Online shopping ?!!

Many think that E business is same as E commerce where the fact is that they are a bit different. 

E commerce is  the process of buying, selling, transferring or exchanging of products, services or information using internet (IT). 

WHERE

E Business is a broader definition of EC, including buying and selling of goods and services, and also servicing customers, collaborating with partners, conducting e-learning and conducting electronic transactions within an organization.

Not every organization that uses E commerce are purely online. Electronic Commerce depends on the degree of digitization involved :

Brick-and-mortar organizations are purely physical organizations.

Virtual organizations are companies that are engaged only in EC. (Also called pure play)

Click-and-mortar organizations are those that conduct some e-commerce activities, yet their business is primarily done in the physical world. i.e. partial EC.

Types of E commerce :

• Business to Business (B2B)

Website following B2B business model sells its product to an intermediate buyer who then sells the product to the final customer. As an example, a wholesaler places an order from a company's website and after receiving the consignment, sells the end product to final customer who comes to buy the product at wholesaler's retail outlet.

Business to Consumer(B2C)

Website following B2C business model sells its product directly to a customer. A customer can view products shown on the website of business organization. The customer can choose a product and order the same. Website will send a notification to the business organization via email and organization will dispatch the product/goods to the customer.

Consumer to Consumer (C2C)

Website following C2C business model helps consumer to sell their assets like residential property, cars, motorcycles etc. or rent a room by publishing their information on the website. Website may or may not charge the consumer for its services. Another consumer may opt to buy the product of the first customer by viewing the post/advertisement on the website.

Consumer to Business (C2B)

In this model, a consumer approaches website showing multiple business organizations for a particular service. Consumer places an estimate of amount he/she wants to spend for a particular service. For example, comparison of interest rates of personal loan/ car loan provided by various banks via website. Business organization who fulfills the consumer's requirement within specified budget approaches the customer and provides its services.

Business to Government (B2G)

B2G model is a variant of B2B model. Such websites are used by government to trade and exchange information with various business organizations. Such websites are accredited by the government and provide a medium to businesses to submit application forms to the government.

Government to Business (G2B)

Government uses B2G model website to approach business organizations. Such websites support auctions, tenders and application submission functionalities.

Government to Citizen (G2C)

Government uses G2C model website to approach citizen in general. Such websites support auctions of vehicles, machinery or any other material. Such website also provides services like registration for birth, marriage or death certificates. Main objectives of G2C website are to reduce average time for fulfilling people requests for various government services.

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• Mobile Commerce

E commerce depends on three main mechanisms :

• Auction where buyers and seller exchange goods and services
• Forward auction as a channel to many potential buyers. Highest bid wins
• Reverse auctions, one buyer, usually an organization, wants to buy a product or a service.  The buyer posts a request for quotation (RFQ) on its Web site Suppliers study the RFQ and submit bids, and the lowest bid wins the auction.

Electronic Payment Methods :

Electronic checks (e-checks)

Electronic credit cards

Purchasing cards

Electronic cash

Stored-value money cards     - Smart cards

                                     - Person-to-person payments

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF ECOMMERCE

Adv's

• Faster buying/selling procedure, as well as easy to find products.
• Buying/selling 24/7.
• More reach to customers, there is no theoretical geographic limitations.
• Low operational costs and better quality of services.
• No need of physical company set-ups.

Disadv

• There is no guarantee of product quality.
• Mechanical failures can cause unpredictable effects on the total processes.
• As there is minimum chance of direct customer to company interactions, customer loyalty is always on a check.
• There are many hackers who look for opportunities, and thus an ecommerce site, service, payment gateways, all are always prone to attack.

Legal Issues in E commerce 

Click on this link to know more  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDcl_1YWIX4

We are All connected

Computer Network

Networks , a common term we hear and see pretty everywhere , but what are computer networks ??

Computer Networks are defined a group of computers connected to each other electronically. This means that the computers can "talk" to each other and that every computer in the network can send information to the others. 

Types of computer Networks :

1. A local area network  (LAN) connects two or more computers, and may be called a corporate network in an office or business setting.
2. Personal Area Network (PAN)  short range networks which connect one or two computers with short distance.
3. Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) a network which covers a metropolian area.
4. Wide Area Network (WAN) connects two or more smaller networks together. The largest internetwork is called the Internet.
5. Enterprise Network a network that is found in companies which contains various LAN and WAN. Such network has a backbone which operates as server to the network.

How Networks Work ?

Networks transmit information with two basic types of signals :

• Analog Signals > waves that constantly transfer information by altering characters of the waves. its two main parameters are amplitude (the higher it is the louder is the sound)  and frequency (how closely are the waves packed) , Egs ; Human Voice.
• Digital Signals > binary signals that transmit information in 0's and 1's. These signals are interpreted by a computer

Network connections (media and channels)

Three types of Cabled connections :

• Twisted-pair wire: mostly used in electrical appliances. 
• Coaxial cable: Mostly used in TVs.
•  Fiber optics: Considered the fastest between the three types.

Broadcast connections comprise of  microwaves and electromagnetic based transmitting means such as : satellite , infrared , microwaves and wireless.

Transmission Technologies

Digital Subscriber Line: a high-speed, digital data transmission technology using existing analog telephone lines.

Asynchronous Transfer Mode: data transmission technology that uses packet switching and allows for almost unlimited bandwidth on demand.

Synchronous Optical Network: an interface standard for transporting digital signals over fiber optic lines that allows users to integrate transmissions from multiple vendors.

T-Carrier System: digital transmission system that defines circuits that operate at different rates, all of which are multiples of the basic 64 Kbps user to transport a single voice call.

Network Protocols

A protocol is the set of rules and procedures governing transmission across a network.

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)  is a file transfer protocol that can send large files of information across sometimes unreliable networks with assurance that the data will arrive uncorrupted.

usually data is transferred on the internet by this process (shown in picture) 

Internet 

its wide area network that connect many computers and devices globally. Individuals can acccess the internet through :

• Internet kiosks
• Dial-up
• DSL
• Cable Modem
• Satellite
• Wireless
• Fiber to the Home 

WORLD WIDE WEB (WWW) :

A system of universally accepted standards for storing, retrieving, formatting, and displaying information via a client/server architecture.

• Home page: a text and graphical screen display that usually welcomes the user and explains the organization that has established the page.
• Uniform resource locator: the set of letters that points to the address of a specific  resource on the Web.

Domain names consist of multiple parts, separated by dots, which are red from right to left.

Top-level domain: the rightmost part of an Internet name; common top-level domains are .com, .edu, .gov     www.business.auburn.edu

Name of the company: the next section of the Internet name  www.business.auburn.edu

Name of the specific computer: the next section of the Internet name www.business.auburn.edu

Data Management..

Organizations are piled up with data that come various places and that happens almost every day. IT quiet challenging for an organization to manage this vast flood of data and that because the amount of data is increasing rapidly , this data is collected by various employees and to secure,maintain quality of this data is not an easy job.





Inspite of these challenges, the process of managing information across an organization is still carried out "Data Governance" and that is done by using a Master Data management system which stores,process,analyzes master data accurately and timely with less duplication.

The Data Base approach or Database management system is a software like microsoft access which help to avoid Data redundancy , Data isolation and Data inconsistency also Data security , Data integrity and finally Data independence.

DataBase is an organized collection of data.

1- Data Hierarchy the picture here explains how data is organized in DBMS

Data Base Design every database shall contain the following :

A- data model wich is a diagram that represents the entities in the database and their relationships.

B- Entity is a person, place, thing, or event about which information is maintained.

c-Record generally describes an entity.

d-An attribute is a particular characteristic or quality of a particular entity.

E- The primary key is a field that uniquely identifies a record.

F- Secondary keys are other field that have some identifying information but typically do not identify the file with complete accuracy.

Database designers plan the database design in a process called entity-relationship (ER) modeling. ER diagrams consists of entities, attributes and relationships. Like what shows in the picture :

Data Warehouses and Data Marts

Features of a Data warehouses and Data Marts 
Organized by business dimension or subject 
 Multidimensional Historical 
 Use online analytical processing 

Data warehouse is a repository of historical data organized by subject to support decision makers in the organization.  Historical data in data warehouses can be used for identifying trends, forecasting, and making comparisons over time. 
Online analytical processing (OLAP) involves the analysis of accumulated data by end users.
 In contrast to OLAP, online transaction processing (OLTP) typically involves a database, where data from business transactions are processed online as soon as they occur.

Example of DATA WAREHOUSE >

Multidimensional models are used to store and analyze a database , this pictures shows an example of such models :

Knowledge Management

Knowledge (that is contextual, relevant, and actionable).management is a process that helps organizations manipulate important knowledge that is part of the organization’s memory, usually in an unstructured format.

Types of Knowledge

1- Explicit knowledge: objective, rational, technical knowledge that has been documented. Examples: policies, procedural guides, reports, products.

2-Tacit knowledge: cumulative store of subjective or experiential learning.  Examples: experiences, insights, expertise, know-how.

Knowledge management systems refer to the use of information technologies to systematize, enhance, and expedite intrafirm and interfirm knowledge management.

Knowledge Management System Cycle:

Information Security

Organization in todays world are usually saturated with data bases that contain information and various people (employees , customers other businesses etc) and they are very much exposed to the various threats available in the technology world.
 Every Business of such situation shall defend information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, perusal, inspection, recording or destruction "Information Security".

What Makes an organisation vulnerable to these threats is ?
Organization are very connected through the internet nowadays thus if one got infected then other also get it too.

Hacking systems with very little knowledge in programing enabled individuals to practice such acts easily.

 Group of people who commit crime over the internet "organized crime" are widely common on the internet , "cyber crime" individuals who do crime over the internet are also been taken over by organized crime.

Organizations and individuals are now exposed to many untrusted networks.

Human Mistakes or whats called "Unintentional Threats "
Cost companies significant losses of information and money.

The most dangerous employees are those in human resources and MIS.  HR employees have access to sensitive personal data on all employees. MIS employees not only have access to sensitive personal data, but also control the means to create, store, transmit, and modify these data.
Any bad employee intentions or a simple mistake such as performing careless internet surfing while operating on a PC which contain this information will easily cause information losses.
 Tailgating is also a big threat to those staff who operate on valuable things such as safe boxes.
Social engineering a common threat to organization employees. The link here demonstrates it

Moving on to the other category of threats which are intentional attacks to companies.

The following are some types of these attacks : 

1- Espionage or trespass this is when an unauthorized individual attempts to gain illegal access to organizational information.
  2-Identity theft the intentional assumption of another persons identity , usually to gain access to his/her financial information or to frame a person to crime
3- Sabotage or vandalism it the act of defacing an organizations website possibly causing the organization to lose its image or confidence by its customers.
  4-Software attacks sending malicious software to an organization computer system. Eg: viruses , trojan horse etc.

Organisations protect them self from these threats

By implementing mitigation strategies or risk management.  Speaking of the the mitigation strategies the general guidelines for applying risk mitigation handling options are shown in the picture at the right .
These options are based on the assessed combination of the probability of occurrence and severity of the consequence for an identified risk. These guidelines are appropriate for many, but not all, projects and programs.

Informations Security Control types are 

Physical controls. Physical protection of computer facilities and resources.

Access controls. Restriction of unauthorized user access to computer resources; use biometrics and passwords controls for user identification.

Communications (network) controls.  To protect the movement of data across networks and include border security controls, authentication and authorization.


 In conclusion since the networks we are connected through are filled with such kinds of threats , businesses should take a lot of precautions and give attentions to protect them selfs from these risks.

What's right or wrong ?!

In the business world , various organization perform vast number of activities and operations dealing with the society, business partners the governments and other countries too.  Now all of these activities need to be carried out based on some guidelines or principles.

From this context the title statement can be justified , this statement is a definition of something called Ethics.
Ethics are those principles and guidelines that help an organization employees to take decisions on whats right and whats wrong in terms of the different activities they carry out on daily bases.


Many people in mix up between ethics and law ,where not any thing unethical is illegal.
For example not giving people the chance to cross the road on non zebra line is not illegal but ethical and vice versa.


 As an organization there is a simple process of decision making of ethical matters. This process consist of 8 steps as illustrated in the picture here.

A good point to make is that there there 4 general ethical approaches/definitions :
1- Utilitarian approach > which defines ethics as actions that yield the most good or the lest harm.
2- rights approach > An ethical action is the one that best respects & protects the moral rights of the effected party who can be a customer , employee or company.
3- Fairness Approach > It states that human beings should be treated equally if not equally then fairly based on defensible standards.
 4- Common good approach > ethical actions are based on respect and compasion or welfare for everyone in the society.

Ethics in an organization : Every organization has to develop a document of  " Code of Ethics ".
This document assist members in understanding the difference between 'right' and 'wrong' and in applying that understanding to their decisions in their workplace relevant activities.

The basic principles that should be available in any ethical guide are responsibility , accountability and liability.

  Relating ethics with information technology its found that as technology advances , more ethical issues are raised.
For instance privacy issues which are concerned with individual's data that is obtained,stored and processed by an organization.     Another area of issue would be the accuracy or authenticity of the information stored/used by the organization , who can access this information. So such kind of issues are increasing as more organizations are turning automated due to cheap,easy IT solutions options available to them.

Emphasizing on an exclusive topic which is the PRIVACY. 

Now a days individuals argue regarding the extent to which an organisation can obtain,store data about public in its databases "information privacy" , however legally the user's privacy is not absolute , as in some situations "privacy" of a person must be balanced against the needs of the society.   You cant be always left alone without being asked or approached to give away information.

 In this highly advanced technology era , a users privacy is subjected to some threats like exposing you personal information on the internet through your social media networks, or some un visible electronic suveillance performers who track your browsing history and movements over the internet.

 This link bellow is a video interview with Scott Taylor, chief privacy officer in Hewlett-Packard company where he will speak about privacy and how his company tackles this topic. 

IT can produce goods and services ?!!

Information technology and systems have been very much improving to the extent that nowadays business processes are carried out by automated devices.

But the question is what's a business process ?

Its defined as a set of activities and tasks that, once completed, will accomplish an organizational goal. The process must involve clearly defined inputs and a single output. These inputs are made up of all of the factors which contribute (either directly or indirectly) to the added value of a service or product. These factors can be categorized into management processes, operational processes and supporting processes. Usually in medium sized organization you would find more than one function is involved in the process , this is called as cross-functional business process.

A very important term to be mentioned in this context is Business process management (BPM) .
Its Defined as a systematic approach to making an organization's workflow more effective, more efficient and more capable of adapting to an ever-changing environment.

The following link a a video that explains a Business Process Sample using a Flow Chart.

Every Business is surrounded by an environment that consist of a social, legal, economic, physical, and political factors that affect business activities. Significant changes in any of these factor are likely to create business pressure on the organization.
The three types of business pressures faced are: market, technology, and societal pressures.

1-Market Pressure : They comprise of the global economy , competitiveness customer power and changing nature of the workforce. Customer power influence business activity because they can always buy elsewhere , the wide variety of products and their prices over the internet forms a tangible threat to the businesses.
Workforce also impose risk on the companies as people with disabilities needed to be employed, mothers when giving birth , diversified employee platform. These are all pressures that effect the business work process.

Globalization a very common term that we hear now a days and its said that it helps at the same time effects the businesses negatively. Its defined as the shift toward a more integrated and interdependent world economy.

According to Thomas Fried Man globalization was divided into three stages/ages.

Stage one (1492 to 1800) here every country tried to excelle and deploy steam power,muscle power and horse power

Stage two (from 1800 to 2000) The driver of globalization was multinational companies and reduced transportation cost in addition more improved telecommunication methods , smart phones , fiber optics and such innovations evolved.

Stage three (from 2000 to the present) markets became more economically free and away from planned economies , net access became free in 1995 , BPM was developed , outsourcing and offshoring activities started to appear.

2- Technology Pressures which consisted of the rapid technological Innovation and Obsolescence which enforces businesses to constantly update their products. Another technological pressure is the Information Overload on the internet to the consumers and managers.

3-Societal Pressures comprise of corporate social responsibility , code of ethics and un environmental friendly activities. Political crisis and terrorism.

The following are some of the responses organizations performed towards the above pressures :

• Strategic Systems provide advantages that enable organizations to increase market share and/or profits.
• Customer Focus is the difference between attracting and keeping customers by providing superb customer service to losing them to competitors. 
• Make-to-Order is a strategy of producing customized products and services. 
• Mass Customization is producing a large quantity of items, but customizing them to fit the desire of each customer. 
• E-business and E-commerce Buying and selling products and services electronically. 

 Every Business needs to have an advantage over competitors in some measure such as cost, quality, or speed, leads to control of a market and to larger- than average profits , this is called Competitive Advantage.

Micheal Porter a scientist that developed a model of the threats to competitivness of an organization. The picture here shows of of these forces.

We are The digital Nomads.

In introduction to the course, It first explained how much now a days the society is attached to the technology and using it in their daily life activity , weather it was a smartphone for communication purposes or it was a network within an organization to connect 7 floors building to a single hub.
 In regards to organizations since the course is given to commerce students , throughout this blog the focus will be on businesses and how do they use this technology advancement in their operations.

 Information system "IS" a very common phrase we hear much , but what do it means actually.
Its a system that collects,processes,stores,analyzes and disseminates Information which then is used by an organization employees to perform their tasks within and outside the workplace.

Many people fall in a mistake of mixing between terms like Data Information Knowledge. Data are items of various numbers,letter,symbols that are unmeaningful usually stored from various business transactions and activities. Where Information is defines and organizes the data items to a meaningful manner such as addresses,ages,names or other classifications.

Finally knowledge is organized & processed information to convey understanding, experience, accumulated learning and expertise as they apply to a current problem or activity.

Types of IS:

The triangle here shows the various types of information system within an organization Starting from the top of the triangle , the first two systems are used by the top management in a company , "MIS" is the center which manages the other systems of the organization such as "Interorganizational information systems , Expert systems , Dashboards and many other. As we go to the wide part of the triangle we come across "Office support system" these are systems the are found in each department of a company such as Accounting system and so on. It also includes a "Enterprise resource planning system" which acts as a network between various systems. Lastly the "Transactional information system" this specific system is employee friendly it likes a forum of entry and recording of various business activities Eg's Barcode Scanners and so on.

IT impact on the business:

• IT reduces the number of middle managers.
•  IT changes the manager’s job i.e less paper work , no need to physically move towards employees , they use online means to obtain knowledge)
•  IT impacts employees at work , as it made many of their communications and tasks easier.
•  IT and IS has made our life's so much easier than it was before.

The following link is documentary the show how much robots have been penetrating our life.