need 3 pages

Social Commerce

Information System Design

Graduate Research Proposal

by

Sundeep Bollipo

Harrisburg University of Science & Technology,

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

April 15, 2016

Social media has become a major communication platform where people share their ideas, interests, opinions, review and feedback on products and services they have experience or aspire to purchase. The Most of the social media and virtual media communication networks, such as Pinterest, Vine, Instagram, Twitter, Tumbler, Facebook, Google+, YouTube channel, brand specific digital campaigns and mobile applicable, provide vital information about the consumer experiences and interests, which are valuable to business to not just learn about their products but also design and develop better product for the customers. These communication platforms enable the users to interact with their network group and share their likes, dislikes and product experience, which allow others to become possible potential buyers for the brand. The social networks also provide a great opportunity for the business to establish their presence in the markets and reach out the potential customers by sharing information on future product lines and additional product features. The existing information systems in most of the business obtain consumer experience on their products through feedback from their website, mailing existing customer base, online and store surveys. This limits the information to consumers who have access to either of these channels or who are aware of their products only. The new social ecommerce system, known as Social commerce, will gather information from various social media websites and analyze it further by acting as communication channel between the product design, marketing and the potential consumers in the market. The system is integrated with social networking channels to improve digital campaigns, online presence and mobile applications. The data from these channels will be tracked with help of keywords, hashtags and clickable links, which further provide necessary data for web and consumer analytics. The new ecommerce information systems will also include additional security and privacy of the customer’s information and the product transactions. With this new system the business can establish a strong social media presence, establish better customer relationship, further improve their brand experience and creating a higher business value.

Social Media Networks, E-Commerce, Information Systems, Analytics, Business Processes etc.

Table of Contents ABSTRACT 2 Keywords: 2 RELATIONSHIP TO CPT 5 Overview of CPT Assignment 5 Highlights of Proposed Research 6 Relationship between CPT Assignment and Proposed Project 6 INTRODUCTION 7 Background 7 Problem Overview 7 Why do we need new system? 8 Why choose Social Commerce? 10 Definitions 10 PROBLEM STATEMENT AND JUSTIFICATION 11 Problem Statement 11 Problem Justification 11 Deliverable 12 Type of Research Work 13 Delimits of Research Work 14 LITERATURE REVIEW 15 Overview 15 Proposed Solution Overview 16 Framework & Topic Breakdown 17 Additional Studies 19 Was problem solved? 22 PROPOSED SOLUTION APPROACH 23 Research Methodology 23 Key Output 23 Research Design 23 Research Approach 24 Research Design - Work Breakdown Structure 26 PROPOSED WORK PLAN 27 REFERENCES 28

My CPT assignment is with a multination corporation which develops and sells software products used for architectural and engineering designs in various industries like construction, product development, manufacturing, digital media, movies and entertainment fields. These products are also used to design 2-D and 3-D models in above mentioned industries. The assignment deals with the design and optimized solution offerings to the brand products in real time, enabling the customers to license what they need under the terms that meet their unique business goals.

I have been working in Information Technology (IT) services domain for about a decade which included software engineering projects for major social media, retail and e-Commerce business which provide both consumer goods and services. Also my academic majors which include Computer Systems Networking and Communications Engineering (also known as Computer Networking), Information Systems Engineering and Management (ISEM), helped me to better understand the business need and applications of Information Systems (IS) and the communication channels. And my interest has always been inclined towards e-Commerce industry, may it be consumer products and services or software products used to develop and engineering of 3-D models. With my academic background and professional work experience in the field of Software Quality Engineering, I choose to work in the field of Software Product design and development. This combination has provoked me to take the current assignment.

As a programmer analyst in Software Quality Engineering, I handle quality engineering activities such as understanding the business requirements, conducting technical analysis of the user stories and develop test strategies and plans for the Client product licensing application. Also I develop test guidelines, reusable automation frameworks for RESTful (Representational state transfer architecture) and Amazon Cloud Computing Web Services. In-order to ensure higher quality and productivity of the application I also conduct and analyze performance tests, metrics and respective acceptance criteria for the web services.

Here are some of highlights of proposed Information System design for Social Commerce.

· The new social ecommerce system, known as Social commerce, will gather information from various social media websites and analyze it further by acting as communication channel between the product design, marketing and the potential consumers in the market.

· The system is integrated with social networking channels to improve digital campaigns, online presence and mobile applications. The data from these channels will be tracked with help of keywords, hashtags and clickable links, which further provide necessary data for web and consumer analytics.

· With this new system the business can establish a strong social media presence, establish better customer relationship, further improve their brand experience and creating a higher business value.

Since the selected research topic area is closely related to my field of work. In due process of developing a research proposal and final deliverable, I will be exploring many research papers, articles, journals and web-published content. This will help me in learning more about my field of work, study and interest which further helps me to do better at my assignments. The learnings from the course and developing a research proposal will also improve my reporting and other documenting skills in the project assignment. With a combination of these skills, knowledge and experience I’m sure it will enrich the overall learning capabilities as well as practical approach to my work assignments

Social media has become a major communication platform where people share their ideas, interests, opinions, review and feedback on products and services they have experience or aspire to purchase. [1]. Most of the social media communication networks, such as Pinterest, Vine, Instagram, Twitter, Tumbler, Facebook, Google+, YouTube channel, brand specific mobile applications and digital campaigns provide vital information about consumer experiences, interests and their opinion on the products and services a business offers. These communication channels enable the users to interact with their network groups and share their experiences, which allow others to become potential consumers of the brand. This valuable information not only helps the businesses to learn about their product experience but also develop new and improved product and services with features aspired by the consumers. [2]. Also it provides a great opportunity for the business to establish their social media presence in the industry by identifying and reaching out these potential customers and share information on future product lines and additional product features thus by increasing their customer base. [3].

In order to establish strong social media presence and utilize its full potential a business would require advanced information system which gather and analyze information from various communication channels in the internet. The lack of strong social media presence of the company, leaves a disadvantage in accessing the information on product experience from consumers who do not access the brand website but purchase the products and services through retail stores. The information and data shared by these customers, cannot be tracked without integration of the existing information system with social networking channels. This limits the businesses to local markets with focus on local trends and existing customer choices only, decreasing the rate of brand expansion and its value. [4].

The existing information systems in most of the small and medium scale business obtain information on their products and services experience through feedback from brand website, mobile applications, online and telephone surveys, emails, letters and retail stores.

Figure 1: Existing e-Commerce Information System Model

This again limits information gathering from existing consumer base, who have access to either of these channels or who are aware of their products only and do not consider potential customers who are not aware of the brand products but are interesting in similar product line. [5]. This lack of integration of information systems with social media networks and other communication channels creates a disadvantage in expanding the business, its brand value and customer base in the industry.

An information system well integrated with social media networks and communication channels, create a great advantage in handling the responses from the consumers as well as controlling their feedback. In the advent of any false allegations or propaganda on the brand products, controlling of such information is a near to impossible as these social networks act as an echo channel for distributing the information. And with the industry competitors awaiting to leverage such an opportunity to extend their business will leave no chance for the business to flourish ahead. [6]. Situations like these can be handled by advanced information system which can gather, identify and analyze right information and measure the validity of it before processing it further and taking necessary actions against it. This allows the business to resolve the issues quickly and secure its product sales and brand value.

Figure 2: Proposed Social Commerce Information System Model

The proposed social media integrated e-commerce, known as Social Commerce, information system will gather information from various social media websites, analyze and distribute it further by acting as communication channel between the product design, marketing and the potential consumers in the market. This is achieved by introducing a social media business process in the existing information system which is integrating with social media communication channels to not just gather information but also to expand brand’s digital campaigns and its online presence. The data from these channels will be tracked with help of keywords, hashtags and clickable links, which further provide necessary data for web and consumer analytics. The internal business services such as Customer relationship management (CRM), Application Management Services (AMS), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and web application services like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can utilize this information and quickly responds to the changes required to improvise their products’ design, features, services and manufacturing needs by further distributing the data across the systems.

The new information systems will also include additional security and privacy standards that ensure the safety of customer’s information and their product transactions data. This can be achieved by replacing the simple data encryption standards (DES) with new advanced encryption standards (AES) like Triple DES and other such, which involve higher bit encryption of product transaction data. [2]. With this new system the business can establish a strong social media presence, establish better customer relationship, further improve their brand experience and creating a higher business value. [7]

Social Media: A virtual network services used for creating, sharing, promoting, exchanging, interacting information or data or any sharable content with the registered users of the service [8].

Information Systems: A data exchange system which is used to collect, gather and analyze data from different sources online or offline web services in a business or organization.

The information systems in most of the small and medium scale business obtain information on their products and services experience through feedback from brand website, mobile applications, online and telephone surveys, emails, interviews, letters and brand specific retail stores. This limits business to gather information from existing customer groups, consumers who are aware of their products and have access to these communication channels. This does not include potential customers who are not aware of the brand products but have interest in similar products. The views and opinions shared by these customers across internet, cannot be captured without integration of the existing information systems with social media services [5]. This lack of integration of information systems with social media networks and other communication channels creates a disadvantage in expanding the business, its brand value and customer base in the industry.

The social media networks have become the new means of communication among the consumers. They are used to connect users to each other in their network groups as well as to share information such on products and services experiences, feedbacks, suggestions and recommendations. Also these social networks are used to propagate new and upcoming market trends in consumer goods and services, which help the business to identify, adopt and develop them quickly to capture their market share.

· Business Strategy: With lack of integrated system, the businesses are limited to expand their brand through website and mobile application only. The business and marketing strategies target local markets with focus on local trends and existing customer choices, which leads to slow expansion of the business and its brand value. [4].

· Information Technology: The significant area of impact will be with infrastructure expansion, development of improved business and online applications, adoption of new web technologies, social media analytics and data mining programs. The existing information channels should be modified to be compactable with newly introduced components. This creates a challenge on application integration and sustainability. It would require skilled resources and adoptions of newer technologies for design and development standards. Also the employees would require in-depth knowledge about the functionality and features of the new system through sequence of trainings and workshops.

The proposed information system will gather information from various social media websites and analyze it further by acting as communication channel between the product design, marketing and the potential consumers in the market. The system is integrated with social networking channels to improve digital campaigns, online presence and mobile applications. The data from these channels will be tracked with help of keywords, hashtags and clickable links, which further provide necessary data for web and consumer analytics. This is further utilized by internal business services to optimize their operations and improvise brand products’ design, their features, services and manufacturing needs.

The main deliverable of this research work is to design a social media integrated e-commerce information system design. This design will include the new business process components that will be added to an existing information system design, allowing it to collect information from various social media services selected by the business. This new design is based on the research learnings and findings from various articles, journals, websites, case studies and others such data related to the research work. This new system will provide the business with in-depth information about their product experience and allow the business to adopt to the changing market trends.

Since the social commerce system is an emergent technology in the e-commerce industry, it’s design mainly requires a non-sequential and flexible qualitative research. This involves exploring relevant case studies pertaining to marketing treads in e-commerce industry, the information gathering systems and how the social media drives the business. It would also require a holistic research of the effects of social media platforms on the business sales, marketing, sustainability and their response to customer needs. The below figure-3 provide an outline of the research work, its inputs, data considered and final deliverable.

Figure 3: Overview of Research Work

Case Studies: As part of qualitative research design, case studies related to the influence of social media interactions on the e-commerce businesses [9], the effectiveness of social media driven marketing strategies [2], and establishing a strong social media presence [10] will be studies and analyzed. The study provides an overview of on-going challenges the businesses face with evolving social media platforms as well explore the the opportunities involved in integrating these platforms into the existing e-commerce systems.

Holistic Research: The holistic research provides more of a philosophical approval to every research perspective involved in designing a social commerce information system. This would provide an overview on the impact of social media platforms not only on the businesses but on the customer groups as well. The study helps to analyze the benefits of integrating social media platforms to e-commerce systems and how they provide a new communication channel between the businesses and its customer, allowing them to better understand their needs and meet their expectations. This is achieved by gathering information from various media platforms and understanding the consumers from every perspective both rationally and philosophically.

The research work is limited to developing a design for social media integrated e-commerce information but not the development of a system or an application itself. Also the research work will consider the research areas related to the impact of social media networks on information gathering and analysis. It does not include any research in improving marketing strategies or sales or a business. The research work is purely conceptual and for learning purpose and so it does not endorse of support any social networking services or businesses.

Social media networks have become a major communication platform where people share their ideas, interests, opinions, review and feedback on products and services they have experience or aspire to purchase. [1]. The communication channels enable the users to interact with their network groups and share their experiences, interests and opinions on the products and services a business offers. These users are tending to be potential consumers of the brand which when learned by the businesses become a valuable information in helping them to learn about their products and services and what needs to be done to improve their experience in a positive way. [2]. Also it provides a great opportunity for the business to establish their social media presence in the industry by identifying and reaching out these potential customers and share information on future product lines and additional product features thus by increasing their customer base. [3].

In order to establish strong social media presence and utilize its full potential a business would require advanced information system which gather and analyze information from various communication channels in the internet. The lack of strong social media presence of the company, leaves a disadvantage in accessing the information on product experience from consumers who do not access the brand website but purchase the products and services through retail stores. The information and data shared by these customers, cannot be tracked without integration of the existing information system with social networking channels. This limits the businesses to local markets with focus on local trends and existing customer choices only, decreasing the rate of brand expansion and its value. [4].

The information systems in most of the small and medium scale business obtain information on their products and services experience through feedback from brand website, mobile applications, online and telephone surveys, emails, interviews, letters and brand specific retail stores. This limits business to gather information from existing customer groups, consumers who are aware of their products and have access to these communication channels. This does not include potential customers who are not aware of the brand products but have interest in similar products. The views and opinions shared by these customers across internet, cannot be captured without integration of the existing information systems with social media services. This lack of integration of information systems with social media networks and other communication channels creates a disadvantage in expanding the business, its brand value and customer base in the industry. [5].

An information system well integrated with social media networks and communication channels, create a great advantage in handling the responses from the consumers as well as controlling their feedback. In the advent of any false allegations or propaganda on the brand products, controlling of such information is a near to impossible as these social networks act as an echo channel for distributing the information. And with the industry competitors awaiting to leverage such an opportunity to extend their business will leave no chance for the business to flourish ahead. [6]. Situations like these can be handled by advanced information system which can gather, identify and analyze right information and measure the validity of it before processing it further and taking necessary actions against it. This allows the business to resolve the issues quickly and secure its product sales and brand value.

The proposed social media integrated e-commerce, known as Social Commerce, information system will gather information from various social media websites, analyze and distribute it further by acting as communication channel between the product design, marketing and the potential consumers in the market. This is achieved by introducing a social media business process in the existing information system which is integrating with social media communication channels to not just gather information but also to expand brand’s digital campaigns and its online presence. The data collected from these networks with help of keywords, hashtags and clickable links, provide necessary web and consumer analytics. This is further utilized by internal business services such as Application Management Services (AMS), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Customer relationship management (CRM) to optimize their operations and help to improvise the brand products’ design, features, services and manufacturing needs.

Below figure-4 displays a sample dashboard created using IBM Data Analytics platform. The dashboard, customized as needed, displays analytical information on key marketing trends, marketing programs, sales trend and top search keywords used by the consumers. [11]

Figure 4: Sample web analytics dashboard created using IBM Data Analytics Software [11]

The proposed information systems will also provide an opportunity to improve security and privacy standards that ensure the safety of customer’s information and their product transactions data. This can be achieved by replacing the simple data encryption standards (DES) with new advanced encryption standards (AES) like Triple DES and other such, which involve higher bit encryption of product transaction data. [2]. With this new system the businesses can establish a strong social media presence, establish better customer relationship, further improve their brand experience and creating a higher business value. [7]

The studies on the impact of social media networks on the businesses are done on a pragmatic approach rather than a hypothetical analysis. The literature in most of the referred articles, journals and papers followed a systematic approach in formulating their proposals, reports and solution to the identified problem. Most of the research works tool a quantitative approach in collecting the information needed to build an analysis of their problem statement. Based on the learning and understanding of the literature review process from the referred articles and papers, below figure-5 describes the framework used to organize and evaluate the work.

Figure 5: Framework used for Literature Review

The research objective is formulated based on five main key steps which are searching for the right articles, categorizing them according to the key research area, review and interpretation of their research work, developing a sample hypothesis or proposal based on the understanding and finally writing a complete literature review suitable to the research work. In due process, the key research objective is referred frequently to maintain the focus while interpreting content and developing hypothesis from it. Also if and when required, new and additional articles or journals are searched to support the reach focus.

As mentioned earlier, most of the referred articles and journals followed a well outlined approach to their literature review and research topic breakdown. The introduction of the topic area along with their justification in choosing respective research areas was provided. Also the literature review provided a reason to study or consider research area, which is mainly the social media services are having a predominant effect on the retails businesses and other related industries. The work also showed a qualitative as well as quantitative approach in formulating their hypothesis and research proposal, which showed a clear research path and justification. Also the studies involved exploring relevant case studies pertaining to marketing treads in e-commerce industry [12], how the social media drives a business and how these modern communication methods are transforming the businesses [13] in a drastic way creating high completive advantage.

A study on social media trends and its influence on the industry [12], provides information on the amount of users a social network has and amount of time spent on these networks. The study also states that most of these users access the networks from their mobile devices which are used to share information instantly. Also many webpages created by consumer and other businesses connect to these social networking websites to collect and analyze the active trends, updates and other such share by its users across the world. Below table-1 gives us an idea on how many actives users a social networking website has and how many hours’ users spend accessing these websites in different countries.

Table 1: Users accessing social networks per country and per hour [12]

Hers is another study which shows the influence of social media integration on marketing strategy [14]. The study provides information on how the consumers use social networks to interact with retailers not just to provide their feedback on products and services experience but also to search for new products, to purchase them and share their choices with their network groups. Below figure-6 provides a sample distribution of consumer interactions with retails over social media networks.

Figure 6: Users interactions with retailers over social media networks [14]

Another study on the amount of revenue generated in 2012 - 2013 by integrating social networks into their businesses [13]. The study states that most of the businesses are moving towards these social networks to not just promote but to conduct their sales of products and services to the consumers. Below figure-7 describes the share of renovate generated by each of the social networking websites.

Figure 7: Revenue share generated by integrating social media services into e-Commerce [13]

Here is a study which shows the advantage of using social media as a marketing strategy to drive the business sales [15]. This study describes the influence of adopting social media integration to online stores, where products and services are sold through social networks. The information related to product categorization versus percentage of sales helps the marketing division to develop new strategies to optimize sales and improve overall business value. Below figure-8 shows the benefit of conducting business through social media network, Facebook.

Figure 8: Percentage of orders generated from social media network, Facebook [15]

By integrating the social network to the e-Commerce, the business is able to identify percentage of orders placed across each product category along with the sales trends. Also the study shows that the mode of purchasing products has increased drastically over the years, from tradition brand website to social networks.

These studies and learnings help us understand the importance of social media integration with businesses and its benefits of understanding the consumer experience, market trends and business optimization.

The research methodology for the social commerce information system will brief about its research design, approach, data collection and analysis methods. Each of these sections will be further justified with its selection methods and their approach. Below figure-9 provides a road map for the research work, the key stages involved along with their inputs and outputs specified in a sequential manner. These key stages of research work are further discussed in details.

Figure 9: Roadmap for selected research work

The key output of this research work will be a conceptual design of a social media integrated e-commerce information system. This design will include the new business process components that will be added to an existing information system design, allowing it to collect information from various social media services selected by the business. The output is limited to a design concept but not the development of a system or an application itself.

Since the social commerce system is an emergent technology in the e-commerce industry, it’s design would require a non-sequential and flexible qualitative research. This involves exploring relevant case studies, pertaining to marketing treads in e-commerce industry, the information gathering systems and how the social media drives the business. It would also require a holistic research of the effects of social media platforms on the business sales, marketing, sustainability and their response to customer needs.

The research strategy will provide information on the area covered to design the new social commerce system and the business processes considered for improvement. This would involve in identifying the platforms to gather social media interactions from different geographical locations for collaborative learning [4], analyzing the data by extracting the consumer knowledge from the internet [5] and designing information exchanging system integrated with social media platforms. This new system allows the business to improve their marketing strategies, such as electronic word of mouth marketing [6] and further promote their products and brands effectively.

The primary focus of the research work is to design an information system suitable for social media services integrated e-Commerce business. The research work is achieved by series of work plan areas which include their inputs, results and questions answered.

Table 2: Research work breakdown structure

Here is a proposed plan for the research work. Since the reach work will be conducted at later semesters of academic years, the total research work activities are distributed across as 16 weeks (4 months). The total research work is divided in to 6 major work areas which are further sub-divided into respective activities.

Table 3: Proposed Work plan and schedule

REFERENCES [1] S. Spencer, K. Montgomery, D. Futato, R. Demarest, J. Harding, J. Sheahan and M. Treseler, Social ECommerce, First edition ed., Sebastopol, California: O'Reilly Media, 2014. [2] D. Jayaram, A. K. Manrai and L. A. Manrai, "Effective use of marketing technology in Eastern Europe: Web analytics, social media, customer analytics, digital campaigns and mobile applications," Journal of Economics, Finance & Administrative Science, vol. 20, no. 39, pp. 118-132, December 2015. [3] N. Hajli, "Social commerce constructs and consumer's intention to buy," International Journal of Information Management, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 183-191, April 2015. [4] F. Mata-Rivera, M. Torres-Ruiz, G. Guzmán, M. Moreno-Ibarra and R. Quintero, "A collaborative learning approach for geographic information retrieval based on social network," Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 51, no. Part B, pp. 829-842, October 2015. [5] R. McLean, "Consumer knowledge, empowerment and the internet : critical research into the provision and use of eCommerce," University of Salford, Greater Manchester, 2005. [6] L. P. Manuela, "Marketing boca a boca. Cómo conseguir que el consumidor hable de tu producto o marca= Word of mouth marketing. Strategies to enhance consumers in promoting products and brands," Universidad de Murcia, Spain, 2014. [7] G. Silvius, Strategic Integration of Social Media Into Project Management Practice, Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference, 2016. [8] "Social media," April 2015. [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media. [Accessed 12 April 2016]. [9] S. Hudson, L. Huang, M. S. Roth and T. J. Madden, "The influence of social media interactions on consumer–brand relationships: A three-country study of brand perceptions and marketing behaviors," International Journal of Research in Marketing, 24 March 2014. [10] S. Rawat and R. Divekar, "Developing a Social Media Presence Strategy For an E-Commerce Business," In Shaping the Future of Business and Society, Procedia Economics and Finance , no. 11, pp. 626-634, 2014. [11] IBM Media Relations, "IBM Launches Digital Marketing Network in the Cloud to Help Companies Improve Marketing Performance in Real-Time," IBM, 12 September 2013. [Online]. Available: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/41966.wss. [Accessed 10 April 2016]. [12] S. Abbas and A. Singh, "Media Industry Trends and Dynamics: The Social Media Boom," Procedia - Social And Behavioral Sciences, 155(The International Conference on Communication and Media 2014 (i-COME'14) - Communication, Empowerment and Governance: The 21st Century Enigma), pp. 147-152, 2014. [13] R. Bhattacharya, "Social Commerce: The transformation of eCommerce with Social Computing," HAPPIEST MINDS TECHNOLOGIES, 14 August 2013. [Online]. Available: http://www.happiestminds.com/whitepapers/social_commerce.pdf. [Accessed 10 April 2016]. [14] E. TSAI, "Integrated Marketing Strategy – How to Integrate Search, Social for eCommerce," 10 January 2016. [Online]. Available: http://www.designdamage.com/beyond-search-social-customer-social-commerce-social-media/#axzz45qE0TRVx. [Accessed 13 April 2016]. [15] D. Wang, "13 Actionable Marketing Tactics to Drive Sales (And Apps to Execute Each of Them)," Shopify, 17 June 2014. [Online]. Available: https://www.shopify.com/blog/14512237-13-actionable-marketing-tactics-to-drive-sales-and-apps-to-execute-each-of-them. [Accessed 10 April 2016]. [16] Y.-C. Chen, J.-H. Wu, L. Peng and R. C. Yeh, "Consumer benefit creation in online group buying: The social capital and platform synergy effect and the mediating role of participation," Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, vol. 14, no. 6, pp. 499-513, October-November 2015. [17] S. Sharma and R. E. Crossler, "Disclosing too much? Situational factors affecting information disclosure in social commerce environment," Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, vol. 13, no. 5, pp. 305-319, September-October 2014. [18] W. Ozuem and G. Bowen, Competitive Social Media Marketing Strategies, Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference, 2016.

Information Systems & Technology

E-Commerce Business Systems

Sales & Marketing

Social Media Networks

Social Commerce Information System

e-Commerce website

Inputs

Data

Deliverable

Social media services integrated e-Commerce Information System (IS) design

Case Studies

Problem Statement & Justification

Research design

Articles

Journals

Existing research work

Research area

Data collection methods

Data sampling

Final Submission

Research Problem

Research Design

Data Collection Instruments

Data Collection & Processing

Submit Research Work

Study Design

Design Functions

Identify Tools

Ethics Involved

Research Proposal

Data Review & Sorting

Data Analysis

Data Interpretation

Data Extraction

Draft Review

Draft Rivision

Identify Problems Involved

Identify Problem Justification

Prepare Sample Proposal

Concept Framework

Prepare Literature Review

Identify Research Area

Qualitative Approach

Quantitative Approach

Identify Methods

Identify Sources

Information Systems & Technology

E-Commerce Business Systems

Sales & Marketing

e-Commerce website

Existing e-Commerce Information System

21

12345678910111213141516

1Explore Topic Area

1.1Identify Research Area

1.2Identify Problem Area

1.3Identify Problem Justification

1.4Explore Existing Research Works

1.5Identify Research Objective

2Study Design

2.1Qualitative Approach

2.2Quantitative Approach

2.3Identify Research Variables and Functions

3Instruments & Methods

3.1Identify data collection instruments

3.2Identify data collection methods

3.3Identify data sources

4Data Collection

4.1Collect Articles & Journals

4.2Collect Research Papers

4.3Collect Articles published on Websites

4.4Collect Cases studies

5Data Analysis

5.1Conduct data sampling

5.2Conduct data interpretation

5.3Draft a research proposal

6Review & Submission

6.1Review research work

6.2Revise research work

6.3Submit final work

Weeks

Work Plan area / Activity

Step

No