enjoys high product differentiation and a good international trade reputation, albeit it faces intense competition from major export markets (Gebauer & Ginsburg, 2004). The quality of the wines is mostly shaped by consumer perception since wine quality is a highly complex phenomenon. Consumers prefer buying ultra-premium and iconic wines and therefore there is high demand for information on the production, processing and packaging of the wine products and even the historical roots of a certain wine product (Gebauer & Ginsburg, 2004). The business platform offers the wine industry and especially Winefusion an opportunity to avail this information to its potential customers. Internet platforms offer an interactive platform where consumers can interact with Winefusion and make queries on their desired wine products (Gebauer & Ginsburg, 2004).
E-business and its subset internet marketing give Winefusion wide capabilities to reach its potential customers through both direct and indirect marketing (Begalli et al., 2009). It grants Winefusion a competitive advantage such that it can gain an international market and can enter new markets through its appeal in the ecommerce business unit. Moreover, Winefusion can attain a market niche within the global wine market by aligning its products with the specific needs of the consumer that it gets through consumer feedback in the interactive internet platforms such as the social media (Begalli et al., 2009). Winefusion can expand its market outreach through the ebusiness platform at no additional cost while ensuring business efficiency. The ebusiness platforms lower the costs of exchange of information between wine fusion and its customer base (Kumar & Raju, 2013). It is through the ebusiness that Winefusion is able to gain market access without the need for middlemen. The adoption of the internet in the ebusiness strategy improves Winefusion market efficiency, information efficiency, relative efficiency and the marketing efficiency (Diener, & Piller, 2010). Winefusion has adopted the internet as a relevant tool for improving marketing. Since the wine industry is a non-core IT industry, it derives benefits from the use of internet.
The wine industry is a highly volatile and unstable as well unpredictable business environment that is shaped by intense competition and consumer perception (Gebauer & Ginsburg, 2004). Winefusion must adopt an innovative strategic approach to remain competitive in the market such as the adoption of ebusiness strategy in its sales and marketing. In the digital age, the company website is pivotal in maintaining relationships with Winefusion customers. The proper utilisation of the website to achieve profitability requires not only technical skills but marketing and access to resources (Gebauer & Ginsburg, 2004). With the intensification of competition in the global wine industry and the reduction of logistical barriers by globalisation forces, ebusiness strategy becomes the only viable recourse for maintaining and expanding the market outreach for the wine industry (Hussain, Cholette, & Castaldi, 2008).
Through the ebusiness platform, Winefusion can exploit opportunities outside its geographical areas of operation and reach otherwise inaccessible international markets. Winefusion, like other wine industry, is located in remote areas, making it challenging to reach its potential customers. An alternative to secure its growth and survival will be through direct marketing channels vested in ebusiness to reach wine consumers (Hussain et al., 2008). On the global front, the oversupply and dumping of wine at cheaper prices is a threat to the survival of Winefusion business. Changing consumption patterns and tastes call for Winefusion to acquire innovation and marketing strategies that can play key roles in the success of its business (Hussain et al., 2008). The ebusiness platform provides a platform where Winefusion can connect with and sell its wine products and also encourage wine enthusiast to its wineries as a push to encourage consumption of its products.
Businesses can achieve success through their connection with their customers. Creating and maintaining relationships with customers through the internet is considered as an important tool for customer relationship management since the firm can gather information as well as provide information to its customers. The market extends the sale channels for the Winefusion and it also creates a forum for the community of interest among potential and existing consumers for wine fusion wine products (Hussain et al., 2008). The business platform offers a platform where Winefusion can customise its products to meet the needs of the consumers. The goal of business is creating a sustainable profitable business through improving its value chain. This is done through marketing and promotion such that a firm is able to create a community base within which the firm can rip benefits for an effective relationship with its customers (Hussain et al., 2008).
The ebusiness platforms offer reliability for Winefusion, enabling it to adopt customer-centric approaches at the core of its business plan. The ebusiness allows Winefusion to interactively engage with its customers such that it can influence their purchasing decision and improve their information such that they can make an informed decision regarding the prices and wine varieties offered by Winefusion. Through the ebusiness platform, Winefusion has a resource that allows prompt feedback from its customer such that customers can rate the quality of the Winefusion products. The ebusiness strategy allows the firm to individualise its promotion and create brand loyalty for its wine products. The ecommerce platform the affords Winefusion an opportunity to include advertising and other business activities including product display and service catalogues that improve customer interactions (Lin & Kim, 2016). The ebusiness platform allows Winefusion to engage in e-shopping and the firm can capture customer information.
E-business allows winefusion to link its internal and external data processing systems, allowing it to achieve business efficiency and flexibility (Lin & Kim, 2016.). Winefusion can be able to better satisfy the needs of its customers and their expectations. It enhances the relationships with clients and partners, in the end improving efficiency in the business operation. The fast-growing competition in the wine industry as more people engage in electronic transaction calls for risk mitigation for the ebusiness platform. Risks in the implementation of ebusiness strategy can be mitigated through proper planning and monitoring marketplace changes such that the business is able to adapt to changes and not drop out from competition. A Well-structured website is a critical reading tool for Winefusion through the provision of a certain level of security so that ecommerce does not yield undesired consequences which can lead the firm to use funds or reputation through loss of client data.
Project planning for the ebusiness allows the online platform to be visually appealing to potential clients and reliable to offer complete trading as in an actual marketplace. Unexpected delays in the ebusiness platforms can have devastating consequences on the market appeal for Winefusion business. This is because modern ebusiness trading is aggressive where competitors can enter the market and decimate rivals market share rapidly. There are several factors that can impact the ebusiness strategy at Winefusion such as a changing economic environment, consumer buying sentiment, increased operational costs and changes in the legislative frameworks governing trade agreements. Inappropriate management of the ebusiness platform can lead to undesirable consequences such as the risk of prioritization of products at Winefusion (Lin & Kim, 2016).
The ebusiness platforms should ensure that there is a continuum of technology improvement and performance to ensure the ebusiness platform does not sink in technological obsolescence (Laskaridis, Markellou, Panayiotaki, & Tsakalidis, 2007.). Winefusion implements business-to-consumer (B2C) category of ebusiness. The attribute of ebusiness envisages invisibility, complexity and flexibility. Since business is an engineering project that faces the risk of rapid obsoleteness in a fast-growing market environment (Laskaridis et al., 2007). There are many external factors that uncontrollable from the firm such as political instability that may affect sales volumes for wine or economic recession that may shrink the consumer disposable income and purchasing power (Laskaridis et al., 2007). Changes in the government regulation and regional trade agreements are other factors that can potentially affect Winefusion and its ebusiness platform. The ebusiness platform implementation is also liable to face inter platform compatibility that may make the ebusiness website to limit certain features or performance in certain platforms (Laskaridis et al., 2007). Business alliances can lead to the restructuring of Winefusion’s business increasing the popularity of rival ebusiness platforms which may effectively change the mode of operation and the requirement as well as specifications for the e-business website (Laskaridis et al., 2007).
Another risk that Winefusion is liable of facing in its implementation of ebusiness strategy is security in terms of the storage of business transactions. The secure electronic transaction is conventionally used in ebusiness (Laskaridis et al., 2007). Corporate networks frameworks separate the internet site into the external trading and the internal intranet site for parsing sensitive firm data. In the digital age and with rapid innovation can lead to the advent of features, which constantly increases competition for the ecommerce business unit. These ebusiness features may be identical to Winefusion’s, making the appeal the firm makes to the consumers the only distinguishing feature of the success of the ebusiness. Ebusiness can be imitated easily and pose a threat to the business if there is no constant improvement of its appeal and performance (Laskaridis et al., 2007).
Conclusion
The advent of technology means the online market continually faces saturation from similar products, lowering potential business opportunities. Risk transfer can be a means of mitigating risks through the provision of several ranges of products and services in the ebusiness platform. Lastly, the system should offer reliability and be ease for use by the customer. Contingency planning should be availed to ensure the ebusiness offers around-the-clock services to Winefusion customers. Contingency planning ensures the system is not shut down during maintaining or in cases of system failure.
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