E-business Report: IT, Competitive Advantages, ICT Role, and Ethics

This report delves into the realm of e-business, examining its various facets through the lens of a case study focusing on Woolworths. It begins by identifying critical IT issues that impact e-business operations, such as web server problems, bandwidth limitations, IP address configurations, and security vulnerabilities. The report then explores the competitive advantages that e-business offers, including enhanced accuracy, increased efficiency, reliability, and flexibility. The role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in e-business is thoroughly discussed, highlighting its impact on business communication. Furthermore, the report addresses legal, ethical, and social issues associated with e-business, such as customer relationship management, vendor compliance, and data security. The analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the e-business landscape, offering valuable insights into its challenges and opportunities.

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Table of Contents
Introduction............................................................................................................................................................2
IT issues for E-business...........................................................................................................................................2
Issues in web-server:..........................................................................................................................................2
Low bandwidth issues:........................................................................................................................................3
Dynamic and static IP address issues:.................................................................................................................3
Security issues:....................................................................................................................................................3
Competitive advantages of E-business...................................................................................................................5
High accuracy......................................................................................................................................................5
High-level of efficiency........................................................................................................................................5
More reliable......................................................................................................................................................5
Flexibility.............................................................................................................................................................5
ICT role in E-business..............................................................................................................................................6
Effective business communication..........................................................................................................................8
Legal, ethical and social issues in E-business..........................................................................................................9
Conclusion and Recommendations.......................................................................................................................10
References............................................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
Most of the organizations have adopted digital transformation in their business functions to improve their
performance and efficiency of work. In addition, there are many advantages of emerging technologies and
innovations in an organization. Woolworths is a popular and famous organization in Australian for food and
other services. The company has used various digital technologies and innovations to improve the performance
of business functions. The company has taken competitive advantages using Artificial Intelligence (AI), and
other technologies for competitive advantages.
E-business is a part of the industry in the present era. From the last two decades, most of the industries have
adopted various functions of digital technologies. In addition, the companies have provided online services to
the customers to improve their performance. Digital technologies are helpful in the improvement of business
processes (Zeng, et al., 2012). The company has provides various services using online services to its customers,
which has increased its profit and revenue of the company. In addition, the company provides various facilities
to their customers through online portals.
In this report, the role of information technology in the improvement of business functions will describe in
detail. There are huge impacts of AI and other technologies in sales and marketing of the company. This report
will provide solutions to various business problems. This report will discuss about the ICT profession in e-
business. Legal, ethical, and social issues of ICT and e-business in the later section of this report.
IT issues for E-business
Information Technology has provided various benefits to the company in its business functions. In addition, e-
business requires IT alignment to improve the performance of the business of the company. In addition, IT
alignment is necessary for the management of various business functions of the company especially sales and
marketing (Wu, et al., 2015).
E-business has based on the IT services and they have some issues in their implementation and other
processes. There are some technical issues in the e-business, which areas:
Issues in web-server:
The company has implemented its services for e-business using sever and other IT infrastructure. The company
has managed its various business functions using online services. Woolworths has a good response from their

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customers. The company has faced some technical issues in the various functions, which leads to financial
losses for the company (Woolworths, 2019).
E-business is beneficial for the company to improve its business and provide more benefits but server issues
have created problems in front of the company. The technical issue makes a huge impact on the profit of an
organization (Vishnoi, 2019).
Low bandwidth issues:
Bandwidth is an issue in front of various organizations. In addition, Woolworths has faced issues in its
bandwidth sometimes, such as festival time, weekends, and many more.
Bandwidth is necessary for the company to improve its business processes in a proper manner. In addition,
response time must be fast in online shopping. Thus, customers can see all the things in less time and properly.
Sometimes, payment services have failed because of the low bandwidth of the network connection. The
company has faced many issues in the bandwidth of their connection.
In addition, data mining and data warehouses contain large amounts of data and information. Thus, they
require a high level of bandwidth to access the records. Data analytics has based on access to data as well
(Vercellis, 2011).
Dynamic and static IP address issues:
The e-business depends on the static and dynamic address of the portal. Thus, the company should take a static
address for e-business, which is good for sharing with others. In addition, most of the companies have used
dynamic addresses for their business because of the cost factor. Woolworths has used static addresses for their
e-business to improve the performance of their business functions. From last two decades, artificial intelligence
and neural network have used for the company analysis and process improvements (Tkáč & Verner, 2016).
Security issues:
Data analysis is an important part of the company, which requires a high level of security, as all the information
is confidential and sensitive for the business. In addition, customer’s data also requires a high level of security
and privacy. Thus, the company should provide proper security. However, data breaches are general issues in
front of most large-scale organizations. In addition, data breaches make huge impact on the reputation and
financial conditions of the company. Data analysis is necessary for the company to use the benefits of e-
business, such as dynamic costing, and others (Shmueli, et al., 2017).

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Moreover, the company has implemented a security management program to secure all business functions and
web services in a proper manner. In addition, there are many advantages of the security management program
in the security and privacy of the systems (LaMarco, 2019).
There are many things included in the purchase process of the systems. It includes these things for the order
and delivery of a product or a service, which is shown in the above diagram, which areas:
 ISP
 Merchant web server
 E-commerce server
 Database server
 Payment gateway
 Warehouse
 Delivery service
Woolworths has provided its best products and services to its clients using online services. The company has
implemented all the security policies and legal regularities to manage all the things in the proper manner
(Riches, 2015).

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In addition, AI provides help in the improvement of various business processes using data analytics and
reporting. The company has used its own web services to improve data analytics, as data and information are
important in the retail business (Olson & Delen, 2008).
Competitive advantages of E-business
E-business provides various competitive advantages to the company, as Woolworths are the largest company in
the field of retails business in Australia. Technologies provide various advantages to the company in their
processes management and governance of the business functions (Obeidat, et al., 2015).
ICT makes a good relationship between business professionals and IT management. In addition, ICT provides
help in data analytics using various technologies, such as big data, data mining, and data warehouse. In
addition, there are some advantages of business intelligence using big data and other technologies (Nord, et
al., 2007). There are some competitive advantages of e-business to the company, which areas:
High accuracy
E-business has based on the databases and other ICT services, which provide a high level of accuracy in the
business. In addition, innovation and technologies have improved the accuracy of the business processes. There
are some benefits of technologies, which provide more benefit (Morgan, 2015).
High-level of efficiency
There are various tools and techniques for the management of business functions in a proper manner. Online
systems provide a fast response to the main system using ICT services, which is helpful in the e-business. In
addition, mainframe computer systems provide high level of performance in services (Masige, 2019).

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More reliable
All the things are transparent in e-business that is a huge advantage for the customers as well as the company.
It makes a proper balance between the customers and the company. In addition, the company has expanded its
businesses in various fields (Martin, 2019).
Flexibility
Online services are flexible because vendors can change their infrastructure and services within some minutes.
There are many benefits of the e-business, as it does not require any store. All products are directly delivered
from the warehouse to the customers (Linden, 2015).
Woolworths is always on the top in the market and it gets high value from the market because of various
business and e-business (Imani, 2019).
ICT role in E-business
ICT provides various services and infrastructure to the company to manage its various services in a proper
manner. E-business can be divided into four parts, which areas:
1. Consumer-to-Business (C2B)
2. Business-to-Business (B2B)

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3. Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C), and
4. Business-to-Consumer (B2C)
There are various services, which provide more benefits to the company using ICT services. It provides data
analytics, which provides a huge profit from the business. E-business is the best way to manage and start up a
business without a huge cost (IONOS, 2019). Business Intelligence (BI) is the best advantage in e-business,
which provides a large amount of data and information to analyze the changes in the market. There are various
benefits of BI in the e-business (Hočevar & Jaklič, 2010).
Moreover, e-business can be managed using BI and AI, which provides a sense of the business based on the
data and information about the business. In addition, Woolworths is a huge example in Australia, which used
offline and online business for their products and services (Dludla, 2019).
Woolworths collect data from various resources, such as supply chain, people, social, finance, and many others.
It stores in the data warehouses and managed using Hadoop technology. The company has used Google cloud
for the management of its data and data analytics. Improvements in generation and communications have
allowed businesses to function globally like in no way earlier than.

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E-business requires ethics as well to manage the faith of their customers and take competitive advantages.
Ethics plays a key role in the growth and success of e-business in the market (DesJardins, 2014).
Effective business communication
There is a huge impact on business communication on the e-business. In addition, there are various strategies
to improve business communication and improve the growth of the business in the market (MacLachlan, 2013).
In addition, technologies provide huge support in communication. AI provides chat boats to response to the
clients in a proper way. Thus, most of the users have supported e-business because of good business
communication (De Haes & Van Grembergen, 2010).

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There are various effective business communication techniques available in the market, which improve the
business communication of the company. In the case of e-business, written and oral communication has
required to provide online support to their online customers (Kidane, 2018). In addition, there are many
advantages of business communication, which makes a huge impact on the business of the company as well as
profit and revenue (Duggan, 2011). There are various places, which have created a proper value of
communication. There are two types of communication, which are internal and external. Thus, senior leaders
must provide proper direction to the (Leonard, 2019).
E-business has based on various factors and IT services make huge impacts on the success of the company. In
addition, there are various advantages of e-business, such as fast access, competitive advantages, and many
others. There are some huge impacts of technology on the business of the company (Chen, et al., 2012).
Legal, ethical and social issues in E-business
E-business has based on the online services of the company. In addition, the company has faced various issues,
which are legal, ethical, and social. In addition, the company has improved its business processes. Thus,
customers are more satisfied with the online services of the company. The company provides fresh food and
other products to its customers using an online shopping facility. It is the best way to take online services of the
company (Bharadwaj, et al., 2013).
There are some issues faced by the company, which areas:
Customer relationship
Big data has provided various advantages to the company in the management of various business processes.
There are some issues with the customer’s data security and privacy, which makes a huge impact on the
customers (Chen, et al., 2012). In addition, customer’s feedback must consider in the business to improve the
various processes of e-business.
Vendor Compliance
Compliance is a necessary step in the e-business because all the processes are depending on the data analytics
and reports of sales and purchase. In addition, digital business strategies are useful in vendor compliance,
which provides better results and high profit for the company (Bharadwaj, et al., 2013).

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Quality products
The company provides fresh products to their customers. In this case, sometimes products are not fresh
because of various conditions, such as bad weather, bad products, and many others. Therefore, customers have
launched complaints about the quality of products. The company must assure about the delivery services.
Information Security
There are various factors in the online security of data and information. E-business has based on the online
portal, whereas all the payments have completed using payment gateways. AI can be used for security systems.
There are some technical solutions for online security. The company can use international standards for
security management programs, such as COBIT19, ITIL, ISO 27001, and many others. AI is beneficial for e-
business (Castelluccio, 2017).
Intellectual Property Violations
There are many things in e-business, which requires a high level of security of the various things, such as logo,
content, images, and many others. In addition, the company provides fast services to its users from online
portals. The user can click and purchase any item within a minute without any issue (Blake, 2019).
Business Representation
Ai provides various benefits to the company in their e-business. It is also good from a social point of view, as
people can purchase most of the things online using e-business. AI includes many facilities in e-business, which
provides a high level of benefits to the company (Benjamins, 2006). Data analytics is a base of e-business of
the company, as most of the business issues can be solved using artificial intelligence and other technologies,
such as machine learning, and others (Adams, 2017).
Business Intelligence provides benefits in business analytics, which makes huge impact on decision making and
other processes (Chen, et al., 2012). There are various features of AI, which makes business processes more
accurate and reliable. It is necessary for the improvement of business processes. In addition, Artificial
Intelligence makes new products and services to the company to represent their business in the market
(DesJardins, 2014).
Conclusion and Recommendations
In conclusion, the company has increased its growth in the market using e-business. It is necessary to expand
their business using e-business, as many customers have used smartphones for their various daily works. In
addition, e-business is highly used by most of the small, medium, and large-scale organizations for expending
their business in national and international markets.

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This report has discussed about the issues in e-business in detail. Web-server and bandwidth are necessary for
expanding their business. In addition, there are various competitive advantages of e-business, such as less cost
and high profit. In this report, the role of ICT in e-business has explained in a proper way with examples. The
company has enabled all the options for the users of the company.
This report has provided benefits of business communication in e-business. In addition, oral and written
communication is necessary for the company. Therefore, the company has provided written communication. In
addition, there are many good impacts of communication on the progress of the business of the company. In
addition, the company has followed legal, ethical, and social things in their business.

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