STUDENT TEAM - INDUSTRY PROJECTS
"We received great value from the student project." - Karen Weed, Director of Marketing Services, TDS Telecom
During spring and fall semesters, student-teams in Dr. Veeramani's e-business course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison completed 14 industry projects with UWEBC member companies. These semester-long projects bring together the brightest e-business minds at UW-Madison to help companies develop competitive analysis, strategy design and justification, and business development.
2005 PROJECT SPONSORS
American Family Insurance
American Girl, Inc.
CUNA Mutual Group
Grainger
Lands’ End
JJ Keller
TDS Telecom
Questions or Comments
Contact Dr. Raj Veeramani, Director,
UW E-Business Institute & UW E-Business Consortium
608-262-0861
email raj@cae.wisc.edu
STUDENT TEAM - INDUSTRY PROJECTS
American Family Insurance
Strategy for Enhancing American Family Insurance’s Online Customer Service Offerings
Project Goal
Perform a competitive benchmarking analysis (of insurance and financial institutions) and research leading practices of online customer service offerings
Outcomes
- Researched insurance and financial institutions for competitive benchmarking of customer service offerings
- Assessed specific customer service scenarios, tasks and personas at American Family, other insurance and financial companies
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American Girl, Inc.
Improving Web Site Search Experience on AmericanGirl.Com
Project Goal
Help American Girl enhance its online search experience through benchmark analysis, a review of vendor solutions, and insights from other UWEBC member companies
Outcomes
- Performed a best-of-breed benchmark search experience from a set of multi-channel retailers
- Reviewed leading on-site search solution vendors (e.g., easyask, Endeca)
- Documented leading internal search practices from other UWEBC member companies
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CUNA Mutual Group
Strategy for Implementation of Retirement Tools on CUNA Mutual Group's Members Financial Network
Project 1 Goal
Develop a strategy for the “Financial Education/Advice Center” feature offered through Member Financial Network Web site
Outcomes
- Performed a competitive analysis of other Web sites / sources of consumer financial information
- Conducted a survey to gain insight from consumer needs and expectations regarding financial education/advice information and tools
- Researched the perspectives of credit unions on the financial information/tools that they would like on their Web sites for consumers
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CUNA Mutual Group Project 2
Enhancing Sales Process Efficiency and Effectiveness Using Portable Technologies
Project 2 Goal
Enhancing Sales Process Efficiency and Effectiveness Using Portable Technologies
Outcomes
- Researched and analyze available portable devices; compared the functionality/constraints based on information available on the Web; talked to vendors regarding how sales organizations are using these devices; compiled information regarding benefits and ROI
- Interviewed subject-matter experts at CUNA Mutual Group to understand applications and workflow processes needed by financial services sales staff in order to map requirements to the capabilities of different electronic devices
- Interviewed other companies to learn how sales staffs are currently using portable technologies; ROI justification; and gained insight to the perceived needs, expectations and attitudes of sales staff regarding the use of mobile/portable computing devices for workflow efficiencies
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CUNA Mutual Group Project 3
Developing a Sales Workspace Design for CUNA Mutual
Project 3 Goal
Help CUNA Mutual develop its sales portal/workspace design strategy by compiling user requirements and expectations (for 2 roles of field staff, namely front-line field sales reps and sales management) and create prototype mock-ups of the sales portal/workspace
Outcomes
- Interviewed a sales manager and field sales representative to document needs and expectations for a sales portal/workspace
- Surveyed managers and sales representatives to create a sales portal proposal
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Grainger
Enhancing Grainger’s E-Mail Marketing
Project 1 Goal
Perform a competitive benchmarking analysis and best practices research and develop recommendations for enhancing Grainger’s e-mail marketing and e-newsletter
Outcomes
- Compared and benchmarked e-mail communications of Grainger’s direct and indirect competitors (promotional, transactional order-related, and newsletters)
- Researched methods to improve the deliverability of e-mails (e.g., reduce the percentage of emails getting blocked by SPAM as well as other filters)
- Identified methods to increase open and click through rates (e.g., through improved copy and design)
- Provided recommendations to improve e-mail marketing
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Grainger Project 2
Strategy for Enhancing Grainger’s Online Customer Service Offerings
Project 2 Goal
Perform a competitive benchmarking analysis and research leading practices and trends of online customer service offerings
Outcomes
- Performed competitive benchmarking of Customer Services Offerings (e.g. interactive “chat”; telephone support, FAX support, FAQs, and self-learning/updating knowledge bases) for companies in industrial distribution as well as other online B-to-B industries, like Office Supplies, and Data Communications
- Interacted with customer service at Grainger and its competitors to assess experiences with specified customer service scenarios, and interaction of online with offline Customer Service Channels
- Interviewed UWEBC member companies to gain insight regarding Live Chat and Self-Learning FAQ
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Grainger Project 3
Live Chat for Customer Service – Review of Best Practices and Leading Vendors
Project 3 Goal
To benchmark leading practices on the use of Live Chat technology (and other instant messaging technology) for online customer service in B2B industries such as office supplies, data communications
Outcomes
- Performed a benchmarking analysis of how other companies (especially B2B companies) use Live Chat and other instant messaging technology
- Composed a Request-for-Information document and performed a comparative analysis of vendors based on responses to the RFI
- Interviewed UWEBC member companies that use Live Chat regarding vendor selection, staffing, implementation, and training
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Grainger Project 4
Grainger.com Multilingual Web site Strategies on Grainger Web site
Project 4 Goal
To support Grainger's growth strategy targeting Hispanic business owners and decision makers
Outcomes
- Analyzed translation approaches and conducted vendor comparisons
- Surveyed other UWEBC members that have implemented multilingual Web sites
- Researched online multilingual best practices
JJ Keller
Leading Practices for Design of Corporate Web sites
Project Goal
To assist JJ Keller in developing the strategy for a new Corporate Web Site
Outcomes
- Conduct a competitive and comparative analysis of the corporate Web sites of JJ Keller’s competitors and other leading companies that are in a similar situation (i.e., multiple business units with competing products/services)
- Interview companies that provide marketing services as well as some UWEBC member companies to gain insight into best practices for corporate Web sites
- Based on the above analyses, provide recommendations for home page structure and primary navigation options
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Lands' End
Lands' End Custom Clothing Program
Project 1 Goal
Perform a comprehensive review of the Lands' End custom clothing program and make recommendations for improvement. Also benchmark the Lands' End custom clothing to competitor offerings
Outcomes
- Compared online garment ordering process to competitor Web sites, including: ease of determining measurements; communication between company and purchaser; company survey; delivery time; packaging; quality of product; fit of product, and value of product based on amount paid
- Evaluated of Lands’ End customer support line
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Lands' End Project 2
Personalized (One-to-One) E-Mail Marketing Strategy
Project 2 Goal
Help Lands’ End develop its personalized e-mail marketing strategy by researching industry best practices and performing competitive analysis
Outcomes
- Research industry (including non-apparel brands) best practices and conduct competitive analysis (Sears, Gap, LL Bean, Eddie Bauer and Williams Sonoma) by utilizing eMailAnalyst tool
- Recommendations to Lands' End on type of personalization
- Formulate an implementation plan to Lands' End
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TDS Telecom
Web Strategy for TDS Telecom's B2B Lead Generation
Project Goal
Help TDS Telecom enhance its Web site to support B2B lead generation. Perform a competitive analysis and needs assessment to determine the types of Web site features, contents and tools, and demand stimulation methods (search marketing) that will help the Web site attract and serve potential B2B customers
Outcomes
- Performed a competitive analysis of a group of TDS Telecom’s competitors to assess how the competitors utilize their Web sites to attract and serve prospective B2B customers.
- Studied Web sites of other companies that sell complex products (e.g., infrastructural products such as power systems, control systems, etc.) to gain insight into best practices
- Interviewed individual TDS Account Executives and Pre-Sales Groups members and some customers to gain insight into
- the B2B customer’s decision-making process in identifying, evaluating and selecting a TDS product for their needs.,
- the types of Web content and decision-aids (tools) that would help the customer,
- the types of tools that would help the TDS sales people
- Analyzed of various keywords to gain insights into how search marketing tactics can be employed by TDS to attract B2B customers
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TDS Telecom Project 2
Strategy for Enhancing TDS Telecom's Web site for B2B Lead Generation
Project 2 Goal
Perform a competitive analysis and best practices research to assist TDS Telecom expand and improve its Web-based customer self-service capabilities
Outcomes
- Documented customer self-service functionality and features currently available at tdstelecom.com
- Analyzed customer self-service functionality and features of competitor Web sites
- Identified best practices for customer self-service from non-competitor companies Web sites
- Surveyed UWEBC members regarding how they measure success of online customer self-service capabilities and how they make future investment decisions
- Developed recommendations to expand and enhance TDS Telecom’s online customer self-service capabilities
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