Art Network by Micheal Perez

Running head: E-COMMERCE BUSINESS PROPOSAL

Week 11 Information Management Products Final E-Commerce Business Proposal Information Management and New Technologies in Design and Media Arts Michel A. Valladares Perez Miami International University of Art and Design December 17, 2021 Professor Mariam Elias

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Art Network Since I started my journey in the creative professional community as an art student, I have always heard the term "starving artist." Becoming one was never an option, and even to think about it was scary. The creative industry has always had an extremely competitive environment. There are many talented and skilled people around the world. However, for some reason, there are not so many those who "make it," and yet, we live in these times where networking, exposure, and engagement are the key elements of success. When looking at how art galleries work, it might be intriguing how the owner selects the artist they like to present. Driven mainly by their own business goals, art galleries often neglect many "new" artists while only considering those who have already succeeded in the creative environment.

Art Network is an online art gallery and networking platform that strives to offer networking and marketing services to all artists worldwide. The platform will allow art students, professional artists, and freelancers equal opportunity to share their artwork with the world and to engage with other artists, potential clients, and art collectors while opening doors for collaboration, commissions, contracts, and other creative business proposals. The two-sided platform will encourage artists to share their portfolios and serve as a searching tool for small business owners, newcomers, and even established institutions. Thus, it will introduce skilled and talented artists who can potentially solve their creative necessities while fulfilling the existent and ongoing demand in the market.

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Art Network’s Vision and Mission Statements According to CFI (2021), a vision statement describes a company desire to achieve its goals or a future position. It is essentially a vision of what a company would look like in the future, and states what they are trying to build based on their proposed performance while inspiring and serving as a framework for all organizational strategic planning activities (Ward, 2020). On the other hand, a mission statement defines a company’s business and its objectives, as well as the way the company will aim to reach those objectives. According to James Chen (2021), an organization’s mission statement defines its culture, values, and ethics, while helping employees remain focused and encouraging them to increase their productivity to achieve the company goals.

Vision: “To become the number one creative networking platform in the world.”

Mission: “To provide all creative individuals with the best networking tool in the market which advocates for greater exposure, collaborations, and business opportunities while offering newcomers affordable and high-quality creative solutions for their business ideas.”

Business Model and Value Preposition Canvas

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A Business Model Canvas, also called a one-page business model plan, refers to a management tool to track efficiency and evolve through time with data that refers to nine different business sections, as shown in the graphic above. The customer segment defines who is the most critical customer the company will be delivering value to. In this case, there are two categories of users: Creative Individuals and Targeted Audience, as they are the users who can be interested in what "Art Network" has to offer. The first segment will include art students, freelancers, and creative professionals interested in networking and exposure. Simultaneously, as mentioned before, the targeted audience will consist of newcomers, small business owners, and art collectors interested in affordable and high-quality creative solutions. Each of them has a sort of need or desire that Art Network's service can solve, as mentioned in the Value Proposition. For example, this platform will provide networking and exposure services to creative individuals while granting an online portfolio presence and potential business and collaborations opportunities. Yet, it will also offer affordable and high-quality innovative solutions for those in need. When talking about Channels or communication units to reach out to customers, one can mention our website, social media, mobile applications, and other marketing and advertising channels. Simultaneously, customer relationships might be addressed through a feedback and rating system after delivering the product to the clients, social media interactions, and live chat threads. The revenue stream specifies how our business uses to get money, including content commission, sales, subscriptions, and even affiliate advertising throughout the website, social media platform, and the desired mobile app.

Despite this, the key activities include ways to make the business work. In this case, the most critical actions to consider are social media, website, and mobile app development. It is also essential to determine the Key resources, the assets the business relies on to function with full

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power. I cannot develop the concept, including creative individuals presenting their creative work portfolio and the digital developers. The key partners are also crucial external stakeholders contributing to our business, like Investors and marketing professionals. Finally, we need to address the cost structure, which is the company's segment. In our case, Web and Mobile development, payroll, social media, and other marketing activities.

However, studies have shown that approximately 7 out of 10 innovations or new products fail to deliver expectations. Thus, just like we created value for our business with a Business Model Canvas, the Value proposition Canvas helps you visualize intentionally, design, and test how a company creates value for customers. The same is composed of two segments as shown in the following graphic:

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The Customer Profile segment describes the jobs our customers are trying to get done or their needs to satisfy. In our case, some examples of customers' jobs can include putting together an online portfolio, selecting and paying a subscription plan that best meets their needs, systematically interacting and engaging with others in the online platform. Here we also highlight our customer's pain, which are pretty much adverse outcomes that our desired audience is trying to avoid. We can mention non-stopping hustle, doing their marketing and advertising, and even negotiating prices or contracts. On the other hand, Gains describe the positive outcomes that customers desire to achieve. In our case, we can mention the perks of networking: exposure, collaborations, commissions, and business opportunities.

The second part of the canvas is the Value Map. Here is where we list the products or services that our value proposition relies on upon, like marketing services, online presence, business opportunities, and others that we might include down the line to boost satisfactory outcomes. Pain relievers address how our business tries to avoid adverse effects on our audience, like offering a search tool for creative services and collaboration, outsourcing marketing, and advertising efforts, and granting for building relationships. Lastly, we must outline how we increase benefit outcomes to our customers throughout Gain Creators, such as our Social Media pages, website, and mobile application. In the end, this Value Proposition Canvas must create a clear connection between your customer's profile needs and your value map, addressing ways to make gains while reducing adverse outcomes or pains.

Product and Services Art Network’s services focus on providing creative individuals with an exclusive marketing tool. By following a multiple-choice subscription model, the user will be enjoying the benefits of many of its services. A user might take away the best out of the networking platform

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from a beginner to a Pro plan. Users will be autocatalytically beneficiated by marketing services.

It will optimally share its only portfolio and selected artwork throughout Art Network’s mobile application, social media, website, and marketing channels affiliated. It will also provide a live chat stream that will allow artists to enhance their networking capabilities and open doors for collaborations, consultation, and commissions. On the other hand, the platform’s searching tool capabilities will allow those interested in creative services to choose, from our featured artists, what best fits their described needs. Other benefits include selling and buying artwork, contract support, and many others.

Revenue Model As far as revenues, Art Network will use a mixed model approach to fit both sides of its customer segments. Creative individuals will be subjected to a Subscription Revenue Model.

This revenue model will offer the services that can pay monthly or yearly based on the number of features they like to integrate into their subscription. This model can potentially generate recurring revenue. However, it will be critical to prevent high unsubscribe rates. In addition, some aspects of the Affiliate Revenue Model will apply as we promote the authors’ creative work and collect commission on the sales of those products. However, users in search of innovative solutions will be subjected to a web sales revenue model. In this case, the customers will pay directly for the product or service desired via our website, mobile app, or outbound marketing and conduct transactions over the internet. We will take a small percentage as commission and distribute the rest to the respective artist.

Targeted Audience and Buyer Persona Art Network’s targeted audience includes art students, visual and digital artists, creative professionals, and freelancers looking for an opportunity to succeed in the creative industry

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while sharing their work with the world, collaborating, taking commissions, and considering possible business proposals. As part of its desired targeted audience, the platform will offer small business owners and newcomers looking for affordable, skilled, and talented artists who can potentially solve their creative necessities.

BP1- Samuel Smith is a 22-years-old graphic designer who just graduated from Miami International University of Art and Design a couple of months ago. He is a very skilled and talented artist who loves designing logos for fun. For now, Sam (as his friend calls him) continues working in the hospitality industry. Since he was pursuing his bachelor’s degree, this job gave him the flexibility to focus all his efforts on his career. After graduating, he tried multiple times applying for a job position in the creative industry, but he doesn’t have any “real professional experience” in the field. Sam wishes to explore his talent and wants to share his work with others, hoping that he gets the opportunity to do what he has invested so much and loves the most one day.

BP2- April Johnson is a newcomer, small business owner preparing to launch a beauty salon. She has worked so hard her entire life to save money while providing for her family, and finally, at 26 years old, she is ready to take a big step and start making her dreams come true.

However, April will now need a business logo and website for her beauty salon. She understands how important branding is for a successful business. However, she is way better with numbers than she is with art. She has looked for multiple options, but graphic design prices are too high for her budget. She needs an affordable solution while getting high-quality results to make the business stand out from the competition.

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Direct Competitors

Artsy is a New York-based online art brokerage that develops and hosts websites for numerous galleries while helping sell their art. It is a search tool engine database that allows the creation of connections and map relationships among artists. The company was founded in 2009, and it is considered today’s world's largest art marketplace. Up to date, Artsy represents more than 1,800 online galleries, which pay between $425 and $1,000 per month to set up shop on their platform and generate between $9.2 and $21.6 million per year in revenue. However, the company primarily focuses on promoting art galleries, and while it has featured artists, it does not focus on fostering creative individuals’ exposure.

Ello is an online social network platform launched in 2014. Like Pinterest, the platform focuses on showcasing art, photography, fashion, and web culture. However, unlike other Social media, Ello does not sell their user data to advertisers or third parties’ companies while never showing advertisements and enforcing a real-name policy. The company uses an affiliate revenue model to gain income while providing buying and selling and collaboration features. Up to date, the platform has over 1 million users worldwide and, pretty like others, requires posting, following users, and being followed.

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Skillbox is an art community platform for artists, art enthusiasts, businesses, and journalists, which aims to make discovering art and music easier while providing a business and collaboration platform to help artists from across disciplines present their work. A lot like our idea, founded in 2017, the platform strives to provide struggling artists with a platform to find success. Although, its cybersecurity ranking is on the floor, showing poor performance and low public trustworthiness and acceptance. The art community platform mainly encourages musicians and artists, music and art enthusiasts, professionals, and technicians from the music and arts ecosystem to share their creative skills and help the community of musicians and artists from across the world come together, providing opportunities for collaboration and exposure.

Behance is the leading social media platform owned by Adobe "to showcase and discover creative work". Founded in 2005, creative professionals across all industries using their services can create multi-media portfolios that showcase their work within the Network, as well as throughout partner sites and organizations, and the industry specific Served Sites. Through instant and efficient promotion of work, it offers access to a global pool of top talent, and a constant stream of creative work from around the world, revolutionizing the way creative professionals manage their careers and enhance ways for companies to find talent. It also

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provides its users with multiple internships, collaborations, and job opportunities. It offers free services to its 12 million users but uses an affiliated advertising revenue model from which the company estimated annual revenue is currently at $254.9M per year.

Swot Analysis A SWOT Analysis (which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) is a framework or managing tool used to evaluate a company's competitive position to develop strategic planning (Grant, 2020). This strategic tool gathers practical information to identify problems or circumstances that might negatively impact a determinate business. It helps to asset a business's performance, risks, competition, and opportunities in the desired market.

Art Network's strength comes from its integrated marketing services that will potentially beneficiate all its users. In addition, Art Network will have a digital presence, but the platform will consider opening a physical location (In the Design District Miami). The idea of having a physical art gallery/lounge will enhance artists networking efforts. It will welcome all creative enthusiastic about enjoying art exhibitions, installations, live music performances, an innovative mixologist bar with small tapas from local chefs, and relaxing Insta Friendly areas as a perfect environment to connect with others. As far as weaknesses, I can mention the lack of the necessary funds to develop the concept. A project like this will require the help of potential investors to fulfill its most essential organizational activities. Other weaknesses could, the missing of a solid organizational structure (or team) and the disadvantages of being a new competitor in the market. However, there are opportunities for this business proposal if I take advantage of some of the overall strengths. For example, by utilizing my strategic planning and management knowledge in a creative organization, I can formulate a comprehensive strategy to approach my desired outcomes, goals, and expectations. This could include finding investors and

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the right streaming platform to consecutively address some of the weaknesses mentioned before.

Finally, Art Network must be aware that some threats could potentially be an obstacle to its success. Those could arise if the organization does not adequately address some of the weaknesses mentioned before. Although, significant threats will come from a failed business model, inability to gather enough artists while reaching out to potential consumers, and shortfalls in marketing efforts.

Information Management Products Information management refers to collecting and managing valuable data from various sources and its distribution to the desired audience. According to aim.org (20201), this management process aims to establish a sense of order and control over the organization's structure, processing, and delivery of information. As Art Network continues inevitably develop and grow, the number of information assets held by the company will grow. Therefore, to ensure success, the company will have to manage its products and customer information while customizing its operations to a more efficient and productive method. To succeed in such a competitive environment, Art Network has to utilize and comply with all recent technological advantages while protecting their and their customers' information assets.

The company must secure various types of information assets to provide a safe and reliable environment for its consumers. For once, the company functioning relies on the existent customer's original content, also known as Intellectual Property (or IP). The company must comply with national and international IP legislation to avoid breaching the customer's IPR. Thus, there are various forms in which Art Network could avoid such inconveniences. The platform must issue a section under its Terms of Use for all costumers and affiliates with described and valuable information about IP regulations. That is a practice implemented in

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numerous online and digital platforms that rely on users' IP and will save as a foundation to continue creating a sense of awareness about this topic while avoiding legal consequences.

In addition, the company must ensure to secure both sides of its targeted audience's personal and financial information. There are many risks associated with only functioning, and we must provide to protect such valuable info to our users. A practice to do so could be saving all users' personal information in an encrypted and secure folder to avoid mishandling such data and preventing it from falling into cyber hackers' positions. In addition, we should avoid sharing any personal data with advertising companies unless we have the right and user's concern to do so. The same goes for financial information, such as bank accounts and credit card information.

Thus, partnering with a reliable and well-established online merchant for payment processing might be the right solution.

As far as the company's choices for technology, Art Network will rely on its online presence for the most part. Therefore, it is essential to utilize the latest technological advantages such as hardware and software to achieve better positioning in the market and thus a more significant competitive advantage. That will also reflect when developing websites and mobile applications—providing high-quality functioning and aesthetics for users to feel comfortable and easier to navigate in our platform, in relationship with our competitors.

Project Management Software According to Julius Mansa (2021), project management refers to the planning, organizing, and executing a company's resources to undertake and complete organizational tasks, events, or duties. The resources managed can include personnel, finances, technology assets, and even intellectual property, yet it is crucial to avoid potential organizational challenges. Despite the industry in question, project management helps define the goals and objectives of each

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project or company. It helps assess the competition of various project components and decide who is in charge of each task to create a sense of quality control and ensure success.

• Monday.com is a cloud-based platform that allows business and project managers to create their applications and work management software. The project management software is a customizable web and mobile work management platform, and it is designed to help businesses to gain operational efficiency by tracking projects and workflows while visualizing data and advocating for team collaboration and easy communication. It is a very easy-to-use and accessible management tool that offers a code-free environment and flexible integrations with other applications that have allowed businesses to achieve their organizational goals efficiently.

• Slack is a messaging app and project management software for businesses to connect with their staff and assign tasks and share information as they need. It focuses on helping to create a sense of collaboration and teamwork by transforming the way modern organizations communicate. It helps manage organizational activities and provides an efficient and trustworthy digital workplace while sending instant messages, feedback, and accurate lifetime notifications.

It gives a more organized digital work environment and a cost-effective system to assess information management and the effectiveness and delivery of certain organizational activities.

Based on my personal experience with both Project Management Software, I must recommend Slack for the easy interface, organization, and capabilities when it comes to assessing the development of organizational activities and how it elevates communications to another level.

Information Flow Diagram According to Visual Paradigm (2012), a Data Flow Diagram or DFD is no more than a traditional way to visualize the information flows within an organization. It depicts a system

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requirement graphically to show its information flow, including changes and storage. “The purpose of a DFD is to show the scope and boundaries of a system as a whole” (Visual Paradigm, 2012), and it is used to communicate and evaluate an organizational structure.

All types of information used by Art Network • Intellectual Property (both from subscriber’s individuals and the Company). As a form of artwork provided by individuals on their digital portfolio, IP IP is only used by Art Network as mentioned on the Privacy Policy and The Terms of Use. No other use is authorized to download, screenshot, or use other people’s content as we encourage our users to comply with national and international IPRs, laws, and regulations. The company logo, trademarks, and other branding elements are only to be used by the Company itself as it is legally protected against unauthorized use.

• Personal and Financial Information provided by the users must not be disclosed by any means. The Company will only use data such as Full legal name, mailing, and e-mail address, and payment information as required by the Company and only if necessary when reaching out to the users of submitting/retrieving payments. The Company will not disclose users’ data to affiliated advertising companies to provide a safe and trustworthy stage for collaborations and mutual respect in their business relationships.

• Business data, including financial information, and statements will only be provided and used by the Company’s management team under the guidance and supervision of the CEO and Owners.

E-COMMERCE BUSINESS PROPOSAL Information Flow Diagram Example

Art Network’s Online Order System will be implemented as the image above represents. Once the customer issues an online order, the E-commerce platform will process information assets (including customer’s and order information) safely and commercially.

Upon a two-step verification process, the information will be stored and processed into the

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company’s customer database with customer acknowledgment and concern. The processed payment will enter into a cyber check payment verification stage. Once approved, the funds are sent to the company’s credit card, and the shipping order will be processed. The customer will also receive a verification of the order and a delivery date if required. Such shipped orders will be reflected into the company’s inventory and once again stored and secured into the customer database along with other information assets.

International Collaboration Due to modern globalization, international collaborations have become a must in the business environment, as organizations aim to expand their territories to engage with a broader audience and increase their revenue. A company's managerial team's duties are assessing opportunities and preparing for potential challenges timelessly. According to the assignment's instructions: "International collaborations in the design industry, for example, have led to creative, cross-cultural designs that cross old boundaries and set fresh benchmarks in quality."

However, companies must identify what type of international collaboration is better for their industry. According to Guarav Akrain (2012), financial collaboration, technical collaboration, Marketing collaboration, and Management consultancy collaboration are the most common international collaborations.

In the case of Art Network, as it is business-centered in the design and media field, financial and marketing collaboration might be the best fit for the organization. Financial collaboration is a summation of domestic and foreign investment. For instance, financial collaboration and foreign investment inflow take place in the domestic country. This method has proven to be beneficial for the financial states of companies, as it allows for purchasing ownership shares, giving long-term loans, and providing credit facilities (Akrain, 2012). Not

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only will this type of collaboration potentially contribute to fulfilling the need for funding and required capital to operate the business, but it could also serve as an aid to solve developing country financial and accessibilities problems.

On the other hand, and most importantly, marketing collaboration refers to integrating both domestic and foreign marketplace (Akrain, 2012). This type of collaboration would allow Art Network to expand its marketing and advertising efforts as foreign companies agree to sell goods produced by domestic companies. It also helps export goods and services in multiple locations.

Nevertheless, some changes need to be made, as potential challenges will arise after undertaking an international collaboration to ensure the perfect functioning of the organization's activities. Most Art Network challenges when operating in a global setting will come with differentiation in culture, language, and currency compared with the desired country to expand.

Other challenges might include language barriers, local laws and regulations, and the consumer's standards and expectations.

After assessing potential challenges and analyzing the desired marketplace, the managerial team must make corresponding changes to their Information Management and Ecommerce Systems. Some of the Information Management System changes could include adapting to the foreign country's dictionary, assessing employees' HR rights, creating new employee handbooks, modifying customer database, etc. In addition, the E-commerce platform must be updated and capable of detecting visitors from the recent locations and integrating foreign on the product descriptions, adjusting currency quotes, correcting security systems accordingly, and assessing other essential transaction-based and regulation-based changes.

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