Building and Managing e-Services - Assignment Example

 Building and Managing e-Services 1. The Business objectives of the web application to be developed and how it integrates with other parts of your business or if it is a pure e-business, describes the supply chain and logistics requirements needed to support your e-business. The web application would take into account the ubiquity of the system and seamless integration of various elements of the business. It would enable them to further enhance the very acceptability of its customers fetching a better market for its products and services. The primary objective is to tap the large number of resources over the globe in terms of its advantage to the business and the various collaborations for gaining market strength. Internet has transformed with age to connect with every parts of the globe and to help a business to fetch large scale products and services. The very exploitation of the technology would be largely important for integrating various important segments of business for fetching large scale products and services to the globe. Armstrong (2004) mentions that the web application would integrate the suppliers and the manufacturers in a way that it would take care of the effort and costs of the organization. It purely depends on the business model which requires to be implemented for gaining the advantage of the E-business. The supply chain management needs to be decided so that the integration can be strategized and handled at its best. The appropriate channels must be decided so that the resources can be optimized for implementing Just in Time (JIT) inventory systems. The very objective of making large scale integration would not only curtail costs in the long run but ensure better handling the demands of the customer. The business models play a large role in the very definition of the business and the interaction with the customer. The roles offer direct communication with other businesses and customers for the ultimate selling of products and services of the company. The supply chain of any business is the very chain of activities that takes the product from its production to its final sale and must be performed for meeting with the ultimate objective of the business (Learn that, 2004). In a Business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) environment the scenario is entirely different. The supply chain of B2B is the movement of the raw materials into various transformation steps without much of branding and advertisement at large. It is focused on its base customer which is often an institution catering medium to large scale supplies. The supply chain of B2C would focus more on the marketing of the products or services which would make sure to fetch customers and usually the channels of communication is large. Cooper (2003) mentions that supply chain is important to visualize the processes which are involved from the idea generation stage to the deliverable component. Proper identification, understanding and analyzing the processes would make sure that better strategies can be devised for innovation. It would help an organization to optimize costs and produce quality products and services (Ballou, 2002). It is also important for an organization to seamlessly integrate the business process for strategic decision making towards resource utilization and process innovation. Innovation is the identification and improvement of a product or a service for better processing, distribution and optimization of effort, time and money for any organization (Hindu.com, 2008). It is essential for any company for the reasons stated below: 1. The online company is better chanced to serve customers and make sure to fetch better market segment. 2. The online company need innovation to take effective strategies against the resources that fetch them business continuity and cut down their costs. 3. Innovation would help a firm to grow with the dynamic information driven world and embrace changes for managing its business better and fill its objective at a large scale. (Claudio, 2006) Impact of online businesses The impact of e-commerce and information technologies can be summarized as follows: Accessibility: A large number of people over the globe can avail the online store. Global catering becomes quite easy as requests can be invoiced online and delivered using several means of transport. Anytime Anywhere access: The customers can seek their leisure in accessing the website and placing request online unlike the strict working hours of the retail shop where phone and premises were opened for a limited time (Armstrong, 2004). Compare: The online store was provides facility to compare its products with each other and other products, so that one gets to analyze the product base and market availability for their choice and pocket. All in one page: The online store can collaborate with suppliers and other businesses across the globe for either helping them is spreading their products or catering to several medium scale businesses for their growth. Tracking: Effective tracking of inventories and deadlines can be made possible using the website. Better display: The products and services can be made aware to the global users of all nature so that one gets a complete view of what can be fetched. It includes detailed description of the products. E-marketing: The online store can reach to millions of buyers and consumers and other businesses can put up their advertisements to get visibility of the services. These companies would I turn pay for helping them to perform direct and indirect marketing. Purchase online: The online store would facilitate online purchases using the secured protocols implemented with the e-commerce technologies using SSL technologies (Forouzan, 2003). Introduction of promotion offers: The online store can promote its sale by innovating their products and introducing promotional offers. Measuring sale, profitability and resource output: The online store is an information system capable to measure the amount of sales received in a periodic measurement of time. The profitability can be easily determined to put up online ratings which form quite important to get better visibility and acceptance in the global network. Its presence in the internet is quite important so as to perform better than others. The growing businesses and demand for products and services across the globe resulted in taking into account the web for widespread of their products. The consumption of time, money and effort in catering to global customers is quite critical and makes every being to be catered well to their demands. The reasons for converting ‘bricks and mortars’ into ‘click and mortars’ are as follows: 1. The visibility is improved which means more people get to know about it and often want to try it out for a change. 2. The e-marketing helps to let people know about its various services it caters. 3. The business can spread in diverse fields so as to provide ancillary services to the customers along with grocery items so that they get served better. Helps for greater retention. 4. The supply chain management is better rendered through e-business. 5. People can access the online store at their convenience and make payment through secure payment gateways. 2. Marketing and site promotion. What options are open to you and what strategies will you use to promote your e-business application using “traditional” and e-marketing tools? The internet has revolutionized the marketing of the website into various forms which strategizes various forms for capturing the targeted user. The various components for fetching the right marketing technique start with planning and understanding of the user’s choices and preferences. The variety of ways to maximize the volume of traffic would be to capitalize on the various methods to bring enough visitors and convert them to customers. One way is to post banners in online communities or create groups with the name of the product or the service and invite people with the help of mailing lists. Online communities are currently over owing with identities. It is not difficult to utilize multiple identities on the Web. We can easily obtain a new identity on the Web such as a portal ID, an email address or an identity for a new blog. 1) Email It is an indispensable tool to communicate with one another in the digital era. The electronic communication makes sure that proper format of the message is catered along with it. The advancements are in the form of blogs and other social book marking tools. It can be largely used to market products and services through a channel of users. Here the concept of infomediary business model comes into picture where enough information resources are sold to the intended business people who desire to fetch demographic data of customers. 2) Blogs: Weblog or Blogging has been a web page with minimal to no external editing, providing on-line commentary, periodically updated and presented in reverse chronological order, with hyperlinks to other online sources. There are essentially two types of weblog: those that emphasize the diary and comment aspect, and those that emphasize hyperlinks. The former may seek to influence wider public opinion, or merely to raise the profile of the blogger; the latter act as a filter system, looking at what exists on the Web and recommending content that might be of interest to visitors. If bloggers make mistakes in the information they publish, they rely on their peers to point out any errors. Thus, Blogs have unique features that traditional web media does not have. 3) Wikis: The original wiki, The Portland Pattern Repository was created by Full Name Cunningham in 1995. The definition of a wiki is a web page or set of WebPages that can be easily edited by anyone who is allowed access. Wikis are largely used to market ones though about the product and thus directly markets the product. The use of celebrity in the emerging technologies boosts up the image recognition process and thus an increase in the recognition of the product or service. As an alternative to the global editing of wiki’s, restricting access to registered users only is often used for professional, work group wikis. 4) Mailing list It is a web application where you can create “tags” for different URLs that you find that interest you. The multiple tags can be created for one URL the application will then give you URLs that other users have tagged with the same exact tag. They are extensively used to market a product and serves large use for the users. The mailers often representing a big company or a known company indulges into sending such decorated mails which are well identified by the viewers and they act over it. 5) Podcasts and discussion groups It originally called audio Blogs, the audio recordings in MP3 format. It can be played on desktop computer or other MP3 devices (most famous is Apple’s iPod MP3 player). Various forms of Ads can be transmitted into songs and videos for featuring ones product and services. It is one of the largest forms of marketing. 6) News group It is an excellent process to broadcast news to a particular news group or mailing lists. It automatically sends news to others for their knowledge and its sharing. One is required to register at the group or join it for fetching the right kind of material for the desired group. 7) RSS feeds and syndication The user subscribes to “RSS feeds” from different websites. The user then installs software called an “aggregator” or “feed reader” onto their computer. The software periodically checks for updates in RSS feeds from different subscribed to websites and updates user with info from the feed. One issue is that there are different RSS formats, and thus compatibility issues. A new syndication system named “Atom” is an attempt to clear up these compatibility issues. Information about blog postings (usually the headlines) are made available via RSS feeds. Podcast listeners subscribe to RSS feeds to be made aware of new podcasts. 8) SEO Search engine optimization forms a large strategy to focus on the volume and quality of customers so that enough sales are directed towards it. The demographical characteristics are capitalized to its full extent for right delivery and design for a better market segment and detail. 9) Pay Per Clicks (PPC) The PPC enables one to invest in affiliate marketing and provide better opportunities for growth of the affiliate partners too. Amazon.com has one of the largest affiliate markets where its subscribers make a good deal advertising the products and services. 3. What options are open to you for accepting payment at your site? What payment methods have you chosen and why? The payment forms prime issues as that requires to be certified by the security authority of the internet. There are various bodies in this respect namely the VeriSign Inc and others. The VeriSign seal enables a business to provide guarantee to its users and customers in general to provide safe financial transactions. The various methods for facilitating financial transactions can be done with the help of several methods as follows: 1. PayPal – It forms a large chain of preferential customers and businesses as it’s quite affordable and easy to use. The very distinguishable idea is to borrow the piece of code from the PayPal site by doing a simple free registration. This form of payment hides the user’s account details and enables one to transact securely. 2. Credit Card - The online business would fetch better inbound methods for handling financial data so that only the business has access to that. This is also a very secure method for transacting. 3. E-Wallet – It forms an online secure process for payment. It stores the money in digital form and connects with ones bank balance. One can use this method for abstracting the account details and payment forms for secure payment. 4. Master Card/ VISA – The most secure and yet most preferred is the various secured debit and credit cards belonging to or certified by this technique. It underlines the various Technology is integral to any online business which results in sustained competitive advantage. The online business possibly must operate on a client to server basis. Their technology usually consists of a web browser linked to the Internet, which goes to a web server. The web server is linked to a business process server, which may be linked to a series of other servers such as payments and security servers. The secure protocols like SSL and TSL combined with HTTPs provides enough security for its web transactions (Forouzan, 2003). 4. How will you process the orders / instructions you download to complete the fulfillment process? How will you manage the order processing and fulfillment? Once the orders/instructions are downloaded it is handled in the supply chain management system of the online business. The very idea of processing takes the following steps: Once the instructions are downloaded, it is received in a particular template in the SCM system. The SCM system checks for the payment information and validates it with the user’s bank or the clearing house in question. Once the payment information is confirmed by the client, it is posted to the SCM system of the company. The order details are then evaluated and made sure to fetch the right kind of details for validation with its inventory system (Ballou, 2002). The inventory system is then queried for the availability of the various products ordered. The answer of the inventory system is interpreted and further decision as to the order of the product is to be made to the supplier/ manufacturer is being ruled out. If the demand is short of supply, the concerned suppliers are sent a notice and they are evaluated for better strategizing the delivery of the product depending on the service level agreement with the principal company. Once the supply is short it is fetched by the company and then prepared by the company. The invoice is thus prepared and made sure to transport the same to the customer. At this point of time, the delivery system of the company comes into picture. The various deliveries of products are tracked using the geographical locator systems to track the shipping of products. The final review of the customer and the feedback obtained would be taken into account. The support system of the company makes sure that all the various commonalities are handled to its best. 5. Site management issues: What are your plans to maintain your site securely? How will you manage access control, data integrity, back up and service continuity. The security issues are the primary issues which an organization must take care to protect their data which is king to any organization. In particular as the system implements payment system, security is very much required as that would ensure safe communication with financial information. The following are the identified issues and their correct implementation process: 1. Login/Access Issues: Every customer would be asked to sign up with the company before any services are provided. That would ensure safety of transactions made with the company. It could be similar to Pay Pal, where a person can get verified by giving his Credit card number. 2. Back up: Periodic backups can be taken of the database in magnetic tapes so that data remains safe and is not lost. The saved data also ensures continuity of business and good recoverability options. 3. Anti virus software: The system needs to be protected against all vulnerabilities and threats like viruses. Good anti-virus software would ensure that the system is well protected and operations will not halt for any external threat. 4. Access control: This ensures that everyone is not allowed to access all information and all business functions. Access control is a mechanism which creates views for every type of user. Views are used for giving a user a specific access area outside which nothing is available. Such as an accounts officer should not be able to view reports of the profits in the business which is meant for the owners and higher management. Onsite help desk will be located at the head Office. It will provide help desk support to all of their branches via a toll-free number and/or website. When a problem has occurred at a franchisee, the franchisee staff needs to log a call through to their helpdesk over phone or website. The help desk will try to troubleshoot over phone first and if that does not fix the problem, subsequently they will organize for a technician to attend ASAP. In addition to that there will a full time technician at the web server location at the head office providing 24×7 support. User support will be provided in number of methods, such as online documentation and troubleshooting, a help desk, technical support, end user satisfaction, resolving service request quickly and seamlessly, increase productivities, online document, online enquiry facilities, online transaction facilities and others. 6. What tasks need to be completed before a full implementation of your site can be realized; such as selecting an ISP, registering and transferring a domain name. The implementation is done with several factors in picture. The various selection of ISP is done with several factors such as their hosting services, number of email providers, hosting space, templates for implementing payment services and many others. The process can be highlighted as follows: 1. Selecting an ISP: This forms a very crucial decision making step for hosting the website with a service provider. 2. Registering with a domain: This is again a great step in the decision making of the website’s use. If the site is about promoting and selling products and services, the .com and .country name domains are of great use. The best part is the selection of the domain depending on the business. It also empowers them to fetch better deal with the customers and the security agencies. 3. Web enabled control panel: The web enabled control panel makes sure that both the content management techniques and web marketing is handled by the hosting system. The various methods make sure that all the fulfillment factors are underlined for better managing the web content and enable incorporating the standards. 7. Critically review the Actinic product(s) you have used in terms of functionality, fitness for purpose and more general principles of what constitutes good HCI design. Actinic products are principally serving to the individuals and businesses, which brings to a conclusion that it serves the niche market. The various services are aimed to take care of the products and various services. Functionality: It largely helps in taking care of the small and medium retailers who are either individuals or businesses. The website is simple with very little graphics and serves the purpose of the people here. The various objectives of the site in terms of the user perception and objectives are catered well. The products for small vendors offer greater flexibility to customize their e-commerce applications and make sure that it caters to the web well. The products for medium to large vendors make user that the complexity of their operations are handled and thus take care of the businesses in a better way. The features offered are customizable and enables the large businesses to add new dimensions to their application design and look and feel. Fitness for purpose: The website is fit for purpose due to its less complexity in terms of design and the simplistic design principals which offer the right amount of techniques to interact and make good. Navigation is centered on the homepage although graphics, tabs, consistent hyperlinks, page labels and attribute breadcrumbs (Instone, 2003) make users aware of their location, the path chosen and how to return to previous stages. Actinic has adopted a linear structure, which is easy to remember. Their structure, layout and navigation is user orientated, its simplicity demonstrably fits context of use. Actinic understands user goals which they relate to their fundamental site goal - profit. Actinic stresses the importance of "flow" (Hoffman & Novak, 2005) in their design, inter-related with usability. Actinic’s navigation creates choices, is consistent, logical and predictable which provides user control, promoting confidence. Navigation is efficient and interactive, which improves "flow" according to (Rettie, 2001.) Good HCI design: Usability on the web is crucial to achieving loyal and frequent customers; hence we recommend investment in this area. Actinic has strong link affordances. Links are accurate and intuitive. Users are aided in their search and purchases, demonstrating good usability. An animated demo is available for new users and a help section, as recommended by (Nielsen, 2007) Actinic’s usability is inter-related to content, navigation and page layout, which reveals consistency throughout the site. Actinic’s one-click ordering system considerably increases purchasing efficiency. An A9 searching organizes bookmarks and saves browsing history, helping flexibility and efficiency of use. Actinic has personalized features with areas "New for you" and "Your store" tailored to user interests and a "Wish list" to track items. These features enhance interaction, user experience and promote "Recognition rather than recall." (Nielsen, 2007). Actinic positions their website as a virtual store. It strengthens this association with visual symbols such as “shopping carts” and instructions to “proceed to check-out” which are reminders of physical store environments, "providing familiarity to customers." (Weick, 2005). These would be approved by Nielsen (2007) as they provide a "Match between system and the real world." Amazon avoids technical language and speaks user language, as recommended by Nielsen (2007). Actinic makes assumptions for user errors. Spelling errors in search fields provide the most popular matches, suggesting a constructive solution. Such careful design helps users recognize, diagnose and recover from errors. The support and assistance features make it truly a great site to interact. For any queries a visitor can check out the “Call #” feature which is instituted in every page with the labels “Free 30 day trial”, “Request a Call” and “Free E-Book”. This is more welcoming for any user and makes a great human computer interaction principle. References/Bibliography Armstrong, A. & Hagel, J. (2004) The Real Value of On-line Communities, Harvard Business Review, pp.134-141. Ballou, R. H (2002). Business Logistics Management, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Third Edition. Claudio, U. Ciborra (2006). Teams, Markets and Systems.Cambridge University Press, 2, 78-82. Cooper, M. C., and L. M. Ellram (2003). Characteristics of Supply Chain Management and the Implications for Purchasing and Logistics Strategy. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 4, 2, 13-24. Copacino, C. William and Dic, W. Roger (2001). Why B2B e-markets. Forouzan, A. Behrouz (2003). TCP/IP Protocol Suite, second edition. Tata McGraw Hill. Harrison, P. Terry and Ganeshan, Ram (2005). An Introduction to Supply Chain Management. Retrieved 18, December 2008 from http://lcm.csa.iisc.ernet.in/scm/supply_chain_intro.html. Hindu.com (2008). Encourage innovation with holistic approach: Basheer. Retrieved 19, December 2008 from http://www.hindu.com/biz/2008/10/13/stories/2008101350051600.htm Hoffman, D. & Novak, T. (2005) A new marketing paradigm for electronic commerce, The Information Society, pp.43-54, Instone, K. (1993) Breadcrumbs, Retrieved 21, December 2008 from http://user-experience.org/uefiles/breadcrumbs/KEI-3Breadcrumbs.pdf Learn That (2004). Definition of Supply Chain, retrieved 20th December 2008 from http://www.learnthat.com/define/view.asp?id=339 Nielsen, J. (2007) Ten Usability Heuristics. Retrieved 19, December 2008 http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html Rettie, R. (2001). An exploration of flow during Internet Use. Weick, K. (1995) Sensemaking in Organizations. Read More