Qualification - ASSOCIATE DIPLOMA IN E-COMMERCE VIT004

Develop a mix of skills in I.T. and marketing, which are in high demand world-wide

E-commerce is a must have skill for managers in any industry not just IT because all businesses now use the world-wide-web as another point of sale. To successfully sell on the web knowledge of the way business and marketing goes on the web is a must have.

This is a great course for Marketing managers and Business managers.

Career Opportunities

You will be able to work as IT Managers, IT Consultants, E-commerce Consultants, Web marketing consultant etc.

Areas covered in this course are:

promoting on the internet,
a well-planned and professionally designed website can compete on an equal footing with large corporate companies.
websites can be Dynamic and Interactive, allowing customers to not only browse through products and services but sometimes interact with demonstrations, view multimedia presentations and more.

Why should you choose this course?

This course is interesting and covers a broad range of Internet subjects to help you in this changing industry. To give you an idea of the module within the E Commerce section, we have included the following extract below:

DEVELOPING A MARKETING PLAN

The focus of most business activity today is to satisfy customer wants while at the same time achieving a profit. In many instances, a business’s marketing plan needs to be fully integrated with all other aspects of the business.

An integrated marketing plan outlines what marketing actions need to be conducted and specifies:

1. What has to be done – i.e. the action plans

2. Why these actions are necessary

3. Who is responsible for carrying them out

4. When they are to be done

5. How they will be done

6. The objectives to be achieved.

This integrated marketing plan gives purpose and direction to the business’s activities. The plans need to be known by everyone in the business, so each department can work towards achieving the goal. The marketing plan needs to mesh with the business’s other plans i.e. Financial, operational, and also its cash flow. An integrated marketing plan may be short term (one year), medium term (two to five years) or long term (five to ten years). It must be constantly reviewed and modified to meet the business’s objectives over time.

There is no set format for developing a market plan. Each plan will reflect the individual characteristics of a business. However, all marketing plans should have two features in common:

1. Realistic in light of the situational analysis

2. Achievable within the business’s resources and budget.

COURSE STRUCTURE

Fifteen modules must be completed as follows:

Module 1. Writing a Web Site (HTML)

Introduction to the Internet and HTML
The most important HTML Tags
Simplification through HTML Construction Software
Creating Links
Loading a Site onto the Internet
Adding Graphics
Designing a Web Site that Works
Advanced Features

Module 2 ASP.net

This module will expand on website database development techniques and more using Microsofts ASP.NET technology.

Module 3 Digital Photography

Introduction To Digital Technology How images are captured and stored, categories of equipment & software, scope of applications
Equipment
Digital Technology - Colour, resolution, sensors
Digital Cameras
Taking Photographs
Scanners
Uploading Images
The Digital Darkroom
Compositing & Imaging - Production & manipulation of images
Special Effects -Outputs & Applications- Printers, The Internet

Module 4 E Commerce

Introduction - what is e-commerce (more than the internet)
Success and failure - what makes the difference
Promotional strategies - are different on the internet
Optimizing web site potential
Increasing web site exposure
Automating supply of goods, services and cash flow
Managing constant change
Â· Dealing with e-commerce problems

Module 5 Visual Basic.Net

Introduction
The Variables
Understanding conditional statements
I/O handling
Controls and Objects - An Introduction
Structured Programming using Modules
Properties, methods, events & classes
Inheritance
Polymorphism
Using controls
Debugging
Developing a complete VB.NET application

Module 6 Photoshop

Learning The Menus
Working with Digital Image Files
Understanding the Tool Palette
Using Layers, Actions and History
Digital Painting, Shapes and Colours
Selecting, Resizing, Transforming and Masking
Adjustments and modifications
Adding Filters and Styles
Preparing Files for Print and Web

Module 7 Publishing I (Introduction to Publishing)

Nature and Scope of the Publishing world
Desktop Publishing A
Desktop Publishing B
Illustration: Graphics
Illustration: Photography
Research Skills : Market Research, researching an article, etc
Marketing of Publications
Ethics & the law in publishing
Developing a publishing project

Module 8 Freelance Writing

Introduction
Basic Writing Skills
The Publishing World
Manuscripts
Planning
Newspaper Writing
Magazine Writing
Writing books
Writing advertising
Special project

Module 9 Marketing (Foundations)

Marketing is the cornerstone of most modern businesses. Lack of marketing knowledge is frequently the reason why a good business concept does not succeed. This module deals with all aspects of marketing from presentation and packaging, to advertising and selling, developing in you an acute awareness of what is needed to achieve and maintain a good market share.

Module 10 Sales Management

Developing Sales Concepts
Developing Sales Relationships
Sales Ethics
Building Product Knowledge
Developing a Customer Strategy
Presentation Strategy Options
Closing a Sale
Managing Yourself
Managing a Sales Team

Module 11 Advertising & Promotions

Analysing the market
Target Marketing
Display and Display Techniques
Advertising and Promotions strategy
New product development
Sales Techniques - General
Writing Advertisements
Electronic Marketing
Direct Mailing
Exhibitions and Shows

Module 12 Marketing Systems

Marketing systems
Retailing systems and strategies
Wholesaling systems and strategies
Product presentation and packaging
Negotiating skills
Marketing organisations
International marketing
International marketing 2
Analysing the market
The marketing mix

Module 13 Bookkeeping I

This is a basic bookkeeping course, which focuses on the nature of accounting for small business, mainly service firms. The course consists of 13 lessons.

Module 14 Research Project I

The Research Project involves some theoretical studies followed by designing, conducting and writing up research on a relevant topic. Selection of the topic, and progress in this project is monitored and guided by a tutor.

Module 15 Industry Meetings (100 hours)

Industry Meetings involves attendance at committee meetings, seminars, conferences, exhibitions, trade shows, or any other events that are relevant. The student needs to submit documentary proof of attendance (eg. references, testimonials, receipts etc).

Duration: 1,500 hours

PROMOTING THE SITE

Promotion describes the methods used by a business to inform, persuade and remind a target market about its products. To achieve these objectives, a promotion campaign attempts to:

· attract new customers by heightening their awareness of a particular product

· increase brand loyalty by reinforcing the image of the product

· provide information so customers can make informed decisions

· encourage new and existing customers to purchase new products

· change individual’s behaviour through information or persuasion

Many of us confuse promotion with advertising because of its visibility and frequency. Advertising, however, is just one of the four elements of the promotion mix. A promotion mix is the various promotion methods a business can use in its promotional campaign. Businesses can choose from four methods – publicity, advertising, sales promotion and personal selling.

This gives you an idea of how we cover Internet fundamentals within our E-Commerce section.

Another excellent course is our Digital Photography and we have included an extract below to give you an idea, as we cover many areas including Retouching and Sharpening images:

Retouching

Since we can manipulate the pixels of a digital image in any way we choose, we can apply all of the above techniques to a selected area. Modern image editing packages have some very powerful tools for selecting regions; such as areas of similar colours, geometric shapes and even a range of colours over the whole image. These areas can be then be touched up using tools that smudge, duplicate parts or fill in areas with a solid colour or pattern. You can do almost anything you could do with a traditional artists tools ranging from pencils to chalk and charcoal, paintbrushes, airbrushes and traditional photographic tools including dodge and burn, and creating a montage of photograph “layers”.

An interesting input device to use is the tablet, which allows you to hold a pointer similar to a pencil rather than using the mouse. This has the added benefit of sensing how much pressure is being applied to the point, and responding in a suitable manner; effectively mimicking the real world implement, including crumbling charcoal, dripping paint and all the nuances of a real airbrush.

Sharpening Images

Most photos captured with a digital camera or a scanner contains some blur that can be corrected using a process called unsharp masking (USM). In fact, the need for this process is so common, many high-end cameras and scanners have embedded software that does it automatically. Even if it's been done once to an image, it may have to be done again if you resample the image. You'll find that this procedure, done with an Unsharp Mask filter can make a tremendous difference in photos that you print or post on the Web.

So how does the unsharp mask filter work? First it locates edges in the image by looking for pairs of adjacent pixels that have a specified difference in brightness (threshold) and increases the contrast of those pixels by a specified amount. The change affects not only the pair of pixels, but also any that fall within a specified radius.

We hope you like our extracts from our wonderful technology courses.