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__**World Vision Canada: //A look into the non-profit organization//**__

Expanding a business or non-profit organization to an e-business setting can be beneficial, yet difficult at the same time. It can be beneficial because a business' awareness is increased due to a large population. It can be difficult to expand in an online environment because of the competition that can be found. Of course, utilizing e-business technologies does not guarantee simple success. Even if a business were to secure an awareness online, it must realize that it is necessary to adapt to the ever-growing environment. The following will focus on a specific non-profit organization (World Vision) and will analyze the operations they run, the challenges they face and will propose viable solutions to expand their brand awareness and increase their numbers of accounts by improving their e-business technology and strategy. For information, the e-marketing coordinator for World Vision Canada, Ariane Chuong, was contacted.

The main focus of World Vision is stated in their mission statement: //World Vision is a Christian relief, development and advocacy organization dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. As followers of Jesus, we are motivated by God’s love to serve all people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or gender.// //-World Vision Canada website// Like other charities, their goal is to act as the bridge between those less fortunate and those who are willing to donate. These donations are received through different processes. Traditionally, the donations started personally by people giving money or perishables through the organization. In public places, World Vision also uses canvassing to add clients to their databases and generate donations for their cause. As a traditional process, this method is used because it still gains more profit than invested and it is a personal way of connecting to their clients (Chuong 2009). Another personal way of connecting to people is through print. While canvassing, they give out flyers filled with information or they mail information to their current clients obtained from their database.

The organization then expanded into the media through television and telephone campaigns. By doing this, a wider audience is reached and more people are helped. Since then, different technologies have been implemented to attract and attain clients. The television and telephone campaigns are used together. Promotions on television is aired and potential clients are directed to a specific number. Additionally with telephone campaigns, the organization calls current as well as potential clients. Chuong could not provide exact details on how the list of potential clients were received, but did note that some contacts were received through surveys during their canvassing campaigns.

Through use of the internet, their database is expanded since it is a large environment to work in. According to Chuong, “online has been one of the main revenue drivers for World Vision” (Chuong 2009). Because of this, one can see how beneficial an e-business strategy can be. They are opened to new information systems, technologies and even alliances that can be utilized through an e-system. These opportunities can lead to efficiency and effectiveness, the strengthening of their cause and an increase in clients in their database.

When looking at non-profit organizations, especially charities, the fundamental operations primarily deal with people. In an online environment, one can see how expansive their target market can be. It can also be used to add new demographics to their database. Charities with strong presences online, however, do compete with each other and this becomes a challenge for individual organizations. This can be changed by implementing tactics to differentiate each organization. While a lot of charities differ from each other according to their cause, some are similar and need to show difference between them. As seen on their websites, charities with a strong online presence offer simple donation systems where people can sign up for an account and make payments periodically. Others use e-campaigns to promote their causes in order to increase the number of accounts or clients they have.

World Vision Canada uses their own social media strategy to gain awareness for their cause. With social media forums like Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and Youtube channels the organization is able to reach out to a larger population. More specifically, it can reach an untapped market that some organizations may fail to recognize due to the following of traditional methods. In a technological environment, it is important for any organization to realize what is being used and should be able to act accordingly by following or perhaps even starting the trend. By being at the forefront of technology in general, an organization has a speed advantage over its competitors.

While online marketing is an essential strategy to gaining awareness and clients, it can only go so far. Even with a strong following, it can be assumed that not even the majority will become clients and will only “support” what an organization is doing. Additionally, if not for the use of certain information systems, these social media forums may not have been established in the first place.

Moving to an online setting is always going to change things for any organization. It is up to the business to adapt accordingly by developing strategies to grow and compete in the e-setting. Chuong mentions how World Vision is always willing to adapt, but some factors may hinder this willingness. While it may be simple to plan for it, implementing it does involve strategic thought.

Chuong mentions how some of their information systems are also useful in an e-setting. World Vision uses a combination of request systems for teams, content management systems for different sites and resource libraries from the field. As e-marketing coordinator, these systems make it simpler for Chuong “to search for, view and track things in specific locations” (2009). It replaces traditional phone calling and even email with almost realtime technology. Such systems can provide research for the organization helping them develop ways to react to certain situations.

Some of the operations mentioned above, however, cannot be done by just the organization. A lot of businesses have to create alliances with other companies to help them strengthen their company's awareness and improve their processes. World Vision is partnered with FieldWorker Mobile Technology Solutions to help one of their processes. FieldWorker Mobile Technology Solutions is a “developer of mobile data solutions, and provider of rapid application development utilities and tool kits for integrators, software developers, corporations and governments” (FieldWorker 2009). With World Vision, they have created “Last Mile Mobile Solutions” (LMMS) and use it as a part of their food aid. What is beneficial about this, is that there is no longer a need for the traditional “pen and paper” model which consisted of collecting fingerprints and recording it in paper journals. As noted on the World Vision Canada website (2009), LMMS is currently being utilized in pilot phase and is currently helping approximately thirty-thousand people in Kenya and Lesotho.

With the LMMS technology, all that is needed is an ID card for a family in need of support and a mobile device used to read the card (World Vision 2009). Once an ID card is swiped, the mobile device matches the information with what is contained in a laptop that has the organization’s database. The database notifies the device of how much food the family receives and the support aids promptly follow what is directed to them. Compared to the traditional model, this speeds up the process and provides a more accurate way of providing rations. Overall, this results in accurate and faster data management for internal use and also field operations. World Vision Canada uses a strong set of systems and processes to gain support for its cause. There are, however, factors involved that affect such systems and processes and may result in the halting of expansion. The following will focus on what can be improved with some of these systems and processes as well as how it can possible solutions be implemented by use of a Strength Weakness Opportunity and Threat (SWOT) analysis.


 * Swot Analysis**

In order to understand and further evaluate the ability for World Vision Canada to adapt new e-business strategies, it is crucial to use a SWOT analysis in order to gain further insight into the organization.

__Strengths:__ World Vision Canada contributes in the synergy of World Vision being the 3rd largest recognized charitable organization in the world, producing over 1 billion in revenue a year (Charity Navigator, 2006). World Vision Canada can utilize this information in order to instil trust, credibility, and truth of the organization’s core mission statement and overall goals in order to maintain and obtain new donators. Further, the organization make their revenue allocations accessible on the World Vision Canada website in order to further indicate to their donators how all of their received profit is divided. World Vision Canada indicates that, “82.1% of our revenue supports programs that combat poverty and help children and communities in need.” (World Vision Canada, 2008) Leaving 11.9% of their profit towards fundraising costs and 6% of their profit towards administration fees. As a result, this proves to World Vision Canada clients, supporters, and new donators that a strong majority of their monetary donations go wards the actual program.

Another strength that World Vision Canada (as well as World Vision organizations located across the globe) has is its Last Mile Mobile Solutions (LMMS) technology infrastructure. When World Vision converted from paper-documented-data entry to a mobile technology system, this resulted in the food and monetary distribution more efficient, productive, and less of a wait for the locals receiving what they needed; ultimately creating their notion of “technology for humanitarian aid” and improve the results to the beneficiaries of the organization’s works. Further, the LMMS technology system eliminates the reliance of paper-based systems, resulting in a more sustainable and eco-friendly practiced company.

__Weaknesses:__

Even though World Vision Canada has many strengths pertaining its website and technological strategies, there are still certain weaknesses that the organization can work to fix or improve. First, the organization is reputable for being too traditional. In the interview, Chuong stated that, “World Vision overall is really open to adopting to new technologies. [but] The pace at which this can happen can sometimes be slower than desirable…” (Chuong, 2009) For instance, Kenya and Lesotho are the only two countries that have implemented the LMMN technology system. It is not until 2010 that LMMN will begin to be implemented in the rest of the World Vision affiliated countries resulting in the old fashioned paper-data-base system still being in use to this date in most of the countries. Another weaknesses of World Vision Canada has is its heavy paper use. Loba, an “activist for humanity” blogger indicates, “As your programs and campaigns exist and run on sponsor donations, using any funding for advertising or marketing campaigns such as mailing the sponsors toy wristbands to send to their sponsor children is a definite waste of valuable resources, time, money and paper.” (Loba, 2007) Loba is a long time donator to World Vision Canada and has been repulsed by the organization’s constant use of paper advertisements. Even though this is an effective marketing strategy, World Vision Canada should make more use of e-marketing strategy in order to be more sustainable and eco-friendly. Further, e-marketing has recently been more effective as the recent heavily use of the internet.

__Opportunities__:

Chuong informed us that WorldVision had an open attitude towards embracing new technologies. This can be seen as an opportunity as the corporation’s general attitude towards new technologies is vital in its ability to stay ahead of its competitors. The direction that an organization chooses in this respect is important to its total outcome. Since WorldVision has chosen to adopt an open attitude towards technology, it has led them to new opportunities. As previously stated, the internet is WorldVision’s main market as they receive the bulk of their revenue from this source. This market can be seen as an opportunity as it is vast and is constantly growing. Since online donating is relatively new, the potential to grow its market is high.

Chuong mentions in the interview that the organization utilizes several information systems. Three in particular stood out. They include a request system for teams, content management systems for the website as well as resource libraries for the field. There is an opportunity here for an improved information system. Chuong mentions in the interview that she feels the organization can improve its processes by creating synergies via integration. In this case, introducing a new information system that will match this description will help fulfill a need of the organization.

Chuong mentions that one of her greatest challenges is engaging the Canadian market to generate donations. She also states that social media is an integral part of their organizations online strategy. Currently social media is the most popular forms of the media on the internet with websites like Facebook and Twitter leading the way. By analyzing Chuong’s assessment of the organization’s challenges along with its commitment to social media, we are able to understand the opportunity that lies within its social media strategy. By leveraging their technologies towards social media, they will potentially address their challenge of engaging the Canadian market.

__Threats__:

While the internet can pose to be an opportunity, it can also pose to be a threat in certain situations. The speed at which the internet evolves can lead to a great disadvantage as organizations can be left behind if unprepared. This can be due to factors such as not having the proper infrastructure to upgrade to new technologies as well as lacking the skill to take advantage of new emerging technologies. Upgrading the technology and retraining employees would prove costly in this situation. Another threat that may serve to put WorldVision at a disadvantage would be their competitor’s ability to utilize the same technologies. The nature of the internet allows the sharing of technologies. In this case it would be easy to analyze which type of technology and strategy an organization implemented in order to achieve success. This ease of access allows any organization to replicate the success of one of their competitors.


 * __Possible Solutions__**

By analyzing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of an organization, it would be best to provide a solution for or even improve a system or process. The following will focus on different improvements or implementations that can be used to strengthen World Vision Canada’s cause. It will look to improve its current strategies and processes (LMMS and social media) and also implement different systems including the use of knowledge management systems.

__Last Mile Mobile Solutions__

The LMMS technology is very useful especially for receiving and updating information instantaneously. As stated earlier, however, it is limiting since it presently reaches only two countries and a population of almost thirty-thousand. While it may seem like a large amount of people, it barely covers the entire amount of people in need of their support. While the traditional “paper and pen” model is still being used in the other countries, it would be beneficial to have the LMMS system to provide an efficient way of distributing food aid. The problem to this, however, is that it does cost money to implement and as a non-profit organization, they do take a big risk when funding such projects.

Since it is still in the planning stages, there are opportunities to expand what they offer. Such things include more than food such as clothing and money. Clothing can be distributed the same way food is. Money, on the other hand, would be different since more caution would be involved. It can be transferred from World Vision to specific families based on need. One of the main problems with this type of solution from an e-business perspective, however, is cost. There are many economic factors involved including exchange rates and actually assessing how much each family would need per period. Another implementation to their LMMS strategy is the connection with a sponsor to the community they are supporting. Since each family is given an ID, their sponsor can be given an ID as well since they would have an account with World Vision. If the sponsor would like to donate funds to a community they are sponsoring, they can use World Vision Canada’s online donation system connected with their client database and sponsored community. With the money donated, World Vision can convert that to what can be given and give it to the family or community being supported (*see diagram attached*). This provides an efficient way of getting donations from one person to another. Even if it is on an online setting, it still manages to keep that personal connection between the sponsor and the community.

__Analysis of Improving Social Media Strategy__

Corporations joining the social media network bandwagon have become vital in its marketing success. One potential change that World Vision Canada can implement is to increase their online presence and use of social media websites; especially websites such as facebook, youtube, and twitter. Currently, World Vision has 2,102 fans on Facebook, 793 followers on Twitter, and 47 subscribers on Youtube. Clearly, even though World Vision has created an account on these social media websites, there is a lack of traffic onto these pages, which results in a lack of awareness of World Vision Canada for Facebookers, Youtubers, and Tweeters.

For starters, it was inconvenient and inaccessible to find these three links on the Internet as there was no link from the actual World Vision Canada Website. These pages were searched on google in hopes that the first few websites were the actual Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter World Vision Canada created pages. As a result, there is a lack of promotion and accessibility of these websites for donators (as well as those who do not know much about the organization) to find. There is also an ineffective use of their resources as a lot of updates regarding World Vision can be mediated through these websites. However, though it is important for organizations such as World Vision to be on social media websites, it will not necessarily make the greatest impact on generating new clients for the organization as there are more important and effective solutions in reaching out to those who are unaware of World Visions goals and getting them to donate.

Knowledge Management System

Chuong mentions in the interview that the organization utilizes several information systems. Three in particular stood out. They include a request system for teams, content management systems for the website as well as resource libraries for the field. There is an opportunity here for an improved information system. Chuong mentions in the interview that she feels the organization can improve its processes by creating synergies via integration. In this case, introducing a new information system that will match this description will help fulfill a need of the organization.

Taking the opportunity for an improved information system to satisfy the need for greater synergy within the organization leads us to the solution of implementing a knowledge management system. A knowledge management system is an IT system that supports the capture, organization, and dissemination of knowledge throughout the organization (Haag p27). Implementing a knowledge system that encompasses the functions of many smaller information systems scattered throughout the organization will reduce redundancy and increase efficiency. It could also potentially foster new business processes that could lead to new gains for the organization. Fostering communication and collaboration could also improve the organization’s culture. Some disadvantages include the training of employees to utilize and embrace this new technology as it could seem intimidating at first. Another disadvantage is that it could be time consuming and expensive to implement and lastly there is no guarantee that the employees will respond the way that the software is intended.


 * __The Chosen Solution__**

From the selection of solutions, we decided to chose the Knowledge Management system as it solves the long-term challenge that Ariane describes. This challenge addresses the lack of synergy within the organization and the Knowledge Management system solves this by integrating all the organizations information into one flexible, easy to access system. We chose this solution over the others as this addresses a core issue as well as improving processes across the entire organization. The particular KM system that we would recommend for WorldVision is SAP’s Netweaver. Their knowledge management system works to structure and classify the organization’s vast array of information to turn it into usable information that will improve decision making and collaboration. The Netweaver system presents all this information through the main enterprise portal through a configurable set of connectors, repositories, and services (SAP 2009). A powerful search engine is also implemented in the portal to index all the information for faster accessibility. User access levels can be modified by a central administration system to maintain security and streamline work flows. WorldVision can integrate their existing information system into the knowledge system and thus improve their functions and potential. The three main information systems that Ariane mentioned included the submit form for teams, the resource library, and the content management system. Submit forms can be integrated by first categorizing the KM system into sections that represent their department. From here a submit section can be easily added to the teams category to enable that function. So if anyone wanted to submit a request form to a particular team, they would search the team name up, fill out a form and submit it. The resource library would seamlessly integrate into the KM system as all it would require is to input the information into the system and to categorize it under an appropriate title to discover it. The content management system would be more difficult as its functions rely on specific software that cannot be integrated into the system. However, the CMS can be linked to the KM system so it can be edited from within it. This would prove more difficult to create a synergistic environment as user access would be limited to only web developers. This can be remedied by enabling as request or submit form in the web developer area to receive information for the website from all parts of the organization. The KM system allows for a high degree of flexibility to implement a variety of functions within it. This nature of the KM system will allow it to continually grow as the organization does, having the ability to add new functions as the organization develops new processes. By creating an open-ended environment that fosters the collaboration of information WorldVision can achieve greater synergy through integration.

__**Conclusion**__ World Vision Canada has implemented a strong set of information systems and processes into their operations. With resource libraries, request systems and content management systems, their ability to maintain and track data organization-wide proves to be essential. Of course, there is room for improvement and implementation. The social media strategy can be improved to receive more clients and the LMMS technology can be improved to provide more than food aid and expand to even more countries. Since they look for more of a synergy, however, a knowledge management system would be best to implement. With such a strong set of information systems, combining it to one centralized system would help with their main problem. The systems are already available to them, so it is just a matter of implementation.

"Charity Navigator." //Charity Navigator//. 2006. Web. Nov. 2009. < @http://www.charitynavigator.org/ >.
 * Works Cited**

Chuong, Ariane. "World Vision Canada - E-Marketing Coordinator Interview." E-mail interview. 18 Nov. 2009. Loba. "Loba Blogs." //Loba Blogs//. Oct. 2008. Web. Nov. 2009. < @http://lobaf.wordpress.com/about/ >. Haag et all. // Management Information Systems //. 3rd ed. China: McGraw-Hill, 2006. Print // Knowledge Management with SAP Netweaver //. SAP, May & june 2004. Web. 27 Nov. 2009. . //World Vision Canada - Sponsor a child//. Web. Nov. 2009. < [|http://www.worldvision.ca] >.

"Welcome to FieldWorker." //Field Worker Mobile Technology Solutions//. Web. Nov. 2009. < [] >.