eBusiness Lab - A Living Lab Environment for Educational and R&D Purposes

In this article an eBusiness Lab of Arcada Polytechnic in Helsinki Finland is presented and discussed. The purpose of the article is to discuss the development, the conceptual approach and the practical use of the eBusiness Lab. We first give a background to what the eBusiness Lab is and why it was developed. The eBusiness Lab is based on the core competences of the Business Administration programme at Arcada. The core competence areas are logistics, accounting and marketing. The framework within which we started to plan this laboratory is our distribution approach that is presented in the article. The eBusiness Lab is then discussed from two main perspectives. First the perspective of how the lab is integrated in the education in our business administration programme. Second from the perspective of how the eBusiness Lab is integrated in the research and development work at ARBIT, “Applied Research in Business and IT”. Finally in the article we propose some tentative ideas of how the eBusiness Lab could be developed in the future

The Data Driven Decision RACE in eRetailing

This study takes a customer centric approach to investigate small eRetailers’ data driven decisions. The research is based on an edited version of Chaffey and Smith´s (2013) RACE framework and an edited version of the business analytics framework by Delen and Demirkan (2012a), divided in knowledge and data driven decision-making. By combining these two frameworks we create the Data Driven Decision RACE model. The empirical research is a survey among small Finnish eRetailers. The findings indicate that a majority of the studied eRetailers do analyze data and understand customer online behavior especially in the Reach and Engage stages of the Data Driven Decision RACE model. However, the study also indicates that the data driven decision-making is fairly low within all three stages of the model, which implies that small eRetailers primarily rely on experience and gut instinct rather than on customer data when they make decisions concerning their online activities

A description of an e-Commerce Lab in Finland

International online retail stores are increasingly challenging Finnish retailers. In order to strengthen the Finnish e‐retailing competence and to educate the retailers of tomorrow an e‐Commerce Lab was created. The Lab is the first of its kind in Finland and it is built around a concept that we call “reality‐based simulation before a live audience”. This paper describes the e‐Commerce Lab, shows the simulated business processes and provides lessons learned on what is gained by setting up an e‐ Commerce Lab together with different stakeholders of e‐Commerce in Finland. We also propose some initial thoughts on how to further develop the Lab

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS ANALYTICS: A LEAD NURTURING APPROACH

Abstract: This paper makes an exploratory combination of operative customer relationship management (CRM) and business analytics (BA). Based on Delen & Demirkan (2012a), the three categories of business analytics (descriptive, predictive and prescriptive) are related to the operative CRM perspective. The combination results in an exploratory framework that imply possibilities to increase our understanding of different critical CRM based questions that management need to address on the operative level. Apart from this the framework aim at contributing to the development of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform by underlining the importance of business analytics in the decision making of sales and marketing executives and managers. This is done by focusing on the sales process and especially on lead nurturing by presenting three lead scenarios and discussing how the scenarios could be analyzed

Young consumers’ tendency to use a smartphone as decision-support inside clothing stores

This study explores young consumers’ tendency to use a smartphone to support decisions in a clothing store. A cluster analysis is conducted based on results from a student survey. The findings generated three tentative clusters, namely the occasional users, the digitally assisted and the conventional shoppers. Comparing prices online with a smartphone while inside the store seems to be the main differentiator between the groups. These findings are important for retailers that strive to defend from showrooming effects and create new customer experiences from mobile technology solutions. Managerial and practical implications are discussed, together with future research

Impact of in-store technology on the consumer shopping process – a field experiment with a smart cart

An in-store experiment in a Finnish supermarket was conducted to measure the impact of a smart cart device on the consumer shopping process. The experiment consisted of research subjects choosing five previously determined products displayed on the smart cart. A control group completed the same shopping process with products described on a traditional shopping list. The length of the shopping process and the time to choose the determined products were measured in real time with Tobii eye tracker glasses for both groups. Also the user experience of the device was investigated after the completion of the shopping process. The results indicate that the smart cart device had a minor impact on the consumer shopping process. However, the participants’ positive evaluations of the device indicate that in-store technologies have the potential to impact the shopping process positively and thus shape new types of interactions

Digital Brand Management: A Company and Consumer Perspective

The branding of a business is increasingly done through digital channels, mainly social media. In this paper, Digital Brand Management is explored from a company and consumer perspective and analyzed based on five case studies. The data was collected in November 2015 by Arcada´s International Business Management master students on a study trip in three Nordic countries. The identified learning points indicate that creating or rebuilding the brand story is critical for successful brand management. Managerially this story should be communicated on multiple digital platforms with different complementing content to create a buzz and engage loyal followers. As an ultimate goal the story can lead to fans that share their brand experiences with other fans or potential fans. This requires high managerial competence in social media. Finally, we learned that everything needs to be measured in real time and brand management decisions should be data driven as opposed to gut instinct decision making

Consumer brand post engagement on Facebook and Instagram – A study of three interior design brands

Social media has become an important part of consumers’ brand interaction. This study takes a content analysis research approach in order to investigate the content type of three interior brands’ postings on two popular social media sites, Facebook and Instagram, and explore how consumers engage with the content. The results show that slightly different content strategies are used on Facebook and Instagram, and the level of consumer brand post engagement varies between the two platforms. Instagram showed clearly a higher consumer brand post engagement compared to Facebook. Brand post engagement on the two social media sites is enhanced by entertaining and inspirational content. Especially on Instagram, inspirational content created the highest brand engagement. The findings are important for brands that strive to engage with fans on social media sites. Managerial and practical implications are discussed, together with future research

A Local Outdoor Mobile Tour Guide in HTML5 – Drivers and Barriers

HTML5 is by many seen as the future platform for delivery of mobile services due e.g. to its cross platform capabilities. Moreover, mobile services are becoming an essential part of providing new and enhanced ways of visitor experiences in travel and tourism. Therefore, this paper aims to contribute with a description of a local outdoor mobile tour guide developed in HTML5 and an evaluation of drivers and barriers of HTML5 as a platform for mobile service delivery in a travel and tourism context. To achieve the goal, an action research project was conducted and a holistic mobile service business model framework called STOF was utilized