Feedback on revision survey
Written by: Jonathan Briggs
January 13, 2005 [3088 views]
I am a bit disappointed that more of you did not attempt the revision questions. I hope that does not mean that you will do badly in the exam tomorrow. Here is so extra feedback on the answers given by the 30 people who did fill it in.
1. Companies. Most people are using Lush, Primark, Purves & Purves and Brindisa for their case studies. This is fine!
2. Faults. The answers you gave were fine but I would like to see clearer explanations linked to each of the problems. Why is “no login indication” a potential problem. The problems on their own are only half an answer.
3. Recommendations. The answers here were generally better but once again make sure you explain why. Imagine you are sitting with the client in a meeting and you are sharing your recommendations. Imagine that the client asks why after each question. You might also want to say “do it like Amazon does it” and give an example of what you mean.
4. Customer experience. I have suggested that you concentrate on the customer experience because that is what people see online. I liked answers here that outlined clearly the current process. In the exam I would draw a diagram rather than using words. Avoid chatting and make “specific recommendations” – catagorise products better is a specific recommendation. Once again refer to other good examples.
5. Hardware & software. I don’t need lecture notes on technology – I need proposals to the clients. Explain yourselves better – why use ASP, why do you need a payment partner, why is a content management system needed? Explain, explain, explain!
6. Promotion. A good mixture of online and offline suggestions here. You perhaps need to think about the work involved in promoting the site. How much will advertising cost? What sort of viral campaigns would you build? How would you get people to come back? The more you can relate what you are saying back to the actual client the better.
7. Market. This was not as well done as some of the other questions and suggests that you are not thinking about the market as a whole. Make sure that you understand what competitors are doing and “borrow and improve” on their best ideas.
8. Project plan – only attempted by 6 people! You will get marks for attempting task times (graphic design will take 2 weeks) and for calculating the budget (at £500 per day, graphic design will cost £5000). Don’t be too cheap. Working up a design for a major brand might take weeks or months. Don’t forget the on-going costs of content management and hosting.
9. Revenue. If the company sells 1000 orders per month at £50 per average order the revenue is £50,000 with the profit perhaps £8-10,000 but generating 1000 orders a month quickly is very very hard. You would need to be attracting 10’s of thousands of visitors because only some of them buy and perhaps serve millions of ads – which is really expensive. So be realistic and imagine things growing over time. As a rule of thumb we reckon we can generate 3x expenditure as revenue within the first 12-18 months.
10. Trends. Only a few of you looked seriously at the trends and there are lots happening: web services, DDA, affiliates, mobile, passport, paypal. If you have read around the subject you should be able to find some I have not mentioned.
Good luck with the exam tomorrow. I expect a wide range of marks. There are no hidden surprises in the questions (I hope) and if you have been paying attention and divide up your time properly you should do fine.
What do you think?
