Information systems and management in business Chapter 2 Electronic Business and Business Mobility

2.2 Electronic Business Overview  What is Electronic Business (E-Biz)?  Many definitions exist  Example  Using the Internet and associated technologies - platform  Improve the productivity or profitability of a business - goals

2.2 Electronic Business Overview  Electronic Business deployment strategies  Greatly enhanced with proliferation of the Internet and associated technologies  Three deployment strategies exist  Electronic commerce (e commerce)  Inter-organizational collaboration  Collaboration and information sharing and exchanging within the private domain of a business – internal business collaboration

2.2 Electronic Business Overview  The Internet as a mainstream E-Biz Enabler  The Internet offers many E-Biz enabling features  Use Public Networking Infrastructure and Standard Protocols  None proprietary communication protocols – TCP/IP, HTTP, etc..  Communication takes place regardless of underlying hardware or operating systems  Standard and none proprietary file transfer protocols - FTP  Ease of Use  personal computer (PC) or a notebook fitted with a modem and client software (browser) – all is needed

2.2 Electronic Business Overview  The Internet as a mainstream E-Biz Enabler  The Internet offers many E-Biz enabling features  Ease of Access  Home access requires DSL or dialup modem  A connection to a service provider (ISP)  Emergence of E business supporting technologies  Digital signature, digital notarization, electronic payments and audit trails

2.2 Electronic Business Overview  The Internet as a mainstream E-Biz Enabler  The Internet offers many E-Biz enabling features  Emergence of solutions to electronic business security challenges  Firewalls, encryption, authentication and virtual private networks (VPNs)

2.2 Electronic Business Overview  The Internet as a mainstream E-Biz Enabler  Emergence of data-driven dynamic Web sites  Originally the Internet technologies were only able to support static Web sites  Involve the collection and delivery of HTML pages (site contents)  Data-driven dynamic Web sites  Now can be economically constructed and securely accessed – example: online banking  Create contents which are dynamically determined and based upon the user’s input

2.2 Electronic Business Overview  Electronic Business Models  Business to business (B2B)  business is transacted between two or more businesses  Business to consumers (B2C)  Business is transacted between business and its customers  Consumers to consumers (C2C)  Customers doing business among each other

2.2 Electronic Business Overview  The E-Biz Challenges  From a business perspective  Creating an efficient, productive and secure e business opportunity  Five key issues needed to be explored and planned for  Objectives  Security and privacy  Potential for losing business and customers  Building the right infrastructure  Training

2.3 Electronic commerce  Electronic commerce - e commerce  Definition  The ability for people to get services or purchase products from businesses over the Internet (online)

2.3 Electronic commerce  Electronic Commerce Models and Examples  There exist a number of electronic commerce orientated business models  Examples: Advertising, Subscription, Community, Directs, Auctions  Comparison Model  Gaining wide appeal and popularity  Involves the provision of providing a service based on other businesses services or products  Web services are a technology that plays a major role in its functionality

2.3 Electronic commerce  E Commerce Sites General Architecture  Generally the Key components of an e commerce set up  Web server  Apache and Microsoft Internet information services (IIS) – Widely used  E commerce application  Presenting and processing interactive electronic Web forms  Electronic Web Forms – typically similar in structure to classical paper forms  Electronically filled and processed  Internet browser - E Commerce Access  Proxy server – facilities group access

2.3 Electronic commerce  Generally the Key components of an e commerce set up  Data-driven dynamic Web site technologies  Typically powered up by a complex set of technologies known as scripting languages or processing technologies  The php and the Microsoft ASP.net processing technologies are two such technologies

2.3 Electronic commerce  Generally the Key components of an e commerce set up  Security technologies  Firewall  Used to keep private networks connected to the Internet from unauthorised or undesirable access from Internet users  Can be implemented in hardware, software or a combination of the two  Typically placed between the Internet and the private network

2.4 Internal Business Collaboration  Internal Business Collaboration or intra-business collaboration  as the ability for the employees of one business or an organization to be able to access the business’s private network and its associated resources and applications

2.4 Internal Business Collaboration  What is an intranet?  Basically a private network  Uses the Internet technologies, communication protocols and other related Internet standards  Provide various business services  Services on the intranet are accessible only to employees of the business or organization that owns the intranet

2.4 Internal Business Collaboration  Key intranet Supporting Technologies  Web servers  S Web pages.  Internet browsers  Display documents.  TCP/IP, http, FTP and shttp  Facilitates communication between Web servers and their clients (Internet browsers residing in user’s computers).  HTML and XML  Provide Web contents.  JavaScript  Provide client side animation and dynamic contents.  Java, php, CGI, ASP.NET, Ajax  Provides Web site interactivity.

2.4 Internal Business Collaboration  Basic intranet Architecture  Similar to the E Commerce architecture from a technology perspective but not from an access perspective

2.4 Internal Business Collaboration  Typical intranet Business Services  Real-Time Information Sharing  Entering Information Online  Collaboration  Online Training

2.4 Internal Business Collaboration  intranet Trends  Growth in intranet deployment and utilization  Critical to this trend – a number of increasingly popular technologies  Wikis  Ajax  RSS  Blogs

2.5 Inter-organizational collaboration  What is inter-organizational collaboration?  An electronic business to business communication  Secure  Coordination, collaboration, exchanging information, trading and conducting variety of business transaction  Business partners, vendors, suppliers and customers

2.5 Inter-organizational collaboration  What is an Extranet?  Private network  Employs the Internet protocols and the public telecommunication systems  Securely share part of a business's information  Suppliers, vendors, partners, customers, or other businesses

2.5 Inter-organizational collaboration  Extranet Uses  Employed by firms from a wide ranging industry sectors  Share and exchange privileged information  Trusted partners and customers

2.5 Inter-organizational collaboration  A basic and general extranet architecture  jpg jpg  A site to site architecture  the business intranet is directly connected to its partners via their corresponding intranet using the Internet networking infrastructure  Does not involve any private networking infrastructure such as leased lines or any other forms of private circuitry  Connectivity is typically achieved via the involved businesses relevant Internet service provider (ISP) – not shown in the architecture  routers facilitates interconnections between the various intranets and ISPs

2.5 Inter-organizational collaboration  Extranet Potential Disadvantages  Benefits achieved at some costs  Financial costs  Social costs  Reliability issues  Potential for business data being accessed inappropriately

2.5 Inter-organizational collaboration  What is an enterprise Portals or Portals and Trading Exchanges?  Integrating multiple extranets into a single  Serve the need of the various partners from a single point of access

2.6 Business Mobility  What is a business mobility?  The ability for business employees to collaborate and conduct business transactions  Outside traditional business places and time

2.6 Business Mobility  Business Mobility Benefits  (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs) tends to restrict business support to the traditional working business environment  Support is not extended to various categories of employees  Employees who are away from their offices such as field workers, travelling employees, employees in seminars or training sessions, executives in meeting rooms, and so Productivity enhancement

2.6 Business Mobility  Business Mobility Benefits  Productivity enhancement  Working flexibility  Mobile or a way worker empowerment  Responsiveness  Enhance competitiveness

2.6 Business Mobility  Business Mobility Challenges  In addition to benefits and opportunities come challenges when a business or an organization practically embraces a businesses mobility strategy  Keeping the business data secure over public network  Ensuring the business data privacy and safety on mobile devices  Measuring the value of enabling business mobility  Supporting mobility devices and solutions  Ensuring standard and consistent user experience

2.7 Electronic Business Additional Security Challenges  Electronic Business Additional Security Challenges  Critical e commerce, extranets and intranets security challenges are managed and enhanced with various measures  Firewall  VPN  Encryption  Additional E-Biz challenges  Hacking.  Viruses and worms.  Denial of services attacks

2.7 Electronic Business Additional Security Challenges  Managing Electronic Business Security Challenges  Multi-steps strategy  Firewalls  Anti viruses software’s  Encryption  Digital Signature  Authentication and Resources Access Control  DoS measures

2.8 File transfer Protocol (FTP)  What is an FTP?  An open standard communication protocol  Allows two computers to exchange files over a TCP/IP based network

2.8 File transfer Protocol (FTP)  How to use FTP  Could use FTP in one of two ways  One approach involves the use of graphical FTP client software  Use of the Internet browser  All that would be required in order to connect to the remote server is to enter the FTP address of the remote server