Unit 29 The Internet and E-Business Assignment

Figure 1: E-business
(Source: E-business, 2016)
With e-business, organization can establish the direct communication and information sale system for customers. The order processing, tracking and billing can be made easy with the e-business transactions (Al-Mudimigh, 2015). E-business is required to listen from the customers and to enhance the products and services according to demands. The manual processing and storage of the information in organization can be put online with e-commerce so that customers and managerial units can share and receive the information in effective manner.

1.2 Benefits and barriers to business considering an online presence

E-business consideration is effective to meet the customer demands and to shape the business to direct interact with customer in reduced cost in operations. However, Fools R Us organization may have following benefits along with some barriers to present the business online.

Benefits

Automation: the manual processing of orders and transaction is costly and time consuming along with possibility of erroneous results. The organization can use the e-business to automate the payment and transactions along with easy order processing. In this manner, the organization with save the time and cost and enhance the productivity.
Market coverage: with online presence, it is easy to reach the most of customers in market. The organization can use the business profile and products to attract the customers from global market (Iglesias-Pradas.et.al.2013). Market coverage can be expanded along with better support to customers.

Barriers

Skill set: the organization may not have the skills and experience in employees to start with e-business. Thus, employees may need the training and development programs to learn the usage of e-business operations and management.
Cost: initial cost to set up and maintain the e-business may be high along with hiring of professionals and purchase of resources in workplace. Also the returning cost from online presence depends on the promotions of products and store on online.

1.3 Security risk to Fools R Us e-business model

The online presence of the business must need to address the possible risks to prevent the loss of brand image. Hacking and malware attacks are being common in which the website can be target to alter the information or to get benefits through access to resources. Also it is necessary to make the website according to data protection act and legislation on promotion in country as ethical issues may rise through web presence. E-business model of Fools R Us also may have influence of malware and virus which can damage or theft the information from web server. However the risk can be eliminated with proper use of security over the web protocols to keep the transactions and information sharing private and confidential. The organization can use the legislative guides to design and promote the products in website. Better utilization of firewall capabilities to filter the unwanted requests to server can helps to eliminate the hacking attacks like deny of service (Ahmed and Matulevi?ius, 2014). Closing of loopholes and bugs in web technology through update to stable version helps to safeguard the online presence of organization.

1.4 modes of communication to expand the business

Promotion of services and support to customers are major considerable part to expand the business through communication. Organization can use social media and internet based campaign programs to reach the customers. Advertisement and promotion on social sites along with partnership with other business may help to communicate with customers. Direct mails to customers for promotional letters, occasion discounts and special arrivals in store help to enhance the customer chain. For better customer support, organization can use the chat and live streaming technology to establish the direct communication with customers so that their demands and requirements can be understood.

Figure 2: modes of communication
(Source: modes of communication, 2016)
Presence on social media and advertisements help the organization to attract new customer in business and to inform the customer about the new products and offers. The mode of communication with customers can be defined through the physical location of stores (Subramanian, 2013). Customer may communicate and resolve the queries over phone calls in office hours. The website of the organization can be made dynamic according to previous search and operations of the user so that most sophisticated content can be presented to conquer the loyalty of customers. With these communication modes, the market trends and customer requirements can be matched in competitive time.

1.5 internet technology and importance in e-business

E-business involves the operations related to product orders and payments along with queries to organization for specific issues. In such cases, it is necessary to manage the information of customers in private format so that nobody else can read the communication in between. The certification technology helps to make the communication private and ensure the implication of non-repudiation services. The online transactions help the customer to pay online with great efficiency as customer has number of modes to pay the amount according to choice. In e-business,
organization can use online payment processing to reduce the cost on payment operations along with high security and reliability.
The organization also can use the dynamic structure of website to meet the content of choice according to user behavior on website. For further support, the internet or information technology like mobile applications or integration can be used to secure the operation of users. One time password is part of mobile integration to ensure the user identity in communication. Mobile devices are being popular and encouraging the business to adapt the changes to reach the customers (Pathak and Kaur, 2014). The internet technology for the live chat and automatic response to customers is enhancing the customer satisfaction in e-business. Fools R Us organization also can use the automatic information collection system in e-business to enhance the customer experience.

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1.6 function of client server structure and role of search engines

Servers are the powerful computing devices to process the request of clients. For instance, web browser is a client program to generate the request to server with the help of URL. The server processes the request and returns the information as response to authorized user. In this manner, servers are used to host the files and to facilitate the clients with authorized access and secure communication. The servers are required to reduce the cost of implementation at client side and to enhance the performance over multiple clients. Servers are responsible to process the user request and to respond according.

Figure 3: client server model
(Source: client server model)
Search engine like Google and Bing are used to lookup the specific web server and file location in internet. Search engines help to find the server and location through the web address and user need not to deal with intermediate states like processing of domain name system and routing of information from one server to another (Oztekin.et.al.2014). Inbuilt search engine helps to search
the content of website rather than to search from internet. For instance, the Amazon search
engine helps to search the product and services under the domain of Amazon. In this manner, the
website can be made attractive and useful at user side.

1.7 Use of intranets and extranets within business communication

Intranet is the network designed to communicate within business as an isolate network from the rest of internet. Intranet is required to offer the communication and information sharing facility in organization so that employees can save the time to meet personally for need of specific information. For instance, in organization employees related to management of customer relationship may need to acquire the previous orders and quarries of customer. In such cases they can use the intranet to obtain the information. Intranet has isolation from outer users and works as private network. The employees still may need to use the credentials to authorize on the server set up for the internal communication in workplace.
Extranets are network those use the secure channel to communicate with rest of internet users. Besides of open access to internet services, extranets helps to connect and share the information through secure connections (Chen and Kamal, 2016). In this manner, e-business uses the communication with customers with restriction for user to send the information or to have access on internet resources. Extranets are effective to set up the private network with partial integration in services of internet to get together with outer side users in internet.

Figure 4: intranet and extranet
(Source: intranet and extranet, 2016)

1.8 Main elements of HTML

HTML stands for the hypertext markup language which is made up of elements to markup the web pages with desired information. Common structure of the html file is shown below
<html>
<head>
<title>my page title </title>
Heading of the page
</head>
<body>
Message body to contain more information and elements 
</body>
</html>
The element or tag <html> informs the browser and other applications that the file is a html formatted file. </html> tag presents the closing of html tag along with end of file for the html markup. Head element is used to set the heading of the page which may be from h1 to h6 in which h1 is the biggest heading for the page. Heading element is also used to contain the Meta tags those are used to provide the information about the site and author in search engines. It is also used as a place to link the other files and formatting sources in file. Title is used to give a name to page in browser tab so that it can be identified easily whenever opened with other websites (Thompson.et.al.2016). Body element contains the main message to present before the user. It may contain the nested elements to format and present the information.

Task 2

2.1 different e-business models

a) Amazon’s model for e-business

There are various e-business models to promote the business and services to target customers for the optimum returns on investments. Amazon organization uses various kinds of business model to conquer the market for benefits: intermediation, merchant, advertise and affiliate model. In intermediation business model, organization uses the three steps to market the scope for business:
Dis-intermediation: in this step, Amazon tries to cut down the involvement of addition resources into business so that overall supply chain and performance can be enhanced. The cutting down of middle man in business operations is necessary to interact with customers directly to save the cost and to achieve the benefits.
Re-intermediation: Amazon then tries to establish the business through optimum number of suppliers so that re-intermediation can be used to achieve the effectiveness in business operation. The means of product delivery and services to customers is accomplished with the effective set
of intermediate units (Cherif and Grant, 2014). However, it is different than the set of manual processes and operators in business.
Counter intermediation: the organization uses the services and support from the best service providers in industry to support the own business. For instance, organization uses the web development industry to design the attractive and innovative website for products.
Amazon also uses the merchant model to sale the products to customers from different manufacturers. The organization supports the advertising in which premium products and exclusives are charges from the supplier or manufacturer to advert into customer market. In built advertisements are used to incline the customer decision power towards the products and services. The organization also uses the affiliation business model in which pay per click services are used to encourage the suppliers and customers. The revenue sharing model is also used to share the benefits with suppliers and service providers in business supply chain. Revenue is only charge whenever the sale is made (Baden-Fuller and Haefliger, 2013). In this manner, Amazon has enhanced the e-business services to succeed in market.

b) Capability of models to generate the revenue

With the power of business models, Amazon has achieved the presence of retail leader in worldwide industry. The organization has achieved the benefits from the intermediation model as it helps the organization to identify the less profit making units in supply chain. With intermediation model, organization has achieved the efficiency in development of an effective system to know the customer demands and to establish the effective chain with productive throughput to generate high revenue in workplace. The collaboration with other business technology providers, Amazon is getting the benefits in high customer satisfaction and experience on websites (Parida.et.al.2014). However, the model is time consuming and costly due to need of professionalism to identify the weaknesses and costly resources in chain. Efficiency to promote the product and to achieve the maximum return is attained through the direct communication and business with customers.
Amazon organization also uses the merchant business model in effective manner as organization is offering the services according to RACE model:reach, act, convert and engage. The organization is using the custom web interface according to previous search and preference on site to enhance the customer satisfaction. The organization achieved the customer engagement in business through the use of race model as systematic plans are designed to serve the customer better. The products and services are promoted with continuous features to access their details.
The affiliation programs help the organization to achieve the share in revenue of suppliers and manufacturers. The pay per click approach has encourages the partners to enhance the business through the channels of Amazon organization (Weill and Vitale, 2013). The model of revenue sharing and pay per click is however seems risky at first side because there is no guarantee to generate the revenue when user visit the site or visit the product feature page.

c) Future developments in e-business

E-business is taking shape of new technologies and trends to expand to maximum number of customers along with high efficiency to process on the website for searching and transactions. The following developments are appearing in e-business to enhance the productivity:
Wireless connectivity: the use of wireless equipments are increasing with time and most of users are moving towards the wireless connectivity to access the internet rather than to being based on mobile or wired connections. The wireless technology has empowered the flexibility to enhance the use of e-commerce websites to buy the products.
Mobile transactions: in comparison of tradition transactions, the e-business is using the more adequate techniques to process the payments in business. For instance the mobiles are being popular to explore the online stores and services (Wirtz.et.al.2016). Thus, organizations need to prepare the web store according to adaptability on mobile screen. The payment processing works is integrated to the mobile wallets and customers are seeking for the more advance options of payment system for easy pay for products. Payments are being away from cash and using cards and mobile banking in transactions.
M-commerce: the use of mobile devices has offered the services to detect the location of the user so that location based services can be provided. For example, the user and search for food providers or electronic manufacturers then website can use location to prime the nearest store. In this manner, location based services are enhancing the user experience of web sites and mobile applications.
Also the language barriers are reduced due to availability of online translation features along with native functions to search in specific language. The customer behavior is directed through the geographical data about the user (Skibniewski and Zavadskas, 2013). The organizations are using the changes and technologies to reach the peak of profit in business.

2.2 key elements of good web design structure

The structure and presentation of the website is the first point of the impression on the customer
to make a buy. Amazon website is an example of effective website as it meets the following points effectively to enhance the user experience:
Purpose: Amazon website has single purpose to illustrate the business. For instance, a website must be clear to present the information. Amazon has the purpose to sale the products from different manufacturers. In this manner, the website may present the profile for education, estate, fun or social site etc.
Communication: the information must be clear to understand along with attractive formatting. For instance, Amazon uses the short but descriptive content to tell about the product. The features and benefits are tabularised to communicate clearly with customers (Caro.et.al.2012).
Typefaces and colour: the font colour and style should be eye candy to attract the customers. The content should not be too fancy to make the reading complex. The colour for buttons, graphics and backgrounds play a vital role to design an impressive website. Textual information should be in contrast to create colour balance and harmony.
Images: proper use of images make the content attractive. However, the over use of images may enhance the response time of time. Also the images should be placed in between the textual information but should not overlay the content. Amazon site uses the attractive images with proper positioning on web pages.
Navigation and user friend: the navigation to web pages is available easily along with effective positioning of web page. The website is user friendly in term of responsive layout and navigation (Venkatesh.et.al.2012).
Load time and layout: the load time of home page of Amazon website takes only a few seconds as the website load the content on the basis of requirements and use proper layout. Advertisement and promotion, older searched products and new recommendations are loaded after the searched content so that users get the result in time in faster manner.

2.3 Issues concerning website usability

The usability of Amazon website is effective and efficient along with learning because website uses the native familiarities to access the content as easy to navigate web pages and to search the products. The website has almost everything to attract the customers and to make a purchase but following usability issues are appearing in web site usability:
Navigation related: the website is effective to reach the product and services through search but the navigation is not offered in preference based pages as there is no option to minimize the cost
to search the product. Also the navigation is not available to search the product under the specific date (Aykin, 2016). The preference based pages on website are difficult to move on next product review last time and most of time users need to go through the links to find the exact price and availability of products.
Loading: the home page of the website is effective to load within five seconds but the issues are appearing to load the user account setting pages. The changes to make in setting pages are not saved within the responsive time. The loading of personalised items in historical search are not easily loaded in website.
Flash and images: the website has effective positioning of images and flash videos but most of the products have no clear product images or alternative text to make a decision. The overall responsive time of flash is high due to high clarity in graphics. The website of Amazon has not updated the images for the blur product details so that website experience at user site is being influenced.
Responsiveness: the web site is prepared according to desktop and has some limitation in mobile interfaces. The mobile display sometime overlay the login button or the product image becomes too large to hide the rest of content in website (Stienmetz.et.al.2013). The poor responsive structure and design to support the mobile devices also influence in payment option selection along with confirmation in quick manner.

Conclusion

The internet and e-business assignment report has been presented the information about the e-business services along with description to benefits and barriers. The internet and e-business assignment report has been discussed the detail of the HTML pages and elements along with discussion on intranet or extranet. The report has been discussed the role of client server architecture in web access with information about the use of internet technologies to empower the e-business. The report has evaluated the Amazon organization for effectiveness in websites and discussed the various e-business models used by organization to achieve success. In context of Amazon, key elements of good website designing have been explained along with issues in usability of website. 

References