Bumble Products and Services Company E-Commerce Proposal - Term Paper Example

Bumble Products and Services Company E-Commerce Proposal: Bumble Products and Services Company is venturing into e-commerce with an attitude to synchronization of all its operations and create a standard for getting the jobs done. Identifying the crucial business activities and process managements would entail greater envelopments of technology to cater information to its full swing. BP & S would like to address the department named customer sales and marketing. This department is aimed for fetching the customers for its products and services. It markets its products and services over the internet for selling its products. The online technologies would act wonders for BP & S enterprise in giving them a global stand and make them quite susceptible to attract competition. Presently it caters to a limited amount of consumers. Its desire to enlarge its wings to international market makes sure that the global demands of the consumers would result it fostering standard practices in line with international standards. The products would be made to compare with the competitors and would further add the brand and quality for sale in the international market. The international consumers would be at ease to purchase products at their convenience and would get across its message with the help of online technologies. Its products would fetch better acceptability in the foreign market and would comprise quality and international standards in the making of things. SWOT analysis: Strengths • Loyal customers • Strong reseller network • Good products • Focused management/staff • Competitive product prices Weaknesses • Has not utilized Internet technology • BP & S not well-known among prospective customers • Drop in growth rate • Profit margin is too small (company needs to reduce costs) Opportunities • To create a web site to serve customers and promote the company • To enter the international market • To establish online sales as a new distribution channel Threats • Other larger and more well-known competitors may enter BP & S’s targeted market segment • Economic slowdown could reduce demand • Competitors have utilized Internet to enhance customer relationships Difference between internet, intranet and extranet systems: Internet: 1. Definition: A widely connected public networks which transmits data using the packet switching mechanisms with the help of Internet Protocol (IP) (Forouzan, 2003). It can also be termed as network of networks that connects all the various networks in the world to access information. 2. Key characteristics: Uses the standard TCP/IP protocol for communication across the network. Uses the network resources to access information and facilities Uses upper layer protocols to avail the required services Security is always at risk as the huge network is quite difficult to monitor and maintain. Quite economical in nature. 3. Business setting: An enterprise can use internet to interconnect with other businesses or its own in connecting for information sharing and knowledge resources. The business across geographical locations can interconnect with ease. It offers an inexpensive way to get connected and keep in synchronization with resources and events. Intranet: 1. Definition: It is a privately owned network that uses internet protocols to connect to each other. It is usually within a certain premise to interconnect all the network topologies to be implemented and connected. It is restricted to the business which implements it and not accessible to the public domain (Forouzan, 2003). 2. Key characteristics: Within the business domain and specifically for the business only Incurs hardware for interconnecting and networking Monitoring and management of the intranet is quite strong and secure Security is strongly implemented for such networks with security privileges and stronger firewalls Business data and information remains private and cannot be accessed from outside the network Uses internet protocols for communication Information retrieval is quite faster and effective 3. Business setting: Used for almost all businesses where information must be shared and the organization needs to keep in synchronization with resources. The business information and access privileges are strong enough to prevent malicious access. Extranet: 1. Definition: It is a private network of an enterprise which uses the public network to interconnect each other for information access and sharing. It is wider than intranet but is a subset of internet. It is a way to connect with the external elements of a business for greater information access and sharing of resources. It can be further framed into a private intranet connected with the internet. 2. Key characteristics: It is a privately owned network to interconnect with external clients for access. It is expensive in nature Allows secure connection of business information to external agents for better synchronization of activities Security of large extranets are quite complex in nature and there is always a threat to crucial business data Faster communication is facilitated among customers and vendors for making faster business decisions 3. Business setting: Used by businesses who desires to connect or requires connecting with its vendors, suppliers and manufacturers across vast geographical locations in a secured fashion so that communication of business information and data is provided in an effective manner. Revenue models: Among the revenue models named B2B, B2C and C2C, we can select B2B and B2C for the following reasons: The website would cater to individuals and institutions meaning other businesses The website would not cater to C2C as no customer can sale to others, taking that would mean that the site is an auction site, which it is not in the real sense Marketing strategy: Rendering to international customers and consumers is quite a challenge for any enterprise as they perceive the products and services of other countries with extreme competitive motives and continuous comparisons with their usual practices. The brand image of BP & S would accelerate the products sale and push its image into the international market for better collaboration and sale. Collaboration with international suppliers and vendors for sale would result in making immense profits and would compose better deals for making profits. Legal and ethical issues: Legal and ethical issues are vital to online success. Building trust and user confidence is essential to our client, respecting consumer privacy and adhering to data protection legislation. "Consumers are extremely concerned about security and privacy on the Internet" (Trepper, 2000.) BP & S Safe Shopping Guarantee means customers pay nothing if unauthorized charges are made to their credit cards as a result of shopping at Amazon. They use secure sockets layer (SSL) technology encrypting all personal information. "BP & S takes customer fears about security seriously" (Chaffey, 2004) we strongly recommend VG Jones emulate Amazons security policies to provide customer reassurance. BP & S makes clear terms of trade and offer warranties/returns policy. Privacy and security: On the e-commerce side, it can use VeriSign services for protecting data and information exchanged between the sites. It uses a 128-bit SSL certificate to get the job done. The e-commerce transactions can be well protected using the SSL technology (Rayport, 2002). It is very secure for all business deals and offers greater protection for business financial information. The security aspects could be divided into two parts: one would be software security and another would be information security. System security can take the form which can be elaborated as follows: Passwords: A lot of various mechanisms are used for hacking the system, some among them are as follows: Social engineering: The best way to get it done is the use of fake names and pretending to be internet service providers. Installing Trojans: They are malicious invisible programs which monitor keystrokes and file paths. Interception: Not enough encryption would make the passwords vulnerable to network malicious programs. Others: The proper amount of care must be taken in safeguarding the website towards online threats from malicious users who trap valuable information for either tampering them or for stealing them for illegal use. Software Flaws: The software flaws would be concerned with more of the performance of the system. Bugs: The software bugs would compose a lot of loopholes where security factor may weaken due to greater functionalities of the software which makes it to track back the processes already undergone. Secure servers: Sometimes the server technologies are not secure enough to display websites which make it a more erroneous. Antivirus software: A lot of antivirus software makes the website flawless; again expired antivirus software would make the website quite vulnerable to malicious programs. Firewalls: It helps in reducing security risks and also covers port to port. Information security: Information in the websites must be locked and should be kept secure so that no malicious or external harmful program is able to alter it to mislead or represent wrong information. Secure communication protocol: Using “https” would make sure that information exchanged would be safely done and managed well (Ghosh, 2001). Detecting and removing flaws: Regular flaw detection software must be employed so that they are corrected instantly. Database handling: The security features can be handled by the database itself so that the data rules are strictly adhered to when working with the database in adding and deleting data. Implementing views: The database is able to create views for every group of user so that they are able to access data only to the extent of their privileges and not the entire data itself. Restricting the data at the user level makes it quite viable to secure the right kind of information and enforce data security and warehousing. Encryption: To make a website secure financial data and payment transactions, encryption must be properly implemented. Public key encryption: The transfer of secret information from one to another would make the transfer secure so that no other person is able to tap the message. It includes algorithms which make sure that the information reaches to the intended recipient only (Rayport, 2003). Other techniques: The other techniques are quite useful in the use of internet security namely private-public key and RSA techniques. Hardware and Software resources: The front end design would compose setting up the website and would require HTML and client side technology for getting the job done. The creation of the static pages would take HTML and JavaScript or VBScript must be used to validate the web site and its form entries and data storage requirements. The advanced technologies would make sure that data is represented well and connected for getting the usability right for the website. The usability features must be taken care so that one is able to acknowledge the look and feel, consistency of content, navigation patterns, anytime-anywhere traveling within the website and many more (Usability.gov, 2007). It also allows user to understand and reciprocate information, their current path and content for the website. The client side features enables the user to take the correct action and guide them all along. The middle level architecture takes into account the business logic that is driving the front end and all the operations that the user is supposed to perform to accomplish a certain amount of their job. The business processes are the payment modules, generating the online dynamic content, tracking one’s order, tracking the online cart or basket requirements, handling the database operations and making sure that they get everything they want. Several applications severs like IBM Websphere, JBOSS can be used for the purpose. The database for the website is composed of several tables which record data and information from the users of the system which comprise of several individuals, institutions and several other businesses. The data is stored and fetched when required to view the information. Databases of RDBMS nature such as Oracle, DB2 and others can be used for widespread storage of data and information. Solutions: The various solutions could range from the following: Building the software: The software development by the organization can be taking up by allocating a separate team to plan, build and operate the system so that the system security and privacy is retained and the organization is able to manage the system updations and future requirements (Hoffer, 2002). Allocation of new team or hiring for the purpose and effective management of the team is quite difficult. On the other hand understanding of the system requirements would be better performed by the people of the same organization. Buying the software: The purchasing of generic software would be of great help as it would save time, costs and effort on the part of the organization. However the generic software’s are often expensive and includes a large array of functionalities that are often of no use to the organization in particular. Costs associated: Building the software: It would take around 4500$ to construct it. Sommerville (2004) defines ROI = (Gain from Investment – Cost of Investment)/ cost of investment Here the gain from investment would be 250000$ for a period of 10 years, cost of investment would be 4500$, so ROI is calculated to be (250000 - 4500)/4500 = 54.56 Buying the software: The cost of the software package would be around 6000$. ROI = (Gain from Investment – Cost of Investment)/ cost of investment Here the gain from investment would be 250000$ for a period of 10 years, cost of investment would be 6000$, so ROI is calculated to be (250000 - 6000)/6000 = 40.67. Conclusion The Internet has brought the whole world together and in addition to it the tastes and interests of the people are organized well. Shopping over the Internet is an activity that most people engage in, almost regularly. It is rapidly developing as an alternative to the high street and sales have already overtaken virtual shopping. The use of the Internet for purchasing goods and services has enormous potential. The Internet enables consumers to shop or do transactions 24 hours a day, all year around from almost any location. It also provides consumers more choices and allows them to have quick comparisons. Moreover, it allows consumers to interact, exchange ideas, and to compare experiences with other customers in the electronic communities. Though the Internet offers a range of advantages that collectively have been shown to be important enough to attract massive interest, recent surveys demonstrated that the penetration rate of Internet shopping remains low. References/ Bibliography Chaffey, D. (2004) E-Business and E-Commerce Management, 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall, Pearson Education Limited, pp.46, 53, 55, 224, 492. Forouzan A. Behrouz (2003). TCP/IP Protocol Suite, second edition. Tata McGraw Hill. Ghosh AK (2001). Software security and privacy risks. Rayport (2003). E Commerce, TMH. Sommerville, Ian (2004). Software Engineering, Pearson Education. Trepper, C. (2000) E-Commerce Strategies, Mapping your organizations success in todays competitive marketplace, Microsoft Press, pp.138-140, 153. Read More