Electronic-Business and Web-Sites - Essay Example

? E BUSINESSWEBSITES XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX Introduction E-business is doing business either over the internet or dedicated proprietary networks with e-commerce as a part of e-business which is mostly buying and selling transactions (Krug 2005). The process of establishing an e-business is risky and requires many changes in business process and strategy to be successful. The intent of an e-business is to generate income, strengthen service and limit price by expanding using the internet. The prospects of online trading have substantial revenue and its realized when the services perform for the business. E-business has evolved and is continually changing to accommodate new technology, inventions and innovations. Since the first website appeared online; organizations, companies, and institutions went on a rush. It is not enough to be on-line with a domain name and a simple website. A good and well designed website is an important factor to consider. Website statics are a major concern for the management, who want to realize a return on investment for their money (Johnson 2010). Despite the overrated chants for this new-age business concept that has suddenly become the goal of many commercial organizations, not much has changed in the traditional way of handling various business processes (Jianfeng Wang 2010). E-business maintains the same principles of business operation as traditional commerce, that people, both sellers and buyers come together to exchange commodities and services over a network of computers. Ordering, buying, bidding, selling, customer services, enquiries and virtually all the business processes still uphold the underlying principles of commerce. E-commerce is a subset of the overall e-business strategy. It chiefly seeks to improve the buy-sell transaction activities in a business; as a result it increases the revenue. In a way e-commerce covers a range of on-line business activities for services and products, both businesses to customer and business to business on the internet as a platform. E-commerce breaks the process of on-line business into showing the scope activities and information that is provided to the customer to conduct business and online shopping. Quite a number of different functions go into the requirements of e-businesses. For instance, there are some basic functional necessities that cover the sort of specialized that perform the functions that run on the e-business mode. There are also other functions that cover the software and hardware requirements to carry out the same services. An analysis of how e-business verity credit, process an order and how they fulfill the order as well as how they verity shipments and all or any post sales process needs to be considered while assessing the performance of an e-business. How the website works E- Commerce site uses database, all information about products on sale and the company is stored in a database which will be installed on the server provided by the company that provides hosting services. It aims at creating successful online businesses by providing tailored technology solutions that are scalable and flexible, use of search engine and interactive sites to solve the customer’s need as well as the producer’s business need. When creating an ecommerce site we should consider the nature of online business to be performed, its target customers and audience and well as the competitive environment in that particular business. In our case we intend to create an ecommerce website for an organization that produces and sells computers, printers and other electronics. We target worldwide retailers and wholesalers as our online clients. It should be well arranged and easy to navigate. An ecommerce web site has different types of menus. On the main menu we should have Home. This is where the information about the product and the company is found. It should be visually pleasing and quickly loading. It should features such as flash slides and music. It should include all features and functionality that a give customer pleasing site experience which is conducive for customer’s conversion and retention. It should be linked to other WebPages which are; about us-this is a page where details about the company’s information is found. When the company was started, which products the company produces any news that could be relevant to the customers. This may include introduction of a new product, offers or change in prices. The home has a link to another page whose title is ‘products’ it gives details of the product on sale, variety ,Price and features of every product this enables the buyer to know which product suits his/her need best. In our website the products are computers and we have a new LED design of Samsung, also an LCD and an LEC available for direct sales, Latest Samsung printing devices and E-ASH products available for quick delivery. It is also linked to a page called ‘Community’. This is for interactive purposes with the customers. A good e commerce website should yield high performance by allowing the customers to give their opinions and also like the site on the social networks such as face book (Pruitt and Tamara 2005) .It should also give reports and statics on how many people visited the site in order to measure the performance and optimize business The main menu should also have a link to the page called ‘contact us’. This shows the location, postal address, fax, email and the phone number of the company. This helps the customers who would wish to seek for clarity, make orders and enquiries or pass any views to the company to have a means of doing so. The user menu allows users to register by filling in their details. Here a user can submit an article a to a web link, log in or log out. This helps in getting the statistics on effectiveness of the website because the more the number of logged in users at a particular time the more the number of people interested in finding out more about the products. It also shows a graphical representation of number of users accessing the site. On this page other resources such as the maps, images are found they help in physically tracing the company. It also shows the new customers that the company is real on ideal and if interested they can trace its location and go shop physically. This helps to the built their confidence. In developing the links between these pages you ensure that all your content is easy to understand and spread, minimize errors especially grammatical and spellings errors especially if you want other people e.g. customers to link to your page using social networks, you should also ensure you use a privacy policy that is accessible so that you build your customers trust and confidence. To encourage people to link to your site you can use a pay per click method. To link your pages to the main menu you can add an internal link and create an article, add all the features that you want to appear on that page and then save. This website provides information about all the products on sale they include Samsung LED, LCD, wireless printers as products. In order to create we use an online strategy found in a blue print called ecommerce requirement specification. This comprehensive document contains creative, functional, SEO, search, Content and technical requirements. It specifies the extent to what custom development and a third party application in an ecommerce site will be required in during the implantation phase. It also shows to what extent the ecommerce website tools will satisfy the need of the customer as well as of the businesses. Then through functional designs visualize all the ecommerce requirement specifications in a map of the website by use of architecture wire frames, flow of processes and site maps. It has a search engine. To ensure search engine optimization is achieved we apply various techniques, before hosting to review the content and structure of the ecommerce site, ensure it has a title tag. It plays a very crucial role in indexing the web site. A search engine will first look at page title when determining the exact page being searched and also online customers will see it at a glance when looking at this sites search engine listing. Therefore it should consist of a word or two e.g. Home, Products, News etc. In our site we include the title of the page only. The second technique we used for search engine optimization is including a Meta tag. A Meta tag can either be description Meta tag or keyword tag. We prefer to use description tags which are listed in the search rank in the result. When users are searching for this site this what comes out with the link to page and then they can decide whether or on not to visit the site. E- Business website functionality Quite a number of different functions go into the requirements of e-businesses. For instance, there are some basic functional necessities that cover the sort of specialized that perform the functions that run on the e-business mode. There are also other functions that cover the software and hardware requirements to carry out the same services. An analysis of how e-business verity credit, process an order and how they fulfill the order as well as how they verity shipments and all or any post sales process needs to be considered while assessing the performance of an e-business. Functionality, technical and non technical, for an e-business is key. Technical functionality refers to the information processing capability of the e-business systems. It point to the server requirements, internet speed requirement etc. These functional requirements are the foundations and platforms of the e-businesses. The nature that makes business processes virtual in e-business is supported by these systems. Many stakeholders control the entire system and as such an e-businesses smooth operation especially when operating online is controlled by many other people or organizations. Additionally, e-businesses need other functionality; such as security, scalability and reliability, to be in place. This may make or break a venture and essentially are what keeps any e-business venture in operation. Without security, performing reliable business functions will not be with trust on the end of the consumer. Consumer trust is vital just like with traditional store. Building consumer confidence in your system is in this case a good sign of growing business. Order processing needs the transaction processing and database information mining. Speed and efficiency are factors that are considered in evaluating the usability of a system supporting e-business. Payment methods include credit cards, electronic checking and digital cash. The e-business system has to verity the credit and approve through a credit card that verifies the systems. Payment gateways that route payments through existing financial support systems are required to purposely authorize credit cards or make settlements as required. World Wide Web allows the customer to track their shipments to the very specific item. The customer has to sign up an account with these companies and once their shipment is ready, they can conveniently track it. Tracking follows the stage of fulfilling an order as promised to the customer. It is not sensible for a company to offer products to the general public if the lead time for completing an order is longer than what another company offers. In the business world, there existed a distinction between the different fields of production, management, sales and marketing. In this era of technology, all these areas have merged and been given short descriptions and abbreviations like CRM, ERP etc. It all has to do with the availability and integration of information and the road to information is through computer systems. Gathering information and acting on it is primal and it is largely from the available data that custom made solutions are developed. E-businesses are highly dependent on these systems since they seek to consolidate the business process into one streamlined processes or short and easy to do tasks(Mcneil 2008). For an e-business, the interface provided must provide customer service, sales and marketing, payment systems etc. This in one aspect cuts down on the personnel and the bureaucratic process of buying and selling but in another perspective it makes the system complex to develop and prone to errors. Partially correct – E-Business uses the internet to sell goods – the description oversimplifies the basic principle. In a more precise definition, E-Business is a fundamentally new way of conducting business electronically using the latest technologies, the internet as an example. E-Business calls for a paradigm shift from the conventional business thinking with the intent of effective competition in a new and dynamic environment: The Cyberspace. Customer empowerment is a soft tool for e-business administration. This idea shifts the emphasis towards getting the customers more deeply involved in the business process. With the development of a single interface with an online help desk, the services are more automated with significantly less paperwork and waiting times. The business owner is able to extend the personal customer relationship to providing after sale services with a lot of efficiency. The premise set by excellent service delivery is an advertising point since the satisfied customers are willing to attract more of their friends to the website. E-Businesses have processes that direct how sales and products flow. Many processes required for an e-business deal with shipping of purchases to customers and the inventory. Implementing direct to customer shipping has to be effective since its one of the very foundations of e-business ( Boresi and Schmidt 1993). On that issue customers to an online store buy goods that they have no physical attachment rather evidence of. They make their decisions based on price and delivery, as such delivering the goods to them fast and in time is of much essence. Inventory maintenance in e-business is at the center of operations and control. It has to be increased to ensure products are in stock for the e-business customers. The way that inventories are produced would need to be analyzed to verify that the vendors can maintain the supply with the demand of the products sold on the internet. The increased inventory could require more space for storing the inventory. A process would need to be implemented to ensure that the correct order is sent to the correct customer. Transactions are made electronically versus in person. An electronic payment system would need to be put in place. Accounting information would need to be collected on a timely basis to ensure that information is accurate. Customer service lines would need to be implemented for questions and complaints about the site. The determination of how the site would be constructed and maintained would need to be made. Several advantages exist for using the internet for business activities. Faster communications to vendors and customers can be achieved. Shopping during non-business and business hours is availed to the customers. This provides the ability to reach more customers and expands the client base. Implementing e-business comes with flexibility to the business process. The flexibility is squarely on the customer interaction and a platform to reach them. Using the internet gives the e-business owner a global reach and a global market. Economic benefits of e-business are a key part of the success and why many companies run towards that direction. First, transmitting information is done fast and quickly. This has the capability of reaching, more quickly and completely, a broader group of buyers and sellers. Additionally it broadens the scope of particular markets or the exchange of services and goods. The changes, aforementioned, in which the companies compete, bring about the efficiencies of reduced costs and supply and demand consolidation. Buyers are able to get better information about quality, price and terms of trade. On the suppliers end, they have better information about the lower costs and their buyers, from automating transactions. Operational efficiency: Improving the efficiency of service delivery and business operation. In e-business operation, the company is able to move resources towards a more efficient and productive direction. This could be inventing new products and bringing them online to the customers or improving an existing part of the business and ensuring, for example, the product production is timely and of quality. In implementing an e-business sales people no longer need to hand deliver confidential product information, since the company legal and human resource department is in direct control of the small numbers of staff. Potential sales are enormous, because of the increasing client base and this puts the company at an advantageous position. Distinctive strategic positioning of the business in the value chain. In building an e-business, it is essential to consider an on-line relationship with direct customers and vendors. Management, procurement, sales and marketing chains have different informational needs. It is essential to build customized websites within customer accounts and vendor accounts. Delivering personalized information on-line allows an e-business to support multiple levels of customer organization in a manner that the individual’s needs are best met. On a larger scale it makes it easier for each customer to do their own research and take appropriate action. In recent years E-business systems have evolved at an alarming rather high rate, due to the substantial increase in the internet usage. This change has encouraged more and more people and commercial organizations to move to e-business. As the technology evolves there are new ways of doing things being devised and upgrades are a constituent part of the e-business. In the normal businesses run on the ground with all personnel and managers they also have to change according to economic times and future sales projection. E-business can perform with the right amount of effort dedication improving the profit is core and at the heart of its interests. An e-business must aim to reduce the rate of customer defection and this is dependent on technical and quality management team of the independent since when it comes to online business physical presence is not readily available. Carefully managing detailed information about individual customer of a company and all customer contact points can help maximize customer loyalty with the company References Boresi, A, Schmidt, J & Yeric, M 1993, E business and design, John Wiley & Sons, New York. Beaird, J 2007, The Principles of beautiful web design, SitePoint, New York. Concepcion, A 2002, Professional Web Site Design from Start to Finish, How Design Books, San Francisco. Johnson, J 2010, Designing with the mind in mind: Simple guide to understanding user interface design rules, Morgan Kaufmann, Massachusetts. James J. Lee, “Information Resources Management Association,” International Journal of E-Business Research, 6, no. 4 (2011): 44. Jianfeng Wang, “A study of the Impact of Individual Differences on Online Shopping,” International Journal of E-Business Research, 6, no. 4 (2010): 52-67. Krug, S 2005, Don’t make me think: A Common sense approach to web usability, New Riders Press, California. Mcneil, P 2008, The web designer’s Idea Book: The Ultimate guide to themes, trends and styles in website design, New Riders Press, California. Rhee Hyuk Jay and David Sprague, “Information Technology and E-commerce Strategy of Entrepreneurial Ventures: A contingency approach based on information –processing theory,” Journal of E-Business, 4, no. 1 (2004): 80. Tamara, A & Pruitt J 2005, the essential persona lifecycle, Morgan Kaufmann, Massachusetts. Read More