E-business System: a Case Study

Category: Case Study

Introduction

E- Business is a process of conducting businesses on the internet. It involves serving customers, collaborating with business partners and seeking emerging issues in business. In order to operate an e-business, an individual has to come up with website which can be accessed by customers and the business partners. Cliptomania start their first initiative by creating a web store. A business needs to contact internet server provider in order to have a web store. Some, like Yahoo, offer this kind of services. After accessing a web store this site needs to be designed, to have features which will attract the customers. They need to come up with copy rights, logos and user names. The business needs to look for services to offer. After getting the website the business needs to specialize on the items they have identified to offer. This is a tough task since the businesses needs to satisfy customers with its products. The business also needs to focus on future development. After identifying goods and services, the business needs to come up with strategies to manage its operations.

Body

The business needs to process orders both locally and internationally. Management needs to come up with criteria in which they have to do their marketing approaches. Marketing should be done intensively in order to attract more customers and to be able to compete with other businesses. Owners can choose to change the server or internet provider later. Business people should be aware of challenges affecting the e-business. In order to start a business an individual needs to identify the type of business they want to venture in. It should start with registering on internet server in order to have a website. They have to design the logos, business name and web page. An existing business may choose to continue producing what they were previously producing or come up with a new idea. E-business must outline the intended reason of its existence. The business should focus on the most appropriate features to invest in. In order to prosper in business, there must be strong management.

Management should come up with advertisement strategies, marketing research, technological advancement and customer relations. A business should pay more attention to location where there are more potential customers and invest heavily in it (Gokul, Michael, Allan, & Khaled, 2008). Management should come up with ways to attract customers, like promotion, good customer relations and discounts. These will attract more customers and also help to preserve old customers. The success of Cliptomania TM web store is a result of good strategic follow up and strong management. The qualities of services they offer also help to keep and attract customers. This allowed them to succeed rapidly in e-business.

Big bang theory is a risky strategy to implement. It involves instant changeover whereby, everybody associated with it is supposed to move to the new system at a given date or point in time. NIBCO was to stop its initial operating system of producing plastic and valves and start an enterprise resource planning. Their main reason for implementation of ERP system was the high demand for business initiative. There was a high demand of ERP system in the market and the resulting profit was higher compared to the initial business. The failure was due to the fact that the system of implementation was quite ineffective and this influenced the NIBCO to opt for big bang system. The company starts by evaluating ERP vendors and exchanging contracts. They went a step further for benchmarking from the companies which have implemented ERP system. The company had high skilled and committed staff which facilitated implementation of ERP.

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There were both advantages and disadvantage of SAP implementation. Some of the advantages of the system include the training of the staff, which is only needed for the new method. The management can decide to do away with training for the older system without losing (Jose, 2009). Another advantage is that the changeover happens at a certain date which is known to all the people involved. This helps them to plan for that day without much inconvenience. Additional advantage is that no special interface is needed. This is because the information in the new interface is the same as in the older one. The staffs undergo extra training, which helps to develop new skills to run the new business. Some of the disadvantages of the implementation method adopted by the organization include lack of extra time for the additional information added into the system.

The staff members are supposed to change abruptly without being given time to adapt to the innovations. The validity of the data converted is only tested in the pre-phase, not in the whole system, hence raising concerns of its completeness. The idea of a complete changeover may bring about some complexities. The complete changeover may bring confusion and complexities to the company, as people try to adapt to the new system without being given time to adapt to it. This may also result in a period of catching up in the organization. This may involve slow production brought about by complexities. The process also allows for fewer chances for staff to learn. This limits the capability of the staff to quickly adapt to the system. In addition, a lot of preparations are needed before implementation. These preparations may lead to the company incurring more costs.

Conclusion

The management of the process was headed by a team of expertise. By deciding to use the same management who has seen the company grow to its state, it encourages the other staff members to adopt and accept change. It may have taken more time and bring about more complexities if the change was headed by a team of outsiders. In addition, the process offered new opportunities for the people who were involved in the IS departments. As reported in the article, some people received promotions while others were given new mandates and employed in other areas. This motivated the team to work hard and speed up the process of adaptation.