Electronic Commerce and Supply Chain Management at Woolworths

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Woolworths Limited's electronic commerce operations, focusing on its e-commerce and m-commerce strategies. It examines the company's challenges, particularly data insecurity, and proposes solutions such as data encryption and input controls. The report highlights the benefits of e-commerce, including wider product descriptions, accessibility through search engines, reduced inventory costs, and easy access to stores. It also explores the integration of e-commerce and m-commerce through database creation for efficient data storage and retrieval. The report further delves into supply chain management, suggesting an electronic commerce management system to enhance automation and customer information access, along with its sub-processes such as demand planning, supply planning, and demand fulfillment. The report concludes by addressing security risks and threats, and mitigation techniques like storage controls and bot detection software, emphasizing the importance of adapting to improved technology in running the business.

Running head: ELECTRONIC COMMERCE 1
Electronic Commerce
Student’s Name
Institution

ELECTRONIC COMMMERCE 2
Introduction
The organization under consideration is Woolworths Limited, a major Australian corporation
with extensive selling interest through Australia and New Zealand. It is the following largest
company in Australia by income, after Perth-based retail-focused multinational. Woolworths is
happening to expand into liquor businesses with the attainment of Dan Murphy's in the year
1998. With Queensland certifying laws uttering that an hotelier must function retail outlets,
Woolworths enthused into the hotel commerce in 2005 in a joint scheme with experienced hotel
machinist Bruce Mathieson, procuring hotelier Australian Leisure and Hospitality Group (ALH)
(Arli, Dylke, Burgess, Campus & Soldo, 2013, p90). The report below will take into
consideration electronic commerce of the business and mobile commerce structuring. Electronic
supply chain management also is discussed with its sub processes and their functions.
Woolworth’s problem situation
According to (Soldo, 2013, p74) almost every business in operation experiences some challenges
that are inevitable and the management is supposed to ensure they are curbed efficiently and
overcome to facilitate smooth running. Woolworths limited being an extensive service and
product company operator experiences problem of data insecurity. Data in the business is a much
great reason that it consists more than one businesses in operation all over the globe (Laudon &
Laudon, 2016, p987). The company experiences insecurity of their data and competitors can take
advantage of that and maliciously destroy the company operations. Data integrity is a vital aspect
of every business and should be carried with heavy considerations to ensure that the data is
secured from unauthorized access.
Guidelines addressing the problem

ELECTRONIC COMMMERCE 3
Some guidelines can be employed to address the problem of data insecurity according to
management information systems. The first guideline is encryption of data; it is the aspect of
converting the actual data into a format that is only understandable by the sender and the receiver
of the information. Encryption dismantles unauthorized access of data reason that an intruder
will get the data but will not get to understand the information being conveyed. The second
guideline is input control, which is a strategy that makes sure the data put in the system is the
right data, which will enhance the effective running of the business. Input controls ensure that
there are no malicious data done in the system by staffs with own intentions conflicting with the
business perspective (Wang et al. 2014).
E-commerce and m-commerce introduction
E-commerce is an imperative component of the ICT, and indeed one of its utmost momentous
waves is the provision and enablement of electronic commerce. It is the course of buying and
vending of products/services using electronic schemes containing the Internet and e-mails. E-
commerce is a very cost efficient style of conducting business-to-consumers profit making
activities. E-commerce permits economic proxies to reduce the transactional cost mainly. Instead
of interior hierarchies, it authorizes the market itself to establish economic activities, which in
seizure increases the competence of the not just the occupational but across the whole
commodity hawser (Watuthu, Kimwele & Okeyo, 2015, p67).
E-commerce benefits
On application of e-commerce and m-commerce Woolworth, the organization will experience
benefits that will improve profit realization at the end of the operation. The benefits include;
• Wide-ranging products descriptions. An e-commerce position provides its clients with data
sheets that contain all the sorts and characteristics of merchandises. The product catalog is a

ELECTRONIC COMMMERCE 4
document that gives the customers all the evidence they need about the products that they want
to purchase.
• It is accessible through the search contraptions. According to (Mohapatra, 2013, p43)
physical shop stores thrive due to exertions of branding and the relations that the proprietors of
the stores produce with stakeholders in their business. An e-commerce website flourishes than
receiving large quantities of circulation from search engines.
• Diminish the cost of upholding and managing inventory. In a physical store, various costs are
tangled for the persistence of managing the inventory. It costs spell and money to accomplish
inventory. Physical means of handling inventory are tiresome and costly (Turoff et al. 2014).
However, it is calmer and cheaper to cope inventory in an e-commerce website.
• Provision of easy access to the stores is also enhanced. In e-commerce and m-commerce,
there is no transport arrangement needed by a particular customer to the stores to view the
products and make lines to pay. The customers access the products over the website and make
payment through the set techniques by Woolworth Company.
Integration of e-commerce and m-commerce
Integration of e-commerce and mobile commerce in the organization should be done in an
efficient manner that will enhance high productivity in the organization, which in turn will
improve sales volume of the company (Lin, Wang, Wang & Lu, 2014, p123). To facilitate better
integration of e-commerce and mobile commerce a simple database storing data and yield it to its
users upon appeal should be created. It should be in a way that accomplishes and recovery
information in an organized manner (Monczka, Handfield, Giunipero & Patterson, 2015, p76).
This data can help make verdict at various stages within an association. Information system

ELECTRONIC COMMMERCE 5
identifies that there are different levels of workers in an organization who have their specific
obligations and thus provides them evidence is different conducts.
Supply chain management and sub processes functions
Supply chain management in Woolworth should be converted into an electronic commerce
management system, which will enhance management of supply chain in an automated way
(Fawcett, Ellram & Ogden, 2013, p776). The automated way will help in management to develop
chain in a sense that will be useful for a broad range of customers will be able to acquire
information about the products right from the start. A particular client will just require accessing
the website and slowly learn about the whole supply chain of the Woolworth Company.
The sub processes of supply chain management comprise of three methods. The first process is
the demand planning used to antedate demand in the market. The function is vital in marketing
aspect as it enables the company is aware of what quantity to produce.
The other sub process is the supply planning which its primary function is to apportion the right
portion of enterprise assets to encounter demand.
The last sub process is the demand contentment to fulfill demand speedily and efficiently.
Challenges and protection
Security risks and threats
Various challenges Woolworth organizations face is the security substances for handling
dispersed computer grids. According to (Galliers, 2014, p78) a significant amount of e-
commerce undertakings, an increased custom of the internet and ever-changing technologies
means new threats and jeopardize and vulnerabilities for businesses as occupations and processes
are becoming paperless.

ELECTRONIC COMMMERCE 6
Mitigation techniques
The techniques to protect to alleviate these threats and risks are; Storage controls that ensure that
the data is positioned in such a method that it cannot tamper. Another technique is the
installation of bot detection and protecting software should be enhanced. The software should
perceive evil bots before they access the site of the company. It should be made sure that the
software has the aptitude to flag these bots as well as stalling them from the location or redirect
them to alternative content.
Conclusion
Companies that anticipate in improving their profit realization should try to improve their
businesses in electronic and mobile commerce that helps much in improving the functions of
organizations. E-commerce helps companies to improve sales volume when a large number of
customers can make order and purchase products through the website (Van De Walle, Turoff &
Hiltz, 2014, p90). Woolworth group decide to develop into e-commerce strategy, and they have
acquired some benefits they lacked there before. It is recommendable for all companies to move
with improved technology in running their business (Laudon & Traver, 2013, p342).

ELECTRONIC COMMMERCE 7
References
Arli, V., Dylke, S., Burgess, R., Campus, R., & Soldo, E. (2013). Woolworths Australia and
Walmart US: Best practices in supply chain collaboration. Journal of Economics,
Business & Accountancy Ventura, 16(1).
Fawcett, S. E., Ellram, L. M., & Ogden, J. A. (2013). Supply Chain Management: Pearson New
International Edition: From Vision to Implementation. Pearson Higher Ed.
Galliers, R. D., & Leidner, D. E. (Eds.). (2014). Strategic information management: challenges
and strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.
Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2016). Management information system. Pearson Education
India.
Laudon, K. C., & Traver, C. G. (2013). E-commerce. Pearson.
Lin, J., Wang, B., Wang, N., & Lu, Y. (2014). Understanding the evolution of consumer trust in
mobile commerce: a longitudinal study. Information Technology and Management,
15(1), 37-49.
Mohapatra, S. (2013). E-commerce Strategy. In E-Commerce Strategy (pp. 155-171). Springer
US.
Monczka, R. M., Handfield, R. B., Giunipero, L. C., & Patterson, J. L. (2015). Purchasing and
supply chain management. Cengage Learning.
Watuthu, S. N., Kimwele, M., & Okeyo, G. (2015). The Key Issues Surrounding Electronic
Commerce Information Security Management. International Journal of Soft Computing
and Engineering (IJSCE), 5(1), 37-42.
Van De Walle, B., Turoff, M., & Hiltz, S. R. (2014). Information systems for emergency
management. Routledge.

ELECTRONIC COMMMERCE 8