This document answers questions of interest to BUAD 477 students.
While the focus is on website intention, structure and content, this FAQ also answers
questions related to the industry, business, and related topics.
Your questions should be sent to George Higgins
<ghiggins@asecur.com>
. Answers will be posted regularly to support the project.
How do your clients usually hear about you, word of mouth?
How much time do you think it takes to acquire a customer on average?
You mentioned that ---- was your biggest customer, are your smaller customers of
greater quantity?
How many customers do you currently have?
How long does it take you to answer requests on a weekly basis?
How much money does an average customer spend with the company?
What is your profit margin?
What is your plan if you get significantly more customers than this? Will you be able to expand?
About how much of your business is from your biggest clients individually?
What kind of companies are your other customers (retail, banks, schools, etc)?
What do your customers use CCTV system for?
Is there a certain time of year you get more sales initially or more service calls or are sales and service calls relatively level throughout the year?
How do your customers pay: by check, credit card, etc?
What is the general range for the pricing of surveillance packages?
Do you have any interest in producing products for residential customers such as a home security system?
How many subcontractors do you currently have?
By how much do you wish to increase market share by 2010?
Have you been able to decrease your costs in the past few years?
What are your profit margins?
Do you only want us to have one main goal with different objectives to reach it or
should we have 1-3 goals? I thought that another possible goal would be to continue to balance cash flows, incomes and expenditures
and in turn increase market share and overall income. Is my thinking correct?
What are your current customer service levels?
Do you receive many complaints?
What are the most common complaints?
Approximately how long does it take to install the CCTV Systems?
Do you currently have 24/7 assistance if a customer has a problem?
What exactly is the Armored Transport industry?
Do customers usually make repeat purchases? Are they loyal?
How did current customers find out about your services?
Are you against offering price discounts?
Do you have your own in-house trucks that deliver products to consumers or do you utilize
USPS or some other delivery service?
Do products ever need to be shipped to a customer and if so how is this done
currently? UPS? Or is everything hand delivered by you?
I read about the how much the different packages cost, but could you be more specific
on how much a "typical" customer spends and how often they purchase from you?
As the name implies, Closed Circuit television (CCTV) is a system in which the
television circuit is "closed", meaning the components are directly connected.
(Directly connected in this context includes secure systems linked by microwave,
infrared beams, phone lines, internet, coax and so forth. This is unlike broadcast
television where any receiver that is correctly tuned can pick up the signal from
the airwaves and display the image.)
Probably the most widely known use of CCTV is in security systems such as retail shops, banks,
government establishments, etc. The true scope for applications is almost unlimited. Other surveillance examples are listed below:
- Monitoring traffic on a bridge.
- Recording the inside of an oven to find the cause of problems.
- A temporary system to carry out a traffic survey in a town center.
- Production control in a factory.
- The list is almost endless and only limited by the imagination.
The use of video recordings have already proved their worth in court proceedings,
enabling the viewing of events as they took place. As an added bonus, the publicity
surrounding such events can act as a form of Crime Prevention. It is vital for the success
of this evidence that the total integrity of any surveillance system is ensured through installation
according to strict legal requirements and conscientious maintainence.
- An analog video tape surveillance system will typically include
several cameras connected through coax cable to the multiplexer which
in turn is connected to one or more monitors and a VCR.
- A typical digital surveillance system will usually include a
number of cameras connected to one or more monitors and a DVR.
The starting point for any CCTV system is the camera. The
camera creates the transmitted image in its field of view. The lens
is usually provided separately and sized according to the field of view desired.
The camera image is usually transmitted through a coaxial cable although some
digital cameras use twisted pair copper wire and have an IP address so they can
be directly connected to a computer network. Cameras are usually powered by a
separate low voltage 24 Volt Alternating Current (AC) or 12 Volt Direct Current (DC) two conductor cable from a suitable power supply, although there are
some cameras that can receive power through the coax cable. Surveillance objectives
and site environment dictate camera and lens selection and eventual system complexity.
The images are captured and recorded sequentially, one image than another image, alternating onto the
recording media with an encoded date/time stamp and camera identifier so they can be efficiently retrieved for viewing.
The sequencing is managed through a sequential switcher, or a multiplexer, or similar electronics that may be built into
a Digital Video Recorder (DVR).
A switcher enables viewing of several cameras in sequence, the duration
of time spent on each camera is determined by preference. Alternatively the
automatic sequence can be overridden to remain with a particular camera
should something or someone attract interest.
Multiplexers have been developed especially for medium or large sized
camera installations and replace the sequential switcher. Unlike sequential
switchers, the computerized Multiplexer enables a number of cameras to be
recorded at the same time. This means that all cameras are being recorded
all the time and is accomplished by rapidly interweaving a still image from
each camera, one after the other, and streaming these images to the recording device.
The analog Video Cassette Recorder (VCR) used in surveillance systems
records on standard video cassette tapes, however since the recorder is
specially designed to capture a series of still images (time lapse) rather
than a continuous image (real time), it can record as much as 72 hours on a
single 2-hour cassette tape. (A VCR receiving input from a multiplexer will
record up to 16 cameras simultaneously for up to 72 hours.)
The Digital Video Recorder (DVR) used in surveillance systems typically
replaces both the multiplexer and the video cassette recorder. It is both
a multiplexing device, capable of receiving images from many cameras at once,
and a recording device, recording these images on the same type of rotating
hard drive memory found in a computer. The size of the memory and the speed
of the recorded images determines the length of time images will be stored.
The surveillance image is usually viewed on a monitor that is
similar to the monitor on a computer or television. The monitor can be
color or black and white and can use a traditional Cathode Ray Tube (CRT)
screen or a newer Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) or plasma display.
Normally a single image will occupy the entire display screen of a monitor.
Using a "Quad" however, the images from four cameras will each display in a separate
quadrant of the monitor screen so that all four images can be viewed at once on a
single monitor. Multiplexers and Digital Video Recorders have the ability to display up to
16 cameras as a matrix on the screen simultaneously, or to display a picture within a picture.
Market demand now consists of two primary drivers:
(1) the desire of governmental, commercial, institutional, and even
residential security users to install more video systems, and
(2) the push to replace those systems more frequently (about every five years on average)
when an exciting new technology or system becomes available.
For the present, this growth rate appears to be embedded in nationwide
demand over the five-year outlook. It will have to slack off at some point
in the future, but not for a long while yet, given the number of facilities
with little or no video surveillance and the constant temptation to replace
old video systems with the newest technology.
(source:"The State of the Video Surveillance Industry 2005", Joseph P. Freeman, CCTV Trends &
Technology 2005, February 2005)
- Interactive, in that the subcontractor will submit and update information about their company and contact(s), will update
the status of assigned work orders and will be able to see the status of payments scheduled for their completed work.
- Informational, in that the subcontractor will have access to information specific to the customers they service
within their geographic territory.
- An unsecured subcontractor home page will disclose American SecuriComm subcontractor policy and invite new subcontractors to
submit information sufficient to establish eligibility to the American SecuriComm contractor network. The
eligibility form should trigger an email to ghiggins@asecur.com to continue the qualification process.
- A registration page should enable each newly qualified subcontractor to request registration of their company to the secure
website area and to enable the creation of a username and password. The subcontractor registration should trigger
an email to ghiggins@asecur.com to enable verification that the request has come from a previously qualified subcontractor
after which access will be authorized and content added to the site.
- Current subcontractors will access their secure information area at any time by submitting their previously authorized
username and password. Once in the secured area they can check payment status, receive new work orders, enter the status of
previously issued work orders, and view and download content.
A subcontractor will have access to specific information that will support the completion of work at any customer site within
their geographic territory. Typically this content will include:
- a floor plan of the customer facility showing camera locations,
- an inventory of CCTV equipment present on the customer site,
- programming instructions specific to the customer's equipment,
- electronic copies of operation and maintenance manuals provided by the equipment manufacturers, and
- formatted notes such as installation and service history.
The documents will usually be provided in PDF format although some may be DOC, XLS or JPEG
as needs dictate. Documents may be viewed or downloaded, at subcontractor discretion.
1. Tyco Fire and Security; world's
leading provider of video surveillance equipment and systems, 1,200 offices in 100 plus countries,
$11 billion annual sales (acquired companies include
Sensormatic and American Dynamics)
2. ADT; 200 locations, $475 million annual sales (ranked as
4th largest integrator in 2004 SDM survey).
3. Delmarva Systems; largest independent systems
integrator in the Mid-Atlantic Region employing 35 technicians in Newport, DE with another facility
in Northern Virginia. (Recently acquired by Wireless Facilities, Inc. and ranked as 13th largest
integrator in 2004 SDM survey).
Yes, you are correct in that Tyco has acquired ADT, so some further explanation is in order.
Earlier on, Tyco acquired another competitor, "Sensormatic". Sensormatic manufactured and installed
their own proprietary CCTV surveillance equipment and has been our biggest competitor for department stores
and other large commercial enterprises. From a practical standpoint, we still have the ability to service
and can add (refurbished) Sensormatic equipment to customer sites previously serviced by Sensormatic. Since
Sensormatic had been acquired earlier by Tyco, and Tyco has reformed the Sensormatic brand so it no longer
embraces CCTV products, I stated "Tyco" rather than "Sensormatic" in the Health Check questionnaire.
(Tyco now uses the name, Sensormatic, only as a brand designation for point of purchase scanning and tagging products.)
Tyco heavily advertises ADT products and services only as "ADT", therefore since the Tyco name is not readily
recognized by consumers, I chose to retain the "ADT" designation in the Health Check Questionnaire. It would be valid to
consolidate these two competitors into one competitor, but since Tyco itself
is such a huge conglomerate, and has so many non-CCTV offerings, it is important to look solely to their
CCTV offerings when analyzing their competitive position against ours. To do this, I would recommend focusing
on the ADT offerings and within ADT, only to those CCTV offerings related to non-residential customers.
Less than 1% of sales are direct sales of products. Practically everything we do is either
installation of systems or service to systems.
- Systems are are a mix of standard manufactured products configured together to satisfy the customer's
requirements or in the case of bids, the bid specifications; therefore you can say practically
all our installations of uniquely configured systems ARE customized although the products comprising the system are not customized.
- Our few direct sales are for products that have standard feature options provided by the manufacturer,
therefore you can say that these product sales are NOT customized.
- A tiny fraction of sales are for products not available from any manufacturer. These products are designed
and built by us to meet a customer's special needs, and are therefore, TOTALLY customized. There have been less
than five such products built and sold by us throughout our ten years of being in business.
- Typically surveillance of suspicious activities, identification of perpetrators, deterrent to criminal activities. Can also be used to monitor pedestrian traffic patterns to help layout aisle ways and locate displays and other non-security related activities but none of our customers has reported an interest in such use.
Yes, we offer a number of name brands from which the customer can select, although the vast majority of customers come to us with a security situation they would like us to help them resolve rather than with a specific product they would like us to install. Typically, we will configure a system matched to their situation and then offer brand alternatives based on whether sophistication of features or cost of equipment is the primary criteria for their purchase decision.
No, a diverse selection of products usually goes into a customer's system configuration. For instance, Dedicated Micros makes multiplexers and digital recorders but not cameras. Panasonic and Sanyo make both. CBC makes cameras but not recorders. There is usually a mix of products in any given system configuration.
I don't believe we'll capture any new clients solely from the website; meaning that I don't believe
someone browsing for CCTV will come across our website and absent of further interaction initiate and
complete a business transaction. HOWEVER, I would like to declare a goal of ten lead conversions a year,
just from those who come across the site from browsing, identify themselves to us as being interested in
our products and services and close a sale through further interaction. I'd also like to declare an additional
one-hundred lead conversions from those who have learned of us through other means (trade shows, etc.) and
acknowledge that our website supported, strengthened and further enabled their decision to become a customer.
To me, the real value of the site is to enable someone who's discovered us by other means (trade show, word
of mouth, cold call, whatever) to check out our credentials and offerings and be intrigued enough by what
they see to take further actions (an inquiry, request for quote, or whatever action advances the sales stage).
I really believe the website is part of our entire holistic relationship. I point to the
AngelVision marketing approach as an example of this:
An email invited me to look at the website, the website invited me to participate in a live web-enabled
PowerPoint conference, and the conference produced a follow up snail-mail packet of information including
a fax-back quote, then was followed by additional phone calls to assess my interest and encourage my
purchase decision and continued relationship.
We wish to include these capabilities in our website to mimic our trade show exhibit and encourage a live,
web-supplemented conference call conversation with our prospects. Here's how I imagine it working from a prospect's
perspective:
- An unsolicited HTML email offers a brief description of a featured benefit and invites the recipient to link
to a website page containing the streaming video film clip(s).
- The video clip(s) further demonstrate and examine the featured benefit and invite the viewer to join a scheduled live
conference call.
- The live conference call is scheduled by completing and submitting a web page registration form.
- The audio portion of the call is handled through standard telephone services, supplemented by a web-enabled PowerPoint
presentation.
The technical details of HOW this will work is out-of-scope to BUAD 477 and will become part of the construction
phase handled by the website development team.
You are expected to figure out WHERE in the website you believe these capabilities should reside so that they are
well positioned, attractive and included as a specification to the technical designers. You might
also want to investigate the cost associated with including these capabilities in a website. Your recommendations
about capabilities and associated costs will fit in the website development and website budget sections of your project report.
The primary use of the site is to direct prospects to a live contact (via phone, email, web conference,
face-to-face meeting). This goal is highest priority. I would also like to enable e-commerce through
a web-based fill-in-the-blanks Request for Quote form (second priority) and an on-line store front using
our Everest software (third priority).
I have no idea of the traffic we'll see as we've no experience with web activity and therefore have set no
expectation. I am interested in your assessment of a typical traffic/time profile that we should reasonably
anticipate, perhaps based on industry statistics you discover during the course of this project.
YES, we do wish to have testimonials from customers although I have no preconceived notion about how best to position them in
relationship with other content. I have collected several such letters and have extracted
two quotes that appear on page two of our brochure. We believe customer testimonials will build confidence and value for
the company and intend to be more intentional about requesting testimonials in future. Your recommendations are certainly solicited.
- Provide a professional impressive site that clearly presents who we are, what we do and how to engage us in the resolution of situations presented by qualified prospects, and enables unqualified prospects to self-deselect and quickly disengage. Measured by the number of unsolicited inquiries about CCTV received from potential business or government clients as compared with the number of unsolicited inquiries unrelated to the topic of CCTV or received from residential or other unqualified consumers.
- Impress and encourage purchasing agents and decision makers to select American SecuriComm as a preferred professional supplier of CCTV products and services. Measured by the number of positive responses received from customers who report the website was a positive influence on their purchasing decision.
- Reduce administrative effort by shifting customer job status and billing inquiries from telephone, fax and e-mail to the website. Measured by the number of website hits resulting in satisfied inquiries as compared with the number of website hits resulting in unsatisfied inquiries and the number of inquiries received by phone, fax or email.
- Create a desire for new CCTV contractors to participate in the American SecuriComm national network of service providers. Measured by the number of new contractors completing an on-line application and/or indicating interest in joining the network through website triggered inquiries.
- Initially we will be sending our Security Alert newsletter to anyone interested and it will always contain links to the site. Many other vehicles exist and I'm open to your suggestions and recommendations.
- I'm open to your suggestions and recommendations. Since we are primarily a service provider and not retail sales, are prices are for systems rather than components. We wish to encourage an inquiry as to total return on investment over the service life of the installation, rather than solely on installed cost.
- As we don't seek to attract the individual consumer, I'm disinclined toward ads. As to a business search engine,
such as Thomas Register or the like, I'd have to be convinced we're missing a desired family of prospects by not listing ourselves and that the cost of the listing will be recoverable from increased sales. Your suggestions and recommendations are solicited.
- A simple site that is easy to find exactly what they are looking for. Pop ups and flashing Java are considered huge distractions and turnoffs. Images must strongly support and illustrate the topic. Streaming video should only be used to promote a concept that might otherwise be difficult to comprehend.
- A typical system is pretty complex so I would like to encourage submission of a brief narrative of what the desired system is intended to achieve, followed by our phone response to offer various tactics for achieving the desired results. Usually a bid job will include a set of specifications and blue prints and does not lend itself to a pre-formatted solution.
- I note however, that convenience stores and the like sometimes just want to know what a "four camera system" costs. In a case like this I would like to have a simple configuration wizard that will help configure the desired system and then supply typical costs including lease to purchase plans so the monthly figure appears reasonable.
- Yola said... Yes, I do believe that such a wizard would be very useful in the website. This would be very useful for the Business to Business sector because it would aid the business in deciding what security system would be best for their company. I also think that it could potentially reduce cost for your company, because you wouldn't have to use "man hours" for someone to go to the business to talk about the different security systems that you have but instead they can do it on their own time and get a customized security system for their business. I really like this idea of the wizard incorporated into the website.
George said... Thank you, I agree and I'll be interested to see where this "wizard" concept appears in the web plan so it's not forgotten when the plan goes to development.
An acceptable content description will state that on a particular web page, the person linking to the page will be able to view or interact
with a specific kind of data to accomplish a specific objective or set of objectives. For example: If the web page is "Request Service/Installation"
an acceptable description might be, "if a current customer would like to request service or installation, they can do so online by filling out an online form with
information like problem area, description of service or install, products desired, contact information, dates available for service,
and business information."
If a quick sketch of the web page is added to the report appendix as a visual illustration, so much the better; but I don't want
anyone to get bogged down in the details of a particular web page to the detriment of a good, balanced description of each page
and of the navigation scheme for the entire site.
The details of update, maintenance, backup and so forth are beyond the scope of study for this course. I'll count on the web
implementation team working with the Everest folks and our server technical group to work out the practical implementation
details based on the descriptions provided in your BUAD 477 report.
You can cover most of it under part 2 and then allude to it under part 3. That way you do not have to repeat it under part 3 and you
can save a lot of space.
I can budget $10,000 during 2006 for physical development, exclusive of hosting, server and maintenance costs.
I would like to see a plan that envisions a complete site but with the structure rolled-out incrementally according to
the perceived business value. The idea is to build the complete puzzle, placing the most important pieces into position first.
When any offsite location is linked from our site, I would like that site to appear within the frame of our site so that it
is easy to navigate back into our site. Links to offsite locations should appear wherever appropriate, such as from our product
pages, link pages, white-paper pages, etc. as you might recommend.
- If a customer wishes to purchase an item from us that they intend to install themselves we can ship it direct to them via UPS and
we would like to accept their VISA, MasterCard, American Express or PayPal through the website.
- If they wish us to install the item or wish us to service their system, they can either describe their requirement to us through
the website to enable us to give them a quote or they can phone us to discuss it in more detail. If they then wish to pay by the means
cited above, they can either authorize payment through the website or over the phone, whatever way they find most convenient.
- If they wish to apply to us for payment terms, they should find a credit application on the website.
- If they wish to apply to us for a lease arrangement, they should find the lease application and the lease calculator on the website.
Yes, I would like to encourage more use of credit cards. While there is a cost to us when the customer uses the card, there is also a greater certainty that we will actually receive payment. I think the speed of the completed transaction works in everyone's favor.
Yes, I'm always interested in cutting administrative/operating costs, or at least maintaining the current level in face of increased
sales. Cutting costs can be accomplished by automating as much of our processes as possible and by avoiding the conversion of
transactions into paper artifacts, storing them in electronic form for easy search and recovery. You may have other ideas as well.
If we could cut costs by just 10%, it would be a welcome accomplishment.
We are interested in system innovation from the standpoint of our APPLICATION of innovative products to benefit our
customers. The actual product innovation comes from the research and development of the product manufacturers. For instance,
there is new technology available that enables existing CCTV systems to intelligently and automatically look for and identify
the suspicious behaviors that a guard watching the image might otherwise be looking for. Having the system identify and call
attention to these behaviors would enable the guard to spend more time taking action rather than just watching the screen.
While we don't create the innovative product, we DO help our customers identify where such a product might be useful and how
much could be saved by its application.
I mentioned intelligent surveillance technology in my response to the system innovation question, so this would be one
kind of "new" system. A second would be the innovative application of digital 360 degree cameras. These cameras are
installed as a small ceiling dome, and while the camera itself is stationary, its electronics allows you to actually scan
and record everything in the room, and to play it back using a joystick so you can selectively look at whatever part of the
room is of interest. The effect is similar to the effect you see when you go to a Realtor website that has
a "Virtual Tour" of a room in a
house, and using the cursor you can view up, down, and all around the room and zoom in on details to your heart's content.
These are the two most likely innovative products to be offered in the upcoming year.
Assume that the six-month business financial results previously communicated form a baseline condition
from which to assess the success of the launched website (just double these figures to arrive at a close
approximation of our anticipated 12-month 2005 year-end results). The change in results are anticipated to be generated largely
through the benefits realized from our new website and are desired for year-end 2006.
I cannot read a draft of your document prior to submission as in fairness I would have to do it for everyone in the class.
So I will only answer your specific questions based on what I understand from your email.
If you cannot find out extra information, George has provided information
on what is happening in that industry...use that information to the best
possible extent.
You again have to refer to the FAQs that we have put together, and the BUAD444
report...most of these topics have been addressed in that report. Topics
like competition have been addressed in various parts of the FAQs also.
The general environment deals more with factors that are offline....for
example, you can talk about how the economy affects the online environment
specifically in the online section, and talk about how the economy affects
the overall business environment in the general section.
I do not mind bullet points as long as a small description/explanation/justification follows these bullet points. Just
having a phrase in a bullet point will not help your grade.
The Web marketing action plan is a step by step list of tasks that you will
lay out. These tasks will help you achieve the marketing plan strategies
that you have laid out in the earlier part of the report. In this step you
will talk about the backend work that has to be done to start your website
and keep it running...for example things like signing a deal with someone to
write your newsletters so that you can put them up on the website is one
such task, registering the domain name and making the site secure is another
such task. If you decided to deliver your products through UPS, discussing
the terms with UPS and finalizing a delivery schedule is another such task.
The site development plan on the other hand, deals exclusively with issues
regarding the actual website such as, the content, the design, and
the construction of the website.
I am asking you to consider all the suggestions that you have made and put
them in a timeline and tell the client what needs to be done and when...for
instance, lay out all the tasks that need to be done in the first 3
months...the next 3 months and so on....also, make sure you justify why you
are recommending this particular order of tasks.
Based on your recommendations, find out the approximate costs of whatever you are recommending from the web, and then determine if what George has is enough. Another way to go about it is to make the first set of recommendations fit within George's budget. You can find out approximate costs of implementing some changes (like adding banner ads, or renting a server etc...) by searching on Google or Yahoo. It is enough if you find out the approximate costs...I don't need the exact quote.
You can just briefly explain what it will say. I do not need to see a real privacy statement. Usually those statements
are constructed in consultation with lawyers, so I will not expect the actual statement from you.
I just want the front page plus the main pages that have links/tabs on the front page, these should not exceed 7-8 pages at the
most. For example, if you go to www.1800flowers.com you will see tabs on the top of the page that
take you to the different important sections of the website. I want you to do the storyboards for the pages that you will see
when you click on those links. So you will have the cover page + 5/6 more pages depending on the number of tabs that you have.
You definitely need to address all the design issues that have been specified in Chapter 14. Other than that, discuss only
those design issues that you think are important.
Back to Business Quest
Copyright 2005 by
American SecuriComm.
This material is confidential and may be NOT be distributed beyond those BUAD477 students and faculty actively engaged on this Project.