Business Report: Ocado's E-Business Operations and Strategies

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Ocado, a UK-based online grocery retailer, focusing on its e-business model and operations. It begins with an introduction to the impact of information technology and communication on businesses, setting the stage for an examination of Ocado's pioneering role in online retail. The report delves into the different types of e-business models employed by Ocado, including B2B, B2C, and C2C transactions, and discusses the benefits and barriers associated with each. It also explores the use of internet technologies such as emails, personal computers, and data storage, and their importance in e-commerce. The report also covers the modes of communication used by Ocado, such as online chat and FAQs. Furthermore, it addresses the security and legislative issues that Ocado faces in its online presence, including data protection and cyber security. Finally, it highlights the importance of internet technologies in building relationships with clients, improving productivity, and delivering products efficiently. The report concludes by summarizing the significant contributions of the e-commerce to Ocado's financial performance.

Internet and E – Business

INTRODUCTION
Rapid growth in the information technology and communication creates huge impact on
business. It gives new opportunities for expanding business in many other regions. The preset
report is based on Ocado, which is UK based the largest online grocery which established in
year of the 2000. This organization is pioneering in selling retail products online (Yu and Kong,
2016). Ocado's product basically include its own brand and make tied up with the Waitrose
supermarket. The present report gather information about organization and its E business. In
addition, it makes analyze on the different types of e business model which used by organization.
TASK 1
1.1 E-BUSINESS OR ONLINE BUSINESS AND ITS TYPES
Electronic form of business referred to electronic commerce in which organization buy
and sell the products through its online ventures. It also refers to making collaborating services
that includes customers, business partners and employees, all of this conduct business through
online (Totten and Cross, 2015). The environment under which e-business takes place are:
 Social- Business is the part of the society so it is the responsibility of every business
enterprise to serve the best to the society by giving employment, organizing various
social welfare programs etc.
 Political- The policies made by the government regarding payment of the tax etc. should
be followed properly by the enterprise.
In business environment there are mainly four types of the transaction which are as follows.
B 2 B (Business to Business :-
In such types of business transaction takes place between two business enterprises. B 2 B
establishes transactions between retailers and wholesalers or manufacturers. Under this Ocado
for conducting it business operations they include groceries from the waitrose supermarket
chain. Along with the rage of the Carrefour's products are also sold via Ocado. In such type of
business transactions takes place between two business entity. Both the buyers and sellers are the
business firm where one could be a manufacturer and another is a wholesaler or retailer. The
volume of the transactions are higher as compared to B 2 C business type. The organization sale
raw material or sub components under B 2 B business to their buyers. There are many benefits
under B 2 B business models such as:
 They encourage online business.
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 Products can be import and export. It improves the currents position of the business.
Business to consumer
Under this type of e commerce transaction, business sell their products to end users of
the company (Savin, 2017).in this transaction company sells a range of products and services to
their customers through their online transaction. It mainly includes flowers, toys and magazines.
Consumer to business
It is unique services under which consumer sells their products to business. Such types
of transaction take place in company through the affiliates program. Under this business firm
purchase products form their customers through online platform. It helps the consumers who are
not able to establish their own business and they also enjoy the brand name of the company
which increases their sales volume. There are many benefits involved in such business type such
as:
 The consumers find large market for their products when they make sale through
these business types.
 Competition from rival firms helps the consumer to improve the quality of their
products and also to serve those benefits which are not given by their
competitors..
Consumer to consumer
Under this type of e- commerce business, products are sell from consumer to consumer.
Ocado offers such services in which buyer and seller both take transaction through online
platforms . Online auction is the best example of such business type where both buyers and
sellers are the customer and transaction takes place through third party who charges commission
in return for their services provided. Like other business models C 2 C business also provides
benefits to both the sellers and buyers some of them are:
 The sellers doesn't have to check the quality of the product offered as they are serving the
product which are already made so no such improvements have to be added.
 Sellers find more customers for their products when they sale their products through such
business.
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E-business usually prevails in market of a developing countries where small and medium scale
business takes place. E-business or online business cuts the cost of information and transaction
which in turns benefits the business as it lacks with shortage of funds.
1.2 Benefits and Barriers for E-commerce
Use of the E- commerce brings many new business opportunities for the companies. It
gives many types of possibility to company such as increasing sell and attracts more customers
in the business (Rosca, Arnold and Bendul, 2016). However, it many also brings some types of
problems such as lack of security which becomes barriers for the company.
Benefits of online presence
The major benefits of using online presence of company is that it helps to organization
for selling their products at the low cost. With helps of using of online platform organization
do not need to bear inventory cost and firm can expand their business without any type of
barrier. Online present is also helps to firm for giving their services 24/7 across global and they
can also sell their products at low costs. It excludes all the barriers related to time and hence
business hours carries out without any barriers. E-business can generate money even when all the
business hours are over as the internet runs 24/7. Transaction costs are lower down as they do not
need manpower to carry out their business activities. Payment is made online so no fraud takes
place while making payments. Such business needs no physical location so it cuts down its
overhead costs also. All these benefits are making online business popular in currents situation
and their popularity will increase more in coming future.
Barriers of E commerce
In online presence the company also has to face some type problems. The major barriers
is lack of security (Oyibo, Ali and Vassileva, 2016). In the online presence, firm need to make
sure that all types of transaction which take place need to be maintained all types of security in
payments. In the recent year cyber crime rapidly increasing and due to this many customers lost
their trust in online business. So for ocado needs to make modifications in their business.
Benefits of E-commerce are wide ranging. It helps the business to cut short its cost of
transaction and helps it to use the available funds for some other business purposes With
increasing competition business selling its products online makes many modifications in the
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existing products so to gain a better market as compared to rival firms this in turns benefits to
customers as now they are using products of an improved quality.
Apart from so many benefits E-commerce business faces many barriers also such as: Competition- The biggest barrier which comes in the way of businessman carrying online
business is the competition. Organization have to check time to time about the policies
and procedure carried out by the rival firms in order to save themselves from the loss of
their market and customers. Dynamic nature of the business- The nature of the business is dynamic. It keeps on
changing time to time. The organization should make flexible plans and strategies so that
they could be changed easily with the changing time. Policies should not be rigid in
nature they should keep the grounds for further changes.
 Government policies- The business should keep a close eye with the changing policies of
the government in order to save themselves from any extra tax burden.
1.3 Legislative which effects online business
Following are the security and legislative issues which faced by the Ocado in its online
presence.
Issues related to the security
It is directly relate to online data and internet business of the company. Such types of
issues generally appears due to the lack of data security. It brings many types of consequence for
the company (Nadali, Zarifi and Shirsavar, 2017)). Another problem is physical security. There
are different types of passwords generated by consumers. For avoiding such problems Ocado
needs to established firewall which helps to company for controlling internet traffic. Along with
this, to overcome with customers issues firm offers digital signature facilities to their customers.
It is mathematical techniques which used by company for measuring the authenticity of the
documents. Some of the basic issues faced by business enterprises doing their business online
are: Software bugs- The term sounds similar to a virus that comes when mistakes arises while
coding the website wrongfully. When such mistakes occur the websites behaves in an
unusual way. Physical data theft- Such issue arises when a business steals physical data of some other
business. If stealing is made of some physical hardware such as hard drives or web
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servers than he can use important information which could harm the enterprise so for
protecting business from all such thefts the company should make backup copies of all its
data.
Legislative issues
In the UK there are different types of legislative are applied. The major issues related to
this Data protection Act 1998 (Malaval and Bénaroya, 2013). As per the guidelines of this act
every organization need to maintained all thedata of their customers and it should be up-to date.
No personal information is transferred to any another countries. Oacdo is operating their business
services worldwide so for the company it is important to make sure that no such information
released from the enterprises. For this company have to follow all guidelines of data protection
act.
In order to prevent e-commerce from any security or legislative issues the company
should install various security software like digital signatures, anti-virus software etc.
1.4 Modes of communication for online business
Following are the modes of communication which used by the Ocado.
Online chat
It is one effective tool which used by the business firm for making communication with
their customers (Mack, Marie-Pierre and Redican, 2017). Under this firm, provide online chat on
the company's websites. Through which they assess actual problems of their customers and try to
solve it.
FAQs
Another method which used by business firm is frequent Asked question. In which, firm
give answers of buyer's questions. With the help of this method firm can communicated to their
customers instantly and they also solve their problems.
Customers follow up
In every business it is important to keep their customers satisfied. Under this approach
firm need to keep follow up after selling products to them. In this mode of communication
Ocado take after sell review from their customers. It is effective way of communication and also
helps to business for making modification in their business as per requirements of their
customers
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The company should apply all these methods on sites itself and should collect feedback
from time to time. They should keep a pace for customers problems and should solve them as
early as possible so they can attain customers satisfaction. It should be stated under a heading so
that the customers should know where they can file their complain and can give their
suggestions.
TASK 2
2.1 Use of internet technologies and its importance
Internet refers to the interconnection of computer networks .In the Ocado there are
different type of internet technologies which use by them (Lee and Park, 2016.). Technologies
such as Emails, personal computer and data storage. Following are the use of internet
technologies in the E- commerce.
 It helps to build relationship in between the business and clients. With the help of
internet technologies company make effective interaction with their customers and make
aware about the firm's products.
 Another importance of the internet technologies is that it helps to business for improving
their productivity and profitability. It also helps to business for delivering products to
consumers within given time. With the introduction of E-commerce the annual income
of the company have raised by 3% in 2001 (Kriemadis, Terzoudis and Kartakoullis,
2010).
 With the helps of the internet technologies firm gain advantages of the competitive
environment. For example, use of E-mails helps to them organization for solving quires
of customers.
 The market share of the firm also expands due to the use of internet technologies.
 It generates more employment opportunities due to the increase in production level.
 Living standard of the customers also improves due to the improvement in production.
2.2 Main features of HTML
HTML is stands for the Hyper-Text markup language. It is considered as the standard
language for the website design. It consists two sections that is title head and body. Following ae
the features of the HTML.
Context menu
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IT helps for creating context menu for web pages and application. It refers to all types of
menu bar or icons which placed on the web pages through which all actions are taken and in the
menu is also considered different types of features which helps to customers for assessing
information.
Add canvas
This feature help to organization for adding pictures, graphs and drawing space on the
web pages (Hallam, 2016). With the help of this feature web pages become more attractive and
for the users it also generates valuable information.
Video and Audio
This feature assist for adding audio and video directly related to the web-pages by suing
simple tags. For the adding such features organization can display their products features easily
and make their web pages more interactive.
Use of the structure
It mainly includes head and body. For each websites it is important to make sure that for
making effective interacting they include title,tag , base and tables. With the help of the structure
web pages become for informative and useful.
2.3 Concept of the client-server and importance of search engine
Following is the concept of the client-server and importance of search engine
Function of client- server
Client-server refer to relationship in between two different types of computer programs.
Client refers to the most powerful computer which associated with the other low powerful
computer. With the help of such computer network, Ocado can able to share all content with
their customers and clients (Gierej, 2017). It is mostly applicable to networking environment
and manage resources effectively. It is very easy to assess and along with it also give back up for
the information. For example, if any customers want to buy the Ocado's products then at the first
stage they need to make request from its computers to the company's online platform and as per
the consumer's request company fulfill request.
Role of search engine
On the search engine there are many types of websites which are hosted. For the users of
it become very difficult for determine assess of correct websites. With the helps of the search
engine organization or users get assess of the correct website. Role of search engine is to find
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specific information from the web based keywords. All the content are presented on the search
engines web page. Desired results may be come out in the form of web page, images or any other
medium. It helps the users to find solutions of all his problems and avail them with the best
information.
2.4 Use of intranet and Extranet in the E commerce business
For running business, organisation use different types of technologies. Intranet refers to
the private network of computers within its own server and firewall. The role of Intranet within
company is to provide better communication (Blusamy and Sridhar, 2016). On the other hand
Extranet refers to that intranet network which established connection with outsiders.
In intranet network is accessible only in organization staff. It is a private network and its
systems are not available to general public. There are many benefits of intranet such as:
 It increases the productivity of the workforce and also improves the services provided to
the users.
 Intranets provides a powerful tool for communication. The information is conveyed
easily without unnecessary interruptions.
 Intranet are cost effective as now the organization doesn't have to maintain any physical
documents.
On the contrary extranet it that part of network that access externally. It creates a path
between the internal staff and organization located outside. Extranets provides a number of
benefits such as:
 They exchange a large amount of data using Electronic Data Interchange(EDI).
 Extranet helps in the collaboration or merger with other companies. They impart training and development programs.
Use of Intranet and Extranet
Reduce the paper work
The main use of the intranet and Extranet is that it provide better communication
network within company and outside of ocado. With the help of intranet employees can see all
the information on the network and they do not print all information.
Workforce productivity
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With the helps of the intranet and Extranet information is available all the time and data
can be assess by using company's workstation. It increases productivity of employees and helps
to complete work with speed and accurancy
Collaboration
Intranet and Extranet, distribute information among employees of ocado as according to
their requirements (Baporikar, 2017). All this information are assessed by the authorized users
and which results in enhanced teamwork.
In e-commerce business intranet and extranet plays a very crucial role as it gives all the
necessary information regarding the products or services offered by the competitors to the
company which helps the employees to serve better ideas to management.
TASK 3
3.1 Different E-commerce model that helps to generate revenue in business enterprises
Different E-commerce models helps the business firm for generating revenue (Lee and
Park, 2016). Following are the modes of E business.
Advertisement
It is one the oldest model which used by the business firm for create revenue . In the
present world there use of internet is radially increasing and they are having evaluate of the free
ad, blocking tools. Ocado is also used of the advertisement so they can generate more money by
making aware to other people.
Affiliate Marketing
It is another methods of generating revenue in the E business. Under this model, blogs
writers or authors of the websites signs up for affiliate programs for the company and try to
converted their users into customers of their affiliates/advertisers. With the help of the Ocado
add more new customers in their business and createing more revenue.
Freemium model
It is one of the mos common model which used by business organization. Under this
model firm sells their products free to their customers but premium features are kept for the
paying customers only (Mack, Marie-Pierre and Redican, 2017). In the company is also using
this model under which they offer basic products to their customers at low level but fixed
products are available only for the those customers who can pay higher amount.
B 2 B :-
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In B 2 B model of e-business company makes the use of internet to conduct business
transactions. More than one transaction or multiple transactions are involved in such type of
business. It takes place between two business firms.
B 2 C :-
This model of e-business consists of transaction between business to customer where no
middleman is involved. Online shopping sites are the example of B 2 C business.
3.2 Analyse of model in terms for generating capacity
Revenue model is a framework for generating revenues. It helps to company for identify
which mode is generating more revenue for the enterprise (Nadali, Zarifi and Shirsavar, 2017).
Following is analyzed of model in term for generating revenue.
Advertisement model
For making money it is considered as the most effective tool. For the making
advertisement of the company products there are number of websites which used by organization
such as Bing or Google ad sense. This promotion are worked with the different types of emails
and blogs. For the ocado it helps to them for making advertisement of entity and their business
operations.
Affiliate Marketing model
In the affiliated marketing there are different types of activities includes such as Cost per
action or cost per click. This model is based on the commission which paid by the company.
Under this model bloggers use link of company and coveted all the viewers into customers
(Malaval and Bénaroya, 2013). With the help of paying fee they are generating revenue.
Freemium model
Under this model, organization sales baisc products to customers but charge money for
the exclusive feature of products. Under this model firm sales their products as free samples and
after that they charge money.
Different e-commerce models helps to generate revenue as it cuts cost of transaction,
unnecessary involvement of middleman etc. which in turn help the organization to earn more.
3.3 Influences of future e business model
E business will become the most demand able business strategy for the retail organization
in he near future. There are many types of advantages using the enterprise model in E
commerce. It helps to organisation for providing services 24/7 and along with this, it also helps
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to improve customer's loyalty. Ocado is retail administration which offers number of services in
their business. For the running retail operations it is important to provide personalized services to
customers so they can gain more satisfaction in their business.
In many studies, it is identifies that many customers still prefers to receive personal
assistance during shopping (Oyibo, Ali and Vassileva, 2016). For this the company ned to
provide services which helps to their customers or giving more comfort level. Along with the
present of the online media is also significance for the company. The future development of the
business model includes Saas model. It is that type of model which is licensed in basis of
subscription and it is also refers to the on demand software.
With its growing popularity e-commerce business have acquired a large market share. It
gives the facility of returning back the product within some time if it doesn't match with the
costumers satisfaction level.
TASK 4
4.1 Elements of web- design structure
The structure of the web design its directly related to customers. If an organisation use
good web structure then it helps to them for gaining more customers in their business. Ocado is
online grocer shop which offers number of the products and services to their customers. In order
to gain more customers in the business the company is making focus on developing effective
web structure so they attract to more client in their business (Rosca Arnold and Bendul, 2016).
Following are elements of good web design.
 For making good structure of web page keywords play important role. It refers to the
most common phrase which used by the users. For attracting more customers in business
it is important for Ocado use of the right keywords for their web pages.
 Another element is use of the navigation for the website. It should be consistent across
the numerous pages which helps to users for easily migrate from one page to another
web-page. Through these elements users get right information about products and
services.
 Content of a good website should be relevant to the one which the readers want.
 Navigation that is GPS of the website should be there so that it guides the user where
they have to go in order to find information related to certain things.
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4.2 Evaluation of good web designed and its impact on organisation
` E-commerce site represents its owner in front of the customers. So the organization
should make sure that use of the good web designed so it helps to them for conducting enterprise
operations smoothly (eCommerce Order Processing Services, 2015). Following impact of web
designed on business concern.
Attract more customer
The major benefits of using the good web- design is that it helps to attract more
customers in business (Savin, 2017)) Ocado always make sure that its web designed is according
to the corporate image so they can fulfill essential of their customer in the business.
Impact on the search engine ranking
A good website create impact on its ranking. With the helps of good website, ranking of
the company gets improve. Thus, it is essential for the business use of the graphics carefully. For
the oacdo, with website they can attract many customers in their business and with improved
ranking they get more customers in their business.
Good brand name
With the use of a good website the company improves its brand name which helps the
organization not only to attracts more customers but also to ensure long run stability of the
organization.
Competition
The company attracts more customers when they use good website which helps them to
increase their sale and also to come over with their competition.
4.3 Usability of website
Under the concept of website usability the simplicity or easiness of sites should
be there so that it could be visited easily by users. Therefore, for business it is very important to
improve usability of the websites (Parks, 2015). Given below are issues which need to be solve
in business.
Web page loading speed
For a successful website it is important to make sure that web surfers to navigate the
websites quickly (Totten and Cross, 2015). Ocado need to take necessary action to overcome
with this difficulty. They need top raise loading speed of the web-page so they attract more
customers in their business.
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Work on the content
In order to attracting more customers in their business organisation, it is important for
improving content. The retail company need to make focus on developing their content and
improve its quality. Content of the web-pages helps to give smore information to the users.
Capability of browser
The websites should be design is such a way that it effectively compatible with major
browser such that is google chrome and internet explore (Yu and Kong, 2016). This aid more
quality in webpages and attract potential customers.
Duplicate the titles of the page
The title of the website should not be duplicated and the content of the website should
also be kept easy.
CONCLUSION
Summing up the above report, It can be concluded that in every business internet and use
of the advance technologies helps to them for attracting more customers. The market if the E
business rapidly increases and become dominating at international level. Ocado which is UK
based the largest online grocery shop. The company successful using internet and latest
technologies for conducting its business operations. Firm is also making well structured
websites so they can attract more customers in their business.
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