1.1 INTRODUCTION
The internet has opened a new dimension of business opportunities in the advertising arena by completely replacing conventional sources of information through its interactivity and ease of operation. Providing a widespread market-reach in cost effective manner, the internet has led to the emergence of numerous marketing advances that also breakthrough the web barrier.
Since information technologies cannot benefit organizations unless they are used, Management Information System researchers have focused a great deal of attention on factors that affect the use of information technology (Swanson, 1998). Information technology (IT) researchers have turned their attention to factors that affect the use of end-users systems information technology utilized directly by non-technical knowledge workers and managers most especially in multi-product manufacturing companies in underdeveloped and developing African countries like Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, etc. These researchers have employed two perspectives to examine the degree to which sales workers and sales managers use various advertising techniques.
Information technology advancements have introduced a number of incredible things that were dreams in the past. The idea of web-based supermarket service is a very strong idea for today’s business and it can put valuable effects on the business of any organization in today’s competitive business environment.
The Web-based supermarket is developed for replacing the existing manual system at organizations providing facility of home delivery with online shopping capabilities. The far-off user can place order from web and from internet enabled cellular phones. It provides online Shopping facility to remote users. It would like be a point of order system. The system will capture Sales Information at POST (point of sale terminal) and Customers Information. Unlike the existing outdated largely manual Sale, and Inventory systems.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
There is much stress and a lot of problems attributed to traditional/conventional advertisements. In this method of advertising a product to the public, very few numbers of consumers are reached at a time, this kind of individual attention makes it very slow and expensive for the company to get across to many people in a competitive market. These factors influenced the developing of an internet based advertisement so as to reach very large number of consumers at the same time in very short period of time.
1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This project reveals not only the benefits of the computer technology that are directly making the life of human-being easier but also putting valuable impact on the environment.The project utilizes its sound experience in the web and wireless sector to craft innovative online and mobile advertising solutions for enterprises. The project portfolio encompasses developmentan information-rich and enhanced graphics website for a company’s products display so as to come closer to the public at very fast rate.
1.4 AIM AND OBJECTIVES
The primary aim of this project is to effectively use the internet medium as a means of bringing the products of the company to the awareness of a very large number of consumers so that the company can sell quickly. The objectives of the study are:
1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The project focuses on developing an internet application implemented on localhost server for advertisement in a multi-product manufacturing company, choosing Dangote Group of Company as a case study. The study samples the activities of Dangote Group of Company, Ilorin being a Manufacturing Company specialised on production of varieties of products. The case study is chosen as it satisfies the target of the research focused on multi-product manufacturing company.
However, the project does not cover the accounting system of the organisation. The application software developed for this project is neither an inventory system nor stock monitoring application. It scope is limited to developing an that provides basic market-based information about products and as well provides an avenue for regular customers of the sales department make online orders of goods.
1.6 DEFINITION OF TERMS
LAN: Local Area Network is a collection of interconnected computers that can share data, applications, and resources, such as printers. Computers in a LAN are separated by distances of up to a few kilometers and are typically used in offices or across university campuses.
IVR: Interactive Voice Response – is a technology that automates interactions with telephone callers. Enterprises are increasingly turning to IVR to reduce the cost of common sales, service, collections, inquiry and support calls to and from their company.
PEER-TO-PEER: Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application. They are said to form a peer-to-peer network of nodes.
CLIENT-SERVER: Client/server describes the relationship between two computer programs in which one program, the client, makes a service request from another program, the server, which fulfills the request.
POS: Point of sale (POS) (also sometimes referred to as Point of purchase (POP) ) or checkout is the location where a transaction occurs. A “checkout” refers to a POS terminal or more generally to the hardware and software used for checkouts, the equivalent of an electronic cash register. A POS terminal manages the selling process by a salesperson accessible interface. The same system allows the creation and printing of the receipt.
EDI: Electronic data interchange (EDI) is the structured transmission of data between organizations by electronic means. It is used to transfer electronic documents or business data from one computer system to another computer system, i.e. from one trading partner to another trading partner without human intervention.
1.6 ORGANISATION OF THE REPORT
This is the overall organizational structure of the work as presented in this project. Chapter one of this project deals with the general introduction to the work in the project. It also entails the aims and objectives of this project, the significance of the study, the methods used for data collection, the scope and limitation of the study.
Chapter two presents a review of literature. It discusses the roles of advertising agencies or departments and the impacts of advertising on the economy, politics and society. It also looks into review of past projects related to the project topic of study.
Chapter three covers the analysis of the existing system, description of the current procedure, problems of existing system (procedure) itemized, description of the proposed system and the basic advantages of the proposed web based application for library management.
Chapter four entails design, implementation and documentation of the system. The design involves the system design, output design form, input design form, database structure and the procedure of the system. The implementation involves the implementation techniques used in details, choice of programming language used and the hardware and software support. The documentation of the system involves the operation of the system and the maintenance of the system. Chapter five deal with summary, conclusion, recommendation and references.