Internet and E-Business: Environment, Models, and Design Report

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the e-business landscape, focusing on its environment, transaction types, benefits, and barriers. It delves into the specifics of B2B, B2C, and C2C transactions, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of e-business. The report explores security and legislative issues, as well as various modes of communication used in e-business. It examines internet technologies, HTML features, client-server functionalities, and the role of search engines. Furthermore, the report analyzes different e-business models for revenue generation, assessing their capacities and future developments. The impact of good web design and website usability is also evaluated. The report uses the example of ASOS, a leading online fashion store, to illustrate the concepts discussed.

INTERNET AND E-BUSINESS

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Environment in which E-business is conducted and its transaction types -.....................1
1.2 Benefits and barriers to e-business-..................................................................................3
1.3 Security and legislative issues faced by e-business..........................................................4
1.4 Modes of communication and their application...............................................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
2.1 Internet technologies and their importance......................................................................6
2.2 Main features of HTML...................................................................................................7
2.3 Function of client servers and browsers with the role of search engines.........................8
2.4 Uses of intranet and extranet to improve the efficiency and security level in business
communication.......................................................................................................................8
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................9
3.1 Different E-Business models that can be used to generate revenue for a business..........9
3.2 Analyze each model in terms of its capacity to generate revenue..................................10
3.3 Report on future developments in E-business models...................................................11
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................12
4.1 Key elements of good web design structure...................................................................12
4.2 Evaluate the impact of well designed website to an E-business....................................13
4.3 Report on issues concerning website usability...............................................................14
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................16

INTRODUCTION
Internet plays a very crucial role in today's business environment. It is required for
carrying out smooth business transaction. Internet majorly contributes in almost every part of the
business, especially where it has given a broader approach to e-commerce. E-commerce is an
appropriate method with a faster approach towards customer service with a less command over
time, which together works in a low cost budget (Andreu and et. al., 2010). However, Internet is
the only predominant reason behind increase in today's online businesses. Popularly known as e-
business is an easy transaction of buying and selling of goods. With the help of internet, there's a
direct link between the customer's and suppliers, without any intervention of the third party.
Therefore, E-business is all about utilizing internet technology to provide better and
profound customer service. It also streams the business procedures by increasing business sales
and lowering costs (Oliveira and Martins, 2010). Email, online banking, websites, etc are the
major tools used in E-business. A profound communication is the key requisite of today's
business, where an effectual communication has a broad impact on both internal and external
business sources. Thus, E-business helps to improve overall performance of a business. Here, the
internal sources are referred to the decisions which are taken into the business and are further
conveyed to the employees or workers of the organization. However, the external sources define
the communication with the traders or suppliers outside.
The below report depicts the online business of ASOS which is a renowned online fashion store
of clothing and beauty products. It is a global online destination for all the shoppers who are
passionate towards the latest fashion trends. It was founded in the year 2000 and has quickly
grown as a leading online store of UK (Ifinedo, 2011). With its own label of clothing and fashion
accessories, it also sells more than 850 other range of renowned brands.
TASK 1
1.1 Environment in which E-business is conducted and its transaction types -
E – Business reflects the mode of conducting a business by using internet as one of its
major source. The significant use of E business lies in the fact that it provides industry with
tremendous opportunities to grow and expand the business across globe along with an
incremental growth in its revenue.
1

E-business has developed a revolution which drives each and every industry to market its
business with the help of internet (Oliveira and Martins, 2010). It has become an important
phenomenon to survive in the long run in the competitive market. In today's era of globalization,
E business has gained a rapid growth to increase its overall market segment. The E business
model works in an environment by encompassing the following components-
1. E- Business concept-It represents the rational conduct of business by identifying the goals
and objectives of the company in a manner which will help to increase its product
offerings and generate greater revenue to outsource its business.
2. Value proposition- It reflects the value of the company which it provides to its customers
in terms of goods and services (Bélanger and Crossler, 2011). It describes the
fundamental aspect of providing the services and offering the products to its customers in
a way which beats its competitors in the line to attain overall market share.
3. Sources of revenue-In a hyper-competitive environment, E-business helps in generating
tremendous revenue in a far significant manner. Some sources of generating revenue are
advertising, sponsorship, licensing, syndication and the like.
4. Activities, Resources and Capabilities-These are the processes which a specific business
entity entails with a view to implement strategic business framework and increase its
overall production and sales capacity (Jovarauskienė and Pilinkienė, 2015).
With regard to the above discussed e business model, it perhaps becomes a significant
approach for every industry to conduct its business by using internet and gain competitive market
share. In the era of globalization, the environment in which e-business sustains faces a
competitive pressure from its rivalry and work force. Along with it, the business also faces a
tough competition from the legal framework and technological changes.
Some business transactions which e-business deals with it are as follows-
1. B2B- Also known as business to business transaction. It typically reflects a scenario
where one business sells its products and renders services to another business in the
course of generating revenue (Barnes and Hunt, 2013). It generally occurs when a
business requires services of other business for some operational and functional reasons.
For example, a company employing a chartered accountant for auditing company's books
of accounts.
2

2. B2C- Also known as business to consumer transactions. It is one of the commercial
transactions which represent a scenario where one business entity sells its products and
services to consumers directly without any barriers to it (Gloor, 2012). For example, it
includes individual shopping from a retail store and so on.
3. C2C-Also known as consumer to consumer commercial transaction. It gives the
customers a platform to interact with each other to sell goods and render services. The
best example of it is that it includes the online auction of items through OLX, Quicker,
etc, which provides customer to sell and purchase online.
1.2 Benefits and barriers to e-business-
Starting with the benefits of e-business, it serves as a competitive phenomenon in the era
of globalization with tremendous offerings of advantages which are as follows-
1. Cost effective marketing- E-business provides high set of cost effective marketing
techniques. It makes use of websites, social media, email marketing and e newsletters
with a view to address customers and renders quality services (Bordonaba-Juste, Lucia-
Palacios and Polo-Redondo, 2012). All these sources prove to be beneficial for the
company in terms of cost and expenses thereby increasing its overall market share.
2. Eliminates geographic boundaries- It allows the customers with a broader aspect to reach
business and its products. It clearly eliminates the geographical issues which an
individual faces while purchasing or selling a product. E business provides services
whole across the globe which provide ease to the customer to select the product by just a
one click and get it home.
3. Reduces transaction cost- It helps in reducing the cost of transaction per unit of product.
It eliminates salesperson requirement as the customer now places an online order directly
and also the payment is made through the systematic online payment software (Srivastava
and Teo, 2010).
Along with several advantages, e-business is also backed by major demerits. Some of
which are as follows-
1. Sectoral limitations- E-business is lacking in growth aspect in some of its sector. One of
the major sectors facing this problem is the food sector. This sector has showed negative
results in generating revenue because of its logical reason of perishable items. Consumers
3

prefer to buy food products from a supermarket rather than through internet. As a result,
the overall growth of food sector comes to an end.
2. Question of safety – The customers always possess a state of doubt in their mind
regarding the product they order. The doubt such as delivery of duplicate product or
damaged product is always a question in their minds (Reuber and Fischer, 2011). As a
result, this demerit of e-business reduces its market share in the competitive environment.
3. Data Security-Conducting an online transaction allows the customers to log in their email
address and other significant details. While doing so, the customers feel afraid of
providing their contact details with the fear of hacking. Also, some websites have a
complicated structure of its operations which as a result proves to be a drawback for e-
business industry.
1.3 Security and legislative issues faced by e-business
Corporate security is of utmost concern to ASOS and any other organization. Basically, It
is protecting the information from thefts or any kind of interruption to the system and its
services. Web interactions are becoming a huge part of conducting an online business, due to its
faster approach of interaction with customers and less expensive method. But computer faces
numerous security threats, like data loss, unauthorized access to the data and few others issues
caused by any harmful viruses or programs, etc. In such case, system security plays a vital role of
protecting the data from getting breached through various means of accessing a password,
firewall, and varied data encryption techniques, etc (Teece, 2010). It allows an accessible and
productive information to the authentic users. Firewall is the most commonly used approach of protecting data from various external
threats caused while assessing internet. It is a setup between the internet and an internal
computer network, where the computer network manage the data by setting up certain
rules into the firewall. The firewall is responsible to filter out the unwanted intrusion
from entering into the system and thus protects the breaching of data. Encryption is another widely used method, especially in the areas of e-commerce and net
banking. These are the sections where their database consists of very sensitive
information. Encryption is majorly used in the cited firm, at the time of transferring data
over the internet (Sun and et.al ., 2010). For example, when someone is making an online
transaction while shopping or accessing one's bank account and the data could be
4

possibly fetched by others. Therefore, It is a process of deciphering the data from all its
unauthorized users and providing it only to the authorized one's.
 Data protection act was formed in 1988 by the parliament of UK to control the personal
information of the consumers, used by the organizations. ASOS also maintain various
data protection principles, in which each one is responsible to use the data protectively
and by carrying certain rules. These are stated below-
1. As per the law, fair and relevant utilization of data.
2. Data should be used for a limited purpose and by previously stating the objective.
3. Adequate use of data which will not be kept for a longer period.
4. It should be kept safe and securely handled according to the data protection rights.
1.4 Modes of communication and their application
Communication is a valuable part of the business, which means to interact and approach
both the internal and external stakeholders of the organization. With the advancement in
technology, new and varied electronic devices has ruled the business to make an effective flow
of communication. ASOS too utilizes different communication tools, especially to interact with
its customers (Liu, Cao and He, 2011). It is to provide a profound support system to them in the
form of email, and other sources to give a personal belonging to the customers by together
maintaining a professionalism approach. There are various tools used by the cited firm, which
are as mentioned below- Electronic cart works just as a real shopping cart. The customers can easily browse the
wide range of products in it by together making a comparison of different products and
their prices. In an electronic cart, the customer can get numerous options to choose and
buy a product. They can also read and write the reviews of a particular product to make
an effective selection of a product. Email- ASOS also provide its customers an option of writing an email of their queries to
the concerned department. The cited firm has delegated a particular department to timely
respond the customers. Which includes both the personal and professional touch of
business to their customers to make them feel secure about the reliability of the business. FAQ link is the essentially of an online business to attain the trust of its customers. The
cited firm too provides a link of frequently asked questions (FAQ) in its website
(Bélanger and Crossler, 2011). It is to deal with certain customer queries regardless to
5

make purchase or payment, etc. Customers can directly ask questions to the chat
representatives in that link. Therefore, It is in account with the firm to effectively recruit
and train the employees, thus they can appropriately deal with the customers and resolve
their concerned issues.
 Safe payment methods- In the cited firm, Customers have been imparted by various
digital payment methods in which they can make easy and safe payments through credit
cards, smart cards, and electronic cash, etc. In these methods, company ensures a high
level of maintenance in securing the personal data of the customers.
TASK 2
2.1 Internet technologies and their importance
Internet serves a very crucial role in e-business, especially in covering the area of
marketing and customer service. It effectively sets an organizational goal to handle the digital
market (Nenonen and Storbacka, 2010). ASOS too makes a profound use of internet which
further consists of varied internet features and technologies-
1. Client or server computing is merging of two programs or computer systems, in which
one system acts as a client to build service requests to the another system that acts the
server. In it, the server is able to serve multiple services to multiple clients, at a time. The
website of ASOS too allows aggregate users to browse at the same time.
2. FTP or File transfer protocol is responsible for transferring the computer files over the
internet. A user can easily access the file by uploading, deleting and updating it from
anywhere in the world. The cited firm too gives a global approach to its customers to
communicate with them, via internet.
3. Bandwidth is used to determine the rate of transferring data into the network. It effects
the net connectivity and is measured by bits/bytes per second (Li, Chau and Lai, 2010). It
is reflected when the customer faces the issue of slowing down website of the cited firm.
It is due to the access of multiple users at a time.
4. DNS or Domain name system provides a unique identity to each website, defined by its
domain name. ASOS too owes a website of its own identity.
5. IMAP or Internet message access protocol- It is majorly used in the email systems to
allow multiple users to log on at the same time. The cited firm also permits the access of
6

email to its employees and customers. Thus, It leads to multiple usage of email which is
based upon a single system.
2.2 Main features of HTML
HTML is a standard web language which is used to develop pages for world wide web. It
consists of two major sections, namely head and body. Head contains the data about the web
page and the body consists of the published information. Special elements are used in HTML to
create various contents like text, paragraphs and tables, etc. The special element of HTML is
known as Tag, which is further divided into two parts of “start tag and end tag”. These tags
define different attributes to make a prominent explanation of the tag (Janita and Chong, 2013).
There's an availability of varied software packages for the development of HTML, such as text
editors, object editors, and online editors, etc. Microsoft Front page, Microsoft expression studio
and Adobe dream weaver are few examples of it. The cited firm too utilizes the profound
characteristics of HTML in its website to build a catchy and effective web page that attracts
numerous viewers and customers.
Some commonly used key tags in web pages are as mentioned below-
<html> Main heading to explain the type of website
<body> Initiation of page with a sub heading or
body section
<h1> Welcome </h1> First heading of the page
<p></p> Initializing a paragraph
<img src=”url” alt=”some_text” > Adding any images to the page
</body> Defines the end of a body section
</html> End of the page
XML is an extension of HTML, where both are standard web pages, with certain set
of differences in their presentation. In which, HTML is responsible to present the data.
Contrary to that, XML defines the content of the web page. Therefore, HTML focuses at
being human readable, whereas the XML is aimed to be both human and machine
readable.
7

2.3 Function of client servers and browsers with the role of search engines
The databases, services and the required service related information is maintained by the
servers of world wide web in a central location of the internet which has remotely accessible to
the users. It leads the web servers of ASOS to offer its information and services to multiple users
at the same time. Mozilla, Internet explorer and Google chrome are the famously used browsers
by the web users. A web browser in the user's system, acts as a client that accepts the required
uniform resource locator (URL) from the user (Shambour and Lu, 2012). It is used to build a
connection to the WWW server, where the client finds the host name after effectively detecting
the URL. Therefore, the basic function of the server is to respond to the client's request once
after processing the received request of the client.
However, the search engine of the cited firm is too related to the same procedures in
which it allows the user to enter a particular key word to initiate their search. After entering just
a keyword, the engine begins to search for the available options to fulfill and locate the user's
requirement. In order to become in the top searching lists, websites ties up with specific search
engines. Various techniques of spider and indexer, etc are utilized by the search engines to
retrieve more data for allotting a better location to the users.
2.4 Uses of intranet and extranet to improve the efficiency and security level in business
communication
Business data transmission can be easily damaged by various viruses and hackers.
Therefore, ASOS utilizes intranet and extranet to build an ease in operating its business at
different levels. Intranet is mainly used to create a more efficient communicating network within
the business staffs. It is a generic term which refers to the collective personal computers into the
organization. In intranet, network technology is used as an effective tool to conduct a smooth
communication between the employees and their groups for the improvisation of sharing the data
among them. It also helps to enhance their overall organizational knowledge by strengthening the
base (Vocell, 2015). Intranet utilizes Ethernet, WIFI, TCP/ IP, web browsers and servers works
as the standard technologies of hardware and software networking. A basic intranet system
consists only of an internal email system to their employees for managing the board's message to
its workers. However, an intranet service in the cited firm involves access to the internet service
protected by a firewall to avoid its direct and outside approach.
8

On the other hand, Extanet allows an outside approach of data for specific business
purposes. It includes communicating with the external stakeholders of the company such as the
suppliers, customers and investors, etc. It aids the partners to download the sales resources like
graphics and content to add it into their sales procedures. In the cited firm, Extranet is generally
used as a portal to guide the customers to provide a continuous support in purchasing goods and
services (Mallon, 2014). It comprises varied technologies like dot net, asp, php and html, etc. It
is too protected by a firewall to give limited access, only for the authentic users.
TASK 3
3.1 Different E-Business models that can be used to generate revenue for a business
E-business transactions has provided new horizons to customers to purchase commodities
and services through digital mode. Transactions are performed over a computer mediated
network that involves transfer of ownership or rights to use services available in the market
(Griffin, 2016). E-retail outlets generate higher revenue with wide range of commodities to
attract the consumers. Nowadays, selling products online has become profitable business for
many companies. There are different E-business models which helps Asos.com to generate
higher revenue for the company, which are described below:
Portal Model
Through this model each internet user gets a personalized and integrated view of
corporate knowledge and applications. There are different portal sites used by Asos.com that
offers much more than just simple content but also email, chat, customized sorting and
searching. This information help to attract and advertise target customers in successful manner.
Transaction Broker
Another tool to generate revenue for e-business organization is transaction broker model.
Here the online users are benefited by monetary benefits when they make online transactions at
Asos.com official website. It is an effective measure for the company to increase online sales by
simply selling a product on a click.
Community provider
Under this model, community provider create sites where individuals meet, exchange and
work on a common projects. It can be understood by the fact that people with similar needs and
9

interest share information and through well managed data system. The facts and figures are
exchanged and socialize in effective manner.
E- Tailer
E-business entities uses another model to generate revenue through subscription to
website content. It saves time of clients as they receive the latest information, offers, schemes
directly to them. The clients are not required to search and surf in depth to take benefit of
Asos.com products and services.
Content provider
According to this, external websites that supplies text and graphics of articles on new
developments and innovations of the fashion house products helps to generate income. This
makes its site more attractive and useful to the readers and visitors. So by applying these
different business models the retail company will generate revenue at global levels.
3.2 Analyze each model in terms of its capacity to generate revenue
Asos.com as an online fashion destination has established itself as UK's leading online
website for fashionable clothing and accessories. It not only sell its own company's label
products but also other world-renowned brands (Srivastava and Teo, 2010). The company uses
different e-business models as mentioned above in order to generate revenue and maximize their
profit. These tools and techniques ensure that information is transmitted among all individuals
with various modes of internet. Asos.com primarily make use of portal model, transaction
brokers and E-trailer. Apart from these, community provider and content provider are another
models used by it.
1. Firstly, portal model when applied avails packages of contents and information through
portal technique. Site visitors get data about the mentioned fashion house in a systematic
and coordinating manner. Customized sorting and searching facilitate clear information
to the clients about wide range of online products of the company.
2. Secondly, transaction broker that help get things done more quickly and cost efficient for
the concerned business entity. Through this channel a transaction broker aid the buyer in
preparing his offer for purchase and assist the seller in identifying reasonable price. This
online professional assistant hired by Asos.com facilitate communication between buyers
and sellers to fulfill the conditions of contract.
10