Introduction to the Internet and E-Business - Assignment Example

Introduction to the Internet and E-Business Part: A of the Chosen Company: Home Delights (A catering services providing company) Answer: A Home Delights is a traditional catering company which provides custom catering services for a variety of events that includes wedding, corporate, and private parties. Recently, Home Delights has approached Clicks and Bricks, an e-commerce solutions proving company, which provides e-commerce solutions to the traditional companies. As a senior consultant, I will examine the traditional approach of Home Delights towards the business, and after a complete analysis of the company’s traditional business operations, I will propose the e-commerce solutions and the way to implement those solutions for expansion of the business of the company. Answer: B E-Business means running an online business in order to improve productivity of the business. In today’s world, almost every business needs to have an online presence to attract customers. Website is the most popular platform for internet marketing. Our company, Home Delights will also make use of a website for marketing purposes. Holub (2005) asserts, “One of the easiest ways to help your business gain more exposure and potential customers is to have a professionally developed website”. Answer: C E-Business model is a set of planned activities used by a company to generate profitable growth of the revenue using internet technology. Home Delights can make use of Business-to-Customer (B2C) model to increase its profits. Advertising, referral fee, and subscription charges will be the main sources of revenue generation. The first model, which will be used by our company, is Comparison-Pricing model. Comparison-Pricing model will help the customers find the most suitable catering company from a variety of companies through polling. Demand-Sensitive model will enable a group of customers to get a group discount on using the services of Home Delights. Answer: D There are many methods through which Home Delights can make use of internet technology to sell its services to the customers. Some of the most popular ways include web marketing, classified ads, selling through company’s website, and selling through email marketing. Answer: E Some other uses of the internet which can benefit our company include online chat and email system to improve the customer service, advertising through internet to enable the business reach international market, and providing complete information about the company on the internet to increase credibility of the business. Part: B Names of the Companies: The names of the chosen companies are Eatable Delights Catering, Julie’s Delights, and Backyard Barbeque and Catering Company. Answer: A The first company, Eatable Delights Catering, provides a variety of catering services to the customers. The services include party arrangements, wedding packages, corporate catering, birthday event catering, and ceremonial events. The electronic business processes of Eatable Delights Catering include electronic purchasing of catering equipment, electronic processing of orders, and 24/7 customer service. Some key features of the company’s website include customer support, menu selection links, and information about all types of caterings. Another company, Julie’s Delights, is also a famous catering company which provides custom catering services for corporate and personal events. It also provides its services for the events related to the universities located in and around Baltimore. The electronic business processes of Julie’s Delights include internet marketing, electronic processing of orders, and online customer support. Some key features of the company’s website include a link to frequently asked questions, creative menu choices links, and photo gallery related to party decoration. The third company is Backyard Barbeque and Catering Company located in Arlington. There are two types of services provided by the company which include delivery of food and full service event management. The electronic business processes of the company include electronic purchasing of catering equipment, electronic processing of orders through emails or telephone calls, and customer service. Some key features of the company’s website include description about delicious dishes, menu selection links, and contact information of different departments. Answer: B The key electronic business processes of the catering companies include electronic purchasing of catering equipment, electronic processing of order, internet marketing, and electronic customer service. We will implement all these processes in our company for the purpose of rapid growth of the business. We will establish our contacts with the online suppliers of the catering equipment which will help us get desired equipment at our door step at a low cost. We will also put a link to online order placement on the company’s website which will help the customers place desired orders on the website by looking at the information provided to them on the event related links. At last, we will create a link to online customer support on our website in order to facilitate the customers in placement of orders. Part: C Answer: A - The internet works in the following way. First of all, we establish an internet connection. Then we launch the browser which runs on a local computer. After launching the browser window, we type the URL of the website which we want to visit. The browser connects to the server in order to process our request. The connection is established through HTTP protocol. The server gets connected with the browser and accepts the request sent by the browser. The server sends the requested files to the browser which then interprets the received files and displays them onto the local computer’s screen. - It is the job of Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) to transmit the messages across the internet. SMTP is part of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Internet makes use of SMTP for transfer of messages between the server computers. - The main features of HTML include head, body, and text elements. The tags that can be included in the Head section of HTML are Title, Base, Script, Style, Link, and Meta. The key tags related to the Body part of HTML include BGCOLOR, BACKGROUND, TABLE, LISTS, FORMS, FONT, and MAP. Font styles, Form fields, and Phrase elements come under the category of text elements. - The basic difference between internet, intranet, and extranet is that internet is a public network of interconnected computer networks whereas intranet and extranet are private networks of computers. Internet can be accessed from anywhere whereas intranet is used by the organizations to protect private information from outside access. An extranet is a part of an organization’s intranet that includes public access to the information. Answer: B Our idea is to design and place the company’s website on the most famous search engines such as Google and Yahoo which will make our company recognized worldwide. A professional and user-friendly website will provide a lot of benefits to the company. Some of these benefits include improved and efficient customer service, increased volume of sales through attracting more customers, increased business credibility, and reduced business operating cost. Answer: C - The search engines make use of Meta elements of a webpage to search for any specific website or a webpage. The Meta elements are found in the head section of HTML. The Meta elements include Meta description tag, Meta keywords tag, Meta language tag, Meta robots tag, Meta link relationships tag, and DC Dublin core Meta tags. - The factors which make a website easier to be used include user-friendly navigation and controls, high download speed, access to web pages, and layout and design of the website. - Appearance is one of the most important factors to be considered while creating an attractive website. Appearance means how the website will appear in front of the users. Colors, design and layout of the website play a major role in attracting the customers to a company’s website. - The legal requirements of a company’s website include proving information regarding name of the company, location of the registered office, place of registration, registration number, and contact information to the concerned authorities. References Holub, S 2005, Why Your Business Needs a Website, viewed 09 September 2010, Read More