E-commerce

Introduction of Business
Company X specializes in the production of electronic spare parts especially spare parts that are used in computers and its peripherals. Thus, this company can improve its position and operations through utilization of e-commerce (Latimer,  CCH Australia Limited, 2008). The architecture of the new e-commerce suite may be called collective architecture that is able to take into consideration various areas that includes catalog, content and checkout allows it to be utilized by different delivery channels through means such a email software and storefronts (Schneider, 2008). This means that the new architecture allows for channel management requirements such as promotions, store administration and content management. This type of architecture could provide a foundation that presents duplication of data (master point of data and no consistency) and cross-organization chimneys, and hence ensures general efficiency of the site. Moreover, the new technology is capable of replacing features such as CRM  ERP.

Applications Needed
E-commerce is a technology that requires numerous hardware and software components to ensure the requirements of e-commerce are achieved. Some common and important applications that could play a major role include

Database software  current consumer requirements is increasing and they require different means that allows for payments and accessing the required information.

Website  designing and features of a website defines the extent in which an e-commerce approach could be successful.

Security software  this application champions on security and privacy measures. It ensures that confidentiality of information is maximized while negating threats associated with e-commerce activities (Schneider, 2008).

Appropriate Interfaces and Necessary Standards
Experience is crucial for consumers who access general websites and there is special requirement for consumers who utilize e-commerce websites during the time of purchase. This is because a poor consumer experience may result in frustration during shopping, difficulty in moving around the website, resulting in loss of sales.

Difference with current application
Advancement in technology and organizational requirements shapes the way a product is viewed and its contribution towards fulfilling organizational requirements (Rich, 2008). E-commerce systems require high-level security measures. Many people especially hackers and eavesdroppers looks for means to access information regarding other companies or gain financialmonetary system. Moreover, information stored in these systems require high levels of privacy and confidentiality. Generally, it means that the security requirements should be of high standards. In the traditional and other applications, security is not an important requirement since these is no confidential or private information that is stored (Rich, 2008).
Another issue that makes it different is adaptability, functionality and operation of the e-commerce requirements. E-commerce requires centralization of data and hence requires a large storage means (Schneider, 2008). Moreover, the storage media should be capable to back up details to ensure that in the cause of any eventualities, the information and data can be retrieved. Traditional systems usually have small amounts of information and data, and hence usually require small amount of storage. In addition, e-commerce information should be stored for a longer period comparative to current systems that does not require long term (Latimer,  CCH Australia Limited, 2008).

E-commerce site should be secure and easily updated. Many organizations present information on their websites and due to competition, the prices keep fluctuating (Darie  Watson, 2009). This means that information posted ion the website should easily be updated while ensuring high levels of security (Latimer,  CCH Australia Limited, 2008). In the case of current systems, information can stay for long periods while issues of website security are minimal. It generally means that a website that is easily updatable and has high level of security should be utilized in e-commerce transaction (Darie  Balanescu, 2008).

Benefits
Some of the benefits associated with this new e-commerce architecture includes
It allows a favorable and convenient means or moving to a new e-commerce platform when compared to current e-commerce technologies.

This new architecture provides a means in which back end systems can operate together. This means that it provides foundation in which components can easily be swapped out and swapped in without interfering with the operational integrity.

It allows means for innovation it has numerous business specific services and brand definition and these features can be easily developed in house.

The architecture can allow commoditization of service, and these services can be outsourced e.g. customer reviews and payment processing (Darie  Balanescu, 2008).

It reduces the periods in which e-commerce functionality can be marketed (Darie  Watson, 2009). This means that the marketing and business department may require changes in certain functionality and should be implemented by IT department, but the information technology will not be required to deliver since the service already exists within the architecture. Hence, the e-commerce architecture allows for consumption and utilization of the services available (Latimer,  CCH Australia Limited, 2008).

Measurements of benefits
Metrics should clearly be developed that would be utilized to measure the success of e-commerce initiatives. The metrics should be based on business functions and units of individual sectors of an organization (Latimer,  CCH Australia Limited, 2008). This means that it is paramount to monitor both the specific aspects of e-commerce and the overall performance of e-commerce. Different techniques and tools can be utilized to measures the success of e-commerce may include polls and online surveys to determine whether this initiative improves on revenue generation or operates like other e-commerce sites. After the collection of data from this perspective, statistical approaches can be utilized to analyze the data that may include multiple regressions so that validity of the site can be understood (Darie  Balanescu, 2008). Utilization of these measures could determine whether the new e-commerce strategy is beneficial to the organization.

Generally, e-commerce applications come with different requirements and capability to accomplish e-commerce requirements. An example of such technology is the collective architecture that integrates different organization functions into ensuring the organization revenues are championed with profitability is maximized. The new architecture comes with numerous benefits that can be measured through utilization of online survey and polls, and later analyzed by the use of statistical tools such as multiple-regressions.

E-business which means electronic business is the process of conducting business activities on the Internet, which is not only to the conventional buying and selling, but includes servicing customers, managing relationships and collaborating with other business partners, such as suppliers. It can be thought of as information technology based Business Process Re-engineering.

Super-Pride Investments was a company founded by Jimmy Berry, with a core purpose of offering computing solutions such as computer sales, repair and maintenance, computer training, assembling, internet access, networking and computing consultancy. The company targeted the local market since it was opened in 2002 it has grown from a simple office to enigma in the computing field, boasting of more than twenty branches in the countries major towns. With no clear cut policy on adopting technology and innovations , the firm utilized the technology of yesteryears, for example, it was not uncommon to find the employees of the firm using Pentium one computers, utilizing Disk Operating System while elderly  fax and telephones,  this affected the operations of the company due to low employee performance, coupled with the increasing market competition, the company suffered several challenges such as poor communication within the employees, poor communication with the customers, with collaborating firms and even within the management. The effects were immense such as reduced customer loyalty and financial losses which prompted the owner to hire a professional consultancy firm, to recommend a remedy to the situation which was getting out of hand.

The consultancy firm having analyzed the firm, realized that the chief cause to the under performance of the company was poorineffective communication within the organization, within the different branches, with the customers and suppliers, with other collaborating companies and with the government agencies, this was chiefly caused by the utilization of legacy communication systems which were time bared. He therefore recommended that the company adopts electronic business by implementing an open source based collaboration functionality such as Bricolage which is a Content management system, EtherPad which is a Collaborative drafting with chat, Wiggio system which is focused on simplicity - group communication and content management toolkit, phpGroupWare which includes a project collaboration module and Plone which is a powerful, flexible Content Management that is Enterprise and web 2.0 tools for effective communication.

Migration plan 
Due to the apparent obsolescence of the legacy systems being used by the firm, there was need to migrate to the new collaborative communication system.  As argued by Tayntor (2007) the first step involves the requirement specification, where the firm shall develop the expected deliverables of the new system, this shall

Impacts to the organization 
The implementation of the collaborative communication system has several impacts in the organization, the impacts range from implementation process, impacts to the departments, stakeholder impacts total impacts to the entire organization, employment impacts, impact on information access, impacts on the individual employee and impacts and financial impacts. As regards to impacts during implementation,  the collaborative e-business system, shall require the firms members to arrive on to an agreement on which e-business system to implements, for example whether the system should be open source based, or whether it shall be implemented, by use of proprietary software. The members should also arrive at a conclusion on the specific type of the software to be used, this requires intense consultations, and therefore results to restructuring of the organization to utilize the new implemented communication structure, the e-business system therefore results to organizational restructuring.

The system also impacts on the departments and branches in the organization. Since the e-business implementation shall encourage communication between the different aspects of the organization as pointed out by Chaffey (2006), challenges and difficulties encountered in the different departments and branches in the organizations shall be availed within a click of a button to all concerned parties, hence improving the departmental performances hence improving the total organizations output. The system also has impacts on the stakeholders, this includes the business owners, the customers, the collaborating firms and the employees, since information access shall be fostered and improved, and this shall in the end affect the relationship between all the stakeholders. Whereas the systems have high initial set up costs, the system in the long run shall effectively lower the running costs in terms of communication. On employment and employees, the system shall provide opportunities for persons conversant with the technology to be employed, will improving the technical understanding of the new technology to other employees in the firm. The system shall also alter the employment dynamics in the industry, as more open source experts shall have to be hired, in order to achieve the success in the development and deployment of the collaborative system. This shall also affect the firm members work patterns and responsibility since, their work delivery and communication shall be web based. The members shall also have diverse information in their finger tips, hence enabling them to make informed decisions.

Changes to infrastructure 
Implementation of the e-business in envisioned offering a complete alteration to the firms total infrastructure in areas such as application infrastructure. This will require an overhaul of the operating environment in order to suit the new collaborative system, such as alteration of the physical environment like cabling, altering the office structure to suit the new system and the furniture in the working environment. The data management infrastructure in concerned with effects on the way the organization organizes, manages, retrieves and utilizes the available data. For example, the collaborative system shall enable the organization to outsource non core functions and commodity services, therefore the infrastructure shall be altered to accept communication with several parties.

Benefits of the e-business collaboration system
Workflows can be streamlined, this is because there shall be a centralized common system for communication in the entire organization, the collaboration system involves all the firms members communicating their needs and activities, and this shall help to ensure that there is a synchronized information flow, hence synchronizing the operations of the organizations. This can be measured by the quality of information it the organization as argued by Kimmons (1989), which must be accurate, Accuracy is concerned with data being sufficiently accurate for the intended use and should be captured only once, even if there exists several uses and should  be captured at the point of activity, the Validity of data is important, where data should be recorded and used in compliance with relevant requirements easy to comprehend by all the concerned parties, and the information should be supported by evidence to avoid repudiation Redundant data entry can be eliminated, the implementation of the system, shall ensure that validation procedures are used so that data is  data shall only be entered once from  any office or branch, this eliminates the existence of data redundancies as argued by Mochal (2007), existence on non duplicated and uniform information in all the branches and departments shall be used to gauge the effectiveness of the benefit, this is in addition to the fact that Information can be shared quickly and easily between departments and branch offices. In addition the online collaboration shall ensure that projects can stall be effectively be implemented even if the organization has different branches located in distant locations, this is ensured by the fact that persons can effectively communicate.  Moreover it helps to save on the available office space, since the firm members can hold online meetings rather than in a physical location. The system shall also enable the company to get up to date market information and utilize the information to gain competitive advantage, which can be measured by how effectively the organization utilizes the available information to beat market competition. Timeliness and reliability of the data is the main measurement metric.

Identify major risks
According to Greer (2002),  risk are future uncertain events with a probability of occurrence and a potential for loss, There exist several risks in the implementation of the project such  as schedule Risk, where the  project tasks and schedule release risks are insufficiently gathered for, this can cause ripple effects on the on the collaboration project and in the entire firm, this can lead to project failure,  this is usually caused by improper time estimation, inefficient resource tracking, and unexpected project scope and alterations, this can be minimized by  having a proper time plan, which should be adhered to . Financial and budget risks caused by unforeseen expenditure and improper budget estimation, with limited resources by the firm to gather for the extra costs, this can be minimized by having monetary contingency plans. Operational risks which can be caused by ineffective process implementation or some unforeseen external situations, failure to resolve responsibilities and poor team communication and resource utilization can be minimized by having a proper chain of command and span of control in the project implementation team.  Technical risks are another type of risks, which involves functionality of the system this may be caused by extremely complex project implementation, lack of proper technology and too much modularization.  Another risk is Programmatic Risks which as argued by Kerzner (2009) are risks beyond the scope of the project management team, can be minimized by having a provision for unpredicted situations.

Question two
Contributions made are about the concern of customers as it relates to personal data used in banking services, whereas banks are at the forefront to assure the clients that all is well with their records, critical examination of the same reveals otherwise. The existence of several data breaches in banks records worried customers that their personal data may be compromised, analysis have shown that more than records of ten banks are compromised annually worldwide, however, analysis reveals that this represents a small percentage of the entire banks in the world and that the breach rates have not reached alarming ratios, and  therefore. The unaffected banks just hope that they will not be the next victim of the attack and that the clients have no cause to worry. Analysis further reveals that the banking sector is a signatory to several legislations which ensures that banks have legal obligations to implement data security procedures, past researches have however the sufficiency of the obligations since whereas the banks may maintain the legal obligations, there may be elements such as hackers, former employees or organized underground software criminals who may maneuver and compromise the established procedures.

The client data is also in safe haven since there is regulatory supervision the bankers argue that their activities are generally subject to regulatory supervision by the Central Bank. In most countries however, central banks lack the capability and resources to effectively monitor and regulate the baking sector, the information about clients in the banks database can therefore be compromised intentionally for the benefit of the bank, without the realization of the regulating authority.  Technology changes also can be a cause to worry, whereas there may exist laws and regulations, banks may be using technologies e.g. encryption technologies that can be compromised by the current advanced decryption techniques, cases have existed such as in the HSBC private banking client accounts breach, where allegedly a former Information Technology employee compromised the records. According to the investigating experts, the relationship manager was rated as the weakest link since they have massive access to all the customers information.

In addition, banks have been sending unencrypted messages to the clients, this offers a possibility of compromising the information, by cyber stalking, moreover banks fail to inform and warn the clients the dangers of sending unprotected emails. The fact that security comes with a cost such as affecting on system performance and efficiency, as well as diverting the resources from the core objectives, has made some banks to compromise on security at the expense of improving system performance, this coupled with the high demand for confidential data has complicated the issues further for the banks, since there are underground organized criminals who utilize the stolen data.

The banks on the hand, have taken several steps to ensure that client information is kept confidential and safe, this includes the reduction use of recovery point objective, which is the duration of time at which systems and data must be recovered after a compromise, and recovery time objective which is the duration during which applications should be recovered after a compromise, so as to minimize the effects of the loss. Several banks have also implemented continuous data protection (CDP) where data are updated and backed up on regular basis. These are be used with policies and procedures aimed at improving data integrity and avoiding compromising of data, these policies include the limiting of the number of persons who can access the customers data, having clearly stipulated procedures on safeguarding the data and information of the customers, and ensuring that the data and information are backed up on regular basis.  Banks have also utilized tested, proven and reliable systems such as Database management systems, which are immune to flows and bugs, banks have avoided the use of cheaper systems which can be easily be compromised, but rather utilized reliable object oriented databases whose security can be guaranteed, this is in addition to using the latest security and encryptions technologies, and investing in the latest software and hardware. However, from the above from the above analysis, it is therefore apparent that whereas banks have immensely invented on the security of client data, several breaches have been reported, it is therefore evident the security of the customers data in the banks database cannot be hundred percent guaranteed, clients therefore have a cause of alarm.  

Question 3

What is the effectiveness of the application of e-business in reverse auction
The question above deserves further research and is interesting because it presents knowledge and ideas, which are in contrast to the universal belief on the on how the market operates, this question deserves research in order to obtain how effective e-business can be in a situation where the purchaser advertises that they require certain goods and services, and the suppliers place bids on what they expect to be paid in order to supply the good, or offer the service, in reverse auction there are several dynamics which influences the outcomes of the transactions, unlike conventional auctions where the factors influencing the market and the transaction can easily be determined, this calls for a further study, in order to establish the correlation, between the conventional factors, affection conventional auctions and the factors influencing reverse auction. Moreover, the practicality of the reverse auction, and the convenient situation, in which the auction can be applied is a question which demands further research..

To achieve the above, the research method involved is case study research, where an in depth investigation shall be carried out in a small representative sample population, in order to determine the underlying principles of the entire population, this shall involve the use of structured questionnaires, where the chosen respondents such as reverse action providers, purchasers and sellers shall be given questionnaires, and their responses analyzed for correlation, by use of statistical software such as STATA and SPSS.