Dirt Bikes: E-Commerce Portal

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As Dirt Bikes looks to implementing e-Commerce through a web portal, here is what we know about the company.

The company already has data on its customers based on their prior purchases. This allows Dirt Bikes to know how many sales were made domestically versus internationally.Dirt Bikes may also have information about potential customers from personal contact at races.This data would include actual racers and fans who faithfully follow the sport.Again, the key here is knowing location of potential customers and if sales would be domestic or international.Other data Dirt Bikes has is who their competitors are and their prices and products, race locations and where peak sales are and their own financial statements.

Dirt Bikes needs to consider who their potential user groups are and what information they will be seeking.Some potential user groups are both racers and non-racers who ride for just fun along with retailers.Information they may be seeking is cost of bike, speed of bike, shipping costs, size of engine, where bikes are manufactured and replacement parts.A second user group will be the staff at Dirt Bikes.They will be looking for data on what bikes are most popular, most requested part or service, location of inquiries, peak buying season, inventory of bikes and parts, costs of resources and tracking.

As Dirt Bikes considers implementing e-Commerce through a web portal, they will need to see what internal systems and databases they already have that might interface with the portal.Some of this might include a customer database, an inventory control system, service records, billing and ordering of resources and parts.

As the portal is developed, there is an opportunity for knowledge management.Knowledge management is "the set of processes developed in an organization to create, gather, store, maintain and disseminate the firm's knowledge" (Laudon and Laudon) . In Dirt Bikes situation, the knowledge management can be used in research and development and sales.According to Withum, knowledge management captures the expertise of an employee and lets it be available to the organization when an employee leaves.retires, without having to go back to square one (Withum).It allows a company to continue to grow and commit to its goals and vision as also seen in the example given in our textbook of Sargent & Lundy (Laudon and Laudon) .