E-Commerce Initiative

1. E-Commerce Initiative Ben Blackstone

2. Intro • The firm I created is an online advertising development company • Name of the Firm is Boston Metro Advertising • We develop ads for both online use and also bought half a page of space in the Boston Herald to put clients ads if they would like them in print • While the market size of advertising has shrunk this is mostly due to the fact that marketing and advertising has become cheaper through the internet • I develop ads and give them a medium to reach their customers through printed ads

3. Business & Revenue Model • This business is a service provider, companies can give suggestions about ads they would like us to develop or they can use our website to develop their own ad • We are creating a website that is interactive, but effective and user friendly for our customers • We use a sales revenue model • We are attempting to become a ubiquitous source of ad development

4. Operations • A few critical assets we will be utilizing are a couple laptops and ad development software • We will also have someone develop the website to make sure it can do complex functions, but still be easy to use • Because the firm is so small the value chain is relatively simple and at this point in time almost all operations will be done by me • We will find and communicate with clients over the web and keep in touch after the ad has been developed and the sale is made to ensure quality control

5. Marketing • Our ideal customer is an adult from the age of 30-49, this is someone who still reads the paper. This person is highly educated, with a high volume of internet access, and comes from a high socioeconomic background • The set of expectations I will set is that we are an elite firm and that by coming to my website you’re looking for the best ads and not the cheapest ones by a long shot because quality is much more important to me than quantity • If I can have a few big dollar gigs that I create high quality ads for I will begin to mold my image as an elite advertising designer

6. Judgment time • Strengths: • The firm will ensure the highest quality of advertisements • Our best competencies are our computer proficiency and work ethic • Our strategic plan is to infiltrate the market and increase revenues every year • Some intangibles we have over our competitors are an incredible attention to detail and some of the best talent in the area • Weaknesses: • We are weak compared to our competitors based on the size of the market share we currently take up • At this point we are lacking enough talent to become a big player in the industry • Something that needs to improve in our initiative is perfecting our firm value chain • We were not able to improve the weaknesses we have discovered yet because we have not begun operations yet to see how they will work

7. Continued • Opportunities: • Favorable market conditions for us are when other businesses are thriving and have large sums of money to spend on their marketing budgets • Emerging technologies in support of our initiative are some completely interactive tools that can simulate reality • If we maintain a professional reputation we could grow to become a major player in the industry one day • Threats: • Our obstacles are going to be penetrating the market enough to turn a handsome profit • Our competitors are going towards just about developing all their advertisements purely for use online • Not many changes in legislation have been made lately to harm our initiative