Challenging Use of Internet in Business: Analysis and Report

This report delves into the challenging aspects of internet usage within the business context, specifically focusing on the implications of social media and cloud computing for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The report begins by examining the beneficial effects of social media, such as its role in networking, brand exposure, customer engagement, and cost-effective marketing. It highlights how social media platforms provide opportunities for SMEs to build relationships, attract customers, and increase website traffic. The report then transitions to cloud computing, discussing its impact on work practices, productivity, and the potential uncertainties associated with its implementation. It explores the use of Platform as a Service (PaaS) and how it changes traditional work methods, enabling employees to access information remotely. The report also addresses the interrelation between cloud computing and organizational productivity, emphasizing the importance of proper handling knowledge and addressing potential risks like data breaches and cyber-crimes. Overall, the report provides a comprehensive analysis of the challenges and opportunities presented by the internet in the modern business landscape, emphasizing the need for strategic adoption and management of these technologies.

Running head: CHALLENGING USE OF INTERNET IN BUSINESS
Challenging Use of Internet in Business
Name of the Student
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Table of Contents
Answer 1:.........................................................................................................................................2
Beneficial Effects of Social Media in SMEs...............................................................................2
Answer 2:.........................................................................................................................................3
Cloud Computing and Work Practices........................................................................................3
Cloud Computing and Productivity.............................................................................................4
Cloud Computing and Uncertainties...........................................................................................4
References:......................................................................................................................................5

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Answer 1:
Beneficial Effects of Social Media in SMEs
Cestyakara & Surendro (2014) discussed about the adoption of social media adoption in
SMEs (Small and medium enterprises) and determinant factors of this adoption. In this article,
social media has been defined as the “group of Internet-based applications that build on the
ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange
of user generated content”. Several benefits have been proposed by the authors, which can be
listed as:
Networking helps in creating relationships with several other businesses and increases brand
exposure. In exchange of promoting other’s product or business, own product’s promotion can
be asked (Cox, 2012). Engagement of others in the promotional activities for own product or
business will help in arising the small business and become more visible to lots of new
consumers.
In business, it has been seen that increased focus in relationship as compared to the sales
increases the profit and the sales. Social media networking websites provides small business an
opportunity to involve their audience on several different levels, including personal. For small
businesses, it is important to focus on the relationship with customers. Social media can provide
a platform for the owner of business to show their interest on the customers by replying to the
feedbacks or questions being asked at any post updated by interested customers (Hays, Page &
Buhalis, 2013).

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Another beneficial aspect of social media is that posts like pictures and videos gather
more attention of the customers than posting texts and posting interesting content can help in
attracting more customers. This will increase the number of involvement of customers toward
that product or the business.
Increase in the website trafficking is another beneficial aspect of using social media in SMEs as
more involvement of followers on the website increases the search ranking ability of the business
on the internet. More engagement on the social media account can lead towards more customers
and more followers.
For SMEs and small business promoting their brand and creating awareness among the
customer bout the services and the offered products becomes highly cost-effective on this
platform. No doubt, this medium will eat more time than any other promotional medium but will
definitely give a big crowd, whom an individual can discuss, the information about the
organization and products of the organization.
Social media implication in small businesses helps in developing customer service
relations, which in result in loyalty to the organization by the customers. Social media provides a
platform where customers can interact with the owner directly (Calefato, Lanubile & Novielli,
2013). The instant exchange of information between the customer and the organization can be
done very efficiently on this platform. All questions should be answered on the blog in order to
make very loyal customers. Even dissatisfied customer can again regain confidence, loyalty and
trust to to the organization if there is proper listening response from the side of the company to
listen about their queries and difficulties about any product.

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Answer 2:
Cloud Computing and Work Practices
Gas, Meth & Maedche (2014) shows their interest on the cloud computing
implementation to the organizational system and their response on the work practices. The
authors discussed about the Platform as a Service (PaaS) implication in the organization and
discuss the changes in the traditional work practices to modern and more innovative techniques.
PaaS can be stated as a component for the cloud computing, as it provides platform for the
applications that are being introduced for the operational activities of the organization. In this
paper, this was stated as productive software as it provides the users cloud storage for the
operational activities that are being maintained in the system or different applications.
Technically, PaaS is used to determine which type of applications are needed for the
organization and recommend that software to be implemented in the systems (Patidar, rane &
Jain, 2012). Through this employee can access to the needed information anywhere by
connecting to the internet. This new and innovative implication has eliminated the traditional
way of operations as nowadays everything is being done using the computers and being saved on
the clouds.
Cloud Computing and Productivity
Teh et al. (2016) shows their concern on the inter-relation between the cloud computing
and the productivity of the organization. In this literature review various findings have been
done, based on which authors described that cloud computing can enhance the performance of
the organization by increasing the profit. Cloud computing provides a big storage and easily
accessible to the files that are being saved on those storage, which can help an employee to be
able to work at any place even while going out of station or travelling to other offices. Cloud

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computing helps in doing big calculations in a while and is effective and efficient software in the
matter of accuracy. Authors have also discussed about the poor handling knowledge results on
the productivity of an organization. Poor handling knowledge about the cloud computing can
lead the company to bigger loss may be which cannot be regained again, for this they have
recommended to implement better and more effective policies on the usage of cloud computing.
Cloud Computing and Uncertainties
Generally, application that are based on internet services or cloud services are called as
On-Demand Service based software. Uncertainties can be happened to the organization by
implementing cloud computing on the organization and by doing all operational activities based
on the internet (Peng & Huang, 2017). Since the data that are being done on the applications that
are based on Cloud Storage like SaaS, IaaS and PaaS store those data in the cloud, which makes
it vulnerable in manner to be stolen or manipulated. Nowadays data breach cases and cyber-
crime are increasing as the technology is increasing. Those data can be breached by unauthorized
users which can cause serious loss to the organization and even lead the company towards
closure. Proper encryption and proper tokenization by certain technologies are the better options
to keep those data safer.

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References:
Calefato, F., Lanubile, F., & Novielli, N. (2013, September). A preliminary investigation of the
effect of social media on affective trust in customer-supplier relationships. In Affective
Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII), 2013 Humaine Association Conference on
(pp. 25-30). IEEE.
Cestyakara, A., & Surendro, K. (2014, September). Bandung towards Smart City—A study in
SMEs for social media adoption and determinant factors. In Information, Communication
Technology and System (ICTS), 2014 International Conference on (pp. 171-176). IEEE.
Cox, S. L. (2012). Social media marketing in a small business: A case study (Doctoral
dissertation, Purdue University).
Gass, O., Meth, H., & Maedche, A. (2014). PaaS characteristics for productive software
development: an evaluation framework. IEEE Internet Computing, 18(1), 56-64.
Hays, S., Page, S. J., & Buhalis, D. (2013). Social media as a destination marketing tool: its use
by national tourism organisations. Current issues in Tourism, 16(3), 211-239.
Patidar, S., Rane, D., & Jain, P. (2012, January). A survey paper on cloud computing. In
Advanced Computing & Communication Technologies (ACCT), 2012 Second
International Conference on (pp. 394-398). IEEE.
Peng, K. L., & Huang, C. Y. (2017). Reliability Analysis of On-Demand Service-Based Software
Systems Considering Failure Dependencies. IEEE Transactions on Services Computing,
10(3), 423-435.

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Teh, S.K., Ho, S.B., Chan, G.Y. and Tan, C.H., 2016, May. A framework for cloud computing
use to enhance job productivity. In Computer Applications & Industrial Electronics
(ISCAIE), 2016 IEEE Symposium on (pp. 73-78). IEEE.