Unit 29 The Internet and E-Business Sample Assignment

LO1 Understanding the scope of e-business

1.1 Describe the environment in which e-business is conducted and business transaction types.

The economy in 21^st century is e-economy. The factors reflecting growth in economic productivity have been the internet and the information that transmits over that channel through various communication technologies. Therefore, these technologies along with other fields are being promoted now days such as biotechnology, nanotechnology and sharing of information across different platforms.  Internet based technologies are now days providing new aspects of business promotion and opening new market opportunities for promotion of the business. This advanced technology is also being brought in use, in increasing production and decreasing the costing factor of the products.  Thus, the environment where internet is ready to get adopted in day to day business activities and where the consumers are ready to look and shop for the products over the internet. In this environment e-business can prosper very easily and give very pleasing results. E-commerce is better known as e-business involves transactions between individuals and different organisations and these transactions are digitally enabled. The use of web makes these transactions and trade global. (Chaffey, 2007) The business transactions that are carried out are of many types.

• Brokerage: That includes the pre-fixed commissions.
• Aggregator: Enabling buyers to connect with sellers.
• Info-Media: Provides all information. For example :google.com
• Community: Includes the values.
• Value chain: This includes gateways illustrating the price of products. (

1.2 Explain the benefits and barriers to businesses considering an online presence.

• The most significant benefit of taking a business help online is to ensure the global presence of the business and the manufacturing firm. A firm or company that engages in e-business can have a nationwide or even a global presence. IBM and Dell Technologies are such firms who took their business to new levels through collaborating service and maintenance managers across the globe and thus were able to acquire much market share. Amazon and Flipkart.com are some ofanother example of success by taking the business over the internet.
• The use of World Wide Web to market the products guarantees the global reach of the product. Cost effective marketing and the promotions of the products online ensures the revenues. The advertising and promotion charges are also very reasonable. Unlike the traditional way of promotion where the firm uses techniques such as hoarding promotions and advertising through events, this technique is quite cost effective.
• Taking business online ensures proper and improved customer service for the customers. The complaints and feedbacks can now be entertained and reached the company directly by the customer through their online portal. Moreover, the payments can also be paid online without having customer to visit at that place.
• The costing factors such as overheads and the transactional costs now havebeen reduced. With the deal going on between the customer and buyer directly, there is no acting middleman. Also running the business online becomes more cost-effective as the proprietor does not have to hire any site or a place to execute his business. (

However there exists some barriers too that affects the online presence of the business and, therefore, imposes some disadvantages on the business. Some disadvantages of taking business online are-

• The e-business faces some problems in some sectors and thus some sectors cannot inhibit the online sales of products. One major sector is the food sector because a number of natural reasons. The consumers also do not go out looking for food products over the internet.
• Taking business online brings convenience for the consumers but the company has to spend a good amount in optimising the equipment and upgrading the computer systems to manage all the online transactions.
• Safety has always remained as a main concern when it has been the question of online sale of products. The ever increasing cases of fraud and dupery have always left the customers in a state of doubt. There seems to be no return or any responsible body to give a surety of safe transactions over the internet.
• The security of the data involved during the transactions is also a concern during online sale or purchase of stuff. Customers have to provide their personal details every time they buy something, and some websites are not well protected against the intruders and, therefore, the hackers can easily break into the customers’ accounts.
• System up gradation is necessary after regular intervals of time. That is needed to maintain a constant turnover of the business. So to provide updates and new features the company has to get regular feedbacks from the customers, and that becomes quite costly.

1.3 Access the security and legislative issues facing an online business organisation.

Online business of products is a way of doing business where the consumer and the service provider, both have to be careful while making transactions. Due to the obvious safety concerns there are some laws that have been formed to ensure proper and smooth functioning of the business online.
The main issues that is relevant while accessing the threats of affecting the company is the identity authentication of a person with whom we are trading.Another issue that should be kept inattention is the tampering of the messages that are being sent and received. The final reason is collecting the position including the date and time of the transaction. To manage the authenticity of the person, a new authentication document has been brought in use that is known as digital signature. This is the electronic form of signature that acts as a certificate of authority. Certain laws have been established on digital signature use. In UK, an act has been passed in June 2000 known as Electronic Communications Act. In that law, the digital signature of an individual has been drafted as a biometric authentication of that person. It was drafted that in case a dispute arises, then the court will treat the electronic records as the standard paper documents. There are multiple laws that guarantee the privacy, honesty and availability of the data and defining all the privileges to certify the amount of accessing the information of the user. The aspects that are covered in defining internet security rules are:

• The information security policy document
• Reporting of security incidents
• Business continuity management
• Responsibility for allocation of information security
• Training and education of internet security

1.4 Access the modes of communication available to an e-business and their application.

As the technology is progressing, there are emerging new ways of communications and the earlier ways seemed to fade away.Therefore, many new ways have now emerged to connect with the employees and customers. Some such ways are the following-

• Now days the use of mobile phones as Personal Digital Assistant or the PDA is growing. Everything and everybody can be seen on a mobile. Mobiles now days not only serve as a communication tool but it has evolved to a very powerfultool indeed which carries the whole world in it. The use of android applications through android market is trending and with it trending is the business applications which can be accessed over the mobile phones very easily. Flipkart and OLX are the examples of such applications that operate over the phones. So, mobile devices have become a very powerful tool for the business associates to market their products, and they are thus concentrating on providing the complete PC like experience over the phone.
• Apart from mobile devices, social media also serves as a very powerful tool for the promotion and trade increase up of the products. The capability and the uses of the social media network continue to evolve. Companies are now putting efforts to promote events, give online discounts over products, and draw the attention of the customersto boost up their sales figures. Social networking websites become important because almost everybody has an account on one of the networks now days. So, it becomes the best way to reach out to most individuals and update them regarding all products and services that they offer.
• Other than social network, mobile software and applications, there exists one traditional way which the companies have been practising from a long time in order to encourage and support their services, and that is emails. Emails are popular because of its versatility of asking questions and receiving answers and feedback or suggestions from the receiver. Earlier people used to get a printed message about the event that is going on, but the advancement and use of email technology have led to the transmission of graphically rich messages. The use of email not only helps the company promotes the business in an easy and efficient manner which is fast too, but it also helps the company save on the printing and mailing costs. (Chaffey, 2007)

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