Key Trends and Advantages of Digital Technology for Managing Virtual Business: A Case Study of Amazon

This report provides an overview of key trends and advantages of digital technology and implications for managing virtual business in the global environment by drawing on Amazon as a case study. It critically evaluates new and emerging digital business models in the context of key business issues such as cyber security and ethics that Amazon uses or may use. It also evaluates the impact of new collaborative relationships and strategic alliances through digital technology for Amazon.

Digital business

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
Provide an overview of key trends and advantages of digital technology and implications for
managing virtual business in the global environment by drawing on your chosen business......3
Critically evaluate new and emerging digital business models in the context of key business
issues such as cyber security and ethics that your chosen business uses or may use..................5
Evaluate the impact of new collaborative relationships and strategic alliances through digital
technology for your chosen business...........................................................................................8
E-commerce principles used by your amazon.............................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Digital business is related to those business which uses modern and advanced technology
in their business process and operates their business with the help of internet. There are many
organisations in the world which analyses the changing in the technology and increasing trend of
public preference towards technology so these organisations makes effective digital business
plan and achieve success in their business (Aithal and Aithal, 2019). The digital business which
is taken here to demonstrate this report is Amazon. This report states different statements which
shows the key trends and advantages of digital business. There is business plan which is related
to the cybersecurity and ethics are stated in this report. This report contains an impact of
collaborative relationship and strategic alliance on the digital business. There are different types
of E-commerce principles which amazon used in their business.
About the company
Amazon inc is an American multinational organisation which performs their business
operations in multiple fields such as E-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming and
artificial intelligence. Amazon was founded by Jeff bezos with an aim to provide the goods and
services at the doorstep of the customers.
TASK
Provide an overview of key trends and advantages of digital technology and implications for
managing virtual business in the global environment by drawing on your chosen business
Key trends of digital technology
The trend of technology is continuously changes because of changing behaviour of the
customer in the market and organisation has to make changes in the technology regularly which
they use in their business to retained their customers and the brief discussion related to these
changing trends of digital technology are given below in context of Amazon
 Artificial intelligence :- It is related to those theory and computer system which
performs those task which is generally perform by the human intelligence. This concept
has faced many ups and downs in the few decades but it is one of the most attractive and
effective part of the digital business. This technology helps different types of
organisations such as hospitals, retail, E-commerce and many more. It is very helpful for

the management of Amazon because it is used in their different departments and makes
their process easy and effective.
 Robotic process automation :- This process is related to the increasing usage of robots
in the business and other activities (Allen, 2020). The trend of this technology increasing
rapidly different organisations such as hospital, restaurants and many more are using this
techniques to attract their customers as well as achieve advantage in their business.
 Virtual reality and augmented reality :- Virtual reality is related to the computer
developed environment which seems to be real. It is one of the most favourable digital
trend which many companies uses in their business such as games company and film
industry.
Importance of digital technology
The importance of digital technology is increasing due to the increase in the usage of
internet and modern technology. The scope of technology achieves the great heights because
most of the business of the world now using technology in their operations. The brief discussion
related to importance of digital technology in context of Amazon are given below:
 Communication speed: One of the most important advantage of the digital technology is
that it makes the communication process effective. Communication plays major role in
the success of the organisation. The management of the Amazon develops effective
communication channels in their organisation so that their employees can coordinate with
each other effectively and all the task perform accurately on time without any delay.
 Learning opportunities: The evolution of digital technology plays a major role in the
learning of peoples. There are many companies which provides online training to their
employees with the help of digital technology. After the pandemic, most of the
employees of Amazon prefer work from home so the management provides the support
and training of their employees by using personal application.
 Automation: One of the great impacts of the growth in digital technology is that all the
most of the business process become automatic. All the activities are controlled by the
machines and internet. All the business process of Amazon such as logistics and site
management are automatic because of use of internet of things and artificial intelligence.
 Information storage: There are many organisation in the world which has huge amount
of data of their customers which is required safe and huge capacity storage. This need of

business fulfils by the technology in the face of cloud services. All the companies uses
cloud services to store their data. Amazon has very strong data storage background in the
face of Amazon web services. This company provides cloud services to many companies
also the data of Amazon’s customer are stored in this cloud.
 GPS and mapping: It is very easy for the individual to find any location because of
online map and GPS services (Borges and et.al, 2021). It is the part of digital technology
under which the uses to find the address of their customers in their delivery process and
also at the time of booking order. The application of Amazon uses google map to fix the
orders of their customers and also their delivery executives use online map to find the
location of their buyers.
 Low cost: One of the most important advantage of the digital technology that it enables
many advertisement methods to organisation which helps the company to reach huge
number of buyers and increases the sale of their product and services which helps them to
gain the economies of large scale and becomes cost efficient.
Critically evaluate new and emerging digital business models in the context of key business
issues such as cyber security and ethics that your chosen business uses or may use
Amazon is a multinational organisation which deals in E-commerce business. The business
of the company contains the huge of information related to customers and this information is
very confidential because it involves the personal and payment details of the customers. It is the
duty of the Amazon to make this information confidential and protect from the third party. With
the use of internet there are also increase in the number of cyber attack under which the attacker
stole the information of customers by hacking the companies server and use the information
negatively. To protect the customer information from these cyber attacks Amazon develops well
established digital business plan which enables the company to perform their business ethically
and the brief discussion related to these technologies used by the company are given below:
Secure socket layers (SSL)
One of the most important step which the organisation considers in their cybersecurity
business model is to protect the information passes between the company and the organisation
become secure and not access ort read by any third party (Ferreira, Fernandes and Ferreira,
2019). To perform this function Amazon is using effective tools called Secure sockets layer. It is
related to those to which make the information encrypted passes between the customer and

organisation. Only the person which has key of this encryption has access the information such
as company or the individual customers.
Header information
One of the most important factors which makes the cyber attacker to successfully hack the
company website and portal is the information shows in the header of the website. The hackers
uses this information and uses in their mal functions (Gray, 2019. Many websites do not obscure
their header information which enables the attacker to successfully hack the company website
and stole the useful and confidential data. Amazon uses many technologies to obscure their
header information which helps them to deal with different cyber-attacks.
Secure cookies
Cookie is related to the file in the device of the user or customer of the company which is stored
by organisation to track the information of the customers. There are large amount of information
are present in these cookies which is related to the personal details, location and most important
the credentials of the users. There are two methods which protect the cookies to decode by the
hackers and amazon can used these methods to secure their cookies.
 http only: It is related to those configurations which secures the script from accessing
the cookies. If the malware uses the cookies only the blank will be open in the attacker
website and if this configuration is not present attacker can access all the details of the
users.
 Secure: There is a flag is seen on the website of the company which the express that the
cookies are secure by the secure sockets layer and only the parties which has keys of the
cookies can only be access of the information.
E-mail and DNS protection
There are many emails are coming from the amazon to their buyers. All the mails are
related to the promotion of the company, order details of the customer and also offers of the
company. There is also some fake emails which pretends to be come from amazon but they are
phishing mails which required credential and personal details of the customers. There is different
framework are present to protect these phishing mails such as SPF, DKIM and DMARC. These
tools make sure only the mails came from the secure source are forwarded to buyers and
continuously aware the customers about fake mails.
Ethics in business

There are many ethics which the business should follow in their operation to provide
healthy and safe environment to their stakeholder and also satisfy their social duties. The brief
discussion related to ethics which organisation uses in their business are given below.
 It is the duty of the company to treat all their employees equally and don’t make any
discrimination on the basis of caste, religion, gender and more. All the employees of the
organisation enjoy equal freedom in their office space.
 All the employees of the organisation treated with respect whether it is male or female.
The office environment should be free from the different harassment and employee
exploitation.
 It is the duty of the managers of the organisation to make the environment of the
organisation are free from negative elements which impact badly on the productivity of
the employees.
 All the employees of organisation should be given equal chances for growth and
promotion which enables the employees to make efforts strong and hard.
 One of the most important aspect is theta the organisation chosen those practises in their
business which promote the cultures and tradition of the operating country.
 Organisation uses those activities which promotes the natural environment of the
company.
 It is the duty of the managers to perform their corporate social responsibility effectively
so that the nation become happy.
 The organisation should pay the taxes to the respected governments honestly so that the
development of the nation take place effectively.
 It is required for the organisations to follow the rules and regulation which government
develops for waste management. These rules and regulation are developed to protect the
natural surrounding of the country becomes contaminated from the malpractices of the
organisation.
 It is important for the promotion of the environment that the company apply the
sustainable development process in their company so that the present development are
take place with makes sure the future.
It is important for the management of the Amazon to understand the ethics in the business which
helps them to conduct their business in long term (Gupta and Bose, 2019). The orgaisation is

conducting their business in many countries of the world and it requires effective business model
to handle the ethics in business. It is the duty of the managers of Amazon to make sure that all
the activities of the business are performed on the criteria which promote the ethics. It is seen in
many cases that those organisation which does not follow ethics in their business become failed
and wind up by the governments due to the mal practises which harms the natural environment
and restricts the employee rights.
Evaluate the impact of new collaborative relationships and strategic alliances through digital
technology for your chosen business
Collaborative relationships
It refers to those process under which the two companies or individual works combine to
achieve the same objectives of a business. it is most effective and attractive business model
which many businesses use in their operations. Under this model two or more organisation come
together and mix all their assets and resources to achieve some goals and objectives. It is helpful
for the company to achieve the competitive advantage because it minimises the competitors and
increases the profit margins of the company.
Amazon has many collaborations with other companies which helps the company to
perform their business operation. There are many deliver company such as FedEx, UPS and
UPWS which amazon make collaboration to make the delivery of their product and services
available to their customers.
It is not possible for the amazon to manage all the activities of the business single headedly
because there are many activities are present in amazon such as website management, delivery,
storage facility or warehousing and data storage facility.
The business of the amazon is spread all over the world and the customers orders the
product from different part of the world (Hartley and Sawaya, 2019). It is not possible for the
company to reach at the doorstep of each buyer so company develops the collaboration with
different local delivery company are mentioned above to make their delivery on time.
One of the most important activity of the amazon is website management. This work
company carried by self and the data storage of the company are performed by the Amazon web
services by their effective and huge cloud storage.

There are many warehouses are maintained by the amazon to store the product before it
delivers to their buyers, but these warehouses are not sufficient due to the huge product load so
company makes collaborations with the local warehouse provider to store their product.
Strategic alliance
It refers to the agreements under which two companies comes together to perform specific
project and become separates after the completion of project. This could be happened if both the
compony has different abilities to perform the task and the project requires both the abilities. The
strategic alliance helps the company to achieve those competencies which are present with other
party of the alliance (Kane and et.al, 2019). In some cases, it is seen one company has
technology but not has market and the another company has market share but not the technology
so it is in benefit of both company to develops an alliance and earns profits from the mutual
business.
It is said for the Amazon in international market that the company develops an Army of
their alliances to achieve the great success in their business. Company develops different types of
alliance with many manufacturer such as Breta, brother and entered in a partnership with the
whirlpool to use the modern technology in the home appliances.
E-commerce principles used by your amazon
E-commerce principle are related to those principles which is followed by the companies to
make their business successful and effective. These principles provided road map to the
organisation to achieve success in E-commerce. The management of Amazon follows four
principles in their business and the brief discussion related to these principles are given below.
Customer-centric thinking: One of the most important reason for the success of the Amazon is
their customer centric thinking because the management of the organisation always put the
customers first. The CEO of the company Jeff Bezos also said that the major reason for the
success of the company is their focus on their customers rather than their competitors. All the
strategies and plans of the organisation are developed while considering the customers of the
company such as the need and preference of their customers.
Shoppers’s empowerment: it is the most impressive principle which Amazon follow in their
business that it empowers the shoppers. In the present scenario the buyers become more
independent, no one wants to bargain with the offline seller all the persons prefer to purchase the
product online. This thinking is influenced by the amazon because all the misconceptions of the

customers are clear with the details present withy product and also the return policy of the
company helps the customers of the company to confident about the product and services of the
company. Amazon also develops chat box and helpline under the customers can solve their
queries related to the product and services of the organisation.
Speed: The core strength of the amazon is their speed. It is one of the greatest strengths of the
company that they organise the same day delivery to their buyers which helps to gain the
customers loyalty (Le Dinh, Vu and Ayayi, 2018). Company develops their website in a way that
does not take much time tom load so that the customers does not find any difficulty to open the
application of the company. The CEO Jeff bezos has used the autocratic style of leadership in
their organisation, under which all the decision related to the business are taken by himself only.
This enables the company to take quick decision which helps the company to achieve their goals
effectively.
Optimised for discovery: It is not easy for the retailors to fulfils the need of the customer which
they want to buy online. The needs and preference of the customers become dynamic and it is the
duty of the company to fulfils these needs of these customers. To overcome this situation
Amazon uses recommendation section in their website if the searched product are not present on
the website.
CONCLUSION
This report concludes different statements which shows the key trends and
advantages of digital business (Matzler and et.al, 2018). There is business plan which
is related to the cybersecurity and ethics are concluded in this report. This report
concludes the impact of collaborative relationship and strategic alliance on the
digital business. There are different types of E-commerce principles which amazon
used in their business are concluded in this report.

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