Executive summary
Background and overview of Minkara group:

Minkara Group ltd. is a private limited Business Company owned and managed by the Minkara family based in Lebanon. It was founded in 1920, and ever since has developed several different business units over the years. Divisions such as rent a car, videophones, real estate, and parking facilities all make up Minkara Group.
Over the past years customers have been shifting rapidly towards the Internet as a new medium for doing transactions quickly and at reasonable low costs. Moreover, interactive media has lately been amongst the new technologies adopted by business worldwide in order to attain differentiation, customer retention, acquisition, and thus a sustainable competitive advantage. In reference to Minkara Group, the company’s current website has failed to exploit the opportunities offered by interactive media. This was the main reason why the senior manager of Minkara Group approached TheMink Consulting to undergo an investigation, which resulted in the following:

(Findings):
-Absence of interactivity and the dominance of an informative format
-Outdated information
-Lack of reliability
-Lack of a sustainable differentiation strategy

(Recommendations):
-Ensuring daily performance monitoring
-Introducing hyperlinks
-Developing online reservation forms
-Establishing discussion/Q & A board
-Introducing online payment facilities
-Enhancing search-engine optimization
-Enhancing graphics



(Implementation considerations)
-Hiring a specialized soft ware engineer for the development of the project
-Employing maintenance staff

(Financial and Time considerations):
It was not possible to come up with an exact amount of money needed for the above recommendations. In general, the cost of hiring the engineer the salary of the employee, software, and maintenance costs should all be taken into account in order to cover the cost of the entire project. From the experience of the author an approximation of 6,000,000 Lebanese pounds which is the equivalence of 2,600 GB. Pounds for the initiation of the project and a further monthly fee of approximately 900-1,200 G.B. pounds for the daily upgrading and monitoring of the website.

On the whole, improving the website will take an average of 31 days excluding any other period of market testing, further adjustments, and maintenance. [Refer to Table 1.3.2].

Current situation, Recommendations and Implications, & Conclusions


The Minkara group website (www.minkaragroup.com) successfully displays the five following strategic business units (SBU’s) consecutively: Interland real-estate, Budget Rent a Car, Mobil Oil auto service stations, car parks management, and finally a Global Video Conferencing unit (see A 3.1). From the web site, a conclusion can be made that the company has a good business portfolio and possess the facilities and capabilities for improvement.

Analyzing the macro-environment (STEP Analysis), the WWW is a new growing market for Minkara Group. According to statistics by the Lebanese government, more people are having access to the World Wide Web, and are willing to spend their money online (www.lebanon.com; www.dailystar.com.lb). The Lebanese culture is merging with the western culture. In addition, the geographical area has few legalities and regulations concerning websites (Westphal and Towell 1998).

The very fact that the modern consumer is better informed fuels his need for informed transactions with businesses. The modern consumer wants to know what product he is buying, what its detailed characteristics are, how he can expect it to perform, what alternatives he is faced with and why he should pay the offered price for it. The nature of interactive marketing on the Internet provides an ideal medium for the satisfaction of the demanding modern day consumer (Korgaonkar and Wolin 1999; Mohr & Nevin 1990).

It is obviously of critical importance that a marketer recognizes these needs and develops systems for satisfying them (Hagel and Armstrong 1997), hence, interactive marketing on the Internet.
Steyn (1996) confidently concludes that “There is therefore no doubt that interactive marketing is helping to overcome practical database and direct marketing problems while building more rewarding customer relationships” (Steyn 1996, p.13).

(Findings)

Due to the wide array of the business portfolio mentioned above, each business unit will have its own individual business report. In particular, this essay will provide the report for the most significant business unit Budget Rent a Car.
The investigation conducted resulted in the following findings:

According to Thelwall 2000, the first obstacle of a website is attracting visitors. “If the site does not get visited then its content is irrelevant” (Thelwall 2000, 150).
It was discovered that Minkara Group is one of the main sponsors of Lebanon.com (www.lebanon.com), Lebanon’s national web page (see A 3.2a), which receives an approximation of 3 million hits per day (www.lebanon.com, 2001). Minkara Group has several Banner advertisement and links on this page. According to Chatterjee (1996), banner ads are a form of “passive advertising exposure”. In other words, the consumer does not consciously decide to view the banner advertisement, but rather the banner ad is presented as an outcome of accessing a particular Web content page; in this case www.Lebanon.com. Thus, the more targeted the banner ad, the higher the click rate (Graham 1999). This is a great strength for the company considering that most of the people subjected to the banner advertisements are Lebanese living abroad as well as potential tourists, and the fact that Minkara Group offers the Budget car rental service, which is mainly a service that people are interested in when planning a visit to the country.
Yet:

-Although the web site is user friendly and easy to access, information on the core product is all it has to offer lacking interactivity with the customer (Peters 1998). Thus the secondary and augmented benefits (Kotler and Armstrong 1997) such as daily availability on cars, special deals, discounts, or seasonal price reductions are not being communicated leading to a clear lack of promotional mix (Jober1998). Therefore customers are depending on the physical branch and not relying on the Internet leading to little retention and acquisition. The above-mentioned factors are important for customer retention and loyalty. According to Ghose and Doo 1998, “Surfers who visit interactive sites may be more likely to positively evaluate the sites and their surfing experience than surfers who run into less interactive sites with static information” (Ghose & Doo 1998, 31).

-The investigation showed that the only offered facility of online reservation was through e-mails, which provides little customer satisfaction. On the other hand, through benchmarking (Misic & Johnson 1999), AVIS the main competitor have an online reservation form (see A 3.2b) and offer a more interactive/experiential website. This allows it to acquire international customers due to the fact that an application form is considered more effective/reliable/guaranteed and is processed in “real time” as opposed to waiting for an e-mail reply.

-It was noticed that the website is outdated. It was established in 1997, and was last updated in 1999 (see A 3.2c). The outdated information proves unreliable. Customers who are using the Internet are contacting the main branch for accurate information and discovering an inconsistency. Thus prefer to transact with the physical branch directly leading to less online retention.


(Recommendations and Implications)

Referring back to Porter’s quote, the recommendations on the online strategy for the budget rent a car unit will be developed to support the physical business itself rather than being merely a separate entity. This will ensure that the competitive advantage and existing core competences will be built upon and strengthened (Hamel and Prahalad 1994).

According to Parasuraman 2000, interactive media qualifies as a new technology in servicing customers. He stresses that the ease of use and perceived “fun” are critical factors for its acceptance. Equivalently, Hoffman and Novak also argue that that “flow” effect will lead to increased quality time. Ghose & Dou 1998, argue that one of the most influential ways of improving the quality of a website is by introducing the element of interactivity. Two main benefits will come out from adding interactivity to a website. First of all it will increase the quality of the site and hence become stronger on a competitive level, and attract new visitors. Secondly, the website will be more appealing to those who already visit the site making them more actively involved (Ghose & Dou 1998).

The investigation conducted resulted in the following recommendations:

-The first recommendation is to introduce daily performance monitoring in order to ensure that information is up-dated on a daily basis. Web site maintenance due to its reliance on a newly developed technology must receive special attention. This explains why a company may induce greater expenditure in the maintenance of a Web site rather than in the actual design and creation of the site (MacVittie 2000; Shea 2000)

-The second recommendation is to add hyperlinks next to each car picture, reading (available/not available). In this way, online customers will know in “real time” whether their desired car is available for rent or not. Thus leading to increased reliability, which will encourage customers to transact online more frequently.

-The third recommendation is an online reservation form instead of e-mail reservations. This is an important aspect for the Lebanese people living abroad and other tourist’s who will be our main target audience. This audience cares about reliability, and as such, the online application form will allow the achievement of the service performance objectives such as: time, dependability, and flexibility (Slack et al, 1998). As an incentive, a special discount can be given to customers who fill out the online reservation form.

-The fourth recommendation is to introduce a suggestion/Q & A board. It should be introduced in this unit for post purchase reinforcement, or product choice decisions (Ghose & Doo 1998). This will improve after sales service, which will make possible to keep track of existing customers and make the desired changes to retain them.

-Payment online can be introduced, yet the limitation for this is the customer hesitation to purchase due to security reasons. If you want to accept credit card payments on your site, you have two basic options; the first is to purchase your own, secure web server, which will probably involve employing a technical expert to set up and maintain the system. The second is to use a fulfillment system provided by a third-party - many internet servers offer fulfillment services, processing your transaction for a percentage cut or flat rate, while taking responsibility for the security of customer data. This method is preferred as it reduces pressure on the business and lets them concentrate on fulfilling demand (Sorey 2000; Gabay 2000)

-Search-engine optimization is an important area to consider. When searching through the main search engines (google;yahoo;lycos;etc), consumers will most probably not go through all selections and are most likely to focus on the first few results (Bradlow & Schmittlein, 1999). Search engine optimization will be a plus factor for acquiring new customers and minimizing competition, for surfers will stumble on your site before the rest of your competitors.

-Acquiring more domain names will enhance the chances for customers to come across the website. The options are many, the following are some examples: www.budget.com.lb, www.budgetlebanon.com, www.lebanonrentacar.com. These are a few of the many Domain names that are available. Having a variety of domain names will increase the chances of customer acquisition. Domain names are a very important factor when considering websites; they should be short, smart, and easy to remember. Having several Domain names can be considered as a significant completive strength (Draughon 2001; Gabay 2000).

-Enhancing the graphics can make the website more experiential. Pictures of the cars can be portrayed in a rotating manner focusing on different angles and dimensions. Furthermore, The interior of the car can also be shown. This will improve the surfers experience engaging him in more “flow” (Hoffman & Novak 1996).

Generally, the timescale of the project is expected to take at least 31 working days.
Last but not least, in order to make current and potential customers aware of the new improvements of the website, it is recommended that leaflets or brochures be distributed and placed in the main distribution channels such as tourism offices, travel agencies, hotels, and auto services. This will ensure the acquisition of new online shoppers.

(Conclusion)

The above recommendations will ensure that the online strategy will support the overall business unit of Budget Rent a Car. In other words, existing customers will be encouraged to facilitate their online transactions rather than cannibalize the sales of the existing physical branch. In the same manner, potential and new customers will be attracted due to the differentiation strategy arising from the adoption of interactive media. This is due to the fact that interactive media as a new information and communication technology will raise switching costs for the customers and will lock them in (Alter 1999; Laudon & Laudon 1999).

Such a differentiation advantage (that again will lead to customer retention and acquisition) will have the following value added characteristics as a summary:

-Adding buyer value
-Increasing online buyer performance (the customer can achieve more for less)
-Reducing time and costs for the buyer
-Continual after sale service

Finally, Godin (2001) argues that one of the most important aspects of online interactivity is to understand the nature of the medium and the relationship between the Web service and the consumer. Getting to know the consumers would further assist in attaining customer acquisition and retention (Godin 2001).

Word Count: 2,467

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