E-commerce Solutions: Business Skills Analysis for Zodiac Lake Hotel

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of e-commerce business skills in the context of Zodiac Lake Hotel. It assesses the core business functions of the hotel, evaluates its business aims in relation to stakeholders, and analyzes the impact and risks of introducing an e-commerce system. The report investigates the market potential for an e-commerce opportunity, evaluates existing e-commerce systems used by competitors like Holiday Inn, and discusses the financial implications of implementing an e-commerce solution. Furthermore, it designs a tailored e-commerce solution to enhance the business functions of Zodiac Lake Hotel, detailing website structure, features, and user interface elements to improve customer experience and operational efficiency. The analysis covers aspects such as online booking, marketing strategies, and customer service improvements, while also addressing potential risks like data security and online theft.

BUSINESS SKILLS FOR
E-COMMERCE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO1..................................................................................................................................................2
1.1 Assess the core business functions of Zodiac Lake Hotel.....................................................2
1.2 evaluate your chosen organization’s business aims and show how they relate to their
stakeholders.................................................................................................................................3
LO2..................................................................................................................................................6
2.1 Analyse the impact including the risks of introducing an e commerce system to chosen
organisation..................................................................................................................................6
P2.2 Discuss the global impact E commerce on society.............................................................7
LO3..................................................................................................................................................9
3.1 Investigate market potential for an E commerce opportunity for Zodiac Lake Hotel...........9
3.2 Evaluate current e commerce systems in use by similar organisations (competitors)........10
3.3 Discuss the financial implications of e commerce solution by considering various factors
...................................................................................................................................................11
3.4 Design an e commerce solution to enhance the business functions of your chosen
organization...............................................................................................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................19
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................20
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TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Stakeholders of Zodiac lake Hotel...................................................................................5
Figure 2: Tools for E Marketing....................................................................................................11
Figure 3: Zodiac Lake hotel sitemap.............................................................................................14
Figure 4: Additional services provided by Zodiac Lake hotel......................................................14
Figure 5: Storyboard of website....................................................................................................15
Figure 6: Fill all the details to book rooms....................................................................................15
Figure 7: Select room category......................................................................................................15
Figure 8: Details of services provided in hotel..............................................................................16
Figure 9: Facilities to guest............................................................................................................16
Figure 10: Other important information........................................................................................17
Figure 11: Why to stay within this hotel.......................................................................................17
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INTRODUCTION
E-commerce is the process which utilises online methods for processing as well as for buying
and selling of products and services via online medium. The report evaluates the core business
functions as well as the aim of business that relates with the stakeholders of Zodiac Lake Hotel.
It explains the importance of E Commerce and its risk factors. There are several impacts of E
Commerce on the society as well as on the businesses which are explained in the report. E
Commerce systems used by Holiday Inn are evaluated for investigating the market potential.
Financial Implications by considering various factors are analysed in the Task 3 of the report.
The report also focuses on designing and suitability of e commerce solutions which will further
help in enhancing the business.
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LO1
1.1 Assess the core business functions of Zodiac Lake Hotel.
Zodiac Lake Hotel provides hospitality services in UK (Yang and Mattila, 2017). It provides
various services that include executive and suite rooms with add on facilities of Wi Fi, LCD TV,
and access to executive lounge and many more. It also provides fitness rooms, steam and sauna
rooms, as well as meeting rooms. There are various other services which are explained as below:
General facilities:
 24x7 customer service desk
 Storage facilities for luggage
 Standby facilities at the time of power cut off
 Food facilities along with the stay
 Dry cleaning, housekeeping, as well as other transportation facilities
 Rooms are facilitated with intercoms, satellite TVs, CFL lighting of low energy.
Mission & Objective
It’s a private sector hotel that focuses on providing quality services to its customers in UK. It
also focuses on providing services at reasonable prices. Zodiac lake Hotel mainly focuses on
providing clean rooms and environment to make the stay of visitors a comfort one.
Business Functions
 The organization has various functions that help in achieving the competitive advantage
and business growth in an efficient way.
 Its main focus is on providing quality hospitality services to its customers. For achieving
this, it maintains relation with the employees as well as with customers.
 It communicates with the suppliers as well as with customers in the most effective way
that leads to the growth of an organization.
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 Zodiac lake Hotel involves in doing market research so that it can identify the market’s
current trend (Altinay et.al.2015). It takes various measures according to the current
business changes to withstand the competitive advantage in the market.
 Its organizational functions include sales function, management function, research and
development and many more that helps Zodiac lake hotel to achieve the business based
targets.
 It maintains healthy relationship with services providers such as laundry, restaurants, and
many more that helps in the overall development of the organization.
 The organization focus on various promotional activities for markets its product and
services. It displays its services on Google website which is most likely used by people
now days. It increases the number of customers which in turn increases the overall sales
of the organization.
 It also adopts various methods and techniques for changing the business according to the
requirement of customers.
 Zodiac Lake Hotel also focuses on management Information System (MIS) for managing
and supporting the managerial decisions by using smart devices within an organization
(Keil et.al.2017).
1.2 evaluate your chosen organization’s business aims and show how they relate to their
stakeholders.
Business aim of Zodiac Lake Hotel is to attract large number of customers by providing quality
of services and products. It aims at providing complete satisfaction by adopting various measures
so that it can achieve maximum of profit and competitive advantage in the market. Its major
stakeholders and its relations with the aim of its business are discussed below:
 The most important stakeholder of the organization is Shareholder (Dedeoğlu and
Demirer, 2015). Shareholders focus on investing which in turn helps to increase the
investment of an organization. They help Zodiac lake Hotel to achieve its aim by
investing in right place at the right time.
 Managers are also responsible for achieving the business aims of an organization. They
focus on developing various strategies for achieving objective and workforce of an
organization. Manager’s main focus is to motivate employees by organizing training and
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development sessions. This help to increase the hard work of employees which in turn
increases the overall sales of an organization.
 Another stakeholder of Zodiac Lake Hotel is Government. Government’s main interest is
in generating revenue from the industries and the hotel industry is one which definitely
increases the revenue. Government has also various concerns about the employment
factor and therefore Zodiac focus on providing employment to large number of people in
UK. In times of off season or low business, Government helps the organization in
various ways.
 Various service providers which are also known as suppliers are also the stakeholders of
Zodiac Lake Hotel. Suppliers that provide laundry services, housekeeping, restaurants,
transportation facilities and many more impact the profit of the business. If these service
providers provide reasonable and quality services then the overall profit margin of the
hotel increases.
 Employees of Zodiac Lake Hotel focus on dealing with customers in an effective way
(Karatepe and Karadas, 2015). This helps to increase the sales and profit of an
organization as the employees are basically interested in promotions and handsome
salary.
 Customers play an important role in the growth of an organization. They highly influence
the aims and objectives of the businesses (Durna et.al.2015). Their main interest is
getting quality services at reasonable price. As Zodiac Lake is a hotel, customers also
expect the warm welcome from their staff. Therefore, an organization focuses on
providing quality services at lower prices as compared to others in the market that helps
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in increasing the sales for the longer time period.
Figure 1: Stakeholders of Zodiac lake Hotel
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STAKEHOLDERDS
Governme
nt
Customers
Service
Provider
Managers
Sharehold
ers
Employees

LO2
2.1 Analyse the impact including the risks of introducing an e commerce system to chosen
organisation
E commerce had a great impact on hotel industry. It brings various opportunities that help to
grow the businesses (Turban et.al.2017). E commerce provides large number of options to
customers to explore by researching on internet. Various mobile applications provide the ease of
booking and improve the various experiences of customers. An organisation if implement E
commerce, then it experience various benefits such as:
 Marketing cost will decrease with the help of E commerce. Also the organisation can
provide various discounts and related coupons to its customer.
 It helps to increase the profit of an organisation by displaying its products and services on
social media platforms. It also utilises videos, banners and slogans which helps to
increase the sales of an organisation.
 It provides fast and reliable access to its customers for reserving the rooms according
their choices. They also make sure the other add on facilities with the chosen room and
food facilities nearby.
 Customers can select the hotels by reviewing the feedback of customers who already
visited the place (Torres et.al.2015). Ratings and reviews are checked by the customers
on various portals before they book the room.
 If the reviews are positive, then this is a great advantage for the organisation that helps to
attract more and more number of customers. This helps to increase the overall profit as
well as reputation of an organisation.
Along with the benefits, Hotel industry experience risk in introducing e commerce at various
stages of businesses.
 Relevant information related to customers is managed with the help of various
applications. Therefore, the risk of stealing that information is high which causes a great
loss to the business. That information can be used by its competitors which decreases the
customer base of the organisation.
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 Risk of revealing the customer’s identity is also high in E commerce. The organisation
may face legal implications because information related to customers is highly
confidential.
 It is very difficult to manage all the processes related to internet bookings in an efficient
manner.
 Online theft is more common now days. The payment risk increases when transactions
are done online (Ozturk et.al.2017).
 There are various risks related to disclosure of information of credit and debit cards that
can be used if there is any unauthorised access to the website.
 If there occurred any error in designing of software, large amount of data can be
corrupted which was useful for the growth of the business.
P2.2 Discuss the global impact E commerce on society
E commerce has various positive as well as negative impacts on society along with the
organisations that can be explained as:
 Customer Service: With the help of E commerce, customer service has improved a lot. E
commerce enables the customers to book online and helps in selecting the room and hotel
by ensuring many things related to the facilities (Buhalis and Mamalakis, 2015). They
can also track the orders online as well as can raise the requests related to the services
online.
 Global Market: E commerce had a great impact on development of global economy in
various countries. It helps in promoting the business by using various applications and
software.
 Pricing options: E commerce facilitates the customers with various pricing options so
that they can compare prices of various hotels and can choose the best with the lower
rates (Zhang and Weatherford, 2016). It makes the customers aware about the services
and products at the same prices by various hotels.
 Marketing: For the growth of business of any organisation, it is important to market its
products for attracting more customers. Zodiac lake hotel posts advertisement on various
social media portals along with banners, campaigns with effective slogans. It also posts
pictures of its rooms showing the services and cleanliness of the hotel.
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 Customisation of product: With the help of E commerce, customer can demand the
product according to its need. It enables the customers to select the room according to the
view and facilities. Customer can also include various facilities according to the budget.
 Booking: E commerce plays an important role in hotel industry especially for booking
purposes. Customers now days prefer online booking rather than standing in a queue and
waiting long for bookings. It also provides an advantage to customers to choose the
product of their own choice.
 Market research: E commerce enables the customers to book the hotel according to the
feedbacks and reviews on the website of the hotel as well as on other portals. It also helps
the Zodiac Lake Hotel to improve its offerings by identifying the feedbacks of its
customers.
Negative impact of e commerce on Society
 E commerce affects the employment opportunities in many ways. It automates most of
the work which eliminates the need of employees.
 Various information related to customer as well as credit and debit card information can
be hacked by using technology.
 E-commerce provides very less information related to product. If there are very less
images of the product, then customers exactly have no information regarding the product.
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