Comprehensive Report: Internet and E-Business for Retail Company

This report provides a comprehensive overview of internet and e-business strategies, specifically tailored for retail companies. It begins by defining the e-business environment and different business transaction types, including B2B, B2C, and C2C models. The report then explores the benefits and barriers of establishing an online presence, addressing security and legislative issues. It also delves into the modes of communication available, such as VOIP, EDI, shopping carts, and mobile devices, and their applications. Furthermore, the report examines e-business models for revenue generation, evaluates web design elements, and discusses website usability. The analysis covers tangible and intangible benefits derived from e-commerce and e-business, as well as the impact of a well-designed website on an e-business. The report incorporates figures and tables to support the analysis, providing a clear understanding of the concepts discussed.

Internet and E- Business

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................5
L01...................................................................................................................................................5
1.1Describe the environment in which e-business is conducted and business transaction types 5
1.2explain the benefits and barriers considering an online presence...........................................7
1.3assess the security and legislative issues facing an online by retail company........................8
Tangible and intangible benefits from e-commerce and e-business............................................9
1.4 State the modes of communication available to an e-business and their applications.........10
L02.................................................................................................................................................11
2.1 Explain the internet technologies and their importance in making an e-business
successful...................................................................................................................................11
2.2 Overview of HTML.............................................................................................................13
2.3 analyze the functions of client servers and browsers, and the role of the search engine.....14
2.4 evaluate the use of intranets and extranets within business communication in Retail
Company....................................................................................................................................15
3.1 E-business model that can be used to generate revenue in Retail Company.......................16
3.2 Analyze each model in terms of its capacity to generate revenue.......................................17
3.3Further development in E-business model............................................................................19
LO4................................................................................................................................................19
4.1Key element of good web design structure...........................................................................19
4.2 Impact of well designed website to an E-business...............................................................20
4.3Report on the issue concerning website usability.................................................................20
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................22
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................23

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 e-business environment and strategies..............................................................................4
Figure 2: Packet Switching............................................................................................................11
Figure 3: Client server architecture...............................................................................................13
Figure 4: Example of search engine..............................................................................................14
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Business transaction types.................................................................................................5
Table 2: HTML features with example.........................................................................................12
Table 3: Comparison between models...........................................................................................16
Table 4: E-commerce model..........................................................................................................17

INTRODUCTION
Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard
internet protocol suite to link billion devices worldwide (Napier, Riversand Wagner, 2005). It
includes millions of private, public, academic, government and business networks. On the other
hand, E-business is applications of information and communication technologies that support the
activities of business. The following report consist the information about internet and e-business.
This focuses on external activities and relationship of business with individuals, groups and other
firms.
L01
1.1Describe the environment in which e-business is conducted and business transaction types
Figure 1 e-business environment and strategies
(Source: e-business environment and strategies, 2014)
E-business has become regular operating procedure for most of the companies. In retail firms e-
business can be conducted for setting up and running smoothly as well as successfully.
Micro environment factors:
Enterprise has enough customers around the country. In order to maintain better relationship with
them and meeting their expectations, it is essential for firm to purchase products from their
suppliers at reasonable price so that it can be delivered to customer at appropriate price (Brock
and Khan, 2008). By providing return to their shareholder and investors on time, enterprise
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would be able to promote them to invest money in organization. E-business environment can be
conducted for making relations with competitors, suppliers, partners, customers and employees
in retail company (Canzer, 2006). This helps to know the price of competitor product. For
suppliers who want to purchase the product at preferred price and quality. Mostly consumers like
to excess the product and services on a 24-by-7 basis and this is the easiest way to provide that
by moving operations online (Fillis, Johansson and Wagner, 2004). The retail firms that provide
most reliable, functional, user-friendly and fast services will become succeed. The type of
business transactions conducted in e-business is as follows:
PESTLE Analysis:
 Political factors – In e-commerce, it is important for the organizations to take measures
which are according to the rules and regulations of government otherwise, Retail
Company may have to face some consequences because of it.
 Economical factors – While adopting e-commerce, it is important to check the growth
rates, level of employment and unemployment, cost of raw material etc along with
monetary policies and inflation rates.
 Social factors – These are the factors related to society that e-commerce of Retail
Company has to consider so as to make its policies successful by keeping the society
happy.
 Technological factors – These are the factors which firms need to keep in their minds so
that right technique will be used in e-commerce by which highest profits can be gained
(Napier, Riversand and Wagner, 2005).
 Ethical factors – It states for the factors according to which while performing e-
commerce, to follow ethics and ethical norms is important for Retail Company as it plays
a significant role.
 Legal factors – It refers to the legal factors that is laws and regulation that are imposed
through government and which are mandatory for the business of Retail Company to
follow.
Table 1: Business transaction types
Transaction types B2B B2C C2C
Involvement of Between two or more Between companies Between customers
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parties businesses and customers or private
individuals
Requirement of
primary components
Infrastructure and
market set-up
(Security aspects of
e-business, 2013).
)
Warehouse Peer to peer system
Benefits Eliminate
intermediaries and
distributor (Palmer,
2010).
Save firm to
factoring the
additional cost.
Easy negotiation
between buyers and
sellers
Example HP, Cisco and Dell Beyond.com,
Amazon.com
OLX
1.2explain the benefits and barriers considering an online presence
There are several benefits to business of having online presence. Some of the benefits for
Retail Company explained below:
 Cost effective: When any company does its online marketing then it is less expensive as
compare to advertisement marketing. In online marketing they can show their all
products with price to attract customers.
 Cover mass market: When a firm does online marketing then it can cover more
customers. Mostly people access internet in nowadays so it is easy to capture the mass
market of consumers.
 Minimum resources: In online business minimum resources are required to increase the
business standards (Bodden, 2008.).
 Increased sales: Selling of product is not easy. Online can make the customers
throughout world.
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There are some barriers in considering the business online. Those problems are as follows:
 Lack of computer expertise: Mostly person do not have computer skills and cannot excess
the internet. Those customers are not covered ( Palmer, 2010).
 Difficulty developing relationship: Business on internet has difficulty in making
relationship with customers. This lack the personal meeting and relation with purchaser.
 Privacy and security concern: Even some companies take precaution in securing their
payment details of their purchaser but then also system can be hack. By the customer
band account detail or other identity are stolen which do not make trust of purchasing
online (Brock and Khan, 2008).
 Issues with copyright: Issue of copyright on internet is very difficult to control. This can
make customers confused and spoil the brand image of company.
 Legislation related issues: Information technology act, Internet activity Law 2009 and
cyber security laws and legislation developed by UK government are very strict and they
can affect services of firm.
 Maintenance regular issues: Lack of expertise of staffs and transactions related issues
can create problem for firm.
1.3assess the security and legislative issues facing an online by retail company
Computer security term can be explored in forms of processes and mechanisms by which digital
equipments can be secured and unauthorized access can be prevented.
Privacy: Enterprise maintains large database of customers and its employees. Information piracy
and confidentiality related issue can create challenge for organization.
Non-repudiation: Issues faced by retail companies including unique identity of an individual and
illegal access of key card can create bad image of firm in mind of customers.
Secrecy: Disclosure of private information to unauthorized parties and misuse issues can affect
growth of company.
Integrity: In order to protect private information, cryptography and digital signature techniques
can be applied.
Authenticity: For example, DDoS attacks and other viruses are creating issue for enterprise in
terms of stealing private information of employees and disclose them to anyone.
Common security attacks:
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Trojan horse: It affects system and performs malicious activities that can create issue for
organization.
Viruses and Worms: It spread from one computer to another and performs various activities
such as physical data thefts. It can de-motivate employees as well as customers to use services of
company. Cloning, phishing and spyware related security threats are spreading vey frequently
and affect performance of Retail Company.
Malware and Trojan horse: These kinds of security threats can perform various activities such
as malicious act and can harm resources of firm. For example, private information of supplier
and customers will hack then they will not use resources of company which directly affects sales
of organization. Apart from these, steal sensitive information from computer system and top
employees' salaries are other negative impact on organization.
Legislative issues facing an online business
Privacy & Security, cyber security law and Copyright & Trademark framed by government of
UK to overcome negative impact of security and privacy issues on performance of organization.
For example, Hacker hacked the website of Morrison and disclose provide data of employees to
public.
Tangible and intangible benefits from e-commerce and e-business
Tangible benefits:
 With the help of e-commerce, new customers can be attracted along with capturing new
markets too in the Retail Company.
 It also helps in increasing market share of the organization which uses e-business.
 From e-commerce, Retail Company will get the advantage of enhancing its revenues
from sales.
 Revenues from the advertiser firms and agencies are also gained through the use of e-
commerce in Retail Company (Brock and Khan, 2008).
 With the help of e-commerce, business moves into those areas which prove to be very
beneficial for it.
 It also increases the margin on direct business with more added number of customers in
the retail firm.
Intangible benefits:
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 Organizations that use e-commerce get the help in improving their customer service
which makes them loyal towards the firm. Along with this, customer product tracking can also be done through it in Retail
Company. E-businesses enhance the customer loyalty by making complete fair and reliable
information available to them. In addition to this, it also play a significant role in improving sales forecasting and in
making customers satisfied in Retail Company (Canzer, 2006). It proves to be very helpful in making material requirement planning better along with
improving purchasing information in the retail organization.
1.4 State the modes of communication available to an e-business and their applications
The modes of communication available to an e-business and their applications are as
follows:
 Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP): In the context of delivery of voice
communications and multimedia sessions over Internet, this technology can be beneficial
for retail enterprise.
 Electronic data interchange: For sending data and documents from one end to one end
or one computer to another, UK based retail enterprise can use EDI technique. It can be
termed as the electronic communication system which sets various standards for
exchanging the data in Retail Company through the medium of electronic. It involves e-
mail, fax etc which reduces risk of errors to a very high extent (Aziz and Fady, 2013).
 Shopping cart: By providing shopping cart facility and providing online payment
facility, flexibility and customer’s attraction can be enhanced. For example, customer can
purchase items and track complete order history and it will also help to understand
purchasing history of customers.
 Live-chats: By providing facility of online chat, enterprise will be able to establish
proper connection with their customers and solve their queries at stipulated time without
any delay.
 Mobile devices: Mobile devices and mobile apps are very common and easily available
device for communication as well as accessing internet. While using this customer can
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any do purchasing time and watch the website for offers (Aziz and Fady, 2013). This help
firms in reaching mass of customers.
 Electronic fund transfer: It is known as the electronic exchange by which money from
one account to another can be sent with the help of financial institution and also across
multiple institutions on the basis of computers.
 Internal communication and FAQ: The other most common mode of online
communication channels are emails, website posting through forums and FAQ. By using
these techniques, companies can directly aware about their offers and plans about new as
well as existing product (Wiengarten and et.al., 2013).
 Social networking media: The use of social networking media is increasing nowadays.
People access it mostly and any offer given through this become viral very easily and
faster as compare to other mode of communication.
L02
2.1 Explain the internet technologies and their importance in making an e-business successful
 Client server model: In the context of distribution of work between the providers and
clients over the internet using different computer nodes, this model is used. Server is
responsible for sharing of one or more server programs and client is responsible for
exchange messages or information with server (Jones, 2009). This model serves as the
application structure thathelps in distributing worjkload between providers of resource or
serbvice and they can eb termed as servers and clients.
 Packet switching: In this data transfer technique, small units of data or packets are
transferred from one node to another. By using this network technology, UK base retail
giant would be able to provide opportunity to its users to share the same data path in a
network.
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Figure 2: Packet Switching
(Source: (Pavic, Koh and Padmore, 2007)
 Circuit switching: It is connection oriented technology in which proper connection
between two points is established before sending of data. The main feature of this
network is that c is active until the transmission is terminated (Schneider, 2011).
 Role of TCP/IP: It serves as the basic communication language by which information
can flow on internet. With the help of this, infromation can be sent from one computer to
another along with its copy. It is two layer prgram that sends messages into small packets
(Jones, 2009).
Internet protocol:
 Hyper text transfer protocol: For transferring hypertext documents in which text is
linked to other media (Video, audio, pictures and so on), this protocol is used.
 File transfer protocol: In order to share files from its local computers to remote
computers, this kind of internet protocol is used (Pavic, Koh and Padmore, 2007). Internet messaging access protocol: For accessing remote mailboxes as if they were
local and retrieves messages from them, IMAP can be employed by UK base retail
giant.
Basic network terminology: Uniform resource locator: In order to specific the location of the resource in computer
network, URL is employed (Why your Business needs an Intranet, 2013). Domain name: It is used for application-specific naming and addressing purposes. Domain name system: This hierarchy system can be used by retail firm for assigning
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