This week I have been asked to look at website personalisation and stat my opinions on it. After studying the topic I am of the opinion that personalisation is a good thing as it can be a great means of finding new products that the user would possibly not have found before.  Also from a business point of view personalisation can help make more money buy giving the customer the possibility of buying other products that may be interested in.

There are three stages to web personalisation which are as follows:

1) Input

This involves the user entering their data and making purchases.

2) Algorithm

The algorithm makes sense of the data using collaborative filtering and data mining to get the right results for the customer.

3) Output

The output is where all the results are shown and are presented to the customer.

A great example of a website that uses personalisation is amazon.co.uk. The website collects information from the user and presents suggestions for other products based on the customers purchase history and they successfully make use of collaborative filtering in its technology. The screenshot below shows some of the ways in which they personalise the website (amazon.co.uk). You can clearly see where it has sections call ‘More Items to consider’ and ‘Customers with similar searches also purchased’

Sometimes it is possible for items to show up that the user has no interest in. This is the negative side of web personalisation however i believe more often than not the results are helpful.

As technology progresses algorithms will become more and more powerful providing the user with even more precise  and meaningful results.

The first tool I used was google keyword tool. On this site i simply typed in ‘dominos.co.uk’ and carried out the search. This showed me the top 100 searches for dominos. However when inspecting the results i saw that the vast majority were about places for example ‘dominos Belfast’ or ‘dominos Fulham’.

The second tool I used was google AdWords tool. I found this to be the most useful tool and presented me with a wide range of results and how popular each one is. This search returned 199 results to me. The top answer was ‘Pizza’ with 30,400,000 UK searches in october  followed by ‘Dominos’ with 2,740,000 UK searches in october.

The third tool I used was google insights. This website was slightly different to the previous two I had used. With this tool i was able to compare different keywords and find out what one was the most popular. The results of this search were presented to me on a graph as can be seen below and I was also able to see the location of the people who visit the site on a map. My findings on this site showed that ‘pizza delivery’ is the most popular keyword.

I have chosen my final 12 keywords after looking through the results of my searches and have decided that the following list is the most suitable for dominos.co.uk:

dominos pizza

pizza locations

pizza

order online pizza

dominos coupons

local pizza

dominos meal deals

pizza UK (this takes into consideration the searching of specific areas such as ‘Dominos Belfast’)

dominos menu

large pizza

dominos tuesday special

dominos food guide

The next thing I looked at was to just type in Dominos. After doing this the top result was for dominos.com, the original and american Dominos pizza stores. third on the list was dominos.co.uk. Suprising the next hit after dominos.co.uk was New Zealands version of Dominos, www.dominospizza.co.nz. There was also other typical results like wikipedia and the Dominos menu. At the very top before the first result however, was a dominos store finder using google maps. Despite it asking for a zip code, I was able to type in Belfast and its brought up the local Dominos in Belfast. What is surprising so far is that I have not come across any ‘paid for’ results for Dominos.

Next I decided to expand my testing to see if I could get Dominos up without typing in the name. The first term I tried was ‘online pizza’. This brought up two ‘paid for’ results however neither of them was Dominos. One however was Dominos biggest competitor pizzahut.co.uk. Fourth on the list was the Australian Dominos and fifth was indeed my chosen website dominos.co.uk as you can see below:

The next Term I tried entering into google was ‘Pizza Delivery’ This returned dominos.co.uk as the top ‘paid for’ result. This brought up many pizza companies, The main ones being Pizza Hut and Papa Johns.

From looking at various terms and searches it is clear that the pizza deliver business is very competitive and there is a real market for it online. There are many sponsored links for the big pizza companies such as Dominos, Pizza Hut and Papa Johns and not just in the UK but all over the world. Overall I found Dominos a very easy website to find and still with quite a few sponsored links for many of my searches. In this competitive market dominos need to ensure they maintain the same level of ease for being found on the internet while maintaining their numbers of sponsored links. Also If they promote other websites to offer things like  coupons for them, it can only help increase their chances of new business.

In business cloud computing can be very useful. This is because it can run just a program on one computer or server and be accessed by many saving time and energy. As long as there is an internet connection anyone in the business can connect to the service. As the users computers are not running the programs, memory and processing power can be freed up to help with other tasks and can lead to a more efficient business.

Many people have used cloud computing without being aware of it. examples of this include hotmail other various other methods of email. This service lets you log onto a server where the mail client is located to access your emails. This avoids having to load up a mail client such as thunderbird locally on your machine.

There are many advantages to cloud computing, they are as follows:

1) Multiple applications do not need to be bought.

2) Energy is saved as computers do not have to user so much processing power and memory.

3) Applications can be accessed from anywhere providing there is an internet connection

4) Computers can be easier to maintain and fix as there are not as manny applications running on them

5) If a computer crashed no information is lost and can be easily retrieved from the server.

6) There is unlimited storage space and the reliance on a hard drive and physical memory is not as great.

There are also some disadvantages to cloud computing, they are as follows:

1) Security issues can be raised due to the amount of personal information stored on some servers. This can make them a big target for hackers and viruses.

2) To maintain the servers, huge amounts of electricity have to be used (on such things as central heating). These servers are stored in data centres. Recently google has secured the patent for plans to store the servers out at sea. From here they could uses the waves energy and water to keep the servers cool and help the environment.

3) In some areas an internet connection may not be the easiest thing to access or maintain a good connection.

The upstream of dominos.co.uk is the transitions between dominos and its suppliers. This includes all transactions involving ingredients as well as transactions with companies such as Pan-Oston who design and help with installation for all dominos stores. The downstream includes transactions between dominos and its customers. The upstream and downstream can also be referred to as buy side e-commerce and sell side e-commerce respectively.

I believe Dominos is based on a pill version of supply chain management. This is because whatever the customer buys would have an immediate impact on what Dominos needs to buy from their suppliers. Also when buying a pizza the customer has full choice of pizza toppings and bases meaning the customer decides what products are bought. The American Dominos claims a customer has a choice of up to ‘over a million different pizza combinations’.

I am of the view that Dominos would come under vertical integration. I believe this as Dominos tries to keep to the same suppliers and has built a good relationship with them. Dominos then orders from its suppliers as and when they require more of their product. There is a case however, for vertical disintegration as Dominos do not actually produce the bulk of their products themselves.

Dominos are always keen to ensure a good relationship with suppliers and customers. Simple policies that have been carried out through the years such as the policy of ‘if it takes longer than 30 minutes its free’ shows dominos commitment to its customer. More recent attempts of maintaining a good relationship with customers include that of offerings special offers to recent customers. To maintain the market share they have, Dominos have to maintain a high level of customer service.

Dominos runs an efficient supply chain as it always makes sure it is well stocked up with ingredients. Dominos can order more when supplies are running low and naturally need more. They can also stock up in advance if they are about to enter a promotional period such as giving out coupons to local residents. This could also be after heavy advertising for example the sponsoring of last years Britain’s got talent which was watched by 20 million people. All this ensures that there is an efficient supply chain management.

2) Dominos online sales are increasingly becoming a large part of their business plan. If a competitor was to try and compete with dominos they would have to consider how they would take them on online. However as Dominos is a well established Pizza franchise that has stores in 55 countries around the world, any competitors would need to ensure they have a large fan base, a good reputation for pizza and a successful business plan. Only once the local stores are up and running would an ‘online version’ of the company be viable. To build a company of Dominos size takes a long time (Dominos first store opened in 1960). As it stands there are very few pizza franchises who could compete with dominos.

3)  The intensity of customer rivalry varies from place to place. In order to order dominos online you need to be near a local store. If for example there is no pizza hut or no other online pizza company ‘s located locally then there is no competition.  This can be both positive and negative depending on the location of Dominos stores. Established pizza companies rarely change their ingredients so customers always know what to expect. This means customers either choose pizza by what pizza they like most or else the cheapest which is why special offers are so important in the online pizza business. Whatever company runs the best offers will more than likely claim the most business.

4) The bargaining power of the customers depends from location to location. If Dominos is the only pizza company in the area they have more control over what price people pay. In areas where there are more pizza companies Dominos introduces more offerers to compete with rivals. For example at the minute Dominos stores in Belfast are running half price promotions whereas the Dominos store in Ballymena is not.

5) Dominos Pizza prides itself on its high quality ingredients which it has established itself with for over 40 years.  The ingredients they use has stayed more or less the same over this period of time and they have strong relations ships and agreements with their suppliers.For example, Dominos buys in 3,000 tonnes of tomatoes from portugal each year. I believe Dominos holds a fair degree of power over its suppliers due to the high quantities of ingredients they purchase of them. Although it would not be favourable, dominos being the large company it is could search for alternatives of equal quality.

]]> http://rickycom425.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/week-5-e-business-strategy/feed/ 0 rickycom425 http://rickycom425.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/week-4-e-environment/ http://rickycom425.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/week-4-e-environment/#comments Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:21:26 +0000 rickycom425 http://rickycom425.wordpress.com/?p=41 ]]> My first thoughts after reading through dominos.co.uk terms and conditions were that they are very reasonable. I thought they were well worded and well layed out. For example when talking about the ‘Two For Tuesday’ Deal, it clearly states which pizzas are acceptable for selection and even explains that when ordering from the website the offer is only valid from the meal deals section. These simple instructions makes it easy even for first time customers of Dominos.

Dominos does not accept any returns of pizza’s unless there is something wrong with them such as them being uneatable. In the case of an error on Dominos behalf and the customer needing a refund, Dominos ‘will endeavour to credit your account within 7 – 10 working days.’

The Support on Dominos.co.uk is good. The website offers a FAQ sections, a store locator, a food guide and a contact us section.

I also looked at the terms and conditions of pizzahut.co.uk. I found that although there was more content, a lot of it was irrelevant to the average customer. However there was some information that was useful that was not on Dominos terms and conditions such as ‘how to change your order’. I also found the layout of the Dominos terms and conditions was easier to find particular information. Overall I found Dominos.co.uk to be the better of the two sites when it came to terms and conditions.

The majority of dominos.co.uk is not encrypted, this is most likely because no important information is exchanged and it makes viewing the menu easier and quicker. However once the customer has logged in and enters their address and credit card details the website becomes encrypted for the safety of the customer. When on the payment page a padlock icon appears on the address bar showing the page is encrypted by a Secure Socket Layer.

Currently dominos.co.uk is using cookies. In the websites terms and conditions it states that the cookies are used to ‘identify you for usability purposes’. That means that for dominos.co.uk cookies are used to identify the customer to see if they have used the site before, knowing where the customers local store is and showing the customer what their last order was.

The Process for ordering a Dominos Pizza online, for delivery, can be seen below:

The customer entere www.dominos.co.uk. On the home pages they can enter their post code to find their nearest store. Once the nearest store has been found the website checks to see if the the customer is registered. A customer has to be registered to use the service as all payment and delivery address information is saved on the account. From here the customer can select the food they desire using just a few clicks and submit the order (they will also be asked to confirm payment details). Once ordered the chosen Dominos store instantly receives, processes and displays the order on their order screen which is then put on the order line to be made. Once the pizza has been made it is sent to the delivery shelf, where it is delivered to the customers desired address.

E-commerce is already a successful area of Dominos. Dominos already allows ordering via phone, text. To seek new avenues of E-commerce that equal or better the current systems would be hard to find considering the current technology available to them. Perhaps at this moment in time Dominos could look into smaller ventures such as making a Dominos iphone app?

Over recent years the company has gone from strength to strength even with the current financial difficulties. In 2009 the company hiked pre tax profits 25% to 13.7 million at the end of Q2. In the third quarter it achieved growth of 8.9%, with a total sales increase of 30.9%. There are currently 583 stores in the UK and Ireland and the company plans to increase that to 1000 by 2017. This year the company has created 800 new jobs.

Online Dominos had really taken off. Total online sales reached £25.3m, meaning and increase of 85.1% on the £13.7m reported last year. The company itself claims its e-commerce operation now accounts ‘for 21.8% of delivered pizzas in the UK’. This compared to 2007 where they had a market share of just 16%.

Dominos main business lies with their stores and this is the area they make the most amounts of profit in. However online sales have been rapidly rising and dominos have acknowledged this. In the last year Dominos has heavily invested in digital multi-channel retail platforms. This includes such things as being able to order by SMS. With such services as SMS and ordering online, the customer can find out where their nearest store is, once this is done the customer places their order and has the choice of picking up their order at the nearest dominos or else gets its delivered.

The time period that I shall be focusing on is 2006 until 2009. My initial research has shown me that the number of households being connected to the internet is constantly increasing. Nielsen Online claims that by June 2009 48, 755,000 (79.8%) of the population were internet users.

By 2009 18.3 million households were connected to the internet. This is roughly 70% of the total population. This number is close to a 2million increase of users over the previous 12 months and a 4million increase from 2006. These statistics are represented in the below graph which can be found at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=8

The above graph also shows the diminishing number of households using narrowband and the increasing number of broadband users. By 2009 90% of internet users were using broadband which was an increase of 69% on the 2006 figures.

The region with the highest level of access was South East England, with 73 per cent by 2008. The Country with the fewest internet users was Northern Ireland with 56%. These Figures can be seen in the table below which represents internet usage for all areas of the UK for 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Whilst furthering my research I have found that there are various reasons as to why internet usage is on the rise (http://www.barnesgraham.com/Selected-UK-Internet-Statistics-2009.html)

Online Business, advertising and shopping has become a large part of the internet.  IMRG/Capgemini predicted the last quarter of 2008 would see UK shoppers spend £13.16 bn online. Social networking sites have seen a great expanse in the number of users signing up over recent years. Now in the UK there are roughly 40 millions user accounts belonging to UK residents on the major social networking sites.

and also with the broadband speeds available many people are signing up to use such popular entertainment and media services as BBC iplayer. In January 2007 one in 24 internet visits in the UK was to a news and media site.

Resources:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=8

http://en-us.nielsen.com/tab/product_families/nielsen_netratings

http://www.emarketer.com/