Online Business Expansion Proposal - 3850 Words

Online Business Expansion Proposal (Research Proposal Sample) Content: ONLINE BUSINESS EXPANSION PROPOSALSurnameInstitutionONLINE BUSINESS EXPANSION PROPOSALViability of product or service An essential part of expanding an online real estate management business is determining the viability of this service or product being sold. To achieve this, one needs to perform market research in an effort to gain information on the level of demand for such service or product one is planning to offer, as well as where potential buyers can be found. Then an examination of the competition in that marketplace, which is the internet, should be carried out in order to find out where an individual stands. Finally, a market or position niche should be established for the real estate management service or product. A market research comprises of finding different groups of potential customers, with interest in property management who by any chance might be interested in the real estate service or product. One need to find out what the customers needs are and which of those needs they can meet with they plan to offer. In most cases, there is always a service or product demand but the prospects or potential buyers appear to be highly few. Other times there appears to be many potential buyers whose demands cannot be met. Good research will always leave room for finding the viability of selling this service or product. One needs to always know where the competition is. Which businesses are providing similar services or products? From this knowledge, one can easily analyze the competition in order to determine the demand for their product, and the supply. One must look at the world-wide competition all over the internet. Whenever competing with larger companies, it is best to establish a market niche that cannot be effectively touched by the competition. Determining ones market niche is critical in gaining potential buyers and customers for the property management service or product. Businesss case for making changes to the website A busine ss case refers to an argument that is usually documented, intended to convince any decision maker to approve some action. The strength of the online real estate management business case is as essential as the value inherent in the whole project. If individuals cannot demonstrate the value of the online property management business, then its value will never be understood. And if the value of the project to the online real estate management business is never understood, then the proposal is unlikely to be approved. This document should follow a standard format that appears relevant to any project. Why does it make sense to go online? There are many reasons to take a property management business online. Like the freedom to work from home or even anywhere, and the desire to make more money. Most online business will require a laptop and the discipline of using it. Online businesses and internet commerce keep growing annually and online advertising is among the fastest growing segments of the market.Advantages and challenges of going online The internet appears to be a vast equalizer. Although big corporations exist online, there is still room for the small businesses. If an individual is willing to learn and has the ambition, there are many opportunities to explore. If one is low on cash, the low initial capital input comes into play. An online property management business runs around the clock. Business owners easily make money as they are asleep! Going online is also accompanied by various challenges. Finding a niche is one of them. The internet appears to be an extremely competitive marketplace, where only a few ideas enjoy long-term success. Competition from other large businesses such as eBay and Amazon requires well positioning of the real estate management service or product as well as a viable niche. Another challenge is technology; online consumers will always avoid the websites experiencing frequent outages and do not provide adequate purchasing securi ty. Investing in security options and reliable servers as well updating ones technology continuously in an effort to address the newest threats, is vital in maintaining consumer confidence and establishing a strong online brand. Another challenge is logistics. Even if ones property management business exists in cyberspace, their potential buyers will always expect real, tangible services and goods in the same way the business owner will expect to receive real, usable money in return. Making an individuals online real estate management business valuable for them, and their potential customers in the real world calls for individuals to think through and invest in ways to ship goods, transfer payments and easily receive the money, provide customer service as well as stay on the safe side of various legal issues such as import tariffs, copyright restrictions and taxes. Marketing is also an online business challenge. Internal marketing, including everything like the social media campaign s to website copy and email blitzes, is a highly competitive and technical space. The internet provides the opportunity of reaching a global customer base, but at the same time the danger of wasting ones budget and content on other individuals who have no real interest in the service or product. Current Online Competitor Assessment An online competitor assessment or the competitive analysis refers to an online business-planning tool, that accounts for the presence as well as the potential impact that competitors offer on the online business decisions. It involves an assessment of the competition in the market aimed at informing online business decisions. Its purpose is to help account for the presence of competitors when making online property management business decisions. Market trend refers to the tendency of a financial market to move in one given direction over time. Trends can be classified as secondary for a short time frames, primary for the medium time frames and secular fo r a long time frame. Marketing concepts are the management philosophy according to which an online business can be best achieved, through satisfaction and identification of the potential customers stated and unstated wants and needs. Competitor Websites Zillow.comIt is a home as well as a real estate marketplace that is dedicated to assisting homeowners, home, sellers, real estate agents, renters, property managers and landlords share and finds information about real estate, mortgages and homes. RentersWarehouse.com This is Marylands fastest growing residential property management firm. This firm offers both Maryland tenant placement services as well as Maryland Property Management. The online business fills over 1700 properties annually, and it currently manages over half a billion dollars worth of residential real estate. It is dedicated to assisting every property owner to manage or rent their residential real estate with cost-effective, comprehensive property management services that give the maximum ROI on the rental property investment. RealEstate.com Offers a simplified means of Home selling and Home buying, it features for-sale property listings across the United States of America, including foreclosed homes and rentals as well as new construction of houses. The real estate listings on the site originate from multiple listing services countrywide, providing up to date and most accurate information on homes for sale. Online Marketing Suggestions Strategies Making use of the online strategies and methods helps build the online property management business bigger than it can be ever considered, with potential customers from all over the world. The customer refers to the group of potential customers that the online real estate management business is serving. In most cases, a large part of this group is comprised of repeat potential customers with a high ratio of purchase over time. They appear to be the main source of consumer spending. The customer base is normally considered the online property management businesss target market, where the potential customer behaviors are well understood through past experience or online market research. All the actions that the online property management businesses take would be through the consideration of its customer base. Consumer demographics refer to certain characteristics of individuals that better define them as the main potential buying groups. They can include household income, age, occupation, education or even gender. Once the online property management business better understands the various potential consumer demographics of each of their customer base, it can develop different marketing strategies that only target the key potential customers. Competitive advantage always seeks to address the criticism of comparative advantage. The competitive advantage theory suggests that businesses and states should only pursue policies that always create high quality goods, to sell in the mar kets at high prices. Competitive advantage occurs when an online business develops or acquires a given attribute or even a combination of attributes that give it an opportunity to outperform its competitors. In the aggressive online business world, every advantage always counts to establish the online business at the top of the industry. Gaining a competitive advantage takes extensive research and strategic planning. The target audience is a group of individuals within the targeted online market at which the service or product or even the marketing message of a product is always aimed. On the other hand, branding is among the latest trends that every online property management business is utilizing. Branding involves lots of technicalities that the online real estate management business has to deal with in order to succe...

The Philippines Drug Policy - Free Essay Example

I know [Elvin] was sleeping, because it was 3:30 a.m. It was very quiet, like a twilight zone. The police entered my house†no knocking or anything. I asked, ?Why are you there? They didnt respond. I said, Sir, please! Sir, stop! Sir, please! Each time, I heard a shot. Sir, please! Shot. Sir, stop! Shot. It was six [gunshots] in total. They say my son shot them. No. They say my son ran. No. (If You Are Poor, You Are Killed 22). On June 30, 2016, Rodrigo Duterte assumed office as the new President of the Philippines. This day would forever change the lives of many of the Philippines most vulnerable citizens: the poor and those addicted to drugs. The new president was elected by winning 39% of the popular vote. His biggest campaign promise? His commitment to free the country of ?undesirables; namely drug dealers and drug users. To achieve this goal, he initiated a domestic drug policy more commonly known as the Philippine Drug War. Since this policy was enacted, more than 12,000 Filipino citizens have been killed either by police forces or other citizens in extrajudicial killings (Palatino). Police operate with raids and are known to knock on the door of suspects and kill them on sight. The quote above is merely one example of a recount of police violence in a Filipino citizens home. The Filipino public are urged by the government to fight against their neighbors thought to be involved with drugs, either reporting them to the police or killing them themselves. The problem is growing with more and more Filipinos victimized by the government every day. At the heart of the Philippine drug war lies the ?Oplan Tokhang project or ?Knock and Plead Operation Plan (If You Are Poor, You Are Killed 19). A major aspect of this project is a list compiled by police and community members of all the suspected drug dealers and users in a particular community. This list is then submitted to municipal and police authorities. Police officers in these communities often identify users or dealers based on personal knowledge or opinion, not evidence (If You Are Poor, You Are Killed 20). The police officers then use these lists to target houses where they will knock on the doors and demand that a person surrender to the police. The families of those targeted identify two potential responses from the drug user. They can either refuse to surrender, and potentially face death, or they can surrender in which they must ?voluntarily provide information, fingerprints, photographs, accept surveillance and drug testing, and pledge that they will no longer use drugs (If You Are Poor, You Are Killed 20). Upon submitting all of this information, many drug users and dealers face aggression later from the police and the greater community. Police commonly kill citizens suspected of drug use in what are known as ?buy and bust operations. The police attempt to buy drugs from drug dealers and then supposedly kill the dealers in self defense. The use of force in self defense is extremely disputed because many of the dealers are known to not own weapons, and police are rarely injured or killed in these operations (If You Are Poor, You Are Killed 24). Additionally, many deaths labelled as ?buy and bust are actually police entering the homes of suspected dealers or users and killing them or simply killing them on the street. Even with witnesses, the police have the protection of the government, and are not being prosecuted. The president has addressed police officers saying: Do your duty,If in the process you kill 1,000 persons because you were doing your duty I will protect you, and if they will try to impeach me, I will hurry up the process and we go out of the service together (Worley). By saying this, President D uterte is essentially encouraging police officers to kill suspected drug users legally or illegally. Police are not the only ones killing citizens for drug use. President Duterte has encouraged the public numerous times to take matters into their own hands. In a campaign speech in a Manila slum, Duterte said to the public: If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful (Worley). Masked gunmen are known to show up and shoot people previously identified as drug dealers from the watch list. Several of these gunmen anonymously reported to Amnesty International investigators that they were oftentimes paid by police officers for their work. The masked killers said The rate dependsIt depends by the person. Usually we dont have multiple targets per project, but [when we do], were paid per head (If You Are Poor, You Are Killed 37). The police are paying assassins to kill drug users, and there is rarely any legal action taken against the killers. These extrajudicial killings are rampant and are occurring with consent from the government at large. A country that has demonstrated an overarching compliance with drug culture would be the Netherlands. The Netherlands openly tolerates the recreational usage and possession of non-medicinal drugs in its borders (Drugs). The Dutch view a drug free society as fundamentally unattainable and believe that their drug policy should instead focus on minimizing harm from drug use. Although drugs are not technically legal in the Netherlands; the law is not enforced in many scenarios. In order to enact the drug policy in the Netherlands, the government first published the Opium Act, which distinguished between two different categories of drugs. The first, labeled ?hard drugs encompasses drugs with a high risk for harm including heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, and ecstasy. The other category, labeled ?soft drugs includes marijuana, hash, sleeping pills, and various types of sedatives (Drugs). The use and sale of hard drugs are harshly regulated by the Dutch government. It would be considered highly illegal to sell cocaine or heroin in the Netherlands. The usage and sale of soft drugs however, is ?tolerated. The Netherlands has operated under a policy of non-enforcement when it comes to the possession and sale of soft drugs. Coffee shops in the Netherlands are permitted to sell cannabis to adult Dutch citizens (Rolles). The Netherlands has enacted this policy in order to distinguish the use of drugs not identified as harms to society from drugs that can cause serious harm. Possession and sale of soft drugs is not prosecuted because they are not associated with a high risk to health (Drugs). The success of this policy is outlined with a variety of statistics. The rates of cannabis usage in the Netherlands is lower than in neighboring countries and is significantly lower than in the United States. The rates of lifetime heroin usage in the Netherlands is 1/3 that of in the United States (Rolles). In the United States, both cannabis and heroin usage are prosecuted severely by the law in most states. These statistics show an interesting correlation between the open toleration of certain drugs and their usage. Additionally, only 14% of cannabis users say they could obtain other drugs from their cannabis source as opposed to 52% in neighboring Sweden (Rolles). This statistic in particular indicates the way in which the Opium Act has benefitted the country. The government wanted to separate the sale of ?hard drugs from the sale of ?soft drugs, making it much more difficult to find hard drugs in places where soft drugs are easily accessed. Although the Netherlands drug policy is extremely different from the Philippines, I believe that the Filipino government could take some aspects of the Netherlands policy in distinguishing between the use of drugs associated with harm and the use of drugs not associated with harm. Because Dutertes campaign focuses so much on how drugs are a harm to society, it would be beneficial to scientifically and socially identify which drugs are actually causing a public nuisance and which drugs are solely providing the user with a personal high. The separation of drugs by type could provide Dutertes administration with a more comprehensive understanding of their true affect on society. Additionally, the general concept of toleration for others could ensure that citizens are not getting murdered by the government for having an addiction. Amnesty International, a globally influential non-governmental organization focused on human rights launched an investigation into the Philippines War on Drugs in January of 2017. They interviewed many families of victims, police officers, and low level members of the presidential administration. Following the investigation, the organization expressed deeply held concern with the killings, and identifies them as potential crimes against humanity (If You Are Poor, You Are Killed 62). The organization offered several recommendations to a variety of leaders in the Philippines and abroad. To President Duterte, they suggest he immediately order an end to all police operations involving unnecessary or excessive use of force, in particular the use of lethal force during the arrest of suspected drug offenders (If You Are Poor, You Are Killed 62). This suggestion would require the police to avoid using excessive force when dealing with criminals and would also encourage the legal system to fairly and justly prosecute police involved in arrests involving injury and death. The organization also calls on him to end the use of any language that calls for or excuses violence against alleged drug offendersand recant previous use of such language (If You Are Poor, You Are Killed 62). I believe this suggestion would have particular impact on the situation in the Philippines. The President of a nation acts as their spokesperson, and a role model for its citizens. When the President is verbally encouraging something as heinous as murder, it makes it seems as though murder is a socially acceptable activity if the result is supposedly reduced crime. Dutertes withdrawal of his previous statements could prove influential in changing the mindset of many Filipino citizens. Amnesty International additionally offered recommendations to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. The organization states that Unless key steps recommended here are promptly taken, initiate a preliminary examination into unlawful killings in the Philippines violent anti-drug campaign and related crimes under the Rome Statute, including the involvement of government officials, irrespective of rank and status (If You Are Poor, You Are Killed 66). The Rome Statute was the statute that established the International Criminal Court. It established four international crimes: crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. Under this statute, the court can investigate and prosecute crimes in which the government of a country is non complicit in an investigation (Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court). Encouraging the International Criminal Court to investigate the killings in the Philippines would incite a global reaction to the crimes. In February of 2018, the International Criminal Court did in fact launch an investigation into the situation. Chief Prosecutor of the Court, Fatou Bensouda declared any person in the Philippines who incites or engages in acts of mass violence including by ordering, requesting, encouraging or contributing, in any other manner, to the commission of crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC is potentially liable to prosecution before the Court (Santos). In response to this, Duterte continues to deny that he has any role in condoning the killings. Today, many police officers and members of Dutertes government continue to avoid prosecution for the crimes committed against Filipino citizens. Instead of being admitted into drug addiction therapy, people are being murdered for using or selling drugs. This policy is harming families and communities around the Philippines. The lack of concern for the wellbeing of some of the most vulnerable members of the Filipino society from the government is extremely harrowing. Hopefully one day the greater international community can figure out a way to stop these atrocities from continuing to occur.