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Your Sources
You will have three main sources of information for your article: 1) the transcript from an internal
meeting this week in which SC’s CEO, Natalie Frank, announced the new app to the rest of the firm;
2) an email in which the company’s head software engineer who worked on the app answers a few
of your questions; and 3) the spec sheet for the app that will appear on Apple’s App Store and the
Google Play store for Android.
Comments from CEO Natalie Frank
“… I’d like to announce something that is the result of an exciting joint venture between our IT and
marketing departments: We are finally launching SC’s smartphone app next month. I’m not a big
app user myself, but my two teenage daughters assure me that having an app is “totally cool” and
that it will give us some serious “street cred.” Frankly, we’ve been late to the game by not having an
app, so this was a long time coming.
The app is part of our larger digital media strategy that we are implementing this year. For the past
five years, we’ve been focused almost exclusively on our website as our primary digital channel for
reaching consumers. But over the past few years, the way people consumer digital information has
shifted from traditional computers to mobile devices. We need to reach our shoppers wherever
they are, and this app is a great way to do it.
The app will let people find our stores, purchase clothes online, and learn about our current sales
and promotions. It also does a host of other things that some of our SC die-hards will appreciate.
Plus, by signing up for the app, the users will be entered into drawings to win access to some
exclusive events. I know the head of our marketing department is working hard to line up those
exclusive events. I can’t remember what they are off the top of my head, but they sounded pretty
cool when she explained them to me last week.
We are very excited about the potential ROI of this initiative. Our internal IT team partnered with
one of the hottest digital design firms in the city, and we were able to get a great deal on the
development of the app. We think the app will drive at least $2 million of incremental revenue by
pushing information about upcoming sales to customers. Plus, because of the nature of the app, it
will allow us to gather a lot of valuable demographic information about our customers, which will
enhance our ability to send highly targeted ads and sales over online and mobile channels.
Interview with Lead Engineer
Knowing that you’d have to write this article, you emailed the following questions to the lead software
engineer who worked on the development of the app. Here are the responses he emailed back to you.
1. What are the best features of the app?
That’s an easy question. The best thing about the app is the quality and dependability of the
software that forms the infrastructure of the app. We spent a lot of time debating which
software to use, but we chose this one because it has proven to be least likely to experience
technical glitches. Plus, it does not consume a lot of bandwidth on our internal servers,
which makes it cheaper for us to maintain the app. We have done a lot of testing with focus
groups, and we are very confident that users will have a seamless experience every time
they use the app.
We also worked hard to incorporate as many of the functionalities that our customers like
as possible into the app. The store locator uses Google Maps, so it can tell you where the
closest store is to your current location. Or you can type in a zip code and see a list of the
nearest stores. As far as e-commerce, users can purchase clothes via the app and we use the
best-in-class financial security software to protect our clients’ financial information and
ensuring that their credit card information isn’t compromised.
Video is a huge part of the app experience. Users of our app can watch videos from our
latest fashion shows in New York, Paris, and Milan to see what next season’s styles will look
like. Plus, the app will recommend clothes you might like based on your past purchases.
2. How can customers get the app?
The app will be available to download starting on June 1 from the iPhone and Android app
stores. We will also add a page to our website where people can download the app directly
from our website (www.strawberryconfederation.com/app).
We were told by our marketing department that collecting demographic data about our
customers and being able to track their browsing and shopping activity on mobile devices
was one of the primary motivations for creating the app. So we designed the sign-up
process in a way where clients will be required to provide a lot of personal information—
such as their income, how much they spend on clothes each year, their marital status, etc.—
before they can download the app. We also encourage people to sign up for the app using
their Facebook account, which is great for us because Facebook does a good job of tracking
its users’ demographic information, which will then get shared with us.
I’ve attached a copy of the technical spec sheet that we created to submit to the app stores:
Technical Spec Sheet for Apple App Store and Android Google Play
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Available date: June 1
Price: Free
Platforms: Apple iPhone (iOS 5.0 or later) and Android (version 2.2 and up) operating
systems
Size: 2.5 MB
Version: 1.0
Language: English
Sellers: Strawberry Confederation, Inc.
Category: Business