家庭飲食管理暨線上購物平台創業計畫 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學商學院國際經營管理英語碩士學位學程 International MBA Program College of Commerce National Chengchi University. 碩士論文政治. 大. 立Master’s Thesis. ‧. ‧ 國. 學 sit. y. Nat. 家庭飲食管理暨線上購物平台創業計畫 er. io. Business Plan of Household Diet Management and. n. a l e-Commerce i v n Ch U engchi Student: Judy Wang. Advisor: Professor Jack Wu. 中華民國一○一年十一月 November 2012.

(2) 家庭飲食管理暨線上購物平台創業計畫 Business Plan of Household Diet Management and e-Commerce. 研究生：王馥容. Student: Judy Wang. 指導教授：吳文傑. 學. ‧ 國. 立. 政治大Advisor: Jack Wu 國立政治大學. ‧. 商學院國際經營管理英語碩士學位學程. y. sit. io. A Thesis. er. Nat. 碩士論文. n. a l to International MBA Program Submitted iv n U i e n g c hUniversity National Chengchi. Ch. in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Master in Business Administration. 中華民國一○一年十一月 November 2012.

(3) Acknowledgement To Professor Jack Wu, for patiently guiding me in thesis writing. To 彭又文, 黃士銘, Shean Hong, who have been providing me information in nutrition knowledge, system development, and marketing strategy respectively. The thesis will not be able to accomplish without their help. To the 121 friends being my respondent of the marketing survey. To Daniel Herrera, for reviewing the whole English writing of this thesis, giving me advice and accompanying me all the way to the day of completion.. 政治大. Last but not least, to my dear parents who have been support me throughout the whole MBA.. 立. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. io. sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. Judy Wang. Ch. engchi. i. i n U. v.

(4) Executive Summary This business plan is about a system that integrates the process of diet from planning, execution, and result tracking. The author has noticed the wide penetration of smart phone in Taiwan, and the unique benefit of health care mobile device application software (“Apps”) in preventing diseases and managing individual health that traditional medical service fall short to offer. She also has witnessed the growing trend of ecommerce in Taiwan that the items being traded online have further expended to food and grocery. Her idea is to link the diet plan, grocery shopping, and body measurement tracking all together on the same platform to. 政治大. provide household a simple, efficient, and effective way to lead a health life.. 立. The system of this business plan doesn’t involve with any new technology, either is it the first. ‧ 國. 學. diet related software on the market. But it is the first one that links the process with online. ‧. food and grocery shopping, which is able to help consumers save a lot of time. Another competitive advantage is, unlike competitors offering single objective/method of diet, the. y. Nat. io. sit. nutrition knowledge on this system is designed to be open-sourced, which means it can be. n. al. er. applied on diet of all purposes. Consumers are able to choose the diet method that is most effective on them.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. The business plan is meaningful to carry out. First of all, the usage of Apps is proved to have the positive effect on users’ health. It helps them to understand the linkage of their behavior and health level. It also increases users’ self-accountability on their own health. Second, this system is expected to boots behavior of cooking at home by mitigating the pain in shopping and providing incentive by it with diet. Cooking at home is foundation of healthy eating. The two together is able to enhance the health consciousness and health management implementation at both individual and household level. If wildly adapted, it will be able enhance overall health level of the nation. It will save medical expense, and burden on. ii.

(5) national health insurance. People of Taiwan will live in a high quality life with better health status. This business is also profitable to carry out, if executed properly. Unlike other items, food and grocery are things that customers have to purchase periodically. Thus, it brings in most stable and sustainable sales. The reason online food and grocery grows slower than other items is because it required substantial trust from customers, which is possible to achieve with sufficient quality control and promotion. Once it is built, such revenue is more resilient than other items which can stand economy downturn. The online shopping of this system is. 政治大. also designed to be an open platform which linked with multiple sellers. The revenue is. 立. transaction fee. By investing in this attractive and value added system to customers, investors. ‧ 國. 學. will be able to enjoy the benefit from growing online food and grocery market.. ‧. However, since this system doesn’t involve with new technology, it might be mimicked by competitors quickly. The key to success is to attract as many users as possible in a short. y. Nat. er. io. sit. period of time, leaving no room of survival for late comers. Therefore, this business is more suitable for blue-chip internet/software companies, like Yahoo, or eBay, or Amazon in US,. n. al. Ch. i n U. v. books.com in Taiwan(博客來) …etc. With their existing experience in system development,. engchi. customer service, and abundant capital, they are able to make this move fast and accurate. To them, developing this business is like opening another revenue stream with the least effort.. iii.

(6) TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1. 2.. Market Opportunity ........................................................................................................... 7 Target universe ....................................................................................................... 7. 2.2.. Similar offerings for this market universe ........................................................... 10. The Product ...................................................................................................................... 12 3.1.. “My nutritionist.” ................................................................................................. 12. 3.2.. “ Diet Planner” ..................................................................................................... 13. 3.3.. “ I Grocery”.......................................................................................................... 14. 3.4.. ‧. Heath Care Related Apps ..................................................................................... 17. 4.2.. Identifying competitor ......................................................................................... 18. 4.3.. Offerings of Key Competitor ............................................................................... 19. 4.4.. Competition Analysis and SWOT........................................................................ 21. y. sit. io. al. n. 6.. 4.1.. Nat. 5.. Competitor Analysis......................................................................................................... 17. er. 4.. Nutrition Module ................................................................................................. 15. 學. 3.5.. 政治大 Result Analyzer .................................................................................................... 15 立. ‧ 國. 3.. 2.1.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Marketing plan ................................................................................................................. 24 5.1.. Pricing .................................................................................................................. 24. 5.2.. Target consumer analysis ..................................................................................... 26. 5.3.. Place ..................................................................................................................... 30. 5.4.. Promotion............................................................................................................. 31. Operations ........................................................................................................................ 34 6.1.. System development and launching timetable ..................................................... 34. 6.2.. Partnership development and launching timetable .............................................. 35. 6.3.. Organization Structure ......................................................................................... 38. iv.

(7) 7.. Demand forecast and revenue streams ............................................................................. 40 7.1.. Sales of paid version ............................................................................................ 40. 7.2.. Sales of nutrition modules ................................................................................... 42. 7.3.. Transaction fee ..................................................................................................... 42. 7.4.. Total revenue and its breakdown ......................................................................... 45. 8.. Cost structure and Financials ........................................................................................... 46. 9.. References ........................................................................................................................ 50 Appendix .................................................................................................................. 51. 立. 政治大. 學 ‧. ‧ 國 io. sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. 10.. Ch. engchi. v. i n U. v.

(8) Figures and Tables Figures Figure1: The 10 top causes of death in Taiwan in year 2011 ..................................................... 1 Figure 2: The illustration of internet users with different device .............................................. 7 Figure 3: The diet guidance announced by Department of Health .......................................... 13 Figure 4: The concept of consumer category ........................................................................... 31 Figure 5: The timeline of development plan ............................................................................ 34 Figure 6: The Organizational chart .......................................................................................... 39. Tables. 政治大 Table 2: Functions of “MyNetDiary” ...................................................................................... 20 立 Table 3: The comparison between “HHM” and “MyNetDiary” .............................................. 23 Table 1: The calculation of the target universe ........................................................................ 10. ‧ 國. 學. Table 4: SWOT analysis .......................................................................................................... 23 Table 5: The Category of respondents to the survey ................................................................ 26. ‧. Table 6: The result of survey.................................................................................................... 28 Table 7: Promotion strategy ..................................................................................................... 33. y. Nat. sit. Table 8: Sales of paid version .................................................................................................. 41. al. er. io. Table 9: Sales of nutrition module ........................................................................................... 42. n. Table 10: The online buyer but not dieter’s need ratio ............................................................ 44. Ch. i n U. v. Table 11: Revenue from transaction fee................................................................................... 45. engchi. Table 12: Revenue Breakdown ................................................................................................ 45 Table 13: Five year financial projection .................................................................................. 46 Table 14: The labor force allocation on system development ................................................. 47 Table 15: The expense allocation of system development ....................................................... 47 Table 16: Depreciation of fix asset .......................................................................................... 48. vi.

(9) 1. Introduction. 政治大. Figure1: The 10 top causes of death in Taiwan in year 2011. 立. According to the Taiwanese Department of Health, 9 out of the 10 top causes of death in the. ‧ 國. 學. island during the year 2011 were chronic diseases; 6 of these chronic diseases are directly. ‧. related to obesity.1. sit. y. Nat. The spread knowledge that obesity a major cause of the early appearance of serious health. io. er. problems, and the pressure of a social environment that has set a thin figure as global. al. v i n C Nelson survey conducted in 2008, 49%hofeTaiwanese people n g c h i U think they have overweight n. standard of beauty, has made many people obsessed about weight control. According to a. problems, and half of those are trying to lose weight.2 As we all know the contemporary urban lifestyle which lacks the necessary time to plan a balanced diet and practice exercise regularly, is the most important factor that leads to obesity and chronic diseases. For instance even school kids can get potato chips and carbonated beverages at convenience stores on their way back home, and more and more working housewives have given up cooking at home because eating out in Taiwan is very convenient. 1 2. http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/2011/new/jun/16/today-t1.htm http://tw.nielsen.com/site/news20090212.shtml. 1.

(10) and they already have to face long working hours and pressure from their busy careers. The long working hours that the average Taiwanese works leave people no time for exercise. Therefore, contemporary Taiwanese are exposed to more risk of chronic disease than previous generations. Data also shows that 51% of the male population above age 15 has either obesity or overweight problem. The percentage for female is 37%.3 Health consciousness arises not just in individuals but also in corporate institutions and due to the Karoshi problem (過勞死) more and more companies are taking measures to improve their employees’ health condition. Many companies have started to offer regular health. 政治大. checks. Based on the results, companies are able to identify those in the organization with. 立. high potential to develop any given chronic disease. By providing follow-up health. ‧ 國. 學. instruction, consultation, and body measurement tracking….etc. they are able to mitigate the growing number of chronic disease patients, and lower the related medical expense.. ‧. According to the IEK research,4 there were 7 million people suffering of chronic diseases in. y. Nat. er. io. sit. Taiwan in 2006. The medical expenses related were estimated to be 10 billion annually, and such number is expected to grow with the aging of the population. The value revenue of. n. al. Ch. i n U. v. health management related business in Taiwan is estimated to be 1 billion USD each year.. engchi. The importance of eating habit in consumers’ mind From individual consumer’s point of view, adjusting their eating habits is seen as the major pathway to a healthier life. The same consumer survey from Nelson showed that the most popular way to deal with weight losing for Taiwanese people is adjusting eating habit and with exercise ranking as second. The above result could be due to cultural differences, Asian people in general tend to emphasis more on the eating habits than exercising comparing to. 3. Same source as (1) http://www.eettaiwan.com/articleLogin.do?artId=8800479822&fromWhere=/ART_8800479822_876 045_NT_d0a57f1e.HTM&catId=876045&newsType=NT&pageNo=null&encode=d0a57f1e 4. 2.

(11) other nations around the world. Furthermore, another survey shows that people tend to believe that adjusting their eating behavior is good for overall health improvement. According to a market survey done by the International Food Information Council Foundation (IFIC) in 20085, more than 70% percent of the respondents believe that taking food or drink selectively is helpful to improving cardiovascular condition, increase energy and endurance, maintain over all health level, and so on. Notwithstanding the above mentioned factors, starting a diet is a big challenge for most people. Dieters have to face the stress caused by the reduction of their daily rations and not. 政治大. being able to take some of their favorite food, and on top of that they have to go around. 立. performing calorie calculations which is itself a difficult challenge. While conducting an. ‧ 國. 學. interview with a nutritionist for this business plan, the practitioner admitted that performing weight losing calorie calculations is so complicated that she herself might give it up if she. ‧. were one of her patients. For these reasons between others, people usually get caught in a. Nat. sit. n. al. er. io. afterwards.. y. cycle of starting up and giving up diet plans, losing weight just to gain it back soon. Ch. i n U. v. The emergence of smart phone and application software (APPs) as a new way of self-aid health management. engchi. Thanks to the advance in information technology, there are more methods for modern people to better manage their health. One of them is telemedicine, which is a technique based on providing medical services remotely by way of medical examination machines and internet infrastructure installed in the countryside, shortening the gap between urban and rural areas. The same technology can be applied to affect positively the health of large urban populations. 5. http://www.biotaiwan.org.tw/download/structure4/%E5%8A%89%E7%BF%A0%E7%8E%B2/%E5 %85%A8%E7%90%83%E4%B8%AD%E8%8D%89%E8%97%A5%E4%BF%9D%E5%81%A5%E 9%A3%9F%E5%93%81%E7%94%A2%E6%A5%AD%E7%99%BC%E5%B1%95%E7%8F%BE% E6%B3%81%E8%88%87%E5%B1%95%E6%9C%9B(200807).pdf. 3.

(12) Having abundant medical services, the problem for most inhabitants of urban environments is not finding doctors or hospitals, but is their lifestyle. Most of the urban population is made of well-educated individuals who know the basic principles that lead to a healthy life. But as mentioned above, their environment and demanding lifestyle are difficult for the practical application of those principles. We have found that mobile applications (“Apps”) and smart phones can come into play for the above mentioned purpose. Mobile devices and related software are able to provide a specific range of medical services across different locations and time frames in a most. 政治大. effective way than traditional clinics and hospitals. There are more and more health related. 立. Apps being developed. Some are as simple as e-books providing health knowledge and some. ‧ 國. 學. are more sophisticated and are able to perform basic medical measurement and tracking, such as blood pressure measuring, blood sugar level measuring, or weight control.. ‧. Seems like substituting the existing static tracking method as is practiced in hospitals and. y. Nat. er. io. sit. clinics with dynamic procedures similar to telemedicine would increase only the frequency and convenience of the tracking, yet research has found that the overall effect would be much. n. al. Ch. i n U. v. deeper than that.6 Unlike the traditional way of having the patient take body measurements at. engchi. home and send the record to doctors, Apps are able to give feedback instantly. They help the patient to see the linkage between his behavior and health level. Many of the users on the relevant survey responded they get to know more about how to manage health after using Apps. More important than that is the fact that instead of interacting with doctors, users are interacting with apps, they know they are the one controlling their health. They have no one else to blame thus patients become more self accountable on their health taking an active instead of a passive role regarding themselves.. 6. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/425348/smart-phones-help-manage-chronic-illness/. 4.

(13) Utilizing Apps to satisfy the market of facilitating healthy eating habit Eating, exercising, sleeping, and stress are important lifestyle factors that determine one’s health level. Having control of these factors in our daily life can enhance our health condition and prevent disease. Facilitating people to live a healthy life is the basic step for solving society’s health problems overall. The Author of this business plan is not a medical doctor or nurse by training, but is eager to live a healthy life in a convenient way and is sure she is not the only one. She has found that the smart phone, due to its wide penetration in Taiwan, is a suitable tool for on-the-go health. 政治大. management and is eager to develop Apps that can simplified the health management process. 立. for households all over Taiwan.. ‧ 國. 學. Comparing to other similar Apps that focus on helping people at the individual level, the App. ‧. related to this business plan is more focused on households. There are several reasons for this First of all, we believe that the foundation of a healthy diet is to start cooking at home. The. y. Nat. er. io. sit. most straight forward reason is one can have full control of the ingredients being used. Eating out is convenient and sometimes more appetizing however that comes at the cost of. n. al. Ch. i n U. v. consuming chemically processed ingredients of which we are not even aware. Eating out in. engchi. some sense is actually giving the control of your health to others. This is commonly believed by most Taiwanese people, but ironically not commonly practiced, for reasons already described. The other point the author would like to address is that psychology matters. First of all, if a family does follow the process of this App, they would only purchase what they need. No more extra food or junk food is available at home. You are away from temptation. And that make the long days of diet easier to bear. Secondly, support from family helps a lot. This App is not limited to weight losing since it is able to carry out different diet plans for each family. 5.

(14) member at the same time. Having more than one person in the family going on diet makes eating cautiously a family goal, and makes the dieters support each other. All of the above is a forming experience for children and as well it enhances people’s self accountability on health. We believe the latter to be the most meaningful contribution of this business plan. We believe that it is possible to help people in the management of their eating habits, by sorting the related challenges which are difficult and time consuming to overcome in a simpler way with the help of technology and at the same time making them more self-aware and independent.. 治政大 of pursuing. We believe that We know that “It’s easier said than done”. But it is a goal worthy 立 as long as we can provide a good tool that streamlines the whole process of diet and makes it ‧ 國. 學. convenient to live a healthy life, the goal would be attained to some extent. And that is all this. ‧. business plan is about.. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 6. i n U. v.

(15) 2. Market Opportunity 2.1. Target universe The target universe of this business plan is “people with Internet access and intention of dieting”. Note that the definition of diet right here is “a selection of food for health enhancement” It includes but is not limited to weight losing. It is based on Chinese medicine diet tradition of balance common here in the Greater China. This App is aim to turn that millenary tradition into a systematic diet plan. This will be elaborated in detail in a latter part. In order to obtain the size of target universe, we need the data of internet coverage rate, and. 政治大 statistically independent variables, 立 the market size can be obtained by multiplying the two. health related behavior, or in other words, “dieting intention” rate. Assuming these two are. ‧ 國. 學. ratios.. ‧. Taiwan Connectivity. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. PC Smartphohe Tablet No Internet Access. Figure 2: The illustration of internet users with different device. 2.1.1. Internet accessibility Because of the nature of the App, the target universe is limited to internet users, either they are PC users or smart phone/tablet users. According to the Directorate-General of Budget, 7.

(16) Accounting and Statistics (主計處),the internet penetration rate is 67.7% at the end of 2010. 7. However, if this business starts operation in mid of 2012, its first sales will happen in 2013.. And in order to prepare five year revenue/financial projection, we need estimations of the above data within the five year time span. Fortunately, we know that internet coverage is at a growing trend and is probably reaching its mature stage. Therefore, we assume it will be 85% in 2015, and it increase evenly in between. For the rest of the assessment, we will try to find as relevant as data to support it, but for parts that are unavailable, we will use assumptions that are close to common consensus.. 治政大 phone/tablet users as a group Among the vast internet users in Taiwan, we identify the smart 立 of customers that are easier to accept the concept of this system. One of the reasons is ‧ 國. 學. because these users are familiar with Apps. PC users but not smart phone/tablet users have. ‧. less experience in using Apps and may tend to hesitate more than when they see it for the first time. The other reason is such users are more likely to gain full benefit in using this system.. y. Nat. er. io. sit. Giving the fact that, some of the processes are easier to operate on wider screen device, but the interaction and instant feedback with users is a key merit of Apps of this kind. However. n. al. Ch. i n U. v. the latter part is more prone to smart phone/tablet users. Therefore, having one mobile device. engchi. with smaller screen, and one bigger screen is the best to enjoy the system. Fortunately, most of the smart phone/ tablet users in Taiwan are. Therefore, we expect the acceptance in this group will be higher than the other group – the PC user but non smart phone/tablet users. For the above reasons, we will separate the two and make assessment respectively. According to a recent research report from the Institute for Information Technology and the Ministry of Economy Affairs, the number of smart phone users by the second quarter of this year is estimated to be 6.09 million; tablet users 2.32 million, user of either of the two to be 7. http://mag.udn.com/mag/digital/storypage.jsp?f_ART_ID=346254. 8.

(17) 7.07 million8. That is 26%, 10%, and 30.4% of the population respectively, meaning 5.7 % of them have both devices. The same report also estimated that in 2015, smart phone penetration rate is going to be 56.8%, that of tablet is going to be 24%. In order to get the estimation of users of either smart phone of tablet, we need the data of user possess both devices. It is not provided in the article, we will assume it to be 12%, given all the other figures doubled in the estimation. If so, the penetration rate of either smart phone or tablet is 69%. Again, assume this ratio grow evenly from 2012 to 2015. As from 2016 to 2017, the growing rate should slow down. Therefore we. 政治大. use half and quarter of the growing rate for 2016 and 2017 respectively.. 立. 2.1.2. Diet intention. ‧ 國. 學. From the Nelson survey (2008), we learned that at least 25% of respondents at that time. ‧. claimed that they are taking action for weight losing. As mentioned our customer base is broader than losing weight purpose, therefore we would arguer to adjust the figure up to 35%.. y. Nat. that percentage is growing mildly for 2 % each year.. n. al. 2.1.3. Market size assessment. Ch. engchi. er. io. sit. Also to reflect the growing trend in aging population and health consciousness, we assume. i n U. v. From the above assumptions, we multiply the device usage ratio, the “dieting intention” ration, and Taiwanese population, and then we will get the market universe data.. 8. http://www.find.org.tw/find/home.aspx?page=many&id=331. 9.

(18) Table 1: The calculation of the target universe. 2.2. Similar offerings for this market universe. 政治大 other offerings that are not in direct 立 competition with our App, but are similar to us.. Though the market is big, the offers are plentiful so competition is severe. The following are. ‧ 國. 學. Category one Person to Person service. ‧. 1) Nutrition consultation. For those who are desperate for diet, they are most likely to go for nutrition consultation.. y. Nat. io. sit. The rationale behind weight losing diet is controlling calorie intake. The process is First;. n. al. er. memorize the calorie contained per unit in each food category. Second; while having a. Ch. i n U. v. meal, measure the quantity of each food category consumed. Third estimate the calories. engchi. item by item. Finally sum up the total calorie intake. In regular nutrition consultation, patients are required measure their calorie intake everyday and send the record to the nutritionist in the duration of the diet period. The advantage of nutrition consultation is that it is professional, private, and safe. But the weakness is it is more pricy and time consuming as you need to make appointment with the nutritionist every once a while. And the implementation is complicated. Calculating and keep the record is troublesome for many. It is not effective to everyone.. 10.

(19) 2) Gym/ beauty center This category offers solutions other than diet; therefore they are not suitable for direct comparison. Category two Web based service. Websites offering related services for free. Their revenue streams are advertisement, especially for fashion, diet medicine products. Or commissions, if they also introduce clients to third parties.. 治政大websites offer online models of Using the same logic of calculating calorie intake, some 立 spread sheets for facilitating calculations. By selecting the food item and quantity, the. 1) Online calorie calculating sheet. ‧ 國. 學. website tells you the corresponding calorie intake. Since it’s free, the function is simple. ‧. and incomplete. (Example http//www.scpo.nccu.edu.tw/show/part1/b/B2/food.htm). sit. y. Nat. 2) Online food diary keeping. n. al. er. io. Research has proven merely by keeping record of food intake has a positive effect on. i n U. v. diet.9 There are some websites offering diet plan record keeping service. The users can. Ch. engchi. keep their record like writing blogs. On these websites, they also provide some simple diet planning services, and analysis on weight changes overtime. (Example http//www.bdodo.com/?.msg=inc1). 9. The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, August 2008. Pages 118-126.. 11.

(20) 3. The Product Our product, “The Household Health Management Platform” (or “HHM”) is a system that the user can use on mobile devices and desktops. It is composed of three parts- “My nutritionist”, “Diet Planner”, “I Grocery”, and “Result Analyzer.” Ranging from acquiring nutrition knowledge, designing diet plan, implementation, and result analyzing, these four software functions combine the whole process of diet management for all purpose. The following are descriptions in detail respectively.. 3.1. “My nutritionist.”. 政治大. It is just like interacting with a nutritionist. The users first input their basic health data, for. 立. instance age, gender, weight, height, alone with the objective he or she wish to achieve in a. ‧ 國. 學. certain period of time. Based on this information, the software will search the build-in. ‧. nutrition database that is announced by Department of Health as a guideline for generating a suitable diet plan. It will identify the nutrition requirements on each day and a food items. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. recommendation list.. Ch. engchi. 12. i n U. v.

(21) Figure 3: The diet guidance announced by Department of Health. 政治大. 3.2. “ Diet Planner”. 立. After identifying the daily nutrition targets and food items, the user can then make a schedule. ‧ 國. 學. of his or her diet plan. “Diet planner” has a layout that looks like a schedule book. It will help users to plan daily meals according to the diet plan from “My nutritionist.” For instance, if. ‧. the plan is to take 3 portions of vegetable a day, which means 21 portions a week. “Diet. Nat. sit. y. planer” will list out all the vegetables available in the season for you to choose. You can. n. al. er. io. quickly pick some of those and then you are done with the vegetables purchasing list. For. i n U. v. meat, eggs, fruits, and all the others things, the idea is the same. After you are done with all. Ch. engchi. different categories, you can then decide the combination of every meal on each day. The nutrition data of daily meals will be showed at the same time. Multiple users in a family Unlike other Apps that can only process one user at a time, this family oriented software is designed to process all family members at the same time. As the user inputs data of all family members, the system will identify customized diet plans for each family member. And will use the integrated nutrition requirement as the guidance for meal planning. Avoid harmful foods in an easy way. 13.

(22) This software is also convenient for people suffering from allergy and diabetes to avoiding taking forbidden food. As long as users input the list of items they wish to avoid, the “Diet planner” would never show them those items in the recommendation list. Having the avoidance list of every family member built in, the shoppers of the week, no matter who that person is, will never buy the wrong thing again. Generate purchasing list Once the weekly diet is decided, the system will identify the materials needed and generate the purchasing list. Now purchasing food is not a routine job anymore. All the purchasing has a reason behind.. 立. 政治大. Customized Purchase Recommendation. ‧ 國. 學. The system would keep record and conduct data mining on user’s purchasing behavior. After. ‧. accumulating user’s buying record to a certain degree, the system will be able to make customized recommendation. This would save user’s time. The time spend on weekly. y. Nat. customized weekly shopping list for each user family.. n. al. Works like a schedule book. Ch. engchi. er. io. sit. shopping is expected to be shorter and shorter. To a certain point, system can generate. i n U. v. “Diet planner” works just like a schedule book where you can mark any of your important family events. (And such events are usually related to food, for instance, turkey and thanksgiving.) No more worries about forgetting anyone’s birthday, because the system reminds you one week ahead while you are making grocery shopping.. 3.3. “ I Grocery” It is an open ecommerce platform where users can access to multiple food and grocery sellers. The key word search can quickly match user’s purchasing list to offerings across different sellers. And rank the result accordingly. Users are able to find out which of the offerings is 14.

(23) closest to their needs, at the best price and with most convenient delivery policy. For customers, this platform “I Grocery” provides more flexibility. Life cycle and health status of everyone changes overtime. People have different needs accordingly. In “I Grocery”, we have organic food sellers to satisfy main dishes on table, Chinese herb sellers to satisfy related diet requirements. In addition to that, we have ready-made Chinese medicine soup providers online, if customers are too busy to make those soups at home. To be short, the idea is to link everything customers might need to the same place, making it easy for customers to find solutions for diet plan.. 3.4. Result Analyzer. 立. 政治大. There are set of analyzing tools in the “Result Analyzer” where once the user regularly record. ‧ 國. 學. the key body measurement he/she is watching, it will plot out tables and charts to show the. ‧. changes of that measurement at a diet time period.. sit. y. Nat. 3.5. Nutrition Module. n. al. er. io. The nutrition management knowledge behind “My nutritionist” is designed to be. i n U. v. open-sourced. The following is a user scenario to illustrate how it works. Let’s say one. Ch. engchi. Chinese doctor publishes a health book describing 9 kinds of patients and specific treatments for each of them under his theory. A reader, after reading his book, identified some of her family members fall into three categories. Assume this doctor is willing to authorize us digitalize the content and make 9 nutrition models. We will then release them on the App store. The reader can download the three models she needs. Having “My nutritionist” installed in advance, once she activates those nutrition module to the corresponding family member’s sub account, “My nutritionist” will make a diet plan accordingly. In addition to that, if the nutrition modules downloaded include recipes, they will be shown on the system as well.. 15.

(24) It is open source in a sense that any medical doctor or nutritionist can authorize us to digitalize their theory. And by adapting such mechanism, “My Nutritionist” is able to make diet plans for all purpose. The benefit for users is that they can carry out different nutrition methods on the same platform, analyze effects in the same way, and view the result in the same layout. For individual users, it helps to fairly compare across different methods and thus can identify the most effective one. For households, it can carry diet plans for multiple family members of different unique objective at the same time on the same platform. It’s convenient and saves a lot of time. This is a feature that individual based diet Apps cannot offer, which. 政治大. will be further elaborated the chapter of competitor analysis.. 立. This is a web-based service. All the functionalities are developed on the website. No matter. ‧ 國. 學. what device is used, either smart phones, tablet, desktop, or even Smart TV, users are simply accessing to different interfaces of the system. Since all the user data is stored on the. ‧. website’s database, there are no synchronizing issues. Whenever a user accesses to our. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. y. software, the data is always the most updated.. Ch. engchi. 16. i n U. v.

(25) 4. Competitor Analysis 4.1. Heath Care Related Apps There are many Health care related Apps available. They can be categorized as follows. 1) Knowledge providing Apps that works like e-books. There are various kinds. Some are titled as Chinese medicine; some are for users to look up effects and side effects of western medicine. They are just one sided applications providing information to users.. 政治大 By utilizing a camera or having user manual inputting, these apps are able to record the 立. 2) Body measurement tracker. ‧ 國. 學. health related behavior or body measurement, for instance, food intake, weight, blood sugar, blood pressure… etc. With the database built in, these Apps can give instant. ‧. feedback telling how close are the users to certain critical thresholds and warn when they. sit. y. Nat. surpass them. They also keep track on key body measurement figures across time which. io. n. al. er. is informative for chronic disease users. 3) Calorie calculator. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Apps that are designed specifically to calculate Calorie for weight losing. Once a user inputs his/her weight objectives in a certain time frame, these Apps are able to determine the daily Calorie allowance. After that, users are required to input all the food he/she takes every day, either by scanning barcodes, photo taking of the food item, or manually input. If the app is able to identify the food item, which has to do with the data base built in, it can identify the calorie volume. By that, the calorie taken by users can be recorded and tracked. After each meal, the App can tell the user’s Calorie allowance left for that day to help them stick to a given diet plan.. 17.

(26) 4) Nutrition balance tracker Some of the most popular calorie calculating Apps even expand to other nutrition tracking. Under the same method, they also show other nutrition variables apart from Calories. And even expand to other body measurement tracking, like cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure…etc.. They also provide online websites with more comprehensive information. And online forums to share and discuss diet experiences with other users.. 4.2. Identifying competitor From the above, the competitor most similar to our offering is nutrition balance tracker. In the. 政治大. category, we have identified two successful and popular providers, “Live strong”. 立. (http//www.livestrong.com/) and “MyNetDiary” (http//www.mynetdiary.com/index.html).. ‧ 國. 學. LIVESTRONG.COM. ‧. LIVESTRONG.COM is a website that offers articles, tools, and forums about food and exercise in order to prevent cancer and other illness. It is formed by Demand Media (NYSE. y. Nat. er. io. sit. DMD), a content and social media company in Canada, which operates many websites, eHow, LIVESTRONG..COM, Cracked and typeF. It partnered with Lance Armstrong Foundation. n. al. Ch. i n U. v. and formed LIVESTRONG..COM. It has diet/exercise Apps available as well.. engchi. MyNetDiary MyNetDiary is a website/APP provider similar to LIVESTRONG.COM. Unlike LIVESTRONG, it doesn’t emphasis on cancer. Most users would see it as a web based weight losing service provider. Yet it in fact tracks 45 nutrition variables. And it offers tracking service for Diabetes patients. It is operated by 4Techonology Corporation, a privately held software company based in New Jersey. Both of them provide service in English only and serve English speaking countries. Language barrier and food item difference makes them difficult to serve Chinese speaking countries 18.

(27) which our product plan to serve. Both of them have significant users and members. We will use MyNetDiary as our benchmark competitor, because it is more similar to our product.. 4.3. Offerings of Key Competitor As mentioned, MyNetDiary offers Apps and website to provide online service. They use Freemium pricing strategy. They offer free and paid version apps on smart phone and tablet. They also offer “MyNetDiary Maximum”, a full featured service on website.. 政治大 They have complete product 立line on iOS system— free version on iphone, paid version. Note that 1). ‧ 國. 學. on iphone ($3.99), and paid version on iPad ($ 9.99). The functionality increases accordingly. App users get limited service on website; membership payers get full. ‧. features. Apps on iphone and iPad synchronize with the website. The membership fee is. sit. y. Nat. $5-9 per month.. al. n. also $3.99. er. io. 2) For Android and blackberry users, there is only on-phone paid version available, which is. Ch. engchi. 3) Membership fee for full featured website service are. i n U. v. 12 months - $60 payment (or $5 a month ) 6 months - $42 payment ($7 a month) 3 months - $24 payment ($8 a month) 1 month - $9 paying month The following are the functions offered under the three pricing categories published on their website (http//www.mynetdiary.com/products.do). 19.

(28) Table 2: Functions of “MyNetDiary” Free. Pro App. Max. Full-featured food planning and tracking up to 45. Some features are. More features are. nutrient break-down, food customization, food entry. available for. available for. Full-featured Web site, iPhone. time, auto-spelling of food and activity names,. iPhone only. iPhone only. and BlackBerry. The Web site best in the industry food and exercise tracker searches as you type in 445,000 food database, automatic recent history, recipes, custom foods.. resetting weight history, food labels personalized. apps. according to nutrition plan, show/hide page parts and much more.. 政治大 AutoPilot for keeping your diet plan updated when body weight, target weight, exercise plan and other 立 factors change. Helps you avoid weight plateau and .iPhone only. iPhone only. 學. ‧ 國. Exercise planning with weekly worksheet. frustration by lowering food allowances according to your current weight and weight target.. iPhone limited to. printed or exported to file. view only. view only. Diet trend analysis with 9 types of charts and 6. Some features are. More features are. types of reports with flexible time periods, printing. available for. available for. and export.. iPhone and Web.. iPhone and Web.. n. Ch. BMI, BMR, hips, waist, chest, body fat, bone weight, hours of sleep, step count etc.. engchi. Universal Tracking. A full set of health trackers with targets cholesterol, HDL,LDL, tryglicerides, A1C, blood pressure, pulse, medications and custom trackers. Tracker entries record time, multiple labels (to see correlations), and notes. Diabetes Tracking *. Easy and comprehensive tracking of blood glucose, medications, insulin, combined with our precise food and exercise tracking, completed with custom trackers. Special charts and reports paint a "big picture" helping you avoid or manage diabetes. Available on the website only while we are working on companion mobile apps!. 20. y. sit. er. io. al. Tracking up to 20 body measurements, including. ‧. iPhone limited to. Nat. Daily bottom-line analysis, daily reportthat can be. i n U. v.

(29) Withings and Fitbit linking. Automated download of Withings body scale and BP monitor readings. Automated download of Fitbit exercise calories for diet analysis and planning. Online mobile community for peer support, motivation and accountability. Supported by Registered Dietitian. Allows for sharing diary information with peers, trainers and dietitians. Integrates with Twitter and tweets your diet progress and achievements for you. No advertisements, we value your time and attention. No ads for. and focus on your diet.. limited time. 4.4. Competition Analysis and SWOT. No ads in apps and on the. app. Web site. E-mail and forum. 學. ‧ 國. 治 Priority technical support via built-in support 政 E-mail and forum 大 screens, e-mail, and forum. 立. No ads in iPhone or iPad. ‧. Identifying/tracking nutrition intake and menu planning are not brand-new ideas. Apps with these functions are already available on the market. And, some of them also offer exercise. y. Nat. io. sit. planning. But until today, there is no App that integrates nutrition tracking and menu planning. er. together. And they are all individual oriented. None of them is designed for households.. al. n. v i n C h platform” notUonly integrates the two parts, it Our product, “Household health management engchi also link with online grocery shopping, and thus it offers a complete process of diet plan. With this product, users are able to execute their diet plan as early as making shopping lists. Everything in the kitchen is there with a reason. As long as they execute the diet plan as they planed to, they are on track of it. There is no need to entry food taken at each meal and that saves a lot of time. ( However, if the user were not able to follow the diet plan completely for a week, there is still interfaces in this system for them to keep the record.) The time saved is not only that. Having the preference being recorded, the half day weekly shopping now becomes 15 minute. It is achieved by (1) Having diet plan and preference 21.

(30) record, the system know your needs better than any online grocery seller. This doesn’t only save your time, but also helps you avoid buying something you don’t need while wondering in the supermarket. (2) Home delivery. It is one of the best features of online shopping for food. Just take milk for example, it is heavy and it has to be put in the refrigerator as soon as possible. Don’t ever think about going for a movie after shopping for milk. You have to go home right away. Home delivery solves that problem. And it works the best for old people living in apartments without elevator. The only time consuming part is the initial data input and choosing a diet plan. For the former. 政治大. one, it only happens once in a life time, and users of other Apps have to spend time on that. 立. particular process anyway. For the latter one, the frequency is low as well, because each diet. ‧ 國. 學. plan needs at least several months to show effect. Changing it too frequently is not a wise decision. Considering the previous facts we believe that users in fact save time by using our. ‧. System.,. y. Nat. er. io. sit. We tried to use MyNetDiary as a benchmark to conduct a SWOT analysis. But since the two Apps are actually focusing on very different markets, one to the English speaking individuals,. n. al. Ch. i n U. v. and the other to the Chinese speaking households in Taiwan, we found that the comparison should be taken with due reserves.. engchi. 22.

(31) Comparison of the two in a nets shell Table 3: The comparison between “HHM” and “MyNetDiary” “HHM“. “MyNetDiary”. Language difference. Chinese interface. English Interface. Focus difference. Household oriented. Individual oriented. Nutrition knowledge. Open source. Closed. Diet objective. Multiple. Weight losing, and diabetes. Diet plan and nutrition. yes. Yes. Meal planning. Yes. No. Food recognition. No. Yes. Online shopping. Yes. source. calculation. integration. 政治大No. 立. Body measurement. yes. Yes. ‧ 國. 學. tracking and analysis. Table 4: SWOT analysis. Nat. . Multiple objectives. . Multiple users. . No exercise plan.. . The concept of open source nutrition model is too. n. al. Ch. Integration with grocery purchase and household. sit. Open source nutrition model offering flexibility. io. . y. Weakness. er. Strength. ‧. The following is SWOT analysis. i n U. v. broad to communicate. engchi. oriented features which offer a one stop solution and thus enhance customer royalty. Opportunity. Threat. . .  . Chinese interface serves Taiwanese better than English one. launch similar services, and the big ones might. Serves market in a broader scope than weight. have superior system development/customer. losing. service and experience than we do. High loyalty in online shoppers brings us bargaining power in the ecosystem. ( online shoppers, advertisers …etc). . Other internet companies might follow up and. Customer behavior is recorded in our data base. Sharp targeted marketing is to be carried out.. 23.

(32) 5. Marketing plan This product does not involve any new technology. Its uniqueness is at the level of integration on one single platform. Therefore, it can be mimicked by competitors quickly. The key to success in the marketing plan is attracting substantial users fast enough and leave no room for latter comers.. 5.1. Pricing We have a free version and a paid version available.. 政治大 The functionality for the free version 立 is the same as the paid version, but the nutrition module Free Version. ‧ 國. 學. is available only for one sub account. The rest of the sub accounts are fixed according to the basic module which will be designed with base on the recommendations announced by the. ‧. Taiwanese Health Department. (See the figure below) The duration would be limited to 30. sit. y. Nat. days. In other words, all the result analysis can only be carried out for the latest 30 days. If. n. al. er. io. the users wish to use it for a longer time span, they would need to purchase the paid version.. Ch. i n U. v. It allows customers to try out all the functions within one month. As mentioned in SWOT. engchi. analysis, the openness of this product makes it difficult to communicate the concept without the customers experiencing the service on first hand. The free version works like a free sample. Those who are interested in diet management can grasp the process by trying the free version. If they find it valuable, they can upgrade to the paid version. For those who were attracted by the online shopping function, the free sampling experience might increase their interest in using the health management function. In other words, free version is one way of promotion. After sampling, some of the users might still think the dieting part isn’t attractive for this. 24.

(33) reason we have designed the functions of the free version for allowing online shopping. As long as they use this platform to do regular grocery shopping, we can make money out of the transaction fees, and that will cover our cost. Paid Version The paid version is priced at 250 NTD annually subject to renewal. If users do not renew at the end of one year of service, the system will return to free version. Different from other Paid Apps that are charged once in a life time, this system charges an annual fee.. 立. 政治大. As the number of sub accounts is unlimited and the system is designed to be used across. ‧ 國. 學. different devices; having one family paying 250NTD once a year, allows every family member to use the system to plan their diet, in other words using more than one device will. ‧. not incur extra charges. Comparing to our benchmark competitor “MyNetDiary” which. Nat. sit. y. charges once a life time fee 3.99 USD for smart phone, 9.99USD for tablet, if a user wishes. n. al. er. io. to use it on both devices, he or she would need to pay 13.98 USD.. Ch. i n U. v. Assume a family with two people is going on diet, and each of the members purchases both. engchi. phone version and tablet version of “MyNetDiary”, that cost would be equal to a family purchasing our paid version for 4 years, that without considering the extra functions of open source nutrition knowledge, menu planning, and online shopping. For the aforementioned reasons we believe that 250 NTD per year is a reasonable and acceptable price for a Taiwanese average household. The benefit for adopting an annual fee strategy for us is that it can create continuous revenue streams. But what is more important is that it keeps the customers engaged in the health management process. Users of Apps tend to forget Apps purchased long ago because they are. 25.

(34) only charged once. They always think they can leave it and come back to check it out some other time which is not something we wish to happen to our customers. As mentioned in the introduction, the author wishes to use this system to enhance self-accountability in the customers. She knows that every tool has its limitations. Only when people are aware that their health is in their control will it become sustainable. Therefore, we have adapted our pricing to an annual fee pricing scheme to get the customers engaged in the process.. 5.2. Target consumer analysis In order to further analyze what kind of consumer would be interested in this product, we. 政治大. made a questionnaire (see appendix) and spread it via internet through social networks.. 立. The questionnaire was designed to allow the measurement of the purchase intention of the. ‧ 國. 學. respondents; for this purpose two of the questions were especially relevant (1) Which of the. ‧. four functions would respondents most likely need (allowing picking more than one) and (2) whether respondents would rather download the free version, the paid version, or none of. er. io. sit. y. Nat. them.. al. n. v i n C h of respondents Table 5: The Category e n g c h i U to the survey Definition Number of. With base on the previous questions we categorized the respondents as follows. Category. Percentage. respondents D. Want to download paid version. 24. 21%. C. Want to download free version, and also claimed. 60. 51%. Want to download the free version, and claimed they 17. 15%. they need either "My nutritionist" or "Result analyzer" B. only need the free functions ( "IGrocery" and "Diet Planner" ) A. Do not want to download any of them. Or they claimed they want to download the free version, but were not interested in any of the functions.. 26. 16. 14%.

(35) From the definition, we can see the group of strongest purchase intent is group D, followed by C and B, the least is group A. The purchase intent The fact that only 21% of respondents manifested that they want to download the paid version (group D), does not surprise us. The complexity of the product made it difficult for the respondents to understand how it works and the benefits it brings due to the limitations inherent to a description contained in a questioner. During further conversations with some of. 政治大. the respondents in which a more detailed description was allowed, it was identified that the. 立. purchase intention might be higher than the figure suggested by the questioner since people. ‧. ‧ 國. of this kind.. 學. usually require some trial experience before purchasing the paid version of Apps or software. Furthermore, those who claimed interest in downloading the free version and making regular. y. Nat. er. io. sit. use of either "My nutritionist" or "Result analyzer" account for 50% of the total respondents. This group as long as is offered a satisfying user experience in the free version, might. n. al. Ch. upgrade to the paid version as well.. engchi. i n U. v. Overall perception of the product After querying out the responses from Group A (since that was the group which manifested no interest in the product) we built the following perception profile.. 27.

(36) Table 6: The result of survey Overall liking. 3.55. Price/ value. 3.75. Uniqueness. 3.73. Need. 2.99. Compared to Similar product -Better. 3.29. Believability. 3.80. Intend to Recommend. 3.62. (Scale from 1 to 5; 1 being the lowest and 5 the highest) The above score tells us that people think this product is quite unique, and the value/price is. 治政大 unique, but they do not like it than that of uniqueness, which implies people think it is indeed 立 as much. The reason might be at the need index, which is the lowest and is close to 3, (the. reasonable, therefore they would like to recommend it to friends. The overall like score is less. ‧ 國. 學. neutral value of the scale) meaning people do not have a strong perception of need for the. ‧. product.. Nat. sit. y. The explanation for this low perception of need could be found in other qualitative answers. n. al. er. io. for instance; 75% of the respondents replied that there is a need of dieting either related to. i n U. v. themselves or their family, but 60% of these respondents deal with this need by "Trying to. Ch. engchi. consume beneficial food items in their daily life according to common knowledge", and 18% of them "Are not taking any action to improve their diet"; with none of them using Apps or software for diet management. The previous results show that these respondents do not actually identify a precise need for dieting in their daily lives, this could be due to the age group to which they belong (most of them are quite young Besides the concept of using apps to manage diet is not yet widely accepted which could explain as well the low perception of need for the product. The key demographic factor determining purchase intend We found the most evident demographic factors are number of people in the household, 28.

(37) family income, and diet needs. Average number of people in the household, average family income ranking, and percentage of respondents that claimed that themselves or their family need diet are higher in group D, followed by group C and B, lowest in group A. The need for diet is self-explanatory, and the number of people in the household is straight forward as well -Managing the diet of an entire family is more complicated than managing our personal eating habits -the previous fact is one of the most important competitive advantages of this product. Therefore, the more family members living together, the stronger will be the incentive for a user to purchase the product.. 治政 The household income is positively related to the purchase大 intention. This might have to do 立 with the purchasing power of the household, but we believe it is more related to lifestyle ‧ 國. 學. factors. It is reasonable that the higher the income, the more desire for health improvement,. ‧. especially for those people who used to neglect their health in order to advance their careers while they were young.. sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. We also found that, except for group A, the higher the decision maker's age, the stronger the. i n U. v. purchase intention is. From the above, we believe that the profile of the household that will. Ch. engchi. be more interested in the product is most likely one in which the parents are around 45-60 years old, having 20-30 year old children living with them. Such parents are near their retiring age and they have achieved a certain position in their careers with sufficient income. They are familiar with computers and internet which means that they can accept the concept of using software for diet management. And most important of all, they are more focused on health than career, which contrast with the tendencies observed in younger people. On the other hand, we were expecting that respondents that eat out more often would be less interested in this product, because it is commonly believed that cooking at home is better for health due to better control on the ingredients being used. However, we find surprising that 29.

(38) the percentage of eating out is almost the same across the four groups. This might imply that people choose to eat out or cook at home because of objective living conditions, but their health consciousness and how do they wish to manage their diet is not related to their eating out habits. Finally, because the survey was conducted between the author's friends, we believe the sample is biased. First of all, it is spread out through Facebook, meaning that all of the respondents are Facebook users. Secondly, we noticed three figures from the final results which show that the sampling base is more prone to young, technology savvy, highly. 政治大. educated people. (1) The smart phone/tablet users in the Decision maker is 66% of the total. 立. respondents, which is higher from the Taiwan average 30%10 (2) The percentage of. ‧ 國. 學. respondents that claimed to have purchased food items through the internet in the last year is 29%, which is also higher than the data of 11%. 11. (3) The average people in the household is. ‧. 2.59, lower than the Taiwan average of 3 ((data from the Directorate-General of Budget,. Nat. er. io. sit. y. Accounting and Statistics). From the above, we believe the sampling group is not neutral, and might include relatively. n. al. Ch. i n U. v. less respondents with the demographic characteristics that we have identified as our target. engchi. market. Thus, we believe in the universe of Taiwanese consumers, the real percentage of people belonging to group D --- those who want to purchase the paid version---should be higher than 21% if the survey were conducted with enough resources to allow for a statically precise study, study which exceed the scope of IMBA business plan thesis.. 5.3. Place The web based nature of this product leaves the channels strategy simple. It is composed of two, a world wide web page for PC users, and uploading Apps on Apple and Android app 10 11. http://www.find.org.tw/find/home.aspx?page=many&id=331 http://www.emailcash.com.tw/newcorp/tns_article149.htm. 30.

(39) store for smart phone and tablet users. The cost of web page development and domain registration fee are included in IT expense.. 5.4. Promotion In the wild and overwhelming internet world, how can we expose ourselves to customers? The first and foremost promotion strategy is “Pay Per Click” advertisement. We will bid on key words like “diet”, “nutrition”, “health management”…etc. While users key in these words in search engines, our service will appear at top or side of result page as sponsor advertisement. This is a simple tool for users to look us up whenever they think of. But in. 政治大. depth promotion to create awareness is a prerequisite. Our strategy to attain that is described. 立. 學. ‧ 國. in the following part.. Promotion strategy for different customer categories. ‧. To better create awareness, we fist breakdown our potential customer base. We identified the two purposes for people to use this product which are online shopping and health. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. fashion purpose.. sit. management. Furthermore we classify those who wish to go on diet, in health purpose and for. Online shopper. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Online shopper but non dieter. For health Dieting Dieter. For fashion. Figure 4: The concept of consumer category 31.

(40) The following are the promotion strategies for each of the categories. 5.4.1. Dieting for health purpose As the marketing tone of this product is health oriented, we are supposed to attract more customers in this category. They the segment that is most likely to use both online shopping and diet management functions. And they should be more loyal than non dieting online shoppers. Since they use more of the functionalities, they are the source of most of the revenue streams, revenues which would be more sustainable and long lasting.. 治政大 on partnering online grocery mentioned in previous part, we will place banner advertisement 立 sellers’ websites. This promotion strategy is going to be effective, as the viewers of such ads We will use both digital and conventional media vehicles for promotion. First of all, as. ‧ 國. 學. are exactly the same as our target both in terms of shopping behavior and health. ‧. consciousness. And this strategy is synergetic with our partners.. sit. y. Nat. Second, we will promote our product with the nutrition model knowledge owners. While. n. al. er. io. searching for partners, we will fist look for writers that are about to publish books or have. i n U. v. intention to publish books in the near future. Upon authorization, we will be developing. Ch. engchi. nutrition models and get ready to upload them parallel to the new book release period. We will promote at campaign activities related to the book such as media conferences, newspaper/ magazine coverage…etc. Information about our service will appear as a flyer inside of the book informing readers how to implementing the knowledge through our system. Except for the above, we will have our own independent promotion like putting advertisements on health magazines and websites. Also we will invite bloggers to test-try our service and recommend to their audience.. 32.

(41) 5.4.2. Dieting for fashion purpose Other than managing eating habit for health purposes, some people, especially young Taiwanese girls, go on diet for fashion, and some for both. In fact, most people would love to both stay healthy and look fit. It’s just people differ in the weight of beauty and health. If we only use health oriented promotion strategy, we might miss a substantial proportion of customers. Customers that are fashion oriented but mediocre in heath consciousness might be only exposed to fashion oriented media. Therefore, we will put advertisement on fashion magazines and websites to increase our awareness in this crowd of people.. 政治大. 5.4.3. Online shopper but non dieter. 立. We assume the customers of this category to be marginal, given the fact that shopping in. ‧ 國. 學. Taiwan is convenient. Therefore, we won’t put effort in this category, at least for the time being. Since the PPC advertisement is able to reach all customers, this will be the only. ‧. io. Promotion strategy. Physically media a lDigital media v i n Ch engchi U. n. Customer category For all. sit. Table 7: Promotion strategy. er. Nat Channel. y. promotion strategy for this category.. PPC advertisement on. -. search engine Online shopper but non. PPC advertisement on. dieter. search engine. Dieting for health purpose. Heath websites/ Bloggers. Health magazine. Co promotion with partners,. Co promotion with partners,. grocery sellers. the health book writers. Fashion website. Fashion magazine. Dieting for fashion purpose. -. Female magazine. 33.

(42) 6. Operations 6.1. System development and launching timetable After assessment, the complete system development requires one entire year. But, with in one year, competitors might notice it and take action on us. Therefore, we will divide development into two phases. Simple version in phase one and complete version in phase two, 6 months each. The merit of that is that the simple version will be more straight forward for users to understand and operate, making it easier to communicate the concept in a short time frame. We need to gain as many user as possible, as fast as possible, to build an entry barrier. 政治大 commonly used strategy in internet 立 business. And that is the backbone strategy of the whole for competitors. Lunch an innovative idea and attract large amount users in a short time is a. ‧ 國. 學. marketing plan.. ‧. While launching the simple version, the same IT team will continue to develop the complete version and make necessary adjustment when market reaction comes in vision. Another 6. y. Nat. io. sit. months latter, we will make a second launch for the complete version. It means, if competitor. n. al. er. notice our move and want to compete with us, they have only 6 months to react. And during. Ch. i n U. v. those 6 months, we are doing intensive promotion at the same time. And we should be able to obtain substantial number of users.. Phase I development. engchi. First Launch Phase II development. O. 6 month. Second Launch. 12 month. Figure 5: The timeline of development plan 34. 18 month.

(43) 6.2. Partnership development and launching timetable However, what takes time to develop is not just the system, but also the partnership. Partnership with existing online shoppers and nutrition knowledge owners.. 6.2.1. The benefit for nutrition knowledge owners and partnership scheme As mentioned in the previous part, the diet knowledge follows an open source model and as such is open to the contributions of any doctor. In order to reach that goal, we need to form a team in charge of materializing strategic alliance (SA) and have them identify and reach ideal knowledge owners.. 治政大doctors/nutritionist that writes The ideal owners we are looking for are professional medical 立 health books. The real purpose for them to write the books is sharing knowledge, gain ‧ 國. 學. publicity or both. Our App can be used for the same purposes—develop nutrition module. ‧. Apps as a supplement of the books, and issue them together with the new book release promotion will be the most straight forward and effective way to gain awareness—for the. y. Nat. n. al. er. io Partnering scheme. sit. book and for our service.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. By partnering with us, we help them to turn the book wording to digitalized tools to help people apply this knowledge in their daily lives. It is an extension of service for existing readers. And having these models uploaded on App stores, it’s another new channel to gain exposure. App users but not book readers might find the App helpful and will get interested in the writer. In that way, the writers gain even more publicity. The writers do not need to invest anything but the corresponding license to their proprietary copyrights and methods. The development process is on us. They only need to hand in a copy of the book and authorize us for developing the module. And he/she is still the intellectual property owner. The profit for selling the module first goes to cover the development cost, 35.

(44) which is to be limited*. Once the revenue covers development cost, we start to share the profit. The price of each module is 200NTD, we expect to earn 100NTD for each download. * Note The development cost will be limited because in order to fasten the speed of publishing models, we develop an easy interface for data inputting. For each set of module, we will only need several hourly workers for data input, limited engineer working hours to check and fine tune before uploading to app store. In other words, the time consuming part is taken ahead to system development blue print.. 治政大 various sellers and consumers, ”I Grocery ” is like Ebay or yahoo, is an intermediary between 立 with special focus on food and grocery. Although this platform can serve both health oriented. 6.2.2. The benefit for online grocery seller and partnership scheme. ‧ 國. 學. customers and convenience oriented customers, we will first look for healthy/organic food. ‧. sellers to be our partner. Two reasons for that. First, since health is the backbone concept of this software, appearing on the marketing together with healthy/organic food sellers sends. y. Nat. er. io. sit. coherent image. (More detail is to be elaborated in next paragraph) Second, comparing to ordinary food, healthy/organic food is not easy to get access to. We bring more value addition. n. al. Ch. i n U. v. to customers by linking multiple healthy/organic food sellers than ordinary sellers. Shopping. engchi. in Taiwan is in fact convenient. Linking ordinary sellers doesn’t create attraction to customers. Benefits to partner with us are 1) The marketing concept coheres To go on diet is about selecting the right item and quantity to eat. Consuming healthy/organic food is about choosing food that was produced following sustainable methods. Both consumption patterns are out of health motivations. By linking with us vendors of healthy/organic foods are in fact extending their service offering to existing consumers,. 36.

(45) enabling them to eat the right things in the right way. Organic food is on average twice as expensive as ordinary food but with higher quality. The concept is the opposite of those large quantity package food sold at discounted price at hypermarkets. They use discounted price and bundle promotion to stimulate people to buy more. Customers very often end up buying more than they need. This brings extra burden to their health. (Also, even at ordinary stores, junk foods are displayed on shelf locations that appeal to consumers. This kind of products does not exists at organic stores) Taking into consideration the medical cost derived from the modern over eating lifestyle, they are very. 政治大. possibly paying more than they saved from the discounts.. 立. The concept of our menu planning is encouraging people to purchase just the right quantity. ‧ 國. 學. according to their diet plan. This concept coheres with the mindset of organic food.. in a healthy way.. ‧. Partnering with us is like co-branding. We together offer the idea of selecting and eating food. sit. y. Nat. al. n. secure customers.. er. io. 2) By getting linked with other sellers, they can avoid pressure of expanding variety to. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Organic foods are not easy to source not only to consumers but to sellers as well. It’s difficult for one single seller to provide everything a family needs. For instance, a family that conducts a Chinese medicine diet plan on this platform might need some herbs that are not planted in Taiwan. These kind of customers will need to find his/her way to look for that particular herb. This increases the risk of losing such customer to other providers. Having multiple grocery sellers linked to the platform, customers can easily find everything they need at the same place. The convenience will attract more customers than if these sellers were separated. Sellers can access to more customer after linking to this platform. They can avoid the pressure of expanding variety to secure customers to better focus on their strengths 37.