Unit 4 & 8: Impact of IT on Business Systems and E-Commerce Report

This report examines the impact of Information Technology (IT) on business systems, particularly in the context of e-commerce. It begins by outlining necessary IT system upgrades for establishing an e-commerce site, including website security, performance optimization, scalability, mobile compatibility, and data engineering. The report then analyzes the positive impacts of these upgrades on a business, such as improved data entry accuracy, reduced errors, record synchronization, faster order cycles, and cost savings. Furthermore, it details the benefits of IT upgrades, including competitive advantages, global reach, cost savings, better market targeting, and overall business growth. The report then explores why a company like 'Tines' needs to keep pace with IT developments, emphasizing productivity gains, cost reduction, profit increases, and operational efficiency. It suggests strategies for responding to IT opportunities, such as managing technical changes, integrating systems, hiring IT specialists, employee training, and data-driven services. The report also covers various methods for promoting an e-commerce site, including search engine optimization, social media marketing, email marketing, blogging, and paid advertising. Finally, the report analyzes the 'brick and click' business model, examining both the physical ('brick') and online ('click') aspects, and concludes with a recommendation for 'Tines' to embrace IT development and e-commerce.

Impact of IT on
Business Systems & E-
Commerce

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Task 1.....................................................................................................................................1
Upgrades required in IT systems for setting up an e-commerce site............................1
Impacts on the business.................................................................................................2
Benefits of this upgrade................................................................................................2
Why would a company like ‘Tines’ need to keep pace with IT developments?..........3
Suggestions they should respond to this opportunity....................................................4
Task 2.....................................................................................................................................4
Methods available to ‘Tines’ to promote their e-Commerce site..................................4
Should they decide to go ahead with the idea?.............................................................5
Task 3.....................................................................................................................................5
Explain the terminology of ‘brick and click’................................................................5
Analyse the ‘brick’ part of the business........................................................................6
Analyse the ‘click’ part of the business........................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
References:.....................................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Information technology is referred to as the use of technical devices to perform
operations of management technically in an organization such as using various software and
hardware for easy working in the company, data storage, retrieving, deleting, modifying and
many more activities that an organization can perform using internet connection and networks as
well (Agag, 2019). E-commerce can be defined as taking the business online or doing business
by using the internet connection and web servers. In other words, when business perform their
buying and selling activities on the internet or online networking, then it is referred to as the E-
commerce (Tzavlopoulos, Gotzamani, Andronikidis and Vassiliadis, 2019).
The following discussions are based on the Tines which is an organization that mainly
deals, manufactures and sell the products such as utensils of very good quality with lavish
coating of silver and many more. Therefore, they are requiring to develop the E-commerce site
with information up-gradation, hence, this essay is based on the upgrades required in IT systems
for setting up an E-commerce site, impacts on business, benefits of upgrade, why the company
need to keep pace with the IT developments, suggestions they should respond on this
opportunity, methods to promote their E-commerce site for the company, discussion about they
must go with this idea or not, concept of brick and click along with their features, advantages and
disadvantages followed by the proper findings and conclusion.
MAIN BODY
Task 1
Upgrades required in IT systems for setting up an e-commerce site
There are different types of upgrades that are required by the company to set up their E-
commerce site such as one of the important upgrade is security of website because there are
various cyber crimes and hacking are available so in order to secure the content from the
website, it is necessary to secure the website to safeguard from any cyber attack on the business.
Another upgrade which is important is the performance of the website because customers wants
that the website must be user friendly and minimum complications in operating it so they will
only visit site if it's loading time is less and easy to operate. Scaling as per the business needs is
also an upgrade which means that the administrator of the website must align the contents of the
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site according to the business requirements for easy going operations. Website must be used on
the mobile basis as well, it should not always requires the desktop to visit because it creates the
impressions on the customers. Websites updates is essential because the same content every time
can bore the visitors on the website , so it must be creative and innovative every time at the time
of updates in the website for smooth working of it. Data engineering is a significant aspect
because data storage is an important part in the database so it must also be updated every time for
better ongoing process of data management in an organization through IT systems and E-
commerce (Chaffey, Edmundson-Bird and Hemphill, 2019).
Impacts on the business
This upgrades impacts the business in several ways such as it creates the low resistance in
data entry which means that there will an accuracy and perfection in entry of the data without
any duplication and errors because updated systems help the organization in effective and
efficient management in it's data entry systems in it's databases. It generates fewer errors in it's
working with proper security because the reason behind updates is only for the smooth
functioning of the site with minimum errors so customers also feel secure in visiting the site due
to the step by step process involved in the website's operations. It provides records
synchronization which means security in records saving of the customers in ordering, delivering,
payments and many other activities performed by the customer so it synchronises the records for
proper maintenance of it. It also reduces the cycle times of placing the order, shipping the order,
dispatching the order and delivering of the order which means it provides the faster process and
results after upgrading the IT systems. Most important impact on the business of updates is that
saving of cost such as operating costs, customer servicing costs and data entry costs. This has
supported the business in lowering it's cost and more savings so that they can look into better
investment part for more return. Therefore, upgrades has impacted on business in a positive
manner (Chong, Lacka, Boying and Chan, 2018).
Benefits of this upgrade
There are various benefits for the upgrades of technology in an organization such as
competitive advantage which means company gains the benefits in fighting against the
competitors by updating it technical services and switching to the advanced version of
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technology as it gives ease for the company in handling the management thereby helps in gaining
the competitive advantages. Company is getting the benefit of global reach which means
reaching out the variety of customers in a wide range nationally or internationally for better
expansion of it's business just because of the upgrading the technology in an organization.
Company faces savings on rent, staff and advertising because technical development results in
savings by managing the major operations in a business virtually which safeguards the other
expenses of the company in a huge manner. Better targeting to markets and customers are also
involved in the benefits because technology upgrading supports the company in providing the
better analysis of the target markets so that they can focus only on the specific customers for
particular products. Company gains overall growth and development in it's different function and
department such as in human resource, finance, marketing, production, research and
development and many more. It provides the better customer experience because now a days
customers are themselves involved in the technology so they experience good with the
company's servicing (Dominici, Del Giudice and Lombardi, 2018).
Why would a company like ‘Tines’ need to keep pace with IT developments?
It is important to keep the pace with the IT developments because IT advancements
provides the company the productivity gains which is very essential for an organization as
information technology helps the firm in it's major functions and operations thereby it gain
productivity through it. It also helps in reducing the cost because IT is all about communicating
with the world on a virtual basis and the expenses are low on virtual world so thereby it supports
the firm in decrement of it's cost in it's operations. It assist the firm in increasing of it's profits
because IT provides the global platform to communicate with their customers and if reach is
expanded then the firm can gain more and more profits by selling it's products and services to the
wide range of customers globally. IT developments provides efficiency to the company in it's
overall management and operations so that they can be able to improve and enhance the
performance of the company even more better then before. Company would be able to know
about that where they have to invest and where they do have to invest because an appropriate
analysis and examining of such investment are given by IT advancements. Moreover, using IT,
company can get to know about the opportunities they can have in future or currently in the
market for better expansion and growth (Gregory, Ngo and Karavdic, 2019).
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Suggestions they should respond to this opportunity
There are different suggestions for the company that how they should respond to all such
opportunities in order to develop and upgrade their IT systems for E-commerce site such as
company must manage it's technical change which means whatever is being updated in a firm,
management should get awareness of it so that they can update it timely on a frequent basis.
Company must look into the integration among various systems so that the content, data and
information can be more secured and less expense is required in setting up all such things for
integration of technical devices. Organization must hire the specialist in IT professionals because
they are having the advanced knowledge of technology including hardware, software, data,
networks, internet and many more things so they will easily manage the IT department of the
firm. Firm must organise the employees training and development in an organization so that they
can also get the knowledge of IT and can deal with the systems and could avoid the cyber attack
and cannot be the victim of cyber crime that is why the basic learnings are important for the
employees in the company. Company itself must get updated about the new upcoming features
of IT so that they can implement in their company as soon as possible for more security.
Company must implement and execute the data driven services from the administrator's end and
from the user's end as well for better record tracking in the database (Hua, Hight, Wei and
DeFranco, 2019).
Task 2
Methods available to ‘Tines’ to promote their e-Commerce site
There are various methods available for the company to promote it's E-commerce site
such as search engine optimization technique in the digital marketing which states ranking the
company site on the top after being searched on the browsers must appears first, this attracts the
customers and open the site which comes on a very top of the list. Company can also promote
using various social sites such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and many more where
people are mostly have their accounts and operate them on a daily basis. Random emailing by
the company in bulk to a lot of customers also helps the firm in gaining leads for selling their
products and services online via E-commerce site. Company also adopt the method of blogging
on various other sites which are already famous and have good reputation in the market, Tines
can blog on those sites for better and faster reach to the customers in order to promote it's site.
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Similarly there are the option of paid google ads of the company's site so that people watch those
ads and come to know about the site and what products and services they offering at what prices
ranges and qualities. Moreover, company must develop the user friendly site which is easy for th
customer to use with attractive and connecting content on the site followed by the regular
updating of offers and discounts for the customers in order to promote the site (Kasemsap, 2018).
Should they decide to go ahead with the idea?
Yes, company must head their operations towards the idea of IT development and the
suggestions provided. Reason behind adopting such ideas is to attract the customers towards their
company's, products and services so that firm can gain better productivity out of their maximum
sales and revenue generations. To gain customer loyalty because now a days it is difficult for the
company to maintain the customer loyalty as customers are very frequent in switching from one
brand to another brand so in order to maintain the loyalty, it is important to provide more
technical servicing to their customers to enhance the customer experience with an organisation.
To increase sales and profit, company must adopt the idea of IT developments and E-commerce
suggestions as it helps the company in good turnover with more sales and profits. To maintain
stability in the market, firm must discover the idea of advancement of information technology
because IT supports in gaining the stability with good reputation and standard in the market
place. To expand, grow and develop the company, latest information technology updates is
important especially in the field of E-commerce because it provides the global reach which helps
in expanding the business which further supports in growth, development and maintaining the
standard of it (Kasemsap, 2018).
Task 3
Explain the terminology of ‘brick and click’
Brick is defined as the offline or traditional marketing of the business via newspapers,
television, magazines, radios and many more. Offline marketing is termed as brick because it
defines hard work and efforts as traditional marketing depicts the bricked marketing for an
organization that is why it is termed as the brick or offline or traditional shop. This type of
marketing doesn't need any internet connection, it is purely or wholly traditional as it requires the
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great costing and investment in it's personal advertisements, sales and promotion. Therefore, it
has nothing to do with the E-commerce websites (Khan and Uwemi, 2018).
Click is defined as the online or digital marketing of the business via search engine
optimization, social media marketing, pay per click, google ads, blogging and many more.
Online marketing is termed as click because it defines the using of computer systems and
different hardware as digital marketing depicts clicked marketing for an organization that is why
it is termed as the click or online or digital shop. This type of marketing highly needs the internet
connection and networking, it is purely and wholly digital as it requires the marketing with
minimum cost and investment in it's personal advertisements, sales and promotion. Therefore, it
has the work mainly with the E-commerce websites (Xiao, Wu, Xie and Hu, 2019).
Analyse the ‘brick’ part of the business
Key features of their core business
John Lewis, a known name in the retail industry of the UK. John Lewis have its physical
presence in form of departmental and supermarket in the different streets of the UK. John has
brick and mortar business structure that means they have a physical and virtual business
presence. John Lewis is interacting with its customer physically and there is face to face
interaction. Customer at John Lewis can touch, see and feel products before buying them.
Customer at John Lewis has a real time shopping experience. Organisational structure of John
Lewis is based on the employee-ownership, that is why it is known as John Lewis and
Partnership. For more customer retention, John lewis offers in-store discounts and various
attractive offers within the store (Laudon and Traver, 2018).
Advantages of traditional shop presence might have over e-Commerce
This is the digital era people of this generation are busier than ever, people are looking
for convenience in shopping. This gives give growth to online shopping. Despite the many
benefits of e-commerce, many consumers are preferring traditional shops. Online shopping trend
is growing but still, some people prefer to touch, see and feel the product before buying it.
Online shopping is technically unable to give this feature to their user, but traditional shops can.
John Lewis has entered into the e-commerce business, but they have found that most of their
customer are preferring shopping in stores rather than online. John Lewis has a brand value, they
earn this reputation because of their customer's loyalty to them. Serving customer personally
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promotes loyalty. The foremost benefit of the traditional shops is a physical presence, there is a
physical place of shops, face to face interaction of sales staffs with customers. There is no
bargaining in online shopping, users cannot negotiate with the business but in traditional shops,
users can bargain and get the product at a reasonable price. There is no credit facility in online
shopping, a user has to pay for the product first when buying whereas John lewis gives credit
facility to their loyal customer. Traditional shops offer better customer service, customer can
give feedback or mentioned their concern, there is on the spot solutions for customer's queries
(Ramanujan and Kesh, 2019).
Disadvantages of traditional shop presence might have for the organisation
There are various disadvantages of traditional shop for an organization such as it is more
expensive or costly in operations in terms of it's infrastructure, staff working, extra cost on
marketing and many more. Investment is highly expensive in it's goods and services. It is less
measurable because the owner cannot measure it's performance and cannot identify that where
they have to improve and how to lower it's cost, if performance are only not measurable then it
can considered as a disadvantage of traditional shop. It is more time consuming in terms of
attracting the customers, marketing process, measuring performance, sales process and many
more because they are not digitalised so they takes time longer to complete a task associated with
it's operations and management. It is has limited reach to the customers because they can attract
those customers who are nearby and who visits the shop on a regular basis and who have
awareness of the shop offering products and services. Moreover, there are less opportunities for
expansion because there is not at all global reach is available with the brick system thereby it
hinders or hampers the expansion and growth of the business (Song, Sun, Wan and Zhu, 2019).
Analyse the ‘click’ part of the business
Key features of their e-Commerce business
There are different features of E-commerce business such as content management which
means websites need attractive content to display so that customers can visit and desire to buy
the products and provides from the company. It is one of the most important feature because
content decides that the customer will get attracted towards the site or not. Therefore, content
management is an essential feature for E-commerce site. Easy marketing is another feature for
the company because it provides the support of online marketing which is comparatively easier
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then traditional marketing with low cost and most expanded reach towards the customers
internationally as well. E-commerce sites have easy customization process because they just
need to change the content on the website if any customization is needed in the pricing, offers,
discounts or in products itself. Multiple payment options is also the one of the feature of E-
commerce site because it is important to make the customers comfortable in their payment
options such as cash on delivery, payment sites or card payment (Tam, Loureiro and Oliveira,
2019).
Advantages of e-Commerce site over a traditional shop for the organisation
There are various advantages of having the online shop such as E-commerce provides the
fast process in buying, selling and payment activities along with instant complaint and feedback
from both the ends that is owner of the site and customers. It saves cost of maintenance,
operating cost and many more thereby less expensive as compared to the traditional shop. It
supports the company in affordable marketing because there are less cost in marketing,
advertisements, sales and promotion of products and services via digital marketing technique. It
assist the owner and customer as well in terms of flexibility using the website. Global reach is
the most important advantage of E-commerce site because it provides the expanded reach
towards the customer either nearby or far away even internationally as well. This helps the firm
in greater expansion of it's business across the world. Moreover, customers finds easy in
comparing the products from different brands like the product quality, product pricing and many
more basis of comparison so they feel comfortable purchasing after evaluating the things by
themselves online (Tonnison and Tonnison, 2019).
CONCLUSION
It is concluded that IT up gradation is highly required in setting up of the E-commerce
site as it gives the business a proper insight to carry on the operations they were doing to gain
profit and sales generations (Turban, Outland, King and Turban, 2018). Therefore, it is important
to analyse the updates required in IT systems for E-commerce site, it is necessary to examine the
impacts on the business, it is essential to determine the benefits of such upgrades in IT systems,
it is significant to observe that why the company must keep pace with the latest technology, it is
needed to identify the suggestions to respond on the opportunities, it is required to justify the
methods that a company must adopt for to promote E-commerce site, it is important to analyse
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that the company should decide to move further with this idea and it is essential to examine the
brick and click concept with their features, merits and demerits (Yoo and Jang, 2019).
Hence, all such areas are covered in the essay with proper findings so that the business
like Tines could get a benefits regarding the same so that they can expand their business even
more faster and can keep their technology in an upgraded manner. The reason behind such study
is that the technology is updating and increasing day by day in a very frequent manner and
adoption of it makes the business operations and management more convenient then before.
Therefore, adopting the new and advanced technology especially for the E-commerce site can
benefit the business in gaining stability and loyalty in the market place.
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References:
Books and Journals
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An empirical study of small and medium Egyptian businesses. Journal of Business
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Chaffey, D., Edmundson-Bird, D. and Hemphill, T., 2019. Digital business and e-commerce
management. Pearson UK.
Chong, A.Y.L., Lacka, E., Boying, L. and Chan, H.K., 2018. The role of social media in
enhancing guanxi and perceived effectiveness of E-commerce institutional mechanisms
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Dominici, G., Del Giudice, M. and Lombardi, R., 2018. Governing Business Systems. Springer.
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capabilities and efficiencies for enhanced performance in business-to-business export
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Kasemsap, K., 2018. Advocating electronic business and electronic commerce in the global
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Kasemsap, K., 2018. The importance of electronic commerce in modern business.
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Laudon, K.C. and Traver, C.G., 2018. E-commerce 2017.
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innovations: Insights from strategic renewal perspectives. Information &
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Yoo, B. and Jang, M., 2019. A bibliographic survey of business models, service relationships,
and technology in electronic commerce. Electronic Commerce Research and
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