E-Business: Issues and Challenges with Implemetation

Introduction                                          

The commercialization of the internet and the seemingly insatiable thirst for obtaining a competitive advantage has created a global demand for the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in managing businesses. Organizations continue to invest heavily in implementing new technologies hoping it will transcend to greater market share and increase in profit.

Defining Key Concepts

• Electronic Business:

The term E-business (Electronic Business) involves the use of technological infrastructures and applications to synthesize and optimize new and existing business processes (Payne, 2001). E-business involves several innovative technological applications that help enhance the competiveness of a corporation and its relationship with its stakeholders. It includes activities like buying and selling, servicing customers, collaborating with business partners, and conducting electronic transactions within an organisation (Feng, 2007). The extent of the application of E-business Technology almost limitless, as it cuts across different business functions, ranging from inventory control, marketing, accounting, human resource, operations, sales, product development, profit analysis and market forecasting. Many companies have now recognized the power, convenience, and world-wide reach of electronic networks and have employed it use in their businesses, IBM, Amazon, and Wal-Mart are good examples.



• E-Commerce:

E-commerce (Electronic Commerce), although interchangeably used with E-business, E-commerce has a peculiar meaning of its own. The UK Cabinet in 2009 defined E-commerce as “the exchange of information across electronic networks at any stage within the supply chain”. It involves all electronic exchange of data between an organization and its stakeholders as well as technology infrastructure and applications used to support these transactions. (Payne, 2001). It is basically carrying out commercial activities electronically, and is best considered a sub-sect of E-business. E-commerce transactions can be classified into either buy-side e-commerce or sell-side e-commerce.

• Management Strategies & Technology

The above phrase refers to the plan a management has in regard to the application of technological solutions in the course of running a firm, it includes processes such as controlling, leading, monitoring, organizing, and planning. According to Johnson and Scholes(1999), e-business strategy is,

“the direction and scope of an organization over the long-term; which achieves advantage for the organization through its configuration of resources within a changing environment to meet the needs of markets and to fulfill stakeholder expectations.”

To be effective, a management strategy must identify the key needs and issues within the organisation, and provide a framework for addressing the inherent problems.

The E-Business Matrix

E-business technology has evolved so much that it can be implemented in different business segments. The diagram below shows the different classifications of commercial activities where e-business solutions can be implemented as well as providing examples.

Issues with Implementing E Business Technology

In implementing either a new form of e-business technology, or amend an existing one, there are several technological and business issues companies consider, some of which include:

• Security & Fraud: Relatively, ICT platforms are very susceptible to security issues. Hacking, stealing confidential information and disruption of operations are quite common. Businesses will definitely consider this issue a priority when implementing E-business technology.

• Cost and uncertainty of cost: Corporations are often bothered about the cost implications or the uncertainty on what the eventual cost of implementation would be.

• The Company’s business strategy: E-business technologies are implemented in tandem with a corporations business strategy, hence a crucial issue for consideration bother on what the company’s business strategy is, and how e-business can facilitate the ultimate goal of the strategy.

• Potential for Business Growth: Companies are bound to question the benefit accruable to their organization, if the e-business solution is successfully implemented. Does it improve the business? Or provide better revenue?

• Man-power concerns: Another major issue is whether the company has adequate human resource and skill to implement the E-business technology.

• Legal and Governmental restrictions: One paramount issue to be considered is the legality of implementing such technology. Are there any restrictions placed by government? Are the privacy or consumer protection issues involved? Breaching such regulation may have dire repercussions for corporations and its stakeholders.

• Maintenance & Support: Another issue is whether a company is able to obtain adequate maintenance and support after implementation? Any organization implementing E-business Strategies would consider this an issue.

• Simplifying Processes/Increase Efficiency/Reliability: An issue for consideration is how much efficiency, simplification of processes and reliability a corporation can place on a new e-business solution.

• Compatibility or Interoperability: Before adopting new e-business technology, companies would consider how compatible the new system is with other complimentary systems. The more compatible it is, the better for the company implementing the new solution.

• Impact and risk on existing system: Another major issue for consideration is what the effects of implementing a new e-business strategy have on the existing system. Some time, introducing a new system can expose the business to a lot of risk.

• Parameters for judging Success: One key issue on implementation relates to the factors in which a business will use to evaluate how successful it has been in the implementation of E-business.

When is an E-business Solution Successful?

It is not sufficient for a company to implement a new E-business strategy; corporations must also have a detailed system for reviewing the success of the implemented technology, in consonance with its business objectives. Intermediary websites or analytic tools can be used to measure performance (Chaffey, 41, 2007). Outlined below are some parameters used to examine the degree of success of an E-business solution are:

 Compatibility with business strategic objectives: When an e-business solution is functioning in compatibility with the business objective of accompany, it’s likely to be deemed more successful than otherwise.

 Has the E-business solution achieved its aims? : E-business solutions are adopted for specific purposes, the can be deemed successful if they achieve the purpose for which they were created.

 Maximal performance with minimal risk: An E-business technology that performs maximally at minimal risk could also be considered successful.

 Ease to use: Some E-business solution can be considered successful if they help simplify processes and are less cumbersome to use.

The Business Risk of Implementing New E-Business Technology

Implementing new e-business solutions or amending existing portends some risks to businesses, some of which are:

• Wrongful Implementing E-business Technology: By implementing wrong or defective E-business technology, companies may suffer financial and reputational loss.

• Cyber Crime and E-Fraud risks: By implementing E-business solutions, a company, and its customers are more exposed to the risk of being victims of cybercrime (Chaffey 2007). Businesses have the onus of ensuring a secured E-environment.

• Poor Customer Experience/Complexity: E-business technology can sometimes be too complex or not customer oriented, the business risk here, is a reduction in patronage, or more mistakes in the conduct of processes.

• Infrastructure Risk: By implementing new E-business processes, corporations sometimes expose their infrastructure to external threats, physical and otherwise. Viruses, worms, and other means of sabotage are examples.

• Loss of Man-power: E-business environments are flexible, innovative, and often with an empowered workforce. Such environments make “employee poaching” a regular figure. (David Smith, 29 November 2000)

• Damage to an organization’s reputation: When e-business processes fail, the result is a dent in the public image of the company. (David Smith, 29 November 2000)

• Changing Business Strategic: Implementing new e-business technology can make business more susceptible to changing their business strategies in order to accommodate new e-business solutions. The risk is inherent in the instability, as strategies continue to change.

• Late delivery or incomplete transactions: A failed E-business process may lead to late deliveries or incomplete transactions, and this is a risk that threatens the success of any organization.

The Cultural Challenges

There are several cultural challenges to the implementation of e-business; while some are from internal processes, others are external i.e. between organizations and external stakeholders or end users. Some cultural challenges are outlined below:

• It is not unusual for staff in an organization to resent the implementation of E-business solutions because they are use to a specific work-culture, and do not want to change the organizational culture of doing business in a different way. (Tucker, Younis, and Shalaby 2002)

• The non-localization of websites or some e-business processes is another barrier; the rationale is that different communities have peculiar languages, cultural beliefs, and behavioral pattern. The more general an e-business process is, the more culturally challenging it is for the end-users. (Chaffey, 2007).

• Having and understanding a virtual reality experience is crucial to the successful implementation of an e-business technology. Some cultural beliefs encourage more confidence in business processes that are tangible, hence creating a barrier to the adoption of e-business.

• It is not rare to have some apathy towards the introduction of new e-business technology because of previous failures, inadequate education or reliability issues. A good example is the present payment system in most third-world countries, where the culture of payment, is principally cash-based, not because of an absence of credit cards or online presence, but majorly because of an absence of trust. (Tucker, Younis, and Shalaby 2002)

• In some societies and organizations, those on the older divide of the generation gap find it a little to grasp the intricacies of e-business; hence they have more resentment to adopting it.

• There are cultural misgivings in some societies (particularly third world countries), that e-business processes are only for the rich and extravagant, and this belief has affected the implementation of e-business negatively. Implementing E-business processes in such environments would be considerably difficult Grover, Segars & Durand (1994).

• According to Pahladsingh (March 2006), 80% of the world’s internet content is in English, while half of the world’s internet users cannot comprehend the English language. The presence of different languages further compounds the cultural complexity of E-business.

Most of these cultural barriers can be tackled with better education, improved infrastructure and greater emphases on the benefits of E-businesses.

Management Strategies as a Panacea

In order to be “on top of their game”, company implementing E-business solutions, must ensure that management strategies are tailored to help minimize risk and maximize the capabilities of the technology.

Management must ensure that it develops a customer-oriented strategy, where the customer remains the core focus of the business. Managing customers appropriately is crucial to the success of every business, understanding their needs, and channeling the business functions and processes in that direction is crucial to the success of the e-business implementation.

The core essence of every strategy is to add value, Chaffey and Wood (2004) provide some areas where value can be enhanced:

A. Customer and Markets

B. Cost Reduction

C. Innovation (creating new reality) e.g. new products, services and business ideas.

D. Reduce or Manage Risk.

To be successful, management strategy must be clear and definite. Greater emphases should be stressed on adequate training of staff, and effective management techniques. Firms must also be proactive about their strategy and ensure that it is passed down to staff, this is done through emphases on the businesses vision, mission statement, general orientation and ideology.

Additionally, it suggested that E-business technologies are implemented gradually, rather than introducing it abruptly. Control groups can be used to control the unintended influence implementing e-business innovations

Conclusion

The growth of E-businesses in the next decade appears to be tremendous. However, to be an effective business tool, it must be properly implemented, with much adherence paid to risk reduction, effective customer management and profit maximization.

Dell unveils Android-based Mini 3 smartphone

On friday the 13th of November, Dell announced that it's ready to enter the smartphone business with the Android-based Mini 3.


Long rumored to have such a device in the works, Dell said that the first two carriers to sell the Mini 3 will be China Mobile and Brazil's Claro.

The Mini 3 will apparently use OPhone, China Mobile's customized version of Google's Android operating system. "We are excited for Dell to be among the first manufacturers to introduce new technology based on the OPhone platform," an unnamed China Mobile representative said in Dell's press release.

We've got a call out to Dell to seek clarification on the operating system software.

Dell did not provide technical specifications or pricing information for the phone, saying those would be revealed when the device arrives in stores--probably late November for China Mobile and by year's end for Claro. It also did not say when the phone would arrive in the U.S. or other markets.

Michael Tatelman, a Dell sales and marketing executive, told the Associated Press that the phone has a 3.5-inch high-definition touch screen. The Mini 3 sold in China won't have Wi-Fi at the start, but Tatelman said that would come later.

Similarly, Apple's iPhone just made its official debut in China sans Wi-Fi.

China Mobile has more than 500 million customers, and Claro serves more than 42 million people in Brazil as part of the America Movil network, Dell said.

Dell did tout its "existing agreements with other leading global telecom providers," including Vodafone in Europe; AT&T and Verizon in the U.S.; M1 and Starhub in Singapore; and Maxis in Malaysia.

The Texas-based PC maker also played up the Internet connectivity angle of small mobile gadgetry.

"Our entry into the smartphone category is a logical extension of Dell's consumer product evolution over the past two years," Ron Garriques, president of the Dell Global Consumer Group, said in a statement. "We are developing smaller and smarter mobile products that enable our customers to take their Internet experience out of the home and do the things they want to do whenever and wherever they want."

But does the world need a smartphone from Dell? The device will have plenty of company: Android phones have begun arriving on the market in larger numbers in recent months.

Most notably, U.S. carrier Verizon Wireless last week began selling the much-hyped Droid, made by Motorola, and the more modest Droid Eris, made by HTC.

Culled from Cnet.com

If AT&T is Coca-Cola, Google is 7-UP

Google is set to become your new phone company, perhaps reducing your phone bill to zilch in the process.

Google has bought Gizmo5, an online phone company that is akin to Skype  but based on open protocols and with a lot fewer users. TechCrunch, which broke the news on Monday, reported that Google spent $30 million on the company.

Google announced the Gizmo acquisition on Thursday afternoon Pacific Time. Gizmo5's founder Michael Robertson, a brash serial entrepreneur, will become an Adviser to Google Voice.

It's a potent recipe -- take Gizmo5's open standards-based online calling system. Add to it the new ability to route calls on Google's massive network of cheap fiber. Toss in Google Voice's free phone number, which will ring your mobile phone, your home phone and your Gizmo5 client on your laptop. ÿþ

Meanwhile you can use Gizmo5 to make ultracheap outgoing calls to domestic and international phone numbers, and free calls to Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo and AIM users. You could make and receive calls that bypass the per-minute billing on your smartphone.

Then layer on deluxe phone services like free SMS, voicemail transcription, customized call routing, free conference calls and voicemails sent as recordings to your e-mail account, and you have a phone service that competes with Skype, landlines and the Internet telephone offerings from Vonage and cable companies.

That's not just pie in-the-sky dreaming.

Ask longtime VOIP watcher and consultant Andy Abramson, who introduced the idea of integrating Gizmo5 and Grand Central (now Google Voice), long before Google bought either.

"If AT&T is Coca-Cola, Google is now 7-UP"

"Google is now the the uncommon carrier," Abramson said, punning on the iconic 7-UP commercials and the phrase "common carrier." That refers to phone companies that operate on the traditional publicly switched network -- a status that gives them benefits and obligations.

"If AT&T is Coca-Cola, Google is now 7-UP," Abramson added.

"All of a sudden you have something that offers more than Skype," Abramson said, saying the combo could now put Google in competition with phone and cable companies, IP "telephony" (VOIP) companies and Vonage. "But now you can do everything with Google and pay nothing and have a platform where engineers can build new things."

In fact, Gizmo5 offered a rogue version of that service for $6 a month until last week.

On November 2, Gizmo5 abruptly canceled the two-month old "residential service," which paired the free phone number available through Google Voice with Gizmo's Internet calling service to provide the equivalent of a home-phone replacement like Vonage.

Now, that service has been wiped off the Internet and, more intriguingly, Google's cache of the page disappeared the day after the acquisition was reported.

For $6 a month, Gizmo5 residential users got 300 minutes a month of outbound calling anywhere in the United States, unlimited incoming calls on their home computers or even home phones (using a broadband-to-phone network conversion box) and E911 service (which means 911 calls work like landlines calls do, once you register your home address).

It's not too surprising that offer got taken down.

For one Google is already trying to steer clear of U.S. regulators by making it clear that Google Voice isn't a replacement for a home phone since you have to have phone service from some other company to use it. You can forward calls from a Google Voice number to your Gizmo5 number, but you must have a mobile or landline number as well.

Google doesn't say it, but clearly it hopes that restriction will keep the service from incurring the common carrier obligations attached to the regular phone system (PSTN), and the 911 and wiretapping requirements that apply to Internet telephony and to traditional copper wire phones.

AT&T has already tried to sic federal regulators on Google Voice because Google is blocking outgoing calls to a handful of shady calling services  mostly free conference-calling services that exploit federal rules that let rural phone companies charge high fees to connect calls to rural areas.

AT&T itself has sued similar services that play this arbitrage game, and complaining to the feds may have only brought more attention to an issue the FCC has procrastinating fixing for too long.

Gizmo5 will also help save Google money on phone-call termination fees as users start to use computer-based clients to connect to Google Voice. That would allow Google to recoup the purchase price of $30 million in little time, if only it saves even a few dollars per user per year.

Google also gets Michael Robertson, a troublemaker with technical chops. Robertson made millions from MP3.com in the dot-com boom, despite drawing lawsuits from major record labels for creating innovative services. He was later sued by Microsoft for his startup Lindows, which made Linux installations for cheap PCs. And his current music venture, MP3tunes.com, is being sued by EMI.

Though still in invite-only mode, Google Voice has about 580,000 active users and nearly 1.5 million registered users, according to a Google filing with the FCC.

If you are interested in the combination, you might want to sign up for Gizmo5 before the acquisition is formally announced, since Google often freezes new registrations at companies it acquires until it figures out how to integrate the technology.

Having Problems Connecting To Businesses? Experience the ease of GOOG-411!

GOOG-411 (or Google Voice Local Search) is a telephone service from Google that allows users to make a business search in any U.S. or Canadian city by calling a toll-free telephone number. Released by Google Labs in September 2007, the service uses speech recognition technology to connect users to their desired business. Users who call the toll-free telephone numbers 1-800-466-4411 or 1-877-466-4411 (1-800-GOOG-411, 1-877-GOOG-411), or the local number 1-425-296-4774, are told that the call is being recorded to improve results, and then asked to say the city and state of the sought business. Although Google’s FAQ states that users may prevent their phone number from being saved by blocking their caller-ID, this is ineffective when calling the 800 number and only works when calling the other two.

Users may then search for the business by name or category, which generates a list of up to 8 businesses matching the search. Users may then select a business on the list by speaking or pressing the number that corresponds to the business. Once a business is selected, Google automatically connects the user to the business or sends an SMS with the phone number. Alternatively, users can listen to the address and phone number by saying “details”. U.S. users may narrow search results by zip code or street intersection.

Search can also be invoked by using the phone keys if the user prefers. This works in a similar manner to predictive text input on a cellular phone.

Because GOOG-411 is offered to the public free of charge and does not contain advertising, users have questioned the business model behind the service. Google has stated that the company originally implemented GOOG-411 to build a large phoneme database from users' voice queries. This phoneme database, in turn, will allow Google engineers to refine and improve the speech recognition engine that Google uses to index audio content for searching.

This is definately a great communication tool from google. Bravo Google!

40 Sources of Wealth on the Internet

I was surfing the net for means of making money online and discovered some information from www.dumblittleman.com. It includes information on how to make money doing paid surveys, surfing the internet, contest sites, writing blogs,and selling software legitimately and using Adsense: I have outlined these gold nuggets below:

Infolinks - Infolinks is probably the highest paying option for your in-text advertising. On DLM, you will see underlined links scattered throughout articles. Those are a function of Infolinks and without disclosing too much, it's been a great source of income. Best is that they accept all sizes of websites and blogs. Just sign up and begin.



Build a Niche Store - This is a simple store development platform which enables you to create content based sites that generate income through the eBay affiliate programs. Pretty darn simple and increasingly popular.



Adbrite - Sell space on your site for text ads. This would work like the DLM Marketplace you see on the right of my pages although I chose to manage it myself.


Amazon Affiliate Program - Easily create a store or shopping section on your site instead of sending your visitors to Amazon. Amazon handles the shopping cart and fulfillment.


Amazon Seller - Sell your stuff on Amazon


Associated Content - If you write a story, how-to, rant, how-to cut grass, etc., you can submit it to them and they will pay you $3-$20 per article if they like it.



Yahoo! Merchant Solutions - This is a pretty simple and cheap way to create an online store.



Azoogleads - Another ad program. They do have some decent companies lined up as advertisers. You provide space, they'll provide an ad.


BidVertiser - PPC (pay per click) program with a low $10 payout amount.



Blog - Start a blog and consistently write excellent content. With good ad placement, you may make some money. I detail my process here: Simply Said, How to Blog.



Cafepress - You provide a design, they'll toss it on a T-Shirt, Hat, etc. No upfront costs. Get a free online shop and promote your products on your website.


Chitika - Their eMiniMalls service has shown great results for many Bloggers and site owners. You choose a keyword and they show relevant products on your site using a pretty unique interface.


Clickbank - Quickly becoming my favorite affiliate program. They have thousands of things for you to advertise on your site.



ClicknWork - Get paid $5-$150 per hour for basically doing freelance work on a per-assignment basis. You have to pass a pretty tough test to get in.


Clicksor - These are the guys that generate contextual ads on sites that show up when you hover over a double-underlined word.


Commission Junction - If you have a site, you can join Commission Junction. Once enrolled for free, you can choose companies whose ads are pertinent to your site. Companies have the ultimate say on working with you. There are easily over 1,000 companies to choose from here.


CreamAid - For blogs only, advertisers provide you with a topic and you write about it on your site. To do this, you have to install a flash widget into your blog post. The more people you bring into the conversation through the widget, the more you get paid. It's difficult to explain.


eefoof - Think of it as YouTube + Flickr + Music. You add original content and they pay you based on the visitors you attract.


Ether - If you are an expert on something, Ether provides a way for people to pay you to talk about it in a one-on-one setting. If you want to charge $250/hr, that's fine. You have to do all the advertising so you should have a blog or site already established.


eBay- Come on, you know what this is. Gather your junk and sell it!


eBay Stores - If you have a real store and want to sell your stuff online, this is a decent option to get you started.



ELance - Name gives it away. Programmers, Codes, Web Designers, Writers, Editors, can look for freelance opportunities.


Feedvertising - This is an arm of Text Link Ads and is currently only good for Wordpress 2.0 Users. This does me no good currently, but as you can guess, they place ads in your feed(s).



Feedburner / Google - Not only are they the best place to house your feeds, they will also add ads to your feed and website. You get paid per impression and if you implement Google Adsense to your feed, you are paid per click.



Google Adsense - Come on, you don't need an explanation; these ads are all over the place. Google displays relevant ads based on your site's content


Google Adwords - Create simple text ads and choose keywords that determine when they are displayed. This is where the Adsense Content comes from. You do not need a site for this.


H3.com - Get paid to fill jobs. Commissions range from $50-$5,000. It all depends on how tough the job is to fill and how desperate the hiring company is. This is another one that's tough to explain.



Indeed.com - Add their job board to your site. They then post jobs based on the geographic location of visitors and the position types you pre-select. I tried it and I they continually report that I sent 0 visitors and I know that's not right. Nevertheless, I may have an isolated problem so they make the list.



InnerSell - If you have a customer that wants to buy something you cannot sell, you can sell the lead here.



Jigsaw - It's a pretty flaky model but if you have a Rolodex full of good contacts, you can sell them here. I can't make sense of it but it looks like you get $0.10 per profile.


LinkShare.com - If you have a site, you can join Linkshare. Once enrolled for free, you can choose companies whose ads are pertinent to your site. Companies have the ultimate say on working with you. Like Commission Junction, there are a ton of companies waiting to evaluate your site.


Microsoft Adcenter - Bid on keywords and Microsoft places your created ads then they are searched for. This is similar to Google Adwords. You do not need a site for this.


Overstock.com - Sell your stuff on Overstock.com


Pay Per Post - I don't agree with this model entirely but they have advertisers that will pay you to write about their products on your blog.


Pheedo - If you have an RSS feed, run it through Pheedo. Like Feedburner, they can include ads into your feed and if you really become large, advertisers will pay a premium for you to show their ads.


Shareasale.com - I've never really worked with them but I do have an account. They are similar to Commission Junction and Linkshare however they seem to have lower tiered companies with advertising offers.


Shoemoney - This is a blog that can teach you a ton on making money online. I've spent hours reading his old stuff.


Software Judge - They will pay you up to $50 to review software.


Text Link Ads - I have never made a dime here but I know people that have. You can earn by sending advertisers to them or by selling spots on your site. You must have a real site or blog to do this - nothing on a shared domain (i.e. /blogspot).



Vibrant Media - Don't bother unless your site has 500,000 page views of text based content a month. If you have that readership, these are the guys that display bubble box ads to underlined words on your site.


West Work At Home Agent - Not entirely online but this is worth a mention because it's won awards and is very legitimate. If you are an at-home Mom or free-lancer without work, you should check this out.