Big W: Overview, B2B vs B2C, IT Infrastructure, Long Tail Strategy, Outsourcing, Online vs Traditional Business, Role of IT

This case study explores the overview of Big W, the differences between B2B and B2C, the risks involved in creating IT infrastructure, the long tail strategy, the pros and cons of outsourcing, the advantages and disadvantages of online business compared to traditional physical stores, and the role of IT in various industries.

CASE STUDY
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TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
1 Overview...................................................................................................................................3
2 Difference between B2B with B2C, B2G and C2C.................................................................3
3 Risk involved while creating IT infrastructure.........................................................................4
4 Long tail strategy......................................................................................................................4
5 Pros and Cons of outsourcing various work of firm and issue of offshore..............................5
6 Advantages and disadvantages of online business as compared to traditional physical stores 6
7 IT play an important role in various industries.........................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7
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INTRODUCTION
Information technology helps in collection of appropriate data and information so that
firm can formulate effective strategies to get competitive advantages. This report is about Big W
that operates its business through e- commerce that helps in effective functioning and increasing
profitability of organisation.
1 Overview
Big W is the one of the retail chain in the market of Australia and Asia. This firm offer
many products to the customer prevailing in the market of ecommerce of the Australian and Asia
websites. It offers a wider range of clothes, furniture items, snacks, books, electrical household
appliances etc. to customers (Tell Conchan, 2017). This company operates its function across the
boundaries of Australia and Asia. Headquarters of this company is being situated in the Bells
Vista, South Wales, and Australia.
2 Difference between B2B with B2C, B2G and C2C
As per Dorji, (2018) there are various differences between business to business with
business to consumers, business to government and customer to customers. Such as Business to
commerce directly deals with the people prevailing in the market whereas business to business
deals with the distributors who are helping hands in supply chain of the products. Business to
commerce needs to be marketed by the retailers, restaurant owner, showroom etc. to create the
business volume whereas business to business doesn’t have the control over the pricing or
quality of the products as all its activities are being done by the distributor or wholesaler of
products. Walsh, (2020) stated that Consumer to consumer is being defined as the trade between
the individuals in the market area through different modes. Consumer sale its used product to
another consumer through a systematic panel which are providing a platform to conducts this
type of business mode. EBay, olx, Amazon etc. are some of the sites to conduct the business
deals between consumer to consumer. These sites charges from the individual to list the product
without providing the guarantee to sale the products to the individual , whereas business to
business doesn’t involve such charges to list its products as its refer to supply chain of product
which are being prevailing in the market. As per view of Sha, (2019) business to government
deals in completing of delivering of products to the government within a period of time to
achieve the business goals. It is the safest mode of business transactions as government always
pays to the business when a satisfying service of products received by the government by the
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business. Government only focuses on the quotation which is being provided in the bidding
process of the business transactions whereas business to business doesn’t need to quote any type
of details which being provided in the business. It’s only run on the belief between the
businesses which are conducting their business activities.
3 Risk involved while creating IT infrastructure
There are various risk involved while creating IT infrastructure in Big W that need to be
considered for effective operation of business.
Setting of size refers to storage of the site which includes the product detailing, allocation
of resources, service facilities, etc. provided to the customer. Firstly, we need to decide size
according to the storage made in the initial stage in the formation of the IT infrastructure. This
storage is being used by the developer to develop the business (Rahimzadeh and Heydari, 2017).
And secondly, storage is used by the operator to add the details of the products range for the
growth of the business.
It needs different components like servers, storage, and virtualization from different
vendors in the market. All the software and hardware have to be tested to run its activities in the
minutes by the user of the company. It might take weeks to implement and test by the IT staff of
the company. As it’s not an easy task to be understood by anyone this only needs experts of IT
which are being appointed by the company to have smooth transaction in the firm.
4 Long tail strategy
Long tail strategy refers to selling of maximum amount of popular products but limited
products and services and also target limited customer in order to earn higher profitability. It is
effective strategy for Big W as it can earn large amount of profit with minimum competition.
More targeted search result is another advantage that helps in attracting large number of
customer within limited time and effort thus enhancing sales volume and profitability (Baesens,
and et.al., 2016). Big W is able to influence customers, who like to visit particular sites through
calling, purchasing products and service or filling form.
As per view of Kalamkar, (2017) other types of business that are operating in retail,
automobile and other industries can easily market its products and services to specific customers
that are interested in firm. Thus, saving most of time and effort of organisation to identify
potential customers and influence them to make purchase. At the same availability of less
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competition stated that companies can easily operate without threats of higher competition in the
industry.
5 Pros and Cons of outsourcing various work of firm and issue of offshore
Outsourcing refers to agreement between two companies that one firm will perform some
function on behalf of another company at reasonable cost. There are various advantages and
disadvantages of outsourcing of work for Big W are as follows:
PROS 1: HIGHER PROFITS
Big W has outsourced its products so as to obtain higher profits in the business
transactions which are being done in the market place. Outsourcing of product help in the
reduction of various costs such as, it can hire labour at low to generate profits out of the
processing fees which are being involved in the finishing of products (Paravastu, Ramanujan and
Ratnasingam, 2016).
PROS 2: EFFICIENT ECONOMIC
This helps in distributing of task to the particular individual on the skills and ability of the
employee thus lead to better performance and productivity. It help Big W in proper tackling of
process such as, recruiting of employees, closing of deals etc. everyone is appointed to perform a
specific task in the firm which result in the efficient economic for the management of the
company. As highly skilled works performs more productive in the process of the company.
PROS 3: TRADING INTERNATIONALLY
Trade between the boundaries of the world would result in less war as suggested by the
experts of the market. This would help in building of good relationship between the companies
across the boundaries of the globe (Sha, 2019). Trade connections may result in the good
bonding of the government of the countries and expansion of Big W business to across
worldwide to meet need of large number of customers. After analysis of advantages of
outsourcing various disadvantages of it are as follows:
CONS 1: LOSS OF JOB
Outsourcing of jobs may result in higher unemployment of local labour which are
prevailing the domestic market. As price vary from place to place across the boundaries of the
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globe. Big W will try to get work done by giving the minimum rate to worker to complete the
required task. Thus government will impose certain restrict on operation in order to protect
interest resident of their country.
CONS 2: CONTROL OVER THE BUSINESS
If Big W focuses on outsource of workers then there is problem to have a check over the
task performed. This may leads to less of efficiency from the worker which are being a helping
hand for the firm to generate the profits (Jackson, 2018). Different application and program can’t
give a perfect guarantee to company on check over of the employees as work to be completed in
the right way.
ISSUES OFFSHORE OUTSOURCING
Offshore outsourcing refers to giving the task to local company to have the control over
the work process and operations which are to be result in good quality of outcome and providing
of services on time. Thus, data of company may not be secured as its being completed by third
party approach. Another issue for BIG W is cost and communication are hidden or barrier in the
growth of the company in the offshore outsourcing. As technologies vary from place to place this
affect Big W as it couldn’t make output as expected by the firm.
6 Advantages and disadvantages of online business as compared to traditional physical stores
As noted by Dorji, (2018) traditional business relates to establishing of physical stores to
provide its services in the market whereas online business doesn’t establish physical in market as
they perform there activities through e-commerce. Different advantages such as market place -
Online business have large area of market and it can perform all its activities to different place of
market without investing on opening of stores. Traditional business covers a particular area of
the market to complete its activities in market to achieve the profits goals as decided by the firm.
The Dorji also state Market demand-Online business make change over according to the trends
currently prevailing in the market as it has a wider scope in terms of consumer trending products
demand. On the other hand traditional business can’t b compared in terms of latest trend of the
product as it has narrow market scope when being compared to online business. At last opening
hours is an advantage of online business as they are free to do their business transaction for 24*7
as they have no physical appearance to be with the customer. Traditional can have specific hours
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only to operate its business deal as they need to maintain the practical application of work in the
market.
But As noted by Tell Conchan, (2017) various disadvantages of online business are
Network issue as Online business totally depends upon the server or websites which are being
used to use the application. Server may crash which may result in fraud or leakage of personal
data details to hackers. Traditional business are being operated by human hands and minds so
have less risk to get fraud from business transaction from the stores. As per Tell Conchan
customer always gets satisfied and fast services from the traditional business as this business are
in the reachable area of the customer. In online business customer needs to register the complaint
and it always takes a week to resolve the problem. This always hurts the instant service of
customer product.
7 IT play an important role in various industries
IT plays important role in various industries such as automobiles, retail,
telecommunication and manufacturing industries. Such as Walmart operate in retail industry so
by help of IT company is able to easily formulate effective strategies that influence target
customers to make purchase thus help firm in gaining competitive advantages. Fonterra Co-op
Group is food manufacturing company that has use IT to identify needs of customers and make
various processes simple and easy so that qualitative products can be delivered to end user within
limited time (Sha, 2019). Queste Communications is a telecommunication company in Australia
that use IT to effective communicates information between its employees, customers and
investors. It also stores huge amount of data of company with help of hardware and software that
helps in quick delivery of services and appropriate decision making. Whereas companies that
does not use IT are not able to get competitive advantages as they does not enough data,
information to take correct decision within limited time.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that online business have number of advantages that helps in growth
and expansion of Big W within limited time and cost. Various risks are involved while
implementing IT infrastructure in company. It can be stated that long tail strategy is effective as
per need of business because helps in increasing profitability.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Baesens, B and et.al., 2016. Transformational issues of big data and analytics in networked
business. MIS quarterly, 40(4).
Dorji, D. C., 2018. E-commerce: The study of Business-to-consumer (B2C) E-commerce in
Bhutan (Doctoral dissertation, RIM).
Jackson, D., 2018. Innovation in Business to Business Payment Services: a contextual approach
to future innovation.
Kalamkar, M. D., 2017. Study of ecommerce security.
Paravastu, N., Ramanujan, S. and Ratnasingam, P., 2016. Role of Trust in Ecommerce: A
Comprehensive Model of Interpersonal.
Rahimzadeh, F. and Heydari, M., 2017. A Review of Ecommerce Competitive Advantages in
International Trade. JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT AND ACCOUNTING
STUDIES, 5(04), pp.79-85.
Sha, S., 2019. Creating a Brand Value and Consumer Satisfaction in E-Commerce Business
Using Artificial Intelligence. Rajeswari, Creating a Brand Value and Consumer
Satisfaction in E-Commerce Business Using Artificial Intelligence (February 22, 2019).
Tell Conchan, G., 2017. Ecommerce distribution: defining a new cost model (Master's thesis,
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya).
Walsh, T., 2020. “Gravity” and the Packaging of B2C Cross-Border Ecommerce. In The
Changing Postal Environment (pp. 183-195). Springer, Cham.
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