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Task-01. What is the scope of E-Business. Discuss the advantages & disadvantages of Better Sofa

E-business

Ebusiness is a term used to describe businesses run on the Internet, or utilizing Internet technologies toimprove the productivity or profitability of a business. In a more general sense, the term may be used to

describe any form of electronic business - that is to say, any business which utilizes a computer. This

usage is somewhat archaic, however, and in most contexts ebusiness refers exclusively to Internet

businesses.

The most common implementation of ebusiness is as an additional, or in some cases primary, storefront.

By selling products and services online, an ebusiness is able to reach a much wider consumer base than

any traditional brick-and-mortar store could ever hope for. This function of ebusiness is referred to as

ecommerce, and the terms are occasionally used interchangeably.

Scope of e-business applications

A specified targeted group of users of an extranet (like customers, partners etc.) Web Site NavigationAnalysis: This analysis allows site managers to analyze visitor behavior in a multitude of ways.

Conversion Funnels: Define and measure the effectiveness of any custom-defined process, such as thecheckout process. Pinpoint and optimize areas with high drop-off or abandonment rates.

Affinity Reporting: Affinity reports provide an easy way to understand trends and patterns among pages

and site content areas. The page-affinity report, for example, reveals the pages that are viewed by thesame visitors. It can even be used to detect the products that are often viewed by the same people.

Event Sequence: Conduct advanced queries on navigational path data. Search criteria include pagesequences, entry and exit points, and the referral source of the traffic. Use this functionality to assess sitenavigation scenarios.

Robust E-Commerce Analysis: Robust E-Commerce Analysis provides powerful, real-time e-commercereporting to help e-commerce managers improve merchandising and increase sales.

Merchandising: Get detailed reports on the effectiveness of your merchandising, including productconversions within all stages of the shopping process, product cross-sell opportunities, and merchandisinganalysis by category, brand, color and size. Increase your promotional expenditures on products with high

conversion rates and identify which products best respond to various types of promotions.

Customer Lifetime Value: Get the lifetime value of your customers based upon their acquisition source,and increase your expenditures on sources that generate the best customers over lifetime.

Unique Customer Identifier: Extract the unique customer IDs associated with any report or segment of

your customers and follow up with targeted marketing campaigns to further increase retention.

Powerful Campaign Analytics: Track the performance of all your online marketing initiatives, including

pay-per-click keyword buys, banner ads, e-mails and affiliate programs. *'s campaign auto-sensingfunctionality enables you to measure all your marketing campaigns with little maintenance. You can also


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use a variety of cost models, such as cost-per-click and cost-per-acquisition, depending on the campaign.

Active Viewing Browser Plug-in: This intuitive visualization feature enables you to overlay key visitor

and customer statistics right on top of your Web site. This Microsoft Internet Explorer plug-in gives you aunique perspective on how visitors interact with the design of your site. It provides detailed visual

information on the performance of your pages, individual links, site forms and flash movies so that you

can optimize your Web site towards the final goal of visitor conversion.

Internal Search Tracking: Discover your most common internal search terms, including theireffectiveness at converting visitors into buyers. Fine-tune your messaging, merchandising and promotions

to better address your visitors' needs, while increasing site conversion by understanding what your visitors

are looking for.

Detailed Content Analysis: Understand how visitors navigate through your site content, what pages theyview most frequently, and much more. WebSideStorys allows you to analyze your site content in a

logical, hierarchical fashion that closely matches your business organization. For example, a sports sitemay wish to analyze their content based on different sporting activities.

Detailed Visitor Information: Visitors Examples include their geographic location, languages, sitebehavior and much more. Use this information to tailor your site content to site visitors and increase

conversion.

Executive Dashboards: Executive Dashboards provides the ability to include key performance indicators(KPIs) within its interactive dashboards, providing users with the intelligence they need to make educated

decisions that significantly impact the success of their site. Examples of KPIs include conversion rate,leads or transactions generated, shopping cart conversion rates and more.

Powerful Custom Reports: The intuitive Report Builder. Plug-in allows you to easily import anystatistic directly into Microsoft Excel. Use Report Builder's robust capabilities to create custom reports

that are relevant to your business.

Advantages of Electronic Commerce

The greatest and the most important advantage of e-commerce, is that it enables a business concern or in

this case Better Sofa to reach the global market. It caters to the demands of both the national and the

international market, as the business activities are no longer restricted by geographical boundaries. With

the help of electronic commerce, even small enterprises can access the global market for selling and

purchasing products and services. Even time restrictions are nonexistent while conducting businesses, as

e-commerce empowers one to execute business transactions 24 hours a day and even on holidays andweekends. This in turn significantly increases sales and profit.

Electronic commerce gives the customers the opportunity to look for cheaper and quality products. With

the help of e-commerce, consumers can easily research on a specific product and sometimes. Shopping

online is usually more convenient and time saving than conventional shopping. Besides these, people also

come across reviews posted by other customers, about the products purchased from a particular e-

commerce site, which can help make purchasing decisions.


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For Better Sofa, e-commerce significantly can cut down the cost associated with marketing, customer

care, processing, information storage and inventory management. It reduces the time period involved with

business process re-engineering, customization of products to meet the demand of particular customers,

increasing productivity and customer care services. Electronic commerce reduces the burden of

infrastructure to conduct businesses and thereby raises the amount of funds available for profitableinvestment. It also enables efficient customer care services.

Disadvantages of Electronic Commerce

Electronic commerce is also characterized by some technological and inherent limitations which has

restricted the number of people using this revolutionary system. One important disadvantage of e-

commerce is that the Internet has still not touched the lives of a great number of people, either due to the

lack of knowledge or trust. A large number of people do not use the Internet for any kind of financial

transaction. Some people simply refuse to trust the authenticity of completely impersonal business

transactions, as in the case of e-commerce. Many people have reservations regarding the requirement todisclose personal and private information for security concerns. Many times, the legitimacy and

authenticity of different e-commerce sites have also been questioned.

The time period required for delivering physical products can also be quite significant in case of e-

commerce. A lot of phone calls and e-mails may be required till you get your desired products. However,

returning the product and getting a refund can be even more troublesome and time consuming than

purchasing, in case if you are not satisfied with a particular product.

Thus, on evaluating the various pros and cons of electronic commerce, we can say that the advantages of

e-commerce have the potential to outweigh the disadvantages. A proper strategy to address the technical

issues and to build up customers trust in the system, can change the present scenario and help e-commerce

adapt to the changing needs of the world.

Task-02 Main features of internets, extranets and security

Internet

The Internet is a unique medium with global impact, and within a relatively few number of years has

become inextricably intertwined with the conduct of almost all human activity. The following sections

describe the key features of the Internet which have contributed to this world-wide success:

y Key Internet Featureso Geographic Distributiono Robust Architectureo Near Light Speedo Universal Access


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o Internet Growth Rateso The Digital Advantageo Freedom Of Speech

y Key Web Featureso Ease Of Useo Universal Accesso Search Capabilities

y Key Usenet Newsgroups Featureso Group Communicationso Common Space

y Key Email Featureso

Email Is A Push Technologyo Email Waits For Youo Email Is One-To-Manyo Email Is Almost Free

y Key IRC Featureso Distributed Real-Time Communicationso Emergency Assistance

y Key MUD Featureso Virtual Spaceo Extensibility

y Key Mailing List Featureso One-to-many communication.

Intranet

An intranet is a private computer network that uses Internet Protocol technology to securely share any

part of an organization's information or network operating system within that organization. The term isused in contrast to internet, a network between organizations, and instead refers to a network within anorganization. Sometimes the term refers only to the organization's internal website, but may be a more

extensive part of the organization's information technology infrastructure. It may host multiple private

websites and constitute an important component and focal point of internal communication andcollaboration.

An intranet is built from the same concepts and technology used for the Internet, such as clientserver computing and the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP). Any of the well known Internet protocols may


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be found in an intranet, such as HTTP (web services), SMTP (e-mail), and FTP (file transfer protocol).

Internet technologies are often deployed to provide modern interfaces to legacy information systemshosting corporate data.Intranets have also contrasted with extranets. While intranets are generally

restricted to employees of the organization, extranets may also be accessed by customers, suppliers, orother approved parties. Extranets extend a private network onto the Internet with special provisions for

authentication, authorization and accounting

Increasingly, intranets are being used to deliver tools and applications, e.g., collaboration (to facilitate

working in groups and teleconferencing) or sophisticated corporate directories, sales and customer

relationship management tools, project management etc., to advance productivity. Intranets are also beingused as corporate culture-change platforms. For example, large numbers of employees discussing keyissues in an intranet forum application could lead to new ideas in management, productivity, quality, and

other corporate issues.

In large intranets, website traffic is often similar to public website traffic and can be better understood by

using web metrics software to track overall activity. User surveys also improve intranet website

effectiveness. Larger businesses allow users within their intranet to access public internet through firewallservers. They have the ability to screen messages coming and going keeping security intact.

When part of an intranet is made accessible to customers and others outside the business, that partbecomes part of an extranet. Businesses can send private messages through the public network, using

special encryption/decryption and other security safeguards to connect one part of their intranet toanother. Intranet user-experience, editorial, and technology teams work together to produce in-house sites.

Most commonly, intranets are managed by the communications, HR or CIO departments of large

organizations, or some combination of these.

Security:

Security has long been seen as a major sticking point in the adoption of Internet technology in theenterprise. As networks have grown and connected to the Internet, the spectre of the hacker has haunted

managers responsible for both delivering information within the enterprise and to its partners, andprotecting it from unauthorized outsiders.

In fact, the security capabilities of the latest Internet and intranet technologies enable companies to

control the availability of information and the authenticity of that information better than ever before. Theincreasing sophistication of both server and client software means that this unprecedented level of

security can be provided without requiring users to undergo complex and bureaucratic procedures to gain

legitimate access to sites.

Firewalls

For intranet developers, restricting access to the site has been the primary security concern. The simplestway to achieve this is to position the internal site where it cannot be seen or accessed from the Internet at

large-behind a firewall. At their simplest, firewalls consist of software which blocks access to internalnetworks from the Internet. While legitimate traffic such as email is allowed in to the mail server,

programs such as search engine spiders or FTP clients cannot access machines inside the safe boundary of

the firewall.


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Firewalls also offer some protection to users venturing out from the network to the Internet, acting as

proxies to fetch web pages so that the name and IP number of machines on the network are not revealed

to web sites that they visit-preventing hackers from learning details of the structure of the network.

While the basic firewall remains a fundamental of Internet and intranet security, increasing levels of

sophistication are required by many users as access to the corporate intranet needs to be widened beyond

those physically present on the same network. Allowing users dial-up access behind the firewall violatesbasic security principles; restricting them to the same access offered to the rest of the Internet in front of

the firewall denies them valuable services.

Web server security

Intranets and extranets are often constructed using Web servers to deliver information to users in a now-

familiar form.Username/password authentication has long been used as a mechanism for restrictingaccess to web sites. But because these character strings are themselves passed as clear text, capable of

being intercepted and read with simple network management tools, basic passwords do not adequately

secure communications.

A significant improvement can be achieved by encrypting communications between a browser and server.The most common way of doing this is to establish a secure connection using a variation on HTTP (thestandard web protocol) called the Secure Sockets Layer(SSL). Increasingly, commercial web sites are

using SSL to guarantee the authenticity of the server and integrity of the data delivered to web site users,

and to protect visitors' responses to interactive elements on the site. Whenever you point your browser to

a URL that begins with https://, you are using SSL.

SSL has become fundamental to the spread of Internet commerce, and is being used for an increasing

range of transactions across the Internet. However, by default most SSL implementations in web

servers do not authenticate the client web browser. In its raw form, therefore, SSL is best suited to thelargely anonymous requirements of retailing.

Virtual private networks

One option for widening access is to set up a virtual private network (VPN) using the Internet. A VPNuses software or hardware toencrypt all the traffic that travels over the Internet between two

predetermined end-points. This is an ideal solution where limited access to an intranet is required, forexample between two sites of the same company requiring access to the same corporate information, or

suppliers and customers integrating their supply chains.

A potential weakness of VPN solutions is their relative inflexibility. VPNs work well for creating fixed

tunnels from one known point to another, but they are less well suited to situations where access needs tobe given on-the-fly to groups of people not necessarily known at the outset, or who need to gain access

from a variety of locations. VPN technology at present works best for encrypting traffic between twoknown points that are accepted as valid destinations for traffic: once a link has been established, the

technology is used to encrypt the information which is sent, not for establishing the validity of the

destination to which it is being sent.

As more flexible VPN access is required, the prime issue becomes that ofauthenticating potential

visitors to the site and the credentials that they present. Are they who they say they are, or an impostor?


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With this capability it is possible to open up the system to provide access to a wider range of partners,

customers or suppliers.

Certification authorities

One solution for is to use a digital certificate-based solution. Users are given access based on theirpossession of certificates signed or authorised for access by or on behalf of the server to which they wishto gain access. The certificate acts as evidence of their digital identity. Certificates can also be combined

with other access control mechanisms, such as tokens (identification hardware carried by users) or only

accepting visitors from certain authenticated addresses.

At the moment this option is most easily achieved with a custom solution combined with a certification

authority (CA) server or external CA service, which can issue and revoke certificates and authenticate

any certificates presented in order to gain access. This can involve a simple implementation of a publickey infrastructure (PKI), a system which establishes a hierarchy of authority for the issuance and

authentication of certificates and users presenting them.

Digital certificates can provide a sophisticated means of controlling and monitoring access. The certificateitself acts as a token for access control: the user must present it in order to gain access. In manyimplementations this can be done automatically: in some implementations the certificate is stored on aseparate token such as a smart card which the user has to present to the local client in order for it to pass it

to the server to gain access.

Task-03 E-business opportunities for Better Sofa

Manage Information

E-business will allow Better Sofa to dynamically manage a constantly shifting flow of importantinformation. It can check your existing inventory, manage furniture standards, procure products within

these standards, produce a quote, create a budget, and view automated reports.

With E-business all important facilities information is available in a single, easy-to-access location.Information that is normally time-consuming to track down will now be at your fingertips. Access to the

right information makes the difference between smooth operations, and stilted workflow.

Visualize Solutions

Collaboration has never been easier. Share design concepts, alert people to changes, and send project

information and drawings to members of Better Sofa team. You can also test concepts, review standardsand design on the fly. E-business creates a true visual experience for the end-user. These visual tools

can be used in a number of ways. When procuring new furniture solutions for the office, imagine beingable to fully examine every item, going just short of being able to actually touch it.


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Obtain Products and Services

E-business makes furniture procurement simple and cost-effective. E-business will be individualized for

Better Sofa, with the companys visual standards, ergonomic standards, and contract pricing.. E-businesscan integrate with major procurement providers. Check the status of companys PO at any point in the

process.

Enforcing company standards promotes the use of highly ergonomic work tools, and ensures a

professional-looking work environment.

Reducing off-contract spending can produce great savings. The average company makes over 25% of its

purchases off-contract. Studies show that the price of goods paid for this maverick spending is morecostly and makes it extremely difficult for organizations to track expenditures and manage corporate

assets. E-Business enforces better contract compliance, and greatly reduces costly maverick spending.

Selling goods online

E-commerce, or electronic commerce, is one subset of e- business. It involves buying and selling hard

goods, electronic goods or services over the Internet. What comes to mind when people think about doing

business on the Internet is good, old-fashioned trade. Selling goods online is probably the simplest way

Better Sofa can start an e-business. Depending on Better Sofas business plan, they can put up an online

store for a very small investment or they can spend millions.

Manage Assets

Most companies spend twice as much to manage their furniture assets as they do to buy it. Managingcorporate assets can help buyers understand what is in inventory before they make the decision to buy

new. Studies show inventory reuse can reduce expenses 25-50%.

With E-business, you can take inventory, track product condition, and locate product, whether its stored

at your workplace or in our high-tech Milpitas warehouse. Lower the life-cycle costs of your assets by

cleverly redeploying existing furniture inventory and updating the software related to inventory.

b) Discuss the 4 Stages of customer relationships in e-commerce and apply to Better Sofa.

The four stages of customer relationships in relation to e-commerce are:

Awareness

This is the first stage where customers recognize the name of the company or any of its products.

However, they have never interacted with the company before. A company/business can achieve this level

by properly advertising its brand.


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Exploration

At the exploration stage the potential customers know more about the company or its products. For

instance, they may have visited the web site of the company and have exchanged any information with it.

Familiarity

At this stage, customers have completed several business transactions with the company and know its

policies regarding refund, privacy of information, discounts etc.

Commitment

Having completed a number of satisfactory transactions, some customers may have developed a strong

sense of loyalty or preference for the products or brand of a company. They are said to be at

the commitment stage in their relationship with a business. Such loyal customers often tell others about

their satisfaction as regards products/services offered by the company. Sometimes, companies make

concessions on price or other terms of business to bring customers into this stage.

The sum of a companys customer service solutions constitutes its customer relationship

management (CRM) system. Level of traffic at the online business site and the available resources would

normally determine whether or not a business should have CRM. It provides fast and effective service to

customers and ensures that corrective measures are readily in place. CRM includes call handling, sales

tracking and Transaction support (technology/personnel etc.). Three tools can be used to improve

customer service, that is, log file analysis, cookies and data mining. Under CRM system, call centers can

be set up having customer service representatives who can be reached trough phone, e-mails

or online chatting. There are software tools or tracking devices that can provide feedback on how many

number of internet users actually viewed a banner or a marketing message and how many actually clicked

on the advertisement. Log files consist of data generated by site visits and include information about each

visitors location, IP address, time of visit, frequency of visits etc. There are businesses that provide the

services of analyzing web log files. The results would show how effective your web site is and indicate

the top-referring web sites. You know that cookies allow e-commerce sites to record visitor behavior.

They can be used to track customers online and do personalization. Many customers do not know that

their information is being collected and used by the e- business site. Thus, informational privacy rights of

customers can be breached in cases where cookies are used.One major goal of CRM is to establish a long-lasting relationship between a company and its

customers. Good customer services can help in building a sense of loyalty towards company and its

products or services. Experts have pointed out five stages of loyalty as customer relationships develop

over a period of time. One can find that the intensity of relationship increases as the customer moves

through the first four stages


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Task-04 Key features of designing a good website for Better Sofa

There are 2 aspects of a web design. Firstly, the visual presentation of a web page should be good so that

it attracts the user. Secondly, it should include all the necessary information for the non-human browsers.

Therefore, it can be said that a web design should fulfill the functional as well as the aesthetic

requirements.

Text

Background does not interrupt the text

Text is big enough to read, but not too big

The hierarchy of information is perfectly clear

Columns of text are narrower than in a book to make reading easier on the screen

Navigation

Navigation buttons and bars are easy to understand and useNavigation is consistent throughout web site

Navigation buttons and bars provide the visitor with a clue as to where they are, what page of thesite they are currently on

Frames, if used, are not obtrusive

A large site has an index or site map

Links

Link colors coordinate with page colorsLinks are underlined so they are instantly clear to the visitor

Graphics

Buttons are not big and dorky

Every graphic has an alt label

Every graphic link has a matching text linkGraphics and backgrounds use browser-safe colorsAnimated graphics turn off by themselves

General Design

Pages download quicklyFirst page and home page fit into 800 x 600 pixel space

All of the other pages have the immediate visual impact within 800 x 600 pixelsGood use of graphic elements (photos, subheads, pull quotes) to break up large areas of text

Every web page in the site looks like it belongs to the same site; there are repetitive elements thatcarry throughout the pages

A feature that is emphasized repeatedly by many designers is the tendency towards simplicity of design

and structure of a Web site. Achieving simplicity of design however is not as easy as it might sound. The


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modern trend is towards a more minimalist interface and page layout, which facilitates ease of access to

the site and usability features. One of the reasons for this trend is that as the number of Web sites

proliferates at an even increasing rate, there is a need to create sites that have a clear and obvious message

and aim.

Simplicity of layout is therefore a characteristic that is evident in some of the best Web sites around. Veryoften this refers to a simple one or two column structure. Pages are also read from top to bottom. The days

of the complex and involved site structure that requires time to figure out in order to navigate are

definitely outdated.

One of the main design principles that many Webmasters have lived by in recent years was that it was

wise to reduce the amount of scrolling necessary to view a page. However, the modern tendency is for a

centered orientation in Web design, rather than the previous left aligned, fixed-width layouts. Many top

modern sites have the content centered on the page, which often requires some scrolling. While excessive

scrolling is certainly not a good design characteristic, the modern view is that some scrolling is acceptable

when it is offset against the better use of white space and content that is situated around a central axis.


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BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Callaghan, J (2002). Inside Intranets & Extranets: Knowledge Management AND the

Struggle for Power. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN0-333-98743-8.

"Internet, n.". OxfordEnglish Dictionary (Draft ed.). March 2009. Retrieved 2010-10-26."Shortened < INTERNETWORK n., perhaps influenced by similar words in -net".

http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/what-are-the-characteristics-of-good-web-site-design-419450.html

http://ezinearticles.com/?Customer-Service-Coaching-Tip---Know-the-4-Stages-of-Customer-Development&id=1066720

http://www.onediy.com/internet/aspects-and-features-of-web-design.html

www.buzzle.com/articles/benefits-of-intranet-to-business.html

http://free-books-online.org/computers/e-commerce-computers/customer-relationship-management-crm/

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