Introduction

Second life is 3D virtual online world, runs over the internet where users of this virtual network
can explore, collaborate and participate in all activities, it can be considered as a birthing ground
for new industries and transform business, commerce, marketing and learning. The main idea
hiding behind the direct 3D virtual contact with others through your own made world where you
can express, share and comment on what you are seeing
Companies can use Second Life as a business tool for online Marketing for their products,
companies can establish their own markets on SL where they can show their latest products for
more than 15 Million Customer around the world. The customers on their turn can experience
the good they are interested in (virtually) and can have as idea about what they are going to
experience in reality. The 3D imagery could give people a better idea of what real products
actually look like.
Second life also allows businesses to use new tools that increase its processes efficiency and
creating new approaches for marketing, product development and build a new brand image.
Companies can use second life as a business tool for interaction with their customers and get
their feedback about their products. Renaud, chief architect of networked virtual environments
for Cisco said: "I bump into customers and partners multiple times a day in Second Life. In 11
years at Cisco, walking through the parking lot in San Jose, I never get people come up to me
and say, 'I'm a Cisco customer, have a second?
Virtual Second Life world will become an indispensible business tool and vital to the strategy
of any company intent on reaching out to the video-game generation and expand its work
and its customer base with providing high competitive advantages. As a part of the Service
wedding industry, we already having a well established wedding Services firm in Amman,
Jordan. We are intending to expand the current business of this firm toward more
technological structure and more competitive services portfolio that helps us increasing our
customers base and enhance our current market share. The Second Life attracted us

Porter's Five Forces analysis of Wedding services in Second Life

To examine the competitive structure of having Wedding services business over
second life, PORTERs Five forces model was chosen
According to this Model, we attempt to analyze the attractiveness of doing Wedding
Services business through Second Life by considering five forces within the market.
According to Porter, the likelihood of firms making profit in a given industry depends
on the following five factors:
1. Traditional Competitors:

We have inducted a deep scan for the firms that are providing wedding
services over the second life, there is few number of firms that provide just a
virtual online wedding parties for second life Avatars Only, without matching
it to the real life wedding services which lowering the degree of competition
between the existing firms and our intended wedding services business.
The cost of leaving the industry is very low because of low level of
investment. This means that existing firms will not fight hard to survive
because they can easily transfer their resources elsewhere
The Market of business through Second life is expanding, so there is always
open opportunities for the firms providing wedding services to expand and
enhance their services to gain higher market share without fighting to save
their share of falling sales. Also the easiness of market entrance can bring
higher level of competition but still the thread of losing high percentage of
share is not appearing at this stage.
There is a little brand loyalty so customers are likely to switch easily between
the firms providing wedding services in the second life.

2. New Market Entrants

a. The barriers of entry are low, the second life community is widely used
all over the world and there are no barriers for anyone who want to
establish a business in the second life (if he has the technological
capabilities and knowledge).

b. The Entry cost is very low: all what you need to start a business in
second life is just a premium membership, we can make a business in
second life with very low capital cost (starting from 7.5$ monthly).
c. Technological knowledge about development over second life is a
fundamental requirement for establishing wedding services business
over second life community.
d. The government policies does not prevent establishing Wedding
services business over second life.
e. The existing competitors have no control over supplies, since our
business is intended to take all the supplies from a real established
firms located locally in Jordan.

3. Substitute products and services:

We have studied the business of wedding services in the second life

that have a link to the real life wedding services business, there was no
competitors as stated earlier and so there is no perfect substitute for
our service, although we have to consider that people can find
substitutes in the real life wedding services firms which provide
planning services for wedding parties, but they will lose the
competitive advantages that we are providing such as wedding party
simulation, one place to customize all wedding requirements, and
sharing knowledge experience from previous wedding partiesetc.

4. Customers:

The customer power will be weak since in our business, we are

providing a new experience with low cost which lowers down their
power. They are still can shift easily to the real life competitors but
they will lose the previously stated advantages.

5. Suppliers:

The suppliers power will be weak because there is relatively high

number of alternatives to choose and we can switch easily to another
supplier, according to our value Network, we have large number of
actors providing the same service category with different prices and
options which lowers down their power.

Finally, Using Porters five forces analysis, our business is likely to generate
high revenue because of the following:
1- There is limited level of competition in this industry
2- There is no substitute in the second life, substitutes are only
considered in the real life industry
3- Customers are relatively weak
4- Suppliers are relatively weak.

SWOT Analysis
The analysis is based on the assumption that an effective strategy derives from a sound fit
between a firms internal resources (strengths and weaknesses) and its external situation
(opportunities and threats). A good fit maximizes a firms strengths and opportunities and
minimizes its weaknesses and threats. Accurately applied, this simple assumption has
powerful implications for the design of a successful strategy.

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT)

"Play back your wedding" SWOT Analysis

Location of Factor

TYPE OF FACTOR
Favorable

Strengths
Internal

Easy to access &

communicate.
Experienced event team.
Virgin industry.
Opportunity to grow globally.
New idea in the wedding
services industry
High level of efficiency.
Wide range services.

Opportunities
External

Large community.
Low level of competition.
Technology development.
New life style trends.

Unfavorable

Weaknesses

Wide range of services

may decrease the quality
level because of control.
Services may not fit people
traditions and believes.
Lack of contacts.
Ineffective promotions.
Unfit decisions because of
this new business idea.

Threats

No government support
Technology development and
new virtual communities.

High level of knowledge.

Customer loyalty

New wedding services ideas.

Loss of experienced staff.
Low level of market demand.

Our Business:

Our Business idea is to extend our already existing Wedding services business to be
done also in the 2nd life. Currently our company is providing a variety of basic
services for those who are about to marry such as picking and reserving the
wedding halls, choosing the flowers, music and sound effects and light effects. We
are facing a lot of difficulties currently in matching the customers needs and
preferences with the available large diversification of services and products for
different target segments. Information technology revolution permits different
industries worldwide to create and enable different kinds of services and achieve a
high level of operational excellence that enabled them to capture more customers
and enhance their market share. As the Second Life community is getting larger
year after year, it started to attract more businessmen to expanding their existing
business through it to get the full benefits from the advantages and opportunities it
can facilitate as stated in our introduction. We take the advantage of the presence
of Second Life community to add a new Line of services to our existing company
where our business is having high customer contact, high sensitivity and relatively
high cost. And our aim is to satisfy our customers needs through giving them a full
idea about the details and structure of their wedding day details using a 3D virtual
environment.
In our business, we will establish a virtual location for our company in the second
life. the following business flow diagram illustrate the flow of data in our virtual
company.

The previous diagram shows the way our business will be conducted with the
following details:
-

The customers will enter our virtual company where they can find screens
around the walls that shows the details of our services and market our real
life company through previously recorded videos.
When the customer took an idea about what we can do, he can register his
basic information as:
o Community guest: who can participate in our community by posting his
suggestions from his previous experience and comments on others
experience. The data that he will post in the community will be
available for any customer so he can get the benefit from it and take it
into consideration for his wedding.
o Business Actor: who is willing to establish a business with our company
or advertise for his good or services through our virtual community. An
appointment will be assigned for this customer with the
Communication department and a confirmation mail will be sent to
both having the meeting date and time.

Customer: who are willing to meet the planner to get the benefit of our
business. he is requested to mention more detailed information about:
Wedding date (range)
Budget for wedding.
Number of guests.
Those basic data will help the planner to match them with the varity of
choices that we have as will be stated below. An appointment will be
assigned for this customer with the planner and a confirmation mail
will be sent to both having the meeting date and time. The meeting
will be held in the second life through a video or voice basic
communication supported by the Second life.

According to the registration data, the planner will have initial idea about
what the customer is really need and will prepare the interview accordingly.
During the interview, the planner will ask questions to know details about the
personality and preferences of his customers and directly enter them to the
customers database which is linked to our suppliers and service providers
database to sort out the best alternatives sorted according to their
preferences. The customers DB and suppliers DB will be connected through a
small In-House developed DSS system that can match the preferences of the
current customer along with the previous choices from similar customers with
the available choices from suppliers DB and sort them accordingly.
The Planner will start introducing the available choices that match the
customers needs on the screens of the meeting room (as pictures and small
videos) which contains:
o Available Hotels or wedding halls
o Flowers arrangement
o Songs that will be played during the wedding (customer has also the
choice to choose from what he saw in the community or to pick the
music from our online music store)
o Lightning effect
o Type of Zaffeh
o Dinner and Cakes
o Cards Design
o Saloons for both the bride and the groom
o Bride dress and groom suit
o Plan the honeymoon
The customer will chose what suits them from each category, and directly the
planner will enter them to the customer DB. Once this process is completed
and agreed between the planner and the customer, they will arrange a date
for the 3D Simulation of their wedding in the second life that will contain all
the previous mentioned preparations.

Customer and planner will attend the second life wedding party simulation
and both will take the notes if anything needs to be adjusted. Once the
process is completed and the customer agreed on those preparations,
another appointment will be arranged between them and the sales
department in our firm to sign up the contract and start the real preparation.
After the wedding and the honeymoon, the customers will be encouraged to
enter our competition and post pictures, videos and feedback about their
wedding in the competition page so others can view it and rate it. The couple
who will get the highest votes will win the semiannual competition with a
valuable prize.

Business strategy:
Business strategy is one of the most important stage need to conduct the business
that it's decide the way you run and shape the business decisions. The strategy
should be compatible with the type of business and the industry you working with.
Business strategy should be incorporate with the business mission and objectives
and it create an effective way to achieve them. First of all we will state our
suggested mission as below:
Mission" providing a one stop location for your wedding services needs and
requirements, and let you taste the experience of professionalism and play back
your wedding day"
The previously stated mission of our business lead to plans and strategy that we will
follow to achieve our goals, where we will follow the differentiation strategy to
differentiate from our competitors that will lead to the success.
Our differentiation strategy implement by providing the value to our customers
through a unique features and services over our competitors where we offer an
innovative services which differentiate in a number of ways as follow:
1- Unusual and unique service: 3D wedding day simulation.
2- One stop location: where customer can experience the wide range of services
and products that may be needed in their wedding day.
3- Create a community for sharing opinions and previous experiences so
customers and community members can participate in a more dynamic way
to support their decisions for their most important and sensitive day the
wedding day.
4- Provide services and suggestions that exactly match customer's needs and
preferences.

The design of the Business Model:

The business model is fundamental to any organization because it provide powerful

ways to understand, analyses, communicate and manage strategic oriented
choices.

We will begin to adopt a suitable business model for our new business to achieve
our competitive positions and maintaining our business strategy to improve our
ability to respond quickly and guarantee high quality of business decisions.
Accordingly, we will follow the UNIFIED FRAMEWORK OF THE BUSINESS MODEL
CONCEPT which was developed by Dr. Mutaz Al-Debei & David Avison (Mar
2010). Based on that, it is suggested that when designing a business model, we
need to address 15 critical concept organized in 4 dimensions in a term called V 4
service model ontology which is illustrated in the below figure

Where this designs dimensions and elements are interdependent that performs the
model in a sufficient and effective way. Now we will provide a more in depth details
for each dimension.
1- VALUE PROPOSITION:

The value proposition dimension impresses the first 3 concepts of designing

designing wedding services business
1.1. Product-service:
Our business is to provide comprehensive services for those who are
preparing for their wedding day where they can find all what they need in
one place within the lowest time period, our services consist of:
iProvide over all solution for the weeding day containing the
following:
o
Find and reserve the wedding hall that match the customers
perception and budget
o
Provide the needed flowers arrangements for the tables in the
wedding hall and for decorating the whole theme of wedding
o
Pick and choose the music that will be played during the
weeding
o
Choose the suitable Light effects
o
Prepare and reserve for Zaffeh
o
Choose the needed type of cakes drinks and provide them
accordingly
o
Design the wedding card
o
Reserve for the saloons for the bride
o
Pick the suitable Design for the dress of both the groom and the
bride and coordinate with designers accordingly
o
Arrange for the honeymoon vacation with a travelling agency
and set the whole program for this vacation
iiPerform a 3D simulation for the wedding day using the second life
community to play back all the preparations that were agreed by
the customers so they can imagine how their wedding will be.
iiiCreate a community for sharing opinions and previous experiences
so customers and community members can participate in a more
dynamic way to support their decisions for their most important and
sensitive day the wedding day.

1.2. Intended value element:

Our business idea is mainly looking to provide a variety of values that
satisfies our customers as follows:
iSafe time, efforts and expenses: throughout our one stop location
company that provide all the needs for the wedding day just
through going with the steps arranged by one planner. Usually and
according to our traditions and our perception toward the wedding
day, the wedding couples are spending weeks and even month in
their preparations for the wedding day. They are picking each and
single service separately from its service provider and that is much
costly and waste of time. Our business can offer all those services
to the couple just in time.

ii-

iii-

Eliminate the ambiguity and improve the trust: the 3D simulation

service we offered play major role in eliminating the ambiguity of
their choices about the elements they choose to build up their
wedding day and the overall wedding day expectations.
More socialization and create more relationships through
participating in the created community: people there can share
their experiences and opinions to others, they can have discussions
about what will be good and what will be bad in the wedding day.
People are getting more socialized and we as business makers- can
get benefit from the opinions of the crowd to develop more services
in our business.

1.3. Target Segment:

Our target segment is the young engaged couples in Jordan who are
willing to prepare for their wedding day to take the benefit of our services
diversity. Here in Jordan, the second life community is not spread enough
to depend only on it to generate the needed revenues for us as business
makers. So the membership in the second life is not a must. For the
couples who does not have a membership in second life we will do the
necessary registration for them and give them their free membership and
the steps to visit us in the second life community when they visit our real
life premises.
For the couples who do not have the enough computer literacy to use the
second life, still we can assign them an appointment to visit our real life
premises where in our location we can log them into the second life and
help them to preview their 3D simulation.
So in our business model, our target segment involves all the engaged
couples regardless their membership in the second life and regardless
their computer literacy.

2- VALUE NETWORK:
The value network dimension represents external arrangement that revolve
around the collaboration and communication our wedding services company
through it 6 main concepts:
2.1. Actor:
This concept is identifying the core actors with whom the wedding
services company communicates and collaborates in order to deliver

our services. So in our business the main actors include services

providers:

Hotels and Halls

Flowers shops
Music and DJ stores
Light Effects Makers
Zaffeh Bands
Cake Shops
Cards Designers
Saloons
Dress Designers
Travel Agencies
Second Life Community.

2.2. Role:
This concept describes the main role of each actor. In our business
Model, our internal Planners our internal communication team is
playing the major part in coordinating and reserving what was ordered
by the customers. So the role of each actor is to provide the
prices and the available dates for each service then do the
necessary job if it is signed by the customer.

2.3. Relationship:
This concept is identifying the sort of links that our company
establishes with our value network actors. We will perform a strategic
partnership relationship between us and all the service providers
mentioned previously
In our business model also there is no need for intercommunication
between our partners since the communication team will do the
necessary partnership preparation from the service providers, enter
them in the suppliers DB separately and the planner will pick what suit
the customers accordingly.

2.4. Flow Communication:

This concept addresses the material communicated among various
actors connected in value network. So there are 2 scenarios of material
communication in our business model:
o

Material flowing between the company and our customers:

which includes Money, agreements and services. This can be
done through physical presence to our premises, also Second
Life community is considered as a channel for the 3D simulation
service that we provide.
Material flowing between our company and our actors: also
includes money and agreements (continues line in the below
graph) and services (dot line)

2.5. Channel:
This concept describes the communication ports used to communicate
materials among actors. We have two types of channels to accomplish our
business:
o

Physical channel: where our operational team along with the actor team
will physically move the needed material from its location to other actors
location
Internet: to transfer the data from all actors toward our supplier DB
containing the available dates, prices and available services.

2.6. Governance:
This concept examines the powers and controls of each actor within the value
network. In our business there is no power or control for any actor among the
others because of our huge service providers DB that lower the level of
control of everyone.

3- VALUE ARHITICTURE

The value architecture dimension specifies all necessary technological

architecture arrangements and organizational infrastructure arrangements by
the following 3 concepts:
3.1. Core resources:
This concept creates useful information of the needed assets
and resources to develop new services. In our business the following are our
core resources:
1- Communication team: responsible about making partnership
agreements between the company and the other actors and vice
versa. It is also responsible about collecting the data needed from
actors and store them is the suppliers DB, then make the
reservations and the needed arrangements once there is
agreement about the service by the customer.
2- Wedding Planners: responsible about the communication with
customers and do the needed design for the weeding day according
to customers DB and Suppliers DB. It also assure the excellence of
the job that will be done
3- IT developers: responsible about deploy and maintain the
infrastructure of the organization and maintain the availability of
suppliers and customers DBs. They are also maintaining the
internet connection with our actors to keep the DB always updated.
Part of this team should have the ability to program and develop
over second life community to develop the 3D simulation of the
Wedding day.
4- Sales Team: responsible about finalizing the deal with the
customers and reach agreement about the prices and signing the
contracts with each actor
5- Operational Team: responsible about executing the agreed
preparations that were signed by the customer involves
coordination with actors to deploy the ordered services.

The following assets and Information technologies are also needed in our business:
1- Intranet connection between all teams and departments to flow the needed
preparations
2- Internet connection to connect our suppliers DB with the external actors and
facilitate the access to the second life.
3- Second life premium membership to start establishing the business over
there (establishing our virtual branch in the second life) and including 3D
simulation.

3.2. Value Configuration:

This concept refers to the ability of our company to integrate organizational
and technological core resources in a way that allows efficient and effective role out
of successful services where it identify and examine the key processes that allows
core competences to emerge. The following graph shows the value configuration of
our business:

3.3. Core competences:

This concept holds information that our company can do more efficiently and
effectively than our competitors. Our differentiation strategy implement by
providing the value to our customers through a unique features and services over
our competitors where we offer an innovative services which differentiate in a
number of ways as follow:
5- Unusual and unique service: 3D wedding day simulation.
6- One stop location: where customer can experience the wide range of services
and products that may be needed in their wedding day.
7- Create a community for sharing opinions and previous experiences so
customers and community members can participate in a more dynamic way
to support their decisions for their most important and sensitive day the
wedding day.
8- Provide services and suggestions that exactly match customer's needs and
preferences.

4- VALUE FINANCE:
The value finance dimension is a description on the core arrangements needed to
insure the economic viability of the offered services including cost and pricing
method where it is composed of free main concepts:
4.1. Total Cost of Ownership: this concept deal with the financial information
about the overall costs with respect to all core arrangement that are needed
to maintain the wedding services. In our case, we have already a running
business in the real life which has its already established TCO but in our
model we are introducing expanding our value network actors with more
vendors and create both customers and suppliers DBs with connecting them
through an in-house developed DSS system. Also we introduced expanding
our business toward the Second life community.
TCO calculations will include extra team member in Communication team to
increase the number of actors in our value network. TCO will also include the
costs paid in searching and making partnership agreements with the newly
added value network actors.
The TCO for our proposal contains the cost of hiring extra IT team containing
of 3 IT developers one of them specialized in the second life development
and 3D simulation.
TCO also will include the cost of establishing both customers and suppliers
DBs and connecting them through our DSS system including the entire
needed infrastructure to do so.
The cost of premium membership and the cost of establishing our own
premises in the second life is also included in TCO calculations.

4.2. Pricing Method: this concept contains all information about the prices of
different services provided by our wedding services firm along with the adopted
pricing mechanism and billing methods. In our business, we will provide a
comprehensive package contains everything needed by the engaged couples for
their wedding day so the pricing method that we will follow is:
- a dynamic pricing method consist of a percentage of 10% of the whole services
ordered by the customers, since the customers will choose their needed service
from our value network actors, the prices of the those services will be exactly
according to the prices of the vendor (this is the amount that we will pay for each
actor upon signing for the services) plus a 10% percent of the whole package which
will be considered as our revenue.
- 50 JD will be paid by the customers before preparing the 3D simulation if the
customer ordered it, this amount is will not be returned for them if they did not
agree on buying the services from us but it will be deducted from their total price if
they agree and sign for their wedding services with us.
- a special discount from our percentage (to be 8% instead of 10%) for the couples
who promote for our services and bring another couples who signed for the services
with us
The customers will pay their invoice by attending to our real life premises where
they can pay either by cash or by VISA cards.

4.3. revenue structure: this concept contains information regarding the generated
revenue, and shows how generated revenue is broken down among different
economic participating actors. In our wedding services business, we will purchase
the agreed services by customers from our value network actors according to their
set prices then we will sell it to the customer with 10% profit margin. So our
revenue stream can be illustrated by the 10% profit that we got from customers
after paying the actors for their services.
Another major source for revenue can come from the special discounts that we can
get from our value network actors by time when partnership agreements were
signed between us.