Lego.Com Case Study Essays - Lego, Lego.com, Robot Kits,

Lego.Com Case Study Lego Mindstorms The non-commercial website Lego.com has been an enormous success providing Lego with a strong presence on the Internet. However, implementing a website capable of handling sales transactions requires a great deal more than a non-commercial site. The firm has implemented an ERP system which may provide some technical support for the website. The details of the ERP system are unknown at this time; however, the goal of implementing the system was to optimize the supply chain from production to distribution, which will be a significant opportunity for the E-Commerce project. Another important consideration is incorporating the ERP system into the E-Commerce transactions so that separate systems and processes are not necessary. The Lego company enjoys worldwide brand recognition; ranking 5th in the global toy market behind such giants as Mattel Hasbro Sega and Nintendo. The Lego.Com website is among the top 10 sites for children. Both of these factors represent a significant strength for the firm over competitors. The firm has traditional sold to retailers and other middlemen and has little experience in direct consumer sales. This has been the case in the past the typical buyer of Legos products are not the consumers of the product. The firm currently generates 5 % of total sales from the catalog sales of its products. The catalog operations may provide supporting resources for direct sales logistics and experience in direct consumer sales. The firm has both financial and employee resources to support the E-Commerce implementation. Legos philosophy underlies all company activities and supports to a large degree their branding strategy. The Lego vision Idea, Exuberance and Values requires that all Lego products stimulate childrens imagination, creativity, and are high quality products. The LEGO MINDSTORMS products as all products in Legos offerings align with the firms overall philosophy and represent a strength for the company. However, the E-commerce site must handle sales in a way that supports the firms philosophy; such as quality service, creativity, and the belief that children are the vital concern. The LEGO MINDSTORMS product line already meets the standards; however, the website and the entire process including marketing to order fulfillment must be carried out in the traditional Lego philosophy. Throwing away the ideas, the philosophies and the definition of the Lego company which has in the past proven very successful for the company in any Lego E-Commerce website or operation is a mistake. This stren gth separates Lego from the other 2 billion sites on the web that could sell blocks of some type of Legos own products. Lego has a global supply chain already in place and includes processes of planning, production, distributing and logistics. The E-Commerce project will impact distributing and logistics because of the differences in delivering to consumers versus delivering to retailers and other distributors. Delivering the product on time and correctly is a main priority of the E-Commerce site and can prove to be a strength or a weakness. Currently Lego, Inc. has companies and offices in 30 countries and covers 6 continents providing a great deal of resources needed for both the selling to consumers and perhaps some of the infrastructure existing can support the Lego Mind storms e-commerce sites. Many issues arise from Legos target market being largely children. The first problem is moving from a child wishing to buy a Lego product to a parent paying for the product. Many ethical and legal issues must be addressed when marketing to children. One possible way of dealing with these sensitive issues is to allow parents to customize the web site and pre pay purchases using gift cards. Two advantages result from this strategy; the first is giving parents control over what products and information is available to the children. For example, a parent may decide to restrict the product catalog to the lower cost products and products that offer more of an educational experience. The other advantage is that this strategy will address payment issues. A further advantage coming from allowing the children to do their own shopping on the Internet is providing a fun experience to the child. The American market should be the starting point for the firms e-commerce efforts because of complexity of infrastructure in terms of logistics, marketing, legal issues,