Deliverable B: Business Case Statement

Our intention is to better serve the individuals who are interested in being an active part of our organization by enhancing their experiences.  With the deployment of our e-commerce initiatives, Forever Moving Forward, Inc. will have the ability to provide a multitude of enhanced services to our various types of customers - mentors, mentees, financial donors, and the general community by offering the following features:

• Serve anyone who wants to collect or view information (organizational information, means of contact, upcoming events, and attractive multimedia presentations)
• Allow anyone to be an active participant in FMF’s programs by better offering convenient ways to be involved. This will connect our customers to their objectives (donating cash/time, signing up to be a mentor or mentee)
• Access of web 2.0 features to promote and enhance participation, and share information – further strengthening our active community by providing another forum of interactivity.

Forever Moving Forward, Inc. (FMF) will employ an e-commerce initiative to expand its reach in the Chicago community.  The development of our e-commerce footprint will be aligned to supporting our Business Model - a Merchant of Goodwill.  The successful implementation of a merchant website is critical to the growth of FMF.   In an effort to engage a community and make them responsive to our objectives, our merchant model will support a virtual interface to streamline the following business practices:

• Provide company information and a virtual community (testimonials, blogs, mentor/mentee progress updates, multimedia of company events, calendar, contact information)
• Increase revenues – provide a convenient avenue for donors; create the ability to sell products.
• Expand communications to our target markets (mentors, mentees, donors) using capabilities to quickly send information 1:1, or to many via social web applications.
• Engage in web marketing strategies (good search optimization, publications, emails, collecting visitor information, post web ads)

Forever Moving Forward, Inc.'s main goal at this time is to provide mentoring to pre-teen and teenage girls in the Chicago land area. Forever Moving Forward’s efforts in mentoring young girls is also to uplift the communities in which it operates by encouraging these girls to go to college and become productive members of society.

• Current mentees and their parents: These customers will directly benefit from the mentoring activities provided by the organization.
• Donors, customers, and business partners: These customers will provide financial and collaborative resources to the organization.
• The community at-large: These customers are potential mentees, parents of mentees, donors, customers, and/or business partners.

Forever Moving Forward, Inc.'s online presence will be used as a tool to engage its main customers – the mentees. To do this the site will be cleanly designed, and provide the mentees with an interactive experience that will connect them to mentors and fellow mentees. Its secondary function is to provide a revenue stream in the form of donations and sales. To do this the site will provide multiple avenues for customers to easily donate or purchase items from the organization. Customers will be accommodated as follows:

• Impulsive: These customers are quick to purchase without many details, but also are quick to leave if something does not catch their eye! It is expected that the main customers of the site will initially fall into this category and as such will need to be "wowed" in order to convert them into more consistent visitors. To attract the mentees the site will provide interactivity to target the mentees age group; this will be in the form of interesting discussion board topics and notices for teen social events and activities. Impulsive donors and shoppers will be provided quick "1-click" methods to donate or purchase items.
• Patient: These customers take their time browsing before committing. They are not in a hurry and may not even be interested in the product or services being provided. This customer segment will likely consist of members of the local community who are simply looking at local services. To attract these customers the site will be cleanly styled and display information about the organization and its services in a concise but interesting manner.
• Analytical: These are the hardest customers to attract! They are critical of the smallest details. They also rely on multiple sources before making a decision. To attract these customers the site will provide accurate and truthful information about the organization and services, and it will provide multiple means (phone and email) to contact someone to discuss any questions or concerns. As the site administrators we will work to ensure that the website is accessible via searches for "Chicago," "non-profit," and "mentoring."

Forever Moving Forward, Inc. will mainly be focused on services and not products and as such will be much more utilitarian than hedonic in nature. Offering the capability for donations will be the feature shopping experience and will be implemented in a straight forward easy-to-follow method. Also implemented shall be a small store with shopping cart that can allow for the purchasing of products that may fancy the hedonic buyer more, as well as products once again for the utilitarian. To make the shopping cart as simple to use as possible an Amazonian approach will be followed.

T.E.A.M. is a program serving African American girls in South Side Chicago, Il. Among the services it offers, T.E.A.M. provides tutoring, mentoring, and life-skills education, in addition to athletics. The Springboard Foundation’s website offers the following features to support the efforts of the T.E.A.M. program among others:

• Donations accepted online via third-party www.kintera.org
• List of programs available for youth
• Calendar of events and photo gallery

The Dime Child Foundation provides resources and services to at-risk youth in low-income metropolitan Chicago areas. Established by a woman who personally struggled in her transition from high school to college, the foundation now serves almost 200 African-American and Hispanic students aging from 12-21. Programs are aimed at providing education, mentoring, and leadership skills. Features of Dime Child’s website include:

• Message board of events
• Online radio station WDCR hosted by youth and volunteers
• Photo Gallery

The Boys & Girls Club of Chicago offers youth a safe location for developing skills, talents, character, education, and healthy lifestyles. Through cooperation and activities with peers and adult mentors, boys and girls in the Chicagoland area are able to grow in a positive environment. The organizations website provides the following features:

• Donations accepted and products sold online via www.co.clickandpledge.com
• List of programs available for youth
• Storybook Gallery
• Online Quizzes

Friends First is a mentoring program offering positive role models for at-risk youth ages 9-17 in the Chicago land area. Children are matched with specific mentors and participate in such activities as sports, education, museum visits and more. Site features include:

• Donations accepted online processed via Authorize.Net
• List of events available for youth
• Storybook Gallery
• E-mail newsletter and event e-blasts

• The ability to name-your-donation, while many sites require specified amounts
• A variety of fundraising events and opportunities
• Message board and community information to keep users connected
• Membership opportunities and newsletter

• Unique organization targeted at mentoring girls in the Chicago land area
• Established and operated by women
• Workshops and discussions offered frequently, with a small class size
• Educational information for young adults and parents

• Site is convenient to navigate, (keywords mentor, youth, girls, and Chicago.)
• Information, activities, and donation opportunities online

• There are over 10,000 children and young adults seeking mentorship and activities in similar organizations in the Chicago land area; fewer than 50% of them being female.
• Forever Moving Forward currently offers a personal experience for approximately 20 girls, and estimates to ultimately educate hundreds via events and online activities

• Attract Customers (Marketing): The web site will encourage customers to visit by proving information that is pertinent to the target audiences. The site will employ a clean concise design for clear understanding of content and easy navigation. The web site will employ a search engine to assist in site navigation. Banners and other advertisement mechanism will also be used to provide customers access to related products and services.
• Interact with Customers (Sales): To facilitate e-commerce the site will provide clear details of services and products and the means of purchase and donation. Registration functionality will also be provided so that customers can be tracked and targeted for specific products and services.
• Act on Customer Instructions (Order Management): Once orders or donations are made functionality to process the orders will be incorporated into the site. This will involve logging of orders, initiation of an Order Fulfillment process, and a confirmation process to keep the customer informed of the order/donation status.
• React to Inquiries (Service): Site administrators will work to ensure that the site maintains acceptable up-time and order/donation processing. Administrators will be easily reachable via email, and respond in a timely manner.

• Initiation: Form an e-commerce development team by identifying roles and skill sets of team members. Identify target client – a real world non-profit organization Forever Moving Forward, Inc. (FMF). FMF specializes in providing mentoring and guidance to elementary and high school-aged girls in the Chicago area. Make the decision to develop an e-commerce web site for Forever Moving Forward, Inc.
• Analysis: Identify the business model, competition and customers for FMF. Analyze the business objectives of the e-commerce site. Develop the strategies for FMF e-commerce value chain. How the FMF e-commerce site can attract, interact, act and react with customers. Define functions and features for the web site.
• Design: Design the information architecture for site navigation structure and content. Write and edit web content. Based on the required functions/features, identify use cases, design the high level object model and design the baseline system architecture.
• Development: Create web page layouts, graphic and CSS. Create static web content. Design database. Add and import data. Develop object oriented database driven web application to fulfill the required functions and features.
• Testing: Test the e-commerce site for content accuracy and usability. Test that the implemented functions meet the requirements. Test that the entire e-commerce site achieves the desired business objectives.
• Implementation: Finalize the e-commerce site and deploy it to production.

The e-commerce site will provide Forever Moving Forward, Inc. (FMF) a web presence, which can reach much more audience. The site will give FMF a chance to well present its concept and solution for mentoring and guidance, which is much better than words of mouth.

It is also an additional channel to attract and collect donations. The web site will allow donors to provide credit card information and set up periodical donation or one-time donation. Besides online donation, donors can still donate by mailing checks/cash or by phone.

The actual mentoring and guidance still happens offline because it demands personal communication and interaction. However, some workshops can be video-taped and can be offered online. The online workshop will benefit girls who may need guidance but may not be able to go to FMF personally.

According to Schneider (2008), there are seven essentials for a healthy web site which are availability and uptime, user-centered design and application development, rigorous and strategic coding standards, streamlined backend systems to allow for quick response, cross-channel governance, behavior and satisfaction monitoring and optimization, and user preference tracking and customization/personalization.

• Availability and uptime: This objective is to avoid errors, excessive load times, and other problems that might occur. Forever Moving Forward, Inc.’s (FMF) web site will serve customers 24/7. Users should be able to access and perform their tasks at all times in order to build trust and loyalty.
• User-centered design and application development: Content, application, interface, and design are primary considerations of the site development. Usability testing, observation, quick prototyping, surveys, and research will all be done to ensure good design and development.
• Rigorous and strategic coding standards: Development procedures will meet the standard requirements of the industry.
• Streamlined backend systems to allow for quick response: The site will be hosted on a server which provides the necessary hardware and software requirements that are needed to ensure that the site meets the standards that have been set forth.
• Cross-channel governance: The site will be developed such that future technologies, such as mobile phones and touch pad PC’s are fully operational.
• Behavior and satisfaction monitoring and optimization: The site will employ monitoring tools to provide monitoring and optimization. These tools will be used on a regular basis to ensure constant and consistent site management.
• User preference tracking and customization/personalization: The site will track statistics pertinent to the user and the organization. This information will be used to optimize and cater the user experience to better suite user needs.

Martha Fitt: Wrote the "Market Competition" and "Factors of Improvement" analysis.

Jake Lake: Wrote the "Shopping Experience." Updated team website to include deliverable B.

Patarika Tipwong: Wrote the "E-Commerce Value Chain" and "Seven Essentials" analysis.

Adam Barr: Wrote the "Value Proposition" and "Business Model" analysis.

Siebert Keith Hardeman: Wrote the "Intended Customers" and "Attracting Customer Types" analysis. Compiled and edited document segments.

Kristina Wu: Wrote the "Project Plan/Phases" and "Multi Channel" analysis. Coordinate work effort.