© 2008 Dr. Paul Walcott – The University of the West Indies: Cave Hill CampusDr. Paul Walcott COMP3115 Information Systems Session 8: E-Business Strategy: Architecture and Design – Part II Dr. Paul Walcott Spring 2007/ © 2008 Dr. Paul Walcott – The University of the West Indies: Cave Hill Campus

Dr. Paul Walcott Session Objectives Describe the use of ICT in e-Business Evaluate business process performance

© 2008 Dr. Paul Walcott – The University of the West Indies: Cave Hill CampusDr. Paul Walcott Introduction In this session we will be taking a look at e-business and finding out:  Some of the ICT used in e-Business, for example Intranets  How to evaluate the performance of business processes

© 2008 Dr. Paul Walcott – The University of the West Indies: Cave Hill CampusDr. Paul Walcott Intranets More businesses are turning to Intranets to cut cost (Laudon & Laudon 2005)  Intranets help to integrate internal business processes

© 2008 Dr. Paul Walcott – The University of the West Indies: Cave Hill CampusDr. Paul Walcott Intranets Cont’d Benefits of Intranets include (Laudon & Laudon 2005):  Accessibility – connecting from any location  Connectivity – can be connected to the pre- existing systems in the company  Scalability – Can be scaled as required

© 2008 Dr. Paul Walcott – The University of the West Indies: Cave Hill CampusDr. Paul Walcott Intranets Cont’d  Usability – ease of use  Low cost – to implement / cost savings in document distribution (e.g. over paper documents)  Rich information content – including text, video and sound An Intranet can be used by collaborating groups at a distance  To share documents and ideas

© 2008 Dr. Paul Walcott – The University of the West Indies: Cave Hill CampusDr. Paul Walcott Intranets Cont’d Examples of Intranet applications for e- Business include:  Finance and accounting – integrated online  Human resources – publish policies, job postings and forms  Sales and marketing – staff can connect for price updates and special promotions

© 2008 Dr. Paul Walcott – The University of the West Indies: Cave Hill CampusDr. Paul Walcott Using ICT for Business Functions There are several benefits of doing business electronically (Gordon & Gordon, 2004):  Reduced transaction cost Cost of paper, postage, reduced inventory holding cost  Increase the speed of business Product production and delivery

© 2008 Dr. Paul Walcott – The University of the West Indies: Cave Hill CampusDr. Paul Walcott Using ICT for Business Functions Cont’d Conduct business anywhere at anytime Improve workflows  Replace paper with electronic documents (workflow software connects business processes in the value chain together) Reduce errors and improve quality  No retyping of information, quality checks on electronic information

© 2008 Dr. Paul Walcott – The University of the West Indies: Cave Hill CampusDr. Paul Walcott Business Performance Variables Output Rate  The amount of completed work (output) per unit time Activity Rate  “the number of interim steps performed per unit time (Alter, 2002)” Consistency  “applying the same techniques in the same way to obtain the same desired result (Alter, 2002)”

© 2008 Dr. Paul Walcott – The University of the West Indies: Cave Hill CampusDr. Paul Walcott Business Performance Variables Cont’d Productivity  “relationship between the amount of output produced by a business process and the amount of money, time and effort it consumes (Alter, 2002)” This is measured in units of output per labour hour or dollar sales per month Cycle time  the length of time between the start and end of a process

© 2008 Dr. Paul Walcott – The University of the West Indies: Cave Hill CampusDr. Paul Walcott Business Performance Variables Cont’d Downtime  The amount of time that the process is out of operation Security  How susceptible is the business process to unauthorised use, sabotage or criminal activity

© 2008 Dr. Paul Walcott – The University of the West Indies: Cave Hill CampusDr. Paul Walcott Conclusions In this session we discussed  The importance of intranets to e-business  The benefits of using ICT for business functions  Business process performance variables

© 2008 Dr. Paul Walcott – The University of the West Indies: Cave Hill CampusDr. Paul Walcott References Alter, Steven Information Systems: The Foundations of E- Business. 4 th Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Gordon, Steven, R. and Judith R. Gordon Information Systems: A Management Approach. 3 rd Edition, Wiley. Laudon, Kenneth, C., Jane, P. Laudon Essentials of Management Information Systems: Management the Digital Firm. 6 th Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall