The Internet And E-Business

Describe the environment in which e-business is conducted and business transaction types

Environmental factors can be analysed on the basis of SLEPT and Portar's five forces model. SLEPT is concerned with the social, legal, economic, political and technological factors. Social factors are related with the behaviour and lifestyle of the person. For example the customer will choose saaries in India because of their culture and lifestyle. Legal factors are related with the environmental laws and health and safety law. For example alcohol is restricted in some countries. Economic factors I related with the economic condition of the people in different countries and nations. For example most of the Asian countries are developing in economic factors. Political factors are including the policies and rule of government. It is related with custom duties on foreign products. Technological field and growing day by day and it is needed to be considered first in auto-mobiles and manufacturing sectors.

Porter's five forces model is considering bargaining power of suppliers and customers. This will affect the logistics and supply chain management function. It is related with the outer factors affecting the growth of the business such as substitute products and competitors available in outer market.

Conducting e-business by any organization will present many challenging situations for the company. The environment of the e-business for “organization” is having various factors that affect the working of the company (Canzer, 2006). The slept factors which are used in e-commerce are social, legal, economic, political and technological factors. Social needs can enhance the use of e-business by the company. Legal factors and economical change can also affect the use of internet in conducting the business. Technological advancement is the basic factor that offers new opportunities in the world of e-commerce (Xu, Tjoa and Chaudhry, 2007).

Organizations in UK are having many competitors such as Sainsbury and Wal-mart. These functions will effect directly or indirectly the functions of the company organization (Elsenpeter and Velte, 2001). Various types of transaction processes which are followed by the company are immediate payment, deferred payment and authorised payment. Immediate payment is concerned with the payment process which takes less time for the transaction process (Fox, 2008). As the name implies, it is the process in which customer place an order and their card detail is available to the seller and transaction will happen in couple of time (Haynes and John, 2001). The factors are competitors, shareholders, customers, clients, technology, legislative regulations, community, society, economic forces, work forces and culture. These are some factors that affect the commencement of e-business by the company. This is the reason for all the stakeholders are the part of micro-environment of e-business.

There are various e-business models that can be used by the company “organization” for generating revenues in global market (Khan, 2015). These models are Business to Business (B2B), Business to Customer (B2C), Consumer to Consumer (C2C) and Consumer to Business (C2B). Business to business is concerned with the transaction between one company and other company. Business to consumers is the transaction between company and customers. Consumers to consumer are the concerned with the use of consumers for selling products to other customers.

Business to Consumers is the process of direct selling of the products and services to the customers by using online portal (Quinones, Nicholson and Heeks, 2015). The company can make their own site which is offering ranges of products to the customers. This will make customer able to select the product or services according to their demands and needs (Haynes and John, 2001). This is primarily used by the company which are selling their product by using online portal. This will generate revenue for the company by enhancing their growth in the global market.

Explain the benefit and barriers to businesses considering an online presence

There are many benefits of using e-business by the company such as global accessibility to the worldwide market, close relationship between customers and the company, wider availability of choices, work integration at the global level, reduction in the cost of product providing in the market, etc. Online presence of the company will make increase in the sales of the products, media breaks and achievement of customer loyalty towards brand. In addition, it will save time, movement, papers of both the company and the customers (Haasis, Landwehr and Obsadny, 2015). For example increase in sales of Amazon and e-bay. This will allow the convenience for easy buying and selling of the products with variety of products at one place. These are comes under the category of tangibal benefits gained by e- business.

The benefits of the e-business can be divided on the basis of supplier's perspective and customer's perspective (Zhu and Semeijn, 2015). For supplier's perspective, it will allow the company for making global presence in the market and customers can get global choices for their demands and needs. This will increase the competitiveness of the company in the market on supplier's point of view. Customer will get quality product and quality services according to their demands by using online websites (Khan, 2015). These come under the category of intangible benefits.

There are some barriers which restrict the online selling of the product in the world market such as infrastructure issues, cultural issues, marketing issues and horizontal of personal computer ownership in the market (Zhu and Semeijn, 2015). In addition, card theft and less trust of customers come under this category. These are the barriers which could be faced by the company before entering in developing country's market. Infrastructural barriers are related to the restriction of infrastructure, distribution and legal policies of home government. This will restrict traditional customers to easily believe on online shopping. Without doing an accurate market research the company will not be able to find needs and demands of customer for their market. This comes under cultural issues of the company who is selling their products by using online marketing. Spam and securities issues come under the marketing issues for firm. The other and very common barrier for online selling is ratio of the individuals in targeted market who are having personal computers. Less ratio of computer having individuals will affect the profit and revenue generation for the company. These are barriers of online selling of product.

Assessment of the security and legislative issues facing an online business organization

There are many issues which are related with the security are faced by companies doing e-business. The issues of secrecy and confidentiality are faced by the companies for getting complaints from customers about disclosing their privacy details. For example, Amazon Company is facing issues related to security. Privacy error is also related with the security issues. Integrity error is also related with disclosing the information at the time of purchasing. Other issues are also related with privacy and security error in online business. If they adopt the method of e-business then it will have to face some issues like verification of the person. These issues are termed as electronic transaction issues. Privacy and security issues, copyright and trademark issues, online terms and conditions, legislation dilemma, policies and laws along with general legal issues (Ke and Sun, 2015).

The most common security threats of an e-commerce environment are fraud, theft, miss-interpretation of business content, virus programs, hacking of internet websites etc. It affects the security of a businesses' website with unethical practices like password cracking, false information publishing on websites etc. online hackers and thief is making difficult for online selling of products in market. Data used by unauthorised person will affect the security and privacy of the customers. Miss-interpretation of contents and information available on websites will create issues for customers and the firm. Virus programs and hacking will restrict the customers to share their credit card information on the sites. These are the security issues related with online business of firm.

Taxation issues are the most common issue for online business as well as offline business. Different taxation terms and condition for instate selling and outer-state selling will generate confusion in owner's mind. This will create issues related to internet sales and online issues. Pre-employment tax and excise tax comes under the category of taxation issues. Copyright and data protection is comes under the category of legal issues in online business. Data protection act is concerned with the privacy of information shared by individuals to company. Copyright act is applicable for protection of information related to the firm.

The computer viruses are the small programs which affects the idle situation of computer system. For example new folder creating is a virus which creates shortcut folders as auto run programs. The worms are the programs which spreads false information to other computers connected in a network. For ex. a worm is named as Explore Zip. DOS is a computing process which replace the network device or resource to valid user in a single network or process. For example, false legal form of protest. DDOS is a computing process which replaces the network device or resource to valid user. For example a network device is absent from in internet connection.

The legal issues related to data protection of e-business are related to the tax manipulation of e-business and intellectual property like brand logo and online business rights of brand.

State the modes of communication available to an e-business and their applications

VOIP is a voice communication of message over a IP location. A website is a application of presenting the business over internet. A shopping cart is a software application which lists the purchased or ordered items from a website. FAQS are the query solution method where customers and visitors ask for the information on a website. The customer follow up is a process to acquiring business knowledge of visitors and providing information for selling a product. E-mails are the electronic messages which include information about the sender and receiver over a email server. The live chat server is a support page to the customers where two parties can communicate through instant messages.

In online communication the devices used as network tools like router, switches server computers client computers, online databases, telecommunication mediums etc. The mobile devices are also used for performing portable communication of internet and relevant technologies.

The various modes of communication that can be used by the company for doing e-business are Electronic data transfer (EDI), Electronic fund transfer and social networking media. The EDI is the information which is transferred through e-mails, online newsletters and social media web servers between communicating parties. The EFT is a process of transferring money from one bank account to another by accessing internet and electronic medium. The social networking media is identified as websites and blogs where people communicate on web servers. These are used for transmission of data from the company to their stakeholders such as customers, employees of different departments and shareholders. Organization can use emails for making aware customers about their products and services by online marketing, instant messaging at the time of transaction on their online portal, video chats for solving problem of the customers related products, blogs for finding needs and demands of the customers, social networking for adding customers personally to the company and mobiles for marketing as well as advertisement purpose (Mitchell, 2015).

EFT that is electronic fund transfer is the web tool which controls the online transaction on e-commerce websites. This is used for transferring monetary funds from customers to the companies. It is the revolutionary concept in world of online business. This makes easy the transaction process without using checks or any demand drafts.

Email is the mostly preferred methods for communication with the customers. It is used for advertisement of the currently running offers about the products and services of the company. The company can attach media files, important documents and images for attracting more and more of the customers (Fadeyev, 2009). Instant messaging is about the use of chat rooms and messengers for fast messaging by the company to their customers. These kind of messengers are windows live messenger, Gmail, Skype and AOL messenger (Emmerling, 2015). These are some of the ways that can be used by the company for communicating with the customers.

Explain the internet technologies and their importance in making an e-business successful

Internet technology is the highly growing medium for the growth of any business and the various functions related with the company. For development of e-business for the company, internet technology is playing significant role for the development and growth of the retail business in different countries (Elsenpeter and Velte, 2001). It plays important role by their portability, interactivity, resolution, functions, processing power, speed and accessing speed.

Client server model is the core network computing method used for maintaining the online communication from the organization and their clients. In this process the server manager stores the data in their memory and provides information whenever it is asked by the customer. This will help in generating revenues, increasing profits, expansion of the business and differentiating company from other companies (Fox, 2008). Client server computing is used for database management system to support in significant way. It is the data base server which operates between application program and its data. It is the process in which client is making request from server and it is transmitted to relevant file. This will execute by the data base server and sends back feedback to client.

By the use of internet, company could optimize their investment on the various functions such as marketing and advertisement, market research for finding current needs of the customers and plays a great role for expansion of the business (Elsenpeter and Velte, 2001). The success of the company which are operating in the field of e-business depends upon the differentiation from the other companies. Internet helps in finding the key features and core values of the competitors and building scope for generating innovative ideas for specialization.

TCP: It is termed as transfer control protocol which is used to manage the conversation and communication between sender and receiver for computer online mailing or by using mobile. IP address is used for computer operating system for managing the different computers by their individual identity protocol. It is used for making safety of details and confidentiality. The role of mentioned protocol is to establish the connection for data exchange system. It helps in dissembling data into small packets' and assembling received packets in the form of feedback to client server. If the packet is missed or duplicate than TCP will handle error in server.

HTTP: this is termed as hypertext transfer protocol. It is used by the person to work on internet for browsing various websites.

Packet Switching: it is the communication method which is used for networking. It is used for collecting small packs of information called packets which are available in suitable sized blocks than it will be transmitted to the clients. It is the simultaneous communication process.

JAVA: it is the language script used for coding, decoding, descriptive and framing the language and information within the computer system.

Explain the main features of HTML

The main features of HTML for the development of sites are Video elements, Application Cache, Canvas for image, Geolocation and Web workers. These are the most important features of HTML. It will help in making a file head, body, title, break, headings, forms, and paragraphs, list tables (Shelly and Campbell, 2012). It is also having various images and links for applying the on documents. It is used for storing more amount of information on various sites. Application cache will allow the customers to upload more apps much easily. Canvas of images is used for the manipulation of graphics of the images to the users. Geolocation will allow locating the user on the basis of their location. Lastly, web worker is for the execution of analysable tasks on the web page. Document structure containing basically three important parts such as HTML version information, declarative header sanction and document body.

This will add the feature of mutuality, consistency and elegant forms on the site. Moreover, this will improve accessibility, web application and semantics on the web page. This will make it more user friendly for the customers (Zhu and Semeijn, 2015). Use of HTML for the development of websites will decrease the need of Java script. This will also allow storing the information at the customer side data base system. The html language is based on various codes and quality system used by programmers. This will assist search engines and browsers for searching any contents. Declaration language used by search engines is based on the coding of HTML or XHTML. It deals with default language of their text pages. Document structure and body contains the main information in form of text which is further to be converted in html language. This document is also contains title, break, headings and paragraphs for describing proper information to their clients.

Analyse the functions of clients servers, browsers and the role of search engine

Client server is defined as the function of floating information from client system to server system and vice versa. This process will enhance the manner of communication for designing and development. There are several transactions could be done of online portal because of clients servers function. This will handle the various functions of e-business as well as web browsers for e-commerce. The roles of client servers and browsers involve creative media strength of the firm. It is used for creating awareness and needs for purchasing process in the market. These points are comes under the weak points of online presence of search engines websites. It is also used as document processors and query processors for searching and matching functions.

The major function is providing the platform for accessing the information on online portal. There are various features support the interaction with the help of management information system. It also offers feasibility for making use of varied application software. Search engines allow the browsing on internet by providing keywords. Search engines will also allow them to pertain indexing of keywords and URLs. It also displays various online contents and web assesses. It facilitates fast browsing and availability of required information and data at one place. It helps in saving extra time required by the internet browsers. Bookmarking and other user friendly function is useful for easy finding and storing information of internet.

Evaluate the use of Intranet and Extranets within business communication

The uses of Intranet are improvement in the efficiency of emails, workflow, training, publishing, document management and front end to corporate system. Further, the main benefits of Intranet are better internal communication by storing corporate information at the centralized portal and accessing whenever it is needed (Fadeyev, 2009). It will enable sharing of the resources easily by collaborating information sharing on the server. Also, it helps in improving customer service by enabling the employees assessing better information. This will allow the reduction of paper work in the corporates for storing information in the form of data base on the server (Emmerling, 2015).

The benefits of Extranets is the integration of supply chain, reduces cost, effective collaboration of business partners, improved relationship, shared news and flexible working of the users (Cheng and Yu, 2015). This will manage the other functions of the company and intra-nets manage the inner functions of the company. More integrated supply chain management helps in online ordering and inventory management of the firm. Reduced cost helps in making technical documentation for trading partners and online customers. It basically helps in online documentation for the firm. Close collaborative working will help in improving the relationship between the customers and company. These are benefits of using extra-nets in e-commerce and e-business.

Illustrate the different e-business models that can be used to generate revenue for a business

The different e-commerce revenues models used for generating revenues are portal model, E-tailer and content provider. In addition to it, affiliation, referral fees and commission also plays important role in the success of the organization. Portal model is also used for generating revenues by awarding the customers' about their products and providing them entry to content and services on internet. Subscription model is concerned with charging fee for the customer by making their subscription for premium membership on the company's site. Transaction fee comes under the category of subscription.

Transaction fees are related with the money generated by the customer at the time of their online transaction on the site. The money is generated for ebay and amazon at the time of transaction. E-tailer modal is the money generated by the retailers and whole sellers by selling their product on online portal by subscription of content and advertisement. This will save the time of the customer and it is convenient for them. This will also generate revenue for their customers. There are different kinds of market creator model which is used for generating revenues for company. Business to business model is used for generating revenues from other company and doing business to sustain themselves. This will generate revenues by specifying company's position in value chain analysis. It is also used for leveraging unique quality for making competitive image into market.

Generation of revenue depends upon the scope of the company for doing their business in particular market. “Organization” is the big company which are generating revenues by using Business to Consumer model by using online portal (Haasis, Landwehr and Obsadny, 2015). Business to Business model is mostly used by the company who are dealing with the industrial products which can be further used in production of another product (Khan, 2015). Consumer to Business model is used by the company which are specialized in customized products and services. Only Business to Consumer model is the perfect model which is used for generating revenues for the company “organization”. “Auction Model” is used where the potential buyers are using biding system for buying products of company and they also know the past history of bids for their products. The item will sell to the highest bidder. Auction broker is charging their fees based on the revenue generated by firm.

By using Content provider websites, company can offer products and services to the customers and generate revenues (Shelly and Campbell, 2012). They can offer varieties of the products and services in the worldwide market. It is the most important model that is suitable for Retail Company and this will generate revenue in the global market by personal ad fees, membership fees, subscription fees, sales commission and transaction fees. Service provider and community provider is used for making targeting market to generate more revenues from customers. Service provider is playing important role for generating services in the market and community provider is used for generating community of customers.

Report on future developments in e-business models

The company can further apply innovative ideas for making their sites more interactive and impressive. Organization can develop customized features and strategies to suit customer's taste and needs which varies from country to country (Funabashi and Grzech, 2005). Further, e-business can allow their customers to send their demands for modification and customized feature even after placing the order for sale. Configuration of the product should be in the hands of customers and this feature can be allowed through using e-business by the company. The company could make their website more user-friendly by adding the feature of comparison between the products of different company (Xu, Tjoa and Chaudhry, 2007). Technological infrastructure of the company should be based upon the various innovative ideas. Social networking sites are the revolutionary concept in e-commerce and e-business sites. This is used for marketing of the products and service on websites and online portals.

The technological change that has modified the way of working of the firm are cloud computing and social networks. Cloud computing is helping storage of data in the company and social networking is helping in marketing strategies followed by the firm.

Use the key elements of good web design structure

The key element of good website design is title, meta tags, font colours, logos, white space, layout, description and theme (Guo, Yan and Zhang, 2015). These can be monitored and improved by market research and business strategy, keyword research, site structure, data capture and its marketing and visitors tracking. The main focusing elements of the user friendly websites are good visual design, proper content, accurate navigation and credibility. These all factors will help in good web site design of a company (Mitchell, 2015).

Good visual words includes logos of the company, font size and colour of the words, theme of the site, template according to the matter of the company, layout and colours should be according to that (Fadeyev, 2009). Content should be specific about the products and services which are provided by the company “organization” on their site. The navigation facility should be available on the site for tracking the actual place of the customers (Emmerling, 2015). For making a good website, the company should avoid these mistakes such as too much content, no photos, confusing contents, illegal matter and boring content.

Evaluate the impact of a well-designed website to an e-business

The well designed website helps in improving the number of customers to the company. It also helps in building trust and reputation of the company is international market. It makes able the company for doing market research in international market. With the help of online transaction process, it helps the customers in comfortable shopping. It also increases the organisation's profit and growth by expanding their business.

The impacts of using well designed web sites are enhancement of customer's convenience, greater reachability of business for expansion, helps in promoting the business, low cost advertisement, whole day availability, saves time and money as well as helps in cost cutting. A well designed website will enhance the customer's convenience by providing them variety of products and services according to their needs and demands (Fadeyev, 2009). The customer can find varieties of product at one place. This will also be helpful for the company for finding needs of the customers and providing them products according to their needs and demands. A good website will encourage the customers to visit the company's site. More number of customers and visitors will enhance the brand image of the product.

This will be helpful in market research by the company for expansion of their business. It will save time for both the customer and company by fulfilling their needs (Ke and Sun, 2015). Further, this will also help in the marketing and promotion of the products with investment of very less amount of money and save both time and money of the customers for finding their needs and demands for the product and services (Quinones, Nicholson and Heeks, 2015). It will be also helpful in attracting new customers and retaining the older one by satisfying their wants and needs from the company (Cheng and Yu, 2015).

Report on the issues concerning website usability

The various issues related to the usability of the websites are small click-able areas, splitting the contents on more than one page, duplication in the title of the page, content which are difficult for scanning and no contact details on the website. In addition, non availability of search box, too many formalities required at the time of registration with the site, the page or article which are removed from the site and still showing their link on the browser and more need of thinking on the site or complex site (Elsenpeter and Velte, 2001).

Small click-able area will frustrate the customer to go on their link and this will make him to switch another site (Khan, 2015). Complex site which needs more thinking will make the customer bored with searching the content and as the result, they will switch other site. These are some factors that make the site not usable for the customers. Issues concerned with the Legal responsibilities of firm will restrict revenue generated by firm. The legal issues such as discrimination on the basis of age, sex and colour will affect working of the firm and their websites usability. Different needs of customers on the basis of their culture and choices will also affect the website usability in different nations.

Conclusion

The report is about the use of internet and e-business for providing the products and services by online portal of the company. This is for a big retailer company of United Kingdom and it is planning for expansion of their business. Thus, they can use e-business for expansion of the company and market research of the particular nation. The report includes the scope of the organization for e-business in the current market.

It is about the working of internet for e-business, use of different e-business models and use of good website design of the company. The report elucidated that for the growth of the company in global market, online portal is the convenient way for doing market research and expansion of the business.

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References

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