Legislative And Regulatory Business Framework For E-commerce: A Case Study Of BBQ Fun

Procedures and policies of the operating functions

Discuss About The Legislative And Regulatory Business Framework.

This concerned report has been prepared in the context of a manufacturing company, named BBQ Fun, which is primarily concerned with the task of manufacturing goods. The company is primarily dealing with the selling and manufacturing of its produced items. It basically sells all its items in a market-based scenario, with the help of its established stores. Although, the business is sustaining well, but the company management have decided to expand its operations, by venturing into the area of Electronic Commerce. This has been intended with the purpose of maximizing the sales of its products. However, this is not the company’s forte and it needs to be careful while implementing its plans regarding shifting into the online platform for the sale of the products. Online selling of goods and services is relatively a novel concept (Terzi, 2016). As a result of which, although the company will be highly benefitted by the expanding sales, but on the flip side, the risk factors are also huge. There are also risks of compromising the reputation and the brand of the company. This might hurt the company’s sales as well as all the security features attached to it.  As a result of which, it is strongly advisable to the company that it must periodically review the rules and regulations regarding the various provisions of cyber security, in the case of electronic commerce (Hillary, 2017). All this is imperative from the company’s perspective because the protection of the information of the consumers and their privacy is of utmost importance to the company.

 All the operational plans, policies and functions of the company are aimed with the proper implementation and applications of the different procedures regarding the electronic commerce websites. The company is about to launch this genre of selling, which is a first in its history, as a result of which, maximum time and effort must be devoted in this e-commerce activity.  The company must ensure that a hassle free approach is adopted to ensure smooth addition of its e-commerce business platform along with its store selling concept. The company has adopted the various plans about this addition, in order to ensure a smooth and simple addition to the company’s selling medium. There are various plans which must be implemented with the operational plan of the business in order to ensure a better incorporation of the website business model (Jahanshahi, Zhang and Brem., 2013). This may include initiation of online feedback forms, ordering of goods and services online and better communication mediums along with a proper and relevant refunding policy for the company’s aggrieved customers.

Importance of Operational Plan

One of the most important parts of any business activity is the operational plan which is in place in the organization. The importance of the operational plan cannot be ignored at all. It incorporates the well-being of the organization. It is actually a road map of success for the organization and it must be followed in order to achieve the different goals and objectives of the business entity. As a result of which it is known as the bridge which fills in the gap between the goals and the activities of any business organization. (Chadwick, 2013).

 BBQ Fun is no exception either. The operational plan in place at the company would help in incorporating the different features of the e-commerce business model in the company. The planning and the consequent implementation of the policies of the organization, which is most suited for the e-commerce business platform would be chosen, only if the operational plan of the company is flexible to the needs of the organization. It would also take into account the different needs of the different departments of the company and how e-commerce can help in supporting them in any way possible. This would help in ensuring that a two way process is maintained (Sila, 2013).

One of the most important activities of the organisation’s management would be to ensure that the existing operational plan should be revamped in order to ensure that the existing operational plan is changed and a new one is adopted in its place which would help in the e-commerce platform too. As e-commerce is a relatively new area of operation for the business, adoption of a new operating plan is imperative for the company (Manzini, Accorsi and Bortolini, 2014).

When the talk of application of any new system in any business organization takes place, the need for specific kinds of resources keep cropping up.  For the proper implementation of the entire structure of e-commerce system at BBQ, certain kinds of both physical as well as human resources would be needed. The human resources of the company for e-commerce would consists of employees who would look after the different e-commerce systems and ensure their proper functioning. They would be responsible for entertaining all the problems regarding the systems and would also be entrusted of providing the feedback regarding the problems faced by the systems (Falk and Hagsten, 2015). Along with this active participation of the top management along with the CEO, CFO and other executives would be imperative for ensuring the overall success of the company. In the case of the physical resources, certain kinds of software’s, computer hardware’s, cables and other delivery mediums would be necessary (Cui and Pan, 2015). All this would be done in order to ensure that the company is catering to the needs of the e-commerce section of the business. It would also help in ensuring maximization of the sales of the company.

Expansion of Operational Plan

There are two important topics which needs to be discussed with the human resource manager of the company,

1. The need of those kinds of employees who perfectly understand their roles and duties in the context of e-commerce and its sales operations. They need to understand their role in the sales function of the e-commerce websites.
2. Along with this, the HR manager must also take into account that the sales manager of the e-commerce section of BBQ, must be acquainted with both the role in the e-commerce section and the sales manager must also perform the function of hiring employees together with the task of conducting interviews.Human Resource Requirements.

The key performance indicators with regards to the e-commerce implementation of the company are as follows:

• Cost benefits attached to the entire project
• Aggregate sales of the company.
• Operational efficiency of the company
• Growth rate of the company
• Net profit of the company.

In the subsequent points certain important suggestions have been provided to the operations manager:

1. There are a wide range of physical resources which would be necessary for the smooth implementation of the e-commerce project. These physical resources include delivery trucks, workers, infrastructural needs and requirements and new set of skilled workers who are proficient in the field of e-commerce.
2. There are a wide range of costs which must be incurred by the management for a smooth and effective e-commerce policy and framework. These costs are segregated into three parts, which are the initial investment of the project, any kind of additional expenses regarding the project and the overall cost of operating the entire project.   
3. There are a wide range of advantages of e-commerce business such as increased sales, robust feedback of customers, top notch quality of services etc.  The Key performance indicators can be initiated by providing proper and comprehensive training of the employees, making them understand about the resources and their proper usage.
4. Mainly there are four kinds of risks which are closely associated with e-commerce, which are misuse of intellectual properties, underperformance of employees of the company due to excessive computer interference moreover it takes a toll on the health of the employees as well due to excessive usage of computer gadgets.

According to the information depicted in the case study on BBQ, it is intended by the organization to expand the business by using the facility of e commerce in its website. Incorporation of e commerce would help the organization in development of their business by expanding the sales.  The distribution process of the products that are manufactured by BBQ fun will be smoothened by with the implementation of new budgetary plan requiring six trucks. Moreover, four forklifts are also required by company for expansion plan. For efficient and effective running of business, capital requirement of five million dollars are needed in the business and physical resources can be accessed from several sources.

From the analysis of various options available for purchasing the equipment, it is decided by management of BBQ fun that they will be relying on open market for sourcing physical resources. It is decided that such equipment will be purchased that will have maximum useful lives as against second hand equipment. The reason attributable to choosing open market for acquiring equipment is to establish friendly relationship with existing suppliers in the market so that they are able to source business on repeated basis (Jensen et al. 2018). As a consequence of this, in event of any future transactions, company will be enjoying the benefits of some discount offerings by way of enjoying some bargaining power.

Method of bit tendor can be used by company for purchasing stocks and inventories. Under such method, it is required by company to appoint auctioneer for conducting the prices of auction. For supplying raw materials, contracts will be bid by suppliers along with auction process being determined by management. For the purpose of auction, the first order of business will be to make the application of all the potential suppliers. For supplying the raw materials, the contract will be bid by suppliers. Management will set the base price at which the auction will be initiated. Such basis for price will be determined by company after evaluating and analyzing the market scenario for the product. The base price will gradually increase until a saturation point is reached and it is always sought by organization to pass the contract with highest bid. For the effective functioning of business, it is required by company to make the acquisition of adequate physical resources.

Resource Necessities

Intellectual planning are the intangible assets possessed by organization that incorporates patent, goodwill, copyright and trademark. Managing the risks pertaining to intellectual property is about dealing with adverse areas that leads to minimization of useful lives of assets. It is the nature of business that determines the acquisition of intellectual property. The risk associated with the development of intellectual property is existence of threat that such property would be developed by third party. In addition to this, there are trade secrets having the fear of leaking it to another party along with the risk of being damaged by employees who are not trained or lacks requisite skills for using such property (Benitez et al. 2017). However, such risks can be minimized by the employment of following measures and they are as follows:

The intellectual property should be developed or acquired through having legal rights of ownership so that it cannot be copied by any third party.

Leakages of any crucial information to third parties can be protected by making employees sings confidentiality contract. This is done so that employees are not disclosing any trade secrets or information to the third parties when they have left the company or are out of their service.

Furthermore, if the company has taken intellectual property from third party on lease, then there exists the probability that such property might get damages in absence of appropriate skills possessed by employees. Organization also faces the risks related to intellectual property if there are violations against such property.  The party leasing such intellectual property would file case and legal actions against the company if there are any violations of terms and conditions of usage of such leased items.

The organization follows the model of human resource planning so that it helps to meet the business requirements in terms of workforce. Some of the aspects that are incorporated in the model of human resource planning are employee’s contingency and description of job that enables the business to develop strategy for retention of employees. It is suggested by the case study related to BBQ Fun that is seeking the expansion by using the facility of e commerce on its online platform. Expansion of business comes with the objective of increasing the sales of products using online platform by the implementation of facilities of e commerce that would ease customers in making their purchase.  Planning of human resource will help organization in forecasting demand requirement and supply of workforce.

Human Resources discussions

The objective of management is to increase the sales of product by expanding its business via incorporating the facilities of e commerce in its online websites. Requirement of business is to develop their operational plans by enhancing the online sales and possession of necessary skills by customer service employees so that they are able to handle the facilities offered by e commerce and any other requirement that arises from such expansion. The department of customer delivery services will also require four warehouse workers and additional drivers.

The vacancies for new employees who are responsible for working and involved in activities of e commerce facilities are advertized by management of organization. The main intention of advertising is to attract the potential candidates for the sought designation in the management of e commerce department of organization. In addition to this, there will be conduction of round of interview and screening tests for selecting the employees with required skills for the designation. Some of the selection criteria for employee include employee’s skills in handling software, highest qualification degree, ability of solving issues and computers. Therefore, it is required by organization to recruit employees who posses’ adequate communication skills are enthusiastic and always takes the lead.

The human resource policies should incorporate some of the initial processing requirements so that there cannot be misplacement or leakages of any confidential information or trade secrets. Protection of trade secrets and confidential information is protected by making employees sign confidentiality contract that requires employees not to disclose any such information even after resigning from the organization. Furthermore, it is also required by management to make an enforcement of law that employees breaching the terms of contract will be sued and legal actions will be taken against them if they break the terms of contract and make disclosure of secret information.

Conduction of interview process is done for having in depth understanding of problem solving ability of employees, their knowledge level and communication skills. The management presents the interview template that is disclosed below:

The recruitment of employees is needed for the department of online sales in accordance with the management interview plan. Management is seeking to hire individual who possess the requisite skills for handling the system of e commerce business. in addition to this, they also posses the ability of handling the online customer queries and have sharp communication skills so that the issues are resolved on prompt basis for gaining and acquiring new customers and increasing the online sales accordingly (McKenzie 2017). Moreover, if the hired employees do not possess the skills of handling the online business, they can be provided training to sharpen their communication skills and handling of the customers in an efficiency way. However, it would be required by business to incur some cost in the initial phase of training. The training imparted by management would help in ensuring that any unfavorable situation arising in the e commerce system can be handled with due care and effectively.

Key Performance Indicators of the Business

The management of BBQ has formulated a plan which will facilitate the management to review the performance of the business on the basis of the new e-commerce strategy which has been prepared by the management and which the management wishes to implement. The managers of the company need to exercise control and effective supervision so as to ensure that no discrepancies take place and even if such discrepancies occur than corrective measures can be effectively implemented. An action plan for displaying the milestone achievement plan of the company has been developed which is shown below:

The performance of the business in terms of financial indicators can be acquired from the chief financial officer of the business. The financial performance of the business is measured in terms of budgetary % of overruns which is incorporated in the budget. The target of the management is that there should be zero budget overruns, however in actual case it is revealed to be 10% which is significantly higher. The overruns are caused due to wastage from order mistakes and also due to piling of stock which results in misuse of the same. The duly overlong customer interaction is also one of the reason for the overruns in the budgets. The management can however can control such overruns for which the following steps are given:

• The management needs to ensure that the order which is placed is genuine so that no wastage can occur due to a fake order. The management in order to detect fake orders can demand partial payments which will confirm the order and reduce wastage of the products.
• The management needs to incorporate strategies which results utilization of stocks as early as possible so that no piling of stock takes place in the business.
• The management can also undertake an investigation so as to find out the reasons for overruns in budget and take necessary actions against the same.

The performance of the business on the basis of productivity can be judged on the performance of the employee and staff of the business. The following steps can be taken for measuring the productivity of the business:

• The management needs to appoint effective supervisors which can supervise the activities of the business and the management can further apply tools like budgets, performance report to supervise the performance of each department as well as individual.
• The productivity of a business depends on the performance of the employee and in order to ensure that the employees perform as per the expectation of the management, the company needs to provide them with motivation which can be done by providing incentives over performance, better working conditions, bonus holidays, payment in kinds.

The employees of the company are considered to be the major factors which are behind the success of any business. The level of skills and dedication that an employee has makes an employee an asset to the organization. In the case of BBQ fun, the management is planning to introduce e-commerce facilities for which employees are needed to be trained and new ones are also needed to be recruited. The measurement for quality of services for the online staff who handles the e-commerce facilities are on the basis of % of mistakes which are made by the employees. The target which the management has set in the budget is of about 1%. In the current situation the level of mistakes which are committed by the employees is around 10%. In addition to this, the time required to resolve a customer’s enquiry is about 10 minutes which the employees in current performance takes 20 minutes. The following steps are suggested to improve the performance of the business :

• The management needs to exercise strict control so that mistakes can be avoided. In case of repetitive mistakes by an employee, the employee must be sent to retraining so that mistakes can be avoided.
• The average time which an employee takes to solve a problem for the clients needs to be reduced which can be done by ensuring those employees who have excellent communication skills are entrusted with the position and the business needs to follow right man for the right job concept diligently.

Balanced Scorecard of e-commerce Strategy

The management of BBQ Fun has prepared a schedule as to the date or milestones for achieving the set targets of the company. The management has decided to implement the new e-commerce strategy to increase the overall sales of the company by 1^st November.

The management can make use of a variety of tools which are there such as budgets, performance reports, supervision, daily or weekly checks. The activities of the business are focuses towards monitoring and controlling the performance of the business. In addition to this, the management can install CCTV cameras for monitoring day to day activities of the business. Management tools such as reports, budget variances, performance reports are also available to the management for exercising control over the activities of the business.

Progress reporting refers to weekly, monthly or quarterly reports which are prepared by every department for the purpose of ensuring that the performance of the department is communicated to the top-level management of the company. This promotes transparency in the business and also provides the management to review the performance of each department as well as each employee. The report contains both explanations and assertions as well as statistical and graphical data appropriately presented.

The management of BBQ Fun needs to recruit some employees for the new online sales team which will be looking after the e-commerce sales department of the business. In order to ensure that the employees of the online sales team are performing well, the management has introduced a training program and a vocational training specially for the online sales team (Stone and Stone 2013). The online sales employees will be under the leadership of sales manager.

The performance of the Online employees of the is very essential for the plan of the management to increase the overall sales of the business. In every organization there is a requirement of skill workers so that best performance can be obtained. BBQ Fun also requires skill workers in order to handle the online e-commerce facility which the management of the company wants to introduce (Maina & Kwasira 2015). The time which is estimated for implementation of the online plan is on 1^st November. There are certain employees who are underperforming in the online sales team and also causing errors which has lead to increase in the errors of the business. The management has developed a plan to overcome the situation which is given below:

• The role of the management in selecting and recruiting of employees is crucial as they can ensure that quality employees are taken who have necessary skills and knowledge.
• The employees which are taken for the online sales team should have proper communication skills and knowledge as to how to handle a customer

In order to provide effective Coaching to the employees of the business, the management needs to follow GROW Model which is explained below:

1. Goal: This principle states that the goal, mission and vision of the business should be known by the employees of the company. The goal of the business should be pursued by the employees of the business
2. Reality: In this phase, the actual performance of the employee is measured with the standard set for performance by the business.
3. Option: In this phase, the management will be making conversation with the employee to ascertain if the employee is facing any problems in the business so that the management can resolve such problems (Passmore 2014).
4. Will: The last phase deals with the motivation which the management needs to provide the employee which can be in the form of incentives, kind, leaves, bonus and similar other types so as to motivate the employee to improve the performance of the business.

The recommendation which can be given to BBQ Fun are given below for improving the operational plan of the business:

• The management must formulate strategies so as to minimize wastage and losses and earn maximum revenues for the business.
• The employees who are not performing up to the mark needs to be retrained for which the management must make provision

Reference

Barnes Jr, M.L., Wounder GmbH LLC, 2013. System, method, and computer program product for providing location based services and mobile e-commerce. U.S. Patent 8,611,919.

Benitez, J., Chen, Y., Teo, T.S. and Ajamieh, A., 2017. Impact of E-business Technology on Operational Competence and Firm Profitability over Time.

Cui, M. and Pan, S.L., 2015. Developing focal capabilities for e-commerce adoption: A resource orchestration perspective. Information & Management, 52(2), pp.200-209.

Falk, M. and Hagsten, E., 2015. E-commerce trends and impacts across Europe. International Journal of Production Economics, 170, pp.357-369.

Jahanshahi, A.A., Zhang, S.X. and Brem, A., 2013. E-commerce for SMEs: empirical insights from three countries. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 20(4), pp.849-865.

Jensen, C.T., Samuel, R., Cormier, G. and FitzGerald, D., Aetna Inc, 2018. Systems and methods for controlling business processes through information technology operational controls. U.S. Patent Application 15/390,907.

Maes, S.H., Oracle International Corp, 2015. Integrating operational and business support systems with a service delivery platform. U.S. Patent 8,966,498.

Maina, D. K., and Kwasira, J. 2015. Role of human resource planning practices on employee performance in county governments in Kenya: a case of Nakuru county. Int J Econ Commer Manage, 3(5), 1569-1580.

McKenzie, D., 2017. Identifying and spurring high-growth entrepreneurship: experimental evidence from a business plan competition. American Economic Review, 107(8), pp.2278-2307.

Olhager, J. 2013. Evolution of operations planning and control: from production to supply chains. International Journal of Production Research, 51(23-24), 6836-6843.

Passmore, J. 2014. Behavioural coaching. In Handbook of coaching psychology (pp. 93-105). Routledge.

Sila, I., 2013. Factors affecting the adoption of B2B e-commerce technologies. Electronic commerce research, 13(2), pp.199-236.

Stone, R. J., and Stone, R. J. 2013. Managing human resources. John Wiley and Sons.

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