Problem Analysis

Structured Process & Information System [Arianna Mendez]:

    For our project, our team has decided to focus on the structured process of sales. Structured processes are formally defined as standardized processes that involve day-to-day operations such as accepting a return, placing an order, and purchasing raw materials. As for Legion Beauty Supplies, the company implements a combination of information systems to victoriously complete the sales process of the company on a daily basis. For instance, they have their company website which is powered by Ecwid where customers can directly place their orders. The company website is very easy to navigate and customers can find images of all products and supplies along with a detailed description so they know exactly what ingredients they’re composed of, how they function and how the skin has been proven to react when used. It also stores customer information for marketing purposes and helps the company gather demographics such as age, gender, location, and hobbies in order to determine what type of customers they sell most of their products and supplies to. Thus, through Ecwid, the company not only keeps track of their sales but also their inventory so they know when to purchase more products and supplies from their manufacturers to restock. In fact, Ecwid also supports the whole order fulfillment structured process of the company. It is managed by their employees which serves the purpose of providing them with the most updated information about the company in terms of inventory, handling orders, and keeping track of packaged and distributed orders that get shipped through carriers such as FedEx and UPS.          In other words, Ecwid allows the company to track the online orders that get placed by customers via the company’s website so they know what items to retrieve from their inventory shelves and manually package them to get them ready to be shipped out in a timely fashion. Additionally, their sales team goes around visiting different waxing businesses to promote their products where each member has a work phone at hand which permits them to record customer information through Excel depending on who shows interest in their products and supplies and decides to purchase them. This data is then sorted into categories such as name, date of birth, address, and phone number and payment method. However, the company excludes the category of payment method from their reports due to privacy reasons and laws. Legion Beauty Supplies is more interested in seeing what type of clientele they attract, what age range their customers fall between, who their most loyal and consistent shoppers are, and where they are located to see whether Legion Beauty Supplies is expanding to areas outside of NJ. This data is conveniently used as a marketing tool as well to easily reach these customers and provide loyalty discounts. Furthermore, they can clearly see which products and supplies are their best selling and determine new strategies that will help them increase their sales in the long run. Thus, these information systems allow business managers and administrators to monitor the company’s revenue which is why we have focused on the structured process of sales within the company.  

Preview of Ecwid

Dynamic Process & Information System [Arianna Mendez]:

    First off, dynamic processes are defined as flexible, informal, and adaptive processes that normally involve strategic and less structured managerial decisions and activities. As for Legion Beauty Supplies, the company implements the dynamic business process of marketing primarily through the information system of social media. They frequently utilize social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok to not only promote their business and products but to also easily reach its customers, gain valuable insights, and effectively grow their brand by keeping track of what products are in high demand while developing a meaningful connection with their audience by engaging with them. Anyhow, for the purpose of our project we specifically turned our attention to Instagram and the major impact this sole platform has had on the company’s growth over time. Instagram is recognized as a very famous and commonly used free social media platform that businesses are popularly incorporating as one of their main marketing tools due to the fact that billions of people worldwide are constantly networking on this site leading to huge opportunities for product/service exposure.

    For this reason, Legion Beauty Supplies has chosen to devote most of its time and resources to advertising their body waxing products and supplies through this platform by creating a variety of content to publish that, in turn, has helped them reach potential customers in the most efficient and effective ways. In fact, connecting with their audience has been key to their expansion within the beauty industry which they have been able to successfully accomplish by taking advantage of Instagram’s array of unique features, from short-form videos such as reels, to live streaming, polls, stories Q&A’s, giveaways, and private messaging. The company also makes sure to consistently stay active on their account by commenting on posts and replying to anyone that comments on their own posts as well, participating in conversations, sharing relevant information, addressing complaints and criticisms, and showing appreciation for their customers. As a result, they have seen increased sales throughout the years demonstrating how Instagram is an essential marketing strategy for Legion Beauty Supplies as it has allowed the company to build brand awareness, promote outstanding customer service, create marketing content, acquire leads in a low-cost way, and learn more about their customers by engaging with them and keeping an eye out on what is trendy in the beauty world when it comes to body waxing. 

Legion Beauty Supplies' Instagram Page

Social Media Plan [Arianna Mendez]:

    When considering the information system of social media, Legion Beauty Supplies primarily utilizes Instagram to carry out the dynamic process of marketing. Through this platform, Legion Beauty Supplies has the ability to leverage its presence in order to both attract and retain followers who eventually transform into potential buyers.  

       

Structure of a Social Media Plan

Legion Beauty Supplies' Social Media Plan consists of the following:

1. Define Your Goals

    Legion Beauty Supplies has many goals and aspirations for its social media presence. However, their main focus as a company is to promote their unique waxing products and supplies to essentially become widely recognized throughout the beauty industry. In other words, achieving brand awareness is high on the list of goals for the company as they aim for Legion Beauty Supplies to be a brand that is known, talked about, mentioned, and highly recognized within the industry for the products and supplies from Italian manufacturers, Italwax and NaturaVerde Pro. Website traffic is also a huge goal for the company as they want many people visiting their social media accounts to not only spread the word about them but also give them the opportunity to witness first-hand how the products and supplies work on the skin. As their followers scroll through all the content and develop interest, they spend more and more time on the accounts and then eventually end up in the company website where they can learn more about each product or supply in terms of ingredients and pricing to then hopefully decide on making a purchase. Additionally, the company wants to see higher user engagement to gather data on how many users consistently like, comment, and share the company's content as an increase in these numbers means more exposure for the company.

 

2. Identify Success Metrics

    On the other hand, metrics are defined as measurements used to track performance. Legion Beauty Supplies uses metrics such as keeping track of their total followers count on each of their social media accounts, audience growth rate, as well as brand mentions through different social media platforms on a monthly basis. They also take note of visitor frequency rate, referral traffic from different social media networks, re-shares of their content and number of social media content interactions. The company specifically turns their attention to customer engagement and the follow through that comes from this. This metric is very important to Legion Beauty Supplies as it helps them to take note of the amount of followers that are actively engaging with their social media content, and acting on it upon coming across their daily posts. For example, when they post pictures and videos showing before and after transformation along with the process of waxing a client with the use of their varying wax types and supplies, the company gets specific insights on what actions the public took such as how many followers just scrolled past the picture or video and how many actually interacted with the post and went on to check out other content or how many clicked on the company website link listed on their account biography to then place an order. This allows them to determine what type of content is most attractive to their followers which gives them a clear idea of what direction they should take when creating new content to upload on their social media accounts.

3. Identify Target Audience

    Meanwhile, their target audience consists of beauty salons owners that offer waxing services as well as young female entrepreneurs that have already developed or are just starting their own waxing businesses from home, which the world has seen a huge sudden rise in ever since the world went on lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Legion Beauty Supplies utilizes the relatively new social media platform, TikTok, on a daily basis. The success of TikTok has led to Instagram adding a similar feature to their platform called Instagram Reels which are short immersive videos that offers text options, filters, and audio tools to help bolster people's creative ideas. In fact, the company uploads their TikTok's to Instagram as a way to target and reach as large of an audience as possible so the act of intertwining their content ensures that their waxing products and supplies receive full on exposure and publicity. Consequently, the end goal is to showcase each particular item the company offers to first handedly demonstrate how they are used to make sure their customers know exactly what to expect from their waxing products and supply thus allowing buyers to make a confident purchase by keeping them fully aware of what they are purchasing which also provides peace of mind.

4. Define Your Value

    Furthermore, the value that the company provides their audience through this social media content is that each customer gets to see the wax products being put to the test on different client's skin from legs to armpits and intimate areas. For instance, they post videos showing how the wax, whether it be hard, soft or sugar wax, is applied on the skin with the wooden spatulas, then customers can see how the wax dries within seconds and finally, after pressing down firmly and getting a good grip from one of the ends, they pull the strip in one direction making it clearly visible how the skin is left smooth and hairless with no irritation or redness. Thus, through the company's creative content that gets published on these sites, specifically Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, potential customers get a direct preview of the quality of the products and supplies before actually deciding to make a purchase. This is extremely beneficial as customers would not be interested in ordering and buying a product that they've never tried without first seeing how it works, especially waxing products which are more delicate due to the fact that they deal with individual's skin. Customers who purchase waxing products and supplies most likely have their own business so they are required to make sure that the products and supplies are safe to use on all skin types to avoid any negative reactions such as rashes, burns, or irritation, thus seeing how they work beforehand helps them determine whether making the purchase is worth the quality of the product based on their own analysis of the social media content. If it weren't for these social media platforms, buying these products by simply going off of the pictures they see on the company website would be too much of a risk specifically for small business owners who are on a tighter budget. Therefore, the ability to readily see the product/supply being used through videos as well as getting clear pictures of the results showing the before and after transformations of the body hair removal not only proves that they're high quality but also gives the customers much more confidence when placing an order which is extremely convenient for the company and provides great value to the customer.

5. Make Personal Connections

    In terms of making personal connections, Legion Beauty Supplies is constantly engaging with their audience via all their social media accounts by asking them specific questions through polls on Instagram, responding to their comments on every single post and direct messages as well as doing live videos where they directly communicate with the public. This definitely helps to develop a sense of trust and eventually a really special bond with potential buyers which allows them to build strong relationships over time thus leading them to successfully attain long-term loyal customers. Not to mention but these methods are used to clear any doubts or concerns that potential customers may have before making a purchase by seeing the waxing products and supplies being tested on real clients in different areas of the body. This is supported through the creation of peer-to-peer support which is when customers use their own experiences to help others. Therefore, customers are always asked to share their personal experience with the products and supplies they purchase from Legion Beauty Supplies. Although this is voluntary, most customers always share videos of them either using a specific product or supply with their own clients or giving the company a shoutout by recommending them to other waxers in the industry. The company then uploads these videos to their social media accounts and when other potential customers watch their reviews and testimonials, they feel more inclined to place an order as a result of the reassurance they get as well as the trust they develop in the company and the quality of their products/supplies. They can also take advantage of the suggestions made to make a smart purchase depending on the type of product or supply they're looking for. This leads to strong personal connections being from as it is win-win for both the company and the customer because not only is the company receiving more exposure and having customers sell their products/supplies through peer-to-peer recommendations but these customers, who are 99.9% of the time small owners, also get to spread their business name by showing off their waxing services making it extremely beneficial to both parties.

➤ Video of Customer Review

6. Gather and Analyze Data

    Lastly, Legion Beauty Supplies mainly utilizes the Instagram Insights analytical tool to get statistical information and be able to view customer engagement such as the number of clicks, likes, comments, shares, tags, and mentions. They also gather different types of data including followers count and growth over time, profile searches and visits, and even demographic data ranging from age and gender to location, language, and behaviors which they use to analyze, for example, which posts generate the most traffic, which social media platform prompts the most referrals as well as which videos get the most attention. In conclusion, all of these steps combined are what helps organizations to develop an effective social media information system in order to successfully generate revenue just like Legion Beauty Supplies has been able to establish this social media plan that strategically aligns with their visions and goals.

Components of the Information Systems [Arianna Mendez]:

    Hardware is defined by most people as a laptop, a desktop, a server or even a tablet as these are the physical components of a computer system. In other words, it is referred to as the computer’s tangible elements that store and run the written instructions provided by the software. However, computing hardware is now being integrated into other devices including watches, glasses, TVs, cars, phones and even toothbrushes. Thus, today, computer hardware consists of any electronic components and related gadgetry that input, process, output, and store data according to instructions encoded in computer programs or software. In fact, every computer has a central processing unit (CPU), which is sometimes called “the brain” of the computer. CPUs vary in speed, function, as well as cost and work in conjunction with main memory. Not to mention, the CPU reads data and instructions from memory and then stores the results of computations in main memory, sometimes called the random access memory (RAM). On the other hand, all computers include storage hardware which is used to save data and programs. Magnetic disks, also called hard disks, are the most common storage device. Meanwhile, solid-state storage (SSD) is much faster than traditional magnetic storage because it stores information utilizing nonvolatile electronic circuits. Lastly, there are small portable solid-state storage devices, which we are all familiar with, known as USB flash drives that can be used to back up data and transfer it from one computer to another. Other popular portable storage media consist of optical disks such as CDs and DVDs.

    The basic types of hardware are personal computers (PCs), tablets, phablets, smartphones, servers, and server farms. For instance, PCs are classic computing devices that are utilized by individuals. In the past, they were the primary computers used within businesses yet today they are being replaced by tablets, other mobile devices and even modern PCs such as the Mac Pro. This leads us into tablets which are computing devices that allow interaction through a flat touch screen. These devices were brought to prominence by Apple when they introduced the iPad. Later, competition arose when Microsoft announced the Surface which was followed by Google’s Nexus and Amazon’s Kindle Fire. Additionally, phablets are mobile devices that combine the functionality of a smartphone with the larger screen of a table including Samsung’s Galaxy Note and Apple’s iPhone Pro Max. Then, there are smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy S and iPhones that are essentially cell phones with processing capabilities. Moreover, a server is a computer that is designed to support processing requests from many remote computers and users which is defined as a PC on steroids, like for example, the Dell PowerEdge server. Finally, a server farm is a collection of thousands of servers that support processing requests from many remote computers and users. As for Legion Beauty Supplies, the company utilizes PC’s, specifically laptops, which remain inside the warehouse and are primarily used for their order fulfillment process (as shown below). In other words, these laptops are used to monitor the company’s inventory, handle orders that get placed, create shipment labels and keep track of packaged and distributed orders that get shipped through carriers such as FedEx and UPS. Although this doesn’t support the process we are studying, it is definitely vital to the company’s daily activities. Anyhow, each employee is also given an iPhone (as shown below) which serves as their individual work phone which they use to film and edit content that they then publish on their social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok for advertising and marketing purposes. They are given the opportunity to engage with their audience strictly through these company-issued devices by replying to comments and direct messages as well as making live videos and posting stories such as Q&A’s, polls, and sharing giveaways.

    Furthermore, they have the ability to view their company website and make any necessary changes such as add new products or supplies or leave visible signs on those that are temporarily out of stock or best sellers based on sales data (as shown below), so customers are immediately aware of this upon visiting their site. They can also take other actions including updating contact information for the company or product descriptions and change the pictures that showcase each individual product or supply if, for instance, packaging is renovated by manufacturers. Lastly, they use these smartphones to access Excel and create spreadsheets to plan out which salons the sales team will visit around different cities to promote Legion Beauty Supplies’ products and supplies. They are then required to notate whether or not each specific salon showed interest in purchasing their products and supplies and if they were able to successfully make a sale. Sometimes, however, customers find it more convenient to pass by the warehouse personally to purchase products. The company has a small storefront where customers can directly purchase their waxing products or supplies without having to place an online order, which saves the company on shipping costs and saves customers time as well. Legion Beauty Supplies has small iPads (as shown below) in their storefront to ring up these customers and complete their sales this way as well. Therefore, these hardware devices are essential to the company’s ability to successfully carry out their marketing and sales processes.

           

    Software is known as a set of instructions, data or programs used to operate computers and execute specific tasks. In other words, it comprises the entire set of programs, procedures, and routines associated with the functionality of both client and server computers. In fact, every computer has an operating system which is a program that controls the computer’s resources. Some functions of an operating system include reading and writing data, allocating main memory, performing memory swapping, starting and stopping programs, responding to error conditions, and facilitating backup and recovery. They also create and manage the user interface such as the display, keyboard, mouse, and other devices. However, even though the operating system makes the computer usable, it is limited in application-specific work. While both clients and servers can process application programs, the application’s design is what determines whether the client, the server, or both actually process. There are two significant software constraints, the first being that a particular version of an operating system is written for a particular type of hardware. For example, Windows only works on processors from Intel and companies that make processors that conform to the Intel instruction set such as Dell and HP. On the other hand, the second constraint is that two types of application programs exist. Native applications, or thick-client applications are programs written to use a particular operating system like, for instance, Microsoft Access will run only on the Windows operating system. Meanwhile, a Web application or thin-client application is designed to run within a computer browser like Firefox, Chrome, Opera, or Edge on any type of computer.

    Not to mention but there are three major types of operating systems including non-mobile clients, mobile clients and servers. First, non-mobile clients are used on personal computers and consist of Linux, Unix, macOS, and the most popular being, Microsoft Windows. Then, the three principal mobile operating systems are iOS, Android and Windows 10. For example, iOS is the operating system used on the iPhone, iPad Touch, and iPad while Android is used on Samsung, Google, Huawei, Xiaomi, Nokia, and Sony smartphones and tablets and Windows 10 on Microsoft Surface. Lastly, the three most popular server operating systems is Windows Server, which is a version of Windows that has been specially designed and configured for server use, Unix, and Linux. Unix can be used on servers, but is gradually being replaced by Linux. Furthermore, Linux is frequently used on servers by organizations that want to avoid a server commitment to Microsoft, for whatever the reason may be. When speaking of Legion Beauty Supplies, because the laptops used to complete order fulfillment are MSI, this suggests that the operating system they use is Windows as shown in the above graphic of the laptop, which falls under the nonmobile clients category. On the other hand, for the dynamic process of marketing and the structured process of sales, which our team is studying, the company strictly utilizes the operating system of iOS, which is considered a mobile client, as the employees have iPads to ring up walk-in customers and iPhones as their work phones. These devices are used to film and store content such as photos and videos, which then get edited and prepared to be published on the company’s social media accounts as a way to market their products and services. These iPhones are also used to list which waxing businesses are located in different areas (as shown below) which helps the sales team plan an accessible route that they can follow to ensure they maximize their time and visit as many locations as possible in one day. They are then expected to record, via an Excel spreadsheet, whether the business was interested in the company and the products/supplies offered as well as if they decided to place an order via Legion Beauty Supplies’ online website.

    Therefore, at the same time, the team has the ability to readily access the company’s website, make any necessary changes in terms of available products/supplies based on inventory, keep track of analytics such as who is visiting their website, how much time they are spending on their website, and where their leads are coming from (social media or Google searches) and then purchasing their products and supplies to help them determine whether their in-person promotions are effective and positively contributing to the company’s sales, and this is exactly what most businesses are looking for and incorporating nowadays. They are investing their resources in devices with advanced operating systems that are versatile, allowing employees to conduct multiple functions from one sole device. This is a way in which Legion Beauty Supplies is able to save time and money, especially hiring young generational employees who grew up in this Internet-based world and don’t require an extensive amount of training when it comes to utilizing these devices to get the job done, thus putting the company one step ahead of the game within the beauty industry.