Hibbett Inc. has both internal and external environments. Its interior surroundings comprise the stakeholders, who include employees and the management. Hence, in protecting the external environment, the managerial staff must make careful decisions for the company (Mikalef et al. 20). They are the backbone of the company operations, which comprise the day’s business. The external environment is the customer base, social aspects of the society, and the political realm, where the latter is the regulations posed by the governments across the country. These environments must be in perfect sync for the company to run effectively. For instance, the speed of order placement and delivery of the product builds customer confidence and boosts their loyalty to the company merchandise. It represents the selling process. Satisfaction occurs with low response time hence high income to the company. Therefore, the need to tackle the issue of low sales due to an inadequate online presence is of the essence to maintain the coordination between the two environments.
Resource Analysis
The primary resource for Hibbett Inc. is the diverse collection of its merchandise. The company deals in products for multiple sporting activities, including basketball for states like Kentucky and football for states like Alabama. This case helps meet the needs of a wide range of customers with diverse interests. There is a need to exploit the potential in the available extensive collection of merchandise to boost the company’s sales and income. Another resource to take pride in is the rich collection of the most popular brands like Jordan, Adidas, Puma, and Nike.
It is essential to mention that they are also the most expensive brands globally. They are dealing with these places the company in an elevated position. Therefore, developing a solution that uses this prime resource for the company’s overall gain is essential. Improving the marketing strategy and the services issue to customers can also increase the exploitation of the available resources. Hum resource of the company is also crucial since it has employed 11,000 team members, with 92% working in retail stores (Class Reading 4). These are the personnel involved in ensuring retail and wholesale stores run as expected. A proper solution should reduce the issues they experience in delivering their services to customers.
Strategic Choice
The best way to increase online sales for Hibbett Inc. is by shifting to Full Online shopping. This solution involves having an application or website that reflects all the merchandise on the ground for the company customers’ need to check into the platform, select their preferred products, and make orders. Then the requests are delivered to them within 24 hours. This strategy shall include other more automatic services like online chats. This solution bridges the need to have employees constantly watching to see whom customers need support. The system will feature chatbots that can serve more clients and help decision-making (Kaczorowska-Spychalska 256). It also ensures that accurate responses are given to the customers. This case is essential since they can make better decisions regarding their needed product. Making the best choices as far as making purchases is involved.
This solution targets the customer base mostly because people prefer services that save them time. They also want a situation where their questions are given responses immediately. If these needs are served instantaneously, then they can keep coming. Another advantage of fully automatic online shops is that they do customers in their homes. These are clients who only prefer staying indoors. The online shop with AI services serves several purposes. Firstly, it will be a way to customize services depending on the client’s online behavior. The Service will track the customer’s areas of interest and products they like to check on. It also checks their geographical location and matches it with the suggested interests of people in that area hence providing the clients with products that best suit their interests. This act shall boost the company’s online presence as well as sales.
Strategic Proposal Elements
Competitive Premise
The company will have a competitive advantage upon embracing this solution. Most businesses are still in their old era of physical operations. They lose many funds due to the inefficiencies experienced in handling customer needs using legacy systems. However, by cutting the human involvement processes like delivery and logistic operations, there will be many sales and saving on the incurred costs. Online shopping ensures that the face of the business is also visible on the Internet, like other giant e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Alibaba. It will also give customers an extra choice when they consider online shopping. Most ecommerce companies rely on IT solutions to solve recurrent problems. These include machine learning models and algorithms for data capture and classification. Hibbett needs to venture into these technologies to compete fully. Hence, moving its operations online will ease these technologies’ integration. The company can compare its shop’s performance with others, like Amazon, in real-time.
Hibbett Inc. ads and other prompts will also be available online, allowing more customers to spot them and shop regardless of their locality. This move will also prompt the establishment of more stores in states where the company products are not widespread, especially in states like Minnesota, Delaware, Wyoming, Wisconsin, and South Dakota, which have less than three stores, as shown in the figure below. Having rich online shops will also encourage the business to move since customers do not need to worry about picking up their products at the store or traveling to check out new releases. The more the customer base increases, the more competition the company faces. With many customers, it means more chances to sell out the products. Also, the customers act as ambassadors to the company. They sell the idea of perfect products to their friends, encouraging them to visit the online store. Having customers from diverse locations will also force the company to be more creative, improving the service quality.
Table 1: List of Stores. (Class Reading 2)
Product/Market Focus
The company has recorded an increase in market size over the years due to its involvement in online service delivery. Increasing the company’s presence among users and clients is essential in recording improved progress. This operation comes at a high financial cost considering that the company spent more on marketing within the past 2-3 years due to over-involvement in physical marketing (Class Reading 6). The study shows that they spent $28,439 in January 2022, which was higher than in 2021, where the cost was $22,052 (Class Reading 6). That extra amount can be invested in creating customized and sustainable online marketing plans. The benefit of this online plan is that it will cost less with time. It will also need less expertise and several human skills presence to showcase an advertisement. This solution also reaches more customers in terms of geographical locations than physical marketing strategies. Hence, the market size is expected to grow upon this solution’s integration.
Business System Focus
This solution will adequately cater to the focus on growth, efficiency, and sustainability. There is a need to check on aspects such as packaging to ensure sustainability. The solution must also partner with organizations that promise a better environment, such as UNEP. This strategy will boost customer interest and promise the company to be accountable for its actions. Customers can be promised that their domain will be conserved and that they should have no doubt that should their products have issues, they can quickly get help from a responsible company. The economic, social, and political concerns must be considered to achieve sustainability (Gil-Gomez et al. 2741). As much as this boosts sustainability n the materials used, it also increases business growth. For instance, forging fruitful alliances with these organizations will boost the chances of more investments representing financial growth.
Goals (Specific, Measurable, Timed)
This solution aims to cut the overall cost of the business operations significantly within the next Fiscal year. These changes shall be reflected across various frontiers, such as the size of the human resource, marketing cost, logistic costs, operations coverage, and sales operations. The solution will eliminate the need for customer care services in each state. It will also reduce the marketing staff tasked with organizing events for product releases, bringing the customers together for promotions, and making sales. This case is felt in aspects like granting them commissions for significant successes in the company marketing milestones. The cost of launching events is also significantly reduced. It includes the finances used in transporting the staff to the areas where the events will occur and leasing some of the products and materials used to launch the events. The recurrent salaries for these disposed employees will be plowed back into the company to increase the company’s sales.
Corporate Level Strategy
The solution will traverse corporate-level aspects such as retrenchment. For instance, the feedback handling processes will no longer be in the hands of customer care personnel. The Chabot will handle this issue without delays and with utmost accuracy. Hence, the employees who are not needed in this scenario will be retrenched and replaced by the AI chat tool. Also, marketing needs of efficiency and sustainability will be improved by the present system and online social media presence hence the need to eliminate the employees who have not more tasks. The proposed solution will produce and efficiently market a diversity of products. For instance, if the company needs to innovate a new type of shoe custom for a specific community, there will be room for such suggestions in the system. This act will boost diversification hence the income base and profits boosted for that matter.
Functional Implementation/ Integration Plans
Finance
The cost of operations will be significantly cut upon the incorporation of the online shopping plan. The customer care individuals will be swapped with online-based Customer Relations Management (CRM) systems. Hence, online customer management will eliminate the salaries that comprise recurrent expenditures. The same applies to costs incurred when supporting physical marketing due to the presence of physical stores, whereby the number of marketers will be reduced. Because shopping and ordering will be done online, the number of salespersons shall also reduce. In a nutshell, the company’s recurrent expenditure, which poses a challenge in meeting the annual goals of distinguished sales and income, will decline by about 30%. This amount, when viewed in terms of the company’s sales increase, is an increase of the order of multi-million dollars. In this case, funds lost when customers have the means to purchase but lack a way of reaching the products store will be compensated.
Technology
The company will utilize the attests development frameworks to create cross-platform applications. This case will ensure that users of both android and iPhones have access to the Hibbett Inc. services. The applications shall have controls that are easy to spot and navigate. The intention is to serve even individuals who have inadequate IT literacy quickly without creating the impression that the application only targets specific populations. The solution will also comprise Chatbot, which offers customers after-sales services. They can enquire about their needs to the company, including areas they are not complacent with, such as how discounts are provided and how offers and other services can be relinquished. To handle customers from more states and across the globe, the technology deployed by the company should incorporate additional platforms such as Tiktok, Snapchat, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube. They can make as many video ads for all these sites or create good photos of their latest products for the customers.
Human Resources
The online shop will cut employees whose tasks can be performed by the launched computer systems. For instance, customer care service, which is the main link between the customer and the business, shall be immensely improved via the established Chatbot. This centrally controlled ad-managed Service will reduce the human resources needed for customer care service and reduce physical marketers. However, the latter will be realized by the company’s broad involvement in social media presence. The company shall be able to build on its recommendation services and ensure ease of decision-making. Protected servers shall serve the accountability roles of the company.
Via the system, the staff can know which product sales are better in which locations, and they can also know when that demand shifts sometime in the future. The Visualization software that comes with a complete online presence reduces the need to have specialists monitor the company’s data and can deal with big data issues. Tableau and PowerBI are the most common commercial data visualization tools (Bikakis 6). These tools can ease data processing activities in the company. This person needs to be heavily compensated in terms of salaries and wages. However, this price will be reduced in this case, and the funds can be plowed elsewhere in the company. The tools also reduce the time needed for building classifiers and plotting the data for visualization. The spared expertise and time can be invested elsewhere in the company to boost income and service delivery.
Procurement
Procurement will be a significant advantage due to a fast audit mechanism. The products will be inspected digitally without needing personnel to conduct that activity physically. The benefit of digital inspection is that there will be minimal errors associated with the quality of products and the needs of the customers. Record keeping will also be made easy using computerized systems. Cloud computing offers the required security protocols; for instance, Google Cloud service can serve this company’s data needs (Gupta et al. 1). There will be no need to have the company collect customer information physically. By visiting the online platform, the shop will track the areas they visit and understand their interests. This case will be reflected in the company visualization software, where analyses can quickly be done.
Operations
Operations such as payment will be easily managed, especially for new customers whose locality is not the United States. The online shop will offer various payment options to ensure that customers from distant continents access the merchandise quickly. Costs and inefficiencies in negotiating fees will be significantly reduced since the online shop price is fixed. However, calculating discounts can be offered when deemed necessary. Other operations, such as logistics, can be streamlined using the proposed solution. An online shop reduces the need for as many stores since the delivery trucks will move from the central location to the customer’s household without branching. This act will minimize leasing, fuel, wage costs, and uncertainties.
Marketing
The solution will work best in the upcoming social networking sites, especially Tiktok. This platform has a large audience worldwide, with fans ranging from sports enthusiasts to Gen Z kids and teenagers. This individual shows main interest in participating in the latest trends and fashions as far as footwear’s concerned. Hence, having the online shop ads rolled as short and pleasing videos to platforms like TikTok will increase the level of marketing. This suggestion discourages using legacy solutions like websites for a couple of f reasons. The generations interested in purchasing Hibbett Inc.’s products rarely visit some websites. They are Cyber security aware; therefore, clicking website links will be highly rejected for fear of being duped or conned. The reason is that the increasing IT coverage has resulted in massive social engineering attacks whereby unsuspecting users are lured into con sites (Salahdine and Naima 3). Hence, a trustworthy application like Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest will be highly welcome.
The online shop’s marketing strategy will also make use of well-known betting sites customized for the United States and other global countries. On these platforms are large crowds where they can access sports services that have a monetary value. To create more customer interest, the company can also partner with these sites to create promotions and discounts depending on their frequency of visits. For instance, promising those discounts on expensive merchandise like the Jordan Sneakers upon making ten straight bets would increase their interest in the company’s products. There will be a need to be creative and innovative in charging to increase the market base if the company intends to grow in sales.
Organizational Structure/ Design
The company’s structural design may experience some changes in this new solution. It shall occur mainly if positions for some employees are eliminated, which poses no need for supervisors and some store managers. Retail stores will also be less needful because of online shopping. The Service personnel in such centers will be eliminated; hence, the management will have to take a different structure. Such a vast online platform will pose the need for a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) whose task is to coordinate the management of the Technology Sector. Engineering and IT sections will also require intensification to boost data analysis and constant reconstruction of the recommendation systems.
Values (Mission, Vision, CSR)
The company’s vision is to provide products sustainably. This move involves ensuring that the amount of waste is reduced. That is why it is involved in helping brands such as Nike in their campaign towards zero emissions and negative environmental impact. Therefore, its missions include ensuring that its customers receive products promptly and granting them their wishes regarding sports shows. The company campaigns for sustainable energy by ensuring its stores utilize renewable energy devices like LED lights. This case is reported to reduce energy consumption by approximately 30% (Class Reading 7). It also encourages recycling materials to ensure they leave as little environmental footprint as possible.
However, all these operations still place the company at more risk. One of them is breaking all the stipulated ethic codes like practice for renewable energy and green operations (Ben Jebli et al. 2). Therefore, the online shopping solution is the only guarantee of full environmental sustainability. In terms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the company’s solution promise complete protection of any acquired customer data. The use of a Blockchain database is recommendable. It cannot be easily breached because it uses Public Key Cryptography. This encryption implements secure algorithms like RSA to protect data (Malik et al. 2). This case represents one of the security protocols used in the solution. The intention is to promise that all stakeholder information, such as shares and other personal data, is safe.
Pro Forma Financial Statements
The table below shows projections of the company’s future finances. It includes projections of expenses and revenues based on experience. The information on sales has been derived from Table two of the case study, then increased by 20 percent.
Works Cited
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“Hibbett Sports Case Study.” 2022.
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