What is e-commerce? How does it differ from e-business? Where does it intersect with e-business?

E-commerce is online business transactions which involves exchange of values between   merchants, customers and business partners. Business uses the Internet to conduct business transactions and to generate revenue. Some organizations such as small business use e-commerce to fulfill their business needs.  Business activities in e-commerce involve sales, marketing, customer service and more (Diwan & Sharma, 2000). Applications needed in conducting e-commerce involve email, web services, EDI and more. E-commerce is associated with great benefits such as availability of goods and services, easy accessibility and more. E-business is a business transaction which involves e-commerce activities and other functions based on application service provider, e-service, intranets, human resources, inventory management and more (Diwan  & Sharma, 2000). Thus, e-commerce differs from e-business in that in e-business, there are no commercial transactions or individual boundaries.

E-commerce intersects with e-business in management, coordination and collaboration.  This is because; e-commerce deals with buying and selling of goods in computer networks and e-business boosts the organization connectivity or e-commerce services to align with suppliers and business partners.  In other words, e-commerce needs e-business strategies in order to   improve efficiency and productivity (Diwan & Sharma, 2000). Since e-business has effective business processes, e-commerce intersects with e-business to have successful online business transaction.

 

What are some of the specific ways that a company can obtain a competitive advantage?

Some of the specific ways of obtaining a competitive advantage include;

Cost leadership-Porter asserts that a company can gain a competitive advantage through providing goods and services at a lower cost. To achieve this strategy, firms should maintain the economics of scale by ensuring close cooperation of business functions (Zoephel, 2011).  Also they should produce quality goods and services in order to increase the market share. Porter states that when this strategy is achieved, the company will improve productivity,  boost the bargaining power through lower prices, and utilize effective technology and access effective distribution channels (Zoephel, 2011).

• Differentiation focus-A company can gain competitive advantage by being unique in the competitive market. There are common things which are valued by the buyers and it the role of the business to search the attributes and put itself in a unique position by providing the things which are valued most. Uniqueness is a key strategy and this achieved by producing unique goods and services which are more attractive than others in the competitive market (Zoephel, 2011). To achieve this strategy, the company should produce high-quality products; bring innovation and unique offerings in terms of sales and marketing.
• Differentiation focus-Porter introduces this strategy and asserts that company can achieve a competitive advantage by targeting specific markets, identifying the criteria in that specific market and meeting those criteria. In this situation, the company uses a premium price and convinces the customers on the value-added features on specific products (Zoephel, 2011). To achieve this strategy, companies need to produce superior and quality products, unique branding, effective distribution channels and consistent promotion.

 

Compare and contrast the various scaling methods. Explain why scalability is a key business issue for web sites.

Vertical scaling is the process of adding physical capacity such as CPU to increase the capacity and performance in a system.  Unlike horizontal scaling, vertical scaling is limited since the capacity required should be big as the server.  Unlike horizontal method which requires multiple servers, vertical scaling uses less power and low cooling costs. Horizontal scaling is the process of adding multiple softwares to increase the capacity   in a logical unit. This involves adding   computers in a workload where they share the tasks. Unlike vertical scaling, this method requires high licensing cost and utility cost and various networking equipments (Igelnik & Zurada, 2013). Even though they differ in their process, they play a similar role in meeting the services needed.  They lead to exponential growth   by increasing workload and total output.  

Scability is a key business issue because it is a key element in determining websites growth.  When there is an exponential growth, scability plays a major role in ensuring that the system capacity is able to handle the workload and meet the demand (Igelnik & Zurada, 2013).  The database must be scalable so that it can support the many transactions. Business development means that management and control   should be implemented in order to organize the various aspects of the business.  If there is poor management, then the growth will decreases as it will not meet the demand.  In this case, scability becomes a key element needed in controlling the websites and managing the expanding workload (Igelnik & Zurada, 2013).  Thus, the scability should have the ability to either scale up or down in order move the business forward.

 

Discuss why new and improved security measures are not enough to stop online crime. What is the missing ingredient?

The new online crimes security measures are not enough to prevent crimes. First, it is important to understand that there is a high level of online crime which is caused by the development in e-commerce and e-business. Criminal activities are at a high rate and cybercriminals get into anonymous attack through malware, spam and more (Ericson, 2003).  Thus, this is an issue which requires careful planning to secure online business from malicious attackers and natural disaster.  Focusing on the new and improved security measures,  it is worth saying that these are usual methods and they are not enough in fighting crime. Despite the fact that law enforcement agencies are working hard to fight crime, their efforts are named as Hearculean task simply because cybercriminals change their tactics regularly and use other opportunities which common measures cannot address Ericson, 2003).  

Thus, the missing ingredient is Cross-Domain Solutions. This is a cyber security solution and organization will make sure that security protocols are met during the exchange of information.  In diverse levels of security classification, organizations are able to use a unified system which is effective in verifying information transfer and access (Ericson, 2003). Thus, there is specific security classification which users must meet in order to share and access information. This solution is effective in that there are secure domains which are hard to access and so the information remains confidential.  It maintains an impenetrable network and at the same time users can easily access information (Ericson, 2003).

 

Why would the amount of experience someone has using the Internet likely increase future Internet usage?

There is a like hood that the future Internet usage will increase due to the amount of experience. This is because, many people especially young people spend more time on the Internet and this is an indication that they become more familiar with internet and they are motivated to search new services and features (Mortimer & Larson, 2002). In 21century, people have ignored the traditional media like radio and now they spend much of their time on Internet.   Since will are in a digital world, online time will increase since future internet will support homework activities, playing games and online businesses. With the knowledge and experience young people have on internet, they will spend more time than today, because they will be interested in searching new things to gain more knowledge. They will connect themselves with social functions and   be interested in searching current events (Mortimer & Larson, 2002).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference

Ericson, R. V. (2003). Risk and morality. Toronto [u.a.: Univ. of Toronto Press.

 

Mortimer, J. T., & Larson, R. (2002). The changing adolescent experience: Societal trends and the

transition to adulthood. New York: Cambridge University Press.

 

Diwan, P., & Sharma, S. (2000). Electronic commerce: A manager's guide to e-business. New Delhi: Excel

Books.

 

Zoephel, M. (2011). Michael porter's competitive advantage theory: Focus strategy for smes. Place of

publication not identified: Grin Verlag Ohg.

 

Igelnik, B., & Zurada, J. M. (2013). Efficiency and scalability methods for computational intellect.