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Introduction
Easy Shopping is one of the major regional players in the UK grocery shopping market. Between 2006 and 2009, EasyShopping has realised rapid expansion. Despite the company recent growth, EasyShopping is not able to challenge major grocery companies such as Tesco or Morrison. However, the managing director of Easy believes that there is a need to develop the local market to be more competitive.
Thus, the managing director of EasyShopping Mr Maxime Laurent believes that a major essential tool by which the company could be more competitive and achieve continuous expansion is to integrate information systems in the organization business model. (See fig 1 on the organisation chart of EasyShopping). Thus, the managing called for the review of current operating systems and strategies, especially concerning information systems and the possibility of a new online shopping site. (University of Bedfordshire 1).
The objective of this paper is to examine the strategy on how EasyShopping Ltd can make use of information systems using online shopping sites to enhance its competitive advantages.Thus, identification of the Mission Statement and Critical Success Factor is essential to allow EasyShopping to measure its success.
Mission Statement and Critical Success Factor
The major objective of all organisations is to achieve the medium and long-term goals to achieve strategic advantages. However, there is a need to set out the strategies to achieve these goals, and the methods an organisation can employ to achieve corporate objectives are to set out the Mission Statement and Critical Success Factors (CSF) that will allow an organisation to measure their success.
Typically, the mission statement is to capitulate the business targets, and the techniques to employ in order to carry out the translation and interpretation of business objective are to carry out the Critical Success Factors (CSF) analysis to set those things which must be set right to achieve the objective. (Ward 73).
To measure the success of the expansion of EasyShopping, there is a need to develop a mission statement and a set of critical success factors that will allow the management of EasyShopping to measure its success.
Thus, the mission statement of EasyShopping Ltd as being identified by the managing director is to achieve the crucial development if EasyShopping is to become a regional player in the UK grocery shopping market. The managing director has also made the single most important decision for the company to achieve continued success after a good period of expansion between 2006 and 2009. (University of Bedfordshire).
In addition, EasyShopping intends to achieve the established goals through corrective actions, ameliorative recommendations, and corrective actions where appropriate based on the corporate determination. (South Texas College).
However, the Critical Success Factors are those components of strategy where the organisation must excel to outperform the competition. (Elsevier 12).
Thus, to excel the competitors, EasyShopping has tailored its strategies to achieve potential benefits and success criteria. To achieve these objectives, EasyShopping has decided to tailor its business towards daily shoppers and local produce. The CRF is also to concentrate on local markets for current and future expansion for the continued success of the company. To achieve this, EasyShopping intends to employ the local road network to achieve wider distribution of the products throughout the local area.
Part of the CRF is also to achieve future expansion throughout the wider London area especially East London via Canada Water and Canary Wharf. EasyShopping intends to achieve these goals by opening an online shopping site through the application of information systems. Moreover, EasyShopping is also to increase the annual turnover and number of delivery by 15% in the next 3 years. As part of CRF, EasyShopping also intends to design the appropriate strategy to achieve comprehensive security for the company information system to enhance data security. Moreover, CRF aims to develop the use of computer tracking for vehicles and delivery.
Finally, as part of CRF, Easyshopping intends to invest in information systems to achieve growth and expansion across London in the next three years. (University of Bedfordshire). To achieve the success of EasyShopping, there is a need to identify the main areas that need improvement.
Identification of the areas that need improvement
To achieve operational improvement and future expansion, the management of EasyShopping needs to improve on certain key areas. First, the current parcel delivery system is inefficient. From the analysis of the case study, it is revealed that in the delivery system, there is a possibility of ad-hoc deliveries, and despite that the pickup drivers could be contacted through telephone and memo, the drivers are unable to answer phone calls when driving or pick up memos in-between deliveries. Thus, there is a need to provide improvement of effective communication strategy for the pick-up driver while driving.
Moreover, the tracking system is also not effective. The current tracking system between the company and customers is done through telephone calls. This tracking system is not only inconvenient, using telephones call for delivery can be expensive, time-consuming, and possible lack of connection. Thus, there is a need to improve on the current tracking delivery system being implemented through phone calls.
In addition, EasyShopping needs to improve on the record-keeping of the delivered goods. It should be noted that delivery drivers of EasyShopping use a manual system through the hand-written worksheet to deliver goods. The manual system being implemented is not appropriate because the manual system is prone to error.
The other key area that requires improvement is EasyShoppings information system. The companys information system serves the Ealing store, and the financial information system serves sales transactions. The company IT system also keeps vehicles records, and all the information systems of the three departments are being served by a small server, and the server is not powerful to carry the functions of the store department, finance department, and vehicle records.
Typically, in the past few months, there are some complaints regarding the vehicle management information system. Moreover, apart from the server being very slow, the staff also finds it difficult to use the server. In addition, the delivery of customer is billing in the store department lead to compatible problems and sometimes loss of orders. Thus, the ineffectiveness of the company information systems in the store department, finance department, and vehicle records need improvement.
Moreover, various platforms of hardware configuration in the store department also need improvement. A further key area that needs improvement is the overloading of the current network of EasyShoppings computer system, which has been identified to be nearly overloaded. It should be noted that all stores are connected to the Local Area Network (LAN), which are connected to Wide Area Network (WAN) that allow communication between cities-based stores. However, it has been identified that the current network is at 80% capacity and may become overloaded within 12 months thereby may lead to the breakdown of the companys IT system.
Finally, there is a need to enhance the IT system to protect the companys sensitive data. It should be noted that there is no security to protect the customers information, sales prediction, development strategies of EasyShopping. There are also insufficient skilled personnel to provide rigorous security audit mechanisms for the company. With the importance of providing security for the companys information system, there is a need to provide adequate security for the company information to ensure continuous success in the business and continuous growth.
With the identification of all key areas that need improvement, the paper provides methods of enhancing the improvement for the EasyShopping information systems.
Detail information systems to improve the local market of EasyShopping
Information systems have become trends in businesses, and many organisations have relied on information systems to enhance competitive advantages. Organisations have taken advantage of information systems to enhance their local, national and global presences. With the powerful advantages that information systems have created too many businesses, many small and medium-sized organisations have been able to challenge big companies in the marketplaces.
EasyShopping stands to gain many benefits in enhancing its local market with information systems. Integration of information systems in the local market of EasyShopping has been identified as the key strategy to improve the efficiency of EasyShopping. Typically, from the case study, it has been revealed that the local EasyShopping has not yet benefited from the advantage of online shopping. Since EasyShopping has decided to develop the local market to enhance its competitive advantage in the local market. The company needs to integrate information systems in the company retailing. The effective method of integrating information systems in the local market of EasyShopping is to introduce the real-time database in the company management system.
Typically, the relational database enables a company to have the ability to respond to a complex and rapidly changing environment. The advantage of a relational database ensures the best practices of having up-to-date information about the customers. The other advantage that EasyShopping will acquire from the integration of a relational database is that a real-time data warehouse could be built into the database to help in the processing of a large volume of data for business processing. (Parikh, Haddad 2). It should be noted that EasyShopping would benefit from a relational database because relational database systems are more convenient for online shopping.
After all, it links the network for 24 hours. (XS4All Internet). The benefit that EasyShopping will derive for its local market is that customers can order the products of EasyShopping online and processing is done quickly and interactively. It should be noted that time is very critical in business transactions, the relational database will employ a payment gateway for the processing of credit card transactions. With the use of credit card transactions, the customer will be able to order the products online immediately after they feed their credit card details into the computer. The orders confirmation is sent within seconds the transactions are carried out, and funds are transferred immediately.
The advantages will save Easy Shopping a great amount of time, and this will erase the problem of sending confirmation to the customers through phone. In addition, the real-time database has the advantages of storing customers information, and this will save customers time in retrieving their information when making their next online shopping. (InstabillTM Merchant Account).
As being pointed out by Parikh and Haddad, business information is essential for a business to maintain a competitive advantage. The explosion and fragmentation of data may lead to complications of situations within the organisation. Typically,
&without the availability of accurate, consistent and timely information, businesses cannot effectively respond to customer service demands, consistently rollout differentiating products, support inventory optimisation efforts, rapidly onboard new systems or adhere to changes in information-centric regulations. To support such dynamic environments, enterprises are striving to evolve into what is called real-time enterprises by leveraging the power of their enterprise information assets . (Parikh, Haddad 2).
Thus, with the integration of information systems in the local markets, EasyShopping will be able to keep accurate information about its customers. By having customers information at hand, EasyShopping will be able to address increasing customers demand as well as approach the threats that might have emerged from competitors in a more cost-effective approach. It should be noted in the current business environment, there is growing customers expectation.
Thus, to meet customers expectations, business needs to be agile and efficient to thrive in the current business environment. With information integration of information systems, EasyShopping will be able to evolve in a real-time enterprise, which will allow EasyShoppping to maximise its value in the local markets that it operates, which the company will be able to employ various real-time back-office systems to be more efficient and profitable. (Parikh, Haddad).
It should be noted that the integration of information systems through a relational database, will be beneficial for EasyShopping especially during the periods of high sales when all business is at a high peak. Thus, orders processing could be done without fear of customers information being hacked by an unauthorised individual because all the information submitted by the customer into the company server will be encrypted and secure. ( InstabillTM Merchant Account).
In addition, EasyShopping will have a relational data warehouse where information about the current and past business transactions will be stored. This will enhance business decisions because there will be easy access to data when the time is required. With the information at hand, the management of EasyShopping will be able to react to customers demands and this will improve the customers service and operational efficiency in the local market. (Parikh, Haddad).
Typically, the use of a relational database is very essential for EasyShopping local market. It should be noted that the customers of EasyShopping consist of the residents and small local restaurants. Thus, the local markets of EasyShopping consist of Chiswick, Greenford, Hammersmith, Hounslow, Shepherds Bush, and Yeading. Due to the number of areas that EasyShopping is serving, there is a need for online processing of orders from different locations where EasyShopping is operating, and this will involve an enormous amount of paperwork. With the use of an information system with a multiprocessing database, there will be a connection from different locations that EasyShopping is operating. Typically, the integration of a central computer database, which will facilitate all the transactions made by EasyShopping on all the areas that are operating and will allow online processing from different locations by many agents at the same time. (XS4All Internet).
However, with various advantages that EasyShopping could realise from online presence, there are criteria that Easyshopping should follow to integrate online presence in its e-commerce model. The next section provides the strategies by which EasyShopping should adopt to launch e-commerce in its strategic policies.
Suggestion a custom-built e-commerce model, and the equipment (hardware) and software needed for EasyShopping for the realisation of e-commerce
The application of e-commerce has gained wide attention among small, medium and large businesses. Essential, e-commerce has been adopted by many businesses to gain competitive advantages. There are many advantages of e-commerce such as easy interactions with the customers, suppliers, and competitors. Apart from these advantages, businesses can achieve cost reduction with the implementation of e-commerce, and the application of e-commerce can provide the opportunity for businesses to interact on an international scale. Typically, EasyShopping stands to gain many advantages from launching e-commerce in its business model. According to Soliman and Youssef, e-commerce provides a methodology by which businesses and consumers interact with each other. (Soliman, Youssef 547).
For the application of e-commerce, EasyShopping needs to choose an e-commerce custom-built model for the successful implementation of online business. With a case of EasyShopping, this paper suggests a B2B e-commerce model. The Taxonomy of the business-to-business model involves the transaction between business and buyers, and this is made possible in a connective framework. The B2B model often involves closed and private transactions where a business transaction is only restricted to buyers or sellers. The B2B e-commerce model is also attributed to the open and public transaction where there is free access to all members of the community to carry out a business transaction. Thus, with the implementation of the B2B e-commerce model, EasyShopping will be able to adopt electronic commerce where there will be business connectivity between one seller and many buyers in the online marketplace. (Cullen, Webster).
However, for proper integration of e-commerce employing the B2B model for Easy Shopping, there is a need to install both hardware and software that can match the needs of business operation. The e-commerce contains a web server, and the webserver comprises web server software, hardware and operating system.
The need to choose appropriate software for Easy Shoppings e-commerce system is essential, and since EasyShopping is a medium-sized organisation, the type of e-commerces software solution recommended for EasyShopping should contain the following:
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The capability of having a shopping cart
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Display of catalogue.
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Processing of transactions.
Typically, because of the nature of business of EasyShopping, its e-commerce software should include additional features such as:
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Applications and databases.
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Software for the supply chain management.
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Software for customer management relations.
The basic e-commerce software for medium businesses such as EasyShopping should be typically provided by e-commerce service providers. There are some advantages that e-commerce service providers can provide for EasyShopping e-commerce. For example, the e-commerce service providers offer low-cost software for the building of a website. The cost provided by an e-commerce service provider is as low as $20 per month. (Walcott).
Essentially, the most effective and popular software packages that most organisations employ for e-commerce are as follows:
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Apache HTTP software.
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Microsoft Internet Information software.
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Sun Java System software.
However, before providing a recommendation for a suitable software for the implementation of e-commerce for EasyShoping, the paper examines these three types of software for e-commerce.
Apache HTTP software
The application of Apache HTTP software is free and efficient to use.
Moreover, the Apache HTTP software can be run on many operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD-UNIX, HP-UX, and SCO-UNIX. In addition, with the application of Apache HTTP software, it is easy to have a built-in search engine in the website designed for e-commerce. The Apache HTTP software also supports the HTML tools and can also support FTP. The Apache HTTP software can be managed from either a Web server or server console. The Apache HTTP software also has some add-ons features such as J2EE, ASP, PHP, and XML.
Finally, the Apache HTTP software also contains web services. (Walcott).
Microsoft Internet Information software
The other software suggested for the e-commerce of EasyShopping is Microsoft Internet Information software. This software can be integrated with the server of operating systems. It can also run-on Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows NT, Window 2003 server as well as Window XP. Typically, the Microsoft Internet server is suitable for many corporate intranets. The software is also integrated with search engines, and the webserver can be administered from a remote server. The Microsoft Internet Information software can also combine scripts, ActiveX components, HTML, and SQL queries. (Walcott).
Sun Java System software
The Sun Java system is also known as Sun One which consists of iPlanet or Netscape Web Server. There are many operating systems which be run in Sun Java. The operating systems such as Windows, Solaris, and HP-UX. The management tools the for Sun Java system allow administrators to able to monitor and manage server activities interactively. However, the setback for Sun Java software is that it is more appropriate for large companies. (Walcott, University of London).
Thus, this paper recommends the Apache HTTP software for e-commerce for EasyShopping because it is more applicable to e-commerce than EasyShopping wants to implement. It should be noted that EasyShopping is a medium-sized business organisation, and with the integration of Apache HTTP software for its e-commerce, EsayShopping will be able to use the software for catalogue display where it will be useful to add and delete items from the catalogue.
Moreover, the Apache HTTP software has a database feature where the management of EasyShopping could be able to store information, such as products description and search facilities. With Apache HTTP software, EasyShopping will be able to create web stores where an image of the products will be displayed on the website. Moreover, the Apache HTTP software comes with shopping carts where the prices, codes information of the products will be displayed before customers go to the order form. Moreover, with the shopping cart, it is easy to keep tracking of customers selection, and this will allow customers to add or remove items from the shopping cart.
It should be noted that EasyShopping stands to benefit from transaction processing by offering business-to-business where there would be servers to handle traffic to the websites. The software is also secure because it will protect the financial information of the company.
Apart from software, the EasyShoping also needs hardware for the realisation of its e-commerce
Hardware for the realisation of e-commerce for EasyShopping
Hardware is part of the technical requirements to support e-commerce. Some hardware must be integrated into the e-commerce model to enhance business needs. The type of hardware that will be recommended for the e-commerce solution for EasyShopping should have faster hard drives and having more memory, and the hardware for e-commerce should have multiple and faster processors. The Dell, Hewlett Packard or Gate has the powerful hardware that the EasyShopping could be used for the realisation of its e-commerce. The type of hardware supplied by these companies has the following features:
Desktop PC has 512MB RAM, a 200GB IDE Drive, 3GHz processor, DVD/CD-RW and a good monitor, which costs between $2000 and $4000. This type of hardware web server can handle daily traffic for e-commerce, and the hardware architecture is powerful to process millions of transactions each day.
Meanwhile, there are two types of the hardware architecture that EasyShopping could adopt for its e-commerce.
The centralised hardware architecture is large and is very fast. The technical problem with centralised architecture is that it only serves very expensive computers, and it is susceptible to technical problems. Thus, the company needs to have a backup recovery plan.
However, decentralised architecture employs large relatively inexpensive servers for e-commerce. In addition, the decentralised architecture can make use of smaller servers, thus, the risks are spread all over the servers. Meanwhile, the paper recommends decentralised architecture because of its several advantages over centralised architectures. (Walcott).
Despite the realisation of e-commerce through the integration of software and hardware, there is a need to provide security mechanisms to protect unauthorised access to customers and company information.
Security mechanisms are used to protect the sensitive (customer and business) data stored by EasyShoppings information systems
The integration of information systems has several advantages, despite the advantages that e-commerce adds to the business models, there are inherent security risks, which businesses face. Typically, organisations face the risks where unauthorised individuals have access to the company and customers sensitive information and use it for illegal purposes. Although, it is a very brilliant idea that EasyShopping attempts to integrate e-commerce in its business model, nevertheless, EasyShopping needs to provide adequate security procedures for the company software and hardware to achieve the best in its information systems.
It should be noted that the security of the information system is part of business liability, and an organisation must employ the highest security procedure to protect the companys data. Typically, security can address protection of corporate network, virus protection, disaster recovery, physical security and access authorisation. To ensure adequate security on the company information system, the management of EasyShopping needs to update the company document regularly. In addition, the company needs to carry out the following to provide security on company data.
Secrecy
To maintain data integrity, the management of Easy Shopping needs to maintain the secrecy of all the company data. This will also involve preventing unauthorised individuals to have access to a corporate business plan, credit card information, companys message, and other confidential information. Moreover, a company can prevent unauthorised access to sensitive information by installing firewall software.
Firewall
The use of a firewall has been identified as one of the best methods to provide a security mechanism for an organisational network. A firewall is a security procedure that prevents outsiders to have access to the private network resources of an organisation. Typically, the use of a firewall is to enhance security between the company network and the internet. EasyShopping can employ packet level firewall and application firewall to enhance the company security. The packet firewall is employed to deny or allow access to identified IP addresses. The company can buy VisNet Firewall 2.2, Software as packet firewall.
In addition, the application firewall is employed to filter incoming or outgoing data to protect the company network from unauthorised access. An example of an application firewall is SonicWall Pro 2040, Hardware. It should be noted that some unidentified individuals can carry out a series of attacks on the corporate website to gain access to company data. Typically, an individual can launch an attack using a program such as a Trojan horse.
The Trojan horse has been known to send private information to the corporate computer to alter the company information. In addition, there is a program such as a sniffer program that can read corporate email messages, the customers credit cards numbers and read usernames and passwords. To guide against these types of undesirable programs, EasyShopping needs to install a firewall to prevent access to unauthorised programs and networks.
Use of backdoor protection software
Although a firewall is very effective to protect the company database against unauthorised access to company data. However, the use of a firewall is only effective to protect the company front door. There are many cases where an unauthorised individual can gain access to the company database through the backdoor. Thus, to provide security on the corporate backdoor, EasyShopping needs to provide adequate security to the company backdoor.
There is software that can be installed to provide adequate security to the corporate back door. For example, software such as Advanced Office XP Password Recovery Pro 2.42, Backdoor Guard 1.0.0.3 or Solo Antivirus Software 9.0 has been known to protect company back door from unauthorised access. (Walcott). Typically, with the use of sophisticated security procedures, EasyShopping could provide effective security for its customers data through encryption.
Encryption
The use of encryption is very critical to protect customers information such as credit card information. Encryption can be defined as a strategy to apply cypher code to transform the original data into nonsense. Essentially, when data are transmitted into the company database, the data will be transformed into an unreadable text to protect the data transmitted. It should be noted that in electronic commerce, the customers data are regularly transmitted into the company server. Thus, with the use of encryption, the company database would be protected. (Hsueh, Olawepo).
In the case of EasyShopping, it should be noted that the customers information could contain credit card information, bank information and other sensitive data. To protect the customers information, the encryption technique is one of the best methods to protect company and customers data from identity theft. (Traubitz).
In addition, to ensure confidentiality, there is a need to enhance authentication and integrity of all the online business transactions conducted. EasyShopping requires installing Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology to ensure secure transmission of data. With SSL, the data transmitted online will be decrypted upon receipt, and the use of SSL technology is to ensure the following security considerations:
Authentication
This is to ensure that all the transactions are conducted online and transmitted in a secure server. This will be in form of a credential that serves as a server certificate. The main purpose of the server certificate is to enhance authentication. Confidentiality: To ensure confidentiality of the data transmitted onto the server, there is a need for encryption of data through SSL. It should be noted that sometimes, an unauthorised individual can intercept data, however, the installation of SSL will ensure that all the data transmitted in the server pass through a secured server and all the data remain confidential and are free of being intercepted. Integrity: Part of the security procedure is to enhance data integrity. To ensure data integrity, all data transmitted should be free of interception, and installation of SSL guarantee data integrity. (Armstrong, Ball, Bodoff).
Cryptography
One of the major strategies by which EasyShopping can enhance the security procedure of its database is through the cryptographic procedure. Cryptography is the key combination that will protect the company information from gaining access to unauthorised individuals. The only people who can have access to the companys information are the people having the secret key combination. To protect the companys database, EasyShopping should use the method of cryptography to protect the company data and only the authorised people should have access to the key. (Walcott).
In addition, to ensure effective security procedures through cryptography, EasyShopping should install SSL, which will make use of key pairs, a public key and private, and if data transmitted are encrypted with one key, the other key will be used to decrypt the data. The fundamental reason to ensure this is to establis
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